I was at Sam’s (aka Enemy Territory) yesterday and noticed a boomer-aged white man giving me a weird side eye. He finally sidled up to me and said very softly, “I like your shirt.” Absolutely made my day—thank you random man! This was the shirt:

Cool!! Fun fact about WALK TO THE END OF THE WORLD: that’s the artist, Gene Szafran, glaring at you. Szafran mostly centered women on his book covers, but when he centered a (recognizable) man, it was more often than not a self-portrait.

Rebecca Baumann@arkhamlibrarian.bsky.social · 2w ago

Briefly breaking the only post 4 rule to showcase some badass women of science fiction.

@arkhamlibrarian.bsky.social The thrills and Detection are all well and good, but a peek inside the Vaults of the Bodleian are why I’d buy this book.

Steven Sheil@scsheil.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Another great Gollancz cover - love how it builds in intensity from 'Thrills!' to 'The vaults of the Bodleian!'

This just gets more batshit as the thread progresses! Fascinating pulp history!

Steven Sheil@scsheil.bsky.social · 6d ago

Currently reorganising my paperbacks and came across my TNT collection - aka the wildest, most ridiculous and over-the-top men’s adventure series ever published. Let the synopses give you a taste of what’s inside:

Let’s be clear: what these bastards are doing to these books isn’t digitizing. Digitizing is about preservation and access to the original material. They’re gutting and destroying to make Soylent Green. Don’t let them get away with pretending to do this for humanitarian reasons.

People still think of Sweden as this sexually liberated place, but the reality is you're not even allowed to fuck inside the giant taxidermied Blue Whale anymore. Place has really changed.

jordan@jordantyranny.bsky.social · last wk.

The only taxidermied blue whale in the world, 1865 CE, now housed at the Natural History Museum in Sweden. The public was allowed to enter the whale up until a couple was found having sex inside it. Now the whale’s jaws are opened only for special occasions, such as Swedish election days.

That shadowy place way out there? That is beyond our borders. You must never go there. That is the Big Boy graveyard.

I got to visit the Amok Bookstore back in the day while on a work trip. When we pulled up there was a small fire burning on the sidewalk... I still have this and the "Fourth Dispatch." Essential stuff and available online: amokdispatch.net

Rebecca Baumann@arkhamlibrarian.bsky.social · 8y ago

Also in honor of Adam Parfrey and his work founding and running Amok: the bibliography that I cherish above almost any other:

Dutch homework.

I’m packing my pulps to move to California. This is a daunting task. To keep myself moderately entertained I am going to post 4 random covers from each shelf I finish packing until I’m done.

I’m on a self-imposed break from book collecting while I move because god knows I don’t need any more books to pack. But how could I resist?

25 years ago Kelly & I published our first season's titles — all 2 of them: first collections from Kelly (Stranger Things Happen; art: Shelley Jackson) & Ray Vukcevich (Meet Me in the Moon Room; art Rafał Olbinski). Buy either this month, we'll send you both: smallbeerpress.com/not-a-journa...

I am more determined than ever to collect and share queer pulp. Our literature and our lives are actively being erased.

Megan Zahneis@mzahneis.bsky.social · 3w ago

I wrote about Texas A&M's fall course-review process @chronicle.com. Some top-line results: Rhetoric and Film? OK, as long as discussion of critical race theory is removed. Contemporary Sociological Theory? Don't advocate while teaching. LGBTQ Literatures? Not allowed. #HigherEd

You (a naïf, a rube): What should we do? Me (a perimenopausal crone, a relic from the before-times): My child, we must consult the sacred texts. The texts:

Tomorrow is Sidney Blackmer's birthday, and I always get a thrill out of Sidney Blackmer's birthday.

jimfieldingfieldnotes.beehiiv.com/p/leaving-an... IU Board of Trustees member Jim Fielding’s statement on why he is stepping down from a leadership role at the University resonates with many of the reasons I am leaving IU (1/2)

Leaving An Important Room

What I have learned in closing a challenging chapter of a 40+ year story

jimfieldingfieldnotes.beehiiv.com

I’ve held off reading this for years because I was afraid of how much I would love it and I was not wrong. The best novel with a librarian protagonist is also about bear fucking. Have to put it on the shelf next to Rachel Ingall’s Mrs. Caliban.

The next thing I want to do in bookbinding / repair is definitely a book concealment!

Oregon 🕎🎲@oregonthedm.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Part 103 of 200 in historically interesting things to inspire your ttrpg A gun hidden within a bible, made for Francesco Morozini, Doge of Venice 1600s. The owner of the bible could pull the silk bookmark to shoot while the book was still closed

I was looking for things to send to the CABS charity auction, and this 1852 travelogue of Egypt is the gift that keeps on giving 🙃

I wouldn’t spend $4000 on a purse even if I could but damn it’s beautiful. One of my favorite standby book history lessons is “why is Dracula yellow?”

One of today's political prisoners. Cartoonist & zine maker Daniel Rolando Sanchez Estrada wasn't even at the ICE protest. He was accused of "moving" a box of anti-Trump zines THE NEXT DAY. A rightwing judge sentenced him to 30 years! Just for possessing zines. The darkness is descending.

Ryan Estrada@ryanestrada.com · last mo.

A cartoonist named Daniel "Des" Rolando Sanchez Estrada was tried as a terrorist and sentenced to 30 years in prison for having anti-Trump comics in his car. Prosecutors connected him to a 2025 anti-ICE protest he didn't even attend because he was in the same book club as others who were.

Here are links to zines about the people who were arrested as terrorists for making, possessing, and sharing zines.

Ryan Estrada@ryanestrada.com · last mo.

If you want to be a rebel zine-reader yourself, here are some zines about this case

An American just got sentenced to 30 years in federal prison for moving “Antifa” zines and there’s about 1000x as much media coverage of Trump’s reflecting pool 👍

"The number of people who expected Mrs. Hutchinson to win a Bendix washer at the end would amaze you." —Shirley Jackson

Happy Lottery Day!

When you’re reading and you have to get up and grab a pencil because you have so much to annotate, so much to talk to the text about—I love that feeling