Josh Cook
@joshthelibromancer.bsky.social
Co-owner of @portersqbooks.bsky.social Author of The Art of Libromancy & An Exaggerated Murder. Opinions my own. BlueSky for @authorsabb.bsky.social & @massaabb.bsky.social He/him https://linktr.ee/joshthelibromancer
A nurse from Maine Medical Center has been kidnapped by ICE!! Please help spread the word! wgme.com/news/local/n...
Nurses at Maine Medical Center organize protest after ICE detained colleague
ICE agents took Debora Kapisha into custody at Boston Logan International Airport on July 30.
wgme.com
Our 3 endorsed candidates in Michigan faced over $70 million in combined outside spending. Their people-powered campaigns faced the full weight of a Democratic establishment that’s desperate to maintain the status quo. And all 3 of these real Democratic fighters won! This is a political earthquake!
Periodical reminder: When you give oppressive ideologies space in your discourse they will not return the favor in their discourse.
Librarians and Booksellers Will Be Arrested For Doing Their Jobs in Arkansas
A Federal Judge has allowed an Arkansas law to go into effect that will lead to widespread book bans and jail time for librarians.
bookriot.com
Just finished Enough About Angels and if you are Krasznahorkai curios it's a great place to start. Just about everything that makes him him is in it. (Perhaps all of his books are a version of The Clochard & the Cop.)
Enough About Angels: The Nobel Lecture
Available in a beautiful print edition for the first time, this brilliant lecture delivered by László Krasznahorkai, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, reads like an unforgettable short story Addressed to a rapt audience in Stockholm two days before being awarded his Nobel Prize, László Krasznahorkai’s moving lecture asks: “Human being—astonishing creature—who are you?” In a message about hope (or his lack thereof), Krasznahorkai compassionately considers humanity and how, from our degraded current epoch, destruction might emerge —or rebellion.
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One thing I will add to @maris.bsky.social excellent rant: The easiest thing publishers could do about the tragedy of AI in books is...NOT FUND THE FUCKING TECH COMPANIES THAT MAKE IT BY USING IT THEMSELVES!!!! You were fine without it a year and half ago!!!!! Just fucking do that!!!!!!
The Maris Review, vol 116
The theme of the week is how AI is making the world (more) stupid What I read this week The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams What to do with this frustrating, brilliant novel! I almost wanted to t...
themarisreview.com
There is no version of yourself you could become that would satisfy the people who hate you. So you might as well be who you are.
Harassment is a form of free speech supression. That's why Twitter never really had a "free exchange of ideas." When someone gets flooded with death threats for an opinion...you can't blame them for no longer sharing their opinion
Greg Pak@gregpak.net · 2d agoI sincerely hope that @toni.bsky.team won't deceive himself into thinking that right wingers from X have the capacity to engage with civility as he envisions. Their lack of presence here is because they've been unable to weaponize Bluesky for harassment. That's a huge plus for the site.
He cites users' ability to mute & block folks as a positive, which is good. It's also why right wing chuds thankfully can't get a foothold here - b/c they violate community norms & get nuclear blocked out of normal people's timelines. Bluesky isn't a *liberal* bubble - it's a *decency* bubble.
The Verge@theverge.com · 2d agoBluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."
Are you in or around Monrovia, CA? AABB is hosting a Protect the Freedom to Read postcard party at Underdog Books on Friday August 14, 7PM-9PM. Snacks, beverages and postcards will be provided! More info & to RSVP
Protect the Freedom to Read: Postcard Party — Underdog Bookstore and Events, Inc.
Fight back against book bans and learn more about the bills circulating in the House and the Senate at this fun postcard-writing party!
underdogbookstore.org
i wanna know which extremely online lawyer made sure to require the post be pinned. genius.
Susie "Nickname In Quotes" Beeca@susiebeeca.bsky.social · 4d agoAh, this warms the cockles of my cold, dead heart. Wait til you see the price a TERF had to pay for lying about a trans woman. "...also be required to publish a court-approved apology that must remain pinned on their social media channels for three months" www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/07/an-a...
I cannot believe this even HAS to be boosted. It is essential that we protect and catalog this degree of comic history.
Fortmax Headroom@hwhall.bsky.social · 3d agoThis seemed like it was worth boosting. www.kickstarter.com/projects/735...
Any other bookstores seeing a slight but noticeable uptick in folks asking for books that were hot 5-10 years ago? Nothing wrong with that in & of itself, but I'm suspicious this is coming from AI recommendations & that could pose yet another problem.
Yet another log on the burn AI to the ground bonfire (from @weareravenous.com )
AI Is Fucking Over Freelancers
Watching what AI is doing to the process of commissioning freelance work is making us depressed and angry.
weareravenous.com
I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful
Hello #BookSky August is Women in Translation month or #WITmonth if you're into hashtags! My July staff pick On the Other Side is March is the first work of Faroese by a woman translated into English, is absolutely stunning, & still 20% off at the moment.
On the Other Side Is March
A poignant and darkly witty portrait of aging, memory, and multigenerational caretaking from the first female Faroese writer to ever appear in English. I'm a woman in my early sixties. Somewhere betwe...
portersquarebooks.com
I would believe in the good faith of a lot more "actually there's nuance about the NYT & its anti-trans reporting" arguments if it weren't clear so many of the people making it are also funding Rowling for which there is no nuance.
Roy Jackson’s Campaign should hang Elon Musk like an albatross around the Collins campaigns neck
Joe Sudbay@joesudbay.bsky.social · 5d agoVia @pressherald.com (gift link) Elon Musk planning to throw financial support behind Susan Collins’ U.S. Senate bid Collins "had friendly meetings with Musk in the past while also saying last year she was “very concerned” about some of DOGE’s moves" www.pressherald.com?p=7697086&uu...
Nothing the people of Maine love more than someone from out of state telling them what to do!
The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 5d agoElon Musk is back to throwing money into U.S. elections. This time, he’s trying to save Maine’s only Republican senator. trib.al/gTTkeS3
"we never built good data management systems so now we will outsource that to AI" is not a tech solution it is a "I am bad at my job" answer
if you’ve ever wondered why I trust @joshthelibromancer.bsky.social to sell me books without asking first, I could tell you or you could read this review
Porter Square Books in Cambridge & Boston@portersqbooks.bsky.social · 6d agoIt's Thursday #BookSky AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! New review at PSRB! This week it's our first collection of poetry as @joshthelibromancer.bsky.social reviews the "vibrant poetic tableau" Designated Stranger by Gion Davis
The next monthly newsletter edition of The Porter Square Review of Books comes out next Thursday! Sign up for it (and all of our other newsletters) here!
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It's Thursday #BookSky AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! New review at PSRB! This week it's our first collection of poetry as @joshthelibromancer.bsky.social reviews the "vibrant poetic tableau" Designated Stranger by Gion Davis
Review of Designated Stranger
In a world with two Trump administrations, one could be forgiven for rejecting out of hand the American myths that allowed such an abomination to happen. The “self-made man” always…
portersquarebooks.com
Back to my poetry reviewing roots!
Porter Square Books in Cambridge & Boston@portersqbooks.bsky.social · 6d agoIt's Thursday #BookSky AND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS! New review at PSRB! This week it's our first collection of poetry as @joshthelibromancer.bsky.social reviews the "vibrant poetic tableau" Designated Stranger by Gion Davis
Great job team! Both the Weirder AND the Weirdest books sold off the display!
Porter Square Books in Cambridge & Boston@portersqbooks.bsky.social · last wk.Good morning #BookSky & happy #WeirdBooksWednesday. I've just updated our, dare I say, iconic "Weird Weirder Weirdest" display with nary a single novel. Here's what's on it...
It is just wild to me that we can simultaneously have eleventy billion articles about how social media is destroying young people and then also a near-religious AI adoption policy.
Seriously though for all you Dungeon Crawler Carl dudes out there.
Porter Square Books in Cambridge & Boston@portersqbooks.bsky.social · last wk.<youth pastor voice> You know, there was ANOTHER who crawled through a bonkers monster & trap filled dungeon in service to a poorly understood system of power.
<youth pastor voice> You know, there was ANOTHER who crawled through a bonkers monster & trap filled dungeon in service to a poorly understood system of power.
Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb Series #1)
15+ pages of new, original content, including a glossary of terms, in-universe writings, and more!A USA Today Best-Selling Novel, and one of the Best Books of 2019 according to NPR, the New York Publi...
portersquarebooks.com
I won't say "most" but a lot of my joy in bookselling comes from finding ways to describe Renee Gladman to readers
Porter Square Books in Cambridge & Boston@portersqbooks.bsky.social · last wk.WEIRDEST: Do you like books that make you feel as though the author is counting the grains of sand in the beach of your brain? Sure! We all do! Luckily, for the world, we have Renee Gladman making us question whether we even know what a word is, let along how to use one!
Good morning #BookSky & happy #WeirdBooksWednesday. I've just updated our, dare I say, iconic "Weird Weirder Weirdest" display with nary a single novel. Here's what's on it...
New Episode! Reporting back from this year's @readercon.org, w/interviews with @lisajune.bsky.social, @smessenger.bsky.social, & @englelaird.bsky.social. Plus, talks with Katherine & @joshthelibromancer.bsky.social of @portersqbooks.bsky.social and their new review project!
A Meal of Thorns 55- Readercon & the PSRB
In this con-coverage episode, Casella talks to folks at Readercon in Boston, including Lisa from Narrated, author Sara S. Messenger, and editor Carl Engle-Laird. We also visit Porter Square Books, …
ancillaryreviewofbooks.org