Celebrating 15 Years at Pages Unbound! pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/c...

The thing about contact tracing diseases is the list of places the person was at always includes "mulitple visits to medical facilities." They go to 4 different urgent cares, and it's obvious they keep getting "idk drink some orange juice" until someone finall realizes it's measles or whatever.

The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/05/07/t...

You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This by Aaron Starmer pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/05/06/y...

How to Come Up with Discussion Post Ideas pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/05/05/h...

Has a Fantasy Book Inspired You to Learn More about a New Topic? (Fantasy with Friends) pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/05/04/h...

Have You Noticed Picture Books Never Show Kids Using Screens? pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/05/03/h...

Prodigal Tiger by Samantha Chong pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/05/02/p...

The amount of local businesses and organizations that send out official communications that sound passive aggressive and kind of like they hate their customers is pretty astounding. Could add in teachers/schools. Writing emails and newletters is more of an art than some people realize, I guess.

5 Medieval Classics I Recommend (That Aren't The Canterbury Tales) open.substack.com/pub/pagesunb...

How do I start positive "discourse"? Can everyone share a book they liked that maybe they weren't expecting to?

The Internet Says to Check Out Books You Don't Want to Read to "Support the Library." That's Not Necessary. pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/30/t...

I'm always confused by takes like, "Why do people who hate a book bother to review it?" That's literally what reviewing entails. Saying whether you did or did not like something and why.

10 Posts from the Book Blogosphere You May Have Missed in April 2026 pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/29/1...

I think at least half the online debates about whether you "have to" attend college courses must be between people who went to small colleges where "going to class" meant TALKING in class yourself and people who went to large colleges and only went to lectures where they just had to listen.

I was deleting old emails (storage space!) and came across an essay someone sent me in college to peer review, in which the student mused that Coleridge probably didn't know where he was going when he started writing the poem. (And, I guess, left it that way instead of revising!)

I find it fascinating how picture books and magazines for children absolutely never feature a kid playing on a tablet or phone. So much of publishing is about realism and relatability until it's time to show a four-year-old kid watching YouTube. Then we go for aspirational instead. No screen time!

Someone came along and told me *I* am the stupid one for not understanding first person in stories means "self-insert." So I just muted them. 🤷‍♀️

You've Been Pooping All Wrong: How to Make Your Bowel Movements a Joy by Trisha Pasricha pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/28/y...

I’ve seen ppl post about books that have been “updated” in their ebook form to be modern. Often this is like changing the name of a TV show the characters are watching to a more recent one. And I can’t help but think about how often you can learn little things about the past by reading old books.

Epic Reads is doing interesting things starting an online book club. Krysta and I keep talking about how the way to get people to read might be making it more of an experience you can share with others.

This is extremely interesting because most people I run across don't even know what an imprint is. If I talk to the "average reader" and not people online in bookish influencer spaces, they don't recognize the names of the Big 5 Publishers. This stuff means nothing to them. Books are just books.

Today's Fantasy Books I Think Will Become Fantasy Classics (Fantasy with Friends) pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/27/t...

Part of me loves when people post things like, "I am so glad I quit corporate life to work at my local indie bookstore!" And part of me is sad because I know many of us are stuck in corporate life because we need the money.

There is a significant amount of content online that sounds very much like AI even if it is not AI-generated. Dozens of times a day I see posts like, “Not this. Not that. But this. I’m starting to think that’s the pupose. The [insert something here.]” Please make it stop.

D.J. Rosenblum Becomes the G.O.A.T. by Abby White pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/26/d...

We Fell Apart by E. Lockhart pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/25/w...

Reading Through American Girl: Rebecca (1914) pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/24/r...

Help needed. My apple mouse is 15 years old and it’s beginning to miss clicks I really don’t want to spend another £90 on an apple mouse. But I don’t want to lose the ability to swipe between windows from the mouse. Does anyone know of another mouse that can replicate this?

So, I've seen people say that Goodreads makes reading "performative" with the book challenge. BUT I actually rarely see other people's challenges or how many books they read. I wouldn't say that info is shoved in your face. You have to go seek it out on their profile mostly.

REVIEW: Arabella by Georgette Heyer (Regency Romance) pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/23/a...

I often see people suggest a good way to “support the library” is to go in - even if you never use the library, so this would be a special trip - and check out a bunch of books that you are not going to read. This suggestion never gets responses suggesting it’s silly. But I think it’s silly.

Books and Bookish Things We've Discussed the Past Week (#6) open.substack.com/pub/pagesunb...

I loved this YA book about a descendant of Edgar Allan Poe who can see his ghost! Ellen Poe: The Forgotten Lore by Diana Peterfreund pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/22/e...

Krysta reviews this YA murder mystery based on LITTLE WOMEN: Beth Is Dead by Katie Bernet pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/21/b...

I go back and forth on whether books that are retellings of classics are most enjoyed by people who love the original classic or by people who have no opinions on the original at all. (I’m sure the answer, as in general, depends on how well the concept is done.)

🪄🧙🏼⚔️ New post! Low vs High Fantasy [Fantasy with Friends] - I'm squeezing in my thoughts on the Apr 13 prompt fallingletters.ca/2026/04/low-...

Gumshoe by Brenna Thummler pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/19/g...

Monday's Fantasy with Friends prompt: Do you have any favorite subgenres of fantasy such as urban fantasy, historical fantasy, etc.?

Do you declutter your bookshelves?

This weekend I’m reading RIALTO by Kate Milford! I’m about three chapters in and enjoying this middle grade centered on an abandoned probably magical theme park, though it does seem to be switching POVs between the two sisters in a way that’s confusing me.

Memories Before and After The Sound of Music by Agathe von Trapp pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/18/m...

The fact that book blogging is notoriously difficult to monetize might be its greatest strength in 2026. Who is going to bother to AI-generate book blog posts when there's no monetary payoff for doing so? Those people are going to stick to social media and other niches.

Reading Through American Girl: Josefina (1824) pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/17/r...

The event has passed now, and they are STILL saying they will reveal to the volunteers what the reward is at some future date.

The "it doesn't matter if stuff is AI-generated" crowd is so funny because they never label their stuff as AI-generated. If you thought no one actually cared, you would just say it was AI-generated instead of trying to pretend it's not and acting like you made it yourself.

Just ran across a 4-star review, but when I started reading it, the reviewer said they DNFed at 20%. 🤣

A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot & Virginia Woolf by Emily Midorikawa & Emma Claire Sweeney pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/15/a...

Seek the Traitor's Son by Veronica Roth (ARC Review) pagesunbound.wordpress.com/2026/04/14/s...

Guides like “The Only 10 Classics You Need to Read” or “The 10 Best Books on the Planet” or “The 10 Greatest Fantasies of All Time” do well in numbers, but I don’t know if I have the hubris to declare there are only 10 books the rest of you need to read & I know what they are. 🤣