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L Biery

@bujoldy.bsky.social
140 followers 199 following 860 posts

Instructional designer, writer, practicing equanimity in 2020+ is hard af

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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
One example of “living in the best of possible worlds” in Candide was Pangloss saying the spread of syphilis from the New World was ok because now we have chocolate. It was all part of a greater plan. And it’s exactly this thinking that justifies all manner of evil. Including slavery. 🛶
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Whatever linguistic decision PE made for James would have to become the narrative voice. He probably chose standard English rather than attempt vernacular for various reasons. Ease of reading for modern audience, the authority it lends, or even the discomfort it would give white readers. 🛶
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Well, call me Ishmael. This is an indie company and the people are just lovely. 🐳📖
kickstarter.com
Out Of Print - A bookish modular solo game by Button Shy
Lock the pages in place to escape classic books before it's too late. Starts at $10. (Ships to the US only. PNPs available worldwide.)
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Sir Elliot coming around to Wentworth because he’s aesthetically pleasing is such a nice tweak. 🛁
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
“A man does not recover from such a devotion of the heart to such a woman! - He ought not - and he does not.” 🛁 -Captain Wentworth
youtu.be
I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)
YouTube video by Stevie Wonder - Topic
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Sometimes I see Charles as just a type, and sometimes I see him as an inch shy of a Monty Python sketch (rat-hunting in the barn as a jolly good time) so I think JA has done well. 🛁
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
To have Mrs. Smith go from “Let me recommend Mr. Elliot” to “he is black at heart, hollow and black!” in 3 pages is quite a lot. It’s all explained, but as a reader I’m not satisfied. I get the shock was intended. Yet. I feel unworthy to criticize, but I think this needed more room to breathe. 🛁
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Some days I think this novel is such a tease. Anne and Wentworth have been at odds, fine, romantic tension, but to not even have them in the same place much, and barely converse when they are? Other days - this has given us time to experience who Anne is and how much she has grown. 🛁
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Admiral Croft is delightful. Staring at that painting of the boat, amused, declaring he wouldn’t cross a horse pond in it, generously greeting Anne as a friend (“can I be of any use?”), taking her on his arm like his Sophy, taking his own good time to come to his point - such a good soul! 🛁
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Here is the Persuasion playlist so far. Now we’ve finished Volume 1, does anyone have anything to add? Money woes, long walks, adventurous trips gone wrong? What is Anne’s theme song? The good Captain’s? I’m trying to thing of one for their whole messy relationship right now. 🛁 #InTheNavy
youtube.com
Persuasion/In the Navy - YouTube
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
@bskyplays.bsky.social zork
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Chapter 9. The Captain helps Anne when he sees her struggling. “Only” Anne. “No one wants” Anne. Anne whose Christmas gift is optional. The small kindness is huge for her. It’s the last thing she expected from him. AND - we see it breaks through his icy wall to see her in need. #InTheNavy
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
And in Chapter 3 - the navy. The prospective tenant, Admiral Croft, was at Trafalgar. Here is a traditional song about the battle, from the point of view of a woman whose true love was pressed into service and died on The Victory after her family would not let her marry beneath her. #inthenavy 🛁
youtu.be
The Victory
YouTube video by Steeleye Span - Topic
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Bath🛁. “It was a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament: he might there be important at comparatively little expense.” My favorite line in Chapter 2 because I immediately thought, Bath is like a flyover state? Do I have a modern reference point? And now I’m intrigued.
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
My edition was the free book I chose at my local library for completing a reading challenge this summer. So it’s brewed in good intentions. Hoping it sees me through. 🐋🐳
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
Archer could have his wealth and position in society or he could have Ellen. It was naive to think he could have both. Is the age of innocence that youthful time when a person doesn’t understand they aren’t “special” - that they too will suffer societal constraints or pay a cost? 🏹
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Am I the only one getting stalker vibes from Archer? 🏹
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
“If people of my age WILL eat chicken-salad in the evening what are they to expect?” 🤣 I do like old Catherine. Everyone gets skewered in this novel, but EW seems to have a soft spot for her. And I do think she might sort things out. 🏹
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
The wives go from discussing how many years fashionable Paris gowns must be mothballed before worn to which ill-treated penniless wife deserves pity. The one who causes society the least fuss it seems. Masterful chapter. Ends with May, not empty-headed after all, cooly snuffing out Archer’s light. 🏹
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
For a flickering moment Archer sees it (I’m sure he’ll forget🤦‍♀️). Ellen is winning the protection of prominent men. Maybe accidentally, since meekly asking for “guidance” ensures their interest in her, but maybe… purposefully. I’m not sure I think less of her for it. Yet. But it’s a fact. 🏹
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 02/11/2025
Oh. “the possession of a ball-room that was used for no other purpose, and left for three-hundred-and-sixty-four days of the year to shuttered darkness” I’m not sure why I hadn’t thought of it this way before. 🏹
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Mr and Mrs A. lob and volley during that breakfast like tennis champs, as he attempts to get out of the errand to fetch “knitted things” and lend advice on the location of the rose garden location. Who needs golf? #pleasingterror 😱
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
It’s easier to frighten someone once they are comfortable, so we listen to a married couples’ perfectly normal breakfast conversation about errands, the sad quality of merchandise these days, and plans for a rose garden. #pleasingterror 😱
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Well Lost Hearts either demonstrates that a well written story can be effective even if you see the end coming a mile away, or that my mind leaping to recent talk of $$$ tech bros and oligarchs using young blood and organ harvesting to live forever did the trick. 😱 #pleasingterror
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
FYI, I’ve noticed that only posts that include the 😱 are making it into the feed, and I have to search #pleasingterror to catch the others.
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Acorn. Final thoughts? B is limited in his vision of the future by his memory of the way things were in the past. L. sees the future as something molded by actions in the present. She’s right. I don’t know if it’s enough, but remaining open and responsive to the present is to survive. 🌰
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
When I worked in disaster preparedness, one of the items on the list to always have at hand were actual paper maps of your region. (Also know alternate paths out of your city or town). I designed a course for this, it has stuck with me, and I keep nodding yes while reading this book. 🌰
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 24/08/2025
This has to lead to a community at the end? L. is constantly observing and critiquing other communities, their placement, their defenses, their resources and coming up with plans. A strategist. And I’m impressed that the group saved the two women at great danger to themselves. Adding to ranks. 🌰
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
To my Moby Dick fans. You probably aren’t in the market for a candle, but check out the description. 📖
jdandkateindustries.com
Moby-Dick-Scented Candle
As Herman Melville noted in Chapter 94, whales sometimes smell “literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets.” So that is what this candle smells like. (If you think whales DON’T smell like s...
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
The purchases at HanningJoss were so practical. Food, shelter-ish, health, safety. It wasn’t until an hour later that I thought, oh, this reminds me of the Oregon Trail game. Oh. Oh shit. Well they have banded together, and their individual strengths assessed. Is this a good party? 🌰
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
We’ve talked about religion in the book, which has me thinking about Tonglen. It’s a Buddhist meditation practice of breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out relief to them. It cultivates compassion. L’s drug induced empathy isn’t voluntary and she avoids it when she can... 🌰
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 11/08/2025
L’s father certainly wields his power over the community softly, persuading, or better yet, allowing people to come to the desired conclusions. Doesn’t work as well on L tho. 🌰
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
The thing about reading this novel exactly now is that I want details. So the cul de sac built a wall. What materials were used? How high is it? Who keeps watch? Who makes the rules? How is work and food and water shared? And have they learned nothing about big daddy gods? 🌰
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
This is a 1972 version of utopia, all sex, drugs and rock n roll, um, flute music, but the build your own utopia aspect of it (add an orgy if you want, drugs not for you, have a beer, etc) really makes the reader feel complicit in the evil of what they are doing to the child. #omelas 🌰
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Reposted by L Biery
Takuo Matsuzawa @matsuzawa.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
Today is apparently Melville's birthday. I once declared that I would make a fountain pen inspired by Moby-Dick, but I still haven't started on it.
Moby-Dick
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
Great list of books, including one by Silvina Ocampo 📖
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Translations matter. This article compares how several translators have handled the first line of a story we’ve recently read. 🪞
medium.com
Dear Mr. Borges, Which Translation Should I Read?
Look closely: you’ll see he left us an answer.
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
Side quest, anyone? 🪞
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Was Eleanor driven mad by the house or her circumstances? She’d cared for her mother her entire adult life. She hoped for a fairy tale ending at Hill House. Lovers meet at journeys end. 🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
It horrified me when I realized the pounding on the doors was related to Eleanor’s mother knocking for her that final time. The haunting is deeply personal. Everyone else is peripheral. 🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Oddly, Mrs D speaks quite normally with Mrs M. Children these days. Tomato crop. I half expected them to exchange recipes. This is odd, right?? Listing possible reasons in my head. 🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
Mrs. M is the character we didn’t know we needed. Perfectly drawn. She roars right into the middle of the novel and it’s acutely humorous just long enough to scare the beejezus out of us again. 🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Theo at beginning: “I have a hunch that you ought to go home, Eleanor.” Wallpaper: HELP ELEANOR COME HOME ELEANOR Sad little girl’s voice at night: “Please let me go home.” Where is home? Who is this fragmented Eleanor? Which home and Eleanor did Theo see in her brief hunch?🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Well everything is getting very real and unreal at the same time. Weirdly the thing that I pondered the most is the callback to the red nail polish… 🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
While I think Mrs Dudley’s scripted responses add a certain something to the story and are great as a butt of the visitors’ jokes, I gotta say, have they considered the possibility that they may keep her mind intact in that house while she makes souflees? “I set lunch on at one.”🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
On the repetition of the stone lions in Eleanor’s description of her house during fireside talk. Her sense of identity has seemed scattered all along. Is she creating one to match Theo’s status, which seems quite higher? Could this mirror the dynamic between the companion and the older sister? 🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
What do we think of Theo? Clairvoyance plus finishing school = two fold social advantage and confidence. So far she has reassured Eleanor when she reads her fear, but is it right to interfere with survival instincts? 🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
The laughter, from Eleanor’s during the trip when she laughed off her misgivings, to her and Theodora’s forced gaiety at the pond, lulls both us and them, as the creep continues. 🌌
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L Biery @bujoldy.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
Eleanor’s insistence on creating a wonderful fairy tale endings for herself against all odds right up until she sees the actual house is fascinating, revealing, and tragic - pure SJ in its punch. 🌌
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