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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Honorable mentions: LOTR but I said it already for a previous entry. :p My other A+ King Arthur things are Camelot (musical, not movie), Mary Stewart's Merlin books, and Greg Stafford's TTRPG Pendragon, which is the best RPG of all time.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Its Merlyn is incredibly fun. (I'm less fond of how it handles Guenevere.) It's deeply concerned with right and wrong and how hard that can be. It's very fun early on, and then increasingly tragic. Just a wonderful book. (2/3)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

#Bookvember 15 Another all-time favourite is The Once And Future King. I could have chosen it for multiple categories! I've always loved the Matter of Britain and this is one of the absolute best versions. It really goes deep into the heads of Arthur and Lancelot. (1/3)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

And I guess I liked all the sword fighting too. Teenage boys are easy to please like that. :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

A lot of my morals I explored through fantasy. It can be a very thoughtful genre! The Lord of the Rings, of course. Another was the Drizzt Do'Urden books. They are not great, but as a teenager they made me reflect along with Drizzt about justice, honour, fairness, compassion, self-worth, etc.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

#Bookvember 14 This one has the dubious distinction of not being recommended! But I honour it for being in the right place when I needed it. I'm white, cis, straight, male. Being represented was never a problem for me. So instead I'm choosing something that helped me see myself. (1/2)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

#Bookvember 13 Lots! Most of the ones I've already mentioned. I'm going to go for Les Miserables by Victor Hugo for its portrayal of the downtrodden in 19th century France. Especial mention to Val jeans of course, but also poor M. Malbeuf, the first to die on the barricade. He just wanted books!

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

This was one of my absolute favorites as a child too! I think the second trilogy still holds up pretty well today. :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

#Bookvember 12 My unrepresented demographic is 'books in translation.' Then I discovered I haven't read many! I'm going for The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, it deconstructs detective fiction, has gorgeous prose and a fantastic setting!

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

#Bookvember 11 I didn't know that Agatha Christie may have been neurodiverse! It's hard attributing these things to historical figures, but there seems to be enough evidence that it's probable! As for a book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for completely spoilery reasons. If you know, you know. :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

#Bookvember 10 I love Kazuo Ishiguro for his beautiful books on memory and love. Clara and the Sun was beautiful and profound. The Remains of the Day was a masterclass in telling a story in subtext. Never Let Me Go was poignant and heartbreaking. I need to read more!

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Oh, those hardback are pretty!

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Pick-buddies! :) I just posted this one too.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Honorable mention to @hiriadunning.com and Peregrine Pax, which is an unpublished queer YA book about grief and time-travel shenanigans which I think is really, really good. You're all in for a treat when it finally comes out, and they've told me there's sequels lined up... 🥰

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

#Bookvember 9 Gideon the Ninth and sequels by Tamsyn Muir. It juxtaposes gothic and meme very well, and has lots of fun queer characters (and later, indigenous rep! Yay!) The sequel, Harrow the Ninth, also does something spoilery and extremely clever, I was floored.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

I like how even in such a blatantly sexist time, men WILL listen to what these women have to say if they know what's good for them! There's a sequel series with a female protagonist which I have somehow never gotten around to reading! (2/2)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

#Bookvember 8 Lots and lots, but I'll pick the Didius Falco books by Lindsey Davis. Detective novels with a healthy amount of romance set in ancient Rome. There are LOTS of awesome and distinct female characters. Helena Justina, the secondary protagonist, is the best of course. (1/2)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Every so often I want to go back and reread her as an adult. I bet a lot went over my head, but I've heard she holds up pretty well. :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

I read Xanth as a kid too. A lot of it went over my head! ButI remember going to the librarian to order the next book in the series and then chickening out when she asked me the title of the book: 'The Colour Of Her Panties.' I told her I'd forgotten the title! No interest in revisiting them.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

#Bookvember 7 Absolutely unmonitored. I think my parents felt that if I wanted to read something, I was probably ready for it. So I read Jean Plaidy historical romances, for the history, and ignored the romance, and they happily bought them for me. :p

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

None of this is really childrens books but it was what I was reading as a child so it counts :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

And an honorable mention to the TSR artists - Clyde Caldwell, Larry Elmore, Keith Parkinson, Jeff Easley. I read a *lot* of D&D tie-in novels with their cover art!

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

#Bookvember Day 6 I got into fantasy at a young age, so my iconic artists have always been the great Tolkien artists - John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Nasmith. For me, John Howe's Lord of the Rings cover has always been the definitive cover, though I never had a copy. Fortunately my wife does!

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

#Bookvember Day 5 I had to wait on this one to visit my parents. This book was THE poetry book for me and my sisters. Huge, well loved illustrated hardback. Lovely mix of great poems. I liked the limericks, epigrams and other funny ones the most.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Both Dinotopia and Animalia are so, so amazingly beautiful. :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

I had both but I lent one to someone and never got it back! :(

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

That looks like an awesome book! :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

#Bookvember 4 Greek/Norse/Arthurian mythology, and English history. I even wrote a book about the kings of England in primary school (the ones I found interesting, anyway.) There was a series of Ladybird books about different kings that I really liked. There were cool Usborne books for the legends.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

I was going to say Diana Wynne Jones. She's more someone I've read as an adult, but she's so good and her magic is so magical. :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

Even as a kid I thought that The Last Battle was pants though.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

#Bookvember 3 Was going to say Diana Wynne Jones but @hiriadunning.bsky.social did so I'm going with C. S. Lewis. I love how he blends different genres in the Narnia books - kids' adventure stories, mythology, anthropomorphic animals, chivalric romance. (The Christianity went over my head as a kid!)

1981 hardbacks of The Chronicles of Narnia. I have this edition, though these aren't my copies - it's from someone's sale post I found online!

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

I never knew about the companion guidebook back then - still haven't read it! I remember getting the last book in the series the same Christmas I got the Silmarillion. Many years later, I put plot hooks for exploring the Island of Sodor in my King Arthur Pendragon TTRPG campaign.

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

#Bookvember 2 My first fandom. There's other things that are still with me more, but this is the one that taught me the love of hunting through bookstores to find all the books in the series. It taught me to love and live in a fantasy world. I remember trying to map all the island. (1/2)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

The librarians saw, pulled me aside, and gave me a brand new book by one of my favourite authors to read while everyone else watched the movie. Bless them one and all. (2/2)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 02/11/2025

School librarians are THE BEST. I remember little James being terrified of a movie of the Witches in primary school (the one with Angelica Houston) which we were watching in the library. (1/2)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Thanks for organizing it! I missed doing one last month :)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Finally, third thing: when I was about 7 or so there was a school challenge to turn off your TV for a fortnight. I turned it off and started reading even more. At the end of the two weeks, the TV never went back on. (5/x)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

I went to the local library (this is the one I currently work at!) and asked them if they had the book, so I could find out What Happens Next. might have read Narnia and the Hobbit already, but that solidified my tastes. Also, shout-out to school librarians, who are amazing heroes! (4/x)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

The second thing was in primary school. We had a visiting performer called 'Eddie the Drummer.' Children who didn't want to hear his performance went to the library to watch a movie. It was the Bakshi Lord of the Rings, and we watched half of it. (3/x)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

In the first music session we did 'The Bear Climbed Over The Mountain.' After that I was convinced the suburb was called Bear Mountain. That would later be the first library I worked at and I made sure to do bear songs with the children there! (2/x)

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Kia ora everyone! I'm James, a children's librarian in Aotearoa New Zealand. I have three things that made me the reader I am today. Firstly, my mother, who always read to me and took me to the library. We used to go to a music class on a hill, then cross the road to get books. (1/x)

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Reposted by Calarion

Kara Moon 🏴‍☠️💜⚓️ @karamoonauthor.com · 30/10/2025

Kiwis! And any interested not-Kiwis: if you pitch in to help Dr Siouxsie at the NZ$30 level "Ornithinimicrobium" (lol what even is that) then you can score my award-winning computer game which was made during the first lockdown in NZ 💖🐇😷

pledgeme.co.nz

Support Dr Siouxsie After She Supported Us! | PledgeMe

Support Dr Siouxsie to recover some of the money she spent fighting her legal case to protect employees experiencing online abuse

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

#Septopolis 30! Thanks Khonri for organising this! In retrospect I should have done just one city (Hubris). I got to do a lot of creating for it and I think next month will be taking what I wrote, expanding upon it, and writing it up properly. It got a bit rough when I got busy but I got there!

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Calarion @calarion.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

It was fun to do, my favourite bit is the tiiiiny Helios in his chariot inside the sun. :)

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