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emily

@hagreads

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queer reader/quilter, aspiring hag
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mi

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Hello all! I’m Emily (she/her), and I’m here to talk about books. I love weird queer stories, stories that focus on people of marginalized genders, and stories with witchy mystical forest vibes. 🍄

I read a little bit of a lot of things. Last year, my fiction/nonfiction split was 70/30. I read a lot of romance, contemporary, young adult, and graphic novels, a good amount of fantasy and memoir, and I've started dipping my toes into the horror/thriller world.

I work as an instruction librarian at a university (I have complicated feelings about librarianship and higher ed), but I wish I didn't have to work a 9-5 at all. I would rather spend all my time making art, growing things, cooking, and being out in nature.

Some of my recent interests include:
decay and the underworld, lichens, mending, and Dimension 20 🪱🪡

Based on all this info, what book(s) would you recommend to me? 🤓📚

Image description: digital collage with a photo of me, a white woman with a curly shag haircut and orange mottled eyeglasses. Other images that makeup the collage include a brown leaf, various flowers and mushrooms, and a book with a red cover and title that reads “Instructional Design for Librarians.”

#QueerBookstagrammers #BookstagrammersOfIowa #QueerBooks #QueerLibrarians #LibrariansofBookstagram digital collage with a photo of me, a white woman with a curly shag haircut and orange mottled eyeglasses. Other images that makeup the collage include a brown leaf, various flowers and mushrooms, and a book with a red cover and title that reads “Instructional Design for Librarians.” by @hagreads

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4 years ago

🛸👽The X-Files season 1 book recommendations by episode 👽🛸

(All book recommendations are speculative fiction of same flavor, especially sci-fi, paranormal, or supernatural, in keeping with the spirit of The X-Files)

Episode 3: Squeeze
Book Recommendation: Headlights by CJ Leede
Tags: Serial killer, cannibalism
More thoughts: As soon as I finished Headlights, I asked myself, “Should I watch The X-Files?” So really, it’s the book that started it all. Thank you CJ Leede!

Episode 5: The Jersey Devil
Book Recommendation: The Monsters We Made by Peyton June
Tags: Cryptids
More thoughts: Peyton June has said this book was inspired by The X-Files, so it obviously had a place on this list.

Episode 6: Shadows
Book Recommendation: Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo
Tags: Haunting, revenant
More thoughts: I tried to resist putting my fav on this list, I really did.

Episode 8: Ice
Book Recommendation: Spread Me by Sarah Gailey
Tags: Remote research station, parasite
More thoughts: I’m sorry but this episode and this book were made for each other. The feeling of isolation and dread were so similar in both pieces of media. They were also both at least a little horny.

Episode 11: Eve
Book Recommendation: The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey
Tags: Clones
More thoughts: If clones and the ethics of such experimentation are your thing, read this book and chase it with this episode. Thank me later.

(caption continued in comments)

#TheXFiles #XFiles #SpeculativeFictionBooks #ParanomalBooks by @hagreads

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8 days ago

“I cannot let anything or anyone come between me and my family” (threat)

If you want a queer revenge story disguised as a zombie novella, pick up Grief Eater 🧟

#GriefEater #zombies by @hagreads

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17 days ago

Read this in one sitting while at a coffee shop last week. It was so captivating and heart-wrenching. Following a teen who feels that they don’t fit in anywhere—at school, with their family—except with their late grandfather who always spoke of building a cabin in the woods. They hatch a plan to venture into the woods to find the fabled cabin.

This is for the kids (and adults) who have dreamed of running away to be a hermit in the woods. Ash has such big feelings about the world and their place in it, and I relate so hard.

Also, Ash’s relationship with their dog was so sweet 💚

#YAGraphicNovel #JenWang #clifi by @hagreads

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a month ago

If you read the back of this book, you’ll learn about one woman’s hunt for the King’s Breakfast, a type of pyschedelic mushroom, deep in the Pamogo woods. What the back doesn’t mention is the other half of the plot, at first intertwined then merging with the advertised plot. This other plot follows members of a sapphic cult, ensconced deep in the same woods.

I expected this book to be much more eldritch, fungal horror—less splatterpunk gore. Despite not being what I expected, this was a fun summer read (I really need to stop reading horror books set in the woods while I’m camping in the woods). The end was confusing and vague in a way that left me unsatisfied. I think splatterpunk is probably not my subgenre.

#moonflow #BitterKarella #splatterpunk #sporror #FungalHorror by @hagreads

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a month ago

current stack 🤠 by @hagreads

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2 months ago

library vlog & haul

#LibraryVlog #LibraryHaul #BookHaul by @hagreads

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3 months ago

The title and cover of this book lured me in. It’s about two sisters coming of age in the mountains of Appalachia. It’s about the life of the mountain as two hikers are brutally murdered on it (probably should have been more scared to read this one while camping). It’s a portrait of working-class, rural life in Appalachia.

I think my expectations were too high going in, and weren’t met fully. I expected more horror, but I wouldn’t describe this book as a horror (like it is on Storygraph). Maybe magical realism would be closer (if we’re applying the term to more than Latin-American literature). It felt like a fairytale or fable, with folklore elements woven throughout.

Happy to have read it. If you tend to like magical realism, check this out. 🐇

#Smothermoss #AppalachianHorror #FolkHorror by @hagreads

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3 months ago

my most recent quilt and most recent thrift finds 🪡📚

i’ve already read You & A Bike & A Road and was excited to find it at the thrift. and i’ve had A Paradise Built in Hell on my tbr since a friend recommended it to me years ago. have you read either of these?

#QuiltsAndBooks #ThriftedBooks #RebeccaSolnit by @hagreads

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3 months ago

Taproot by Keezy Young held in front of trees and a brown tent.

Cute YA ghost x gardener romance 👻🪴

Felt a little disconnected from this book overall. It felt disjointed from the first half to the second half and there was not a lot of characterization throughout, like I didn’t know the characters.

#Taproot #GraphicNovel #GhostBooks by @hagreads

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3 months ago

Honestly, such a good book to read this “holiday” weekend. A reminder that capitalism and empire want us 💀

#EatTheRich #Summerween #SarahGailey by @hagreads

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3 months ago

Had so much fun bopping around Louisville over the weekend. Finally got to visit @setandsettingshop irl for a workshop with @leemandelo!!! Highly recommend visiting the shop if you’re local or check them out online.

#LouisvilleBookstores #Louisville #IndieBookstore by @hagreads

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4 months ago