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balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Balladsandbookends
@balladsandbookends.bsky.social
300 followers 650 following 120 posts
Just trying to leave this place better than I found it. Read diversely. Think critically.

CR: The Jasmine Throne
Reading Goal: 5/75

Books📚Reading 📖 Makeup 💄 Crafting 🧶 Art🎭
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balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Working on a presentation for class about Messalina and the importance of evaluating sources of information. Needed some fun so I made a fake gossip magazine cover for my slides based off of the J-14 magazines of yore

#homework
Mock pink magazine cover called Rome Weekly Text on front says Quiz: Which Roman Emperor Are You Married to her uncle? With arrow pointing towards image of a statue that looks like a woman Got Seneca exiled? Secret Affairs? Exclusive Messalina Tell All XOXO Juvenal
April 15, 2025 at 2:20 AM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
I am so stressed about work and school, but that does not stop be from procrastinating by making my very own…

Custom kobo screen saver! 🤓

#booksky #kobo
A kobo ereader is being held up with the screen saver displayed. The screen saver shows a colorful silhouette drawing of Evie shelving a book on a ladder, from the 1999 Mummy movie. Above that image it says “Emily’s Kobo”, below it says “No harm ever came from reading a book!! In the background is a pattern emulating hieroglyphs
March 23, 2025 at 10:34 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Quotes that keep me moving right now:

#hadestown
Quote from the musical Hadestown with sparks and embers in the background. Quote: “To the world we dream about, and the one we live in now”. From song “Livin’ it Up On Too”
February 24, 2025 at 1:51 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Balancing emailing my representatives, submitting op-ed pieces and hard conversations with family with reading as self-care.

I’ve been enjoying a lot of nonfiction;I want to read some more bell hooks, and maybe reread Will to Change. And more fantasy! We need stories of hope.

#booksky 📚
Reading wrap up graphic Agrippina by Emma Southon - physical format, 4/5 Conspiracyland by Marianna Spring - physical format, 4.5/5 Messalina by Honor Cargill-Martin 4.5/5 Reading wrap-up The War that Made the Roman Empire by Barry Strauss, Audiobook, 3.5/5 A song to drown rivers by Ann Liang, ebook, 4/5 Antigone Rising by Helen Morales, audiobook, 4/5
February 4, 2025 at 3:54 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Made my Word of the Day into an Infographic, and all sources are now linked in one doc.

Trump's administration uses media to sow division, avoid any accountability, and scapegoat vulnerable communities. I'm tired of being told to ignore my own eyes.

Sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Image of torn newspapers with the pointing Uncle Sam in one corner emphasizing the word Propaganda and it's definition, which states "- dissemination of information, facts, arguments, rumours, half-truths, or lies- to influence public opinion. It is often conveyed through mass media." Image that states "In Trump's press briefing about the tragic DC accident resulting in 67 deaths, he claimed that he'd changed FAA policies regarding DEI in his first term, and that Biden had undone those changes. This was a lie. FAA's DEI language was the same throughout Trump's first term." Then shows a screenshot of a transcription of Trump's speech, with the phrases underlined "I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary. When I arrived in 2016, I made that change very early." It then asks "How do we know?" This is an image with torn newspaper in the background with the text "There's an archive of the FAA website from 2017 and 2020 showing the exact same language used." It then shows a screenshot highlighting the Internet Archive Wayback Machine with the FAA Jobs Diversity and Inclusion page in the URL. It then shows two screenshots of the exact same language regarding hiring People with Disabilities that Trump attacked in the press briefing. The screenshots both have dates next to them to show what day the page was archived, the first if from January 22, 2017, so two days after he took office. The second date is Dec 8th, 2020, so a little over a month before Biden took office. The final graphic shows a screenshot of the White House website's Fact sheet which is titles "Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump ends DEI madness and restores excellence and safety within the federal aviation administration". The text next to it reads "The White House website has updated their "fact" sheet on Trump's executive order regarding FAA and DEI, that contains demonstrably false claims about Biden's FAA and DEI policies. There is another screenshot of a whitehouse . gov webpage that shows "404: Page Not Found". The text next to this reads: As of 2/1/25 the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence have still not been restored to the site.
February 2, 2025 at 12:38 AM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Love this feature from @thestorygraph.com !!

#booksky 📚
Pic of reading wrap up from story graph app. I read 6 books, 2,373 pages and listened to 8.7 hours of audiobooks. Top books were Conspiracyland, Messalina, and A Song to Drown Rivers. Majority were non-fiction.
February 1, 2025 at 10:05 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
I tried to read An Ember in the Ashes twice a while back, & just couldn’t get into it. Saw someone on here say they liked it better as an audiobook, so I’m giving that a try now 🎧

I definitely like the prose more than I did before! Thank you to the person who shared!

#booksky 📚📖
Screenshot of the Library app Libby open to audiobook of An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
January 28, 2025 at 7:43 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Really enjoying the character and world building in Jasmine Throne. I’m already so invested in the all the POVs so far and also in understanding the systems at work in this world. I’m about 162 pages in and the build up has me TENSE
January 26, 2025 at 2:31 AM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
The way I chronically want to start new books while happily reading others is my fatal flaw

#booksky 📚
2 panel meme where top panel shows woman is holding up one kid in pool while another kid is crying & swimming unnoticed behind her. Bottom panel shows a skeleton in a chair underwater. Kid being held is captioned “the book I started just for fun”, the woman is captioned “me hyper fixating on it”, and the child in front is captioned “the book I am also reading and just took a break from”. The skeleton is captioned “all the books I took a break from”
January 24, 2025 at 11:50 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
I love taking notes while reading.📝 There’s a balance for me between the notes helping me feel extra engaged versus interrupting my reading, and it’s always in flux.

Here’s a quick vid about how & why I take notes!

#booksky 📚
January 24, 2025 at 1:21 AM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Starting a new book tonight in the blanket fort we built for the snow day. This one has been on my physical tbr for too long!

#booksky 📚❄️
A person holds out the book “The Jasmine Throne” in front of a blanket on a bed. A cat sits to the left and some stuffed animals are on the right.
January 23, 2025 at 12:16 AM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Snowed in Florida and the power went out for a lil while, but we were fortunate enough to have a fireplace to lay by and took turns reading aloud.

#booksky 📚📖
Two people laying in front of a fireplace while one holds a book and a cat sits on the other
January 22, 2025 at 8:07 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Anyways, that was emotionally devastating, how’s ur Tuesday going?

#booksky 📚📖
January 21, 2025 at 7:14 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Who else loves taking notes as they read? Maybe it’s cause my undergrad was in lit, but it feels so satisfying to write down my thoughts and helps me keep track when I’m reading multiple books at once. It’s like my own book diary!

#booksky
EReader on a table with pens and a notebook beside it on table next to coffee mug
January 20, 2025 at 6:08 PM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
I’m sad
January 19, 2025 at 4:49 AM
balladsandbookends.bsky.social
Posting a Banned Book in Florida Schools Day 1:

Escambia County in Florida - pulled and withdrew Merriam-Webster's Elementary Dictionary as part of a District wide review of materials containing "inappropriate content"

Sources: Florida Freedom To Read Project Weekly Tracker, CBS, linked below
December 8, 2024 at 6:37 PM