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illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Lauren 🏹📖🌿
@illustratedlauren.bsky.social
460 followers 400 following 93 posts
🌷 Librarian, reader, nuisance
📌 Oxford
🫧 Mostly weird, literary & translated fiction
💌 illustrated.librarian@outlook.com
🔗 illustratedlibrarian.carrd.co
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illustratedlauren.bsky.social
These stories dip into the lives of ordinary Nigerians and examine the mundane madnesses they try to keep at bay.

An eloquent and polished debut collection thrumming with life. It was full of tiny humane moments that haunted me days after finishing!

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Full review: tinyurl.com/4jmjer43 💙📚
A copy of the book 'A Kind of Madness' by Uche Okonkwo is on a cafe table. There is cup of coffee and a plate of salmon, cream cheese and pesto on toast next to it, and a vase of red flowers going slightly out of frame. A copy of the book 'A Kind of Madness' by Uche Okonkwo is on a cafe table. There is cup of coffee and a plate of salmon, cream cheese and pesto on toast next to it.
January 30, 2025 at 7:02 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Huge day to be a weird girl
A copy of the book 'The Lamb' by Lucy Rose and 'This Immaculate Body' by Emma van Straaten lying on a beige linen duvet in soft sunlight
January 29, 2025 at 1:35 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
What a unique, compelling gem! Bear Season asks which matters most — the stories we live, those we tell, or the ones we dream up for ourselves — and probes the boundaries around each until they fold in on themselves.

⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Full review: tinyurl.com/4xfe7eey
@wildhuntbooks.bsky.social 📚💙
A white woman's hand holding a copy of the book 'Bear Season' by Gemma Fairclough. There are leafless winter trees out of focus in the background, and a blue sky.
January 29, 2025 at 10:04 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Haha fuck yeah
Copies of the US hardback editions of the books 'What Moves the Dead' and 'What Feasts at Night', both by T. Kingfisher. The books lie on a beige linen duvet.
January 27, 2025 at 5:57 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Current read // current view 📚💙
A copy of the book 'Bear Season' by Gemma Fairclough with a bookmark sticking out of it, lying on a fluffy grey blanket A view towards a sunny window with lots of plants on the sill. There's a stack of books and a chair with stuff piled on it just visible in the foreground.
January 27, 2025 at 9:06 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
💙📚 New to my shelves

Here's a peek at some new things I've added to (read: jammed onto) my shelves recently — a mixture of Christmas gifts and purchases with gifted book tokens!

Anything here from your tbr? What should I be prioritising?
Eight books standing spine-up on a rumpled beige linen duvet. There is strong sunlight casting shadows from the books and duvet. From left to right, the book titles are: Mother Naked - Glen James Brown Banyan Moon - Thao Thai Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively The Ballad of Black Tom - Victor Lavelle Migrations - Charlotte McConaghy Silence is My Mother Tongue - Sulaiman Addonia The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler Will and Testament - Vigdis Hjorth Eight books scattered cover-up on a rumpled beige linen duvet. There is strong sunlight casting shadows from the books and duvet. The book titles are: Mother Naked - Glen James Brown Banyan Moon - Thao Thai Moon Tiger - Penelope Lively The Ballad of Black Tom - Victor Lavelle Migrations - Charlotte McConaghy Silence is My Mother Tongue - Sulaiman Addonia The Mountain in the Sea - Ray Nayler Will and Testament - Vigdis Hjorth
January 26, 2025 at 3:14 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
I love checking my Blackwell's wishlist because very occasionally they have something for a wacky price and I must pounce
January 26, 2025 at 1:14 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
The winter light filtering through these dried wildflowers is so beautiful to me ✨
January 21, 2025 at 10:09 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
This mug is how I, a non-tiktok user, look following the current drama
A white woman's hand holding a ceramic mug, resting on a grey blanket. The mug has a stylised human face with a 'side eye' expression.
January 20, 2025 at 10:01 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
A wildly imaginative story of family trauma, sibling bonds, & identity.

For all that some parts were disjointed, never once did I doubt that these siblings loved and infuriated each other, or that their bonds had been forged in something darker than blood.

Full review: tinyurl.com/4z8npvhz

⭐⭐⭐
A bound proof copy of 'Listen to Your Sister' lying on a rumpled beige linen duvet with three lit candles around it. There is a dish with a spent match next to one of the candles. A bound proof copy of 'Listen to Your Sister' lying on a rumpled beige linen duvet with three lit candles around it. There is a dish with a spent match next to one of the candles.
January 20, 2025 at 8:52 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
The fact that this manuscript has survived for over a thousand years and also was previously owned by Henry VIII short-circuits my brain every time I see it. Just look at that gorgeous velvet binding!
A manuscript bound in browned velvet (previously red, faded with age) with gold-tone metal bosses on the cover and clasps. It sits in a box designed to conserve and protect it from wear.
January 14, 2025 at 3:36 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
A quote on the cover calls this 'discreetly sublime' and it truly is: tiny and yet towering, almost too beautiful to really take in, containing feelings and histories too huge for its unassuming physical dimensions.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Full review: tinyurl.com/29twrkya 📚💙
A copy of the book 'Clear' by Carys Davies lying on a rumpled beige linen duvet
January 12, 2025 at 3:56 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
A frosty morning in Oxford 🌨️🌞
January 10, 2025 at 9:52 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
I love this slice of spire and garden 🌤️
A view through a panelled window across a garden, towards the dome of the Radcliffe Camera and one of the towers of All Souls
January 9, 2025 at 1:00 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Slowly being eviscerated by this today. What a burnished little gem of a novel. 📚💙
A copy of the book 'Clear' by Carys Davies lying on a rumpled beige linen duvet.
January 9, 2025 at 9:54 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Sprawling fantasy series are great, but there's something to be said for a self-contained quest story where the stakes are high, but not world-ending. Nettle and Bone was the perfect gentle, engaging read to start the year off with!

Full review: tinyurl.com/k4uh3fbz 📚💙
A white woman's hand holding a copy of the book Nettle and Bone. The background is out of focus dead grass and weed stems, with a blue sky in the distance.
January 8, 2025 at 6:19 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
The little scattering of snow on the medieval walls is so precious to me ❄️
A view of the Queen's College, Oxford Library between two medieval stone walls with a light dusting of snow on them. The library is a neoclassical building with a pediment topped by a stone eagle in the middle of it. The sky is clear and blue.
January 7, 2025 at 10:38 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Sometimes creatures walk across the library skylight and I just think that's neat
A pigeon standing on a skylight window, seen from below. The window is slightly misted with raindrops and there is a neoclassical building visible blurred in the background. A pigeon standing on a skylight window, seen from below. The window is slightly misted with raindrops.
January 4, 2025 at 7:11 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
My top ten books of 2024 ✨🏹🫧🩷
A selfie of a woman with pink hair holding a stack of ten books with the spines facing the camera
December 31, 2024 at 4:23 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
A sharply observed literary coming of age that grapples with how we make meaning in a difficult world & how those things fall short. There was a distance and loneliness to this where I wanted a beating heart, but the accomplished prose was a joy to read.

⭐⭐⭐💫

Full review: tinyurl.com/bdzbxm82
A view from a cafe table looking out through a window towards some golden stone buildings in Oxford catching the morning light. On the table is a copy of the book 'Ask Me Again', an almond croissant and a coffee. Looking down at a wooden cafe table by a window with a copy of the book 'Ask Me Again', an almond croissant, and a cup of coffee on it.
December 30, 2024 at 5:55 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Recent read // Victorian Psycho was a gleefully demented, unapologetically gory, and strange satire of Victorian propriety where the events culminate on Christmas day. If you're looking for an unconventional festive read for 2025, this is it 🩸🎄🔪✨

Full review: tinyurl.com/2zumff7w 💙📚
A white woman's hand holding a copy of the book 'Victorian Psycho' in front of the branches of a Christmas tree, with blurred fairy lights in the background. A copy of the book 'Victorian Psycho' lying face-up on a wooden park bench. The strong sunlight is casting shadows from the bench's wrought iron armrest across the book cover.
December 29, 2024 at 12:31 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Recent read // delicately balancing truth and fiction, this is a quiet novella filled with beauty and looking and love. Moving between present-day Amsterdam and Vermeer's studio in the 1600s it muses on the intersection between artist and viewer.

Full review: tinyurl.com/3ymrt5hr 📚💙
A white woman's hand holding a copy of the book 'Woman in Blue'. She's sitting on a wooden park bench with a takeaway coffee cup and a tote bag next to her.
December 29, 2024 at 12:02 AM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Recently reread my favourite book in the world. A story that cuts to the heart of what we value and why, and how transcendent it feels to love beautiful objects that exist on timescales outside of human lifespans

Have you read this? ✨
December 21, 2024 at 4:35 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Thinking about how I spent the whole of yesterday vehemently denying I was getting ill and claiming I was actually doing fine to anyone that would listen, but then upon waking up had to admit defeat and send this email
December 13, 2024 at 3:18 PM
illustratedlauren.bsky.social
Oh I do love it when a blanket of fog descends on this city #Oxford
Two medieval stone walls flank a path in the foreground which bends out of sight, with one old copper lantern lit atop the left-hand wall. In the background, partially obscured by heavy fog, is The Queen's College Library building. It is a neoclassical building made of sandy cotswold stone, topped with a stone eagle sculpture.
December 13, 2024 at 1:46 PM