Language Log ([syndicated profile] languagelog_feed) wrote2025-12-03 01:06 pm

Vietnam in the Sinographic Cosmopolis

Posted by Victor Mair

Since 2001, the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies (SJEAS) has been playing an increasingly prominent role in scholarship on East Asia, especially language aspects. Sponsored since 2001 by the Academy of East Asian Studies (AEAS) at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Korea, SJEAS is an international, multidisciplinary publication dedicated to research on pre-1945 East Asian humanities. SJEAS presents new research related to the Sinographic Cosmopolis/Sphere of pre-1945 East Asia, publishing both articles that stay within traditional disciplinary or regional boundaries and works that explore the commonalities and contrasts found in countries of the Sinographic Sphere. SJEAS is particularly keen to highlight new research by scholars from China (broadly conceived), Japan, Korea, and Vietnam that engages with Western scholarship in this field.

(source)

EDITORIAL

As advertised in a “Note to Potential Contributors” from the editor in chief in Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies (SJEAS 19, no. 2), since autumn 2019 SJEAS has redefined and narrowed its focus to concentrate primarily on pre-1945 topics on East Asia in the humanities writ large, wherein East Asia is construed as the former “Sinographic sphere” or “Sinographic cosmopolis,” including notably Vietnam. Since then, SJEAS has begun to receive several submissions related to Vietnam, and has thus far published two articles on Vietnamese topics: Hoàng Yến Nguyen (2022) and Trọng Dương Trần (2023).

With the assistance of John Phan, associate professor of Vietnamese humanities at Columbia University and member of the SJEAS editorial board, we present in this special issue five new articles by an international group of authors that examine in one way or another Vietnam's experience with literary Sinitic (LS) as an active member of the Sinographic cosmopolis. The lead article by Dr. Nguyễn Tuấn Cường of the Institute of Sino-Nom Studies, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, is titled “Vernacularization of Literary Sinitic in Early Modern Vietnam's Confucian Texts” and queries specifically how Vietnamese readers and commentators understood (and sometimes deployed) not orthodox LS but so-called baihua (白話) or vernacular Sinitic elements in otherwise classically oriented texts. While on the one hand acknowledging that baihua materials are thin on the ground in surviving Vietnamese literary sources, he nonetheless excavates a number of fascinating examples of vernacular Sinitic grammatical constructions from the seventeenth-century Vietnamese text A Concise Interpretation of the Four Books (Tứ thư ước giải 四書約解) while also venturing some explanations for the relative paucity of baihua materials in the Vietnamese textual record.

The second contribution (and her second to the journal), by Nguyễn Hoàng Yến of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, VNU-HCMC, is titled “The Persistence of Literary Sinitic in Colonial Vietnam: A Case Study of Nam Nữ Giao Hợp Phụ Luận 男女交合附論.” Professor Nguyễn introduces and examines for the first time in English this remarkable text on “Supplementary Notes on Sexual Intercourse Between Men and Women” from 1903 and seeks to explain why its author “translated” and published it using LS rather than Nôm, French, or Quốc Ngữ.

The third contribution, by Nguyễn Thị Thu Huyền, is authored by a newly minted PhD from Tohoku University, Japan. Mobilizing her expertise in analogous Japanese kundoku 訓読 glossing practices, Dr. Nguyễn examines the Luận ngữ ước giải 論語約解, a literary Sinitic/Nôm bilingual text of the Analects, to understand how proper nouns were identified, punctuated, and read in such Vietnamese commentaries of the Chinese classics. Dr. Nguyễn's article is also the first to mobilize Nôm data in the history of the journal.

The fourth contribution, coauthored by Professor Yong-tai Kim of Sungkyunkwan University and Rahel Plassen, a PhD candidate at Leiden University, surveys the sizable and growing scholarly literature on Vietnamese LS sources coming out of the Republic of Korea. Noting that for Korea and Korean scholars Vietnam “serves as a kind of historical mirror,” Kim and Plassen examine South Korean research results within the context of East Asian politics and South Korea's scholarly discourse on “East Asia,” paying particularly close attention to chuanqi 傳奇 fiction and other narrative genres on the one hand and Sinitic poetry on the other. They end with a discussion of some of the institutional challenges facing premodern Vietnamese studies in South Korea and with their hope that future research will continue to expand into examinations of the interplay between texts in Sinitic and Chữ Nôm, much as research on the interactions between cosmopolitan LS and vernacular Korean have come to occupy a central place in South Korean research on premodern Korean literary culture.

The final contribution by Alan Dai, a PhD student at UCLA, introduces and translates for the first time in English a fascinating LS fictional narrative serialized from 1922 to 1923 in the journal Southern Wind Magazine (Nam Phong tạp chí 南風雜誌). Titled Record of the History of Korean Aristocrat Lady Yi Adrift (Ghi Triều Tiên quý tộc Lý nữ sĩ lưu lạc lịch sử 記朝鮮貴族李女士淪落歷史), this curious work testifies to the “persistence of literary Sinitic” in Vietnam studied by Nguyễn Hoàng Yến in the second article, while also confirming the cross-regional—and specifically Vietnamese-Korean—imaginaries yet undergirded by LS into the 1920s.

 
References
  • Nguyễn, Hoàng Yến. 2022. “Vietnamese Scholars and Their Perception of the West in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century: The Cases of Nguyễn Văn Siêu, Nguyễn Tư Giản, and Đặng Huy Trứ.” Sungkyun Journal of East Asia Studies 22, no. 2: 183–205. Google Scholar
  • Trần, Trọng Dương. 2023. “Doctrine Beyond Borders: The Sinographic Cosmopolis and Religious Classics in Vietnam from the Tenth to the Fourteenth Centuries.” Sungkyun Journal of East Asia Studies 23, no. 1: 1–26.

[h.t. Geoff Wade]

Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books ([syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-12-03 10:00 am

This Heroine Crushed Herself: A Oh Hell No Book Pitch

Posted by SB Sarah

This piece of literary mayhem is exclusive to Smart Bitches After Dark, but fret not. If you'd like to join, we'd love to have you!

Have a look at our membership options, and come join the fun!

If you want to have a little extra fun, be a little more yourself, and be part of keeping the site open for everyone in the future, we can’t wait to see you in our new subscription-based section with exclusive content and events.

Everything you’re used to seeing at the Hot Pink Palace that is Smart Bitches Trashy Books will remain free as always, because we remain committed to fostering community among brilliant readers who love romance.

Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books ([syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-12-03 07:01 am

Holiday Gift Guide 2025: Bookish Gifts!

Posted by SB Sarah

It’s time for another edition of Stuff We Like, and our 2025 Holiday Gift Guides!

This week: gifts for all the book-loving folks in your life, and also possibly for you.

Take a look:

Stuff We Like: Gifts for Bookish Folks. - with a picture of a book club ornament surrounded by tiny books, fountain pen nib earrings, and coasters that look like library cards

Want to see? Just click that image above or click right here, and come shop with us!

Remember, if you have requests for your holiday shopping, please let us know! 

And if you’d like to browse some more, we have a complete Stuff We Like archive, including past Gift Guides and other posts of our favorite items.

APOD ([syndicated profile] apod_feed) wrote2025-12-03 05:29 am
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StarWatcher ([personal profile] starwatcher) wrote in [community profile] fandom_checkin2025-12-02 06:08 pm
Entry tags:

Daily Check-in

 
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Tuesday, December 02, to midnight on Wednesday, December 03. (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33910 Daily Check-in
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 20

How are you doing?

I am OK.
14 (70.0%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now.
6 (30.0%)

I could use some help.
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single.
6 (30.0%)

One other person.
9 (45.0%)

More than one other person.
5 (25.0%)




Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.
 
Manga Bookshelf ([syndicated profile] mangabookshelf_feed) wrote2025-12-02 11:33 pm

The Hero and the Sage, Reincarnated and Engaged, Vol. 6

Posted by Sean Gaffney

By Washiro Fujiki and Heiro. Released in Japan as “Eiyū to Kenja no Tensei Kon: Katsute no Kōtekishu to Konyaku Shite Saikyō Fūfu ni Narimashita” by HJ Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Joey Antonio.

Still enjoy this series, still very hard to review without repeating myself. Boy, these two kids are overpowered and in love, and it’s not clear which is more important, though I will admit in this volume the OP outweighs the flirting. That’s because they spend a large chunk of the book apart – Raid heads back to the Second World to get help to save the First World, while Eluria stays behind to make sure that things don’t get any worse than they already are. But on the bright side, they’ve moved up to cheek kisses and forehead kisses, which means they may actually go all the way around Volume 62. Which we may actually get – the author says this was supposed to end with Book 4, but the manga took off, so now we have 6, and it’s still not done. Possibly as the author is still searching for anything that can make our two leads break a sweat – it doesn’t happen here, for sure.

After dealing with the “hero” Valtos, who like most jerks that run into Raid and Eluria has turned into comedy relief, our main characters are faced with a big issue – they just don’t have the people to fix everything. As such, Raid returns to his own world to enlist help from other nations. Unfortunately, when he gets there, he’s promptly arrested and accused of treason, because most everyone (including me) forgot about the plot of the first two books, which is that Raid has the skills to be a special-class magician, and the deeds, but a lot of people still really, really hate him and his non-magic using self. But that’s fine, Raid can use this to his advantage, with the help of a good old fashioned filibuster that offers the nations of this world that haven’t had war in a long, long time something they crave – new land in another world.

The author says they love to write Millis as she can lighten up any situation, and it’s true that she still gets the bulk of the comedy. Especially when she finally figures out what everyone else knew in Book 5, which is that supposedly she married Wisel – something that shocks and embarrasses her in equal measure. I did appreciate that Eluria took the time to sensibly talk with the freaking out Millis about what to do next, and guided her towards the right solution – put it on hold till she’s ready to deal with it and decides whether she really does like him romantically. Eluria can be a smart cookie when she’s not being used for comedy relief herself, as not only does she have her usual trouble waking up, but also her brilliant solution to the monsters attacking from across the sea is so brilliant it means she can’t go wild in combat… unlike Raid, who gets to terrify everyone by showing off.

This series is never going to get deep or tragic, but if you want more of the same, it is absolutely that.

senmut: Obi and Qui on either side of a saber (Star Wars: Jedi OTP 2)
Asp ([personal profile] senmut) wrote2025-12-02 06:00 pm

GenPrompt Bingo Card Round 29

Housewife / Househusband Tragedy Freestyle crossover Vignette Women Being Awesome
Five Things Contemporary AU A Moment of Understanding / Clarity A Strange Friend First person narration
Steampunk AU Horror Wild Card Second person narration Drama
Crossover: TV shows and movies There is No Escape A Test of Worthiness Reality is Illusion Taxes
High School / College AU Humour Teenagers A Blessing is Bestowed Furnishing the Home
rfemod: (Default)
rfemod ([personal profile] rfemod) wrote in [community profile] girlgay2025-12-02 03:36 pm

Rare Femslash Exchange Nominations are Open!

[community profile] rarefemslashexchange is a multi fandom exchange focused on f/f ships with two or more female characters (canon or genderbent) and/or genderqueer characters that you feel would fit in a f/f exchange, with less than 250 works on AO3- completed, in English, using the otp:true filter. The minimum requirements are either a 500 word fic or a nice sketch.

Nomination guidelines are here.

2025 Links
Tag Set | AO3 Collection | Rules & Guidelines



2025 Schedule
Nominations: December 1-10th (closes at 10PM PST) [ Countdown to nominations closing ] | [ In your timezone ]
Sign-Ups Open: December 13th
Sign-Ups Close: December 27th, 10PM PST
Assignments Out: approximately December 30th
Assignments Due: February 6th, 10PM PST
Assignments Revealed: February 13, 10PM PST
Creators Revealed: February 20th, 10PM PST
renay: photo of the milky way from new zealand on a clear night (Default)
Renay ([personal profile] renay) wrote2025-12-02 04:43 pm

Rec-Cember Day #2

Vaccines always hit me hard. I'm very jealous of people who can get them and then continue on their way with no issues. :P To make myself feel better, I bought some MTG cat tokens (this version) and some dice to use for 1/1 counters. I was also very tempted by a EDH precon for the Edge of Eternities release (ROBOTS), but I resisted (barely).

Today's Rec:

cover )

Finder by Suzanne Palmer
First published in 2020, Finder is the first book in the Finder Chronicles, a space opera series about saving the world, but also learning to trust and care for people. The first book is a fetch quest set amidst a civil war in a rural system. Fergus Ferguson must reclaim a stolen ship with nothing but his charm, cleverness, and creativity while surviving acts of war and some weird ass aliens that regularly menance everyone for no discernable reason. This is one of my favorite space opera series and has everything I love. Emotionally stunted man on the first step of his healing journey? Check. Snarky teen sidekick? Check. Political intrigue and machinations? Check check. [redacted for spoilers] ship? Triple check. I love Fergus so much and I just want to grasp everyone's hands and plead with them to read this book (and all the other books). I want everyone to meet Fergus and see what I see about him: the collapsing singularity of his capacity to love, sealed behind trauma and self-recriminations and fear of being known, and how on this mission the people who come to value him introduce the first cracks in that shell. (The aliens help...in a weird way.)
segfaultsurvivor: (Default)
Sam ([personal profile] segfaultsurvivor) wrote in [community profile] addme2025-12-02 12:19 pm

(no subject)

Name: Sam

Age: 30's

I mostly post about:

I write about my learning journey from zero (not really) to masters in Computer Science, with the goal of getting formal admissions into a program under 2 years. I have a lot of IT applied experience, but now I want to be able to master the material and also for myself learn as much as I can about the topics of programming systems, Linux, and math. For math, I really do know very little. I would very much like to improve that.


My hobbies are:

I like to play video games, take walks, and exercise. My favorite games right now are Lord of the Rings Online and Guild Wars. I also play retro games and am going through the Harvest Moon series on the original DS.


My fandoms are:

I don't invest a lot of energy into fandoms. But I like Linux. I think that counts.


I'm looking to meet people who:

Journals about goals, dreams, and ideas. I do enjoy reading about criticisms, first draft essays, and general naval gazing.


My posting schedule tends to be: daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic/etc

Sporadic with a weekly update on what I'm learning.


When I add people, my dealbreakers are:

I want to avoid negative spaces, so if you are constantly ranting about how terrible things are, I understand. I'm going to put a positive energy in my journal.


Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books ([syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-12-02 04:30 pm

Dark Lords, Viscounts, & More

Posted by Amanda

Birding with Benefits

Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb is $1.99! This is a contemporary romance with birding. I feel like birding had a real moment, given that there was a Hallmark movie made with smooching and birders.

A divorcee embarks on her “year of yes” and crosses paths with a shy but sensitive birdwatcher who changes her life in this charming rom-com that is perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Ali Hazelwood.

Newly-divorced, almost-empty-nester Celeste is finally seeking adventure and putting herself first, cliches be damned. So when a friend asks Celeste to “partner” with his buddy John for an event, Celeste throws herself into the role of his temporary girlfriend. But quiet cinnamon roll John isn’t looking for love, just birds—he needs a partner for Tucson’s biggest bird-watching contest if he’s ever going to launch his own guiding business. By the time they untangle their crossed signals, they’ve become teammates…and thanks to his meddling friends, a fake couple.

Celeste can’t tell a sparrow from a swallow, but John is a great teacher, and the hours they spend hiking in the Arizona wilderness feed Celeste’s hunger for new adventures while giving John a chance to practice his dream job. As the two spend more time together, they end up watching more than just the birds, and their chemistry becomes undeniable. Since they’re both committed to the single life, Celeste suggests a status upgrade: birders with benefits, just until the contest is done. But as the bird count goes up and their time together ticks down, John and Celeste will have to decide if their benefits can last a lifetime, or if this love affair is for the birds.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

Firebird

Firebird by Juliette Cross is $2.99! This came out in April and is book one in a dark fantasy series. I was curious about this one, but I must admit I don’t love the cover.

House of the Dragon meets From Blood and Ash in this epic, scorching dark romantasy.

A conqueror captivated…
A witch prophesied to save them all…
A world where dragons rule Rome.

From the moment Roman general and nephew to the emperor Julianus Dakkia laid eyes on Malina, he was enthralled by the Dacian dancer. Years later, the fierce beauty stands before him on a scarred battlefield, her life in danger. He instinctively shifts into his fierce dragon form to save her, an action that may mean his head on the imperial gate. But he and his dragon know one thing: she belongs to them.

Malina can’t believe that the centurion who had once bestowed a secret talisman on her is the Roman general of legendary brutality. His warrior prowess cannot be denied, yet they don’t reveal the secret he hides. All Malina knows is his protection and gentle touch. And she cannot deny how her soul has always seemed to answer his.

As they navigate a world where flying deathriders conquer and burn, their love will ignite a firestorm that can only end in heartbreak or death. Or both.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying

How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler is $2.99 and a Kindle Daily Deal! I mentioned this in Get Rec’d and Darlynne commented, warning of a cliffhanger but noting it was definitely worth it.

Groundhog Day meets Deadpool in Django Wexler’s raunchy, hilarious, blood-splattered fantasy tale about a young woman who, tired of defending humanity from the Dark Lord, decides to become the Dark Lord herself.

“Takes the old saying ‘If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,’ to the next level. A sarcastic, action-packed, intrigue-filled (mis)adventure. One of the funniest books I’ve read in a long time.”–Matt Dinniman, author of Dungeon Crawler Carl

Davi has done this all before. She’s tried to be the hero and take down the all-powerful Dark Lord. A hundred times she’s rallied humanity and made the final charge. But the time loop always gets her in the end. Sometimes she’s killed quickly. Sometimes it takes a while. But she’s been defeated every time.

This time? She’s done being the hero and done being stuck in this endless time loop. If the Dark Lord always wins, then maybe that’s who she needs to be. It’s Davi’s turn to play on the winning side.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

A Wallflower’s Guide to Viscounts and Vice

A Wallflower’s Guide to Viscounts and Vice by Manda Collins is $2.99! This is book one in a new historical romance series and features a grumpy/sunshine romance.

A sunshine spinster and a grumpy viscount use their fake engagement to solve a murder mystery in the first book of a new series from Manda Collins.

A wallflower by choice, wealthy Lucy Penhallow would rather sit out the dancing all season than listen to false flattery from the fortune hunters who pursue her. But when she and her best friend’s brother witness a crime in progress, they’ll need to put every skill Lucy’s learned from reading detective stories to the test in their hunt for a missing woman. And if Viscount Gilford happens to be handsome as sin and clever to boot? Well, that’s no hardship for her.

Viscount Gilford needs a wife to save him from financial ruin, and there’s only one heiress who’s off limits. So when he and Lucy find themselves inextricably linked in the tabloids, it’s a disaster. As their investigation progresses, their once unwelcome alliance becomes something more—a love match neither will give up. But there’s a killer watching their romance from the wings who’s only too happy to keep these meddlesome sleuths together . . . in the afterlife.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

You can find ordering info for this book here.

 

 

 

Language Log ([syndicated profile] languagelog_feed) wrote2025-12-02 04:49 pm

Pets with buttons

Posted by Mark Liberman

The social media site r/PetsWithButtons (created in 2020) is full of interesting observations and questions. One of my favorites is "My cat has started to use “vacuum” as a curse word":

Basically the title. I gave him a “vacuum” button because the vacuum is stressful for him and I wanted to be able to clearly communicate that the vacuum was going to happen and let him know “vacuum all done.” He definitely knows what it means because when the vacuum is running he will push “vacuum” repeatedly and also add “nervous” in there too. But now he has started spamming vacuum after I tell him no, like he is using it as a curse word. For example, he will ask for “snackie” when we JUST got done with snackie and I will say “snackie all done” and then he will go spam the vacuum button. Yeah, ok bud, I hear you loud and clear that you feel “vacuum” about “snackie all done.” Or he snuck a lick from the end of my spicy curry dish (I did not authorize this, I looked away for ONE second), I could tell he regretted this (spicy), and then he went and pressed “snackie vacuum.” Yeah, ok bud, that snackie made your mouth feel “vacuum”.

I don’t know what I’m asking really, just commiserating. I guess maybe he needs a “mad” button?

I doubt that the "mad' button would work as well as the "vacuum" button, for the same reason that curses is only a good curse in (ironic interpretations of) bowdlerized fiction…

Some other r/PetsWithButtons samples: "My cat wants more words? or there’s too many?"; "Last night I had some regrets about giving my cat a walk button.."; "Suggestions for new words"; "Most used buttons"; "URGENT: Cat not eating (treat button)".

A 2017 paper surveyed the emergence of Animal-Computer Interaction as an engineering and scientific discipline — but now it's a social media site.

 

 

Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books ([syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-12-02 09:00 am

Hide Your Wallet: December 2nd Release Week

Posted by Amanda

Happy Tuesday!

December is going to be a little funky given the sparseness of releases. Next week will be a joint post for the 9th and 16th, and then skipping the rest of the month. There are a couple holiday romances, some mysteries, and more.

Which new releases are you excited for this week? Let us know in the comments!

Yours for the Season

Yours for the Season by Uzma Jalaluddin

Author: Uzma Jalaluddin
Released: December 1, 2025 by Mindy's Book Studio
Genre: ,

For an ambitious attorney and a rising-star chef, a cross-cultural fake romance takes an unexpected detour in a heartwarming and funny novel by the author of Much Ado About Nada and Ayesha at Last.

When Sameera Malik and Tom Cooke meet at a ho-hum holiday party, neither is looking for romance. Sameera’s working ridiculous hours at her law firm and healing from heartache while navigating a recently resolved family estrangement. Tom’s hustling to turn his social media stardom into a real career while fending off his family’s demands to give up his chef dreams and move back home. The two share a few laughs and a samosa-making lesson and go their separate ways.

But when one of Tom’s posts starts a viral rumor that they’re a couple, he suggests they keep up the ruse for a few months. It’s a good proposal, and a fauxmance will help Tom grow his popularity, and, in return, he can help Sameera land a wealthy client. The only problem? Their parents.

When Sameera’s very Muslim parents insist on meeting Tom’s very not Muslim family over Christmas in rural Alaska, the stage is set for misunderstandings, holiday hijinks, and an epic culture clash. As the Maliks and Cookes exchange holiday traditions and endless opinions on their children’s lives, Sameera and Tom realize they have a lot in common—including an attraction that’s starting to feel very real.

This one technically came out yesterday. Jalaluddin is a favorite on the site. 

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

The Bodyguard Affair

The Bodyguard Affair by Amy Lea

Author: Amy Lea
Released: December 2, 2025 by Berkley
Genre: ,

A secret romance writer discovers that the hottest story of summer might just be the one happening between her and the Prime Minister’s bodyguard, from the international bestselling author of Set On You.

Andi Zeigler lives a double life. By day, she’s the no-nonsense, steadfast personal assistant to the Prime Minister of Canada’s wife. By night, she slips out of her heels and writes romance novels under a top-secret pen name. But when her steamiest book, The Prime Minister & Me, unexpectedly becomes a bestseller, rumors of a real-life affair between her and the PM start swirling out of control.

Enter Nolan Crosby, the PM’s new close protection officer (aka bodyguard) – and Andi’s failed one-night stand from three years ago. Nolan’s in town very temporarily to care for his mother, who’s battling early-onset Alzheimer’s. But when the scandal erupts, Andi ropes him into a fake-dating plan.

As loyal employees, they’ll pretend to date for the summer, just long enough to put the scandal to bed and save their boss’s reputation. In an unexpected plot twist, Andi and Nolan discover that keeping their romance strictly fictional might be easier said than done.

Elyse: I love a bodyguard romance.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

The Day I Lost You

The Day I Lost You by Ruth Mancini

Author: Ruth Mancini
Released: December 2, 2025 by Harper Perennial
Genre:

The internationally bestselling author of The Woman on the Ledge returns with a twisty thriller about a missing child and three adults whose shared secrets and hidden history could prove deadly.

“I need to report a crime. My baby has been stolen.”

All Lauren wants is a new life in Spain. She’s suffered an unimaginable loss, but at last she has found a home in the pretty seaside town of Mantilla de Mar. Everyone deserves a new start, and Lauren needs to put her past firmly behind her.

Hope has an interesting career as a therapist, an attractive husband, a dream home in the countryside – and, finally, the baby she always longed for. Sam. Her beautiful boy.

But Sam has gone missing.

So when the police tell her that a woman has been found in Spain with a child matching Sam’s description, Hope thinks that her nightmare might be coming to an end.

But Lauren is insisting Sam is her baby. She even has his passport and birth certificate to prove it.

So what really happened to Baby Sam? And who still has secrets to hide?

One child. Two mothers. And a past that won’t let them go.

Elyse: This is giving off It’s All Her Fault vibes.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

Fallen Gods

Fallen Gods by Rachel Van Dyken

Author: Rachel Van Dyken
Released: December 2, 2025 by Entangled: Red Tower Books
Genre: , ,
Series: Fallen Gods #1

They said the Gods were myth. That the Giants were only stories told around dying fires. They lied.

The Gods aren’t dead—they’re only sleeping, locked in mortal bodies, scattered across the world, waiting for the right spark to wake them. And my father is the most ruthless of them all.

He raised me to obey. To bleed. To be his blade when the time came. Now he’s sending me to Endir University, a place filled with ancient bloodlines and deadly secrets, to steal back Mjolnir, the hammer of legend. If I fail, everyone I love dies.

But Aric Erikson wasn’t part of the plan. He’s the enemy’s heir. Distant. Dangerous. And…the one person I can’t afford to fall for. He’s closed himself off completely behind a wall of ice, but the more I’m ordered to unravel him, the harder it becomes to remember where the lies end and I begin.

There’s only a mission I never chose—and a man I was never meant to love—standing between me and a war that will decide the fate of the world.

But if I’m the spark, maybe he’s the fuse. And the Gods? They’re about to wake up angry.

Amanda: I feel like this pub date has taken forever for this one!

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

The Mating Game

The Mating Game by Lana Ferguson

Author: Lana Ferguson
Released: December 2, 2025 by Berkley
Genre: ,

Two wolf shifters reluctant to love discover there’s no fighting the call of the wild in this steamy romance by USA Today bestselling author Lana Ferguson.

Contractor Tess Covington has spent her entire life as a regular non-shifter human, so after she lands in the Denver ER with flu-like symptoms, it comes as a complete shock to be told that, no, she’s not sick—she’s actually a late-presenting omega wolf shifter. With her family in dire financial straits and a contract for her own television show on the line, she can’t afford not to complete the renovation job she came for. And given that her newly emerged wolf is in danger of going into heat, she’ll just have to do her best to follow the doctor’s advice to keep away from alpha shifters.

Alpha wolf Hunter Barrett has spent most of his adult life living by a routine, and a big part of that involves staying clear of omegas after having one stomp on his heart. So when the tiny contractor shows up at his place smelling like the one thing he’s determined to avoid, he thinks it must be some sort of cosmic joke. But with his lodge on the verge of failing and this sweet-smelling omega his only hope to turn things around . . . he’s left with few other options than to grin and bear it.

Set on avoiding each other as much as possible, they find things unexpectedly starting to heat up between them enough to thaw even the frostiest of hearts. Though even with the pair going head over paws for each other, there’s no changing that their fling has an expiration date. The more time they spend together, the more they realize they’re playing a dangerous game—one where the only thing on the line is their hearts.

A holiday paranormal romance with shifters.

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My Fair Frauds

My Fair Frauds by Lee Kelly

Author: Lee Kelly
Released: December 2, 2025 by Harper Muse
Genre: ,

A high society fraud and a scrappy swindler team up to take down Gilded Age New York in this tale of intrigue, drama, and female friendship.

The Grand Duchess Marie Charlotte Antonie of Linsbourg–a war-torn country known for its wealth of emeralds–has taken Gilded Age high society by storm. Little does the upper crust know that this “deposed duchess” is actually con artist Alice, a vengeful young woman with her sights set on the five ruthless robber barons who destroyed her father and left her family in shambles.

Alice’s long con plan finally clicks into place when she meets scrappy magician’s assistant Cora, a drifter with lofty aspirations of her own, a malleable young lady who proves the perfect debutante pawn to lure in Alice’s final, and otherwise unattainable, target.

With the help of insider and society maestro Ward McAllister, among others, Alice and Cora launch into the social season of 1883, scheming their way through grand balls, private dinners, and opera nights, ensnaring Alice’s targets one by one. But as they hurtle toward their ultimate swindle, a sprawling orchestrated scheme at their fabricated embassy to rob their targets blind, pressures close in from all sides. Mutiny within the ranks, hidden moles, crises of conscience . . .

This sting is sure to be the event of the season. Or else ruin Alice and Cora both.

Elyse: A Gilded Age heist story–yes please!

Sarah: Elyse already said, “Yes, please” so I’m going with “WANT!” The first sentence of the cover copy made me snort.

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Tender Cruelty

Tender Cruelty by Katee Robert

Author: Katee Robert
Released: December 2, 2025 by Sourcebooks Casablanca
Genre: , ,
Series: Dark Olympus #9

I was his wife. His lover. His sworn enemy. The ice queen to Olympus’s most hated king.

*A scorchingly hot modern retelling of Hera and Zeus.*

The barrier that’s protected Olympus for generations has fallen. The enemy’s breached the gates and the Thirteen are scrambling to protect themselves, their loved ones, and the city they’ve sworn to protect. At least they would be if they weren’t at each others’ throats instead.

Hera has no intention of letting her husband, Zeus, survive the oncoming storm. But despite the white-hot hatred burning between them, when Hera and Zeus are forced to work together, enmity crystalizes into something brighter. Hotter. Too powerful to deny or destroy.

Hera never bartered on falling in love with the man she married—the man she once swore to kill. But now, standing back-to-back in the ruins of Olympus, she may be forced to admit that she’s been wrong about Zeus all these years…and there may be something about their marriage worth saving if they can survive long enough to turn sworn enemies into something more.

Lara: Stuff finally happens in this book with Circe! Yes, the love story is hot, but FINALLY there is movement on the Circe plot! Lightning review incoming…

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Smart Bitches, Trashy BooksSmart Bitches, Trashy Books ([syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed) wrote2025-12-02 03:00 pm

HaBO: Hockey Playing Best Friend Isn’t the Hero in Book One

Posted by Amanda

This HaBO is from Karen, who wants to find this romance:

I’m trying to find a college hockey romance published within the last 8 years or so. The heroine has had a crush on her best friend for years. Best friend has always assumed he could sow his wild oats and the heroine  would be waiting for him. Their mothers are best friends too.

Heroine and her best friend are freshman and he has mostly been ignoring her since college started. He’s on the college hockey team and is very cocky. When another member of the hockey team, the hero, I think he’s the hockey captain, shows interest in the heroine, her best friend decides he wants her but is a total ass about it.

There is a sequel in which the male best friend from book 1 is the hero and falls for the sister of the hero from book 1.

Does anyone have any ideas?

We must plumb the depths of hockey romances set in college.

Language Log ([syndicated profile] languagelog_feed) wrote2025-12-02 12:23 pm

Dying minority languages in Europe

Posted by Victor Mair

"‘We’re a bit jealous of Kneecap’: how Europe’s minority tongues are facing the digital future", Stephen Burgen, The Guardian (11/26/25)

What does it mean to lose a language? And what does it take to save it? Those were the big questions being asked in Barcelona recently

The author tells us:

There’s an Irish saying, tír gan teanga, tír gan anam: a country without a language is a country without a soul. Representatives of some of Europe’s estimated 60 minority languages – or minoritised, as they define them – met in Barcelona recently to discuss what it means to lose a language, and what it takes to save it.

Language diversity is akin to biodiversity, an indicator of social wellbeing, but some of Europe’s languages are falling into disuse. Breton, for example, is dying out because its speakers are dying, and keeping languages alive among young people is challenging in an increasingly monolingual digital world.

In turn, Burgen surveys the current bill of health for Catalan (about 10 million speakers in Spain; doing quite well, thank you), Frisian (approximately half a million speakers in northern Netherlands), Irish (nearly two million speakers in the Republic, thanks in part to the popularity of the rapper group Kneecap), Welsh (more than half a miilion speakers in Wales, which is slowly depopulating), and Euskera (around one million speaker in the Basque region that straddles France; and Spain).

Burgen concludes by stating that those minority tongues living amidst larger languages do best when they do not insist on rigid purity, but, following the Kneecap effect, "loosen their grip").

 

Selected readings

[Thanks to Philip Taylor]

Manga Bookshelf ([syndicated profile] mangabookshelf_feed) wrote2025-12-02 11:42 am

The Do-Over Damsel Conquers the Dragon Emperor: The Official History of the Continent of Platy

Posted by Sean Gaffney

By Sasara Nagase and Mitsuya Fuji. Released in Japan as “Yarinaoshi Reijō wa Ryūtei Heika o Kōryaku-chū” by Kadokawa Beans Bunko. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by piyo.

There’s no afterword in this book to confirm it, but I imagine writing this book must have been so cathartic for the author. They not only write this series but also I’m the Villainess, So I’m Taming the Final Boss, and both of those series rely on the basic fact that our heroine is one step away from everything falling apart, and that if she doesn’t save the day when a Bad End will ensue. This book, which is a short story volume but also serves as a prequel to the whole series, is that Bad End. The end of the book features a cast of characters page, and it’s a big cast. Almost everyone has a “Died Age xx” next to their name, with only three exceptions. This ends up being quite refreshing. You don’t need to worry about how they’ll get out of this one because you know everyone’s gonna die tragically. This is why Jill ended up back in time.

Speaking of Jill, she’s barely in this book, though she does feature more heavily near the end. The bulk of it is showing us one of the characters from the main series whose destiny Jill managed to change by punching things very hard, and then showing us that original destiny. We see how his relationship with Sphere was, how horrible the Goddess can be, and how most people simply assume he’s a pedophile. We see Risteard, desperately trying to make sure Hadis becomes a good ruler, end up being forced into a revolt and being unable to save his little sister from killing herself. We see what happens when Natalie goes through everything she went through in the main series but without Jill’s interference. (It goes much the same way, apart from her dying.) Minerd dies. The entire academy Jill taught at is slaughtered. Vissel’s misplaced love for his brother leads to Hadis finally snapping. And then we get the Kratos side of things. It doesn’t get any better.

For all that the book is filled with people dying full of regrets when they’re not possessed by evil, there are heartwarming moments in here where we see that, with the presence of a dragon consort, things can be different. Hadis’ family is capable of affection for each other when they’re not busy living in a Game of Thrones. The Cervel family are all battle lunatics but also love each other deeply. Rufus and Gerald are both seen as noble and good princes who want to find a way to break the whole “incest curse”, before the curse takes hold and they both turn to the dark side. Zeke and Camila remain exactly who they’ve always been no matter what the timeline. And then there’s Jill, who may be in love with Gerald here (somewhat to her detriment), but is otherwise exactly the same. She’s so great.

This is nearly 400 pages, so there’s a lot of Bad End here. Now that we’ve gotten it, though, much of the main storyline is recontextualized, and I hope we get back to the main series soon so we can stop a lot of this happening.


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