This is the fourth Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twenty-fourth overall. We are discussing The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See. For May, we will discuss Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

This is the fifth Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twenty-fifth overall. We are discussing Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. For June we will discuss How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Wexler.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

Similarly to the few years old thread I made for webserials I would like to recommend and introduce some quests and fanfictions. Quests are a collaborative(ideally) stories that usually live in forums. The usual format is that the writer/s enable the readers an input in how the story is written which is usually done by voting. I found that fanfictions vary in quality wildly but any sufficiently popular work will have some that are very good.

For the tyrants fear your might - https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/for-the-tyrants-fear-your-might-a-quest-of-interstellar-rebellion.83706/ - (quest) - a story of a an entertainment planet in a hypercapitalistic society rebelling. Does not have a single protagonist

The Practice War - https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-practice-war-complete.31698/ - (quest, Practice Effect) - humanity creates space faring dragons but is defeated by an advanced and enigmatic race.

Divided Loyalties - https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/warhammer-fantasy-divided-loyalties-an-advisors-quest.44838/ - (quest, Warhammer fantasy) - a Grey wizard becomes the advisor to the Elector Count of Sylvania and later continuing on in her adventures elsewhere. Very long with several distinct arcs

RHUNRIKKI STROLLAR - https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/rhunrikki-strollar-warhammer-fantasy-golden-age-dwarf-runelord-quest.63581/ - (quest, Warhammer fantasy) - a life of dwarven golden age runemaster among the coming troubles

The Burbank Situation - https://archiveofourown.org/works/19189534 - (Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Chuck) - Chuck has some unusual hobbies, such as LARPing as a vampire hunter. First part of a series

My Name Is Beautiful - https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/155302 - (Unordinary) - reincarnation story. A side character from original story runs a rebellion built on lies and manipulation against the Authorities. Probably the darkest story on this list

To The Stars - https://archiveofourown.org/works/777002 - (Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika) - story set in a ai run world that tries its best among a brutal war with advanced aliens. And of a magical girl whose wish was to be extraordinary

Birds of a Feather - https://archiveofourown.org/works/15996890 - (Harry Potter) - this is both a solid character exploration and a depiction of WW2 Britain

A Song of Ice and Fires That Weren't All My fault - https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/a-song-of-ice-and-fires-that-werent-all-my-fault-asoiaf-dresden-files.336499/ - (Game of Thrones/Dresden Files) - Dresden makes a living in Braavos finding things. The merging of these two different settings is very good

The Maretian - https://www.fimfiction.net/story/396744/ - (The Martian/My Little Pony) - Mark Watney is joined on Mars by the crew of an alien race. More fantastical than Martian but still features engineering challenges. MLP fandom needs a lot of getting used to but has some good stories

I've made an effort to read some more poems this year and always enjoy finding out any more when I can. In the UK you can find anthologies of "The Nation's Favourite Poems" and "The Nation's Favourite Comic Poems" et alia by the BBC, which is where I've learnt most of my new ones this year. It'd be great to see what poems have left an impression on you this year.

For brevity, I'll put a short one here and then two longer ones I discovered this year down in the comments.

Two Cures for Love - Wendy Cope

Don’t see him. Don’t phone or write a letter.
The easy way: get to know him better.

As a proud husband, I wanted to share that my wife's new book is officially released today! We both knew nothing about publishing books before this journey and now she is independently publishing her 5th book and first in a new series. She writes romance, so not my normal choice of material, but I have read all of her books and really enjoy them. There is just something cool about seeing my wife bring characters to life, especially since I do not consider myself a creative.

She did have a photography business before Covid, which fell apart thanks to the lockdowns. That's when she got into bookstagram and eventually decided to write her own books. Its been a wild ride since and she has met a ton of great people. It sure doesn't pay the bills, but that seems pretty par for the course. AI slop isn't helping that either.

Anyways, if you have Kindle Unlimited you can read it there for free. Or you can find her book on Amazon if you want. Sadly, its the best place left for indie authors.

Random question. What do the wonderful people of Tildes think about self promotion here? My wife is an indie author. As a proud and supportive husband, if I posted about her new book here is that fine or in poor taste? I searched but nothing came up, which made me assume I just wasn't searching correctly. But maybe no one has asked before?

So I would love to know/hear everyone's opinions.

I'm having a lot of trouble creating an image of the city in my head and would like some help!

Any kind of image or graph is appreciated. Maps, artist renditions. Anything. Both for the city as a whole and the different locations within the city that Clarke describes.

But it must be accurate, or at least an attempt to be accurate (which is why I can't just use Google for this, since I lack the ability to distinguish between freestyle art and accurate ones).

Thanks!

Here is the schedule for the upcoming year

Last week in August - Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut,

Last week in September - Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Last week in October - The Poisoners Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine by Deborah Blum,

Last week in November - We are Legion (We are Bob) by Dennis Taylor,

December break for the holidays.

Last week in January - Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bissen,

Last week in February - The Truth by Terry Pratchett

Last week in March - The Metamorphosis by Kafka,

Last week in April - The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See,

Last week in May - Pnin by Nabokov,

Last week in June - How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Wexler,

Last week in July - A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers,

Last week in August - Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Last week in September - Dr. No by Ian Fleming

I'm looking for some recommendations. I'm not a voracious reader, so just about anything you can recommend will be new to me.

I'm not sure how to describe the genre I'm after, which is really why I'm here. I just got done binging Petscop on YouTube; the surreal and Lynchian story telling coupled with the dark subject matter really sucked me in. I'm also somewhat enthralled by some of the higher quality Backrooms content.

I'm interested in short stories or novels.

Edit: sorry for not tagging. I completely forgot!

This is the third Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twenty-third overall. We are discussing The Metamorphosis by Kafka. At the end of April we will discuss The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

I have a friend who recently started reading fiction books for the first time since he was a teenager. It's been great recommending him some books, and he is currently exploring different genres to find ones he likes with a goal of one book a month this year. I was chatting with him about his reading today and this got me thinking about the books I enjoy and associated tropes of different genres.

This made me think it might be fun seeing what my fellows tilders think about tropes in books.

• Do you have any tropes in books that you love?
• On the flip side, do you have any tropes that you can't stand?
• Are there any novels that execute these tropes well/poorly?
• Do you find yourself enjoying tropes being subverted?
• Anything else trope related you want to chat about!