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amybrady.bsky.social
Amy Brady, PhD
@amybrady.bsky.social
1K followers 400 following 370 posts
Writing a book about maps | Wrote a book called, Ice: FROM MIXED DRINKS TO SKATING RINKS—A COOL HISTORY OF A HOT COMMODITY | historian & journalist | Newsletter: "Library of Wonders": https://libraryofwonders.substack.com/p/welcome-to-the-library
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amybrady.bsky.social
Amy Brady, PhD @amybrady.bsky.social · Oct 23
Depending on how you feel about books, maps, and, well, me, I either have great news or bad news for you: there’s gonna be another Amy Brady book in the world! 📚
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
civicspod.bsky.social
As we prepare to close out 2025, I am excited to share my favorite reads of the year! I was fortunate to enjoy some fantastic work this year - be sure to tune in this week as I share a bit more about each book, but in the mean time: what were your favorite books this year?
December 19, 2025 at 3:22 PM
amybrady.bsky.social
Gentle reminder that my book ICE: FROM MIXED DRINKS TO SKATING RINKS —A COOL HISTORY OF A HOT COMMODITY makes a great gift for friends and family 💚
Bright blue cover of the book ICE: FROM MIXED DRINKS TO SKATING RINKS — A COOL HISTORY OF A HOT COMMODITY facing outward from a retailer’s bookshelf.
December 17, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
gutenberg.org
Happy Public Domain Day 2026 (Jan. 1) from Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain. To read more about the public domain

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh9f...

More information here:
web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd...

#books #literature #publicDomainDayCountdown
Public domain day 2026 montage. A collage celebrating Public Domain Day 2026, featuring iconic 1930 works entering the public domain: "All Quiet on the Western Front," Marx Brothers' "Animal Crackers," early Mickey Mouse cartoons, "The Little Engine That Could," "As I Lay Dying," Nancy Drew mysteries, "The Cat Who Went to Heaven," "King of Jazz," "The Maltese Falcon," Betty Boop cartoons, "I Got Rhythm," "The Murder at the Vicarage," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "Ash Wednesday," Blondie comics, and "Morocco" starring Marlene Dietrich. https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/
December 17, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
alistairbarrie.com
Just been laughed at by an entire vet’s waiting room when the receptionist loudly welcomed me and ‘ASTEROID DESTROYER!’ to the building.
Look guys.
She’s even in her space suit.
They will be laughing on the other side of their labradors when she RULES THE WORLD!!!! ✊😾
👩‍🚀 ☄️🐈‍⬛
December 16, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
catsofyore.bsky.social
Showin off them pantaloons. Photo from my collection, no written date/info.
Black and white photo of an older white man standing outside of a white clapboard house, holding up the cat so that it’s standing on its back legs on a sign on top of the trashcan. The cat is a long haired tabby with a very fluffy belly and fluffy little pantaloon-like legs.
December 16, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
gutenberg.org
A history of punctuation

How we came to represent (through inky marks) the vagaries of the mind, inflections of the voice, and intensity of feeling

by Florence Hazrat

aeon.co/essays/besid...

#language #linguistics
An exclamation mark with a comma instead of a full stop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation#/media/File:Exclamation_comma_3.png
December 16, 2025 at 2:16 PM
amybrady.bsky.social
Love this lil red visitor to the yard! #birds
A red cardinal sits on twig. A few red berries are slightly visible in the background.
December 16, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
levistahl.bsky.social
Wanna start your day with good news? I knew that @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social was bringing Nancy Lemann’s wonderfully eccentric novel Lives of the Saints back into print this spring.

I didn’t know they’re also publishing a new Lemann book, The Oyster Diaries! Oh, man, that’s exciting.
The Oyster Diaries
Delery Anhalt—middle-aged, prone to “embroidering everything into vast ideals” like Don Quixote, but incapable of identifying the Shakespearean villains in her life, like Desdemona—is at a crossroads ...
www.nyrb.com
December 16, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
nushaa.bsky.social
watching this in public was a huge mistake, oh my god. the fact he's still eating like he isn't being violently thrown around is killing me.
December 14, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
gutenberg.org
Jenny Nyström - the woman who created the image for a Swedish Christmas

by Beth Daley

www.europeana.eu/en/stories/j...

About Jenny Nyström:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_N...

Christmas card at PG:
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/subje...

#books #illustration
Jenny Nystrom. God Jul. A vintage Swedish Christmas card illustrated by Jenny Nyström, showing a jolly gnome or tomte (traditional Scandinavian Christmas figure) with a flowing white beard, red pointed hat, green coat, and bright orange mittens, gleefully announcing "God Jul!" (Merry Christmas) with outstretched arms. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nystrom_God-Jul_01.jpg
December 15, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
catsofyore.bsky.social
Fairy puff! Postcard from my collection, mailed 1912.
Black and white photo of an adorable puffy white kitten standing proudly under a flowing bush like a sassy little fairy creature. One of its eyes appears significantly lighter than the other. This could be weird lighting, heterochromia, an injury or infection, who knows. Very pretty!
December 14, 2025 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
seauxcocoa.bsky.social
Go look at the moon!!!
December 4, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
pgagliardi.bsky.social
An image from @amybrady.bsky.social's book Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks–a Cool History of a Hot Commodity

www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/700456...
December 2, 2025 at 9:50 PM
amybrady.bsky.social
Should I be writing? Yes. But am I looking through seed catalogs instead? Also yes.

Sigh.
December 1, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
greenleejw.bsky.social
Each week on my patreon, I write about maps and about the process of drawing maps for books.

I'm hoping to get membership up over 500 subscribers, and we're close! It's free, so if you're curious, go read some articles. If you like it, please consider subscribing!
patreon.com/SurprisedEel
Surprised Eel Maps | Patreon
Custom Maps, Artwork, and History
patreon.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
oregonthedm.bsky.social
Part 100! of 200 in historically interesting things to inspire your ttrpg

This 14th century door at Exeter Cathedral, UK, is thought to be the oldest existing cat flap.
Cat leaking out of an old wooden door
November 14, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
dghaskell.bsky.social
So, this study shows that Europe pretty much sucked for tens of thousands of years, and then domestic cats showed up 2000 years ago from North Africa
November 28, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
greenleejw.bsky.social
Thanksgiving is upon us! So...how best to show your distain to your terrible relatives? How about eel pie?

In his 15th C. cookbook, Bartolomeo Platina includes a recipe for eel pie w/ instructions to feed it to your foes when it's done, because eel pie has no redeeming features.
🗃️🧪
Meme. Painting of Bartolomeno Platina kneeling to meet with the pope. I've cut the pope out of the picture, so you'll have to take my word for it. Barty is wearing a red shirt with a blue sleeveless doublet. It's quite natty, and you might believe that it's a Patagonia fleece vest. Bart's silver hair is carefully sculpted and cut, and he is carrying *just* enough of a 5 o'clock shadow to be sexy, and not enough to be slovenly. Women want him, and men want to be him. And he knows it. The expression on his face might be taken for intent interest. His eyebrow is arched, his gaze is intense, and his jaw might be quivering with attentiveness. But it's more likely that he is feigning interest with an expertise born of long practice...like a grad student stuck in the front row of a lecture by an imminent, but terribly dull, guest speaker. Bart is, instead, probably thinking about shots of pumpkin-spice vodka. Meme text reads: "I've baked you a pie because you mean that much to me"
November 26, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
rosemarymosco.com
As the year comes to an end, I'm reposting some of the comics I made this year, including this ridiculous thing.
A six-panel comic. In the first panel, a yellow warbler says "Hey so I'm going to go out on a limb here." In panels two through five, the warbler hops along a long branch against a blue sky with clouds. In panel 6, it stops at the end of the branch and sings.
November 25, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
pastpostcard.bsky.social
Don't know if you'd be interested in a bit of work on Saturday 1st July, they're booking people to roam around in wild animal costumes uptown.
November 24, 2025 at 8:46 AM
amybrady.bsky.social
Hey there’s a bird here and I don’t know what it is, can you come look at it?

Me:
a man in a suit is running in front of a building that says tom cruise
Alt: Tom Cruise in a suit is running in front of a building
media.tenor.com
November 23, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
jeffvandermeer.bsky.social
Spotted a rare white deer, walking with @sallyfisherprice.bsky.social today...
white fawn with ears prodding forward, from side
November 21, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
tobytram.bsky.social
Ok, this is cool.

In America, in Nebraska, we lived next to an airbase. British Vulcans were based there; Vulcans are the coolest of planes - an art nouveau Star Wars of a shape and Neil Young feedback of a roar. I recall them flying over, and here one is, all faded like a photocopy of a photocopy
A small house in B&W. Suburbs of Bellevue, Nebraska. Everything is faded, like a memory dug up by special effects in a movie. In the sky is a shape… Same image, but more contrast. The shape is taking…shape. It’s now a thicker line with a hint of wings. A grainy B&W photo of the distinctive Vulcan bomber, not far overhead. You can hear the roar in the photo.
November 20, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Amy Brady, PhD
greenleejw.bsky.social
Sure, monks loved their eels. But so did the nuns!

In 1235 Henry III granted a charter to the nuns of Godstow Abbey that included the rights to local eel-rents.

Or, rather, some rights. Turns out, the nuns couldn't get eels all year round...just in the autumn. 1/2
🗃️🧪
Meme. Painting of a group of nuns, sitting in a half-circle. They are all wearing back tunics and white veils and scapulars. The older nun in the middle, whom we'll call Sister Venjens, is pointing to a nun on her right. That nun, who looks like her name is probably Sister Elopine, has her own hand over her chest. Her cheeks are flushed, and she looks is moderately aggrieved. She is clearly being accused of something of bad (like stealing waffles) but not terrible (like trading waffles for sex). A nun on the right -- Sister Quantiphone -- is also pointing towards Elopine. She has Venjens' attention, and is likely offering corroborating evidence. Perhaps she followed a trail of waffle crumbs right to Elopine's room. But maybe she ate the waffles herself and is deflecting blame. The rest of the the nuns are watching this moment with reserved curiosity; likely this is not the first time these nuns have had a dust-up. Meme text reads: "Lots of eels in the fall nun the rest of the year"
November 19, 2025 at 5:27 PM