Boze the Library Owl
@sketchesbyboze.bsky.social
books, beauty, history, folklore. Dickens lover. married to @littleseamstress. gets dressed up like a pillow so she's always in bed. patreon.com/sketchesbyboze, https://linktr.ee/sketchesbyboze
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I read over a hundred books in 2024 (it can be done!) and today I’m counting down my ten favorites. A thread:
There's an enormous cat who lives a few streets down. She somehow figured out a way to unlatch and open the screen door leading into our bedroom. Every night she breaks into our room, curls up on my chest and falls asleep. I've been adopted by a real-life Miyazaki character.
November 23, 2025 at 10:10 PM
There's an enormous cat who lives a few streets down. She somehow figured out a way to unlatch and open the screen door leading into our bedroom. Every night she breaks into our room, curls up on my chest and falls asleep. I've been adopted by a real-life Miyazaki character.
Sat down at the dining-room table to read a bit of Bleak House. Noticed that my wife, seated next to me, was also reading Bleak House. Realized we have at least FIVE copies of the novel. This is what human flourishing looks like.
November 21, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Sat down at the dining-room table to read a bit of Bleak House. Noticed that my wife, seated next to me, was also reading Bleak House. Realized we have at least FIVE copies of the novel. This is what human flourishing looks like.
I’m looking for a good contemporary novel. I’ve been reading a lot of medieval poems & sagas and realized I’d read hardly any recent fiction this year. I love a book that’s a bit cerebral, a bit strange, and tells a solidly plotted story with a minimum of fuss.
November 19, 2025 at 8:43 PM
I’m looking for a good contemporary novel. I’ve been reading a lot of medieval poems & sagas and realized I’d read hardly any recent fiction this year. I love a book that’s a bit cerebral, a bit strange, and tells a solidly plotted story with a minimum of fuss.
Reading will make you more interesting. Last week I met up with some old friends and we were discussing Cornwall. I told them, “According to legend, the devil avoids Cornwall for fear he will be baked into a pie” and the expression on their faces was priceless.
November 16, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Reading will make you more interesting. Last week I met up with some old friends and we were discussing Cornwall. I told them, “According to legend, the devil avoids Cornwall for fear he will be baked into a pie” and the expression on their faces was priceless.
Been reading a lot of academic texts this year and needed a mental break, so I picked up Dickens and I'm amazed anew at how shamelessly FUN, entertaining & escapist he is. He invented modern storytelling. He was writing prestige TV in the 1850s.
November 14, 2025 at 6:55 PM
Been reading a lot of academic texts this year and needed a mental break, so I picked up Dickens and I'm amazed anew at how shamelessly FUN, entertaining & escapist he is. He invented modern storytelling. He was writing prestige TV in the 1850s.
We're witnessing the greatest sustained attack on the human spirit in history. Big Tech seeks to destroy the arts. They're destroying the school system. They want to make us lobotomized people who can't read, write or create. They've turned dystopian fiction into a manual.
November 13, 2025 at 9:54 PM
We're witnessing the greatest sustained attack on the human spirit in history. Big Tech seeks to destroy the arts. They're destroying the school system. They want to make us lobotomized people who can't read, write or create. They've turned dystopian fiction into a manual.
I'm glad the villain of the new Toy Story is a child's tablet. I hope the film conveys how screens eat up a child's hobbies, interests, literacy, ability to function socially. I hope it provokes millions of parents to think twice before making the iPad a babysitter.
November 12, 2025 at 11:05 PM
I'm glad the villain of the new Toy Story is a child's tablet. I hope the film conveys how screens eat up a child's hobbies, interests, literacy, ability to function socially. I hope it provokes millions of parents to think twice before making the iPad a babysitter.
I need everyone who uses AI to generate art & text to notice what Vince Gilligan says here. You're surrendering your brain, your creativity, the divine spark within you to a machine. Someday you'll wake up and find you're no longer capable of writing or thinking. And for what?
![["When your selling point is: 'This thing is great, it'll write your high school essays for you, it'll create your artwork for you if you're an artist, so you don't have to actually learn how to draw and paint anymore ... You don't ever need to learn how to read a map or use a compass ... this this will wipe your butt for you.' What's left to live for? The creative spark in human beings - it's one of the most precious, wonderful things we have. What is more important than being creative?'"]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hppum4l25hcczzffastsicpq/bafkreiazbvzipuugud3dfrlmwalqxgfkzqkm6hhhnc4deh22bwaxnmz5p4@jpeg)
November 11, 2025 at 8:59 PM
I need everyone who uses AI to generate art & text to notice what Vince Gilligan says here. You're surrendering your brain, your creativity, the divine spark within you to a machine. Someday you'll wake up and find you're no longer capable of writing or thinking. And for what?
Too many people have resigned themselves to not reading because they fear they no longer have the focus for it. You only need to limit your screen time for a few days to begin feeling the effects on your brain. I promise you, you are capable of reading books again.
November 10, 2025 at 1:14 AM
Too many people have resigned themselves to not reading because they fear they no longer have the focus for it. You only need to limit your screen time for a few days to begin feeling the effects on your brain. I promise you, you are capable of reading books again.
Carl Sagan, writing in 1995, warned that soon America would be ruled by illiterate elites wielding “awesome technological powers,” and that most people, their brains broken by screens, would be unable to resist. We are living in the nightmare that Sagan foresaw.
November 8, 2025 at 9:45 PM
Carl Sagan, writing in 1995, warned that soon America would be ruled by illiterate elites wielding “awesome technological powers,” and that most people, their brains broken by screens, would be unable to resist. We are living in the nightmare that Sagan foresaw.
Spending too much time online will have catastrophic effects on your mental & emotional health. You need to be taking walks and talking to other people. You need to feel grass under your feet and wind on your face. You were made to live an embodied life.
November 1, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Spending too much time online will have catastrophic effects on your mental & emotional health. You need to be taking walks and talking to other people. You need to feel grass under your feet and wind on your face. You were made to live an embodied life.
Spent the day wandering through rain-soaked Seattle, and in a used bookstore found several volumes of medieval art.
October 31, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Spent the day wandering through rain-soaked Seattle, and in a used bookstore found several volumes of medieval art.
I think we under-estimate how many people are miserable because they have no enthusiasms, no hobbies, because they gave up reading and quit learning when school ended. It's shocking how much studying a beloved subject elevates your mood. It will transform your life.
October 26, 2025 at 7:14 PM
I think we under-estimate how many people are miserable because they have no enthusiasms, no hobbies, because they gave up reading and quit learning when school ended. It's shocking how much studying a beloved subject elevates your mood. It will transform your life.
Jane Austen's 250th birthday is coming up in December and I hope you'll celebrate by taking a turn about the room, acquiring a passion for dead leaves & closet shelves, and taking a fancy to the last person you could ever be prevailed upon to marry.
October 26, 2025 at 4:09 AM
Jane Austen's 250th birthday is coming up in December and I hope you'll celebrate by taking a turn about the room, acquiring a passion for dead leaves & closet shelves, and taking a fancy to the last person you could ever be prevailed upon to marry.
It sounds crazy but I promise you: if you just put your phone aside and read for half an hour each night before bed, it will change your life.
![[quoting a tweet from CaffeinatedLiha: “Reading books at night is self-care. The kind that ruins your sleep schedule but heals your soul.”]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hppum4l25hcczzffastsicpq/bafkreibtjorwchhheseufky2a5m6yixp5t674pxaznsfniu6jhpqmhbepy@jpeg)
October 23, 2025 at 12:59 AM
It sounds crazy but I promise you: if you just put your phone aside and read for half an hour each night before bed, it will change your life.
Reposted by Boze the Library Owl
If you want to push back against tech's encroachment into every corner of our lives, you have to read books. They're eager to create a future in which most people are illiterate and hooked on slop, a world without imagination or knowledge. Reading is resistance.
October 20, 2025 at 9:44 PM
If you want to push back against tech's encroachment into every corner of our lives, you have to read books. They're eager to create a future in which most people are illiterate and hooked on slop, a world without imagination or knowledge. Reading is resistance.
If you want to push back against tech's encroachment into every corner of our lives, you have to read books. They're eager to create a future in which most people are illiterate and hooked on slop, a world without imagination or knowledge. Reading is resistance.
October 20, 2025 at 9:44 PM
If you want to push back against tech's encroachment into every corner of our lives, you have to read books. They're eager to create a future in which most people are illiterate and hooked on slop, a world without imagination or knowledge. Reading is resistance.
People love to criticize reading in public as performative but I can't stress enough how much it would improve our collective mental health if we all carried books wherever we went.
![tweet that reads "normalize reading book [sic] in public," with images of a train and a person holding an open book.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:hppum4l25hcczzffastsicpq/bafkreiexyziv7jyeieh53ctykbo2c26e4vw5j7gd7bkngnh33bm6kfegja@jpeg)
October 20, 2025 at 9:29 PM
People love to criticize reading in public as performative but I can't stress enough how much it would improve our collective mental health if we all carried books wherever we went.
Men assume Pride & Prejudice is a Hallmark romance when the plot is driven by the Bennet sisters’ fear of starvation because they will be homeless when their father dies. It’s a book about money, about people, and those who dismiss it as saccharine fluff are cheating themselves.
October 16, 2025 at 10:35 PM
Men assume Pride & Prejudice is a Hallmark romance when the plot is driven by the Bennet sisters’ fear of starvation because they will be homeless when their father dies. It’s a book about money, about people, and those who dismiss it as saccharine fluff are cheating themselves.
In early modern England there was a tradition that witches sailed the sea in eggshells. Children were advised to smash holes in the shells so that they became useless for any witches hoping to cause storms at sea.
October 16, 2025 at 10:20 PM
In early modern England there was a tradition that witches sailed the sea in eggshells. Children were advised to smash holes in the shells so that they became useless for any witches hoping to cause storms at sea.
Reading for pleasure has fallen by 40 percent since 2000. This is not progress. You should read because it's good for your brain, your soul. You should read because our freedoms will not long endure in a post-literate world. Most of all, you should read because it's fun.
October 12, 2025 at 10:44 PM
Reading for pleasure has fallen by 40 percent since 2000. This is not progress. You should read because it's good for your brain, your soul. You should read because our freedoms will not long endure in a post-literate world. Most of all, you should read because it's fun.
Reposted by Boze the Library Owl
I find it bleak that ChatGPT now has more users than Wikipedia. Many people would rather be spoon-fed information by a machine than read and research for themselves. Tech isn't just making us dumber. Worse than that: it's killing curiosity itself and the desire to learn.
October 10, 2025 at 8:49 PM
I find it bleak that ChatGPT now has more users than Wikipedia. Many people would rather be spoon-fed information by a machine than read and research for themselves. Tech isn't just making us dumber. Worse than that: it's killing curiosity itself and the desire to learn.
I find it bleak that ChatGPT now has more users than Wikipedia. Many people would rather be spoon-fed information by a machine than read and research for themselves. Tech isn't just making us dumber. Worse than that: it's killing curiosity itself and the desire to learn.
October 10, 2025 at 8:49 PM
I find it bleak that ChatGPT now has more users than Wikipedia. Many people would rather be spoon-fed information by a machine than read and research for themselves. Tech isn't just making us dumber. Worse than that: it's killing curiosity itself and the desire to learn.
Chatbots and AI slop are going to ruin countless brains. Yours doesn't have to be one of them. Study history. Read poetry. Get acquainted with Bach, Shakespeare, George Eliot. In a time when people are rapidly getting dumber, we need communities devoted to the life of the mind.
October 8, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Chatbots and AI slop are going to ruin countless brains. Yours doesn't have to be one of them. Study history. Read poetry. Get acquainted with Bach, Shakespeare, George Eliot. In a time when people are rapidly getting dumber, we need communities devoted to the life of the mind.
Reposted by Boze the Library Owl
Saw someone say, “Stop hoarding books, we don’t need paper books anyway” and I can’t express how misguided this is. Online libraries disappear, digital books can be altered, and with Big Tech seeking to destroy history and literacy, print media has never been more essential.
October 1, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Saw someone say, “Stop hoarding books, we don’t need paper books anyway” and I can’t express how misguided this is. Online libraries disappear, digital books can be altered, and with Big Tech seeking to destroy history and literacy, print media has never been more essential.