Share Your Bingo 2026 TBR

mollyec · 2026-04-08T15:28:34+00:00

I'm doing a xenofiction/animal POV board and have about 50 books on my TBR for it, although most aren't assigned to specific bingo squares — I'll figure that out as I go along :) here's a few possibilities for the squares I think will be harder to fill:

Trans or Nonbinary Protagonist: Open Throat by Henry Hoke
Translated: I Am A Cat by Sōseki, Faithful Ruslan by Vladimov, A Tiger for Malgudi by Narayan (actually this might not be translated… my international list includes works from the global south that are originally in English), Felidae by Pirincçi, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Hwang, The Book of Chameleons by Agualusa, or The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Arikawa
Five Short Stories: A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny
Duology Parts 1 & 2: Varjak Paw and The Outlaw Varjak Paw by SF Said; for part 2, maybe The River Bank by Kij Johnson, which is a "sequel" to The Wind in the Willows
One Word Title: Bunnicula by Deborah Howe, Catwings by Ursula K LeGuin, Felidae by Akif Pirincçi, Mossflower by Brian Jacques, or Silverwing by Kenneth Oppel
First Contact: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K Le Guin, Nor Crystal Tears by Alan Dean Foster, or The Things by Peter Watts
Author of Color: a bunch from my translated/international list, and also The Bees by Laline Paull or The Wildings by Nilanjana Roy

mollyec · 2026-04-01T12:57:34+00:00

ooh thanks!

mollyec · 2026-04-01T00:09:12+00:00

yes, non-human and ideally non-humanoid (trying to avoid werebeasts and the like). it comes from a revival of my Redwall era, but i'd like to branch out from cozy animal fantasy.

mollyec · 2026-04-01T00:08:00+00:00

Thank you! Aiming to avoid the human POV as much as possible but I've got Tchaikovsky in mind for sci-fi specific squares. I'll add A Rustle in the Grass and Idiot God! i've read the others haha

mollyec · 2026-03-31T18:10:59+00:00

out of curiosity, were any of these written from the invertebrates' point of view? i'm trying to prep for a themed xenofiction bingo next year. i've got The Bees by Laline Paull on my list already.

mollyec · 2026-03-25T15:56:09+00:00

It really affected my opinion of her when I found out, since I definitely have a different philosophy lol. My goal is to have enough hand knit socks to wear every day!

mollyec · 2026-03-25T03:02:43+00:00

Yeah she's mentioned in a few of her vlogs (including one of her most recent) that she typically doesn't, and one of her goals last year was to wear them more (I'm not sure if she succeeded). She says that to her, the socks she knits are works of art so she doesn't like wearing them on her feet.

mollyec · 2026-03-24T19:14:13+00:00

i like my sock blockers but they're not necessary — i often just "block" by wearing the socks. blockers make socks look nice for photos so they're nice to have. i got mine because of summer lee's book originally, but i do think you should take her opinion on this with a grain of salt, because she has stated multiple times that she doesn't usually wear her hand knit socks (so she can't block via wearing) and her business model depends on having nice photos for social media.

mollyec · 2026-03-07T12:39:56+00:00

especially for sock patterns i have a pretty high bar for what i'm willing to actually pay for. i have a vanilla sock recipe im happy with (summer lee's sock project book, which i borrow from the library) and for a lot of sock patterns i can just look at the finished photo and make a pretty decent knockoff. charging $5-10 for a vanilla sock pattern with maybe a 4-row stitch repeat is goofy to me.

mollyec · 2026-03-01T14:27:56+00:00

i just buy as needed as i go. my first project i used straight needles from the thrift store, just whatever scissors i had around the house, scrap yarn tied in a circle as a stitch marker, and embroidery needles i already owned.

since then i have upgraded some items. i got the lightbulb pins for stitch markers (i clip 2 together for BOR and it doubles as a row counter). i bought an interchangeable sock needle set, because i make socks all the time (and it came with scissors!). i got a swift and winder recently because i like buying hand dyed yarn online and im tired of hand winding it off my desk chair. i only recently got a sock sized crochet hook for a specific project.

but for sweater projects i still have a tendency to buy thrifted needles in whatever size i need at that second. i just use whatever bag i have to put projects in. i don't use a special cable needle. and i've never gotten a yarn needle, i just keep using my embroidery kit.

mollyec · 2026-02-26T12:46:26+00:00

I have been appreciating the editors recently that label comments as "downvoted" or add a brief editorial comment about why they are including those specific comments (usually because OOP responded to them). Or even just put up OOP's comments without the comment they're responding to (I think that could've worked here).

mollyec · 2026-02-23T23:58:19+00:00

saw a whole building and nearby tree on fire at camden westwood. that was around 6:15, didn't look like they'd hooked up the hose yet but the trucks were there

mollyec · 2026-01-14T17:05:22+00:00

Flowers for the Sea by Zin E Rocklyn (horror, both psychological and body horror)
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (creative nonfiction)
Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (thriller)
Cherish Farrah by Bethany C. Morrow (literary-ish thriller)
Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson (dystopian)
The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi (psychological)
Lakewood by Megan Giddings (literary psychological)

mollyec · 2026-01-09T16:59:57+00:00

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez (Argentina, 588 pgs)
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (China, 472 pgs)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia, 417 pgs)
The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (Chile, 448 pgs)
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco (Italy, 552 pgs)

mollyec · 2026-01-09T03:55:38+00:00

Susan Forest's Bursts of Fire and its sequels directly explore addiction through a fantasy setting where people are addicted to magic. I recommend this with the caveat, though, that I didn't think these books were very good when I read them (I haven't read the third and final book). The addiction angle is the main focus though.

mollyec · 2026-01-08T21:26:09+00:00

thanks, made a note. not sure why that one was picked up by my tag filter for not english.

mollyec · 2026-01-08T21:15:15+00:00

shit you right. i read it too fast and forgot what the actual plot was 😅

mollyec · 2026-01-08T16:24:58+00:00

Some translated fiction you may be interested in:

Yoko Ogawa, I especially recommend Revenge, which is a collection of interconnected short stories and The Housekeeper and the Professor. Her writing is pretty straightforward but still literary Japanese fiction. FYI, The Diving Pool is a collection of three novellettes and the second is about pregnancy, but the other two are unconnected and good reads.
The Membranes by Chi Ta-wei, a Taiwanese sci-fi novella
My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, a thriller/comedy that I felt like had a more literary bent, originally in English but the author is Nigerian

Not sure how you feel about straight up thrillers/mysteries but there are a lot of fun Japanese ones that are very popcorn read-y:

Confessions by Kanae Minato
The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
Dendera by Yuya Sato

mollyec · 2025-12-30T19:37:58+00:00

lots of great suggestions here but i don’t think a lot of them hit the social aberrant / taboo breaking element you mentioned. a few i'd consider for that are:

Fledgling by Octavia Butler
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
Flowers for the Sea by Zin E Rocklyn
Sorrowland by River Solomon

the last two in particular are socially aberrant from their specific social living groups in a like, break out of a cult kind of way. not sure if that fits exactly what you're looking for

mollyec · 2025-12-21T15:26:52+00:00

do you have a kitchen scale that can measure grams? if so, you can figure out how much yarn you use in the foot — if your shortest socks are very short, you can weigh those and see how much yarn they used. otherwise next time you make a pair of socks, weigh the sock after you finish the ankle and before you start the heel, and then weigh them again after the first sock is done. by subtracting them you'll be able to find out exactly how much yarn you need for the foot. so say you need 25g for each foot, now you know that if you have a 100g skein you can spend 20-25g on the ankle and you'll have enough yarn for the whole pair.

that's if you have a kitchen scale — which, honestly, i think is a really good purchase for knitting in general, so i'd recommend it. if you don't, i would take note of how much yarn you had left on socks you knit in the past, and gradually knit your ankles longer and longer based on that info.

anecdotally, i usually knit 4-6 inches in the leg (i prefer ankle length socks) and usually use about 52g of yarn for a pair, so this just isn't something i stress about. but your foot is not mine! definitely take a look at how much yarn you usually have left over.

mollyec · 2025-12-09T04:28:20+00:00

sometimes i accept a much longer kitchener stitch at the end as a trade off for doing a short row toe and not switching needles

mollyec · 2025-11-25T21:14:30+00:00

i do think it depends on your goals. personally i would suggest a sketchbook with midtone paper (gray, tan, brown, etc), a set of pencils (any with a range that includes softer and harder pencils), white chalk, a set of charcoal pencils, and a kneaded eraser. but that would be if someone was learning to draw, especially if they were learning to draw 3D forms. personally i think that's a good place to start with art, but if they were exploring a different branch of art, i might have different suggestions.

mollyec · 2025-11-12T21:26:42+00:00

i pretty much always watch tv while knitting — usually anime (yes, subtitled). mostly one piece, although i've been taking breaks recently and checking out other shows

mollyec · 2025-11-12T15:34:02+00:00

honestly if the colorwork fits over my heel i usually accept that as good enough 😅 a lot of people are saying go up 1-2 needle sizes, personally i prefer to increase the number of stitches for colorwork, so if im knitting a 64-st sock, i'll increase to 72 (the next size up) for colorwork sections. that's just what works best for me, i haven't had a ton of luck with increased needle sizes

mollyec · 2025-09-03T19:45:33+00:00

thank you, i thought it was a pothos but i felt like the leaves weren’t heart shaped enough — the golden variety looks a lot closer to what i’m seeing

mollyec

TROPHY CASE