Catalystcorvid - Whimsy, Creativity, Delight.

Where to Find Free, Legal Books

If you have access to a public library and/or have college credentials;

Libby - Ebooks, digital audiobooks, and magazines from your public library. Free, but requires a library card. Materials aren't infinite, so popular titles will often have a several week long waitlist. If you're in the US (or sufficiently crafty) you can sign up for a free card from the Queer Liberation Library.

Hoopla - Another service often bundled with a library card. The selection is smaller than Libby, but you have a limited number of instant borrows per month to cash in.

EBSCOhost Research - Ebooks and research materials, usually offered through a college. Where I do most of my reading lately, TBH.

Worldcat - Browse the world’s libraries from one search box. Easiest way to find out where to go to check out a book if you can't find it at your usual spot.

US residents will likely have a public library near them, but if you cannot go in person and sign up, there are a number of public libraries that don't require anything but a local address to get an Ecard. The libraries that offer this change frequently, so ask around.

Also keep in mind that US public libraries don't typically purchase self published material. If you're looking for your favorite tumblr author's book, you might want to try the links below instead.

If you can't get a library card (or couldn't find what you're looking for)

Open Library - Large collection of ebooks. Some materials may not be available currently due to ongoing legal issues.

Project Gutenburg - Another huge collection of ebooks, probably the most well-known option on this list.

Standard Ebooks - Professionally formatted public domain ebooks (sourced from places like Project Gutenburg but then turned into dynamic epubs)

LibriVox - Public Domain Audiobooks. Extremely limited library, but provides a rare service.

Audible Free Trial - Amazon offers a free trial of their service, with one free title on signup. You need a viable payment method to get access, but you keep the book even after you cancel. Don't give Amazon your money, folks.

I'd also recommend trawling youtube and soundcloud for user-made audiobooks. The quality varies, but I've been surprised at the results.

Other cool resources

StoryGraph - A non-Amazon GoodReads alternative, for those who like to challenge themselves to read more or enjoy writing book reviews.

Banned books list - Around since 1994 and currently still updated weekly, this site showcases books that are either banned or have been attempted to have been banned somewhere in the US. Some are available to read for free on site.

Feeding the Worms

Ever since I found out that earth worms have taste buds all over the delicate pink string of their bodies, I pause dropping apple peels into the compost bin, imagine the dark, writhing ecstasy, the sweetness of apples permeating their pores. I offer beets and parsley, avocado, and melon, the feathery tops of carrots. I’d always thought theirs a menial life, eyeless and hidden, almost vulgar–though now, it seems, they bear a pleasure so sublime, so decadent, I want to contribute however I can, forgetting, a moment, my place on the menu.

Bonfire Opera - Danusha Laméris

oh, that’s fluff. that’s fluff of my character that I think should get run over by a bus.

Geocentric

Indecent, self-soiled, bilious reek of turnip and toadstool decay, dribbling the black oil of wilted succulents, the brown fester of rotting orchids, in plain view, that stain of stinkhorn down your front, that leaking roil of bracket fungi down your back, you purple-haired, grainy-fuzzed smolder of refuse, fathering fumes and boils and powdery mildews, enduring the constant interruption of sink-mire flatulence, contagious with ear wax, corn smut, blister rust, backwash and graveyard debris, rich with manure bog and dry-rot harboring not only egg-addled garbage and wrinkled lip of orange-peel mold but also the clotted breath of overripe radish and burnt leek, bearing every dank, malodorous rut and scarp, all sulphur fissures and fetid hillside seepages, old, old dependable, engendering forever the stench and stretch and warm seethe of inevitable putrefaction, nobody loves you as I do.

Geocentric: Poems - Pattiann Rogers

This morning I was walking through Manhattan, head down, checking directions, when I looked up to see a fruit truck selling lychee, two pounds for five bucks, and I had ten bucks in my pocket! Then while buying my bus ticket for later that evening I witnessed the Transbridge teller’s face soften after she had endured a couple unusually rude interactions in front of me as I kept eye contact and thanked her. She called me honey first (delight), baby second (delight), and almost smiled before I turned away. On my way to the Flatiron building there was an aisle of kousa dogwood—looking parched, but still, the prickly knobs of fruit nestled beneath the leaves. A cup of coffee from a well-shaped cup. A fly, its wings hauling all the light in the room, landing on the porcelain handle as if to say, “Notice the precise flare of this handle, as though designed for the romance between the thumb and index finger that holding a cup can be.” Or the peanut butter salty enough. Or the light blue bike the man pushed through the lobby. Or the topknot of the barista. Or the sweet glance of the man in his stylish short pants (well-lotioned ankles gleaming beneath) walking two little dogs. Or the woman stepping in and out of her shoe, her foot curling up and stretching out and curling up.

The Book of Delights - Ross Gay

Start

nobody is thinking about princess dick enough these days. have you noticed this

why is being creative immediately associated with shame. “yeah i’m a writer but i’ve never published anything.” “yeah i’m an artist but i’ve never sold a piece.” why do we always feel the need to immediately discount the great achievement that is creating something from nothing. give yourself some credit. you made something and that’s what matters

I've been writing more at work in-between customer interactions. Upside is that I can hit my daily goal before I'm even off for the day (and I technically get paid to do it!). All I gotta do is transcribe it into Obsidian when I get home. The downside is I get interrupted often and keep losing really good lines x_x Poor one out for all those bursts of inspiration that get squashed before they make it onto the page