[syndicated profile] smartbitches_feed

Posted by Amanda

Welcome back!

It’s a short and sweet release week for us. Only three books to mention before we head into December. We have a fantasy romance, historical, and contemporary.

Which new releases are on your TBR pile this week? Let us know in the comments!

Ember Eternal

Ember Eternal by Chloe Neill

Author: Chloe Neill
Released: November 25, 2025 by Ace
Genre: , ,
Series: Souls Burn Brightest #1

A new romantasy, following a thief whose dramatic encounter with an assassin and a crown bodyguard (who happens to be a royal in disguise) launches her into a world of swirling palace intrigue, from New York Times bestselling author Chloe Neill.

Fox is a thief with morals—she steals from those who can afford it and only a little at that. She has no choice. Fox and her three closest companions entered into indentured servitude to the Lady, a mysterious noble with widespread political power by questionable means, in order to pay off familial debts. While searching for an easy mark in town, Fox helps a royal bodyguard fend off a would-be assassin’s attack on a prince’s life.

But what started off as protecting the prince out of good conscience has now unwittingly embroiled this thief in a vast world of politics, high stakes, and romance. And though Fox longs to be free of her debts, she must decide if love is its own kind of cage.

Amanda: A royal in disguise and a thief!

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

The Marriage Method

The Marriage Method by Mimi Matthews

Author: Mimi Matthews
Released: November 25, 2025 by Berkley
Genre: ,
Series: The Crinoline Academy #2

The Academy always comes first . . . which makes marriage to its most formidable adversary an exceedingly inconvenient arrangement.

Well removed from London’s more curious eyes, the Benevolent Academy for the Betterment of Young Ladies strives toward one clandestine goal: to distract, disrupt, and discredit men in power who would seek to harm the advancement of women—by appropriate means, of course.

When intrepid newspaper editor Miles Quincy starts to question the school’s intentions, the Academy appoints Penelope “Nell” Trewlove, one of their brightest graduates, to put this nuisance to rest. An easy enough mission, she supposes. Or it would be, if Miles wasn’t so fascinating—too fascinating to resist—and if Nell’s visit to London didn’t perfectly coincide with the murder of one of Miles’s reporters.

When the inexorable claws of fate trap Nell and Miles in a compromising situation, they agree to an arrangement that will save their reputations while enabling them to investigate the story that led to a man’s death, as well as the surprising chemistry between them . . .

Lara: I tend to love Mimi Matthews books, but there’s something extra special about this series and this book is no exception to that. Full review.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

Second Chance Romance

Second Chance Romance by Olivia Dade

Author: Olivia Dade
Released: November 25, 2025 by Avon
Genre: ,
Series: Harlot's Bay #2

In the second installment of USA Today bestselling author Olivia Dade’s Harlot’s Bay series, a mistaken obituary leads to the reunion of two former high school crushes. Sparks fly in this hilarious grumpy/grumpy romance, packed with Dade’s signature body positivity and a delicious amount of spice.

Karl and Molly were never together. There was a time, right after high school, where it seemed like they might finally cross the line from friends to lovers…but instead, a foolish misunderstanding meant they never spoke again. Molly went to LA and got married. Karl stayed in Harlot’s Bay and bought a bakery.

The only connection the pair has shared over the years is painfully one-sided: Now divorced, Molly narrates monster romance audiobooks, and Karl is an ever-diligent listener, clinging to his only piece of the one that got away.

Still, Molly hasn’t totally left Harlot’s Bay behind. When she hears that Karl’s obituary has run in the local paper, unexpected grief prompts her to hop on the next flight to Maryland…where she finds Karl very much alive, the victim of nothing but an accidental obituary.

As the pair reunite, they finally hash out their missed connection. True, Molly isn’t quite ready to trust again, but Karl is determined to prove himself worthy of her faith and devotion. And as her remaining time in Harlot’s Bay ticks down, Molly, the habitual cynic, just might find that Karl, the cranky town curmudgeon, is impossible to leave behind a second time.

Book two in the Harlot’s Bay series.

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

you're such an ox

Nov. 25th, 2025 01:11 am
darkoshi: (Default)
[personal profile] darkoshi
The lyrics of this Mozart song surprised and amused me.

Bona nox


Video title: Mozart - Bona nox
Posted by: margotlorena2
Date posted: Jun 2, 2012


I didn't realize right away, but the lyrics are "Good night" in 5 languages, with each following verse (even the "pfui! pfui!") a rhyme of the preceding Good Night phrase.

Hiding from M.I.C.E.

Nov. 25th, 2025 12:00 am
[syndicated profile] kevinandkell_feed

Comic for Tuesday November 25th, 2025 - "Hiding from M.I.C.E." [ view ]

On this day in 1996, Kevin was out walking Coney in her stroller when his brother-in-law Ralph decided to pay them a little visit... [ view ]

Today's Daily Sponsor - Kate Goodman says, "Kagey says resist M.I.C.E." [ support ]

Stories! The Vertigo Project

Nov. 24th, 2025 09:38 pm
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
[personal profile] mrissa posted about her contributions to The Vertigo Project, a generous handful of poems and stories (and journal prompts, and more).

I especially loved the last two stories:

She Wavers But She Does Not Weaken (story), when the waves hit you even on dry land, it's good to have someone who's willing to swim against the current for you

The Torn Map (story), rewriting the pieces of the former world into something new

Links: Anti-AI

Nov. 23rd, 2025 09:36 pm
sonia: Quilted wall-hanging (Default)
[personal profile] sonia
The Right to Say "No" by Audrey Watters. A rant about AI, eugenics, and Epstein (no details).
There is a real rot at the core of many of our institutions – and certainly at the core of those powerful players operating within and adjacent to them. "Artificial intelligence" emerges from this rot. It cannot be a bulwark against it.


Why Science’s press team won’t be using AI to write releases anytime soon by Emily Underwood at The Last Word On Nothing.
Every time a translator takes a book and puts it in their own words, they are interpreting the material slightly differently. What we found was that ChatGPT Plus couldn’t do that. It could regurgitate or transcribe, but it couldn’t achieve the nuance to count as its own interpretation of a study.

I think that’s because ChatGPT Plus isn’t in society — it doesn’t interact with the world. It’s predictive, but it’s not distilling or conceptualizing what matters most to a human audience, or the value that we place in narratives that are ingrained in our society. [...]

Now, after this experiment, we’re very against using it. After a year of data, we know it can’t meet our standards. If we ever did plan to use it, we’d have to implement super rigorous fact-checking, because we don’t want to lose reporters’ trust.


The AI Invasion of Knitting and Crochet by Jonathan Bailey in Plagiarism Today.
Creating a pattern requires considering the entire work; each step has to fit with and work with all the others. Blindly selecting the next step without that consideration will, more often than not, fail. This is especially true since AI can’t “test” the pattern after writing it, which is a big part of what humans do. [...]

However, the best and simplest advice is to buy from patternmakers that you trust. If you know someone who is a human making high-quality patterns, turn to them first. Rewarding known human creators rather than chasing the cheapest pattern is the best way to avoid buying AI slop.

(no subject)

Nov. 24th, 2025 11:41 pm
sixbeforelunch: image of a cat peaking out from behind a row of books, no text (cat and book)
[personal profile] sixbeforelunch
If I had a dollar for every time I've read a science fiction novel about a female protagonist who travels to another planet and discovers she's being manipulated by an infectious alien hive mind, I would have at least three dollars (four, if I include the book where another member of the crew is taken over by the aliens but the protagonist herself is IIRC never directly touched by them).

IDK but in context that feels like kind of a lot of dollars.

Petrichor

Nov. 24th, 2025 11:26 pm
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
[personal profile] aurumcalendula
I'm revisiting Petrichor (I'd gotten busy after the second episode and didn't get around to picking it back up until now).

Episode 3:

Read more... )

Episode 4:

Read more... )

Episode 5:

Read more... )
[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

Tomorrow I will be delivering the keynote address to the international conference on "China and Greece. Ancient Ecumenisms in the Mirror", to be held at the Dipartimento Asia, Africa e Mediterraneo (DAAM) of Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale" in late November (actually tomorrow, Tuesday the 25th; here's the zoom link for my talk at 9:30 AM EST).

In preparing for my lecture on "Isidore of Seville and the medieval concept of the ecumene", I was delighted to learn more about this remarkable man.  Isidorus Hispalensis, who lived from ca. 560-636. was a Hispano-Roman scholar, theologian, and the archbishop of Seville.  During his lifetime, he was active in the politico-religious affairs of Iberia, including most prominently the conversion of the Visigothic kings to Chalcedonian Christianity.  After his death, Isidore's legacy was based largely on his celebrated Etymologiae, an encyclopedia that brought together extracts of works from classical antiquity that would otherwise have  been lost.

Another notable contribution of Isidore's Etymologiae is that it helped to standardize the use of punctuation marks — period, comma, and colon.

Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae does not provide a specific entry for the term "ecumene" (oikouméne) in the way one might expect a modern dictionary to, but his work explains the world geographically and includes a T-O map that divides the world into the three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. The book defines "oikouméne" by describing the inhabited world as divided among the sons of Noah, a concept found in his work

A T and O map or O–T or T–O map (orbis terrarum, orb or circle of the lands; with the letter T inside an O), also known as an Isidoran map, is a type of early world map that represents the Afro-Eurasian landmass as a circle (= O) divided into three parts by a T-shaped combination of the Mediterranean sea, the river Tanais (Don) and the Nile.  The origins of this diagram are contested, with some scholars hypothesizing an origin in Roman or late antiquity, while others consider it to have originated in 7th or early-8th century Spain.

This T and O map, from the first printed version of Isidore's Etymologiae, identifies the three known continents as populated by descendants of Sem (Shem), Iafeth (Japheth) and Cham (Ham).

(Wikipedia)

 

Selected readings

  • "Lhomond" (6/6/15) — this comment
  • "Anamnesis" (10/27/18) — this comment ("patron saint of unreliable information found on the internet")

[Thanks to Joe Farrell and Ralph Rosen]

Narrative.

Nov. 24th, 2025 10:15 pm
hannah: (Laundry jam - fooish_icons)
[personal profile] hannah
In folding laundry, I found I'd lost a wash cloth. In going down to the laundry room to check, I found the woman who only had bills, no quarters, hadn't seen it either. In talking her through my decision making process and to not waste an elevator trip, I take her up to my apartment with me to trade her a roll of quarters for the appropriate amount in small bills.

In checking what I'd already put away, I found the missing wash cloth.

One of those strings of events where I can't find it in myself to be upset about the inciting inconvenience.

(no subject)

Nov. 24th, 2025 04:45 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel
Back in 2018-19, Loki spent about 9 months in a cone, because he wouldn't stop killing his tail. cw: mention of medical saga )

And then randomly, he stopped. Since then he does still attack his tail sometimes (occasionally seeming extremely annoyed by it) but without making it bloody. I sort of get the impression he doesn't really understand that his tail is even attached to him, let alone part of him. Sometimes he shoves his tail down, stalks to a different bed, and gets upset that it followed him. Sometimes it feels like, to him, he bites the wiggly thing and then it bites him back.

But regardless, he wasn't doing serious damage.

Until last week.

We noticed a spot on the underside of his tail that he seemed to have licked bare. Then it bled a bit. So Friday was Vet Day. They shaved the area, cleaned it up, and gave him an antibiotic shot because it looked like he had just ... chomped way too hard.

So he's back in a cone. Hopefully it's just for the 10-14 days recommended by the vet. But. It's a different spot, but he does have history with, erm, tail issues.

If he continues with his tail the way he did in 2018... cw: mention of potential medical procedures )

Right now the dogs are banished from my bedroom so that Loki can have easier access to food/water and to litterbox. They are confused by this. Loki has been extremely clingy, jumping on my lap pretty much every time I'm in there and sleeping on me probably 80% of the night. I don't actually mind providing extra cuddles! But I think all of us will be happy when things go back to normal...

[ SECRET POST #6898 ]

Nov. 24th, 2025 06:37 pm
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[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6898 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #985.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Spider Videos

Nov. 24th, 2025 06:29 pm
moon_custafer: neon cat mask (Default)
[personal profile] moon_custafer
Found a whole YouTube channel about spiders, very informative, but I also like that the theme song is just:

(The video maker, his voice doubled with recording technology, singing lackadaisically) THESE are the SPIDERS in your HOUSE

Sometimes he changes it up: THESE are the SPIders in your YAAAARD.

This one also has some nice footage of St. John’s, Newfoundland: THREE DAYS with SPIDER SCIENTISTS

For the video on spider cognition: The MINDS of the SPIDERS in your HOUSE
sovay: (Sydney Carton)
[personal profile] sovay
Only a day or two late, I saw a classic new moon in the old moon's arms as I walked around the neighborhood just after sunset, the reflection-white crescent and its charcoal-colored cradle like an eclipse in monochrome. The sky was its usual clear apple-blue in the east and then sank. I am not sure I have ever had this much difficulty with the early dark between the clocks falling back and the solstice. I am awake most of the days and there still doesn't seem to be any light in them.

I slept last night. I would like not to have to record it as a milestone. It feels a little unnecessarily on the nose that I was woken out of some complex dream by a phone call from a doctor's office. Most of them lately have some unsurprising insecurity in them: slow-motion cataclysm, as if it makes much difference from being awake. Last night, something about a house with tide-lines on its walls, as if it regularly flooded to the beams.

Describing the 1978 BBC As You Like It to [personal profile] spatch made me realize how few of Shakespeare's comedies I have actually seen when compared with the tragedies, the late romances, the history or the problem plays. A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night would be the predictable exceptions in that I am verging on more productions of either than I can count without thinking about it, but I am three Winter's Tales to zero Comedies of Errors. I've seen Timon of Athens and not All's Well That Ends Well. One Richard II and neither of the Two Gentlemen of Verona. It begins to feel accidental that I caught The Merry Wives of Windsor in college.

I really appreciate [personal profile] asakiyume sending me Hen Ogledd's "Scales Will Fall" (2025) and [personal profile] ashlyme alerting me to the trans-Neptunian existence of the sednoid Ammonite.

Book recommendations from Philcon

Nov. 24th, 2025 05:23 pm
nancylebov: (green leaves)
[personal profile] nancylebov
Notes from the Best SF Books of 2025 panel at Philcon.

A Tangle of Time (sequel to the Hexologists)

Wearing the Lion (Wiswell, story about Hercules)

Aftertaste (LaVelle) ghosts and cooking

The Splinter Effect (I think it's the one where time travel makes it possible to go into the past, but not carry things forward-- if you want to protect an artifact, you have to hide it somewhere in its time and find it again in your time)

The Will of the Many (elite academy gets a student who won't get sucked into the hierarchy)

The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association-- complications when a werewolf daughter goes to a dangerous magic school

The Stardust Grail (finding a major alien artifact)

Inventing the Renaissance (non-fiction by Ada Palmer-- the premise is that the Renaissance wasn't really a thing. From things she said, the glorious eras when the rich commission wonderful things aren't great times to live-- if the rich are competing that hard, power is shaky and the fighting affects the non-rich)

What We Can Know (tracking down a poem after worldwide catastrophe)

Isabella Nagg and the Pot of Basil (woman with limited life gets into magic)

The Mars House (people on Mars are dealing with hazardously strong people from earth, how can they live together? I'll note that I could write the premise of this from memory, unlike many of the others where I used amazon)

Those Beyond the Walls (dystopia, murder mystery)
[syndicated profile] visualcapitalist_rss_feed

Posted by Niccolo Conte

See more visualizations like this on the Voronoi app.

chart of real home price and rent price changes in major global cities from 2015 to 2025

Use This Visualization

Charted: Home and Rent Price Changes in Global Cities (2015-2025)

See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.

Key Takeaways

  • Miami leads all cities with 93.1% growth in real home prices over the last decade, far exceeding its rent increase of 12.7%.
  • Madrid’s rents jumped 48%, the largest rental rise globally, driven by surging tourism and short-term rental demand, while its home prices climbed about 42%.
  • Most cities saw property values outpace rental price growth, but some major cities like New York, Milan, London, and Hong Kong saw declines in both.

From 2015 to 2025, global real estate markets experienced significant divergence between real home price growth and rent price growth.

While most major cities saw home values rise faster than rents, a few key markets—particularly in Europe and Asia—showed softening property prices amid slowing demand and tighter credit conditions.

This visualization highlights 25 major global cities from the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2025, comparing inflation-adjusted percentage changes in both home and rental prices over the past decade.

Miami Leads Global Home Price Growth Since 2015

Miami topped the list with a staggering 93.1% increase in real home prices, showing the strongest decade-long appreciation globally.

Despite this, rent prices grew only 12.7%, reflecting a widening affordability gap.

The data table below shows the real home price change and real rent price change across 25 major cities around the world.

CityReal home price change (2015-2025)Real rental price change (2015-2025)
🇺🇸 Miami, United States93.1%12.7%
🇯🇵 Tokyo, Japan66.0%23.1%
🇳🇱 Amsterdam, Netherlands64.4%17.2%
🇨🇦 Toronto, Canada48.0%8.3%
🇪🇸 Madrid, Spain42.4%48.0%
🇨🇭 Zurich, Switzerland42.4%23.1%
🇩🇪 Frankfurt, Germany42.4%14.9%
🇺🇸 Los Angeles, United States42.4%-2.0%
🇨🇦 Vancouver, Canada39.7%21.9%
🇩🇪 Munich, Germany30.5%18.4%
🇸🇬 Singapore25.5%21.9%
🇨🇭 Geneva, Switzerland17.2%1.0%
🇦🇺 Sydney, Australia16.1%17.2%
🇦🇪 Dubai, UAE12.7%2.0%
🇺🇸 San Francisco, United States7.2%-19.1%
🇫🇷 Paris, France0.0%-8.6%
🇮🇹 Milan, Italy-4.9%-3.0%
🇺🇸 New York, United States-4.9%-7.7%
🇬🇧 London, United Kingdom-10.5%-10.5%
🇧🇷 São Paulo, Brazil-19.1%-3.0%
🇭🇰 Hong Kong-19.9%-11.4%

Similar trends occurred in other North American cities: Toronto’s home prices rose 48%, while rents climbed a modest 8.3%, and Vancouver saw a 39.7% jump in property values compared to 21.9% rent growth.

These disparities underscore how ownership demand in North America—fueled by migration, investment, and limited supply—has far outpaced rental market fundamentals.

New York City was an outlier, with declines in both home and rent prices of 4.9% and 7.7% respectively.

Europe’s Home and Rent Price Changes Vary

Europe’s housing performance was varied, with Madrid being an outlier with significant increases especially in rent prices.

Madrid saw home prices rise by 42.4%, while rents surged 48%, the steepest rental increase among all major global cities. This reflects Spain’s booming short-term rental sector and tourism rebound.

In contrast, London’s property and rent prices have fallen 10.5% since 2015, potentially reflecting Brexit’s lingering effects and the significant millionaire exodus the country faces.

Milan was another city which saw declines in both metrics, with a 4.9% and 3% fall in property and rental prices.

Meanwhile, Zurich and Munich both saw double-digit home price increases of 42.4% and 30.5%, with rent gains also in the double digits at 23.1% and 18.4%, respectively.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

To learn more about rent prices around the world, check out this graphic which shows the global cities with the highest rent prices on the Voronoi app.

muccamukk: Wanda walking away, surrounded by towering black trees, her red cloak bright. (Default)
[personal profile] muccamukk
Mooooooost of the politics mentioned are Canadian, a couple U.S. links in there.

Anti-Trans Bull Shit in Alberta
Stop Smith: Danielle Smith wants to take our rights and freedoms away. Help push back..
A petition.

Momentum: Join our mass organizing call on Wednesday, November 26th to help us turn the tide and stop Danielle Smith's assault on freedom, rights and trans kids..
Organising calls for both Alberta and elsewhere.

Putting the context behind a cut. Anti-trans violence discussed )


Other Canadian Politics Stuff I'm Mad About:
Most of these are from leftist rags, because other news sources make me tired, y'all. Just posting links. Cut for CanPol Fuckery )


Miscellaneous. Kinda Downer Stuff?
[youtube.com profile] caelanconrad: ChatGPT Kіlled Again - Four more Dеad (Video: 42min).
Ban. It. Ban it now. What the fuck!?

Dromline: When Your Favourite Author is Dead to You.
About Neil Gaiman, who the author was a lot more attached to than I ever was. Interviews Nalo Hopkinson and Tara Prescott-Johnson!

The Tyee: The Librarians Traces the Battle of a Lifetime.
Review of a documentary about book bans in Texas.


Miscellaneous. Not Completely Horrible Stuff?
Everyday Feminism: 8 Critical Things to Remember When Booking a Trans Performer.
Both funny and containing alarming examples from Kai and Ivan's lives.

Trauma Rewired: Self Compassion and How The Science of Kindness Changes Your Brain (Audio: 50min).
I find Dr. Kristin Neff's stuff helpful, though I know millage varies.

The Comics Journal: Talking Oglaf with Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne: "We’d stay up all night drawing stuff to make each other laugh".
Really fun interview!
tamaranth: me, in the sun (Default)
[personal profile] tamaranth
2025/187: The Fall of Troy — Peter Ackroyd
There are many Turks who believe that the capture of Constantinople was a just vengeance for the fall of Troy. The Greeks were at last made to pay for their perfidy. [loc. 2376]

Reread: my review from 2010 is here. I remembered nothing at all about this novel! Apparently I purchased a paperback copy in 2007: as with almost all of his other novels, no Kindle edition is available.

Ackroyd bases his novel on the life of Heinrich Schliemann, who first excavated Troy, and his marriage to a much younger woman, a Greek (famously chosen on the basis of a photograph and 'Homeric spirit'). Ackroyd's fictional archaeologist is named Heinrich Obermann, and he has all of Schliemann's flaws and more:Read more... )