So grateful to @swampapereview.bsky.social for giving my essay “The Ghosts of Ticonderoga” a home! It’s an honor to be among this Spring’s contributors. Selections of the print issue are now available at www.swampapereview.com/vol-ix-2026 #nonfiction #narrativenonfiction #creativewriting

Surprise, Kill, Vanish: CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators & Assassins Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators & Assassins

Surprise, Kill, Vanish: CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators & Assassins

"When diplomacy fails & war is unwise, the president calls on the CIA's Special Activities Division"

Sale: $24 to $2.99

by Annie Jacobsen
Rating: 4.7/5 (4,566 Reviews)

#History #CIA #Espionage #Military #Nonfiction #BookSky

@barbmcquade.bsky.social
Upon reading your profile, I updated the #Libby app to include two of your #books: The Fix and Attack from Within for future listening and #reading. Tia!
#Audiobook
#Booksky #Ebook
#MediaStudies
#Nonfiction
#Politics #Sociology

A JOY to have the thoroughly original material of @anahein.bsky.social at @therumpus.net #creative #writing #bookreview #nonfiction

I already got you quoted and posted on another website with your "LOL", you are the one laughing and avoiding Dr. Bandy X Lee's #nonfiction serious books on paper. You are promoting hate and ignorance. I have documented it right here and off-site. You are #MAGA and in denial of it, you sold out good

#direwolfposting #kofi #books #author #writing #fantasy #horror #scifi #romance #nonfiction #booksky

Some wonderful new and upcoming history books from from of my favorite academic publishers, @princetonupress.bsky.social and @uchicagopress.bsky.social!

#Historathon #BookSky #Books #BookTube #Humanities #Nonfiction 💙📚

youtu.be/qkpqv3vNarI

Front cover of book London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe. Shows the Thames River in London with Tower Bridge in distance.

This is excellent so far. Really a page turner. #booksky #nonfiction #truecrime 💙📚

youtu.be/Za7vj1MiR1o

Didn't think I'd do this this soon, but, oh well...

#theheirslair #review #bookreview #nonfiction #supposedly #nonfictionreview #selfhelp #selfhelpreview #psychology #neuroanatomy

Sorry to interrupt your weekend plans, but we have an important announcement 👀

Doubleback Review’s 8:1 issue is being released in 4 DAYS!! 🎊 Our spring 2026 issue will be available everywhere on April 15, 2026!

#doublebackreview #litmag #poetry #fiction #nonfiction

Neil Postman 1985 "For all his perspicacity, George Orwell would have been stymied by this situation; there is nothing “Orwellian” about it. The President does not have the press under his thumb. The New York Times and The Washington Post are not Pravda; the Associated Press is not Tass. And there is no Newspeak here. Lies have not been defined as truth nor truth as lies. All that has happened is that the public has adjusted to incoherence and been amused into indifference. Which is why Aldous Huxley would not in the least be surprised by the story. Indeed, he prophesied its coming. He believed that it is far more likely that the Western democracies will dance and dream themselves into oblivion than march into it, single file and manacled. Huxley grasped, as Orwell did not, that it is not necessary to conceal anything from a public insensible to contradiction and narcoticized by technological diversions. Although Huxley did not specify that television would be our main line to the drug, he would have no difficulty accepting Robert MacNeil’s observation that “Television is the soma of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.” Big Brother turns out to be Howdy Doody." ― Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, year 1985, page 111

The greater issue is why you are being ignored on #Bluesky and #Reddit - the supposed "resistance" to Trump who has abandoned relevant #NonFiction #BookSky asserting and repeating.

Not all books at the public library are equal. Not all topics are equal. And Donald Trump is entertaining and amusing.

Cartoonish versions of Greek god Poseidon with trident, a bull, one-eye Cyclops, and snake-haired Medusa in center of book cover, under title Ken Jennings' Junior Genius Guides (with author in an airplane) and subtitle Greek Mythology below.

J is for #Jeopardy champ @kenjennings.bsky.social #MG #nonfiction JUNIOR GENIUS GUIDES: GREEK MYTHOLOGY, recommended at booksyalove.com?p=15083 . @ssedlib.bsky.social @atozchallenge.bsky.social #AtoZChallenge

#BookOfTheDay, April 11th - #NonFiction, #Rated5Stars

Available for only £1.99 on the publisher’s website! Get your copy below:

forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book...

Why Vietnam? by Margaret Colbert Brown

#VietnamWarHistory #InternationalRelations #Poetry #PoliticalFreedom #DiscountedBooks

The covers of three books to consider for my next listen. Science of revenge. Burn Bool or City of the Century.

Hey #booksky 📚💙I have a road trip for work coming up and can’t decide which #audiobook to tee up from this list. I welcome reviews/reccos (and warnings)! TIA!
#nonfiction #books #goodreads

Front cover image: author Martina as a baby.

The Bulgarian for ‘I Love You’, by Martina Mustafova

A meditation on death, loss and legacy bringing together the death of Mustafova's father from Covid-19, and the birth of her first daughter.

Head to the Wind&Bones bookshop to get your copy.

#booksky #balkans #Bulgaria #covid #death #nonfiction

Here is Kai on her piece, “Sending Warmth”!

We are missing being able to share these special pieces by Kai already! Keep your eyes on our page for the chance to own one of the pieces from this series 👀

#LitMag #Poetry #Fiction #Nonfiction #canadianart

» 5 Paying Literary Magazines to Submit to in April 2026 These magazines pay for fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. They are a mix of literary and genre magazines. Not all are open through the month.

Get paid for your #writing! 🤑

These #LitMags are paying writers up to €500 for #shortstory, #nonfiction, and #poetry submissions. 🤩

🔗 authorspublish.com/5-paying-lit...

Post Image

Check out my #review of #author Glenn Harrold's #AwakenandAscend! #nonfiction #spiritual #spirituality #bookreview #bookblog #authorblog

authoranthonyavina.com/2026/04/10/awaken-and-as...

@ryanjreilly.com
Upon #reading your profile, I updated the #Libby app folder to include your Sedition Hunters #book for future listening/reading. Tia!
#Audiobook
#Booksky #History
#Nonfiction
#Politics

@natehendley.bsky.social
Upon reading your profile, I tagged and updated the #Libby app folder with three of your #books: Atrocity on the Atlantic, The Beatle Bandit, and American Gangsters, Then and Now for future listening and #reading. Tia!
#Audiobook
#Booksky #History
#Military
#Nonfiction

We Need to Talk About Divorce: An Important Book About Separation, Stepfamilies, and Feeling Heard Kate Scharff Annika Le Large Neon Squid Publication date : March 4, 2025 64 pages, Paperback

Divorce can feel overwhelming for kids trying to make sense of a world that suddenly feels different. This thoughtful guide helps children understand something really important: their feelings are valid, normal and allowed to be heard.

@neonsquidbooks.bsky.social #KidLit #Nonfiction #Booksky

#rap #hiphop #judaism #logic #ethics #politics #philosophy #mathematics #settheory #deconstruction #buddhism #phenomenology #existentialism #numbertheory #metaphysics #epistemology #meta #writing #poetry #story #flashfiction #nonfiction #postmodern #editorial #opinion #history #economics

When The Hard Wood of The Cross Comes Down _I'm currently writing a kind of spiritual memoir. Not sure if I'll finish it or even publish it. But this felt like a section worth sharing here. For context, starting at age 10 I was involved with the audio visual crew at the large Baptist church where I grew up. I ran sound boards and other such equipment. This story comes out of that work. —Charles_ One of the major events of our year was “the Singing Cross.” So, like several Baptist churches of a certain size, we had a Christmastime play and choral performance known as the “Singing Christmas Tree” which involved the choir dressing up in like colonial-era costumes, positioning themselves inside an enormous multi-story Christmas tree built on the stage area of the church, singing various Christmas carols and hymns while actors (church volunteers) re-enacted the Nativity story. As far as I know, the First Baptist Church of Pine Hills was the only church to apply this same concept to an Easter-time performance that featured a set of wooden risers built into an enormous cross that dominated the stage. Flanking it on either side were sets built to look like an ancient Middle-Eastern town and house interior on one side and the tomb and Calvary of Jesus’ crucifixion and burial on the other. It was very elaborate. And a tad corny. The choir would wear former bed-sheets turned into Biblical costume, singing medleys and hymns while actors (church volunteers) performed a Passion Play. While the roles of Jesus and Pilate and Mary Magdalene were generally fixed (because the latter two were singing parts, but Jesus was played by a guy who happened to look a lot like the Caucasian images of Jesus one sees; he was one of the only people allowed to have a beard in our church), the other roles were sought after. I kind of always wanted to be one of the performers (I liked the Roman soldier costumes), but because I was one of the “Sound Guys” I always had backstage duty. When I was around 17, I had been given a bit of a promotion for this performance: I was to be in charge of lighting. The cross itself was trimmed in rope lights and there were lights for the various sets on the stage. My job was to be positioned underneath the cross and run a box. I’d wear a headset and Ed would call out my cues and I’d hit the requisite switches to adjust the lights according to what was happening. The area under the cross was cozy. It looked like the area underneath bleachers or an unfinished basement with wooden beams all around. Above me were the stepped platforms that our 100-member choir would be occupying during the performance. The wood would creak and crack from the weight, the same sounds as if someone is working on your roof. I had a little _puka_ at the transept area of the cross where I would sit. I pretended that I was in a space ship, receiving commands from mission control in my headset. We had a week of rehearsals and I got very comfortable in my little capsule, the cues becoming second nature. Day of the first performance I bring my mom backstage to show her everything and to show her where I’d be stationed. My mother is a bit… let’s say “overprotective.” Since I was an only child she worried and fretted over lots of things. I could tell she was uneasy seeing where I was. _Are you safe?_ was the question in her eyes. Around that time my friend Eric showed up. He was playing one of the thieves crucified next to Jesus, the one who didn’t have any lines. He was 6’2”, lean, and wearing only a white cloth around his waist. He looked around the underside of the cross and said “I wonder what would happen if this collapsed?” My mom’s eyes widened. Thanks, Eric. The show was about to begin. The lights dropped, Eric returned to his area off-stage and my mom joined my grandparents in our usual balcony front-row pew. I tucked into my space, donned my headset, and waited for my cue. The beginning of the performance left me with little to do. There was some narration and then the choir would be processing in and making their way up and into the cross. Once the lights were set for that section, there was a stretch where I had nothing to do but listen. I began to lay down, which had me going long-wise to the cross, my head underneath the stage-right section. But I worried that I might fall asleep and miss my cues, botching the first night of the performance. So I sat up, leaned forward, and cupped my hands to the headset, listening to the music. I could hear the creaks and cracks of Biblically-dressed bodies ascending the hard wood of the cross. Then there was a different sound. Deep. I felt shaking. I opened my eyes and instinctively looked to my right, where I had laid my head moments ago. It was there that I saw a mess of splintered wood and a pile of polyester Bible robes writhing around. One guy was dangling from above, holding on to dear life. Not sure if the whole thing was coming down or not, I threw off my headset and ran out from under the cross, stage-left. The side door was blocked by a plywood representation of the Upper Room. There was a gap between that and the cross. I saw a sea of stunned faces. I was about to head out when I heard my boss Ed’s mantra in my head, the mantra of all stage-hands: _You are not to be seen._ So I went back toward the cross. But there was no getting through the moaning disoriented mass. I decided that Ed’s words did not apply here and so began to make my way toward the stage. That’s when I heard it. When everyone heard it. What would become a sort of meme that followed me for years and still makes the occasional appearance when I’m around old church friends. Sharon had stopped playing the organ by the time I made my way to the stage. She was a consummate professional and had continued playing even as maybe thirty people vanished into a cruciform void before her eyes, as she tried to process the event as it transpired. It so happened that we had a camera trained on her at this moment. We recorded the Singing Cross every year and sold tapes of it. The footage of Sharon playing through disaster lives forever in my mind. But even Sharon knew that the performance was over and quit playing, leaving behind the sheerest silence I have ever heard in my life. Interrupted by a single voice, shrill and panicked. The voice of my mother. Most people know me as Charles. In school I was Chuck. But at home, to my grandparents and my mother, I was Chuckie. It was this name, screamed out from some primal maternal space within my mother, a scream that still echoes somewhere in the cosmos, emitted from the corner of Pine Hills Road and Powers Drive, that resonated the cavernous silent space that was the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Pine Hills. She stretched out the vowels to their auditory conclusions. That night, the name Chuckie both died and was born anew. I ran to center stage. To my surprise my mother was already making her way there. I thought she had lept off the balcony. She did not. But she did later admit she considered doing so. I reached out for her, she hugged me then grabbed my hand, squeezing it with adrenaline and making me understand those stories of mothers lifting cars to grab infants from underneath them. The only person who made it down as quickly as her was my grandfather. He was “Chuck.” I’m named after him, receiving the diminutive version of my name only as a matter of clarity and convenience in my family. “Daddy!” my mother said. “I’ve got him.” I don’t know if this is accurate, but the image I have of my grandfather from this moment is of him standing next to the pile of fallen choir members. He’s using a wide-leg stance and is holding a Bible robed choir member by the back of their collar and the back of their rope belt, chucking them to the side in a manner fitting of his name as he tried to get to what he believed was his grandson buried under the rubble. My mother yanked me out the side door, sat me down on a curb outside and demanded that I tell her I was okay. “I’m okay.” She was shaking and crying. I can’t blame her. I had just been inches from death. The section of the cross that collapsed was maybe two feet next to me. Had I laid down my kids would not be currently arguing about video games in the next room. Amazingly, no one died. Some broken bones though. 911 was called. The news showed up. They reported that a large “crucifix” had collapsed. This irritated me at the time, but now I wonder if wasn’t accurate in a way. After all, there were bodies on that cross. The next day I arrived at the church to help salvage what we could. It was there that we learned what caused the collapse. The cross was kept in storage and reused every year, reassembled according to instructions. Someone had put on a brace backward and so drilled a new hole into it to make it fit. This single hole affected the structural integrity enough to cause a collapse, even though it had been fine for all the rehearsals in the days prior. The church decided that the show must go on. The choir, of course, did not return to the cross. But it remained on stage for the remaining performances. Empty, broken, a string of lights dangling into the chasm on the left-hand side when viewed from the pews. All the result of a single mistake that compounded. This would turn out to be evocative of things to come, but I’m getting ahead of myself. *** _The Rev. Charles Browning II is the rector ofSaint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He is a husband, father, surfer, and frequent over-thinker. Follow him on Mastodon and Pixelfed_. #Jesus #Church #Anglican #Episcopalian #Christian #Baptist #Orlando #Florida

This is an excerpt from a memoir I'm kinda sorta writing. It's about the time a giant cross nearly killed me. Trust me, it's funnier than that sounds.

#Jesus #Cross #Church #Episcopalian #Baptist #Christian #NonFiction #Memoir

write.as/frchazzz/when-the-hard-w...

#story #flashfiction #nonfiction #postmodern #editorial #opinion #history #economics

Now reading “Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster” by Jacob Soboroff.
#NowReading #BookSky #NonFiction

My Kobo displaying the book cover for Gulp by Mary Roach.

#CurrentlyReading: Gulp by Mary Roach. I’ve never read Mary Roach before, and I am enjoying the hell out of it!!! Maybe too much! I wanted a #nonfiction book to read at night to make me sleepy, and #MaryRoach is WAY TOO FUNNY and interesting to make me fall asleep.

#booksky #amreading

Check out our #nonfiction books and authors that are hot this week!

📚💙 bit.ly/4jM73YT

#NewBooks @jeffjarvis.bsky.social

#flashfiction #nonfiction #postmodern #editorial #opinion #history #economics

Anne Lamott #writer #fiction #nonfiction
#book #booksky #CelebratingWomen #woman

bsky.app/profile/sown...

#epistemology #meta #writing #poetry #story #flashfiction #nonfiction #postmodern #editorial #opinion #history #economics