hello friends!

here are some ways to read books for free online:

also, if you're in the US and have a library card, which you can get by contacting your local library, you can type your library card number into the free website/app libby and get access to ebooks and audiobooks that your library carries. These books will automatically return themselves when your loan is up, preventing late fees. you can take in the ebooks and audiobooks directly through the website and the app, and the syncing works really well - I'm often switching between phone and laptop and libby makes it as seamless as possible.

I'm also putting together a library of PDFs of books in the public domain, it's a work-in-progress but you can find it here.

here are some cool websites:

bookshop.org - a website that sources books through small bookstores near you for purchase, so you don't have to go through Amazon. now providing ebooks too!
CD-ROM journal - description: "Exploring multimedia games and software of the 90s and beyond."
Don't Just Do Nothing - description: a zine and article, "20 Things You Can Do to Counter Fascism"
DOOM PDF - description: you can play DOOM as a PDF!
Every Noise at Once - description: "a long-running attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space"
Libby - description: a free avenue to take in ebooks and audiobooks from your public library!
Math is Fun - description: "We offer mathematics in an enjoyable and easy-to-learn manner, because we believe that mathematics is fun."
NetHack - description: "NetHack is a single player dungeon exploration game that runs on a wide variety of computer systems, with a variety of graphical and text interfaces all using the same game engine." One of my all-time favorite games, it was first released in 1987, is open-source and freely downloadable, has a miniscule file size, and is one of the original set of "roguelike" games.
Project Implicit - description: some tests to see what your innate biases are.
Public Domain Image Archive - description: a "hand-picked collection of out-of-copyright works, free for all to browse, download, and reuse."
Video Game History Foundation - description: "a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and teaching the history of video games." Also provides a digital archive of video game history research materials.
Wikipedia - description: "The Free Encyclopedia"

here are some books I think are neat:

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer - nonfiction, autobiograpy, science - are you also megadepressed about how colonialism has affected everything it has come in contact with? this book feels like a necessary chaser for a viewing of koyaanisqatsi. determination, hope, life lessons, botany, important teachings, all woven together. the audiobook for this one is also read by the author, and worth listening to for the introduction all on its own. get the word reciprocity solidly locked into your vocabulary.
the Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin - fiction, fantasy - each book covers a section of the life of a wizard who Goes Through Some Shit. the second book is an absolute banger and could be read on its own imo.
The Way Life Works by Mahlon B. Hoagland and Bert Dodson - nonfiction, biology - a beautifully illustrated and easy-to-read guide on the biological world we live in. one of my all-time favorite books. suitable for a small kid just starting to get interested in the natural world or for someone going through an intro course on microbiology, or anyone in between.

music I'm listening to this month:

Content Oscillator [Telehealth] - it's frankly the vibe this month.
Psychogeography [Anti-Spectacular] - hell of a first album. There Won't Be An Answer will not get out of my head.
Goths [The Mountain Goats] - if there's any time to listen to this album it's now. from the first track, Rain in Soho: "No town more barren than our town / No haven safer than the one they tore down / No greater love than to lay my life down for a friend / No sweeter pleasure than to see the credits clear through to the end"

here's some stuff I made:

thanks for visiting!

-jay