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What are you reading these days?
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
As per someone's suggestion here, I am reading Brandon Sanderson's The Final Empire, which I am pleasantly surprised to find I am enjoying. Generally, me and fantasy do not get on. But this is good. I mean, it's basically just a heist story so far, so that's good. The magic isn't silly, which is nice. I know Sanderson has a whole Thing about that and I'm on board with that. The characters are interesting and reasonably believable, he doesn't seem to be spending too much time having them stand around expositioning at each about the world's lore, which is something I really dislike. Yeah. It's fun. Hoping it will remain that way.
The Quijote has given up the ghost, that is to say, I have finished it. I've endured and passed beyond the sound and the fury of Moby-Dick. At long last, I've arrived to the hunting grounds of my own silvery whale, Gravity's Rainbow.
Growing up a bookish kid, names like Dostoevsky, Joyce, and Austen hung overhead like the height-marks of elder relatives, threatening unsurpassable depth and challenge, obviously better, more important, than any of the pulp novels and YA series I was able to confront in prepubescence. As 'learning' disability and the cynicism of networked living conspired with the rock-bleeding of the American school system to suffocate that joy in and admiration of literature, those same networks also delivered an image of the forefather of cyberpunk, the comic-apocalyptic bible delivering a new paranoid metaparadigm for the postwar era. It came with promises of even brighter heights and ranker depths than those of Ishmael or Stephen Dedalus, blowing the top off that scratched doorframe that intimidated my childhood. Hurrying, I downloaded a copy, and, full of excitement, opened it to find an impenetrable tangle of setting, theme, and metaphor, apparently barely bundling into a mass of a story. Getting no further than a paragraph or two, I retired it for later, instead retreating further into conceptual isolation.
Well, nearly a decade later, here I am, just at the end of the second part of that monumental tome. Couldn't yet say it's life-changing or -affirming or -shattering, but it hasn't disappointed. Definitely overprepared a bit, it's just a book, not rocket surgery.
I've started reading Dune with some friends after watching the movie.
So far its pretty good, but I'm glad I watched the movie first as it helped me in knowing who the people where.
The book definitely goes more in-depth for many characters.
I just started Discworld with The Colour of Magic. I'm only 60 pages in, but I really enjoy the setting and writing style!
Discworld is one of my all-time favorites. You're in for a wild ride, and I envy you. I wish I could erase my memory so I could read the series again as if for the first time.
p.s. Good Omens, another of Terry Pratchett's novels made in collaboration with Neil Gaiman, is also really good too and well worth reading. And if you haven't read it yet either, I also highly recommend checking out Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is basically the sci-fi equivalent of Discworld.
I have made it through both Hitchhikers and Good Omens. I didn't enjoy the humor of those obviously-humorous books, and I struggled with enjoying both of those works at times, but I think it was an expectation disconnect. I will probably need to give them another go sometime.
Pema Chodren When Things Fall Apart. My life has fallen pretty far apart here lately. The book requires certain beliefs about what is important, but past that offer some hope. If nothing else, it helps reduce the feeling of isolation, the sense that I am being singled out for punishment by the universe, that can come with gross events. A soft, easy read.
That book honestly sounds like something I might need to read right now too. :( Thanks for the recommendation!
I have two right now
The Blood of Elves, the first full book in the Witcher saga, and Relax Into Stretch by Pavel Tsatsouline.
I read The Witcher's shirt stories to familiarize myself with the show and just happen to think it's a really well-constructed world full of characters I enjoy reading about. I like the show because it does a pretty solid job of adapting and showing these characters (but liked the show before reading the books).
Relax Into Stretch is an excellent guide on how stretching works, and details techniques on overcoming the stretch response, an involuntary contraction that happens at the end of a muscle's perceived range of motion. He details basic and advanced techniques for various levels of athletes, and later talks about specific stretches. I'm finding it very informative. Part of his schtick is leaning on what he learned in the Soviet Union as a fitness instructor, and leaning on Soviet training ideas and techniques, but there's a lot of good information here.
I've been (extremely slowly) reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. It's interesting and pretty enjoyable. I'm hoping to start Discworld once I can get a copy from my library. Some time next month a novel by a podcaster I like, After The Revolution is supposed to come out in physical format and I pre-ordered one so I'll be reading that at some point, too.
I'm now onto book 3 (A Court of Wings and Ruin) of the series: "The Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah Maas. I'm borrowing all the books available from my sister since she's one book ahead of me at this point. She recommended the series to me after we found out that we're both 'Lore Olympus' fans. I'm quite enjoying them so far!
It's a High Fantasy setting with Faeries, and humans, is a romance plot with a surprisingly fleshed out world, and some pretty interesting developments over the two books that I've read so far. Some HUGE character growth and development for sure.
Also, tons of euphemisms for 'penis'. My personal favorite so far is 'hidden warrior'. Lots of sex in this and according to my sister, the last book in the series is essentially a full book of smut with some other character in the series. So that'll be fun 😁
Perhaps prompted by the so-so response to Amazon's adaptation, I have finally entered the Wheel of Time universe- reaching book four before having to put that on pause for a short while due to an accident irl. Even so, the collection still grows faster than I can read them, and my local library has been stocking some nice-looking hardback copies of the Discworld series. I pick up one or two when I walk past. At some point I hope to finally get around to Paolini's latest book, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars.