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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.
I'm going through so much of Discworld right now. I read a lot of it as a teenager, but that was decades ago, so I've forgotten a lot of it.
I remember being a big fan of Rincewind and preferred the books with Wizards, Death, and the Witches in it. I also read a number of the Tiffany Aching ones.
But now as a much older person, for some reason, I prefer the City Watch stuff, The Truth, Going Postal. I still really like Rincewind and all the Unseen University stuff, but now I'm generally more about trying to get a variety of different stories to get an idea of the world rather than focusing on just the magical ones.
Also, I like competent characters these days, so Sam Vines is great to follow along. But I also like Rincewind for being a very terrible wizard. I guess I like extremes.
Slightly sad thing is that I'm not reading the books in order because I just borrow whatever is available at the library at any given moment. I've got a few on hold too. I know you don't have to read the books in order, but my first Sam Vines book was Night Watch, and the experience for that would have worked a lot better if you were familiar enough with the City Watch and the world beforehand.
I've always loved the Watch books an the Industrial Revolution ones, but I do think the Witches have grown on me over the years too. Granny has her head on straight but so does Nanny Ogg in her own way.
I enjoy Vetinari more and more for being two to twelve steps ahead of everyone else.
Just finished the Stormlight archive (can’t wait for the fifth book!) and started reading the Muderbot diaries after reading about it here in another topic. Not even close as good as the Stormlight archive, but I’m liking it so far :)
I just finished Words of Radiance! Probably one of my favorite books I've ever read; good shit. I'm going to read the Mistborn series before I tackle Oathbringer.
I am just starting Oathbringer after the amazing Words of Radiance! I started Sanderson with Mistborn 1-3 Then Skyward 1-3, Wax and Wayne 1-4 and took a small detour into the world of the Rangers Apprentice while reading the first Stormlight book. Words of Radiance was so good I put that on pause and bought Oathbringer+Dawnshard+Rhythm of War
Oh man, I love Stormlight Archive! If you didn't know, there's also two novellas that go with that series too, Dawnshard & Edgedancer. They're just as good.
I've been making my way through it as well! I'm loving it. Mistborn next, although I probably should have done that first. Whoops. New to the cosmere!
The good thing about the Cosmere is that the books are technically connected, you really don't need to read the books in a certain order besides the series that they are part of. For Sanderson, the way that he had connected them is little references to other books in the Cosmere.
Also the Misborn Series is really good and has a interesting take on a magic system that I really like.
I'm about halfway through The Song of Achilles. I really love it, but I forgot how sexy the story was and I'm not a particularly huge fan of having a sex scene read to me when I read (I get all of my book reading done via audiobook). I knew it was going to happen in this book and I just didn't think about it lol.
I'm still trying to decide if I want to join my work's book club and read Murder on the Orient Express next month, but I'm a one-book-at-a-time gal and I would need to rush to finish SoA this weekend to get in on the next one.
I almost exclusively read fantasy, mythology from around the world, food history and science and fashion history and science books.
Oh man I loved Song of Achilles. I've got Circe on my shelf I've been meaning to read, also by Madeline Miller, have you read that one?
I highly recommend Circe. It's a beautifully written book, and if you enjoyed Song of Achilles, you'll likely love Circe
Not yet. It's also on my list to read, though! I have so many books I want to read and so many other activities to do as well. I'm also not driving two hours once a week, sewing as much or drawing as much at the moment because of chronic pain issues, so I am not getting nearly as much reading done.
I liked Circe a lot better, possibly because I read it first. I love Miller's style and they are similar in that respect. Circe felt more profound to me compared to a more straightforward story in Achilles.
Gradschool is kicking my butt at the moment so I'm reading Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novels to let my own "little grey cells" relax. I've been meaning to read Murder on the Orient Express since the recent-ish film came out and thought it would be fun to read all of the proceeding books in order first. I'm at The Big Four right now and slightly regretting my read through. It's not badly written, but the scope of this particular story is so large it all feels a bit silly. I'm just over halfway through so maybe my opinion will change
I just finished my PhD and two things really got me through my last couple years of grad school:
Audiobooks. My brain was far too tired to want to open a book and read after reading / coding / doing math all day for school. Audiobooks let me just relax and experience “story time” before I fell asleep.
Genre fiction, especially works I grew up on. I grew up listening to audiobooks in the car with my mom, especially murder mysteries. One series (which I don’t recommend unless you want to read books that are basically the social life of middle aged adults in a small town and associated gossip), was the Cat Who… series about a former crime journalist relocates to and solves murders in, a tiny town that, after two dozen novels, has to have the highest murder rate per capita in the country. They are totally formulaic and not very good but they’re cozy, made me feel nostalgic, and reminded me of a less stressful time in my life. Later, I switched to a long running fantasy series, The Saga of Recluce, which is a bit of a slice of life fantasy series. I was too young to really like them as a kid (they are decidedly not an epic Lord of the Rings adventure like I expected), but they’re paced in a kind of slow but enjoyably comfortable way while remaining interesting to an adult (a lot of the books describe details about actually living in this world that other books skip over so as to not distract from the epic adventures of the protagonist). Both series did exactly what you described and helped me relax after an arduous day of work, even if they aren’t exactly the grandest works of literature.
Oh man, I read the heck of the the Cat Who books back in the day! I may have to revisit those soon to give me a Poirot break. Nothing like switching from one mustachioed protagonist to another lol. I'll check out The Saga of Recluse as it's flown under my radar but sounds like something I could definitely get into
Not to take away from your enjoyment of Christie and the Cat Who books, but Dorothy Sayers is another brilliant classic mystery author with a couple of iconic detectives. There is also a romance between the male and female sleuth. I especially like the way she includes the workplace in her mysteries, providing lots of information about that era. For example Murder Must Advertise https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/351559.Murder_Must_Advertise?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=viKCvi45uB&rank=1
Oo thank you! Added it to my reading list. I've heard of her but haven't had a chance to read any of her work
My god I can’t believe I found someone else who heard of the Cat Who … series! I hope one day I’ll have a salt and pepper mustache as glorious as his!
For the Recluse series, you should not feel bound to reading them in the order of publication. In fact, the first book is towards the end of the chronology, and the more recent books have a bit more polished writing. Wikipedia has a table that lists each novel by approximate year in the chronology and who the protagonist is. It doesn’t much matter where you begin in the series as long as you read the books of a given protagonist in order. Some good jumping off points might be the books about Cyril, Nylin, or Lorn.
I just finished reading The Decagon House Murders, which in many ways is an homage to And Then There Were None. It really reminded me of the fun Agatha Christie’s novels are and has made be want to go back and reread them (or read the ones I missed, I don’t recall having read The Big Four).
The Big Four is not one of the better ones imo
Currently reading Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Prof Bart D. Ehrman. Very interesting read! As a disclaimer, Ehrman is not a Christian, nor am I, but he's probably the most famous academic biblical scholar working today by virtue of the fact that his works are primarily targeted toward the general (non-scholarly) population.
The book is a primer on the field of textual criticism. Essentially, it describes the history of New Testament manuscripts, emphasizing how it was copied by hand mostly by non-professional scribes for the first few hundred years of its history. Ehrman shares the scholarly consensus that various early scribes altered New Testament manuscripts both intentionally and unintentionally, for various reasons -- most surprisingly to me, one such non-original addition is the "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" story from Luke -- and he shares how scholars today have tried to reconstruct, as best as possible, the "original" texts from the original manuscripts (which have been lost to time).
It's a very in-depth, very informative, surprisingly gripping read, so I recommend it for anyone even vaguely interested in academic biblical studies, religious history, or religion in general.
I learned a lot from and really enjoyed historian Jaroslav Pelikan Jesus Through the Centuries and Whose Bible is it, two books of history aimed at a general audience.
You might also find this interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliand, The Heliand translated the gospels into one poem in old Saxon and tweaked the story to fit better with Germanic culture. For example it references the wise men traveling through deep forests, and omits the part of Luke's story where there was no room at the inn. Failing in hospitality would have been condemned by society and just unthinkable, so they left that story out of the translation.
About halfway through The Idiot by Dostoevsky. It's harder to follow (and so enjoyable) than Crime & Punishment / Brothers Karamazov - but I'd say still a good read. Essentially the story is about whether the 'idiot' (a straightforward, honest, honorable man) can live in a society where everyone is aggressively self-interested.
I am listening to the BBC radio 4 dramatized version of Crime and Punishment. They have one for The Idiot too. So far its amazing!
I just finished that one a week ago. I really liked it. I did find that it got much harder to read after Part 1, I still think that first part was my favorite, but it picked up towards the end as well and I'm glad I finished it.
So far the only other thing I've read from him is Notes From the Underground, I'm not sure if I'll read anything else by him, maybe at some point
C&P is sensational - highly recommended. It's probably my top novel of all time (not that I'm an authority).
It's shockingly relevant/contemporary - MC Raskolnikov is basically a 19C Russian incel.
Currently The Butlerian Jihad from the expanded Dune series and A very short introduction to the Mongols
I was really disappointed with Brian and KJA on their Legends of Dune take. I think if they wrote this as not a Dune prequel set in some other universe it would have been an okay pulp sci-fi series but trying to fill Frank's shoes they did not.
Spoiler warning
They interpreted the Butlerian Jihad so literally from Frank's work. Literally enslaving humans by machines. But I think Frank was writing about how, in reality, we're relying more and more on machines to do our thinking for us (eg., using ChatGPT to write your legal filings without fact checking) and taking it to the extreme. I believe Frank intended the Butlerian Jihad as more of a Luddite movement than an actual war against an oppressive and blood thirsty AI.
Besides that the characters were poorly written 2 dimensional cliches. The was little nuance, no mistaking who the good and bad guys were
I get the criticism, it's nowhere near as deep as the original series. It's an enjoyable enough book for me so far but I'm not sure if I want to put the time in for the rest of the series.
I read them all as a teen and can emphatically say you're not missing much. It often seems to devolve into scenes meant to horrify you without really adding anything to the story.
I finished it yesterday, agree. It's a pity, the way Frank Herbert built the original universe makes you so curious about the stories from the deep past but the books he didn't write really don't live up to the potential. Might re-read the original books now though.
I'm slowly pushing through Steven W. Smith's The Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing.
I need it for an audio project I'm working on, but I'm barely 50 pages in so I'm still not sure if this is what I'm looking for. Still very informative and while the math can be too much for me sometimes, I still enjoy it.
Oh nice, I like tinkering with audio DSP despite not having any formal training in it, and I honestly hadn't considered read a book on the subject. I can understand code easily enough, but not math - do you think it's still worth a read even if I know I'm not going to soak in much of the math?
Yeah, I don't see why not. The math is there to support some graphs and to explain the underlying principles of whatever they're explaining, but for real-world use cases I don't expect to have to actually use that math.
For programming, Python and Rust have fleshed out DSP libraries, and other DSP software (Reaktor comes to mind) usually has all these concepts in easy to use digital devices.
About halfway through roadside picnic - as it was a book club book here on tildes. So Ill read it then hopefully have a look over that thread!
Wait there’s a tildes book club??
The inaugural book club can be found here. And to follow any future iterations there is also a tag.
I'm 80 percent finished.
I'm reading an old favourite: The Heart of the Comet by David Brin and Gregory Benford.
It's a contrast to the second Uplift trilogy by Brin that I was reading a few weeks ago! I love this book. It's hard science-fiction, it's filled with politics and human failings - and it has a very inspirational ending.
Currently reading Lords of Chaos about the history and influence of Black metal in Nordic countries. Super interesting stuff.
I’ve also been digging Kings of the Wyld, a fantasy book about a a group of old mercenaries who have to “get the band back together” to save the lost daughter of one of their members. Lots of fun “band” and “music” references throughout, and it’s also funny and has a lot of heart.
I’m going on vacation next week and looking to read some interesting - and easy- nonfiction. I guess you could say I’m looking for “pop nonfiction” or “airport nonfiction”. Stuff that’s informative and easy to read for the average reader. Recently, stuff I’ve enjoyed in this vein includes: An Immense World by Ed Yong, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake, and Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.
^^anyone have any suggestions along those lines?
Since you mention Lords of Chaos, I think maybe Masters of Doom could scratch a similar itch. For me it had a similar nostalgic feel with a story about somewhat crazy unique people doing very much their own thing in the late 80s and early 90s, and what they did had a massive cultural impact. It is also fairly easy and engaging to read. I even think I read half of it on a plane ride.
Thanks for the suggestion! Is that one by Dave Kushner, about the creation of Doom/Quake? (Just want to make sure I get the correct one).
Yes exactly
I am currently reading A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro.
I don't know if it's the fact that this the second time I'm reading a fiction book in English or that just this book is not for me. It is definitely not a bad read but really slow for now not intriguing. (I'm halfway through the book)
I tried to read something by Kazuo Ishiguro —The Buried Giant (couldn't recall so I just looked it up)— and really couldn't get into it at all. And I tried quite hard to keep going.
It felt like a really long made up fantasy quest story where things are just made up so things happen along the way and it was painful. It was almost like a trope of the journey type if story; 'I wonder whatever will happen next. Yup there it is, the river or lake they have to cross blah blah bloody blah.'
Can't read anything of his now.
Weirdly perhaps, I love Haruki Murakami.
I hated the Buried Giant, but Remains of the Day is one of the best books I have ever read in a lifetime of reading. The film is good too.
Thanks for the info; I may circle back around and try again in due course.
I've been meaning to read "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" for a while maybe I'll read it after I finish this.
Really is a good book.
It's not a novel like his other stories. It's basically his thoughts and other things on his running.
I really can't run. Too large and have always been a sprinter; which I really should come to terms with tbh. And yet I strongly felt I should run and do marathons at the end of the book!
Oh definitely not a marathon runner. Training for a 10K recently and any kind of help/motivation etc. is welcome at the moment :)
That book will do it.
Good luck.
May not be your cup of tea but I've found Arnold Schwarzenegger has good words of motivation and stuff too. Much prefer it to the David Coggins style of 'motivation'.
I think that was his first book and it's a little tentative compared to some of his later work. There will be a payoff of sorts by the end.
Yeah finished it and didn't do it for me. I might try his other works sometime.
They mostly seem to be about people who are in some kind of denial. You might like Never Let Me Go or The Remains of the Day.
Thanks for the recommendations I'll check them out.
I'm not really sure you'll like them to be honest! But they are more representarive of his work.
Shoutout to @SpruceWillis for reminding me of the "Young Bond" series that I read throughout childhood! I recently picked up reading again so I'm slowly working my way through those books again. It's been a while since I've been wanting to sit down and actually read to read, so it's been a nice introduction to getting back into that habit.
The first book Silverfin is overall relatively Young Adult, with slightly violent themes, but feels like a classic spy thriller and brings back so many memories,
Glad to have been of help! I'll need to add them to my list again at some point.
There are three books in my (overpacked) backpack.
(1) A plan for Escape by Adolfo Bioy-Casares which I am halfway through, this is a strange work of science fiction from Argentina circa 1945 which is somewhere between Borges and Ballard.
(2) X3D: Extensible 3D Graphics for Web Authoring because I am interested in AR/VR and art projects adjacent to that. I am probably going to have to learn Unity or Unreal Framework but if I can find a format for useful objects that would be cool.
(3) On War by Clausewitz which I’ve skimmed but really should dive into. Although the book is 190 years old it gives me a lot of insight into what is going on in Ukraine right now.
If it wasn't for the second book in your list, I would have pinned you as a history major with a focus on military history. Mostly because On War is one of the most important military treaties that was written and a lot of modern military history courses have this on a reading list. And still relevant to this day. And same with you, I really need to find a copy to really understand what the fuck is happening over there.
That Clausewitz book is great. The closest thing I come to military service though is going around with a heavy backpack, even at the risk of ankle sprains.
If you caught me on a different day you might find something different. Maybe Tales of the Teahouse Revisited (one of very few translations of the Investiture of the Gods masterwork of Chinese mythology), On Love by Stendhal and Hacker's Delight by Harry S. Warren, Jr.
I don't read books as much as I used to, as YOShInOn my smart RSS reader recommends more articles I can possibly read. (The number of articles I do read is probably more than a lot of people could believe.) Also if I read too much strange things start to happen and I'm better off playing games like XCom or Advance Wars that involve recombination of a limited number of elements.
I read a book a few years back that convinced me I could accomplish rapid personality change by reading and not just affect myself but also other people, I checked out all the books from the bibliography (work at a uni with a good library) and started reading them, also scanned the bibliography of those books and picked up other books from the same section, broke the strap on my gym bag taking them back to my office, etc. In the midst of a crisis I discovered new techniques of psychology and did a Pubmed search to discover they were unknown in the west but well known in ancient China. I deliberately wrapped myself in a system of delusions and when my evil twin came out all hell broke loose. A longtime friend worked hard to bring me back and I got fired by my therapist. Eventually I got kicked out of the gym and came to my senses. About 9 months later I finally solved the "mystery of you" and found a name for my neurodivergence. (And yes, one symptom is that people frequently tell me I changed the subject.)
I just finished Animalia by Jean-Baptiste del Amo, which I thought was excellent but also quite disturbing. The book is about a pig farm in southern France, with the first half taking place around the first World War, and the second half looking at the original owners' descendants in the 1980s. The first half explores the grueling work and material deprivation of poor small-village farmers, as well as the horrors of war. The second half deals more with the horrors of factory farming. Yet there is also through-line between these two halves, which connects them in terms of people's psychological problems and the suffering of intergenerational trauma. Some scenes from this book are really nightmarish on multiple levels, the kind of thing that sticks in your mind. Definitely worth a read though. It's a shame that most of the author's other work hasn't been translated from French, as far as I can tell.
Next on my list is The Castle of Crossed Destinies, by Italo Calvino. I'm a big Calvino fan and I've already read his 'major works', so now I'm on to the lesser-known stuff. This one looks very short, so after I finish it, I've been planning to start in on a collection of Anton Chekhov short stories that I've been procrastinating on.
Just finished reading the Martian by Andy Weir.
And currently reading Roadside Picnic. Which @beret4 had noted is the current book that is being read here for the book club, the main reason as to why I picked it up. I am part way through chapter 2 right now. And it is really good so far.
I loved The Martian, and I just started reading Project Hail Mary. So far, it's enjoyable.
I just finished Project Hail Mary, definitely enjoyed it.
Project Hail Mary would be an amazing read as a recommendation for teen students, I found it so encouraging about science and trying to find solutions to problems in a pragmatic way.
Sadly my library only had the Spanish version of the audiobook. Which sucks because people say that the audiobook is really great. I do know some Spanish, but not enough to get through it.
Edit
Oh and for reason the audiobook version for the Martian is in German
I'm listening to the audiobook, and find PHM fairly irritating! I'm sticking with it to find out what happens, but it is not as good as people hype it up to be. I remember liking The Martian, and even Artemis, while silly and didn't have much pay-off (the reusable condom should have been part of the end solution!) never annoyed me like PHM has.
Having a protagonist that has convenient plot amnesia is infuriating. He Gary-Sue's his way to a solution based on "oh, suddenly I remembered how to do it". Argh. The sci-fi is veering too far into magical fantasy science too rather than the more grounded stuff, so going all "realistic" and talking about numbers relating to made-up science really lets Weir indulge his worst writing ticks. I preferred reading about welding on the moon than the specific temperature of some fake fungus thing.
Maybe it gets better, I'm around chapter 8 or 9 currently.
Edit: Up to chapter 12 now, and it has improved. Thumbs up. I've enjoyed the next part, it drops the amnesia and focuses on new stuff.
Is the book club part of Tildes?, I would like to be part.
I think anyone can join in. Here is the link to the discussion.
I'm reading Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958). Because the author's name begins with an A, and I'm doing the alphabetical reading challenge (or maybe, ABC, Alphabetical Book Challenge?) that @AgnesNutter set out a few days ago.
Hope some of y'all will join in and pick an A book for your next one!
I think this is a sign. This is like the 5th or 6th time this week that I’ve seen this book mentioned. I better put it on my reading list! Looking forward to seeing what else you choose for the rest of the letters :)
Edit: your name for it is so good, I wish I’d thought of it!
It’s a really good book.
That's a great book. He has two sequels which are also very good.
I used to read a lot of "A" books because it was the first shelf I would get to in the library, and did end up reading a few African writers that way - Chinua Achebe, Chris Abani, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie..
Ok, not the fancy stuff other's are reading and probably tasteless to some, but you asked:
Everybody Loves Large Chests... it's not what you think! lol
I stumbled across this browsing fantasy books and started reading it because I like books that are different from what I've read before. Basically, the MC is a dungeon mimic that left its dungeon with a couple demons. It lives up to being called a monster and the book is a bit too influenced by anime so of course there's a harem even though the MC is sexless (though I kind of find that funny). It's not the best series, but I've read worse and it does have it's funny moments. Probably should warn people there's gore, violence, sexual themes & abuse.
Spoilers?
To be more specific, the MC is an asexual/sexless murderous dungeon mimic warlock with a taste for human flesh. Due to starting out really dumb it misunderstands a question about chest size and ends up with 2 big chested demons (that it names Snack and Arms). Together they travel leaving death and chaos in their wake, all to find "tasty" and shiny things to horde.I'm taking a break from the gargantuan task that is the Horus Heresy (Warhammer 40k) novels to finally read The Lord of the Rings, always loved the movies and games but never got around to reading it. I'm almost done with Fellowship of the Ring (I did read The Hobbit too) and am enjoying it for the most part. Took some getting used to Tolkien's writing and the songs/poems still take me out of things a bit.
Once I'm done with LotR I'll probably move onto the Silmarillion because I saw that Andy Serkis narrated the audiobook that just came out and I conveniently just started and audible trial. Should be a perfect book while on the treadmill.
After that I'll go back to Horus Heresy for a few books then take another break, I think I'll revisit Gideon the Ninth and read the sequels.
I just finished reading Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky and it wasn’t as good as the previous book Children of Time. However it was imaginative and I appreciate Tchaikovsky’s attention to imagining how aliens might think very differently than we do, right down to the biological underpinnings of the species. If you’ve read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir it is not dissimilar in concept, but the initial interspecies interaction is antagonistic and it espouses hope through the individuals that reach out and try to understand that which is different. I find the Weir novel to be quite happy in comparison and not quite as deep in the imagining of alien life.
My largest complaint about Children of Ruin is that we spend significantly less time in the “head” of characters from the new species and so we don’t get to explore the nuance of their thinking, society, and struggles in quite the same way as we did with the Portiids. Perhaps this is because unlike the first book the central conflict isn’t understanding between humans and a single alien species but rather a larger existential threat to all life. Alternatively it could also be because of a couple of plot points regarding how our new species came about in a guided fashion compared to the Portiids of the first book. Either way it didn’t resonate with me nearly as much and so it feels the lesser of the two novels in the series.
I’ve been working my way through Perdido Street Station after a friend recommended it to me. It’s a fictional story set in a fictional industrial revolution era setting.
The world building is top notch, the prose is excellent, and I’m enjoying the story. But there is just SO much body horror. Some of it is minor, like a main character whose race has human bodies but beetle-like heads.
Others are not so minor, like a wealthy man whose body is formed from many other species limbs attached to him like Picasso’s worst nightmare. Also the draconian magistrates of this city/society punish people by turning them into a race called “Remade”. People who have their bodies altered/deformed by integrating materials (like metal) or body parts (same species or otherwise) as a form of legal punishment.
It really is a fantastic read but the pronouncement of the aforementioned theme means I have to take breaks.
Perdido Street Station is an excellent book, one of my favourites. If you end up enjoying it, I'd also recommend 'The Scar' by the same author which is set in the same world.
I highly recommend The City & The City from the same author, completely different setting, no body horror but still incredible.
It's a crime story in a bizarre setting and I highly recommend going in blind, it's worth it.
I'm reading a lot of Murakami now. I read Kafka on the Shore last year, which I loved. Inspired by that, started Norwegian Wood. Found it incredibly boring and couldn't get through. Just recently finished Tazaki Tsukuru and his years of Pilgrimage; my friend handily had a copy. It was an ok enjoyable read, but left me feeling quite unfinished. It was kind of funny him visiting my home country in it.
Now I just started 1Q84. I've read the first part in English, but wanted to do it all in Japanese now, so started from the beginning.
On the English side, finished the Wool, inspired by the recent TV series. Found the books a lot better than the series. Tempted to start the next collection of books, Shift.
Not yet. Is that the one that starts the rat trilogy? I've read "The Wild Sheep Chase" a long time ago and thought it was a pretty short and fun read. Definitely want to tackle those at some point. Especially since I hear Dance x 3 finishes the trilogy (or quartology, is that a word?) and is really good. It's a shame Murakami has some weird hate for e-books and most of his works are not available in electronic format! (same for Higashino Keigo, what is it with these Japanese authors and e-books :/ ). Paper is still king there, and the measure by which success is seen. Fortunately I think it's turning around a bit.
Oh, yeah. I was an exchange student in Japan, came back just before COVID hit, and learning Japanese was what kept me sane during the pandemic. Started out wanting to read manga and LN, realized I love the "real" literature more, lol.
Started Youjo Senki yesterday. I couldn't wait after watching the anime haha.
Due to the recent events with the Titanic sub, my friend recommended Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro by Rachel Slade. I'm waiting for it to be delivered, but when it gets here, I'm diving in.
I read epub format books on my phone, rarely a real paper book, and usually have several books active. "The Birth of Britain", vol 1 of Winston Churchill's "A History of the English Speaking Peoples" is my main bedtime read just now, with a few others on the go. History is ideal for bedtime! I was a science nerd in my youth and had very little history at school (because I often got in trouble for not memorizing historical dates). The current chapter covers Henry II and his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, quite an astonishing pairing: he was nineteen and she was in her thirties; eight weeks before they married she had divorced King Louis VII of France to whom she'd been married for fifteen years. Henry and Eleanor were both intensely energetic, forceful people who eventually became estranged. There's a nice short write-up in History Today and more on Wikipedia of course.
So I finished the first three Black Company books by Glen Cook which I really enjoyed. It's a Grim Dark fantasy about a Mercenary Group who get hired by the "Big Bad Evil Guy" and it was a pretty solid trilogy. There's no good or bad guys, everyone is a horrible person so it's quite refreshing and different from most fantasy fare. I think there's 11 books(?) in total, and the fourth one I was reading felt like more of an Epilogue forBook 3. I got about 3/4 of the way through but didn't love it as much as the first three so decided to take a short break. It was good but I don't know If I'm just burnt out on reading at the minute but i was struggling to get through it. I didn't think it was as good as the first three books but it wasn't bad at all.
I've decided to take a bit of a break from Black Company so am currently half way through Wheel Of Time Book 1. I've re read the first Wheel Of Time Book about 5 times in the past decade but never managed to get into the second book for various reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the book or series, just life gets in the way.
This time I'm determined to get through the whole series. Wheel of Time has been haunting me for over a decade as a Fantasy nerd and I feel obliged to finish it before I die and I feel if I don't do it soon I never will!
Did you read Erikson's Malazan? I wonder if there are similarities between his series and the Black Company. I never read Cook's novels, they're on my list. I usually struggle with war & battles in fantasy books, I think it has to do with my weak imagination (not imagination as in getting ideas, but literally imagination as in mind's eye and seeing pictures; I don't have aphantasia, but if it were a spectrum I might be on it). So when authors start to describe army movements over vast terrain I don't see it, it's very compressed in my mind and doesn't work well. Hence, I dislike military fantasy which is why I didn't like parts of Malazan and avoided Cook despite hearing good things about it.
I'm re-reading WoT as well. It is my beloved series from when I was in high school. I never finished it because I was waiting for the next book, forgetting what I read already and Jordan died :( I think the first novel is the weakest and different in tone than the rest. It gets better and better with each book (I am aware that some of the middle books are supposed to be a drag, I have not arrived there yet). I found that I still love WoT, it gives me great joy from its combination of camaraderie, adventure and epicness.
My username is actually a Malazan reference! I've found there are quite a few similarities between Malazan and Black Company, Malazan definitely feels inspired by Black Company but not derivative, they feel similar in themes and atmosphere.
In Black Company there are big battles but it's not written dramatically, it's told from the POV of the character so the violence is very much straight to the point. It's still exciting but it's not written to big and bombastic, the battles are violent and brutal but very straight forward with what's happening. I can't say whether it would be good for you to read or not with struggling with a weak imagination but it's all from one character's point of view so there isn't any hopping around mid fight. One thing I can give Glenn Cook credit for is his books are short, you can breeze through them quite quickly and don't feel like a large time investment to decide if you like it. Of the ones I read i found them to be "good but not great" but they had some great moments. The climax of book 3 is brilliant and really feels like the conclusion that everything was building too, I really like the world and characters.
Regarding WOT I have heard it's very different from the rest from a few places so it'll be interesting how it plays out. I'm looking forward to working my way through the big epic story across 15 books, I have no idea what's going to happen. From what I've read about the middle books dragging is because they're spent on side plots and don't really move the main plot along, apparently they're not that bad when read in succession but it was frustrating for people waiting years between books waiting for the story to progress. I'm really excited seeing how it plays out.
Ha, indeed! :) I didn't notice until you said it. I read those books in Polish.
Somebody said that Tildes de-emphasises usernames and I'm finding that to be true, I usually don't notice the usernames here until I actively look at them.
You probably read everything about it already so I'll just say it gets less LotR-like and more of its own thing. The world building is phenomenal in my opinion, every country feels different.
This post made me pick up the first book in Black Company a few days ago, and I've just read through the first part of the story. So far it is absolutely great, and I am loving it a lot. The characters are interesting and the writing is excellent. It's really difficult to put down.
I'm reading The Wager, by David Grann and I'm loving it!
I'm also reading Cursed Bunny and A Good Man is Hard to Find, but because they're short story collections I'm not reading them in one fell swoop.
I"m reading https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23019294-a-head-full-of-ghosts
after just finishing The Ferryman.
I'm just over 60% through with How to Sell a Haunted House. Its been a fun read so far. Not super scary, but there have been tense moments. Hendrix has done a great job at making me hate and then sympathize with some characters. I'm interested to see where the ending will lead to.
Currently on book two of Earthsea.
My first re-read. Read it for the first time maybe ten years ago...it's a great series
I'm halfway trough Ubik by Philip K. Dick, so far so good, excellent prose, amazing setting and a story that makes my brain hurt.
I admit that I liked A Scanner Darkly more but Ubik is also great.
I recently read The Scholomance Series by Naomi Novik (https://www.goodreads.com/series/282152-the-scholomance). It's dark academia meets Harry Potter with a very interesting universe and fun characters! The trilogy is complete, so no year-long cliffhangers as you wait for the next book to come out.
I want to read this one
Something on the sillier side with a Harry Potter similarity is Robert Asprin Myth Inc series starting with Another Fine Myth.
Currently reading Temp by Louis Hyman. I'm on a bit of mission to get more in depth knowledge about history of labor movements in America, and this one seemed like an interesting starting point as temporary labor is currently a bit of a big deal. Most the people I know without college degrees work in temporary labor of some kind either through a temp agency or the infamous "gig economy". Workers that aren't in temp jobs feel like they are in temp jobs because there is no sense of security with any job anymore. Seeing where this comes from, and just getting a good primer on the evolution of 20th centuary business has been very interesting.
Doing it in audio book from my local library, and the narrator for it is the same narrator from the Dune audio books. That's not very important, but I love that guys voice. I could listen to it for ages.
You might get some leads from Upton Sinclair's anthology The Cry for Justice. It contains excerpts from a lot of written materials and has a forward by Jack London
I should be finishing A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe tonight or tomorrow. I have really enjoyed it, especially being from Atlanta and a fan of stoicism.
Next up for me is King: A Life by Jonathan Eig.
I have read and loved The Bonfire of the Vanities a decade ago.
I was thinking of picking up A Man in Full. How do you think it fares in its political/social commentary?
It’s of a time, but I honestly don’t think things have advanced terribly far from where it’s set in the late ‘90s.
Recently finished The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne, the life story of an adopted boy in Ireland who grows up gay in the 1940s and 50s, the book then follows his story through a long life. It's sad and funny with unique eccentric characters that keep interacting with each other over time.
Currently in process with Because Internet Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch. McCulloch is a linguist, but the book also contains sociology, anthropology and history.
In process with the Longings of Women by Marge Piercy, a complex story that weaves together characters that include but are not limited to a homeless late middle aged cleaning woman and her clients.
I am slowly working my way through the poetry collections Best of Poetry Thoughts that Breathe and Words that Burn, and also She Walks in Beauty edited by Caroline Kennedy.
Reading Learning Ray for work. I'm not usually into reading textbooks in my spare time (not since grad school anyhow) but I'm really enjoying myself with this one. It's well structured and easy to reason through and I'm super excited to start working with this platform.
The rest of my time is spent on The Dark Forest, the second of The Three Body Problem trilogy. I have to say that the first half was a slog. Just so much feet dragging story which eventually doesn't amount to much. The second half picks up a lot and is actually fun (and terrifying). I'm enjoying the very obvious hidden criticism of the Chinese government, though I'm not sure how much of it is strictly in my head. The amount of Christian imagery surprised me though and I don't much care for that spiritual bent in the book. Also the author is absolutely terrible at writing women, dear lord! Some parts read like freakin pre pubescent anime.
But I'm enjoying the suspense building and the various diabolical plans the wallfacers are concocting. Really can't wait to see how he ties up those loose ends.
The Dark Forest is definitely the best in the series for me, and I completely agree with your assessment of the first book, the first feels like just a mere introduction to what's going to happen next.
Just finished Perdido Street Station by China Miéville.
I'm glad I read it, not sure I can easily recommend it, but it is something that some people really should read.
Just started In the Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Slightly slow start but once it got going it hooked me good. Very excited to see where this goes. A brief moment of "oh no" when i found out book 2 came out forever ago, but book 3 is scheduled for this novemeber, so that should work perfectly since I'm doing this one audio book style (as I would've probably blown through 1 and 2 in a week tops if i were reading them).
Perdido Street Station is on my reading list, recommended by a friend. Curious why you couldn't easily recommend it.
Honestly Name of the Wind was a little difficult for me to get through. I struggled very much with the voice of the author - creating a character that's the bestest, smartest, strongest, charmingest, the most exceptional and superior to everyone was a little juvenile for me. My wife loved it though, so maybe I'm just overly sensitive to that trope.
I have the same opinion of Rothfuss' book and I love "Perdido Street Station" which is one of the most original (and weird, in a good way) novels I ever read. It was like a new genre to me when I read it. I read a few more books by Mieville ("The Scar" being set in the same Bas-Lag universe is also great), but I consider PSS his best.
Perdido-
It's gross, violent, and verbose. Not egregiously so, but it's not your standard fantasy/steampunk romp and the author will go on long descriptions that build the world but do nothing for the plot. It's not tedious (to me), bu those 3 things alone make it a "need to know your tastes" recommendation in my eyes.
Wind-
I don't love that trope, but so far I'm fine with it because the author makes it clear. The protagonist, and most of those around him, are aware of it. It's not like it's some secret that only they know or everyone tries to ignore to keep them down. He's a once in a generation talent and they're clear about it. Also so far I love the world/concept, and the antagonists seem intriguing so far.
Not to burst your bubble, but the November release is apparently an additional novella (sort of like The Slow Regard of Silent Things), rather than Doors of Stone. Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2023/05/22/a-new-patrick-rothfuss-kingkiller-chronicles-book--is-coming-out-this-year/
At this point it's a race between Rothfuss and Martin to see who will publish his next book last.
Both the Wise man's fears and A dance with dragons are from 2011, just like Skyrim so I don't expect them before the Elder Scrolls VI is released.
The fiction book I'm reading right now is Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh. I bought the first three books in the series on an impulse at a library book sale, but it's been sitting on my unread shelf for a couple of years. I'd previously read and disliked another of her books, so I wasn't really excited to start this. Even with Foreigner, it took me until a quarter way through to really get into the main story (though I liked both of the prologues a lot more). Now that I'm really into the meat of the book, though, it's really scratching the "90s sci-fi" and "dense prose" cravings I've been having, and I've got a huge weakness for sci-fi about diplomacy and navigating first contact. (Although the main story is a few hundred years after first contact, most of the conflict so far has been rooted in the continued lack of understanding between the two intelligent species, so it's close enough lol)
The nonfiction I'm reading right now is Desert Exile by Yoshiko Uchida, a memoir of Japanese-American incarceration during WWII from a woman who was in the camps along with her family. It's a part of American history I didn't learn much about in school, and I'm enjoying it so far, although I've only just started it.
I try to always read a book for entertainment and a technical one in parallel to have moments of disconenct.
Just started Thief of time by Terry Pratchett, seems interesting so far, but I'm not too deep in it yet.
I decided to read the second edition of The Nature of code, I think it's not completely finished but definitely a worth book, I loved the first edition and it's one of my most treasured books.
https://nature-of-code-2nd-edition.netlify.app/
I'm still working through REAMDE by Neal Stephenson, almost 2/3 through and enjoying it. For being a 2011 sci-fi book revolving around an MMORPG it seems to hold up well, although the lack of smartphones is interesting (so much reliance on laptops and Wi-Fi).
I also just picked up Liquid Intelligence by David Wondrich, a beautiful coffee-table-sized book on scientific cocktail techniques, but that's more of a reference work.
I just finished Nancy Milford's biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Savage Beauty, which I didn't like nearly as much as her biography of Zelda Fitzgerald. Savage beauty seemed scattered, bits and pieces of Millay's life rather than a narrative biography.
Currently I am working my way through the various Bordertown anthologies and those I highly recommend. They are fun, fresh even after decades, and the stories are surprisingly touching. Kind of proto urban fantasy, elves and rock n roll and technology and magic all collide. I have Borderland, Welcome to Bordertown, and The Essential Bordertown that I am working my way through currently. When I am finished I will look up the others, if there are any.
I recently finished "The Water Dance" by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Great book. My son and I are reading "Storm Blown" by Nick Courage. My daughter and I are working our way through several first chapter book series, like "Kingdom of Wrenly", "Dragon Masters", and my favorite, "The Last Firehawk".
For some reason, a coworker sent me a link to a cheap book on Amazon called "Third Stringers". It's amusing at it's core. The author has another book called "Lord of the Files" which I honestly cant wait to start because the description sounds hilarious.
"Third Stringers" and "Lord of the Files" have piqued my interest. I've been reading fairly dense and/or heavy stuff lately, and these sound like a good tonic.
I’m reading I’m glad my mom died by Jeanette McCurdy for nonfiction and memoir. While im still finishing The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King I’m about 70% done. I’m planning on reading on Talisman or The Shining next.
Ooh her memoir has been on my to-read list for quite some time. Perhaps once I finish with my current reads, I will pick it up and give it a read. How are you enjoying it thus far?
It has been a rollercoaster ride for me! My family didn't have cable growing up, so I missed out on Nickelodeon shows, but I knew some of the actors through their music (like some Miranda Cosgrove and BTR songs). Her story touched me as she shares her journey of losing her freedom as a kid early due to financial struggles and her mother's battle with cancer. It's painful to see her shoulder the responsibility of supporting her family at such a young age.
Currently, I'm on chapter 34, I appreciate how she delves deep into the dark side of being a child actor and the challenges of fame. I also admire Jeanette's self-awareness, and it's clear that this memoir is a part of her healing process. It's an emotional and powerful read. You should give it a go! :)
I am currently reading "The Politics of Hunger: The Allied Blockade of Germany, 1915 - 1919" by C. Paul Vincent. One of my churchmates lent it to me after we got into a discussion about the World Wars and military/political history. This book fits a special interest of mine (early to mid-20th century German and American history) so I am excited to read it.
I also have four magazines in the rotation as well: NatGeo's Memory issue, Psychology Now Vol. 4, Scientific American (cover story about parrots and birds), and Popular Science's Memory issue (the brain seems to be a hot topic lately? I'm down with that).
You might enjoy Gangsters vs Nazis by Benson, or Facing the Mountain by Daniel Brown
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58678848-gangsters-vs-nazis?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=w8HCqfO66o&rank=1
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55920278-facing-the-mountain?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_15
Thank you for the recommendations! I will check them out.
I'm currently on the 13th book in the Matthew Bartholomew series written by Susanna Gregory.
I've been on a 1300s kick lately and wanted something that takes place during that time period. This series follows the main character Matthew bartholomew who is a physician and teacher at caimbridge University, he reluctantly seems to always be involved in some kind of mystery or crime solving spree.
I read 'The Heroes' by Joe Abercrombie and bought 'The Blade Itself' right after and started reading it. I'm also in the middle if 'The Passenger' by Cormac McCarthy but the next chapter shows as 64 pages long on my ebook reader so I haven't started it because I want to read one chapter in a row at least.
Oh and I started 'Blood Meridian' by McCarthy as well once it got very warm outside, the atmosphere from that book really shines when you read it outside in the hot sunshine.
I am taking a breather and reading The Phantom Tollbooth before starting a buddy read of Wool by Hugh Howley (we are doing the series). My book club is reading Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney.
It's a busy book month.
As an aside, I am looking for any suggestions of fast-paced funny sci-fi for when it's my turn to pick for book club. We have read things like Hitchicker's, Year One, and Red Shirt.
Maybe Calahan's Cross Time Saloon by Spider Robinson, or the Warrior's Apprentice by Bujold or something from the Stainless Steel Rat series.
I'm reading Boy's Life by Robert McCammon. I had burned myself out on reading a few years back, and this book singlehandedly renewed my love of reading. The plot feels similar to a Stephen King novel, and the way he writes flows so smoothly through my brain.
For non-fiction, I'm reading through The Whole-Brain Child.
And when I want to escape into some fiction, I'm reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle which I've really been enjoying so far.
Currently reading Tress of the Emerald Sea and already have my next book, Brandon Sanderson's Secret Project #2: The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England lined up immediately after.
There’s two that stand out from my recent reads (well, three technically):
First is the Noumena series by Lindsay Ellis (Axiom’s End and Truth of the Divine). I’m both a lifelong science fiction nerd and someone who has a deep-rooted nostalgia for the mid-late aughts so it resonated with me immediately, but it keeps resonating even after having finished it for a while.
I really, really enjoyed her spin on first contact, the sort of main characters she chose to use and in the second book especially, her masterful depiction of trauma.
Second is Jennette McCurdy’s “I’m Glad my Mom Died.” I’m someone with a… complicated relationship to my own mother, and though she didn’t put me through nearly the hell that Jennette’s mom did, there were a lot of parallels.
What hit me specifically was the second half of the book chronicling her recovery. It focused a lot on eating disorder recovery, which I’m currently struggling with, and it made me feel so much less alone and like it was something I could tackle too.
Have you read Remnant Population, or Nor Crystal Tears or Roadside Picnic? (Obligatory mention of the Tildes group discussion of Roadside Picnic happening currently) https://tildes.net/~books/16yz/tildes_pop_up_book_club_discussion_topic_for_roadside_picnic
Edit, I recommend all three along with the Sector General series for interesting aliens and an original Star Trek kind of vibe
I have not - I’ve actually just gotten back into reading so I’ve missed out on a lot haha
I’ll totally be adding those to my list - they’re not at my library (figures) but the local bookshop should be able to order them for me once I have the extra coin. Mucho appreciado for the recommendations!
I'm currently reading a fantasy book called 'King of Fools' by Mark Lawrence. Viking hero and feckless prince bound together and off to save the world. I'm about 80% through at the moment. I don't love it, I don't hate it, it's ok. Just lacking something to elevate it so far.
After this it'll be back onto the Expanse books. Read book one and really enjoyed it. Got books 2 & 3 on the shelf ready to go. Looking forward to getting stuck in! I had initially worried that having watched most of the Amazon series would render the books boring, but that hasn't been the case at all.
started reading Charles Perrault: The Complete Fairy Tales - A new translation by Christopher Betts (2009). From doing some looking around, it seems to be the best standard translation of Charles Perrault's French fairy tales, translating all the verse stories and morals into verse. Only read the first two so far, the first of which was The History of Griselda, which is kind of wild. Story is told from the point of view of a prince who marries this woman and treats her horribly and is like damn, she put up with all that, good for her. Unlike other women, she's cool. According to the introduction, this version of the story is written to give more of an emphasis to how awful the prince is and be more sympathetic to Griselda than other versions of the story, but still wild. I can see why this is not one of the fairy tales that has endured in popular culture, unlike many, if not most, of the stories in this book. The verse is kind of weird because it feels like it should be in iambic pentameter and it almost is, but isn't quite, so it's kind of just mid rhyming, but it's cute idk. Dunno how it compares to the original French
I tend to have two main books on the go at a time: one each of a novel and non-fiction.
For the non-fiction, I'm currently about a third of the way into David Grann's latest, The Wager. It recounts the stunning survival of the few remaining crew from the eponymous vessel following it's wreckage in 1741. The near-death crew were hailed as heroes upon their return, that is, until the arrival of a second group of survivors bearing claims of mutiny and murder. I loved The Lost City of Z and Killers of the Flower Moon and, so far, this has delivered the goods. Grann's descriptive prowess is in full force here, particularly when relating the many calamities suffered by the crew and the fierce conditions surrounding Cape Horn.
On the fiction side, I'm re-reading the first novel in Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher Saga, Blood of Elves. What really sets these books apart from the rest of the hordes of Euro-centric medieval fantasy, for me, is the ambiguous morality and often bittersweet tone of the stories. Incidentally, I also started the latest season of the Netflix adaptation and, while perfectly fine and entertaining on its own terms, having the source material so fresh in mind has really highlighted a profound lack of understanding evident in the writing of the show for what makes The Witcher so special in the first place.
On top of these, I have also been following along with Dracula Daily this year and finding it a great way to experience the classic.
I'm reading The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England by Marc Morris. I'd read The Norman Conquest by Morris fairly recently (and really enjoyed it), and wanted to read about what came before. After finishing this, I feel like I might have to go back and read The Normal Conquest again. I've been really liking Marc Morris's stuff.
Books mostly. Sometime long-form pieces on the internet along with mainstream news.