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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 reading the Silo series by Hugh Howey after watching the first season of the new show and deciding I couldn't wait to find out what happens next. I finished the first book, Wool, last night. It was so good! I heard it gets a little slower through Shift, but picks back up in Dust.
After starting the show I plowed through Silo and thought it was fantastic. I also read his Sand series as well, I hope it gets picked up for a show!
How would you rate Sand compared to Wool/Shift/Dust? I am in need of a new series to start and that one looks like it might fit the bill pretty well.
I think Sand is just as good, if not better than Silo. The pacing throughout the Silo books was a little uneven to me, but the Sand books had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I didn’t want to put it down.
Thank you very much! I just got a copy and am looking forward to starting it.
Holy shit, I must live under a rock. This is the first I'm hearing of this TV series. I read the books years ago and moved them. Looks like I know what I'll be watching as soon as I finish The Expanse.
It's so good! Having now finished Wool (and getting started on Shift), I can say they definitely changed a lot in the show regarding plot structure. But it's true to the story in a lot of ways and seems to be well on its way toward being a really excellent adaptation to screen.
Pretty much all of the Expanse books are fantastic if you haven't read any btw!
I think I read the very very first novella ages ago, but never read the full book.
Picked the trilogy up from the author's home page (cheaper than Amazon) and I'm about halfway through Wool now.
It's fun to see what they changed for the TV show and what they kept, and seeing how the plot differs I'm really excited to see how they handle the second season.
You were more patient than me! I think I watched three episodes before I started devouring the book. Loved it as well. I still watched the remaining episodes out of habit, but kind of wish I didn’t. The remaining episodes weren’t that enjoyable compared to the book. I think I didn’t like the mc acting/character and how they kind of spoon-fed everything to you.
Just finished Dust last night, wow what a ride. I'm really looking forward to Season 2 to see how they decide to weave the different story elements into the show. And the fact that Hugh Howey is active in reddit threads about the books and TV show is a real nice plus as he give much insight and an interesting behind-the-scenes point of view to the writing of the books and how the show is being done.
I would generally agree with the comment
as Shift definitely has some parts that could have been trimmed a bit but I really enjoyed all the different character aspects and details by the end of the series. Overall I really appreciate this addition to the post-collapse genre, which has become favorite of mine to read/watch as of late.
Dawnshard a novella by Brandon Sanderson. It’s book 3.5 in the stormlight archive series. I’ve been enjoying it, it’s a fun read and not as hefty as the actual books themselves.
I’ve been drawn to his fantasy for his wonderful worlds and great characters. He is such a great author in my opinion.
Dawnshard is so good, it's honestly my favorite thing in the series. Really good character work, even made me like a character I'd always found annoying before. A good part of the book originates from an open discussion about physical disability in his works, he got a lot of beta readers on board to make sure he does the topic justice and it really shows.
Sanderson's writing is not very good but the world building is absolutely fantastic, probably the best out there, I'm willing to forgive a lot for that
What about his writing do you think is bad? I really enjoy reading his books, they're easy enough to read and really engaging. But I don't really know much about writing, and there's not much I can't get through as long as it's some escapism in it. So I am really interested if you can explain to me what you think is bad about it, I love learning stuff!
I won't go as far as to call his writing bad, it's not, it's average (but not mediocre) with occasional greatness.
His main problem, imho, is that sometimes he gets so deep into world building that he forgets about everything else: from long rambles about how some aspect of the magic works to completely stop the action in the middle of a tense, massive battle to describe in tedious, minute, long winded detail how a magical dehumidifier works, which I found as annoying as amusing.
But as I said, his world building is also his strength so I'm quite happy to forgive those small peccadilloes and, to be fair, I re-read all of the Stormlight Archive whenever he releases a new one so those small faults are much more noticeable.
I'm sure he could solve it by simply doing more editing, but considering the volume of material he produces I don't think he does much of that.
Oh and I also should say re-listen, because a Vorin man shouldn't read, it's inappropriate and the audio books really bring his writing to life, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading do an incredible work.
Even if you have read the books give them a chance, you won't regret it.
Oh no, my friend keeps asking me to start reading the Mistborn trilogy and I really don't like over the top world building. How bad is it compared to Game of Thrones? I enjoy world building but balanced and a slow drop, I don't like reading 100 pages of world building only for it to be entirely ignored/negated for the rest of the series and I felt like that was prevalent throughout GoT. World building that I did enjoy for example was Kingkiller Chronicles, it felt more succinct and to the point and lots of callbacks to events that Kvothe was present/aware of.
Mistborn is actually decently paced. Nowhere near the slog that song of ice and fire can be. I'd recommend you steer clear of stormlight archive though, if heavy worldbuilding is off-putting to you.
Thanks! I'm almost through the last book in the Three Body Problem trilogy, so I think maybe I will give it a shot. Though Foundation just started Season 2 and I'd gotten through like the first 10 novels in the universe and then switched things up... so many books, so little time. And now I have to read some woodworking books, at least those are more referential lol
I just finished Oathbringer and Dawnshard is downloaded and ready to listen to next. I loved Edgedancer so I'm excited for this one :)
I finally starting reading Mistborn and flew through the first three books in about as many weeks. I somehow had never quite gotten around to reading any of his main works since my libraries never had them. I finally broke down and bought them and I’m so glad I did.
I've been reading through the Discworld books, specifically the Death ones. On Soul Music right now - they're unlike anything else I've read, and I'm loving them!
Dune for the sixth time to get through it. But this time I am listening to the audio version with that has a cast. Which got me further than before.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I picked it up a while ago from my library after I had finished the Martian. My opinion about so far is that it is not as good as the Martian. It is just not clicking for me so far, I am going to stick with it to see if this changes.
Big Hunger: the Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America and Anti-Hunger Groups by Andrew Fisher. This was recommended to by one of my professors in college. And it is saying because the Anti-Hunger groups in America is letting the Corps to get on their board of directors, it is actively preventing the group from pursuing actual change to help with their goal. To which, Fisher wants these groups to lobby for livable wages, policies that help people that will, hopefully, help elevate the pressure that these groups are facing. In other words, corporates are not anyone's friends.
Stick with Project Hail Mary! It was my favorite read so far this year, by far.
I’d heard similar comments about reading Project Hail Mary. If the book isn’t doing it, I highly recommend switching to the audiobook. I made the switch and the audiobook was way more engaging.
Project Hail Mary's audiobook is definitely better than the book.
When The Thing happens you'll know why people say the audiobook is better =)
Problem is that my local library does have the audio book version, but it is in Spanish, which I understand. Same with the Martian but that one is in German, which I don't understand.
I have never listened to an audio book (I get distracted when listening to podcast very easily) so I don't really understand how an audio book can be better? Is the narrator just that good in adding tension? It must be the same text right.
There's a plot point that is audio based so works well in an audiobook. I've not listened to it myself but I can imagine it being great having read the book.
It's partly the narrator acting out the characters, giving them a distinct voice. Some books have special effects and background music when it's feasible. (Like the Sandman audiobooks on Audible).
As for Project Hail Mary, sound is an important part of the plot and IMO it works better in audiobook form.
I liked The Martian, but I liked Project Hal Mary even more.
I just finished James Clavell's Shogun. What an incredible journey that novel was! Right now, I'm trying to start his other book, Tai-Pan and I'm also giving Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi" a shot as well.
Fantastic series. I personally loved Tai Pan and Noble house the most. King Rat is probably the least fictional but also fairly distressing so I've only read it once.
Noble House is so damn good. You don't really need to read Tai-Pan first either (although there are a few ties).
For those who don't know what these books are about, the name is a bit misleading. It's a fictionalized account of the history of Jardine Matheson and some of its leaders in the context of the turmoil of the 20th century.
Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy. Only ~60 pages in, the book already earning its reputation. It's a brutal, nihilistic, and cinematic depiction of the American West. McCarthy can create truly vivid and gripping images with his prose - really unlike anything I've seen before.
I liked his depiction of the American West as you put it and I found a lot of his characters interesting, but wasn't able to get through it. I found myself constantly having to reread paragraphs or sometimes multiple pages to really figure out what was actually going on, and it just took me forever to read. After about halfway through, I ended up just skipping to the end and reading the last chapter to see how it ended. Somehow an interesting slog for me? I do however get why people like it so much, and maybe I'll give it another go in a few years or so.
It's a beautiful novel, I just started my first reread. The way the narrator stays just out of the reader's view, the sense of eternal recurrence, and the slightly ambiguous reality of the story haunted me for months after finishing it, the style is just as sinister as the characters.
My only complaint about Blood Meridian is that it's structured as a novel when it's more of an epic poem. I feel like it could sit on a shelf quite comfortably next to Derek Walcott's Omeros.
I re-read it recently after about ten years and was happy it held up. I've got Suttree queued in the to-read pile; it was always Roger Ebert's favorite of McCarthy's, and he mentioned it in glowing terms any time McCarthy came up.
No Country For Old Men, if you haven't read it, is a fascinating novella to read after having watched the movie. It's so short and terse, and the Coens' adaptation is so faithful, that the book is practically a shooting script.
I despised The Road and I never understood the hype around it. Like, just watch Mad Max my guy. IMO it was just digestible enough for Oprah's list & just misanthropic enough (in the Cannibal Holocaust sense) to feel affirming to redneck America, which loves nothing more than guns and neighborly paranoia.
I felt like The Road really encapsulated the spirit of protection and what a father would do for his son. While the prevalence of cannibals might seem high to some I feel like it makes sense in this setting. It shows a world where something has happened (I'd guess a giant volcanic eruption as iirc there is a lot of ash mentioned) at some point in the past. Depending on how long something like that is going on our society would definitely collapse and if it had been years and years most people would be dead leaving very few very desperate people. It would make sense that a number of the survivors in that sense had turned to one of the few sources of food left, other people.
Seeing the father caring for his son and after having decided on some objective, getting to the west coast where maybe things could be better, doing everything in his power to make it there and to provide for himself and his son. The ending leaves with that glimmer of hope for the son and it makes you want the people he ran into to be legitimate.
To each their own opinion though. I read it in high school and was moved by it and the story has stuck with me. I'm actually hesitant to read it now that I'm a Dad as I feel like I wouldn't be able to finish the book due to picturing myself in that situation with my sons.
That perspective on the story makes a lot of sense to me. When I read it, I was a pessimistic slacktivist in my late 30s with no kids, a drinking problem and a pretty fractured relationship with my own father. Lol.
I have to admit it would probably resonate differently today.
Seeing you say that makes me wish I had more time for rereading novels since being able to revisit something at a different point in my life would probably make me look at it or experience it in a completely different way. But life is short and there are so many additional books out there that I don't know if I ever will loop back to books like this to see.
If you do ever get back to it I'd be curious to know what you'd think of it being in a different place in your life.
I have blood meridian on my 'someday' list, but Im a bit afraid to start.
As I read The Road, I felt afraid to keep reading because of an existential dread of something awful happening to the kid.
For anyone who's read both, could they comment, without spoilers, about the feelings blood meridian evokes?
To me, reading Blood Meridian was full of horror, but sort of biblical/cosmic compared to the terror and fear for the lives of the protagonists of the Road. There were a lot of stretches of mild boredom interspersed with incredible wonder, but it always came back to a place of disgust with humanity and somber reflection. A lot of philosophical musing. The stakes are very different, as it's historical, epic, and the book itself never lets the reader forget the scale of things, which is larger than any one character.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
'Cosmic horror' i think I can handle, and I really enjoy stories that make me think. This has really helped alleviate some of the hesitancy ive had in starting Blood Meridian.
I'm reading book one of The Stormlight Archives called The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I'm only about 20% of the way through the book, but I really enjoy the world building and character development so far.
You have a very long road ahead but it's worth it.
Bridge Four!
I started reading the way of kings last June, took a long hiatus after getting about 20% in because I didn’t find it engaging. I came back to it this May and I’m now 70% through and loving it (I have about 2-3 hours of free time per day so 1200 pages takes a while).
Not sure what happened to me back then, but I’ve heard people say it starts out slow and picks up steam and that could not be more spot on! It does tend to lag at a few points but the action is superb.
This is one of my favorite books. I envy you. I wish I could go back and read this book for the first time. It is so so good. Oh man.
I've found over the last few years that I've become much more of a mood reader and tend to jump around between books. This has helped me to avoid any slump periods where I'm finding a particular chapter boring or want something different for a while.
The books I'm actively reading:
Damn, it's crazy you got a Malazan recommendation from your teacher! I don't think any of my teacher's ever encouraged us to read fantasy in general, let alone Malazan. Respect to her.
She was one of my favorite teachers in high school. She taught physics and I ended up taking her classes for 3 years because I enjoyed her teaching method so much. My senior year she actually got together with some of her favorite students to have them get other people they knew to express interest in an additional physics class besides the normal and advanced physics classes that sat somewhere in between them so she could have an extra year with us. She was a great teacher and her final included creating a Rube Goldberg machine for a specific task.
She was a huge fantasy nerd and would listen to my friends and I talk about different things and mentioned Malazan as something we might be interested in. We recommended her Berserk now that I think about it since she said she'd never read manga and that was our favorite at the time.
Your description sounds so much like my high school physics teacher.
Any chance her name was Ms Clarke?
I'm glad you also had a cool high school physics teacher!
That wasn't her name so it looks like we went to different schools. With her naming being rather unique I'll not post it for privacy reasons.
I’ve also been super interested in reading more history. So much so that I end up getting overwhelmed with the amount of historical content that’s out there. My TBR list of history books keeps growing and growing…and then I end up being unable to settle on one book to start…and just keep spinning my wheels over and over again.
That Prussia book seems interesting! I don’t know much about Prussia, or that period of time, so maybe I’ll pick it up. It’s on my to be read list now, for sure though.
I hope you enjoy it! I completely understand how you feel. There are so many different topics and some of the niches can go very deep.
I usually refer to my TBR list as "Mt Readmore". The reason I pushed myself into history more is that I know I like it, but I always get distracted by Scifi or Fantasy. Hard to say no to dragons or a giant spaceship!
If you do pick something up you should post about it and I'll see if I remember your username so I can ask you how you enjoy it.
My current strategy to not get bored of reading is to have a fiction and non-fiction book at the same time, which has been working out so far.
Right now that is:
Foundation (Isaac Asimov) -- I'll admit that this has felt a bit of a step down from the fiction thing I was reading before (The Final Architecture by Adrian Tchaikovsky), in the sense I don't resonate as much with the initial premise of ---
Spoilers? Not really
Being able to math out history thousands of years into the future mixed a bit of great man theory. I understand that the story has to have heroes but it seems a bit much to me to hype up the precognition of a character to the point where they're plotting out how entire civilizations would act.(I also noticed that every named character so far has been male, so take that as you will)
I'm okay with chalking some this up to this book being old because been over 70 years since it was written and stories/the stuff we think about have changed a lot since then. The story is taking some interesting steps with how it sees its world playing out, I'm fine with sticking to it for now.
The Dawn of Everything (David Graeber & David Wengrow) --
I was recommended this book on the premise that early humans were doing society in a way very different to our popular conception.
So far it's been doing a good job of completely upending my "history of humans elevator pitch" and I'm looking forward to seeing what other weird history things are going on, because I'm not that far in and it's already gone in a bunch of cool directions.
My only criticism of this book right now is that it's too damn long, and my attention span is too short for me to possibly make any decent progress in a single reading session.
I'm guessing you're not very far into this book. Asimov totally demolishes the "Great Man" theory of history in this series of stories. [Except when he doesn't... :( ]
Asimov was in his early 20s, and was literally a virgin at the time he wrote those early stories. Much later in his career, he acknowledged that there should have been more women in his early works, but he explained that he didn't know any women, so he found it difficult to write about them. He made up for it later.
If you get as far as the third book in the series ('Second Foundation'), you'll meet Bayta Darrell and her husband Toran in one story, and then her granddaughter Arkady in a later story. They're quite good characters.
But, there are definitely not many women in the early Foundation series. That's why gender-switching some characters was a much-needed refresher when David Goyer created a television show called 'Foundation' for Apple recently (which is only very loosely based on Asimov's stories). Goyer did a lot of things wrong, but evening out the gender balance was one of the extremely few things he did right.
Thank you for the context. A big part of my apprehension after the very beginning was definitely a "is this going to get addressed or am I going to learn something about the author?" and now it looks like I wasn't giving him enough benefit of the doubt.
I should have added where I was in the book (a bit into of Part III ("The Mayors") at time of comment) since there were plenty of pages left for things to go in an unexpected direction.
With this in mind, I'm looking forwards to updating my impressions in the coming chapters.
If you're only just into 'The Mayors', then you haven't read enough of the stories yet to pick up the theme. However, the end of that story explains it a bit more. And each subsequent story demonstrates the theme more and more. By the time you get to the first story in the second book ('The General' in 'Foundation and Empire'), it will be totally apparent that the Great Man theory of history has no place in the Foundation series. Psychohistory rules all, and it's based on large populations, not individuals.
But then Asimov was forced by his editor to shake things up in the very next story: 'The Mule'. sigh It's a fun story, but totally antithetical to the theme of the Foundation stories. Asimov then spends the next two stories fixing that mistake and its consequences - but, at least he does so by fleshing out the Foundation universe, and giving us some interesting antagonists.
It's a fun journey. Enjoy!
The Dawn of Everything is definitely a bit of a slog sometimes, and I do think the middle portion allows for a reader to skip through a bit. I personally didn't because I found it fascinating to see all the examples, but the point they make in those middle chapters does just get repeated through them and intensified. One possibly anarchic example of Mesopotamian civilization which causes schismogenesis in its neighbours is pretty much enough to 'get it' at that point.
The latter third of the book is absolutely great though. They start to weave all those examples back into a theory on power, then examine its implications on history, how we look at history, and how it shapes our current political outlook and future. Fascinating stuff.
This is spot on with my experience. I got stuck in the middle, put it down for a month or two, and then loved the last third when I picked it back up.
I’ve been stuck in a rut, work is taking way too much of my time and I haven’t gotten much reading done lately, but the book I’m a little over halfway through is The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan.
So far really enjoying it though! Fascinating and I’m learning a lot about agriculture (particularly of the industrial kind). Also a bit dystopian and depressing at times to see how much we’ve screwed with the natural cycles and processes of the world. Pretty sure that’s going to come back to bite us collectively in the ass at some point, but maybe we’ll be able to keep it going somehow. One of my main takeaways (the author hasn’t said this explicitly, but it’s something I’m interpolating based on the overall big picture) is that at some point, the current industrial agricultural regime in the US based around fossil fuels and corn is almost certainly going to collapse and need to be completely re-organized along different inputs and processes. And that will probably be a very difficult process.
Completely agree with you on this. The reasoning behind it is that the American farmer is growing to much corn, to the point it is not even worth growing it because it's value is absolute dogshit. Hence why the government subsidies corn and why modern cattle feed is corn base. And why the agricultural colleges have cows with holes in their stomachs to see the effects of it. And why some dairies will have grass fed on their packaging, yes it is a marketing gimmick but not really. And why High-fructose corn syrup is in so many things. The documentary King Corn does dive into more detail of this fucking shitshow.
I saw one of those cows with a window into its stomach at my University. Pollan's book points out the various ways substances extracted from corn are insinuated into processed food in the US. I find it fascinating and kind of disgusting.
I'm currently reading De Spectris, a 1569 book about ghosts, widely believed to be the most culturally influential book about spirits in the west.
I learned about this book through a YouTube channel called Esoterica, and it sounded very interesting to me. I remember he said that Shakespeare used it to inform the ghosts in Macbeth.
I generally enjoy reading occult books because I live in a small rural town in the bible belt, so I like to be informed about the things people around me are very passionate about but not too informed about themselves. As an atheist, and a nerd, I also just enjoy the IRL lore and world building lol. Lots of good D&D material, and often grounded in "reality" so it feeds off of the same cultural understandings that we at large might not be aware of. Make your ghosts scarier, read medieval grimoires lol.
De Spectris follows along a very similar vein as The Keys of Solomon and The Malleus Maleficarum, mostly listing off different types of "spirits" and their desires, so far. I'm only a few pages in, unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your tastes) this one is in old English so it is quite slow to get through.
I'm (un)dying to talk to anyone about this wild, crazy niche of books.
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that Transform the World by David Deutsch
What do you think of it?
Enjoying it! I am a huge fan of Deutsch, his first book "The Fabric of Reality" is one of my favorites. I've reread that one two or three times at this point over the last few years. This book expands on some things that he glossed over in the first one, while being different subject matter and having a more philosophical approach.
Currently just The Name of the Wind.
Was a little worried about it at first, as there's some choices about the protagonist that made me skeptical, but it's handled well. There's still been one or two moments of wondering if the plot was really that contrived or if there's something bigger later to explain it, but I'm absolutely enjoying it and burning through the audio book.
Unless it drops the ball hard I'll just jump into the next one right after.
Just be prepared to shelve the series to the pile of "this will be never finished".
I don't regret reading The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, but I have resigned to the fact that I'll never read the ending. As with The Song of Ice and Fire.
Yeah. At first I heard the final one was releasing this year, but it seems that was wrong or I misunderstood and it's just some novella (annd after a little more research, a re release of an already published novella....so yeah not ideal).
I can live with it. I'm glad I read Ice and Fire and there's a few other series I've poked at that never finished. I'd love to see an end to it, but I can live with a cliffhanger. Hardly the first.
The novellas are good reads, if you want some more content set in that world.
Currently reading Lovecraft Country. I never saw the HBO show but the concept of re-contextualizing HP Lovecraft's work through the lens of segregation-era America sounded fascinating.
However, I did not realize the author Matt Ruff is not black - which I have mixed feelings about. On one hand I believe anyone should be able to write about anything if done with respect and honesty (which seems to be the case here). But this is a story about race, about being discriminated against, and frankly I'm unsure if that's Ruff's story to tell. The book itself has been a very enjoyable and interesting read so far, it's just difficult to get this out of the back of my mind.
I've never been much of a reader in the past but that's starting to change. My brother and cousin both gifted me the two books I'd been looking to get my hands on. It's kind of difficult to find English literature in a third world, French-as-a-second-language country.
I only recently finished reading George Orwell's Animal Farm, I was reading 1984 simultaneously and I'm about halfway through the book. I can't put into words the immense joy that these two books have brought me.
I know I've seen discussions for how to source books in comparable situations to yours on r/books. (Sometimes going to the large, specialized community with millions of users is the appropriate choice when looking for information). Project Gutenberg has a lot of free electronic books online and I know that there are other sources. Best wishes for your reading journey.
Thanks for the references, I'll be sure to use them the next time I find myself. I've tried reading E-books on my LED display and found the experience pretty terrible, I'll have to buy something with an E-ink display before I consider reading the many amazing books Project Gutenberg provides.
Getting an e-ink reader immediately comes to mind as the obvious solution. Then there's at least a few online ebook shops to choose from and you don't have to worry about where you live. If, for some reason, restrictions on sales are in effect, you can manage a different way. :) It just makes sense if you live somewhere where you need to "source" books.
What E-ink reader would you recommend for someone that's just getting started?
That depends on where you live.
But you already said that you live "in a third world, French-as-a-second-language country", then that means not the US or Canada (which fits the description at least in half :D). In that case, Kindle is not the best option. Amazon/Kindle is very English-centric, for example there's no keyboard in my language and we have accented letters. But French is a 1st world citizen on Kindle, so you might use that. However, you also seem to be interested in English literature. Sorry, I'm making best guesses here based on the info I have, perhaps you don't even speak French. :)
You're not in Poland, either, so you don't care about subscription based services (Legimi, Empik GO) which we have here. Otherwise I'd recommend PocketBook.
I want to say Kobo, perhaps the Libra 2 model. I personally have Kobo Forma as my daily driver (and also used PocketBook and Kindle readers before), but it's a high-end model that is very expensive (superseded by the Sage model), which would be an overkill for the first ereader device. Kobo has the build quality of Kindle and the same performance, but doesn't belong to the "evil corporation" (Amazon) and -- this is the most important part -- is very customizable and extensible. Kobo doesn't actively fight users tinkering with their devices and installing KOReader is like installing a CFW on a gaming console. You unlock the full potential of your device and get tons of new features, while also fixing some problems (like the lack of a native keyboard for my language, KOReader covers me) that Kindle has because they don't care about certain countries or languages, even if they sell their devices there.
PB ereaders are generally good (enough), but the software is lacking and has some issues with performance, etc., that is why I recommend Kobo over PocketBook. But if you have easier access to PocketBook or it's significantly cheaper for you, that's a good second option, too.
You could also try Onyx Boox maybe, but they are based on Android -- it means they are versatile devices, but the battery life is not as great as on other ereaders.
TL;DR get a Kobo Libra 2 and install KOReader on it or get a PocketBook if it's cheaper/easier to buy.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a detailed response. I'll take your suggestions into consideration when I decide to get one!
I live in Tunisia, by the way. I looked around the internet and came to the conclusion that there isn't a lot of choice when it comes to e-readers, so I'll have to import the device.
I'm reading Ubik by Arthur C. Clark, it's a time travel novel like only Clark can write, absolutely mind breaking.
I'm also listening to the Audible version of Dracula by Bram Stocker, the voice actors are fantastic and the book is great, much more nuanced than any movie.
I think you mean Philip K Dick for Ubik? It's a great little novel. He anticipated today's rental economy as well, with the door that charges you to open it - bleak stuff.
Have you also read the Blade Runner one as well (Can Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)?
Oh damn, you're right, no idea how the hell did I mixed them, they couldn't be more different.
Yes I read that one and A Scanner Darkly so far I think the latter is the best one but, to be honest, the former was so bizarrely different to the movie that to me it was unintentionally funny.
I mean, in the movie Deckar and Rachel fall in love and flee together in search of a better future but in the book she fucks him to mess with his head and throw his beloved (and expensive) ¿Ethiopian? goat from the roof of a building out of pure spite.
That gave me a chuckle.
I actually didn't enjoy Do Androids Dream as much as the movie. I get that they are totally different, and I enjoyed the reinforcement of themes, but I sometimes felt like it was over explaining stuff rather than letting the world breathe. But it's been a while, I may be forgetting
I have to agree with you, the book is great and I love it's weirdness, but the movie is just perfect.
I've been slowly working my way through the "Malazan Book of the Fallen" series.
Currently on Reaper's Gale which is book 7 out of 10, so I've still go a ways to go. I started the series after finishing the released books in ASOIAF, and it has really scratched that itch for a highly interconnected story/world with multiple PoV characters.
After I finish reading the last 2 books of The Cradle series, this is the next one I'm starting. I look forward to it.
I just recently started re-reading the Shannara series.
I started the books in middle school and once I caught up with everything published I would get the newest book every year for Christmas. I only read up to Morgawr before I just kind of fell off.
I saw he finally concluded the series a few years ago and decided to pick it back up after 15 or so years away, in the order Terry Brooks recommends with Word & Void included.
I’ve gotten through the Elf Queen of Shannara (and the prequel, First King of Shannara), and started the Talismans of Shannara last night.
I’m really into it and excited to re-read the Word & Void series next, since I loved those when I read them, but never realized they were in the same universe.
Such great memories of these books and they still hold up for me after all these years.
I’ve heard the TV series, while different, was actually pretty good before it was cancelled so I’ll have to check that out as well.
I also started reading the Shannara books in middle school and ended up dropping the series due to life stuff (I didn't read a whole lot in undergrad). I think I stopped around the end of the High Druid set of books. I'd like to re-read them all someday, but that day probably won't be soon.
I'm reading Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson. It's a interesting read, I'm at part 3 and I have no idea how they'll actually do what needs to be done, or what needs to be done for that matter. I read Arcanum Unbounded yesterday, which was neat to be able to read those short stories, I skipped Edgedancer thought, as I've recently read it.
I'm still in the very early chapters of Yumi, can't wait to see how it ends up tying together. I found Tress to be very useful for me as a tool for introspection, and Yumi is shaping up to be another look inward onto my mental hangups. I wasn't expecting that of the secret project books, really just bought them to support my current favorite author. But I really found a lot of my own mental process being drawn out in the themes of these books, and it's been a fun ride.
I've just finished the book last night, and it was really great start to finish! I thought I knew what the twist would be, but I was wrong!
Awesome! Just started part 3 myself. I love a good twist!
Finished it last night, I also did not predict the twist. Great stuff!
I also feel like the whole
spoilery maybe
human creativity vs machine-made art
maybe also a spoiler
ChatGPT and AI generated content, especially with the recent Hollywood writer's strike citing AI concerns as part of their worries.
And, as I suspected, I felt like I really saw some of my own internal problems played out in the pages of this book, and it helped me start to recognize and work through some of them a tiny bit. 10/10, would recommend.
I have only listened to audiobooks of all of the cosmere books. (Multiple times ☺️).
Loved Yumi and the nightmare painter. Honestly i thought I knew what the twist would be but I was completely wrong lol. It was fun.
Why did spirits respond to rock stacks though? I'm not sure anymore.
Seeing how the ending went I think they're just easily entertained!
In my second trek through Gravity's Rainbow, I've finally passed the Pokler episode. The prelude to it, with the Mittelwerke and the birth of Rocketman, are so beautiful, but dear lord. Pokler is like a horrific version of Slothrop, just another human yo-yo bouncing from one highly-demanding task to the next, but instead of driven by paranoia, by a refusal to connect the dots. I didn't realize that my first time through, despite the next episode immediately introducing the idea of antiparanoia, a bit on the nose there. The conditioning done to him goes above my head, by far. How much is imagined, how much he's inventing a villain to justify his own evil, how real it could be and had to have been on some level. My first read, I couldn't get more than a couple of pages through at a time, this time some furious cursing at the book while pushing past the outrage helped me persevere. The walk through the wasteland culminating in the rendezvous with Saure was a really great crash pad for such a heavy section.
Meanwhile, my father has decided he wants to read Blood Meridian, and I agreed to go through it with him. That opening chapter is really something, I had forgotten just how quickly the pace moves, how soon the Judge makes his appearance, and how small the Kid is even in the beginning.
I'm also about two thirds into Roadside Picnic. There's a lot here to love, but it just isn't clicking with me. I'm hardly dragging my feet, I look forward to finishing it, but I might need to let it digest for a while before I really appreciate much, unless this last forty pages or so really go askew. The eponymous conversation was fantastic, though. Thought-provoking and believable, but still plenty expressive, even in translation.
I probably need to develop an obsession with a new author, why not another Faulkner devotee, Toni Morrison? I thought The Bluest Eye was gripping and horrific, and just gorgeous. Well, Sula, at the halfway mark, is hardly cheery, but these characters are compelling as all hell. Eva is wild and cool and maybe awful, but what a woman, and I want nothing but those girls to find homes they love as much as they love each other.
Well, I finished Roadside Picnic. It didn't go as far as a part of me was hoping, but it did go askew! Very happy to have read it, it was impressive in a very simple and thought-provoking way. Quietly ambitious, the world is haunting and one wonders if as much allegory as may be found was intended therein.
I'm about to start The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin (book two of The Three-Body Problem/Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy). Now that I've finished the first book my only regret is that it's taken me so long to get around to this series.
Been reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. I know it’s a very popular book and was excited to start it but honestly it’s been a struggle to get through.
Please note that while it's very popular among the general public, it's not very well respected among experts and historians. It's one of those "great theories" that are more backed by the author's wish that it is true than by actual evidence.
Ask Historians
Yep. My take on the “science of civilization” is that civilizations don’t fail because of problems (running out of oil, too much CO2, getting invaded, soil degradation, …) they fail because they can’t deal with problems or make problems faster than they solve them. For real insight in the long view read something like Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism or Immanuel Wallerstein’s The Modern World System.
Word. At this point I’m just finishing it and moving on to something new that I find more interesting.
Historians don't much like anything that's reductive. The idea that something as consequential as the conquest of the Americans comes down to the North-South vs East-West geography of the Americas vs Eurasia seems to short-change the people, events, and complexities that lead to and made up that conquest.
There might well be something to it but in putting it out there as a theory that explains history rather than a discussion of what happened, Diamond makes some implicit claims that what happened was what had to happen. Historians don't like to do that; we don't like to delve into the counterfactual because that's not what history is. Likewise, we don't like to make assertions about the possibility or impossibility of other outcomes because that is, in a way, just another way of exploring counterfactuals.
When experts say things like:
Or:
Or:
Or:
Or:
I tend to listen to them.
I have a master's of history myself, so I have a pretty good feeling about what "historians" like or don't like and I don't agree with your characterization of the profession. Plenty do "big history" and do it properly.
Out of curiosity, do you agree with the comment endorsing
as better big-picture histories?
I have not read those or researched them, so can't comment.
Fair enough. Is your username a Brooklyn Nine-Nine reference, by the way?
Recently finished Because Internet Understanding the New Rules of Language
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36739320-because-internet?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=HC2G6WTKBe&rank=1
And recently finished Tribe on Homecoming and Belonging
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40940205-tribe?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Nfz82uLPCb&rank=1
Have nearly finished The Longings of Women
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/937628.The_Longings_of_Women?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_25
Still slowly working through The Best of Poetry Thoughts that Breathe and Words that Burn
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23206799-the-best-of-poetry?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=WoFgL111rK&rank=1
Because Internet was exceptional. It combined linguistics, history and sociology. It was clear and entertaining, sometimes funny.
Tribe was a good book, about the need for community in society. The book starts with a discussion of the historical record from the American colonies and early United States that people would leave their 'civilized life' to live with native american communities, but migration in the other direction was more rare. I'd love to hear a historian weigh in about how true the author is to the historical record, but the overall discussion about the need for community is one I would recommend.
The Longings of Women features several protagonists whose stories eventually intersect. It is a slow paced, observant book that features a homeless cleaning woman and her clients and some unhappy marriages and some good dating relationships. There is a murder and a court case. It's well written imho but I'm waiting until the end to decide whether I liked it.
Oh hey, I picked this up because you recommended it in another thread. It's really fantastic!
Because Internet sounds awesome! Just downloaded it on my kindle. Thanks for the recommendation
Ive been reading turtles all the way down by john green. Having suffered from mental health issues myself(anxiety, panic) its nice to consume media where I can somewhat relate to the main character in that way.
Currently reading Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl T. Bergstrom and Jevin D. West. It's about mis- and disinformation but more focused on how statistics and science can be used to draw wrong or insufficient conclusions and how we are often overly inclined to believe quantitative data. I was initially reading a book on statistics when I came across this book.
Grokking Algorithms by Aditya Y. Bhargava. I'm looking to make sure I have the fundamentals of my profession licked and stored away in my spaced repetition system, and this is a good way to refresh knowledge stuck in the crevices of my brain.
My next book is Dilla Time by Dan Charnas, a book about the music artist J. Dilla.
Oh man, awesome tip! Going to purchase this straight away. Such a different and approachable way to present a technical matter.
Mortal Engines by Stanislaw Lem, so far really fantastical short stories in a fairytale style telling. Much like the Cyberiad the point of view is from some robots or rather a bunch of different robot civilizations from across the cosmos. Not as funny as the Cyberiad but definitely still very charming and a joy to read.
I'm reading (partially rereading) through The Witcher series right now. I want to say the last 2 books hadn't been released in English when I had gotten to that point and just never bought them until recently, but could also be pulling that out of my ass. Either way, currently on the last book I read and I've got the last two on the shelf. Excited to finish out the series!
I'm on book 3 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, I've already read the main series and (most of) everything else that's connected to the universe so this is my first re-read.
I always heard how good these books are on a re-read and I can definitely see why. There's some pretty crazy foreshadowing to events happening mulitple books later and reading these early books when you're new to the world and quite lost, compared to having a good understanding of it is quite a different experience.
The long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. I like the series as it feels like there's some hard sci-fi reasoning behind the scenes (if you accept the basic premise), but we're more presented with people living in the world than a bunch of technical details. I think most sci-fi either becomes obsessing over the tech or magic in space.
I'm just starting Death's End, the third part of Cixun Liu Three Body Problem trilogy.
I liked the first book (Three Body Problem), but it had some slow slouches that took me a while to get through. The end of the first book was amazing though, and made me jump to the second part (The dark forest) straight away. This one was amazing from start to finish, I'm looking forward to see how the story continues (And finishes) in Death's End... So far so good!
I felt the same way about The Three Body Problem. Several slow stretches that took me a bit to get through, but the entire last third or so of the book had me gripped and intrigued.
I didn’t feel the same urge to jump straight into the second book as you did, though. I almost felt like I needed a pallet cleanser. To hear that Death’s End is really good though…makes me want to dive back into that world with The Dark Forest.
The long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. I like the series as it feels like there's some hard sci-fi reasoning behind the scenes (if you accept the basic premise), but we're more presented with people living in the world than a bunch of technical details. I think most sci-fi either becomes obsessing over the tech or magic in space.
Just finished The Cuckoo’s Egg, a book about catching hackers back when it meant running down dusty hallways to try to physically trace the correct line via a Bell Labs 5ESS switch. About how an astronomer accidentally ended up chasing a hacker who connected to the CIA, NSA, and an old Berkeley Unix system. About the time when the Internet consisted of Arpanet, Milnet, and "probably thousands more computers"
Fantastically well-written and entertaining. Highly recommended.
Now I’m already well into Showstopper! The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft, which is more factual but still well written and includes insight into some of the giants of the computer software industry.
Currently reading two things. I'm rereading the Cradle series by Will Wight with a friend, we're currently on Uncrowned. Love the series, friend is having a great time too, but it's going a bit slower than I'd hoped (haven't read the final book yet and it's killing me). I've also started A Memory called Empire. It hasn't really hooked me yet, but I'm only a few chapters in.
Oh and I guess I also started reading 本好きの下剋上 (Ascendance of a Bookworm) Part 2 Vol 1 a while ago, but I've not picked that up in a while because reading in Japanese is quite a bit of effort for me. But I refuse to read it in English - Myne wouldn't want it that way!
I've been really busy at the moment unfortunately but I'm slowly making my way through Richard Llewellyn's How Green Was My Valley, which chronicles the successes and struggles of a Welsh mining family. Covering faith, politics, labour rights, and man's relationship with nature, it's already proving to be a thought-provoking book.
This is a bit different as a self improvement book but I found it very entertaining. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. It goes over how negotiation has evolved and how to do better. It's more than just about negotiating a better raise or a cheaper car, it has helped me look back at things that happened in relationships that started with misunderstandings and how it could've been mitigated.
In the summer, I like to read chilling stories - ghosty things, haunted houses, creepy gothic stuff, campfire-style. Last year, I dug into Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle on a bit of a Shirley Jackson kick. This year, I dipped into Mexican gothic stories, including The Hacienda, Certain Dark Things (which I haven't finished yet), and I'm just about to start Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. I was really interested in haunted houses as a theme and heard good things about Belladonna - it wasn't what I expected, but the concept was interesting. I just finished House of Hollow, which was less about a haunted house than I was expecting, but it was a reasonably well-written young adult novel that was just as creepy and mysterious as I was hoping.
On the more serious side, I am reading Pathways for Remembering and Recognizing Indigenous Thought in Education by Sandra Styres. I read Decolonizing Research Methodologies by Linda Tuhiwai Smith a couple years ago and jumped into the rabbit hole with both feet.
I've got an audiobook going for Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons and Dragons for when I'm driving or doing yardwork and I'm reading a physical copy of House of Leaves. I'm enjoying both.
I was reading through the Witcher series, but took a break and have been reading a book called "The Rickover Effect". It's an interesting recounting of how Rickover really brought nuclear power to the Navy and in effect to the public by someone that was pretty close to him in the process. With the current landscape of the U.S government nothing like it was back in the 50s, it's pretty crazy to read about how Rickover managed to get these projects completed through the administrative and engineering challenges he faced in a time when nuclear power was still new. Additionally, it gives pretty good insight into the type of leader Rickover was and how his prioritizing of proficiency and "doing things right", often times without compromise, paved the way for success.
This year I read His Very Best Jimmy Carter a Life which had a section about Carter working under Rickover. Issues during the Carter administration were some of the first I was politically aware of, like the Peace efforts in the Middle East and the Iran Hostage crisis, which sparked my interest in the book along with admiration of how Carter used his post-presidency to do good including the near eradication of Guinea Worm. I had been unaware that Carter worked with Rickover, but the details in the book about what Rickover was like to work for were interesting.
I've been really enjoying the current arc of https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26727/arkendrithyst - I'm on patreon so it's a few chapters head of the current release... but it's really amazing. Like, I read a lot. It's my main hobby and comfort activity. And the last few chapters have actually gotten me excited and made my heart rate go up and made me tense and everything. That doesn't happen a lot with books.
I also recently finished the second book of the SC Marva Collins books by Nathan Lowell... fun reads! Really looking forward to the next one!
I haven't come across Royal Road before. seems like a cool community. any others on there that you recommend checking out?
Honestly, that really really depends on what you like to read. A lot of what I'm reading is LitRPG, isekai and prog fantasy... sometimes all of it at once :D I also prefer stuff on the lighter/slice of life side, rather than a lot of drama and grittiness.
So far my absolute top 5 would be:
Ar'Kendrihyst - https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26727/arkendrithyst
Beware of Chicken - the first 3ish books are on Kindle Unlimited, and no longer available for free (there is a link in the first Author's Note in the first chapter) https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/beware-of-chicken
Demesne - https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40290/demesne
Tori Transmigrated - this one is weird in that while there is magic, it's not the focus. It's a "reincarnated as the villainess of a sorta dating sim" sort of game... but there's no cringy relationship drama, the characters grow and develop, and there's some massively satisfying epilogues. I started reading it right as it was finishing, and it hooked me like few other books have hooked me before. A very "I knew this people, I saw them grow up and develop and become amazing" sort of feeling. https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47030/tori-transmigrated
For my fifth story I'll link a guilty pleasure. It's one of the first LitRPG/VRMMO books I read and actually enjoyed. It's not complete, the last update was ages ago and it very well might be abandoned. But there's around 2 and a half books there. The writing is not the best, but still a decent read... and it's just satisfying.
Farming for Gold - https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/25454/farming-for-gold
Edit: I can't believe I forgot to link Cinnamon Bun! - https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/31429/cinnamon-bun . It's amazing. A fluffy, slice-of-life story of friendship and adventure
(I totally forgot it was on RR, I've been a patreon to the since before the story started so I read directly on gdocs...)
I just started my foray into LitRPG with Dungeon Crawler Carl, really enjoying the genre so far.
It pushed that part of my brain that spent hours and hours fantasizing about actually being in the worlds I was playing in... just amazing.
Mother of Learning is excellent, and not just for web serials. The premise is that a novice wizard gets caught in a month-long time loop and needs to find a way out. He's also not the only person trapped in it. This story is complete as of a few years ago, and the author has recently started a new story which I'm very excited about.
A Journey of Black and Red is a vampire story, but it's not a pulp romance. It's mostly a slice-of-unlife following the lead character Arianne, starting with her unwilling turning. The stakes start personal, and gradually grow as Arianne develops her abilities and immerses herself into vampire society.
If you're into progression fantasy, then The Path of Ascension is best in class. (Edit: I just realized that it's a "stub", meaning some chapters have been removed to comply with Kindle Unlimited requirements. The first several chapters are still on RoyalRoad, but a lot of the early story is only on KU.)
Minithra recommended Beware of Chicken, which is excellent. However, it's best read when you've grown tired of xianxia (cultivation) tropes - Beware of Chicken is a xianxia story done well, which is a very rare thing.
Just got myself a copy of Murder, Magic and Medicine by John Mann - a book about the early history of chemistry and pharmacology.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/562821
After that I have Walkaway by Cory Doctorow, which I admit I bought entirely off the author's name.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40604388
For a counter story, Trevor Noah's Born a Crime is excellent.
Paper copy of On War
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1946
which is believe it or not timely about the Ukraine war. Sure tech like DPICM, drones, etc. can be decisive but war still comes down to politics, psychology, terrain and such that haven’t changed in 180 years. Notably it was as unrealistic for Wagner to take a column of military vehicles from Rostov-on-Dom to Moscow as it was for Hitler to do it or Napoleon to do it with horses.
Still slowly working through The Big Four by Agatha Christie. I'm almost finished and will definitely be taking a Poirot break once I get through it. I also downloaded a sample of Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. The story seems enjoyable but it's written in present tense, which I find grating. Glad I tried out a sample first
Does "listening these days" count as well?
If so, More Than This right now. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21969786-more-than-this
Not a fan so far but I am only 20% in. LGBTQ+ and "Young adult" are a little too far out of my usual wheelhouse I guess. :)
*edit: Finished it and it was good. Just started a bit slow.
I finished Snowbound the other day, which was good. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7722061-snowbound
Overall I am taking a break from Expeditionary Force https://www.goodreads.com/series/185650-expeditionary-force
I finished book 6 and consumed them one after the other but I just need a little break. Really like it tho!
Just finished rereading Accelerando by Charles Stross, it was interesting reading ten-plus years after the last time. The themes of AI and changing economic expectations hits different now for sure.
Reading two books currently:
The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green - more like a collection of loosely connected essays where John muses about aspects of the modern world and his relation to them. Very enjoyable so far.
The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie - 2nd standalone (and fifth book overall) in his fantasy series. It's pulpy and fun. The book focuses on "the North" which is his weakest overall world building but has some of the best characters.
I recently finished reading The Genesis of Misery by Neon Yang, which is usually described as a queer retelling of Joan of Arc in space with giant mechs, and honestly that's a great description. I really enjoyed it but it's definitely not for everyone. Neopronouns are used commonly throughout the book on many characters, which might be a bit hard to adapt to, but i found it really nice to see in a book.
I am now reading Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. I've read some of his other books, and I was looking for something "shorter" and standalone before I get into The Way of Kings, which is going to be a considerable time investment. I'm enjoying it so far, even though it's a bit rough around the edges due to it being his first published work. The worldbuilding is as detailed as any of his other books though, enough so that (for me) it makes the flaws ignorable.
I recently read "Solitaire" by Alice Oseman. It's a prequel to the popular "Heartstopper" series, but was written prior. It was pretty good! Very relatable. I'd love to have more books with Tori Spring, Alice has said she doesn't intend on writing new books with her as the focus.
My main reading at the moment is West of Eden by Harry Harrison. I've decided to keep re-reading old favourites (following 'The Heart of the Comet' and 'Tau Zero', which I mentioned in the last two instalments of this thread). It's better than I remembered. I love the alternate history angle of this series, combined with what is effectively an alien culture right here on Earth: the Yilané, who are descended from what we would consider a species of dinosaur. The clash between the dinosaurs and the stone-age humans is interesting, but the study of the alien culture is absolutely fascinating.
My light reading is The Pool of Fire by John Christopher, completing the Tripods trilogy. I'm pretty sure I read this series when I was a kid, but this doesn't seem familiar at all. However, it's not a bad series, for what it is. The point-of-view character is actually a flawed human being, and mistakes that he makes have consequences, so it doesn't feel like a "Chosen One" story, which it could have done. These are just ordinary human beings fighting back against alien oppressors, and doing the best they can with what they've got.
A distant cousin (and political studies professor) traditionally-published a well written, well sourced biographical account of my great grandfather's participation in the first world war. Unfortunately I don't think it's available in english (yet?)
Reading Michener's "Centennial" for the first time, and re-reading Bryson's "Short History of Nearly Everything" alongside it to keep up with the geology lol.
Also just finished "Dark Elderberry Branch," an English translation of Marina Tsvetaeva's selected poetry. It's phenomenal and a real fast read.
On going serial called First Contact by Ralts Bloodthorne: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33726/first-contact
"Eight Thousand Years after the Glassing of Earth, Terran Descent Humanity has largely become a post-scarcity society based on consent and enjoying life. With the discovery of another ancient race beyond the "Great Gulf", events and history collide to draw the Terran Confederacy into war against a hundred million year old empire that has always won and believes it always will. With allies and enemies of multiple species, the Orion Galactic Arm Spur will be wracked by warfare the likes of which have not been seen. Cracked, harried, wounded, and damaged, Terran Descent Humanity willfully throws itself against the universe itself."
When I’m in the mood to read scifi, I just grab the next book in line in the Culture series by Banks. Can’t really go wrong there.
At the moment, I’m reading Inversions. It’s a great read (as usual), but at the moment I’m wondering how it fits in the series. There are some hints pointing to themes you could expect in this series, so I’m curious to see how it all ties together!
I just started Crossroads by Johnathan Franzen. I'm a slow reader and don't have a lot of time for it so it will take me a while to finish.
Been trying to get back into the Malazan Book of the Fallen Series lately. I finished the first book and got maybe 150 pages into the second book last summer and despite absolutely loving it, just sort of fell away from reading in general. It's been difficult to find the energy to get back into this series in specific. Not only is it a very hefty series (10+ books) but the actual books are super confusing to read as well. I had a chapter by chapter reading guide someone on reddit made that I used to get through the first book. It really does not hold your hand at all, introducing new characters or changing perspective with no warning, jumping from place to place, a lot of dropping you right into the middle of a scene and hoping you either catch up or figure out what was going on later.
I decided my best course would be to start the second book from the beginning after rereading the chapter by chapter summary of the first book, but even still I'm just finding it hard. I, in theory, love a book like this with mountains of worldbuilding and complexity and nuanced characters, but they also require a dedication to them I often find difficult. But I know once it does click for me, it clicks so well it all will be worth it.
My kid and I just finished the Hobbit. Next we’re starting Harry Potter. We read a bit each evening. And I just picked up a copy of Dune for myself, since I’ve been wanting to read that for years now. I’m also looking forward to the Foundation series by Asimov.
I had tried reading Dune for five different times, either completely forgetting about or just could not get into it. And after some suggestions from the kind people here went with the audio book version, the one that is read by Simon Vance. Kind of regretting dropping the book the five times.
This is a bit different as a self improvement book but I found it very entertaining. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. It goes over how negotiation has evolved and how to do better. It's more than just about negotiating a better raise or a cheaper car, it has helped me look back at things that happened in relationships that started with misunderstandings and how it could've been mitigated.
I'm reading "All Good People Here" by Ashley Flowers. I really enjoy her podcasts (Crime Junkie and Full Body Chills) but for some reason the book isn't really doing it for me. I'm not sure if it has to do with the transition from short form to long form but I'm really struggling to care about what's happening in the story.
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. It's so wonderfully disturbing!
I’ve been reading The Magicians by Lev Grossman and while I don’t.. not like it, it’s also not grabbing me. I find it easy to put down and not pick back up, so it is slow going.
My therapist also recommended I read The Highly Sensitive Person: How To Thrive When The World Overcomes You. So far that is also pretty good, but it hasn’t yet gotten to the “how to” part, which is what I’m particularly interested in…
Finally l also just picked up Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow because John Green recommended it in a video awhile ago. I read the first page on the way back home and very quickly found myself like 80 pages in. I wasn’t planning on starting this one until I finished The Magicians but… it’s got a hold on me,
I was reading Legend of the Galactic Heroes for a while, until I listened to a video that explained how the old 80's OVA adapted things, and that led to me just watching the show again. That ova did some masterful work consolidating different details and working them into appropriate spots elsewhere in the story, while keeping the important substance of it all intact. The story is grand in scale and there are dozens of characters, it's a big one to get into, so I think in the end I preferred the more "efficient" version of it.
I find myself once again drawn in by Brandon Sanderson- I'm loving his Skyward series (Cytoverse?). In fact, here's an unpopular opinion: I'm starting to think he writes YA better than his "adult" Cosmere stuff. But there is a caveat: I LOVED Bands of Mourning, and need to get to The Lost Metal in his Mistborn series. Sidenote, I've been enjoying Era 2 more than Era one, but the way he ended Era 1 also completely upset me. Arguably necessary, but it's why I rank Mistborn Era 1 VERY low on my lost of "Sanderson Books"
And here's the other funny thing- I wanted to jump straight into Rhythm of War, as Oathbringer was decent... but I've heard so many mixed reviews about it that I've been hesitant for a long, long time now. Another unpopular opinion: the fact that this is supposed to be his Magnum Opus but because the last two books in it have been... underwhelming, to say the least, have me worried. Words of Radiance was AMAZING, Oathbringer was OK, and then the mixed opinions for his fourth book, in a 10 book series... arguably he has more chances to get better, but it is concerning.
Another thing to share with y'all, because I can: I used to be a VORACIOUS reader in my younger years, but then between becoming an adult and having less time, to spending waaaaaaaay too much time on social media, I thought I'd lost it. Nope, turns out I still have it... the catch is, it has to be a GOOD book for my tastes. Unfortunately, it appears I'm getting pickier and pickier about what qualifies as a "good book".