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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've just finished Children of Ruin, and I'm just about to start Children of Memory, the second and third books in the Children of Time series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Definitely worth reading if you're interested in classic hard sci-fi - Asimov sort of stuff. Basically in the far distant future, humans have experiments to terraform other planets and evolve new species, but get almost completely wiped out. Thousands of years later, new humans try to trace the paths of their ancestors and rediscover the abandoned experiments they left behind.
The first book isn't really dealing with aliens per se, but does a really good job of describing cultural differences between the different factions in the book. The book I've just read good into that in a lot more detail - most of the story is taken up with different translation attempts in different situations.
I'm intrigued where the third book is going to go now, because the second book pushes the technologies involved significantly forwards, even for a civilization thousands of years in the future.
That said, I'm spending the next few days on a beach not doing much, so I'm also going to give Earthsea a second go. I tried reading them a few years back, but bounced off them for some reason that I can't remember right now. But now with a bit more time, I'm looking forward to giving it another go.
One of my favourite series. If you think about it less as a story about technology, and more as stories which explore the concept of 'what is a person?' You'll be in for a great time.
The third book is a bit slower at the start but once things clicked I loved it just as much as the others. There are some really great concepts in book 3 that I still think about.
Really? That's interesting. I really loved the second book and the new alien species has a really interesting development. When that species invaded the bodies of the initial expedition after them fighting to escape it and the captain has this "let's go on an adventure" thought pop in his head... that was one of the creepiest moments in sci-fi for me. I literally shouted fuck that and closed the book.
It was weirder, but I think the whole translation stuff was interesting enough to keep me going. It does feel like it's getting more and more existential and therefore less grounded as a series, which is why I'm a bit unsure where the third one can actually go - it feels like the main characters at this point can almost just click their fingers and solve any problem immediately.
Re Earth Sea, if you bounce off book one, try Tehanu from later in the series. It's quite a different book with a different main character and a different type of story.
Thanks for the recommendation!
Been swapping between books as I get back into reading after taking a couple of months break (curse you Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield). I am juggling a number of books in different genres to keep myself interested, (and because one book I’m reading maybe 3 pages a day at the moment).
Sci-fi: Abaddon’s Gate - book 3 of the Expanse by James S. A. Correy. This one is a hard cover copy, so it stays in my living room. I really enjoyed the show (but hated the open ending and missing story), so I picked up the books and have been slowly working my way through them. In-between each main novel I’m reading the supplemental short stories in the Memory’s Legion collection. I also will read a different sci-fi novel to keep myself from burning out on the Expanse, since it is a hefty 9 novels (plus short stories) long.
Fantasy: As Iron Falls - the fourth book in the Wings of War series by Bryce O’Connor. I got the digital box set of the first four books for a dollar years ago and occasionally read one of them between other fantasy novels like The Lies of Locke Lamora. I started out enjoying the first two because they were more straight forward fantasy, if a bit dark/violent. However, I really didn’t enjoy the third one, and this one seems to be going further into the area that I just have no interest in. No offense to Bryce, but I cannot stand his writing style as the series goes on. His descriptions feel like they go on and on and on, without actually saying anything. I’ll finish this one, and depending on how I feel about it after I’m done, will decide if I should pick up the 5th book in the future.
Classic Lit: Grapes of Wrath - I adored East of Eden by Steinbeck several years ago, and I can feel like this one will also be really good (ignoring the fact that it’s considered a classic already haha). I really enjoy the way that John Steinbeck is able to paint a picture of the scene and let characters just exist and feel real. This one is also digital since I got a Kindle Steinbeck collection many years ago.
Non-Fiction: Zen in the Art of Writing - this one has been a very fast read. It’s basically a collection of essays from Ray Bradbury where he tells stories from his life and applies them to his writing. It’s a very fun and easy read, and honestly very inspirational.
Usually this is where I would end my list of “books currently being read”, but I actually picked up another book for the month of October based on someone else’s (can’t remember if it was here or Reddit) recommendation.
Surprise Addition for October: A Night in the Lonesome October is a story about a dog familiar following around and helping his human friend. Each “chapter” is one of the days of the month, so I’ve been following them along with the calendar. It’s a pretty fun idea (and book) that was suggested, and I’m really enjoying the idea of having to wait to read the next day’s actions.
Oo, you're in for a treat. The series is best viewed as three trilogies and I think it really takes off after the first trilogy. The following book Cibola Burn is my favorite of the nine.
I’m really excited to get into books 7-9 (because that’s where the show ended prior), but I’m also interested to see how the other books differ from what I’ve seen already.
I’d say I enjoyed the events of the first book better in the show, but vastly preferred the way the second book handles the events there. I’m still torn on book 3, as I think the show handled it amazingly well in terms of pacing and tension, but I do enjoy the extra world building and characterization the book is giving.
Can’t wait to get further into them!
Different strokes for different folks but this was one of two points where I almost dropped the series.
Giving another point of view because I STILL recommend finishing it as overall it's quite good, but this was one of the low points to me(done better than it was in the show however).
Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
I finished this second book in his Mistborn trilogy. This series is my first foray into what could be considered YA. I'm pleasantly surprised it doesn't really shy away form some adult concepts but I also appreciate that it isn't gratuitous. I didn't like this second installment as much as the first. Pacing is quick but there is a lot of political and romantic drama that is pretty shallow and based on the ending of the book pretty inconsequential. I'll be picking up the third book in the next couple days but I'm expecting that for my taste books 2 and 3 could've been more focused.
Foundation and Empire by Asimov
A pretty short follow up to Foundation that I stalled out on. I adored Foundation but kinda hit an Sci-fi overload. Will be returning to it soon.
Endymion by Simmons
Was reading in parallel with Foundation and Empire stalled out at the same time. While Hyperion follows a Canterbury Tales structure, The Fall of Hyperion abandons this and leans into the series obsession with John Keats. The third book Endymion picks up after a time gap. I'm really into the universe laid out in the Hyperion Cantos but Hyperion seems to be an exception in Simmons style. I've had similar difficulty reading Ilium due to his obession with a classical writing style (Ilium taking a Homeric tact.)
Wool by Hugh Howey
Being adapted as Silo by Apple TV. My partner and I loved season 1 and picked up the first in the trilogy (Wool, Shift, Dust) with the goal of reading the rest before the other seasons come out. She is currently reading it and I plan on trying to get it done over a long weekend soon.
How have you been finding Fall in comparison to Hyperion? I've ended up fully in the camp that says one should only read Hyperion and ignore the rest, but you do miss out on a lot of the world building that way, which I can see being a shame.
I will have to edit my comment. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion ran together in my head. I stalled out on Endymion.
I would recommend readers read Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion. The second really finishes the story and knowing the fate of the pilgrims is very satisfying. I was very happy with Fall of Hyperion.
Ah, sure, that makes sense. Endymion feels like a bit of a left turn from the original books. Once you've started, if you can keep going, I think Simmons rewards you with an ending that ties everything together, but I remember just finding those two books much less interesting than Hyperion/Fall.
I loved Fall. The first book was a little too slow for my taste, but I do appreciate it as well. I didn't like the Endymion books (the most interesting things were never followed up on and the books ultimately felt pointless). So I tell people just to read the two Hyperion books and ignore the Endymion books.
I just picked up the following:
Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England's Kings and Queens by David Mitchell
Making It So: A Memoir by Sir Patrick Stewart
I've read the foreword and first chapter of Unruly and I'm already really enjoying it. I cannot wait to read through both books as they both sound very fascinating to me.
Just finished reading The Satsuma Complex by the wonderful Bob Mortimer. I'm a fan of Bob so I knew it would be right up my street. It has some classic Bob Mortimer mannerism wrapped up in a nicely paced crime story.
The story is pretty short so I managed to finish it over a weekend. I'm usually a very slow reader so I was pretty chuffed with that.
One of my assigned books is quite interesting.
Palaces of the People : How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequaity, Polarization and the Decline of Civic Life.
One tiny piece of the content of this book is results of a study of different health outcomes during a heat wave in Chicago. The study differentiates outcomes by neighborhood. Many more deaths occurred in neighborhoods with fewer social gathering points and fewer social connections. The book discusses how physical infrastructure relates to social connection and how social connection contributes to physical health, individual wellbeing and improved civic life.
I'm still in the middle of Lady Death by Pavlichenko the memoir of the USSR WWII sniper, and I started Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. I love Kay's fantasy so far but I haven't yet read many of his books. Kay's book Lions of Al Rassan has become one of my favorite ever read fantasy books and I have read a lot of fantasy
My main read is the novel The Death and Life of Superman by Roger Stern. I first bought and read this back in the 1990s, when it was first released. At the time, I had little idea about the comics that this story originated in. I was just caught by the title of the novel, being an inversion of "The life and death of X", and wanted to know more. I'm re-reading it now for the first time since then, after watching some YouTube videos about this big event in comics, when Superman died. The novel is quite good. And, after I've finished that, I'll watch the animated movies based on the same comics (The Death of Superman and The Reign of the Supermen).
And my light reading is yet another re-read of the Lensman series by E.E. "Doc" Smith... because I can.
Have you watched the Lensman animated movies? I remember my brother and I really loving them as kids. Not sure they're available anywhere though.
No, I haven't watched them. And, after reading the Wikipedia pages about the Japanese animated movie and the Japanese animated series, I don't think I'll be watching them any time soon. But thanks for the suggestion!
I just finished Leviathan Falls, the last book in the Expanse-series, and now I've started reading Consider Phlebas, the first book of the Culture-series by Iain M. Banks. That should keep me occupied for a while.
1984 by Orvell. I enjoyed Down and Under in Paris and London, but I am taking it slow with this one to savor every page as I have a tendency to devour any book I get my hands on.
I recently finished The Remains Of The Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and have now started The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.
I have been diving into Sanderson’s works this year and read The Remains Of The Day as a palette cleanser before continuing on. I really enjoyed it and a few things hit really close to home, emotionally.
I’m only like 80 pages in to The Way of Kings but am already completely intrigued. I also really like Shallan after just one chapter with her.
Sanderson is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.
Remains of the Day is one of my favorite books. It's beautifully written and such a human story
I just started the Mistborn series, by Brandon Sanderson. I had tried to get through The Way of Kings many times, with 26 week gaps while I was waiting for the library copy to be available, and never could. It's so slow and there's so much world building I wasn't that interested in. But I heard that Sanderson writes all his books in the same universe and that by reading other ones the world can be more fleshed out, so I thought I'd give Mistborn a try, it had more copies and the wait was like 3 weeks. HOLY SHIT, night and day difference. I was almost immediately enthralled with the book. The characters are so fascinating and the world is rich with detail. I'm so excited to finally have found a new series to dive into!
Also, I'm waiting for the latest Nevermoor book that releases this month. My niece was reading it, so I checked it out and it's just so Harry Potter-esque and bringing back so much young nostalgia. The story isn't going to blow your mind, I ended the first 2 books thinking "Yeah, that's basically exactly what I expected" with maybe a few interesting bits to entice me into the next one. But the 3rd book really opened it up and now I'm legitimately intrigued. Also, if you are interested, listen to the audio book instead. The voice actress does a 10/10 job and makes some of the characters even larger than they already are in the book.
I caught up in the Wheel of Time tv show 2 weeks ago, and I couldn't deal with knowing that the book series is complete but I have to wait for new episodes so I took the plunge and finally started reading it, after multiple decades of avoiding it because "there's no way it's worth it to spend my time on a single series that goes that long when I could enjoy 4x as many trilogies in the same time."
But well, I've been on a bit of a break from reading for a few months since I stopped going to reddit and /r/Fantasy so my tbr is nonexistent right now. So we'll see how far I get. Currently about 10% into The Dragon Reborn.
It's...ok? It's holding my attention for the most part, but it's also not compelling me to read 24/7, I'm mostly working on a personal React project & reading when I need a break from that, not the other way around. I think my initial assessment was correct that it's not really worth the opportunity cost, but I'd rather be reading than not reading, so I'll continue with it until I feel like reading something else.
One strategy I have seen people on r/fantasy and r/printsf advocate for is finding lists of books nominated for major awards across various years.
Librarians and book store staff can suggest books.
There are fantasy and sf online magazines that post reviews.
You can read the back catalog of authors you already like.
You can request suggestions from readers here.
haha I do actually have a huge tbr on goodreads...it's more that I haven't visited it in so long that I don't feel immediately compelled to read anything else (unlike the past few years where I always had like 5 books that I wanted to read literally right now). So as long as I'm not bored to tears by WoT, I'll stick with this for now. But as soon as there's something else I abs must read immediately, I'm out.
I appreciate the advice though!!
I've heard the memes about WoT being just tugging shirts and braids, so I decided to skip it because of that =)
Also: I do have a long TBR of actual good books soI really don't have the willpower to endure through a 14 book series that's known for not getting to the point. I'm already invested in The Stormlight Archive and that's enough for me.
HAHA yeah this is all I knew about WoT for forever tugs braid
And I love Sanderson, actually I already interrupted WoT once to read SP4 the night it was released. That one's 100% worth the time investment imo, nothing really compares.
The Running Grave from Robert Galbraith (pen name for J. K. Rowling). Long book, but super good. The entire Strike series is fantastic and all of the criticism is from people who didn't actually read the books, but instead searched for specific terms.
I'm currently reading Radiance, not a ton has happened so I'm not sure how I'll feel when I finish it, but at minimum it's interesting and very well written so it certainly won't be bad.
Also planning to read US Naval Gunfire Support in the Pacific War as soon as it comes in, that one has an incredibly self explanatory title, but it really is a topic that seems to get glossed over every time it comes up so I thought I'd try to read into it a little more.
The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas by Daniel James. I'm kinda struggling/disappointed because it was recommended as a good followup to House of Leaves and The Raw Shark Texts but it reads more like Dan Brown - James wants to be clever but he obviously thinks his readers are uncultured dumbasses, so he's loaded the story with references to various scientific and artistic concepts and historical events but then interrupts with constant footnotes explaining things that don't need to be explained, or else jams it into awkward dialogue that wouldn't happen if his characters were who he says they are. It reminds me of when I was forced to quit reading Brown's Angels & Demons, the only book available on a rained-out camping trip in the early 2000s, because his Super Smart Professor MC explained to the Super Smart Scientist Love Interest what oxidation was. Besides all the As You Know, Bob, the dialogue in general has been very stilted and the plotline trite (Seriously, it's like he's writing to get his book as many TvTropes entries as possible, and he doesn't care how hammy his fists have to be to make it happen). I'm trying to push through to see if it gets interesting enough to make up for the terrible writing, but I'm already a quarter of the way in so this'll probably be a DNF.
I read many books mentioned in this thread and will be making notes for the future as well.
Right now I'm reading The Wandering Inn Book 1. It's alright, but I'm not a huge fan of the writing style. Not sure what it is, but, to me, this just isn't a "can't put it down" book. I'll finish this book, but not sure I'll continue in the series.
Prior to The Wandering Inn, I read books 1-3 of the Red Rising Series by Pierce Brown. Great series of books and I'll most likely head into book 4 as my next book.
Our book club picked a "spooky" book for October, so:
A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57823573-a-night-in-the-lonesome-october
It's really fun flip on the mythos, following the story through the eyes of a dog and other animal companions of humans doing "the work".
Paths of Glory by Humphrey Cobb
I haven't made much headway in it recently, so I need to settle down and get back to it. It's not bad, but it hasn't captured my attention yet and I'm kind of thinking of reading something a little more fluffy, as that's what's been really grabbing me in the past couple of years.
As a graduation present to myself, I got the Akira 35 year anniversary box set. I read it the first time as a teenager and I absolutely loved it.
So I've been rereading it, I'm currently on book 3.
I just picked up Strategy is your Words by Mark Pollard. It's a book on creative strategy that seems to emphasize a more simple, human approach to strategy, which tbh is a breath of fresh air compared to my work environment, and marketing culture in general- at least in the U.S. anyway.
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie. I don't read a lot of medieval fantasy but so far it's pretty captivating. Mostly its appeal to me is I might put a book down for weeks before I get back to it and if it has too many characters it I'll be lost and have to skim through earlier chapters to remember what's going on. If I'm on top of it I'll keep notes, but that's a drag. No problem with this story so far, because well, characters get corpsed a lot.
Into The Narrowdark by Tad Williams
Third book of the second Osten Ard series. Fairly typical high fantasy, although I think Williams does a great job operating in the grey areas between good and evil. In the end Williams writing style has just always clicked with me.
The first Osten Ard series, and Shadowmarch series were both strong. Otherland series is probably my favorite series ever.
Saving Time by Jenny Odell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=wUoyDJey3crQlmA4&v=9oarFok__1s&feature=youtu.be
I'm stepping outside my usual with a fantasy called A Deadly Education as part of a little book club. It's been a fun read! Like a wickedly dangerous take on the Harry Potter world where everything and everyone is out to get you- including the school itself. The main protagonist is angry, angsty, curt, and powerful wizard yet still walks away with the biggest heart in the story.
If-then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future by Jill Lepore, see
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/if-then-how-simulmatics
I think I’m going to seek out some more Jill Lepore books.
Fiction: The Suicide Motor Club by Christopher Buehlman
Fantasy: Malice by John Gwynne
Scifi: The Broken Earth Trilogy (kinda scifi kinda
fantasy)
Nonfiction: The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Naht Hanh
Just finished Eversion by Alastair Reynolds. Really strong start, decent finish. Would recommend but temper expectations. Hard to discuss as the less you know going in the better it is.
Had finished the Kingkiller 1 and 2 before that, which are worth the hype and the frustration of the maybe never book 3. Somewhere between Game of Thrones and Harry potter in vibe.
Starting Worm because it's finally got an audio book. I read it forever ago and got quite far in (met the 9 was the last big arc i finished), but i kept losing my place because I would read on different devices and it was only a web novel. Figured i'd start from scratch and thought i'd skip ahead at first, but the moment it got going (literally in the first arc) i was hooked again and along for the ride.
As for Worm it's somewhere between The Reckoners and Invincible is the best I can describe it.
Just finished We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix. It's a horror novel about a metalhead who goes on a journey to confront a former bandmate after some crazy stuff makes her realize there's something messed up going on.
I'm not a metalhead or into music festivals, so it didn't strike me the same way I imagine it would strike others. I grabbed it because I wanted to read one of his books for spooky season, and it was the only one available on Libby. But I had a good time reading it, and honestly wish I could hear the songs in it. It was surprisingly thought provoking about human nature at parts.