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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.
The Road to Jonestown
Beautiful, sober, diligent accounting for the Peoples Temple and Jim Jones.
Informative, well paced. I feel like it accounts for everything; importantly too, because insight into the socialization of groupthink and people believing they were building a better world, especially one rife with social and racial disparities, is very interesting.
You can see the actual good being accomplished, but it's always being performed behind Jones alternative motives.
Fascinating!
I've been enjoying the collections of comedic short stories by Simon Rich. New Teeth contains some of the funniest stuff I've ever read. I strongly recommend that book especially if you are a new parent (I'm not, but my sister is and as a new uncle I'm appreciating a lot of the themes as well).
Finished SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome which is a nice overview of the subject, ending in 212 when the Emperor Caracalla granted citizenship to all free inhabitants of the Roman Empire. Although the Romans were in no way egalitarian (it was a military empire based on conquest and slavery), apparently their idea of citizenship was a lot more flexible than other city-states (such as the Greeks) and this was apparently the end of a process where citizenship was granted to more and more people.
One thing I particularly liked about this book is that it emphasizes how little we know due to limited evidence. What we think we know of the early Roman Republic is largely based on what later Romans wrote about after it became a huge empire, and they were repeating legends about things that had happened long before their time, most of which were bogus. Archeological evidence only goes so far to make up for that. (And this is the Romans, the ancient civilization we probably know the most about! For other ancient civilizations we know even less.) We also know surprisingly little about the emperors - a lot of what we think we know is questionable since it’s based on stories that were going around. Even Augustus is something of an enigma.
Between this book and Bret Devereaux’s blog, I think I’ve read enough about ancient Rome, but I wanted to read about what happened next, so I’m reading The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium which very much presents it as “Rome, Part II.”
Apparently emperors spent less and less time in Rome and rival would-be emperors who didn’t control Rome would pick other cities to be “new Romes,” leading to the idea that “Rome is where the emperor is,” and finally Constantine picked another city for his version of Rome and put enough resources into it that it stuck. (And some of these resources were directly at the expense of Rome, such as redirecting grain shipments from Rome to Constantinople. People got free food for living there.)
Along with flexibility about citizenship (ethnicity didn’t matter), the author argues that it really is a continuation.
I enjoyed some of her book and it probably has the most value for people not already familiar with Roman history.
I think the best point she makes is that what we think of an Emperor today was largely coloured by the Emperor's who followed them.
Was Nero really that bad or was he just a convenient scape goat for all the confusion and power struggle that followed his death? We won't ever know, but there is plenty to suggest that Nero was a supporter of the arts and was probably more complex than just "crazy man who fiddled while Rome burned."
I've been trying to get through Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold and despite being a short book, I'm struggling with it. It's been five days and I'm only at like page seventy. Granted, I've had some real life problems I had to deal with but when I go to bed and my options are to keep reading the book or watch some series I've watched a few times before to dull myself to sleep, I choose the latter option.
I have the bad habit of finishing any type of media I engage myself in, so I can't put the book away either. I've read seven books so far this year and this one is really slowing me down. I'll get through it eventually, I have only fifty pages or so left but I do worry that One Hundred Years of Solitude is written in similar vein, which is a book I'm curious to read.
The sheer number of characters in this novella was insane. I actually wrote up a review for it a little while ago. It's essentially spoiler-free, but I'll put it in tags just in case you want to wait till after you're done to read it :)
My review of *Chronicle of a Death Foretold*, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (no major spoilers)
I had no idea what to expect entering this novella. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is frequently talked up as Latin America’s premiere writer and I’ve been eager to try his work for a long time
I had an okay time with it, but like you, I wasn't enthralled by the story.
Yes, the number of characters are insane! I wouldn't be surprised if the number of characters surpasses the number of pages the book has. But my issue with the book (of which I have a few) isn't the number of characters, but rather what that results in.
No spoilers, but contain information only the book's readers would know
Márquez writes the _full name_ of the characters at every opportunity, no character including the protagonist or recurring ones, are ever mentioned by just their first or last name, and that takes me out of the book. I felt as though this is an attempt at making the reader remember who's who, but this is a work of fiction written in a non-fiction style. If you don't think the reader will be able to keep all the names in their mind, it's your choice not to this have many characters. A majority of them have no consequence to the story, either. I understand that the book is largely about a town of people whose inaction for various reasons ends up resulting in someone's death, but I can't help but think this could've been conveyed better in another way. How? I don't know. I can only write inconsequential forum posts only a few people read.Another issue this creates is, given that this is a short book, no character is fleshed out. The information we have about them are surface level, very matter of fact. I get that the novel is written in journalistic style, but this style doesn't apply to every character equally. For example, at least so far, the book was a lot more interested in Bayardo San Roman's personality than its seeming protagonist Santiago Nasar, which is funny because Bayardo is written as an enigma whose real character or history no one knows, even after he brings his family to the town.
Anyway, thanks for writing, I'm glad I'm not the only one!
While struggling with this, I read Shirley Jackson's famous short story The Lottery, and it was amazing. I ended up ordering her We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which is probably going to be my next read after I read Lord of the Flies.
You're not the only one! Stick with it. I've read both, and Love in The Time of Cholera. I do know that I read too fast, and I believe these are books to be patient with.
I finally finished The Traitor, the third part in the Covenant of Steel, by Anthony Ryan. It feels really different than other knights and kings type fantasy for reasons that are hard to explain. I think maybe it's more introspective and talks as much about motive as actions? That doesn't feel like all of it, but I highly recommend the whole series.
From there, I have been on a bit of a tear. Next I went through Provenance by Ann Leckie. Everything by her is so good. Like the other Imperial Radch books, this deals in themes of other ways being a person that are opened up by technology and contact with aliens. The audiobook narration is also fantastic.
Then I jumped to Bryony and Roses by T. Kingfisher. It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast that was quite nice, with her usual blending of fantasy and horror elements. I've enjoyed several if these reimagined fairy tales, like The Wolf and The Woodsman by Ava Reid, A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow, and Malice by Heather Walters.
Now I am on to Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Moon, which is an SF mixture of the practicalities of space exploration (similar to his classic Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy) and Chinese politics and philosophy. I'm enjoying it so far, although the pacing is kind of wierd.
I got to the last, or second to last, chapter of Worm and just gave up. At least for now. Had not been enjoying it for some time and a particular plot point just hammered home that there would be more of what I wasn't enjoying.
So I picked up The Blade Itself and have been enjoying that tremendously.
I also burned through The Olympian Affair. Not great, but better than the last one, which I felt was one of Butchers weaker stories. I am curious to see where it goes, but so far it's felt a little too on the nose trope wise.
I really love these posts, it's always so interesting to see what you folks are up to :)
Since January, I read the following books...
⭐️⭐️ Rabbits by Terry Miles
The setting was interesting, but I disliked the style as well as the story's conclusion. I wouldn't recommend it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ TypeScript Cookook by Stefan Baumgartner
I think I'm very good at TypeScript, but this book was full of stuff I didn't know. Some examples are hard to follow, that's why I think other TS books are still better. (For example, check out this old blog post by me which mentions two books I like and shows some of the stuff you can learn from them.)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Your Competent Child - Towards New Basic Values for the Family by Jesper Juul
I think there's a lot of solid advice for parents in there.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Tidy First? by Kent Beck
A great and short book about software development and micro refactorings. I got more out of this than I expected and can absolutely recommend it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
I disliked the writing style, but I loved the story. It's a very relevant (fictional) tale of rising fascism in Ireland and raises empathy for refugees.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Yellowface Song by Rebecca F. Kuang
Okay, this one was super funny and witty. I won't spoil anything, but you should read this. It's about a girl who steals a dead "friend's" book. It's a nuanced take on plagiarism, racism, and cybermobbing.
⭐️⭐️ This Is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone and Amal el-Mohtar
This book is split up into more traditional narration and letters from one secret agent to another. It sounds much more thrilling than it is. Other people seem to love this book, but I just didn't find it surprising or interesting at all.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Grokking Algorithms by Aditya Bhargava
A fun refresher. I wanted to see what all the Fuzz is about, and I must say that I would recommend this book to people trying to get into algorithms. (But there's of course nothing new in here if you're an experienced developer.)
Aaaand that's it. I think the next book I'll read is George R. R. Martin's Hedge Knight. I'm really looking forward to that one – I love A Song Of Ice And Fire.
I just finished Labyrinth's Heart by M.A. Carrick. It was soooooooo gooooooood!!!!! Rook&Rose is dethroning Green Bone Saga as my favorite series of all time I think. I was really sick last August when it came out so it took me some time to get to it but omg perfection.
I'm also reading a nonfiction book, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character which I found recommended in this article that was on HN a few days ago. I've actually never read the Iliad and only part of the Odyssey but this book is very interesting! It's a very emotional read though, the discussion of war trauma gets very real.
I'm going to repost my question from the last thread in hope anyone have some input.
I'm currently around 6 hours (chapter 7) inn Neal Stephenson's Seveneves and although I like it it's kinda boring and I don't know if I'm willing to put another 26 hours into this if it doesn't pick up soon. I like the scientific approach and find it interesting but it gets a bit excessive at times and makes me think about Patrick Batemans obsessive ramblings about music. Anyone here read it and can tell me if these first chapters are representing the rest accurately?
Thanks. That’s all I needed to hear I guess.
I've recently finished William Gibson's The Peripheral which is the first Gibson I've read since Idoru back in 1999. I've heard that many people have been disappointed in Gibson's turn toward less sci-fi fare and I haven't read much of his work in that vein, but I can say that I really had a good time with The Peripheral. Once you get past Gibson's 'in media res' blast of neologisms, it became a fun adventure with interesting characters that get further enmeshed into the Gibsonian weirdness (which I couldn't say too much about without spoiling the fun).
Now I'm reading Nick Harkaway's Titanium Noir and it's quite a departure from the only other work I've read, Gnomon. The latter being a densely plotted, sci-fi conspiracy/mystery taking place over multiple overlapping time periods, while the former seems to be (so far) a pretty straightforward blend of hard-boiled noir a la Raymond Chandler and near future sci-fi. It's also been fun so far, and now I'm really curious about his other novels to see where they land on the Harkaway spectrum.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. I like Richard Osman... and the book wasn't bad, but it just isn't for me. Its a bit cute at times and absolutely nails the specific genre.
No idea what I'm going to read next -- probably a biography or something.
edit: this is next
Recently started Young Mungo (by Douglas Stuart) and I can't put it down. One of the best things I've read in a while and I'm only halfway through - emotional, honest, beautifully light and brutally dark.
I lived in Glasgow's east end for years and the book seems to portray the insanity of Glasgow and the deprivation in Scotland's central belt very accurately.
I'm listening to the audiobooks pf Dungeon Crawler Carl at the moment. I'm on book 4 now I think. They are great fun and the audiobook is fantastically well produced, though I have to say for both this book and the previous one, the "plot of the week" (i.e. "how do we beat this floor of the dungeon") hasn't been that captivating to me. The greater overarching plotlines and especially everything between the individual characters has been great however.
Currently enjoying Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues. The author described it as gay Harry Potter set beneath a New Zealand glacier (we met in a dog park). That summary is on point so far, and it's very funny. It's also, surprisingly enough, not the only LGBTQ+ magic boarding school series I've encountered recently. Something something two nickels...
Finished Gideon the Ninth.
Won't talk very much about it as a lot of other people in a previous of these threads were also reading it - but it was so good!
Will be following it up with what Goodreads says is "book 0.5" that I found here, apparently a companion piece short story type of thing.
After that, Harrow the Ninth! Can't wait 😊
Technically not reading, but I have been listening to the Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski (first Witcher book). I am enjoying it much much more than the show and games I've played! I love the attention to detail in the book regarding the day to day of their adventures. I went in expecting more pulp fantasy with a Mary Sue MC, but get excited Everytime Getalt says "I'm to old for this" after almost dying!
I've been reading Cloud Atlas for Tildes book club.
I've been reading the Bonobo and the Atheist in Search of Humanism amongst the Primates by Primatologist Frans de Waal. It's fascinating.
I am slowly working my way through Pachinko.
I'm reading Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and I just caught a plot twist. I'm really enjoying this book.
Recently I finished Severance by Ling Ma which I ended up quite enjoying and not for the reasons I thought I would.
Afterwards I killed The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, which I absolutely loved. They were so light & fun, I had a hard time putting them down.
Next I read Weyward which was interesting but I don't think this book was meant for me. As a man and given some of the topics in the book I'm not sure it's my place to criticize the story?
Just the other day I've started The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. It seems interesting so far however I'm finding the writing style difficult to comprehend—I often have to reread passages to fully understand them. I don't know that I can read the whole thing through if it's all like this.