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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.
Finished Book of the New Sun a few days ago. Very much enjoyed it, although I have a ton of questions now, not that I expected otherwise after everything I've heard about it. I plan to read Urth of the New Sun in the near future, and do a reread a little further off, but for now I'm reading a few other things to cleanse my palette.
I've started Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, the third of his I've read. Like Inherent Vice, this one is often considered Pynchon-lite, but I loved Vice so that doesn't put me off too much. About a hundred pages in so far, and I like the way this one is moving between the perspectives of a lot of different characters. Pynchon always manages to have a combination of beautiful prose and a lot of hilarious moments.
Also started Don Quixote, not too far in so not too much to say about it but find this one quite funny as well.
Don Quixote is one of my favorites. It holds up amazingly well for being 400 years old.
Finally getting back to The Dispossessed and almost finished with it. I've enjoyed everything by Le Guin that I've ever read, but it's interesting how some of her stuff is a lot heavier than others. Before this I read the Three Hainish Novels collection which was much lighter sci-fi/fantasy and I wasn't quite prepared for how deep The Dispossessed was going to be.
Also, as a mostly back end/data developer who last did web stuff in the jQuery days, I've decided to finally learn React so I'm looking at a few books to find one that's good and up-to-date. If anyone has one they would recommend, I'd appreciate hearing about it.
Loved the dispossessed! Listened to it while painting the house :)
On the learn React front I would recommend just starting with https://react.dev/learn. Then dive into the regular docs for details & some gotchas. Focus on understanding how hooks and effects work and you'll be golden.
That said, if you want to understand frontend development more generally there are plenty of other things to also learn. React is a part of the tools commonly used, but not the only part! But getting everything set up for local development you are bound to run into a bunch of other tools npm, node, webpack etc etc. (or some newer flashier tools). Good luck!
Thanks for that. I've worked through the tic-tac-toe part of the tutorial and somehow convinced myself I needed a book without really digging into the rest of the resources they had there; I'll give them another look.
On the React front (but I'd suggest the same for any language/framework), I find it really helps to have a project or a concrete problem to solve with it. It's okay if it is re-solving a solved problem. That will give you a concrete set of requirements to fill. "Learning how to do X with React" is a lot easier than "Learning React" which is too general.
Working on Small Gods for Tildes book club.
The Namesake by Lahiri which is a beautifully written book.
Just finished Elatsoe by Darcy Little Badger which is a fun fantasy.
Recently, I have been reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, which is my first book by him (I know), for the Book Club that @boxer_dogs_dance does here. I have been enjoying it. Just wondering why it took me so long to get to him, considering everyone raves about the Discworld series for years now.
And I have also been reading Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday. It is his second book in his Stoicism trilogy. Finally got my hands on it through my library.
And I have been reading Catch 22, haven't really got that far into it, but it is enjoyable.
Just finished listening to Under the Dome, Duma Key, and Misery by Stephen King. Misery was by far the best of the three. I did not enjoy Under the Dome that much, and I normally like everything I read. I'm gonna burn myself out eventually, but I have easy access to his audiobooks and they're easy listens. I have since started The Dead Zone now.
I just finished actually reading Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck, and in my catching up on classic American literature, I started The Grapes of Wrath which obviously is a bit more of a drag and not much has happened yet 100 pages in, but I still find his writing and ideas and commentary on 1930s American society fascinating. I'm reading my Fiance's high school copy with all her notes in it and I keep finding I would do just about anything to go back to high school and talk about this book in english class.
Misery is such a fantastic book, one of my favourite King novels!
Travels with Charley made me want to have a beer with Steinbeck
I just finished Paladin's Grace and Paladin's Strength the first two of four books in the "Saint of Steel" series by T. Kingfisher. While looking things up to write this post, I learned there are other books set in the same world, the "Temple of the White Rat" universe.
Both books center around a paladin who are part of a group in service to a god who dies (this is the first sentence of the book, so not a spoiler). I really enjoyed the world she created. It's lighter than the world building of many fantasy series, but she fills the bits in here and there in a nice way.
The books definitely feel like romance novels, which is not usually my jam. The book is narrated from the POV of both the main male and female character, and I found the characters likeable and relatable.
It reminded me a little of Richard K Morgan's work, in the "we were doing hero stuff and now there is fucking" sense. One thing that might be at work is a contrast with how "clean"/non-sexual fantasy is in general, and how much the details of the sex acts are elided even when acknowledging that they happen. I'm not sure what a "normal" amount of sexual content would be, or if that's even a meaningful thing to say.
The books felt distinctly different from other works of hers I have read, but her gamut is pretty wide, from YA fantasy to straight up horror. I've thought every book of hers I've read was good, and things I didn't like were mainly because I strayed outside my genre (like in the horror books).
I've rather enjoyed her World of the White Rat books, and even they vary from the Paladin series itself. I think I just want a bunch of stories about the White Rat clerics and lawyers and auditors tbh.
Swordheart might be the closest to the Paladin series in spirit. Clockwork Boys is also in the same world.
But there are 7 Paladin books planned in all, 1 for each of the Saint's paladins remaining.
To me, the relationship between humans and the gods in the World of the White Rat echos Lois Mcmaster Bujold's World of Five Gods books. The gods are "real" and their power visible in important ways, but they are limited in how they can intervene directly, so they work through human agents instead. The first book, The Curse of Chalion, is one of my favorite books of all time. But for
the Penric and Desdemona novellas/short stories might scratch the itch. I am not certain, (it's been a while), but I think the short stories assume you know most of the lore, so reading one of the novels first might help with the worldbuilding.
I'm reading a lot of LMB right now but her other novels are on the list.
I genuinely think of Kingfisher as a successor to Pratchett. She's a bit softer and does a bit more romance and horror but she's really good at a bite of wit or a satirical turn and is excellent at letting her characters exist even in a world with bizarre things in it.
Currently reading Kraken by China Mieville, seems really fun so far, about 2/5's of the way through. Goss and Subby are really fun villains, in fact the whole cast is great so far!
Managed to grab Five Decembers by James Kestrel as well, which is one I've been looking for for a while. Heard great things about it so I'll probably start that after I finish Kraken.
I’m about two thirds through Babel by R. F. Kuang, enjoying it a lot so far.
In the meantime, I have also finally started One Piece, in Japanese. Only a few chapters in, reading speed is somewhat slow (~1-2 minutes per page) but it’s already very enjoyable. I know almost nothing about the story (I think at this time I’ve already met all the characters I had heard of before). I’m told this is a ride that never stops and keeps getting more intense, so I’m very excited to see where this goes.
I’ve been on a sci-fi kick, and after all the Remembrance of Earth’s Past and The Expanse books finally found Ringworld in a bookstore (thanks McNally Jackson!) I had been wanting to read it for a long time, but never found it at any library or book shops - new or used.
I’m about 2/3 through and I’m feeling like I’m reading it 30 years too late, since it seems to be written for teenage boys. I’ll finish it, but it’s not drawing me in to the series.
Recently got into Larry Niven's "Known Space" series. Finished the "Neutron Star" collection last week. Started with "Ringworld" this week. Loving it so far. But then again, i'm a sucker for grand space-faring sci-fi. It may not be for everyone. And there are places where you can tell this was written more than 50 years ago. Still, highly recommended for hardcore space sci-fi buffs.
And since there are a lot of books and short stories in the "Known Space" series, i refer to this reading order guide: https://news.larryniven.net/concordance/content.asp?page=Reading%20Order
You read the Hyperion Cantos yet? I've got one chapter left (epilogue, I think) and it is fantastic. Deep, wide, and engaging.
On audiobook, I've been listening to Starship Troopers while I go on walks. The movie is good, but there's a ton to unpack in the book itself. Been reading tons of threads about the book this past few weekends.
In text, I'm getting through this detective novel called Bonds which, to me, feels more like a male-oriented romance novel/ego-boost. Apparently, the main character always gives every woman he meets multiple orgasms, dates his secretary with no thought of sexual harrassment lawsuits, gave the main victim of the story multiple orgasms and she was only killed because she broke up with him and got involved with the wrong man. The main character of the book literally describes themselves as an "Alpha" to one of the women in the story and there's more description of his meals at Peter Luger than there are of the tedious plot.
Gonna finish it anyway, just for the lulz. This shit is the definition of "divorced dad lit".