What are you reading these days?

The Blacktongue Thief and its prequel, The Daughters' War, were captivating reads for me. The Blacktongue Thief is Christopher Buehlman's debut high fantasy book and is, in my mind, an instant classic of the genre. The author's horror roots are clear from the brutal world and the vividly grotesque descriptions of creatures, war, etc. Despite that, these books balance expertly between lighthearted, swashbuckling comedies and edgy, antihero dark fantasies. Each book differs in tone as they follow different main characters, but both are just amazing. If you're at all interested in fantasy, you should really give them a shot.

Shades of Grey and its sequel, Red Side Story, are hilarious, dystopian sci-fantasies loaded with deadpan humor. I think these books are likely polarizing, but if you find them funny, you'll probably find them really funny. I felt like the early parts of the first book dragged a little, and I'm very glad I didn't have to wait ~15 years for the sequel like many who read Shades of Grey on release, but overall it was a very satisfying read.

I write and read horror. Right now I'm on an Adam Nevill kick and am about 70% of the way through "Cunning Folk." It's folk horror with some nice pacing and a few good twists. Nevill paints with a very detailed brush. He knows words. He knows lots of words. But, the story is good, fast, and very well done. I can't say enough positive things about it.

Also, an aside, he's a gem of a guy to interact with. I purchased a couple of hardbacks of his work online for a friend and asked him to sign them and he did, plus added a nice personalization to each.

That's just good stuff.

Self-Care for Autistic People by Megan Anna Neff (nonfiction, psychology, self-help)

I opened my Audible app to see this book as my main recommendation.

I don't have a formal autism diagnosis, but the question of whether or not I'm autistic has been an open one for me for a long time. Also, I'd be lying if I said that having Amazon recommend this directly didn't feel like its own sort of diagnosis, given all that Amazon's algorithms know about me.

I listened to the book not because I necessarily think I'm autistic but because I was curious, and I figure at the very least it would give me some tools for my toolbox in helping my students with autism.

After finishing it, the question about myself specifically remains open. I don't want to self-diagnose after listening to a book like this, but also there were a lot of "oh, I do that already" moments for some of her recommendations, as well as some specific details about myself that I'd never really linked to autism but that, could, in fact, be related.

Of course, a lot of the recommendations here would be effective recommendations for anyone in general, or people with different neurodivergences (like anxiety or ADHD), not just people with autism, so it's also easy to overfit.

So, the book didn't help me come to any conclusions about myself, but it gave me a lot to think about. I also think it would be a very valuable read for anyone with autism who's looking for strategies or insights.

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (science fiction)

I've read this before, probably a decade ago, but I never finished the series. I had a hankering to go back and finish the series, but I of course had to re-read the first book because I'd forgotten nearly all of its details.

I loved the book the first time I read it, and I was honestly a little disappointed at the re-read. I think it's because, the first time, I had no idea where the plot was going, so each time it turns a corner, I was genuinely stunned. Re-reading it with knowledge of the overall layout is a lot less exciting.

Also, even more than the first time I read it, I still think that

is just... really silly nonsense in an otherwise serious and thoughtful book.

Despite this being a less-loved read than the first time I read it though, I'm still very excited to finish the series. I'll also probably start up the TV series once I'm done with those.

Why I Adopted My Husband by Yuta Yagi (nonfiction, autobiography, LGBTQIA+, manga)

This was a really cute, short manga memoir. Also, a caveat: the title is a little misleading: the artist is actually adopted by his husband, rather than the other way around. They do this because Japan doesn't have same-sex marriage rights, so legal adoption (in a literal father-son framework) is one of the only ways for gay couples to to get medical and estate rights for one another. The book was written in 2017, and, sadly, in 2025, the situation in Japan has not changed.

Also, this is an aside, but this book was a confirmation of some cool technical stuff for me.

I've been buying my ebooks from Kobo, de-DRMing them, and uploading them to BookFusion which acts as my own personal cloud library.

This book was the first comic that I've tested out, and I'm happy to report that all parts of the process worked flawlessly! I got it from Kobo and was able to deDRM it (particularly noteworthy, because you can't do this with Kindle comics). I then uploaded it into BookFusion and tested it on both my tablet and ereader. Both of them displayed the comic just fine, and the platform also automatically used right-to-left pagination and progress for the book without me having to change any settings.

I'm hoping Kobo expands their comics selection. They actually do a pretty good job with manga, but there's still a LOT of stuff that's only available on Amazon. I won't buy them on Amazon because I can't deDRM them, but I absolutely would get them if they ever came over to Kobo.

How to Win an Information War by Peter Pomerantsev (nonfiction, biography, history, politics, psychology)

This is the story of Sefton Delmer, a person who ran anti-Nazi propaganda radio programs that were broadcast in Germany during World War II. I found the book very interesting, on account of the fact that it talked about a part of World War II that I had no knowledge of.

The author also uses the story as surface area for commentary about propaganda in general, and links it to modern events as well -- particularly Russian propaganda about their invasion of Ukraine (Pomerantsev previously wrote Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible about modern Russian media).

My big takeaway from this is that propaganda is less about information and more about identity. Effective propaganda gives the listener a sense of belonging and purpose -- an identity larger than themselves. It gives them clear stories and targets that resonate emotionally. It creates familiar dramas that help pull people out of the mundanity and grind of everyday life.

I listen to almost all nonfiction via audiobooks and genuinely prefer that, but the one downside of this method is that I can't highlight quotes. This book, in particular, is one that I would have highlighted a lot in. I wish I could share them here, as I think the book has a lot of insight to offer.

I'm reading Jane Austin after watching a couple of movies based on the books. I like the contrast between practical considerations and romance - literally in the title with Sense and Sensibility. Can anyone recommend similar authors, perhaps writing about different historical settings?

Finished Born a Crime on audiobook for the book club. Trevor Noah is a good storyteller.

Currently on Fooled by Randomness. The concepts are good, but the author seems like an unpleasant person who thinks he's the smartest around, ironically exemplifying the high performing stock trader jerk stereotype that he derides throughout the book. He makes many irrelevant references to literature such as Proust or the Iliad, seemingly to show how well read he is. His examples of people who are fooled by randomness are very uncharitable to the point of distraction. For example, he's called two of them fat (in different words), which seems unnecessary to get the point across. He discusses survivorship bias, claiming that specific traders who were wildly successful for a time, then later blew up and lost everything were only lucky and never skilled to begin with, failing to account for certain types of risks. Then he writes about how smart his risk evaluation strategy was unironically without mentioning that he might have just been lucky as well (or at least not very unlucky). While I'm interested enough in the subject to continue, reading this book puts me in a bad mood. I feel like I'd never want to meet this author and will definitely not read any of his other books.

I'd first of all like to apologise for saying that "Snow Crash" felt like satire, pushing cyberpunk to its most ridiculous conclusions. VR addicted populations living in 1000's of sovereign corporate owned microstates where CEOs are kings who own private armies with nuclear stockpiles and the central government is a withered byproduct of a long gone form of nation state seemed a bit mental. However, after hearing about Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg, and Andressen citing Balaji Srinivasen's "The Network State" and Curtis Yarvin/Nick Lands philosophy of "The Dark Enlightment" I can now see that Neal Stephenson is simply some sort of oracle or soothsayer who has glimpsed the future.

The fact these men have read Snow Crash, or at least a few of them have, and decided that they wanted to mould the world into that hellish dystopia and probably saw L. Bob Rife as some sort of misunderstood villain is wild.

In regards to the thread itself, I'm slowly getting through "Absolution" by Jeff VanderMeer. It's a fun book, but I'm just focused on other stuff at the moment and my daughter isn't sleeping particularly well at the moment so I'm generally pretty tired most nights when I'd read.

I generally keep a few books in process.

I'm about halfway through Legends
and Latte's for comfort in disturbing times.

I just finished the Little school tales of disappearance and survival by Alicia Partnoy and George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.

I have an in person book club and we read the Traveling cat Chronicles which is poignant and beautiful and simple.

Born a crime by Trevor Noah is the tildes book club book this month. I recommend it. It's sad, funny and interesting.

i just finished Jurassic Park! Pretty great read and, i may be misremembering, but i think the movie is relatively faithful to the text.

Crichton is a total blind spot for me, so i’ll tuck into a few more of his this year.

Next up is Pacino’s autobiography.

edit: this autobiography is excellent. it’s worth doing the audiobook, which he performs (understatement)

My reading is back up to a harried level this week. Which is okay... it's just that I have to stay ahead of library due dates!

Currently reading: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir (audio). Spark of the Everflame by Penn Cole (print). Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (digital). Still getting through Where Oceans Burn but it's on the backburner until I make more progress on the library books. Listening to Beartown with my partner.

I don't think I've done this before, but I'm getting the first two books merged a little bit in my head because they have extremely similar plot elements and progressions. They're both fine so far in terms of experience, but I'm very ready to be done with them so I can move onto books that are different from each other. I only had a vague awareness of what each book was about, and it was not enough to realize it might cause me problems! Both follow a heroine who is going through family turmoil who decides to join with rebellious forces against the militant culture that conquered her people. Each love interest is essentially a prince. There's weird shadow magic. It's wild how similar they are for being two different books I randomly picked up (though both are from the BookTok crowd, so that narrows it a lot).

I just started Born a Crime this morning but I'm intending to spend more time with it soon. I am enjoying his voice. (I don't watch TV so I'm not familiar with the author outside of a vague idea of who he is, but I'm definitely interested in reading with his experiences and learning more about the world through his eyes.)

I ended up DNF'ing Ministry for the Future and returning it. While I thought the concepts presented were interesting, I struggled with the broken up narrative style.

Up next: The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco, The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner, and Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon (all audio). The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis (digital). The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, The Empress by Kristin Cast, and The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (print). I'm really hoping to make good progress this weekend and next week. We'll see!

Edit: Forgot to include recent reads. I finished The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent (satisfying), When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A Parker (loved, to my surprise) and DNF'd The Children of Gods and Fighting Men by Shauna Lawless (...boring imo, got to 30%). I binged Lore and Order by Stephen K Peacock and found it to be absolutely delightful because it broke the fourth wall a TON and was basically nonstop action. It was very different from anything I've read lately and had a unique magic system.

I mostly read philosophy. Out of character I decided to read lolita. It took around a month to read the ~300 pages. Then I picked up Purity of Heart by Kierkegaard, which is 200, and finished it in 3 days. Fiction is just so hard for me.

I listened to Blood Song and a part way into Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan. I really enjoy them because the characters are interesting and there's a lot of battles. Like, it's mostly battles. Not super deep, but very enjoyable.

A while back I did his newer series, The Pariah/The Martyr/The Traitor and really enjoyed it. Some similar themes emerging in this one.

Bottom line though is that it is a complete escape, and the main character is pretty much a badass throughout. I appreciate the unpredictability of "it gets bad before it gets better", but sometimes, especially right now, I just want to enjoy myself and not have too much angst over the outcome.

I read Taste of Control: Food and the Filipino Colonial Mentality Under American Rule. I really didn't know much about the Philippine's time under US rule. Honestly I still don't really know that much about it in terms of hard history but certainly know more about it on the person-al level. The book covers a lot of primary sources detailing how Americans felt about the Filipinos and their food from things like journals, ads, menus, and cookbooks. Given it was only a century ago there's a heck of a lot to pick from and it feels super "real" looking at it through that lens. Like you might expect the book is mostly about how racism, paternalism, and capitalism dictated so much of what changed in the Philippines over half a century or so. The unique part of the book being the simple insight that food, being such a major part of daily life and the economy, serves to underscore events, intentions, and perspectives in a relatable way. It did leave me with a bit of an appetite for learning more specifics about Filipino food as the book didn't get much into that (understandable since it's not a cookbook).

I'm currently midway through Nevernight and The Girl Who Stole An Elephant

My most recent reads are The Mercy of Gods, and Livesuit. Same series, by James S.A. Corey, the same duo responsible for The Expanse series. Really enjoyed this new series, and I'm eagerly awaiting the next release.

My Struggle III - Spielen by Karl Ove Knausgård

I am totally enarmoured by the "My Struggle" Series of Karl Ove Knausgård. I'm currently on the third volume, in german titled "Spielen" (To Play). I would really like to talk to anybody about the series; then again, I find it hard to tell exactly why I like these voluminous books where a norwegian guy talks about his life where really nothing much happens.

I think it is really beautifully written and gives me an insight into my own struggles with growing up and turning old. The second volume (Lieben - "to love") is earmarked all over because there were just so many quotes about the struggle of deciding who to spend your life with and the consequences of your choices, whether that regards becoming a father or marrying someone with depression. All of this resonates deeply with me.

Has anybody else read this series?

The new autobiography by Bill Gates. I have been wishing for a good biography on him for a while and it likely won't be as critical as Walter Isaacson's book on Steve Jobs, it is very much an enjoyable read so far.