What are you reading these days?

A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering
by Andrew Hunter Murray

This wasn't for me. The book is about a guy who lives in people's houses while they're away, living his life as a perpetual squatter.

A really interesting premise! Except the book very quickly becomes a murder mystery, and one which, for some reason, I couldn't have cared less about. I wasn't into the stakes of the mystery. The most suspenseful part of the book for me was right at the beginning, when he almost gets caught squatting. I wanted more of that.

The book was readable, and I appreciated the tone of the narrator, but ultimately it was a miss for me.

All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us about Women's Bodies and Why It Matters Today
by Elizabeth Comen

This was great. It's a bit too long for its own good, and I do have some qualms with the author's commentary in places, but those are minor nitpicks in what's otherwise a deeply compelling and infuriating read.

Each chapter focuses on a different body system, and the author blends scientific studies, case studies, historical information, and socio-cultural analysis in each to talk about the ways medicine has subjugated or ignored women according to that system.

Peppered throughout the book are standalone quotes pulled from myriad different sources, many of which are shockingly misogynistic, and many of which are directly sourced from doctors or current, rather than historical, sources.

The book pairs well with Caroline Criado Perez's Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.

Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
by Trevor Noah

I read this for the Tildes Book Club, so my thoughts are over in that topic. I loved it.

Hijab Butch Blues
by Lamya H

I haven't quite finished this one up yet, but I'm almost done and figure it's better to talk about it now while it's fresh than wait for the next topic when a lot of it has cleared out of my head.

This is a memoir from an openly queer Muslim woman, which I appreciate for being a heretofore unexplored perspective for me. Her writing is resonant, and her struggles with her identity and her religion were very familiar to me, even though I grew up under Christianity. For part of the book, she talks about the worry and difficulties she had of coming out to her Muslim friends -- of trying to build up the courage but finding an excuse not to at the last minute each and every time.

It took me right back to when I was doing the exact same thing, with the exact same fears. I left my faith as a result of my experiences, and I admire that the author didn't. That's not saying she made the "right" choice or anything. Her identity is entirely her own and not mine to judge from the outside. I'm just saying that I'm impressed she's able to grapple with the complexities and contradictions within and between queerness and Islam and find fulfillment.

The Dark Forest
by Liu Cixin

I'm only a little ways into this one. I loved The Three-Body Problem and was eager to start this one up, but it instead has felt laborious and distant to me. It has a completely different texture -- one that's been putting me off so far.

While I was trying to figure out why I wasn't connecting with this one, I learned that it has a different translator than the first book, which seems like a really odd choice? Especially because the third book goes back to the original translator?

I'm going to keep going with it. It wasn't the writing in the first book that I loved but the ideas it had, so I'm willing to see that through. Hopefully I'm able to connect more with it soon.

I'm really enjoying Everything Is Illuminated (wiki). I'd never heard of JSF until I asked ChatGPT to give me the literary children of DFW and Jonathan Franzen. It gave me JSF as the middle child, Zadie Smith as the oldest, Ben Lerner as the youngest, and Danielewski as the red-headed step-child.

I consume literature exclusively in audiobook format and forgot how to read years ago, and Robert Petkoff does a fantastic job narrating this one. He's one of my favorite narrators, having done DFW's Consider the Lobster and the Pale King (which is amazing), Franzen's Purity, and Proulx's Barkskins.

The story is a frame story that follows a fictionalized Foer traveling through Ukraine to better understand his family history, while also following the story he uncovered/invented about his ancestors. Reviews out there can better convey its greatness, but I give it four out of five stars.

SPOILERS BELOW

SPOILERS BELOW

One section of the story explores a Jewish village during the Holocaust, dealing with the horrors of watching a genocide occur, and I thought this excerpt was powerful and applicable enough that I transcribed it myself:

... And so it was when anyone tried to speak. Their minds would become tangled in remembrance. Words became floods of thought with no beginning or end and drowned the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make. It was impossible to remember what one meant. What, after all of the words, was intended.
They had been terrified at first. Shtetl meetings were held daily. News reports, Nazis kill 8,200 on Ukrainian boarder, examined with the care of editors. Plans of action - drawn up and crumbled up. Large maps spread out on tables like patients waiting to be cut open. But then the meetings convened every other day, and then every other every other day, and then weekly, serving more as social minglers for singles than planning sessions. After only two months, without the impetus of any further bombing, most Trochenbroders had removed all of the splinters of all the terror that had entered them that night. They hadn't forgotten, but accommodated. Memory took the place of terror. In their efforts to remember what they were trying so hard to remember, they could finally think over the fear of war. The memories of birth, childhood, and adolescence resonated with greater volume than the din of exploding shells.
So nothing was done. No decisions were made. No bags packed or houses emptied. No trenches dug or buildings fortified. Nothing. They waited like fools, they sat on their hands like fools, and spoke, like fools, about the
time Simon D. did that hilarious thing with the plum, which all could laugh about for hours but none could quite remember. They waited to die, and we cannot blame them, because we would do the same, and we do do the same. They laughed and joked. They thought about birthday candles and waited to die, and we must forgive them. They wrapped Monachium's jumbo trout in newspaper, "Nazis approach Lutsk," and carried beef briskets in wicker baskets under tall tree canopies by the small falls.
Bedridden by his first orgasm, my grandfather was unable to attend the first Shtetl meeting...

The Cold War
by Odd Arne Westad
I began reading this last summer to get a better understanding of why geopolitics is what it is today. I'm really enjoying the slow walk through history and have a better grasp of the relationships between nations at different times. For example, Mao admired Stalin, but disliked Khrushchev. It's hard to memorize everything you read, but this gives me a better intuition for how countries ended up developing the ways that they did. I like comprehensive books that act as scaffolding for further learning, and this book does that well for the Cold War.

The Great Transformation
by Chen Jian and Odd Arne Westad
I began reading this as a companion piece to The Cold War since Westad also wrote the other and the chronologies overlap. Politicians, economists, news media all talk about China in certain ways, but I wanted a better look into what the country is driven by internally. I'm about halfway through this one, and it's pretty chaotic. Obviously a country is more complex than a couple of generalizations made by politicians onstage, and this book helps to illuminate the characters that made/make the country. Recommend if you know nothing about modern Chinese history.

Hyperion
by Dan Simmons
I'm retreating back to the classics, most of which I've never read. I'm about a third of the way done with this tale, and it's pretty darn good. I like the world building, the characters, and the mystery. There have been a couple of, what I'm going to describe as, metal scenes that really stood out to me (lightening bolt). Of course, there are some cultural insensitivities of the time that are somewhat jarring, but they are uncommon.

I don't do any of these books justice with my descriptions, but I'm happy to be reading them and recommend them to anyone who's on the fence.

I just finished The Lost Apothecary yesterday. To me, it was like a cross between Penner's later book London Seance Society and Weyward, but way worse. I assume it's because it was her debut book, but man. It was shallow and not the book for me. The entire thing was "I want a baby" but in 2 centuries.

A bit of preface: I'm kinda slow or maybe lazy reader. I read only when bathing and that means maximum of say three hours a week (other times I shower, which is... not ideal activity for reading books).

Some time ago, I have written in a thread about books series that are worth the time that I think Ian Flemming's James Bond line should be good, give that thosebare the books so many movieas are based on. At the time of writing that, I have read precisely zero books written by Ian Flemming. And I wanted to change that.

I have read Casino Royale and Live and let die in recent past. Now I'm going through Moonraker.

And I like them so far, I'll be buying more, I'm certain.

I am rereading Erotic Stories for Punjabi widows, for a local book club. This is a good book, not a great one. However it effectively shows a community of immigrants in London. It has a murder mystery. There are subtle coming of age themes, moving into full adulthood as a young adult. The premise is that this young woman teaches a writing class to members of the older generation and the class unexpectedly becomes a class in erotica. The spicy sections are a very small percentage of the content but they are included. I found it fascinating and it is a page turner.

I'm reading a collection of James Baldwin's writing.

I started Hyperion for Tildes book club.

I finished Thin places by Kerri ni Dochartaigh. It's a memoir of recovering from trauma. It's a meandering book with beautiful language and descriptions of nature. She is Irish (northern Ireland but I believe she now lives in Ireland the country) and the trauma was growing up in Derry as a child of a mixed marriage.

I finished Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig and The Lion Women of Tehran. I found both to be good, but they upset me in different ways (I came to the conclusion that the big twist at the end of One Dark Window and how it carried through into Two Twisted Crowns was not courageous enough; Lion Women upset me in a heartwrenching way but it was worth it.)

I also finished Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon and Caraval by Stephanie Garber. Remnant Population was excellent and I highly recommend it - it gave me the warm fuzzies. Kudos to the people who have been recommending it on Tildes. Caraval, on the other hand, was meh. A review I read said that they "felt like it was like being tumble-dried." Yep.

I'm currently reading The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, and listening to The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei (with partner) and This is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel. Priory is slow but I'm at 30% and I've been getting inklings that are convincing me to keep reading. Deep Sky is highly entertaining and I'm reading it for a science fiction library book club. This is How It Always Is... 44%. If I had a choice, I would not put this down. This is for "social justice" library book club and I have a feeling it will fit the theme. It's about a child who doesn't conform to gender norms and how the parents parent said child. I love this family.

Up next, I have like 5 physical books checked out I am going to be panic-reading in order of most popular and what I can renew for longest XD Babylonia, Funny Story, Glow of the Everflame, The Empress, and City of Ember. Funny Story is large print and I checked it out to see if I want to continue to use large print for my reading experience going forward. For audio, I have The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love and The House by the Cerulean Sea (I'm aware of the controversy surrounding this book; my partner and I want to listen to it, but we're going to be approaching it with a critical lens. We also checked it out from the library so... less support for the author on this one.)

Iv started the silo series after watching the 2 seasons. So far the first book is really good. I also just finished the first book in the Berlin noir series called march violets. The idea was to kinda go back and forth between both trilogies but I'm unsure whether I'll stick to that.

I'm working through Foucault's Pendulum. I am loving the story and the characters so far, but there are so many things to look up leading down so many rabbit holes that it's really hard to get into a flow.

Elantris-

Just finished it. It's rough being early sanderson, but I am mostly glad I read it. Absolutely has those parts that he gets better at doing later, but can also slog terribly.

The Emperors Soul-

Sanderson short story so I bashed it out. Nice and clean and to the point. Mostly a "hey this is a cool power" thing rather than exploring the implications of it, but found it enjoyable enough.

Stormlight 5 -
Still reading this as I haven't had the time I usually have, and it hasn't grabbed me quite as much as his previous stuff. 300ish pages in (out of 1500) and it feels like we're still hitting the "and here's where so and so has been and what their issues will be this book" beats. It is picking up inertia, and I'm hoping he can keep it together. Character and stakes bloat is hard to deal with, and he's mostly been great at it, but the scope and ambition of stormlight is huge and I'm worried this is where it collapses under its own weight. We'll see.

Antimatter by Frank Close. It's an excellent book, albeit a bit short, and surprisingly easy to read. It's mainly focused on annihilation, the history of antimatter, and the working principles behind it all. It's rife with metaphors, and much like Elusive, which was also written by Frank, it's an amazing read even if you have some experience with physics.

Additionally, I was reading Concorde on the Haynes Icons manual series. It's also very short, and mostly illustrations, but all technical information is conveyed superbly, and there's very little missing if you're interested in Concorde. Special note to the few pages on transfer tanks, and how fuel was transferred to confer specific flight characteristics at different moments in flight.

Not the end of the world by Hannah Ritchie. Interesting to view things in a more positive manner.