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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 read Hyperion, Fall of Hyperion, and Endymion, but I think I will dnf Rise of Endymion. idk we'll see, I had a headache last night so listening was pretty unpleasant just for that reason, maybe I'll be able to do it. I actually really enjoyed Hyperion especially in context as a Canterbury Tales retelling, but it went pretty downhill after that lol
And before that I finished Malazan!! Truly amazing series, and I already want to reread it (but I think I will instead continue with the ICE novels)
Congrats on finishing Malazan! I'm slowly working my way through Toll the Hounds right now and am excited to see how the series ends. I have a feeling I'll want to read the ICE novels as well and dive into the novellas and the prequel series eventually.
I heard that he is publishing a sequel series to the main 10 (or 16 including the ICE novels) and I'm excited to see what those would be about.
I'm taking a bit of a break from the series to read some other books that require less thinking as work has been a bit hectic and when I'm reading Malazan I find myself thinking a lot about the world and character motivations as well as trying to remember who is who and all the potlines that are woven together.
I really tried to get into Hyperion last year, and the Priest’s tale had me hooked, but I lost interest soon after. That couple with the knowledge that everyone says you should at least read the first two books made me dnf. A bummer for me!
The important thing about Hyperion is that it's based on Canterbury Tales. So, each of their stories is a caricature filled with irony about how they don't exhibit the traits someone of their profession should possess, and in that light I thought it was really, really good
Just finished Way of Kings which was awesome.
Started some literature in my native language as a pallet cleanser but after 20 pages it all seemed way to familiar. Checked my Storygraph and found out I read it back in 2023 and didn't enjoy it at the time so I decided to stop reading that one.
I started 2312 from Kim Stanley Robinsson. Really liked his Mars series so we'll see where this takes me.
Not sure my last books post but I've read books 1-6 of Dungeon Crawler Carl, am in the middle of How to Become the Dark Lord or Die Trying by Django Wexler, finished the last Demon World Boba Shop books and am starting The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher, wherein the Chosen One is a little old lady in a retirement community.
My reading has become really male author heavy which is unusual for me, I do think it speaks somewhat to who has broken out in the litrpg world since I've been on a kick.
It's just notable.
Erin Ampersand wrote Apocalypse Parenting if you want to read litrpg by someone who at least has a female pen name (no idea actual gender)
Her bio uses she/her - Apocalypse Parenting is indeed on my list! And I have broadly enjoyed my reading recently so it's not a slight against the authors I've been reading at all.
I also did read Mirror Dance, part something of the Vorkosigan Saga (chornological first time read) and I'm frankly quite frustrated with Bujold's writing. She's a great author, who keeps putting her main characters into situations of no/little/questionable consent. I don't think any of Miles' relationships to this point have been without either questionable consent, or a major power dynamic issue, and then he still ends up in other situations that are even less "ok" and calling someone else who's even worse a "scoundrel"... um... yeah to put it mildly.
If she were a worse author I'd probably have chucked Shards of Honor across the room, and I know it's very of its time. 15 year old me would have identified with "too smart for everyone" Miles and never thought twice. But me of today is just tired of it. And it's weird given her acknowledgement of male SA survivor experiences. (Her bisexual rep, thus far, is ... meh. And how she writes Bel Thorne is upsetting.)
Man I found Vorkosigan so mediocre. I read a bunch of it and I was just so bored. I'm convinced people only like it for nostalgia's sake, there's just so much better available now if you want a smart tricksy character (though I guess it's a bit unique in that Miles is not only clever but also super pure-hearted)
He really isn't though! I will grant him a love for Barrayar and that he genuinely considers himself responsible for "his people" both mercenary and planetary alike, but that young man makes so many selfish, stupid choices while being SO clever. But he's hooking up with two subordinates! And really only went on the whole merc sidequest so he could be important/special/win/etc.
I compared it, in another conversation, to the Valdemar books. I did a re-read of those and Lackey similarly does a lot of SA in her books, and probably I'd call her a worse author overall, but she absolutely grows and I have the nostalgia goggles on for magical horses "choosing" you so you'll never be alone and in fact will be special and important. (Pern is equally guilty of the SA/homophobia thing, but again I read them young even if not quite as obsessively as Valdemar)
I dunno, I do think Bujold is a good author, that's why it's so frustrating. The books are just "ok" but a podcast I follow is covering them so it's been worth throwing the audiobook from Hoopla on.
Oh god, I will NEVER reread Valdemar at this point. I absolutely loved them in the early 2000s but nope nope nope not going back there at this point
I think that probably is a good comparison though, and it makes me feel less bad about not wanting to read anymore Vorkosigan than I did (I did in-universe chronological order and stopped after Brothers in Arms)
The modern ones are unproblematic fluff IMO. (I also strongly suspect they're ghostwritten) She tried a "magic school with fantasy sport" bit for a while that followed one timeline for too long.
I read the Founding of Valdemar trilogy which isn't officially the "end" of them, but finally covered the moment where Baron/King Valdemar leaves The Empire and the gods such as they are created The Companions. It was one of those moments I'd definitely wanted to see since I was like 12 or something. I might revisit that last trilogy or read the new gryphon book because it's there, but I'm not doing another past reread
I do think that one difference is that lackey mostly wrote Valdemar in groups of trilogies or so in order with those characters. Rarely jumping back in time to existing characters timelines even if she travels back in time to a different era.
The Vorkosigan Saga in contrast is written all over the place which means that I don't think the character growth can be natural as she's writing between other books
Forum posts, mainly 😕
I need to get motivated soon, I have so many books that I want to read and are ready to go. Sometimes I feel like university destroyed my ability to read for enjoyment - I know this isn't true as I've read at least one thing since then that I couldn't put down and really enjoyed.. but that was like 4 years ago now.
Maybe I just need to read easier books. A nice children's book perhaps.
So I dont throw out the cliched Harry Potter as a suggestion. If knights and low magic are up your alley, I would recommend the Rangers Apprentice books. Easy to read with likeable characters.
I did like Harry Potter when I was younger, maybe I'll look into this sometime.
The other book I read semi-recently and enjoyed was Project Hail Mary.
Something I read a while back that was kind of a palate cleanser was The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buelman
Hyperion for Tildes book club.
Curse of the Mist Wraith by Janny Wurts.
The Women by Kristen Hannah a novel about army nurses in Vietnam.
I just finished a memoir by Lucille Ball and learned that she became a studio owner and that she polished her comedy skills in radio. I also learned that I like her and respect her as a person with character and grit.
I finished a collection of graduation speeches by Kurt Vonnegut.
I got recommended Mistborn a while back, never read any Brandon Sanderson before so I figured I'd give it a shot. It's good! I'm about 2/3 of the way through the first book and I like the characters, the plot is moving steadily, the world is interesting and I'm left with lots of questions that keep me reading looking for answers. I do feel like it's perhaps getting a little bit cluttered but I'm hoping it'll reign itself in a bit as it progresses to the Big Plot Moments (no spoilers plz thx). I'm also left with that sorta meta-analytical feeling of "okay the character's prep is like 30% of the way there but I'm 70% through the book and there's no way they're reaching a good stable milestone by the end of the book so that means everything's gonna get fucked up oh no oh god what's going to happen". But that's just me trying to ruin the fun for myself. It's a good book so far. Hoping it'll stay good for the rest of the ride.
My biggest issue is not with the text itself but with the physical book: It's really badly made. There are random dots of ink on nearly every page. Some of the text is faded despite the book being printed only a couple of years ago. None of the pages have come loose but some are... Shaky. This Angela Collier video made the rounds a few months back discussing how the quality of physical books are getting worse and worse, and I think it's interesting that one of her main examples in the video of a book with terrible print quality is another Brandon Sanderson novel. Now I bought my copy in the UK while hers was presumably from the US so I don't know if it'd be the same publishing house but whatever the case it seems like Sanderson books have had consistent print quality issues for a while, and for a guy who spends so much time interacting with fans I'm surprised he's never made mention of it on his Reddit or podcast or whatnot, because from a quick search it seems like this is a common issue with his novels.
Reading Platonic by Marisa Franco, which was the top recommended book on friendship by a NYT article posted on here recently. It's very story/narrative driven, while citing research and providing actionable advice. I like it so far, and I plan to read it at least twice to absorb things.
Also re-reading Hyperion for the book club. It's been 15+ years since I read it the first time, and I might have breezed through it too quickly because I was so eager to find out what happens next.
The Dark Forest
by Liu Cixin
I didn’t love this as much as the first book. I thought the beginning was a bit of a slog, and the change of translator threw me. It legitimately has a different “feel” than the first book.
I did come around to liking it though. It ends MUCH stronger than it started. I loved the first book for the way that its plot expanded in unknown directions. There was less of that in this one, but it was still there.
I really liked the...
Spoilers
…Wallfacer/Wallbreaker idea and dynamic. I liked the time jump. I liked the concept of a “mental seal” procedure and its implications. I loved that the droplet from the Trisolarans was so eminently destructive. I felt like it was a good use of dramatic irony. We as readers know something bad is going to happen, and all of the hibernators know it, but the current civilization didn't.
And even though I knew it was going to be bad, I didn't know it was going to be that bad.
I also liked the ending. I'm a sucker for a good title drop, so the scene between Luo Ji and Shi Quiang with the unveiling of the titular "dark forest" metaphor was SO good. It reminded me of a similar scene in Roadside Picnic.
I didn't love the epilogue (felt a little hokey to me), but I admit that it does lay some nice groundwork for the next book.
I'll start up the next one soon, but not immediately. I've got a few other books I need to get through first.
Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space
by Adam Higginbotham
Pinging @boxer_dogs_dance -- this was another one from the NYT's notable books list for 2024.
This was excellent. So very good.
It is long, but I didn't ever feel like it was overstaying its welcome.
I had a few big takeaways from it, but the biggest by far was an appreciation for the sheer complexity required to engineer something like a space shuttle. It's something I knew in the abstract, of course, but this book helped me confront that reality in an applied way.
I knew very general information about the Challenger disaster prior to this book: cold weather, O-rings, Christa McAuliffe. Those are all present, of course, and the book goes into great detail on each. It also adds so much more to the story though, going into the history of NASA and the shuttle program at large.
I had, up until reading this book, thought that the disaster was an "accident." Whether that was because I bought the spin or because I simply didn't look too closely into it, I can't say. As the book showed that multiple people, including the engineering team of the company that assembled the solid rocket boosters, recommended against launching, I came to realize that it was bad management that caused the disaster, rather than anything accidental or the infamous O-rings themselves.
Another takeaway I had comes up right at the end of the book. It was something I hadn't known at all. I'm going to put it in a dropdown, because it's legitimately upsetting for me, and I imagine might hit others in the same way.
Warning: hard to read
At least one astronaut (and probably more) survived the original explosion and was still alive, for minutes, as the crew cabin free-fell back to earth. The cabin was not equipped with any sort of escape mechanism for the crew.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
by Lori Gottlieb
This was splendid. Lovely and resonant.
It's a memoir about a career therapist who starts seeing a therapist after a breakup. The book is broken up into chapters, each one advancing one of several different plotlines: the author's own experiences with therapy, and the stories of several of her clients.
Peppered throughout the book is information about therapy itself and insights from the author.
Gottlieb has prior experience in journalism and Hollywood, so her writing and storytelling sensibilities are well-honed, making this a very easy and compelling read. At times, it's almost too slick, which makes me think that she might have taken some creative liberties here and there. I also suspect the clients she profiles are composites with some details shifted for privacy reasons, in which case the creative liberties are understandable. As long as her "story truth" is intact, I'm willing to permit some fudging of actual truth.
The best part of the book is the arcs the different stories take. She introduces different individuals and then captures the way that therapy, over time, changes not only them but our perception of them. The portraits of people in the book are rich, resonant, and heartbreaking (after all, most people who are in therapy have dealt with some difficult shit). I appreciated being given such intimate insights into their lives.
So I'm still reading wool the first book in the silo series. Its different enough from the show to keep it fresh but I'm keen to get past what I already know from the show.
Then iv started fear and loathing in las Vegas. Iv read a few HST but this is the first time reading fear and loathing. Its a fun read so far and I'm enjoying Thompson's wild style.
Also casually reading naked lunch by Burroughs. Never read any of his stuff and this is probably a bad place to start but what the hell. Its weird and doesn't make much sense but I'll just plod away at it when I feel the urge to be confused.
I've been reading real estate paperwork... "broke" my 200+ day reading streak the other day because I spent my bus rides reading CCRs and home inspection reports, and spent my other 5 free hours in the day on the phone. (Trying to buy a house, and it has been a harrowing experience because we started at step 3 (finding a house) rather than step 1 (finding a lender).)
I still have a bunch of audiobooks queued up. Currently reading Crown of Midnight. Then up next is Rebel Witch, then Heavenly Tyrant, then Language of Dragons... all the fantasy books. I'm trying to physically read Funny Story by Emily Henry for book club tomorrow but idk, I'm not sure I'll make it. And lastly, I've started Hyperion for tildes book club, but I'm not sure how far I'll get in that either while this house stuff is going on.
i’m listening to another Orphan X novel by Gregg Hurwitz; Into the Fire.
i hate these books. he never just sits on a chair or uses a fridge without some posh brand being called out. He has a bed that is in magnets…
Also, Scott Brick is doing the audiobook and his sing-song performances always make everybody out to be whiny bitches. Shame the guy is one of the most employed in the market.
Anyway, some asshole is in trouble and this guy is gonna go in and beat everybody up, get hurt, but still win… and some bad guy will likely have some connection to our hero’s past.
edit: before this I read Star Wars: The Old Republic - Revan --- pretty good book overall. I wish they'd make a series that dedicates four episodes to these sorts of stories.
I read Facing The Lion: Growing up Maasai on the African Savanna, which is a National Geographic autobiography aimed at kids. I read it as part of the "Reads the World" challenge for Kenya after realizing the original book I had slotted there had nothing to do with Kenya. It's not very substantial so I want to find another Kenyan author to augment. But overall a nice quick read and informative about a life experience very different from my own.
Then I read The Care of Goats and Ghosts which is a "mystery" novel independently published. Honestly I bought it purely because I liked the title. The book wasn't great but far from the worst thing I've read. I don't really have much positive to say about it without being backhanded.
I listened to a podcast that discussed the movie Perfect Blue, which caused me to get curious and read the original novel. That started my horror streak. Perfect Blue is one of those stories that nowadays feels paradoxically cliche/trite due to the influential effect it has had on later stories. Overall I enjoyed it. The pacing is good and while I obviously knew where it was going I enjoyed getting there. It does require that classic suspension of common sense that horror so often needs.
Then I went a bit older and read Carmilla, a pre-Dracula vampire story. It, like Dracula, has some disappointing pacing issues and would probably be better if one could somehow read it without knowing in advance it's a vampire story. There's a couple loose ends in the story that almost feel like plot holes that disappoint me.
Earlier tonight I finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray. Which I think is my favorite story of this bunch if not necessarily the book itself. That is I love the concept and the world that's opened by the premise. A lot more could be done with it than is done in the book; for instance I loved the rendition of him in Penny Dreadful. I think this is the first Oscar Wilde I've read (at least since school) and I definitely understand where his reputation for wit comes from. I wish the book could have been written with less self/social censorship (even though I know that was the only reason the story was written in the first place) because it feels disappointingly PG compared to what the concept allows. The arc and ending are perfect for the book and character.
Next I'm planning to read an anthology of John Polidori's works starting with The Vampyre. Also simultaneously going to read Drug Cartels Do Not Exist to get a non-fiction into the rotation and check off Mexico.
You’re Not Enough (And That’s Okay) by Allie Beth Stuckey. I read it in the beginning of the year and loved it so much, that I picked it up again a few days ago, highlighting quotes this time around. It’s kind of difficult to explain what the book is about, but I’d say that it’s an antidote to the modern idea that the solution to our depression, anxiety, and insecurity somehow lies “within us”, and a guide on how to build a solid foundation for a balanced sense of self-worth and an unshakable identity.