What are you reading these days?

Currently reading "Regarding The Pain Of Others" from Susan Sontag. I've been really starting to like her critiques and stuff. I can also truly recommend also "On Photography" from her.

Over the last few months, I finished reading all of Jane Austin's novels. Pride and Prejudice was the first I read (a long time ago, but I reread it) and seems the most enjoyable; I'm not sure I like Austin's other protagonists quite as much, but there are some interesting plot twists.

I also read I Capture The Castle and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which @boxer_dogs_dance recommended. Thanks for the recommendations!

Also, Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, after watching the movie. I also started Long Island, the sequel, which I'm finding disappointing so far. (The situation, not necessarily the writing.)

Just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shroud which was excellent. His "people visit weird and human-hostile alien planet and have terrible time" format may be in danger of getting a little tired at some point. Shroud is not that point though, it's definitely worth a read. Pacy, tense, intelligent and interesting. Definitely check it out even if sci-fi isn't your usual jam - I read this at the same time as my wife who is not a sci-fi person and she enjoyed it very much. We never read the same things at once, it was cool!

Last night I started Neal Asher's newest book, Dark Diamond, but stumbled on the dedication page. Asher's politics have always been shitty and he seems to be a pretty awful person - not Neal Gaiman awful, but still. But this hasn't bled into his work too much so far. I can ignore his clunky attempts to pass off his AI-led post-scarcity society as some kind of libertarian utopia because it's patently not that despite him appearing to think so. That page linked above might be the straw that stops me supporting him (and frankly I've been ignoring a lot from him because his giant space crab shooty adventures are pretty fun).

I finished Elder Race for Tildes book club.

I finished the Garden of the gods by Gerald Durell. That was fun and funny.

Im reading a Paradise built in Hell about how people tend to build community and help each other during disasters. It's by Rebecca Solnit.

I've been reading The Will of the Many by James Islington. It's a really good book. Well written, and it hits that sweet spot between action-adventure, political intrigue and immersion in a fleshed-out world (based on the Roman Empire) that feels simultaneously hostile and bursting with life. The protagonist is a badass, but not in an annoying way, and the magic system has very interesting implications. I hadn't enjoyed epic fantasy this much in years. Fortunate that the sequel is slated to be released this year!

Careless People. Bought a copy exactly because of Meta's behavior regarding its release. Would not even have noticed it if it hadn't been in the news. Only just started into it, but from the narration it paints Zuck like an antisocial engineer who isn't thinking about the big picture. Maybe he influenced the character of Richard Hendricks in Silicon Valley?

I picked up Accelerando by Charles Stross in a used book sale not expecting much but I found it to be intelligently written. I also find its predictions of the near future really funny since it was written in 2005. Alas Microsoft didn't get broken up into Baby Bills and Slashdotting didn't become a major real life event!

It also has a general theme that all the new technology of the 90s would make everyone smarter. I admit I was naive enough to have similar views at the time. While I didn't expect it would make people wiser I had hoped it might at least lower ignorance, not help spread it to the insanity we have today.

I just read Roverpowered books 1 and 2 by Drew Hayes. They're nominally litrpg but lack the obvious hallmarks of the genre, and mostly just read as a new wizard named Wanda and her corgi familiar Wumble who's a very very good boy.

I needed the fluff this week. I've also almost finished the most recent in The Lady Astronaut series on audio - The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal - an alternate history of a space program started earlier with human computers due to a meteor strike and impending global warming.

I finished Memory in the Vorkosigan saga and am taking a break while I wait for the Unspoiled podcast to catch up with me.

The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler - This book seems right up my alley, the more philosophical book about octopuses developing consciousness and sentience, but I only got 14% before they introduced a character by having him go to a brothel of trafficked girls (it repeatedly says girls which really grosses me out) and I had to put it on pause. Im hoping someone can say this is an one time thing and I can enjoy the rest of the book but if its more of this than it will be a DNF

Perchance to Dream: Selected Stories by Charles Beaumont - A short story collection by a writer of The Twilight Zone with an introduction by Ray Bradbury. The introduction was a cool glimpse on how they look at writing, Beaumont asked how to get better at writing and Bradbury said to write a short story a week, and I love this approach and it makes me think of Stephen King, who I read writes every day until lunch, then switches to editing. I have so much respect for authors like that because the first step is to create something, if you wait for perfection it will never come but if you make something it can be refined until it is great. I think this is relevant to the GRRM thread.

As for the actual stories, I'm only on the forth one, they are good but not too exceptional. The story I'm on is about a guy that plans to sleep with EVERY girl that's to his standards, and is expectedly misogynistic and rapey. Put this one on hold while I finish some other library loans, but I'm going to come back to.

And Put Away Childish Things by Adrian Tchaikovsky - I've been on a Tchaikovsky kick since I read Elder Race for the book club, and he has become one of my favorite modern authors with China Miéville. My loan for Dogs of War just came in, and I'm excited to read one of his longer stories.

This book feels like a Lovecraft inspired version of Narnia, without the Christian symbolism. Not the most 'high brow' read but it was a quick read and I really enjoyed it, I finished it in two days and would recommend it. I rated 4.5/5 stars on Storygraph

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick - I wasn't able to finish Ubik before it had to be returned to the library, so I grabbed this one to fill that niche. I liked it, but I'm not sure I completely understood it on a first read, which is how I usually feel with Philip K. Dick. I think it did a good job of balancing religious themes without being allegory for a particular religion. I haven't settled on a rating yet, but its going to be between 4-4.5/5 stars.

Still reading from last week: Perchance to Dream: Selected Stories by Charles Beaumont

Currently (re)reading: Necroscope by Brian Lumley, my favorite vampire story, its so good.

Up next but haven't started: Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Ubik by Phillip K. Dick, Blood Music by Greg Bear (the novel, I read the short story and really liked it)

I think I'm done with horror books for a while after reading Haunting Adeline. Worst book I've ever read.

I read Careless People a weeks or two ago. It was fairly enjoyable and informative, little that's actually news but seeing it all listed in one place with the very believable human elements stands out. Made me actively think about deleting my Meta accounts and the recent continuation of their AI shove pushed me over the edge to at least deactivating my FB to see if the things I feel like I'd be missing actually leave a gap in my life.

Careless People led into If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution. It was much more informative though certainly drier. It was shocking realizing how much of the global events of the 10s I missed. Like many events I had vaguely heard of but really knew nothing about. The book ends up being more a primer on the various global protests and the central thesis doesn't really get explicitly addressed till the end. But that works fairly well honestly, the narrative does get well solidified through the book without needing explicit hand-holding. But it is depressing reading now we're halfway through the 20s. I ordered a couple books around horizontalism as some continued reading. One is around Argentina and I'm hoping it's a counterpoint to If We Burn. The other is a book by Rodrigo Nunes that the author directly quotes near the end of If We Burn.

The main novel I'm currently reading is Deplorable Conversations With Cats and Other Distractions. I intellectually love this book. It's not as viscerally enjoyable as other novels I tend to like this much and it's surprisingly down to earth with most the world playing straight man to the protagonist's eccentricity. There's an absurdist humor to the core conceit of him talking to the cat, which is of course explored with the obvious base assumption of insanity. I'm in the second half and it's been clear for a while now that this is a book about grief and moving on in your own way and time. The part I'm at has him starting to actually process his sister's death and it feels like the book is on track to culminate with him accepting the cat's talking was all a means to process his feelings. I'm betting it ends with him no longer hearing the cat... that cat better not get hurt.

I'm also reading through Pride and Prejudice in slow motion alongside a podcast I listen to.
I've been on-and-off again reading through the coffee table book The World of Ice & Fire and finally hit halfway through it.
And I started reading through a book about Data Architecture for work.

Almost done with Anne of Green Gables. The book is hilarious and the characters charming. Despite being written in 1908, I found it incredibly amusing that human nature is unchanging and stand the test of time.

For example, there was one part where a neighbour had guests staying with them temporarily. The way the author put it was something like "The items that Mrs. So and so had lent out months ago and resigned to never see again, suddenly made their way back to her as neighbours paid her a visit to return said items." We're all busybodies, lol!

The author captured childhood innocence so well, plus the descriptions of the beautiful natural surroundings of Avonlea. Man, made me wish our modern life to be closer with nature like that.

Highly recommend Anne of Green Gables as a positive, light read.