What are you reading these days?

So... Following a bunch of life events a select few of you know, I've been planning to get back into reading — alongside other artsy hobbies.

It's not that I haven't been reading at all for the past 10 years – far from it, in fact – but it has (almost exclusively) been either pregrad/postgrad-level academic books, or technical books directly related to my career. In essence, aside from a few books about particle physics, all other books I've read in the past 10 years have essentially been books I read for career reasons, rather than due to real interest.

Although I have not started reading any of the (many) books I have in my reading list, I was motivated by @Evie and @faye_luna last month to actually start working on compiling my reading list and getting the epubs onto my ebook reader. Got done with that process yesterday, and first in the list is "The Locked Tomb" series of books, as suggested to me by the lovely @Evie, whose judgement and suggestions I absolutely trust regarding any topic related to the arts. So, looking forward to that!

That said, I have been reading a few things recently! As some of my favourite Tilderiños know, I've been doing a lot of voice training recently, with the end goal to significantly or completely change how my voice sounds. And it's been very successful! Recently, to train myself to speak how I want in long, complicated sentences, I've been recording myself reading a lot of reviews or summaries of public domain content. One of the most interesting texts I read there was about Mary Maclane's history, as well as about her "scandalous" works. The whole article took me roughly 40 minutes (non-stop) to record, and it was actually so interesting that it caused me to add "The Story of Mary MacLane" (1902) to my already quite long reading list!

Those are probably all of the "updates" from your friendly neighbourhood pickle for this month. As for what's currently in my reading list, well, I guess you'll have to wait and see in future threads :P

Reading A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines by Anthony Bourdain. I am really resonating with his constant existential dread while filming in other countries. He has this desire to connect with the culture he is existing in. What I specifically resonate with are his realizations of the wall that is between him and other people as he films and 'performs' the role of tv host while with them. Haven't finished yet, but I'm really surprised by how good his writing is!

I'm halfway through A People's Future of the United States for Tildes Book Club.

I'm also reading A Natural History of Dragons by Brennan,
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Greenblatt,
The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by See.

I recently finished A Fever in the Heartland by Timothy Egan. It's about the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan and how a brutal crime and trial of their leader disrupted their rise to power in the 1920s.

I recently finished and loved West With Giraffes by Lynda Ruttledge

I read John Green's Everything is Tuberculosis this past weekend. Overall I thought I was a great read. It was very informative, especially the historical bits. But it is very much a pop science book and I do wish he would have delved more deeply into the science.

The human side of the story was both heartbreaking and inspiring. Henry, his mother and his doctor are all the best of humanity. I did have one issue while reading it though. I could not get the thought out of my head of why this very wealthy author isn't helping his supposed friend when a lot of his needs were monetary. Now I get that there could be valid reasons for either not disclosing or even not giving to a specific person but I would have preferred if he had disclosed them.

Started reading Carmilla. Since I read Dracula like last year and I kinda need a break from the sort of books I usually read (critiques and stuff).

I hope that I can join the bookclub next month and actually read it. But we will see. Been really struggling with like motivation to do anything. Especially my project in school. And since I need to finish it by the end of the month i am kinda freaking out since I haven't done anything.

But atleast reading something will keep my mind of thinking about it.

I'm currently listening to The Bird and the Blade by Megan Bannen, with Even in Death by Randi Garner, Gone Girl, and Golden Son by Pierce Brown coming up next. For texts, I'm currently back to reading Where Oceans Burn by Casey L Bond digitally (ongoing since February, finally hit 90%!) And Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston. I'll edit later with my next-up text reads.

Listening to War of the Worlds by HG Wells for a book club with my partner! It's very cool to listen to a book this old.

I just got the People's Future of the United States for book club so I'm going to start it soon. And I borrowed The Penelopiad and Airplane Mode - nonfiction that explores the idea of Passport Privilege and whether tourism and travel can be separated from an entitled consumerism. Heard a lovely interview with the author while going through old episodes of the Code Switch podcast.

I finished A Fellowship of Bakers and Magic- cozy little story about a magical baking contest. It was a bit rote, the MC didn't believe in herself, the love interest said all the right things at exactly the right time, but it was nice.

I started The Unworthy which is a weird post/mid apocalyptic dystopian story about a sort of convent cult of women. It's described as feminist climate crisis horror among other things.

I'm in the middle of Bronze Rank Brewer and idk if I'll finish. It's not that fun of a litrpg.

I read the first issue of District 14 "Are you an Anarchist" - an elephant (think Babar) arrives to the city and is asked if he's an Anarchist, pays a bribe, and immediately gets caught up in... Well something. I wish hoopla had a collection for this one, I only get 5 borrows a month.

And finally Beneath the Trees where Nobody Sees a graphic novel that mixes Richard Scarry's Busytown with Dexter. I was caught unprepared. Good story, just, like, expect to see a duck person dismembered early on. It was a bit intense in a good way.

I finally finished the "Storygraph Reads The World" challenge with The Storm (meh) and decided to replace it with the Lemmy Books Bingo challenge (also helpfully on storygraph), so next couple dozen books I read will be things to fullfill that challenge.

I've been fairly lucky, since the last one of these threads I've read some books I really liked and I think as a result I've been reading a lot more than I normally do.

I bought a few books from 2024's Most Banned Books list. One of them was The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. That was a tough read, the chapter about the father hits hard at the end. Each chapter is something worth its own conversation really, the one with the cat especially stands out. And another banned book I just finished reading today is All Boys Aren't Blue by George Matthew Johnson. The order I read these two books was more fitting than I realized as the "Blue" in both titles is related. It was an interesting book, full of things I can understand but never relate to. In the afterword he talks about how he wrote this memoir at 33 which, as someone at a similar age, I cannot imagine doing. I can certainly understand (don't agree with but understand) why both books are frequently banned by schools.

The book that really ripped out my heart recently was The Travelling Cat Chronicles. Even though it was quite obvious where things were going by the second chapter, I still found myself actually crying at the end. The fact that I read it with a cat on my lap (a much less good cat though) might have helped. But it was just a wonderful, emotional book. It's a bit weird because I read Deplorable Conversations With Cats And Other Distractions only about a month ago, which has a lot more in common with Travelling Cat Chronicles than I realized until after I finished it.

Another unexpected enjoyable read was Keyhole Factory for its creativity.
And I read Songbirds And Snakes, which I enjoyed enough to order the other 4 hunger games books.

I just started reading Hitchhiker's Guide. I feel like I've seen at least a million renditions of this book on TV/Movies but I don't think I've ever read it.

i’ve been plowing through Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap by Ben Westhoff — and it’s great!

i need a new series to get into. After this i think I’ll tuck into David Spade’s autobiography or something light.

edit: plowed through Spade’s book. The audiobook is way better if you’re a Spade fan. I skipped part of one chapter that was heavy on dick jokes, but after that it was smooth sailing and full of more dick jokes.

I started reading How the Scots Invented the Modern World after having been recommended it by many people over many years. I've recently been experimenting with an interactive ChatGPT+Wikipedia-supported self-study (of a tangential slice of European history) and it's an interesting contrast to now read a single-author historical survey. I've been told HSIMW is a great book and the author knowledgably portrays the Scots' outsized impact on the world, but at some point "he doesn't know when to quit", so I'm keeping an eye out for that. I'm enjoying the book so far.

Started reading the Culture series from Iain Banks on recommendation from here. Just finished "Consider Phlebas".

What a strange book. I think I like the broad strokes of the universe. The Idirans, Culture, Changers, but the story was unhinged.

Best part was the first 50%, kind of up to the bizarre cannibal islanders. After that? Absolutely whack.

I'm hoping for better from book 2 "Player Of Games" otherwise I might not make it much further.

Phlebas wasn't /bad/ as such, but it didn't really scratch the Hard/Mil itch I was going for, it was like some bizarre travelogue.