What are you reading these days?

I've been reading through the Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski (translated to English by David French). I just finished The Lady of the Lake which is the final book in the main series and... I thought it was just okay. I love The Last Wish and Sword of Destiny short-story collections but all of the novels i was just kind of thinking were fine.

Anyways, I decided I'll still read Season of Storms and just learned there's another prequel titled Crossroads of Ravens that came out last year in Polish and is coming out in English later this year. I enjoy the Witcher world but i think the games + the 2 short story collections are ultimately a lot better than the Witcher saga itself.

Once I finish Season of Storms I'm probably going to read Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow, but maybe I'll try Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlen first.

E: literally no clue what happened to my capitalization in this comment? I swear I capitalized it. E2: Fixed the capitalization. I'm still not sure what happened to it.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Some youtuber suggested it so I went for it. Hard to describe what it is yet at 3 chapters in, but some kind of a gritty and violent, oddly told western.

I'm partway into book 2 of the Stormlight Archive. I'm losing steam a little bit, but it's partially my own failing. I was really looking for "a group of adventurers go on a quest" fantasy rather than "big sweeping political narrative from different POVs" fantasy but I'm still finding myself entertained and invested in the various storylines.

Recently was gifted the comic book Blue is the Warmest Colour for my birthday and finished it in 1 sitting! Unbeknownst to me, the movie was apparently an adaptation. If you've seen or heard about the movie you'll know it has quite a reputation so it's not something I've wanted to rewatch, so it was a nice surprise that the story was available to (properly) experience. I have not read a comic book in probably 15 years but since it was a present I kind of felt obligated to do so. I guess I've had some prejudices against comic books. Because apparently they are not just for children and teens.

In any case, this was a great little story and has none of the problems that the movie does - in fact, I'm honestly upset at the director of the movie for what he did with it. So definitely recommend reading this, it's beautiful.

i just finished King of Ashes from SA Cosby. Cosby is a good writer for the genre and some events in this were quite shocking.

Today i’m going to do the third book of the X-Wing series (Legends), The Krytos Trap. Should be good. Legends is a superior universe to that lame Ben Solo bullshit.

I was reading a lot of reimagined Greek stories by Natalie Haynes, Madeline Miller and Cosati and decided to read about the stars the Greek gods are named after.

I'm now almost done reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan. I have never read any of his books and struggled with STEM subjects in school compared to the humanities so I was a bit intimidated.

I'm finding it surprisingly accessible! The times where I find myself confused, I read it again. His writing really shows how passionate Sagan was about the stars and you feel that with him despite how dated some of it is. I plan to read more of him after.

It's making me enjoy science fiction more and now I want a telescope 😅

I am almost finished with I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jenette McCurdy. She played Sam Puckett on iCarly and Sam and Cat.

It's an exceedingly bleak picture of narcissism in a parent and the cost of being a child actor. I hope there's any kind of silver lining at the end, but it's not clear if there will be.

Taken with the things I've read about other child actors, it makes me question whether there's any way they can make a show that centers on child actors and have it not be exploitative.

Started reading The Trial by Franz Kafka. I realized that I like books like this where the protagonist or narrator is somewhat untrustworthy, or self-deceptive.

I'm currently reading The Lost Subways of North America: A Cartographic Guide to the Past, Present, and What Might Have Been by Jake Berman. It's an interesting book about how cities across the US and Canada developed (or in most cases failed to develop) their rail transit systems. It gives a pretty high-level overview of how the streetcars systems (in cities that had them) were able to first develop and then how they were eventually dismantled. It also goes through more modern transit projects in various cities and why they've mostly failed to become useful and integral to their cities. I'll be honest, it's kinda depressing to read, especially for the cities that had good transit and then gave it up for the car, but its also super interesting to read how public transit first developed, flourished, and was then dismantled across the US and Canada. Despite the book being named "The Lost Subways of North America", Mexico is surprisingly left out, it would've been interesting to learn how Mexico City developed their system.

I finished The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store for Tildes book club.

I finished River of Doubt by Millard a true story featuring Theodore Roosevelt and an unexplored river in the Amazon jungle.

Currently reading At the feet of the Sun the sequel to the Hands of the Emperor by Goddard. It's entertaining fantasy in a quiet, low stress way.

Currently Reading The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt It's thought provoking and written in good faith.

Currently Reading A Tale for the Time Being

About halfway through Stormlight Archive book 5, enjoying it greatly, I'm glad to see these characters' stories finally get sewn up after reading since 2020. (I know there's 5 more books planned, but there's supposed to be a big time jump, and while magic shenanigans might port a few characters over I have to imagine it'll probably take on a new cast).

Also reading The F*ggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions, at the recommendation of a drag artist I saw. (Censored here as idk what Tildes stance is there). It's been interesting, identifying as the A at the far end of the alphabet I don't connect personally with a lot of the sexual release themes of the book, but it's still powerful to read the experiences of queers of yesteryear and see how things have changed and how things have stayed the same. It's nice that it's mostly one or two paragraph chapters with no narrative throughline between them, males it very easy to pick up and put down and gives is a more lyrical/poem-like feel.

Besides books reading SFSX comic I got from the humble comic bundle (that another Tildes user turned me onto, thanks!), it's a near-future dystopia where a pseudo-religious puritan movement takes over the country (world maybe?) and enforces strict moral standards, and the sex workers and friends fighting against it in the shadows. If it didn't seem obvious Heavy sexual themes (and imagery). Only read the first 3 chapters so far, neat premise, hasn't fully sucked me in yet but enough that I want to continue. The third chapter changed artists, and I was really enjoying the more exaggerated cartoon style, and was slightly disappointed to peek ahead to chapter 4 and see the art revert. (The art is very well done! It's just more realistic (I'd compare it to Saga), and I personally preferred the tone set by the more abstract. But alas I respect the artists decisions, whatever those are).

Also working my way through SpyxFamily, on volume 9. I've given my thoughts on the series in the Manga thread, very endearing and worth the read IMO

I just started the fourth and final book of the Riverworld series.

Recently finished:

The Haversham Legacy. It's a historical drama novel by Daoma Winston set post-civil war/Lincoln's assassination. It follows a wealthy family, the Havershams, who live in DC (called Washington City in the book, which I don't think was ever its common name?) and are railroad barons. The protagonist is a young woman who lived her childhood in squalor and so decides at 17 to invite herself to live with her wealthy cousins. She's pretty and young with amber eyes so everyone immediately falls in love with her, including several cousins. Really the primary driver of the book is everyone falling in love with those amber eyes (did I mention her eyes are amber? The book does many times). It was an 'interesting' book I suppose. It's really a book and its sequel in one, the first act and second act have different antagonists and focuses. It has some interesting themes of addiction in both halves.

Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as a light and easy palate cleanser. I preferred the first one. It was interesting seeing where the cultural giant originates from. I didn't realize how strong the clear "dream logic" trope would be, especially in the second one; the disney version and all the other various retellings do a good job of making the whole thing more cogent.

I'm currently reading a few books:

There But For Fortune: The Life of Phil Ochs. I've loved Phil Och's music since I was a teenager and so, in accordance with the curse of nostalgic humanity, I'm still listening to it now. I got enough random reminders of him that I've been listening to his songs a lot recently, which led me to buy the biography. It was quite fitting, I recently turned the same age he was when he killed himself. I'm enjoying the book, only about a quarter in so I'm in the heydays where he and Dylan are friends and Folk is raging in the village. It's good to get a bit more narrative context for some of the scattered things I knew about his life. Of course I know it's only a matter of time before it starts falling apart.

Mississipi Blue 42. It's a football crime novel and I honestly fucking hate this book. I got an ARC of it through a storygraph giveaway so felt compelled to put it to the front of my TBR. I have gotten in the bad habit of being overly non-selective with which giveaways I enter, only skipping the things I know I have absolutely 0 relevance for (like a women's self-help book or a journal for living with a disease I don't have). Even though I don't care for football, I assumed football was just the setting for the story. So I signed up for it and, surprisingly, won for the first time in a year. It turns out, this book doesn't just have football as the background context for the crime; it's set in a world where everything is unapologetically football and it spends 0 effort hand-holding. But even beyond the football part, I just don't care much for it. The writing doesn't work for me and so much of the book feels extremely superfluous. I can't bring myself to care about the characters at all and since everything is laid out so early without any mystery, the book kinda just feels pointless.

O Pioneers by Willa Cather. About a quarter of the way into this as well. It's a fairly easy read if not very eventful. The structure is different than most book I've read recently, it's mostly just focused on snapshots of pivotal moments. Not sure if that'll stop now that they're past childhood. I'm liking it but I expect it'd start wearing out its welcome were it longer. Don't expect I'll read her other books in the "trilogy"

I finished Toll the Hounds, book 8 in Malazan Book of the Fallen. It was fantastic! I have so many questions after the ending.

I started Dust of Dreams, book 9 in Malazan Book of the Fallen, but I've only read the prologue so far. I'm excited to dive in, but I'm also taking a bit of a break before fully committing by reading/finishing a couple of smaller books. Especially with this and The Crippled God being considered two parts of one single book I'm in for a long haul read since these two clock in at 747k words put together.

I read The Last Survivors by T. W. Piperbrook and Bobby Adair. It's an alright post apocalyptic zombie series that is far after the collapse. Also features a fungal zombie infection that was somewhat novel. It's a solid 3/5 book, I'll probably read the next book since this was short and ended on a cliff hanger feeling more like part 1 of a longer book.

I'm working on finishing Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery . An enjoyable look at the Sword and Sorcery genre and giving me more authors I need to read after I finish Robert E. Howard's Conan stories and also reminded me to go finish the Elric books by Michael Moorcock.

I started the second Dogs of War book by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Bear Head, but the politician who is all but Trump (written in like 2021 I believe) is so realistic, I need a break from it already.

The first book was great and I'm genuinely interested in the world but shudders

Been reading the the Alex Verus series. It’s meh. Keeps me occupied but I often feel like characters, especially the protagonist, are overly dense for the purposes of plot.

They called it out early on so it made sense, but I’m on 8 or 9 now and the author doesn’t even bother to justify how they miss something so blindingly obvious. ESPECIALLY when it’s happened before.

Ill finish it (if mostly because the main villains are just interesting enough for me to continue to find out what’s going on) but I’ve zoned out for a lot and wouldn’t be finishing if it wasn’t an audio book

Finished Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke and on to Rama II. I loved the mystery and discovery aspect of the first book. I'm about a third of the way through the second and it's become more of a drama between the characters and not much yet about discovering more about the Ramans. Hopefully that will change, but so far it's been far less exciting and interesting. The second and third books are co-written, so I wonder if this is the influence of the second author.