What are you reading these days?

Well, finally finished Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon, after stalling the last fifty pages out over three days. It's fun, it's dark as hell, the whole thing is written in dense bebop rhythms and dripping in noir cheese. I will need to reread it. Perhaps beginning today.

I kept thinking "is this Pynchon's most perfect novel?" and it might just be. Most of his acclaim is for books that go on for 600+ pages and defy the origins of the novel as stories of character, instead leaning mennippean and epic. His more traditional novels often seem trapped between his desire to situate character in the narration and an awareness that to do so is to alienate a large number of potential readers. Not here, though. If anything, this one felt like maybe half of the book was dedicated to slow dripping the themes through character development.

Loved reading it. The kind of love that means I genuinely remember very little, because the linguistic acrobatics were so dazzling. As such, I honestly don't know if I particularly liked it, after having read most of his other books at least twice. Gonna need time to tell, I guess.

Started War & War, by the latest Nobel Laureate in Literature. Only a few pages in, and very excited to see where this bridgetop mugging of a man communing with god (?) goes.

It's been a long time since I participated in these threads, so I'll mention as well that I started reading The Mahabharata last year, and have been slowly working through it. Only lately have I made it to the Vana Parda, aka past the inciting incident. I really don't know what I was expecting with it, but this has to be one of the most interesting works of art on the planet. Especially witnessing the hindutva phenomenon from afar, it boggles the mind. Wanna know why patriarchy exists? It's got an answer, and it's not what you're thinking! Wanna learn about the origins of caste? Well, this will perplex you! Wanna drift between shockingly realistic marital conflicts and theophanic scams? The Mahabharata has got you covered.

Camões' "The Lusiads" is a bit of a wild read.

It's a relatively contemporary "Origin myth," drawing direct reference from the Homeric epics as well as the Aeneid, centered on the Classic God's interest in the travels and exploits of the Portuguese empire.

It's very heavy-handed myth making with characters in the typical European Colonizer mindset, for example they can't understand why shelling the coastal villages of Mozambique would lead to subversively hostile peoples waiting for them further along up the coast, then ultimately just blame the local's 'treacherous' behavior as a failing in their Muslim philosophy.

For a short book (again in comparison to the Homeric Epics) it really does read like a story from the Classical era, and it's really delightfully jarring to picture Hermes/Mercury putting on his sandals and flying down to Mombasa to do business.... with Vasco da Gama.

I also find it quite an important read, as it was the authors intent to be incredibly Jingoistic for Portugal, and yet within that very text, there they are putting themselves in positions so idiotic only intervention by The Gods can save them... but still twisting that story around to make it seem like they're the chosen ones of Western Civilization.

I haven't finished it yet, but that's my take so far, 3 chapters in. Shouldn't take more than a week.

I just finished reading Asimov's original Foundation trilogy. I had read the first two books when I was younger and found them too dry and the plot too slow. I did not remember much of the story from then. This time around, though, I enjoyed it much more than I expected to. Here I'll try to write down some of my thoughts on it as they occur to me. Apologies if it's a bit disjointed.

Asimov really seems to have a passion for science communication and education. I was aware that he wrote a number of nonfiction science books aimed at the general public. In his fiction, he also seamlessly integrates tidbits of facts and knowledge so that the reader ends up almost accidentally acquiring some familiarity with math and science concepts.

The author's writing of women is very much a product of his time. I can see this being a grating irritation for some modern readers. Almost all characters are men. Women are never in positions of official authority. There are several points in the story where women characters are integral to driving the plot forward, though they don't tend to be acting by their own agency and wit.

I think from here I'm going to take a break from Asimov. Maybe I'll come back to the later books in the Foundation series, or maybe more Robot books? Earlier this year, I read Caves of Steel and Naked Sun and really enjoyed those.

I’m halfway through The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt, which is an excellent read if you want to know more about early American capitalism. Wild, terrible stuff. He was clearly mean, highly competitive, physically intimidating, and only occasionally honest, but this was apparently not uncommon in 19th century New York, he was just more successful at it. The vibe is sort of like a Western. Includes steamboat races and explosions and train wrecks and sabotage and legal maneuvers.

There’s an interesting contrast with what came before, which was more genteel but also pretty terrible by modern standards. Apparently the New York state government was controlled by the elites (most people couldn’t vote) and their way of doing big projects was to grant legal monopolies. The most famous and successful was the Erie canal, financed via state bonds and private investors. There were also a lot of other projects like that with other states, many of which failed, and there was lots of corruption.

The Whigs promoted government projects and the Jacksonian Democrats thought they were corrupt and they weren’t wrong, and almost everyone hated the idea of corporations which barely existed and weren’t very well understood by most. Vanderbilt competed against a state government monopoly and there was a famous court case, Gibbons v. Ogden, where the Supreme Court ruled that the state of New York could not grant a monopoly on steamboat traffic on the Hudson river.

Reading a pretty strange book by Anthony Burgess called 'Nothing Like the Sun' published in 1964 which is a semi-fictional biography of William Shakespeare. Definitely not a real biography as we know very little of Shakespeare's life and Burgess fills in the blanks to his liking, including popular speculation and some complete fabrications. It is written in an experimental Joyce-ian style. He tries to keep the book approachable to modern readers while injecting a lot of archaic language. He does this well as I'm not having too much trouble following along.

I'm reading it because Harold Bloom put it in his Western Canon and called it 'Burgess's best novel'. I'm just over halfway of a pretty short ~230pg novel and I'm not sure I agree with Bloom on this one. While interesting content and style it's just not really my thing. Experimental post-modern novels in general are not my thing.

Finished The Poisoners Handbook for Tildes book club this month. It's a history of early forensic toxicology in the US. It's organized as a biography of two professionals in the New York City coroner's office, but it's subdivided by poisonous substance as used in murder or discovered in relation to accidental death. It's not a heavy book, but the history is interesting.

I'm nearly finished with a fantasy pirate adventure, The adventures of Amina Al Sirafi
Amina is a loveable rogue who makes choices that seem good but lead her and her friends deeper and deeper into magical trouble.

I finished the novella A River Runs through it, which was made into a beautiful movie.

Next up will be Stephen King's Fairy Tale

I finished How To Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix, and when I say it was the scariest book I've ever read, I mean it. It was so, so good. Body horror, puppets, dolls, possession. I don't know how Hendrix manages to also perfectly capture the female experience in the US as well. A+.

On the other hand, I just DNF'd Practical Magic by Emily Grimoire. I had to nope out when she compared herself to Taylor Swift, but also there was apparently a Donald Trump reference in the book too (gross). I really wanted to like it. The premise was cute, but I should have known it would suck when the book was compared to Gilmore Girls. I'm not a fan of that show.

After finishing The End of the World as We Know it I decided to celebrate October with some more horror.

I read The Phantom of the Opera, which was good. I hadn't seen the musical or any movies of it in a long time so the specifics of the story were quite blurred in my memory. I wasn't expecting it to go on so long about the 20k Francs and the envelope, but I guess that's part of the fact that it was meant to be a crime novel a la Sherlock Holmes and not actually a horror novel. The ending was interesting, even beyond the very very end. Like the tree room is unique insights into then-new technology even if he really stretched plausibility. But, honestly, I think the original isn't as good as the subsequent renditions.

I also read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It would have been so much better without knowing so much about it from pop-culture. But knowing what the twist would be it doesn't work nearly as well (plus I feel like the "crimes" aren't shocking enough nowadays). I don't even want to say it didn't age well, it's just that its cultural impact far exceeds the bounds of the original novella. I can see why some people would like the writing but I didn't especially love it. But certainly good to have read for the historic/literary/cultural aspects.

I'm currently reading Frankenstein as well as The M.D. by Thomas Disch. Both are good so far, feeling more optimistic about Frankenstein than the previous two classics.

In parallel I'm reading a few non-fiction books. I'm deepest into The Trial of Socrates which so far hasn't taught me much about the trial, but I've learned a good bit about Socrates. I've realized I knew very little about him beyond "Socratic method" and "Plato's teacher." I'm quickly realizing maybe he's not the type of person whose method one should appeal to--sort of like those aphorisms we leave out half of and then use in ironic ways.

Currently reading: God of the Hive by Laurie R. King, which is roughly halfway through her current Sherlock Holmes/Mary Russell series. I'm at about 40% and I'm confused but I'm supposed to be, so it's fine. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (book club), just started. Network Effect by Martha Wells (audiobook with Mr. Alpaca, more or less just started). And War by Laura Thalassa. I actually skipped including the first book, Famine, on my posts here, because I wasn't sure if it would be too embarrassing. Basically, the plot is "ladies who fall for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." And Famine was highly entertaining. So I guess War can go in my posts lol. Just started that, as well.

Just finished: Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo - felt like a clean ending to this trilogy, though I could have done with more. The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton - I found this really slow but it might just be me. I enjoyed the nature writing aspects of it and the ending. Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer - funny but basically background noise. The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young - I LOVED THIS AND I WANT IT TO BE A MOVIE. Ahem. This had a very good slow build of plot and romance and family and setting. Just the right amount of fantastical elements without making it too complicated. The Winners by Fredrik Backman - this author just knows how to punch you right in the heart.

Up next: A Court of Mist and Fury by SJM (DNF'd it on audio, we'll see if I enjoy it more in print). The Scald-Crow by Grace Daly, Carry by Toni Jensen.

I'm on Book 6 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, which I'm told is a LitRPG. It's my first foray into this genre, but the person who recommended it to me said it's the only LitRPG book he's actually enjoyed. I can see why, as the way this book incorporates the RPG and gameplay mechanics into the story feels more natural than I would imagine it normally would be for the genre.

In short, Earth is transformed by an alien corporation into a massive, multi-level dungeon that's also part intergalactic reality show. The few surviving humans are forced into participating with the promise of saving the planet if anyone completes the 18th floor. A super-advanced AI acts as the DM, with technology so advanced it's basically magic turning participants into RPG players with leveling, skills, and even magic. Carl was outside wearing nothing but his boxers while trying to retrieve his ex-girlfriend's cat from a tree when it happened, and that's all he was able to take with him into the dungeon.

So far, the worst book was the second book, but I think a lot of that was because it had to do a lot of set up, but the quest storyline of the book also felt the weakest. The story really starts picking up after that, though.

As I've progressed, I've found the series is reminding me of The Dresden Files in a lot of subtle ways (though I'm sure they are things that are not entirely unique to Dresden, either)—in a good way, in my opinion.

The series is supposedly only going to have 10 books and the first 7 have already been released, so I'm really curious to see how the series wraps up in the next four books!

I really wanted to read the "Täällä Pohjantähden alla (Under the North Star)" trilogy, but as it turns out, the only English translation is riddled with typos and I really can't get myself to do that 🫠

I put a pause on Upton Sinclair's Oil to quickly go through Ted Kravitz's F1 Insider: Notes from the Pit Lane. Nice read for F1 fans. If you're a fan of Ted's Notebook, you'll remember a lot of the highlights... and if you're a fan of F1 itself, there will be some good stories covering several years.

There are some pretty good F1 books out there. I really enjoyed Newey's How to Build a Car and Jenson Button's Life to the Limit. I'd put Ted's at the back of these, but its still very good.

edit: the pause continues! A new Mickey Haller book from Michael Connelly, The Proving Ground. The books aren’t as good as the earlier ones, but they’re fine. the Haller ones tend to be better.

edit: the last half of Oil! sucks... so I'm dropping it. A new Strike book came out a month ago, so I'll tuck into that before going on to Barry Lyndon from Thackeray then, of all things, a novelization of Total Recall, which I am very excited for.

I'm about to embark on Cordelia's Honour. It was recommended to me. I've not started yet, so I don't really have much to say. I will consume the first pages this very eve.

I recently finished The Deep Range by Arthur C. Clarke. This was a book that followed a prior space pilot who now operates deep sea submarines to manage herds of whales who are now farmed for meat. It was an interesting and quick read.

I picked up The Secrets of Happily Married Men: Eight Ways to Win Your Wife's Heart Forever. I would say my marriage has come to a good place over the last few years which is great, but I've been adopting the approach to read more books that are practical and applicable to my life, and I'm curious to see if this book will have anything useful I can bring to my own marriage. One of my friends read it and found some of the points useful for his marriage, so might as well give it a go. Books like this are usually short and this one is divided up in to bite sized chapters/sections which makes reading it in short bursts easy.

I also picked up the novella/short story Strange Dogs which is part of the Expanse series. I've been slowly reading the extra novellas that were published whenever I feel like revisiting the setting, and they've been cool expanding on the lore or giving backstory to characters.

After commenting about feeling like reading Malazan again in another thread, I picked back up Dust of Dreams, book 9 in Malazan Book of the Fallen. I've taken breaks reading Malazan for when I'm not in the mood, but picking this up again has me excited to see how this series concludes. I think I'll shoot for finishing this book and the next book by the end of year.

I'll then probably take a break from reading books in the Malazan setting for a little while before going back to read the Novels of the Malazan Empire series and then The Tales of Witness sequel series.

There are so many good books to read!