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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 finally got back into reading after decades. I used to read while riding the bus, and the habit spread to become my favourite hobby after gaming. After school became a lot harder during university, I stopped reading for fun... being forced to read like 5 books in 2 months is just not fun at all. I started reading my first two semesters and then... I just never read again until this year.
One of my friend had told me about this book that he read for a full year: The Name of The Wind. So when I wanted to read again, I picked up that book. Oh, it was so wonderful. I'm almost done with the second book, The Wise Man's Fear and I'm kinda sad about it. I hadn't loved being deep inside a story like that for fifteen years. I'm really glad to be reading again.
I'm kinda looking for some fantasy suggestions, now!
Kingkiller is my favorite fantasy series, followed by The Stormlight Archive. If you want a taste of Sanderson’s writing style first you could try Mistborn; first book in the trilogy is essentially fantasy Ocean’s 11. Stormlight he wrote at some point after Mistborn, and I feel like his writing style and tone improved a fair amount.
If you like well defined magic systems and big worldbuilding, then Sanderson could be for you. Don’t expect Kingkiller though, they’re very distinct tonally. In my opinion the first two Stormlight books are stellar, and the back three are great but not as good. Definitely was worth the time investment for me though because he is very intentional on satisfying conclusions.
I had heard of Sanderson's specialty in hard magic systems and had heard of Stormlight Archive in passing. A few months ago some friends of mine were discussing fantasy stories and mentioned Sanderson, so I asked where the heck I should even start reading. Was the first Stormlight book good on its own, or were there a bunch of earlier books I had to read first? One of them suggested reading the original Mistborn trilogy first.
So far I'm halfway through the third book, and I've been loving it. Would absolutely recommend the trilogy to anyone in this thread looking for fantasy books. I went in expecting an older series that I was supposed to read as a primer for something else, and it completely shattered those expectations. Hearing his writing gets better and that he writes good conclusions is fantastic news!
First Stormlight book is really good on its own and there is no required reading ahead of time. Most of his books take place in a shared universe called the “Cosmere”, but that isn’t hugely important. He tends to treat that content as “hey recognize this?” rather than “you must know this thing from another series”.
I read Mistborn era 1 first, but it doesn’t matter. Arguably era 2 is more relevant to Stormlight, but I never got around to it and I didn’t feel I was missing out except on more details about a particular character in the 5th book.
I think his writing is much better in the first two Stormlight novels, and then after that he probably needed more editing. The back three books drag a little but I still thoroughly enjoyed them.
The length of the series is daunting, but remember: journey before destination!
My friend said that many people read the first Stormlight Archive book on its own, but she had suggested trying out Mistborn first since the books are a lot shorter, so it'd be a good place to see if I liked his writing.
So far I've been really enjoying the books, so I plan on continuing to read his stuff for a little while. The number of books he's written is daunting, I'm not used to reading from authors with more than 7 or so normal sized books, but I think the biggest concern is renting the Stormight Archive books from the library or Libby... I don't know how I'm going to read such massive, 1200 or so page books, in the couple weeks that they give you! Normally you can get an extension if nobody else places a hold, but Sanderson's books are popular and usually have a few people in the queue waiting to put it on hold. If the Stormlight Archive books were split in half, to be 10 more normal sized books with the same content, it'd be a bit easier to rent them.
Yeah his output is baffling. He’s averaged something like 2-3 books annually for the past few years, and that’s not even focusing on page count. His work sometimes suffers from that pace, but much better trade-off than having to come to peace with Patrick Rothfuss never finishing Kingkiller.
I didn’t even think about the challenge of renting. I think you have to take a few months off and spend every waking hour reading it!
Honestly I agree with you, I think he could have split some of the books. Some of them even have clear halfway(ish) climaxes that I feel like would have been fine as endings?
a) For his UK (and maybe Aus?) paperback releases, the Stormlight books actually are split into two volumes each, solely because it's much easier to find a bookbinder willing to print them at that size.
b) If you do decide to jump into the world of Sanderson, I'll give a quick plug for my podcast - it's called There's Always Another Podcast (this is funny (hopefully) if you've read Mistborn) and it's my sister and I - both dedicated Sanderson fans - introducing two of our friends to the Cosmere.
I didn't see it in this thread, but I'm certain it was recommended elsewhere on Tildes, but I'm currently close to finishing "The bright sword" by Lev Grossman, which I'm very much enjoying.
Before that I also read "Six wild crowns", which wasn't quite wow, but was fun. But, as I wasn't aware before, it is the first (and currently only) of a series.
Bright Sword is good. I find it short on women but its handling of a trans character was artful I felt.
I have to admit, I did not particularly expect more re women, given that it is a reframing of sorts of Arthurian legend, but yeah, it is indeed fairly slim in that regard.
I don't recall anymore, but (even though it itself is not a be-all-end-all) it might pass the Bechdel?
Agree on the well done handling of that character, though.
Some of my favorite fantasy: The Deed of Paksenarrion and Surrender None by Elizabeth Moon, The Dragon and the George and sequels by Gordon Dickson, The Spear Cuts Through Water, Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, The Once and Future King by T H White, Piranesi, A Deadly Education and sequels, Black Water Sister by Zen Cho, the thief by Megan Turner , the Goblin Emperor
I'm going to add some adventurous historical fiction and classics, The Long Ships by Bengtsson, The Physician by Noah Gordon, The Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, Master and Commander and sequels by Patrick O'Brian,
It’s a shame that it’s also coming up to 15 years since Patrick Rothfuss published the wiseman’s fear…
I don’t think it will ever see a third book of the trilogy, which is a shame as I also loved the first two books.
It is a shame, but at the same time, I kinda hate the discourse around harassing and straight up hate these people receive for not putting out books. They're all humans, if they don't write as much and want to do something else, then good for them. I'll read something else instead.
It’s a fair point, and it id important to remember they are human with wants and needs. But at the same time, I feel you have a professional duty to carry out the feat you told the world you would. Leaving a story half told is very different to not writing an extra follow up to a complete story.
Also, if they don’t want to finish it, fine, let someone else do it, but don’t leave us hanging.
Fantasy I've read recently:
Gogmagog (first of two)
Sharp teeth (urban fantasy)
Half way through Starving Saints.
A buddy of mine recently recommended me The Name of the Wind. I should really expedite it.
In a side note, I tried getting back into reading after a very long hiatus just like you. I ended up trying The Pastel City by M. John Harrison. I think you would love it.
It (The Pastel City) was a part of the Viriconium "trio" of books. However, I went into the second book "A Storm of Wings" and it derailed into a book that was clearly derailed and alien to the first. I understand why he wrote it the way he did but I just could not get into it. Having finished book one, and now two. The second has left me apprehensive to read the third despite critical acclaim.
How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, a collection of essays by Slavenka Drakulic about the end of communism and the following cultural effects within the former Soviet Union and the Balkans. Some of the essays are deeply personal and relate strongly to my personal views of the upcoming realities of our time, others are entirely foreign to someone of my background and give a greater sense of perspective and appreciation for the world around me. It's definitely one of my favorite reads of 2025.
If you are interested in a novel about this topic and like really dark and absurd humor, I would recommend "The Hangwoman" by Pavel Kohout. The book mocks the torturers of totalitarian regimes, who revel in their power and the supposed nobility of their mission, but deep down are nothing more than pathetic and ridiculous mental cripples.
I don't usually recommend this kind of book to people from the West, because I feel that to truly understand them (and laugh at them), one must have experienced a repressive regime. Unfortunately, it seems that Americans are now rapidly gaining this understanding.
I would recommend another book by this author, "Kde je zakopán pes" (Where the dog is buried), but although I quickly found Spanish and German translations, I can't find the English one. This book is his description of real events Kohout personally experienced (he himself was a dissident). It reads like a thriller with a bit of dark humor sprinkled in. It is also strangely uplifting, because a lot of it is about strong friendships formed by people who were "screwed together". Some of these friends were really colorful characters - like "Lanďák", a famous Czech actor, a rowdy drunkard, philanderer, and a loyal friend with balls. One of the "lessons" I got from the book is that if you resist the regime, you might end up in prison, but you make interesting friends.
I'll definitely check out The Hangwoman, thank you! The underlying humanity (or lack thereof) of both the oppressed and the oppressor is what makes testimony from such hard times especially relatable to me, even more so with lived context to use as a backdrop, as you pointed out. I hope I can find an English translation of Where the Dog is Buried, I'd love a good story where the revolution was the friends we made along the way lol.
If you are into allegories, you might enjoy his "White book" (and I know with certainty that this one has been translated). This one I find really funny, although I am not sure how that kind of humor translates. It is about a man who learns to use his willpower to overcome gravity. This book is also about repressive regimes and their anti-progress nature - it is basically about a man who freaks out the establishment by discovering something fundamentally new, so they prosecute him for "breaking the laws of nature".
Also, thank you, "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" looks really interesting.
this looks like a great read! Its gonna go high up on my books to read.
Im nearly done with Blood meridian and honestly I cant wait to finish it. Its heavy reading and im not really in the right headspace for it. So i'm breaking it up with some icelandic folk tales and scottish folk tales. I also managed to pick up Anthony Bourdains "the nasty bits" at a 2nd hand book shop which I was really stoked about. I had heard its not that great but it was £4 and its more of his writing which I am a sucker for.
*edit: Sorry ColorUserPro I didnt mean for all of this as a reply to you but figured id just get a bit more in there.
You're good lol
Blood Meridian is a lot, I also treat it like an episodical to be broken up with lighter reading.
I haven't read The Nasty Bits yet, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it when you've finished it!
Currently I'm on book three of the Cradle series. I powered through the first two books in a week and haven't lost any momentum beginning the third.
Somebody recommended the books here on Tildes, but sadly I can't find the thread.
It's a fantasy series of relatively short novels, but there are twelve of them. To me it reads like a novelised anime. It has strong DBZ vibes but no space opera and aliens (at least not yet) and heavy in the eastern martial arts theme, with lots of chi channeling (or Madra, as they call it in the books).
It's not high brow by any means. But it's well written and damn enjoyable. I like the characters, love the setting and am hooked by the power fantasy.
I think it feels tangential to LitRPGs (like Dungeon Crawler Carl) in its style.
Yo yo yo, im reading Babel by RF Kuang for fun. Ummmm i am annoyed by how it positions itself immediately as a conversation on academics, colonization and privelege. But does so through the lense of a trope heavy Harry Potter knock off. Im... underwhelmed. I have been for most of the book and havent been able to shake it through the predictable story beats.
For serious times ive started Cocaine Politics by Peter Dale Scott & Jonathan Marshall. Ive literally only gotten past the preface, intro and the kerry report on the contras. This is all way before my time and really funny to read about the justification of why we view the cia as scum. The fact that the org hasnt been disbanded is insane so far. Lets strap in and find out how much shadier it gets
I read Babel after seeing it mentioned in so many places and absolutely hated it. There was potential for a good and interesting story, but the author couldn't resist bashing the reader's head while yelling "COLONIALISM BAD". Which, y'know, sure, it's true and I agree, but you don't need to bash my head with this message and anyone that doesn't already agree is unlikely to be convinced. The villains along with nearly every character in the story are 1-dimensional caricatures or incredibly shallow. If this book was any more heavy-handed they would be selling it inside of a medieval gauntlet.
Lol good review. Yeah, 100% agree on the amount of dimensions allotted to characters. I got really annoyed that Robyn, the main character, would constantly need basic things explained to him right up to the end of the story.
I’m always glad to see some Babel hate. Not that I want to revel in negativity, but I felt very weird about how well received it was in comparison to how bad I thought it was. It was the only book I started and didn’t finish over the past few years actually.
I’m interested in her new book, Katabasis. The premise sounds interesting but I’m a little scared to give her another try. I actually feel similarly about Susanna Clarke: I did not enjoy Piranessi, but I know Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is well liked. It’s tough for me to give an author a second chance even though taste is personal and one disliked book doesn’t mean I can’t like any of their writing!
I've really gotten into reading Star Trek novels. They're a thing I can find at a thrift store that are pretty cheap and common, because they're not some desirable thing to scalpers and resellers who are buying them en masse to make huge profits on.
So a few weeks ago, I found 3 out of 4 books of the Star Trek: Invasion! series, one I'd never heard of before (I'm not well versed in Star Trek novels). I originally picked-up the Next Gen (Book 2) book because that's primarily what I'm interested in and when I got it home, I realized it was part of a series, so I went back and picked up the other two books they happened to have.
I finished the first book, Star Trek - First Strike last week and then started reading The Soldiers of Fear earlier this week and so far? They're very good and quite fun. I've never really engaged with The Original Series much before, but I actually really loved First Strike and thought it was a fun read and helped me get to know TOS characters a lot more than I did prior. The series seemingly surrounds this odd race of creatures that come into our sector of space, having been driven out 5000-years ago; they ultimately decide that Starfleet and the like are the people who drove them out and decide to go to war. Of course, Kirk figures out a clever way to disable and ultimately destroy their ship; Book 2 picks-up something like 100 years after the first book with the Next Gen crew dealing with something similar.
It's full of the usual Star Trek stuff with the crew trying Diplomacy first before any action happens, but it's a fun puzzle to read through and see how the characters try to solve the crisis through non-violence. So far, I'm halfway through Book 2 and just ended-up ordering Book 3 from a charity shop on eBay, as that was the one I was missing. I'm looking forward to getting through this series and then possibly picking up one of the many other Star Trek books I've also picked-up at the thrift store, if I'm not ready for something different by that point.
and at which point will you be reviewing Imzadi?
Did you suggest this to me in the past? Someone definitely did.
I actually started reading the sample on Kindle after it was suggested to me and it wasn't quite hitting right, but it's been in the back of my mind since. And actually on a recent thrift store run, I found a paperback copy of it, so I picked it up in anticipation of trying it again since it's been like a year or something.
probably me. It seems beloved in this world but I thought it was terrible... but also a rite of passage.
Lol, well good to know. I read like halfway into Chapter 3 and it seemed kind of bad, but I wasn't sure if I was just missing something
that's how I felt. So many people in the trek books subs seem to view it as the pinnacle of the franchise. I just don't get it.
If you'd rather go through the abridged audiobook, its just over 2hrs long and I can post it :)
I certainly wouldn't complain about having options, especially if it's... Not good.
I got caught up on Dungeon Crawler Carl and really enjoyed it. Looks like the next book is coming out in May of 2026, so I'll have some time to kill.
I give the Expeditionary Force series a try. I powered through the first book and made it a to ways into the second before throwing in the towel. The writing is just way too clunky with too much horrible grammar.
Example head-scratcher sentences
"Three suits got busted in training, we had six spares aboard the Flower, and spare parts, what we didn’t have were many humans over six feet tall."
"People wearing the suits were sore enough without crashing into things, even at the maximum limits of adjustment, the suits were too big."
"Selection of weapon; the rifle or the rocket/ grenade launcher, was controlled by the operator’s thumb."
"Everyone had studied the mockup Skippy had fabricated, the module was a long, skinny box about four feet long, and six inches on each side, Skippy said it folded out and expanded to make an 'X' ten feet across."
He self-published the first three books so I assume it gets better when he gets an actual editor, but already the "humor" with Skippy was getting repetitive.
I read a few first chapters from other books and series I was considering but none of them really reached out and grabbed me until We Are Legion (We Are Bob). It's about a guy who signs up to get his head frozen after he dies and wakes up in the future... but he's been digitized and enlisted to help colonize the stars as a self-replicating type of AI. Some of the details of the science are conveniently hand-waved, but I'm really enjoying it, nonetheless.
Coincidentally, Tildes Book Club is reading We are Legion (We are Bob) for discussion at the end of November. You are more than welcome to participate. : )
Finished "The Lusiads," and will pick up a more contemporary story, "The Beast in the Clouds," tomorrow.
The premise is the least two accomplished of the Roosevelt sons go on an expedition (in an effort to gain goodwill from Teddy) to collect a Panda, an animal who at the time was relatively unknown to science, akin to colossal squid of today.
Since we kind of already know the outcome, this story is absolutely going to be all about the journey, with building anticipation towards the reveal on the gentle nature of pandas and how that's going to take the wind out of the Roosevelts' sails, thinking they're on the trail for some sort of apex predator.
Almost feels like it should be a subplot for a venture bros episode. It feels like something Hank and Dean would get into.
I’m on the third book of Divine Cities trilogy! Really enjoying it.
I felt like I did not love the first book’s narrator (Shara). Their dialogue sometimes felt YA, which threw me for a loop since the book doesn’t really feel YA with some of its violence and tougher themes.
I think I’ve liked each book successfully more, which is rare for me. The digestible page count compared to other fantasy (<600 pages per book) has really made them approachable too. Great concept and worldbuilding. Magic systems isn’t super well defined, but I think it works given the overarching narrative. Honestly at times it’s more a spy series than a fantasy series, but I think the balance works nicely.
I recently finished the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls It's a very well written and compelling true story of growing up in a family that was extremely neglectful and yet cultivated a sense of fun and adventure. She grows from a loyal child to a teenager who know she must escape, to a successful adult who comes to terms with her flawed parents. I highly recommend this book.
I finished the Adventures of Amina Al Sirafi by S Chakraborty I found this pirate fantasy very fun and compelling. However, I'm outside of the culture being depicted so it's possible that there are issues I'm unaware of.
The Glass Castle is an amazing book. I read it maybe 10 or so years ago and there are still scenes that stick out to me so vividly, and it's wild to me that it was her actual life. Like the first time her sister tries glasses on and she cries because she can finally see that trees have individual leaves? It's absolutely heartbreaking, but so beautifully written.
Jeannette Walls can write! Part of what makes the book so compelling for me are the true life adventures that those children had, adventures that would never have been allowed by a responsible parent who was trying to ensure that their activities would be age appropriate and safe. Like other GenXers, I can joke that I lived through free range parenting, but what happened to Walls and her siblings was a whole other level of extreme neglect. The other part of what makes it compelling of course is Walls' skill using words to tell a story.
I just finished the Wind Up Bird Chronicles and honestly still processing it. It wasn’t what I would call a page turner, but it was deeply compelling. The strange heady feeling that he describes almost comes out of the page and made me feel the same way. It also contains some of the most graphic/gruesome scenes I think I’ve ever read.
I’m glad to have read it but I don’t know if I’ll ever want to revisit it.
Now I’m on to some light hearted fantasy as a palette cleanser!
Nice! After reading Murakamis 1Q84 this is the next on my list of his works.
I had the same feeling you describe about all of his works so far, inlcuding the graphic scenes. I'm looking forward to reading it!
Oh, I read this earlier this year and felt similarly. It was a real journey, and while there were some things I really liked about the story, there were also frankly some fairly nonsensical parts and way too much info on his peen...although I've read that that's also apparently a classic Murakami trait. Was there any part in particular of the story that you really enjoyed?
I didn’t know anything about him so the magical realism caught me by surprise. Besides the extra focus on his member- his sex scenes were weirdly clinical, explicit and borderline pornographic, but not sexy.
I was a little annoyed by the implication of why his wife left - I felt it had far more to do with communication between them rather than any events in their lives (vague because I don’t know how to do a spoiler tag).
But the writing was compelling and descriptive- not a page turner but sort of demanded to be read. The movie that played in my head was just weird art film. I loved his writing for that if nothing else - because it was a unique experience.
Specific scenes, the one with the woman licking his cheek was so weird, that sense of him being like “wtf is going on” was funny and absurd and great.
I also loved cinnamon as a character.
What did you enjoy?
I also did not expect the magical realism, but really enjoyed it! I generally loved the concept of the wind-up bird, and the various vignettes about it. There's something appealing to me about a secret world around us that we can't always see and interact with, and so I like jaunts into the bizarre unknown worlds that parallel ours, have different rules, and require quirky characters to proceed.
I'm not much of a history buff, and I also appreciated some of the Japanese perspective on history. I wasn't really familiar with some of the details of their actions in WWII, and so picturing Soviet-Japanese relationships from a Japanese perspective was a bit mind-bending and unexpected. The whole amalgam of plot, characters, and setting was neat, but if he writes that way in most of his books, I think I'll need to take pretty long breaks between them. There were times I wanted to shake the protagonist for being a passive moron, but it was necessary for that story to be told.
Like some of the other readers here I have recently gone back into reading (thanks to some encouragement from my wife!) after a long hiatus from the habit.
To start things off I began reading the "Viroconium" series by M. John Harrison. The first in this serious is a book titled "The Pastel City". Set in some distant future and mixing ideas of medieval society with ancient "hyper tech" that humanity has lost an understanding of. The setting feels very epic, and since it was a precursor to Star Wars it feels almost as if parts of it could have been inspiration for George Lucas.
Going into the second book, "A Storm of Wings", after having loved the first, I can now say it was a struggle. I can understand why the author veered so hard having read some information about who he was as a person. The second book completely departs from any semblance of sanity. The main theme I would say that is explored is insanity, and "Umwelt". So it is a very heavy and confusing topic given the style of writing M. John Harrison does.
I finished it the other day, but after having read it and struggling to "want" to finish it, I sort of regret not just dropping it. It feels like the book has more to say if you have the time or patience to parse the incredibly thick prose, but that just isn't me where I'm at in my life.
Does anyone have any more recommendations for high fantasy, science fiction, science fantasy or the like? I'm a huge MMO nerd and love the stuff.
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is a wild good time. Mecha meets Handmaid's Tale meets ancient China/ Chinese mythology meets ??? There's a lot of stuff going on. It's a bit polarizing in some respects (treatment of feminism in the characters), but I genuinely enjoyed it, especially if I didn't look at it with too critical an eye.
High fantasy, the Deed of Paksenarrion and Surrender None by Elizabeth Moon. The Dragon and the George and sequels by Gordon Dickson.
Re science fiction, the Dosadi Experiment by Frank Herbert, Roadside Picnic by Strugatsky (which we discussed here for the first book club discussion). Elizabeth Moon wrote a space adventure series I like, starting with Trading in Danger.
I am reading "Papillon" by Henri Charrière, a novel about Papillon's incarceration and subsequent escape from the French penal colony on Devil's Island.
It is one of the books of my childhood. I now have to get rid of a lot of old books, and as I was putting them into boxes, I opened Papillon in the middle to read two or three paragraphs out of nostalgia. Suddenly it's midnight, and I've just finished reading the first volume. It is a fast-paced, colorful adventure, and despite the fact that it contains a lot of cruelty and injustice, it is surprisingly uplifting.
I finished Saisonarbeit (seasonal work) by Heike Geißler, and it was truly a work of art. I feel sorry that this german book most likely will never be translated to english to reach a wider audience, especially the ones that could need it most: the millions of disenfrachised workers in the Amazon Warehouses around the world.
It is a book about Geißler herself - she is a translator with a finished university degree but finds herself out of a job and with some credit card debt. With no new engagement in sight, she decides to work as a seasonal worker for Amazon, just before christmas. She described how she struggles with the decision to work there, what the job does to the staff and how she feels about inequality and income disparity in general.
The book is written in the rarely used second person format - she puts you in her shoes to feel how she feels, which works surprisingly well!
Geißler is - unsurprisingly - very well read and offers her opinion towards work, capitalism or about the sad state of the welfare system in Germany in various quotes by other Authors, Philosophers or Poets. All of these quotes are correctly attributed and referenced in the Appendix, which I like a lot - it gives me a starting point to explore more of the works that she was influenced by.
So, uh, if you are German and ever wondered how it is to work for Amazon, or how it feels to be jobless and poor, maybe give Geißler a shot. I already bought Arbeiten and look forward to reading it.
But first I have to finish Ways of Being by James Bridle.
Bridle is an artist and technologist and describes in this book the "more-than-human" world around us - the network of plants, animals and climate that affect us, if we want it or not.
The book so far was eye opening in many aspects already. I have heard about the mirror test as a litmus test for self-awareness, but I have never heard about the many shortcomings with regards to its execution and the wrong conclusions drawn from that. In the same vein I was really surprised by the symbiosis of trees and fungi - I have heard about this, but saw it more as an isolated effect, not the de-facto state of many forests.
Bridle gives a list of sources and references to check if you find yourself in disbelieve that plants can have memories etc.
It is a very well written book and very informative.
After finishing this book, I will either tackle the last installment The End of Min Kamp by Karl Ove Knausgaard, or, which is more likely, since the > 1000 pages seem daunting right now, read his essay Der Wald und der Fluss (I think this might be the translation: From Cool to Warm) about another of my heroes: Anselm Kiefer.
I finished the first volume of Books of Blood by Clive Barker! All stories are good, but not equally interesting. "Sex, Death and Starshine" is a brilliant and macabre love letter to the theater and art as a whole. "In the Hills, the Cities" is an absolute masterpiece of Borgesian horror. The kind of thing that is hard to summarize, and even if I did, it would be a spoiler. I wish to talk about it, but can't. You just have to read it!
I'm so happy that I managed to finish that book. That is not an easy accomplishment for me!
EDIT: I must also mention the delightful horror comedy "The Yattering and Jack", about a resourceful demon trying to drive crazy a man of infinite patience and resilience!
I read the first 2 pretty quick a few years ago and reading the rest more gradually, I'm on volume 4! Always enjoyable when I go back and read a new one. Yattering and Jack is great!
I gave up on Oil! by Upton Sinclair. I loved the first half, but once it got into all of the politics and all, it was a bit of a slog.
I started A Hallmarked Man from Robert Gailbraith / JK Rowling. I never read any Harry Potter, but I really like her writing. Its got a natural flow and great pace. The books are relatively long; this one clocking in at just over 900 pages. It doesn't feel like it, though.
After this I'm going to read a novelization of TOTAL RECALL --- and I'm really looking forward to it. I love novelizations, but don't read them too often. I wish they were more common.
I love the Cormoran Strike series!
I'm still holding out on the newest one, because my partner also started the series and I want to read it with them in tandem! I'm really looking forward to this one.
We even went to some of the pubs mentioned in the series when we were in London - that was fun. Sadly, no Doom Bar on tap in the Tottenham (which is also renamed...).
whoa! nice. Yeah, I love the series -- both books and TV series. They just started filming The Running Grave a few weeks ago, too.
So cool to visit those spots.
I haven't seen the TV series, I guess I will treat them like Harry Potter: I will only watch them after I have finished all of the books, to not taint the minds eye what the people look, act and speak like.
It was really fun visiting the pubs and rereading the passages where they appear. We also went for a concert in the Old Blue Last. The Strike Fans Website has a nice catalogue of places mentioned, if you ever visit London. I think there is also a tour offered, but we didn't do it.
unlike most series based on books, this series is kind of a 'here's a visual guide for the books you read' -- pretty neat. Similar to 11.22.63 (the mini-series) to the novel.
That list is handy. I did a similar self-guided tour of all of the Goonies stuff around Astoria etc. Its fun.
Since last thread I read through some horror novels. The M.D. by Thomas Disch and Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay.
The M.D. was fairly enjoyable. I found myself enjoying the teenage years the most. I didn't totally love the ending, it felt like they skipped too far ahead and should have had another snippet in his 20s (maybe by adding some brevity the childhood portion) to help introduce all the brand new characters and give more weight to the son especially.
Horror Movie was odd. I don't know what I was expecting. Seemed... maybe experimental? Idk maybe if I read that type of story (or that type of movie) more I'd enjoy it more as an inversion/deconstruction sort of thing. It was a slow build in the way where you don't know if it's going to be a swing set or a sex swing when it's done. I guess in a charitable way you can say it kept you guessing. The ending was... eh, I wasn't impressed.
I'm currently reading about the most horror topic imaginable: children being raised in evangelical Christianity. Specifically "Hell Is A World Without You" by Jason Kirk (whose name always makes my brain skip a beat because I occasionally listen to the Triple Click podcast which has one host named Jason and another named Kirk). I'm not actually reading it in the Spooktober theme, I just ran low of actual Horror books (well, ones I wanted to tackle right now at any rate). I'm liking it even though I'm halfway through and it's devoid of any semblance of plot, besides the inevitable and clearly forecast crisis of faith that is. The writing is just quite enjoyable and the nostalgia element of the setting helps keep me hooked. I don't know all of the in-depth churchy references but the book does a great job of explaining those as it goes. I probably would have finished it already but life has had me reading barely any pages this past week.
Half way through Lazslo Krasznahorkai's Satantango (Published 1985) Decided to read it after he won this years Nobel Prize in Literature. This would be a very modern book for me as I rarely read anything this contemporary. Really enjoying this book so far, very very good. I was told to prepare for blocks of text and page long sentences, and while the book has these things, it is not a difficult read. It drips with the world of Kafka, which is not surprising since the book opens with a quote from The Castle. I have no idea what is really going on in this book and I'm sure it is supposed to be that way and I am not expecting to be provided answers and am pretty sure there are no answers to be had. This is just how I like this sort of book.
If you ask me, you're just getting to the good stuff! Great book.
Warning: Rant below written in seething rage
I just finished Satantago, and holy shit maybe the worst ending to a book I've ever come across in my entire life, so bad it has entirely ruined the rest of the book. I literally threw the book across the room in disgust lol. The only other reading experience I can compare it to is Pynchon's 'Crying for Lot 49' which I also hated for basically the same reason.
It's as if Michelangelo after carving the Statue of David climbs a ladder and smashes off the nose with a hammer because he's trying to be an edgelord. Why would you ruin a great book like that with such a shitty, lame ending? Well, it turns out he did this on purpose to mock the reader?????
You can play games with me, you can use unreliable narrators, whatever. Don't laugh at me and make me waste my time reading something you know is just a big joke in the end. I got that same feeling from Lot 49, like I had just wasted a week of valuable reading time on a joke.
OK OK, calm down. lol. It can't be that bad, maybe tomorrow it'll feel less horrible? Honestly this book is a masterpiece if you snip all the pages after 250 off and throw them away. I was ready to rate this thing a rare 10/10. If the book had just ended right then and there, no explanation, no silliness, the writer saying 'this is it, just that bleak, stark world and I don't know either' it would have been perfect.
This hurt more than Lot 49, I didn't enjoy Lot 49 much throughout it, but this I loved deeply. I've been betrayed!
End crazy rant (my apologies)
The strength of your reaction makes me want to read it!
This is the attitude, do it!
Wow, while I’m yet to dive into Sátántangó (also having moved his works up the reading list since he won the Nobel) I’m intrigued by your thoughts on the ending of Lot 49! I always adored the ending to that book, with a beautifully exhilarating final chapter leading to what I saw as a pretty perfect conclusion to everything the book had built, so I’m fascinated to hear our opposite opinions there! What about the ending gave you that reaction?
For Lot49, the entire book was trying to make itself out to be some sort of mystery that the reader had to solve (I already hate this concept) and then at the end it's made evident that all the little clues that were left were actually just bullshit and they author was playing a joke on the reader, there was no mystery to solve, he just tricked you into thinking there was. I clearly dislike post-modern literature as a whole. I don't want 'meta' books, I just want to read deeply into the human condition and enjoy ornate difficult dense prose and ideas.
Just in case you want a serious reading of Lot 49
Wow, now I don't know if I want to put this on my list of books to read or not. What a twist!
Please don't listen to anything I have to say about books or base your future reading on anything I say, I am a full on literature snob and clearly just dislike post-modern works. Lots of people love this book, and up to the very end it is an amazing piece of writing. I've tried to avoid reading anything published in the last ~50 years for this reason, I've just been burned almost every time I've tried. Blood Meridian is the only example in recent memory that I've enjoyed that I would consider 'Contemporary'.
Have you read Remains of the Day? I thought it was a subtle masterpiece.
I have a lit degree, although when it comes to books, I enjoy both highbrow and lowbrow styles. I don't care for most postmodern work that I have tried. I hated Lot 49.
Do you have recommendations for realistic novels? I loved Stoner and A Fine Balance and Alone in Berlin and most of Steinbeck. I've also read and loved Harlem Shuffle and the Nickel Boys.
Are you a wizard? I literally pulled 'Remains of the Day' off my shelf last night as my next read before I descend into Moby Dick for the rest of the winter months. I'm really a huge fan of Russian Lit. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev ect. Also a fan of Modernism in the vain of Faulkner and Woolf. For hard realism I love the french stuff, Zola and Balzac, Balzac wrote an 89 volume series 'La Comédie humaine' and I'm pretty sure you can pick up any one of those 89 books and it will be great. So far all the ones I have collected and randomly read have been. I loved Stoner and I have also read his book 'Butcher's Crossing' and it was great. I recently read Patrick White's 'Riders in the Chariot' and really liked it. William Styron, Thomas Mann, Steinbeck (I've also read most of this works), Orwell, Nabokov, Hardy, Eliot (Middlemarch is a masterpiece) Blood Dark by Louis Guilloux, Conrad (I have read almost everything by Conrad). I could go on and on but I'm here at work and can't write comments all day :)
Thank you for all of the suggestions! I'm about to revisit Wila Cather.
I hope you like Remains of the Day.
Cather is great, I've read 'Death comes for the Archbishop', 'Song of the Lark', 'My Antonia', 'O Pioneers!', and 'Shadows on the Rock'. I find them very peaceful reads :)
No apologies necessary, though it seems like our tastes are pretty distant, at least when it comes to endings!
Would you mind sharing which events you hated so much? I don't have a physical copy, so I'm a little unsure which "ending" event/reveal felt so uncharitable to your time.
It was the last 2 chapters, that instead of this entire bleak world being a total mystery it's just the doctor writing these peoples stories, making them up. It makes no sense to me, what does this add except making me think that I just wasted a week reading a false narrative? This silly cyclical ending feels forced on, I can't even logically make it line up. Reading further online it seems the author did this on purpose to show the reader that not only is there no 'answer' but the entire story is pointless and in a way the entire act of reading it was a waste of your time. It's like a rug pull. I hate it. lol.
Oh! Well. I don't think he made it up. It's definitely delusional, but I got the impression that the doctor is actively trying to record things, and that the parts that happened away from the town with Irimias were not part of his narrative. I understand, though, if that's the reading that makes more sense to you.
I don't know if 'making it up' feels like the right term, I don't know what to call it, it feels like a cop out. Like he wrote this masterful work and then right at the end it pulls back and oh, this whole time we were just watching a play on a stage (I know this is not exactly what is going on). It feels cheesy and forced to me, and from what I read after this is the exact effect the author was after. Strange.
I took those elements as much more a comment on the role of author in the world, someone who butchering and rendering real humanity into pastiche or pablum. I mean, I loved that section with the cat, but we cannot know the mind of a girl like that without having been that girl. We cannot even know the mind of the landlord. But we fool ourselves as readers that this guy sitting at a desk has insight, and in the end he's left unawares as to what's really going on.
I wasn't just BSing, though. That's an interpretation that's new to me, one that's totally valid, and I'm going to be considering it whenever I reread the book next. I'm sorry to hear you hated it. Good news! This time, contra our Pynchon exchange, the author's other books don't even come close to that kind of metafiction.
That's great news! Because Krasznahorkai is clearly a very gifted writer and I really did love the entire rest of the book. I will be seeking out 'The Melancholy of Resistance' for sure.
By this do you mean a complete lack of paragraphs? I just got my copy and scanning through it, I'm a bit disturbed already.
Yes, no paragraphs at all, and some sentences are an entire page long. Don't be too worried over this, I did not find that it made the book hard to read.
Currently reading: A Column of Fire by Ken Follett (95%, audio, please save me I'm so ready to be done). The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher. A Court of Mist and Fury by SJM (trying again after rage-quitting the audiobook; reading print this time and it's going better). War by Laura Thalassa.
Recently finished: Finding Grace by Loretta Rothschild (thought this was a great time), We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough (marketed as horror, in my opinion in was a little eh overall but the concept was fun. Very The Yellow Wallpaper for a bit.). The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber (why am I still reading these? ).
Up next: Pirate King by Laurie R. King, The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté.
Just finished "When the Moon Hit's Your Eye". The moon suddenly and without explanation, turns into cheese. Society has to deal with that.
It's a fun idea, with some interesting sub plots, but it kind of stumbles towards the end.
I finished Anathem by Neal Stephenson. The first hundred pages or so were pretty difficult to get in to, but this ended up turning in to a real gem of a book. I'm definitely going to reread it in a year or two.
The problem I have now is that I can't find another book that feels "worth it". I've had false starts with a few different books trying to find something that scratches the same itch Anathem did.
I listened to the audiobook of Dan Brown's latest "The Secret of Secrets". Dan Brown gets a lot of deserved hate. He has his ticks and tropes that get rolled out each time. Despite this... I like his books xD They're a guilty pleasure.
This one is set mainly in Prague, and has a character that returns from one of the earlier novels set in the USA (Lost Symbol), although it doesn't matter because they are barely a character despite being in most of the book. They just sort of get dragged along with the rest of the cast.
There were fewer art references than earlier books, but plenty of descriptions of places in Prague, some of which are real, some twisted with crazy facts to go with the story. There are many annoying cliff hangers, and a twist that I thought worked pretty well! I didn't see it coming at least, but the clues were all there. The premise here is, what if something about the power of the mind were real, and a secret organization wanted to prevent a researcher's book revealing these secrets?? Anyway, I liked it, despite the classic Brown drag-out-the-tension moments, and Wikipedia info dumps.
Now I'm listening to La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind). I first read this nearly 25 years ago when it came out (my god, has it been that long?!) and I don't think I had the level of Spanish to understand most of it back then. I certainly can't remember anything about it. Listening to it now though it's no problem, I thought I was going to struggle more to follow along.