What are you reading these days?

I'm about a quarter of the way through East of Eden by John Steinbeck, it's finally tying all the introduced characters together into the narrative, and I'm excited to see how it plays out.

I just finished Frankenstein (thanks to watching the new movie).

What a great read. Easily one of the better books I've read. If you haven't read it, you're missing out.

Just a bit over 100 pages into Moby Dick, I wrote an ode to Moby Dick in the last thread.

What a masterpiece this books is. The language is just unbeatable, almost every line to be sipped like fine wine. So many great moments, so many great lines. For some reason this time the scene where Ahab finally rejects the last vestige of a normal existence and devotes himself solely to madness and obsession stood out to me.

Here is the entire chapter:

Chapter 30. The Pipe

When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked.

In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab.

Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. “How now,” he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, “this smoking no longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring—aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I’ll smoke no more—”

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.

I started Oh Pioneers, the first in Wila Cather's prairie trilogy. It's a reread but it's been a very long time.

I started Stephen King's Fairy Tale.

I finished the Road to Tender Hearts which is a comedy road trip about a group of people who have tragic events in their past. I rated it four out of five. I kept turning pages.

Look at the time! It's been (god...) almost four years since I last read a Discworld book, should get back to that "read all of them" project, huh? Well, it turns out, I had skipped over one Moving Pictures in my publication ordering, couldn't tell you why. Picked it up, and within a few pages, Pratchett's got me in his punscrews.

Meanwhile, War & War, entering the last quarter, is utterly jarring. In a way, as expertly crafted and expansive in theme as Satantango and The Melancholy of Resistance were, this is probably the most technically ambitious project of Krasznahorkai's I've yet read. The chapters are long, composed of numbered sentences, each of which may last a half-dozen pages and contain a similar count of perspectives, and they circle a man on a mission. The definition of a doomed mission. The man is also writing a story. Or he's relaying it, at least. The trick lies in the unidimensional method, as the communications between characters are far from stunted by the torrent, and the clarity of each image or idea is polished mirror-sharp by the immediacy of context, only to buffet the reader into the uncoordinated space of imagination in some way which feels effortless and smooth and overwhelming at once. And unlike those earlier books, the content is apocalyptic only psychologically. What a writer.

Finally, (not really, but I'm juggling too many books to mention them all,) I'm about 150 pages into Anti-Oedipus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. It's something of a chimera, written and published in response to the evident failure of the USSR's ideological goals, the events of WWII, and the failure of the New Left of the 60s, with the thesis that the failures of Marxism can be accounted for by the failures of Freudianism, and that in fact Freudian psychoanalysis acts as a mechanism for the proliferation of fascist ways of thinking. It came out in '73 (like everything else) so it's far from the cutting edge of psychology or sociology these days, but having read Deleuze's Difference and Repetition earlier this year, I'm willing to hear them out wherever they go with this zany tome. It sets out with the premise that everything is machinic, introduces the psychological criticism with the snappy line

A schizophrenic out for a walk is a better model than a neurotic lying on the analyst's couch.

and it accelerates from there. As much as the field of psychology believes itself to be beyond some of these critiques, I'm struggling not to confirm many of their targets as alive and kicking. A thrilling read, though. It's almost like every sentence implies the others. Every phrase the book writ large, one might say.

I'm reading the Vorkosigan saga, via omnibus. I'm about a third of the way through "Young Miles" following a reading order I found online.

It's strange, I keep coming back to it and looking forward to reading it , but as I'm reading, I find myself being dissatisfied with the writing style, and that it's a shoot and miss so far with my preference for hard or mil (though I got it as a recommendation in mil subgenre). I can sort of see why my friend recommended the series , but I'm 1 and a half omnibus volumes in (so what, 3 books or so) and I'd call it mil adjacent at best. It's more space opera than anything else, IMO.

And yet, here I am looking forward to tonight when I can read more of it.

For fiction, The Tyrant's Law, book three of The Dagger and the Coin fantasy series by Daniel Abraham (one half of James SA Corey of the Expanse fame). It's a pretty good series so far, if a bit of a slow burn.

For nonfiction, I'm also reading The Origin and Character of God by Theodore J. Lewis. It's about the evolution of El/Yahweh, the Abrahamic religions' God. This book isn't nearly as quick a read or as accessible as Francesca Stavrakopoulou's God: An Anatomy (which my wife and I read last year), but it's got a lot more depth and is clearly very comprehensive.

Chronos chronicles by shami stovall.

Scratches the Dresden files itch nicely.

I've been doing an M. John Harrison binge among others.

By M. John Harrison:

1. The Pastel City (back in October), I LOVED this book. It almost felt like a more serious Star Wars in its fantastic acts and energy swords.

2. A Storm of Wings, the follow up to The Pastel City. My wife rated this 5 stars, and I'm thinking I need to re-read it because I gave it a 3.5. I found it good but confusing and difficult to read. There was a lot of interesting concepts but it didn't click as well for me.

3. The Committed Men. Set in a post-nuclear-apocalypse Great Britain. This book started off rather slowly but has since been captivating. Some of the writing and action scenes have me hooked. I love how visceral M. John can lay out a horrifying scene.

Other books I've read recently have been:

1. Tau Zero by Poul Anderson. This book was a fun read but his characters are horrible. It's hard science and the concept is INCREDIBLE and it carries the book hard. The character development is correct at best, and slightly racist and misogynistic at worst. It was written in the 1970s however... There are no outright racist slrus, but there are stereotypes abroad.

The concept however is incredibly cool if you are familiar with astrophysics and different types of theoretical interstellar warp drives.

2. Humankind by Rutger Bregman. This book covers various historical topics and psychological studies. It makes the case that humans, despite prevailing assumptions, are cooperative, compassionate and kind. It was a very good read and helped ease a lot of cynicism I held. Would recommend.

I've actually been waiting for this thread to come around. I'm taking an ethics class and part of it was about evaluating an ethical code of another religion, so I picked up "Ethics for the New Millennium" buy the Dalai Lama. I had only planned on reading through the first part of the book that covers the metaethics, but I found it so straightforward and persuasive that I really want to finish it. I read it at the same time I was reading about Buddhism in general to get more context, but Ethics doesn't really bring up any religious dogma into play. It simply talks about how people think and act and what causes suffering and happiness.

I'm only one third through right now - I am swamped with school work that I'm trying to throw myself into getting ahead right now because I'm going on a vacation next week - but so far it's a pretty compelling read that I'd recommend to anyone who cares to read nonfiction.

On a completely unrelated train of thought, Tertulien Ndjountche is the devil and I curse his name everytime I see it. Having to read his obtuse jargon-filled textbook really kills any interest I have in reading literally anything.

I noticed the other day that the last of the Sun Eater series - Shadows Upon Time - had come out so have now read that. It's a decent series, set in a broad scale (both size and time - FTL travel still takes years) galactic empire with the overarching plot being driven by the invasion of a implacable alien species. It's wrapped in a framing device of the narrator chronicling what led to him destroying a sun and a populated planet. I think one could safely guess the author liked Dune and The Book of the New Sun as there are similarities.

I've also been rereading the Commonweal series, which is one I would recommend albeit also one I think many might bounce off. Overall it's a group of surprisingly cozy stories for something set in a post world-breaking and extremely dangerous world (magic appeared, now there's been many thousands of years of powerful magic users messing with stuff and rising/falling magical despots), with little explicit explanation of how exactly things work or how the world is different to standard expectations. Note there's a bit of a genre jump from the first book (about a military expedition) to the second (a group entering a magic school with sides of civil engineering) and it jumps characters again for the fourth book.

I'm currently about halfway through book 10 of the Wheel of Time series. It's been great so far and I didn't experience any of the mid-series burnout that the internet warned me about. I am getting anxious though as I'm nearing the point that the original author Robert Jordan dies and the series is finished by Brandon Sanderson. I have really enjoyed Roberts' way of writing so I hope I doesn't change much.

Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson as I continue my Sanderson completionist quest! I’m about halfway through and loving it. It’s a much more whimsical, fairytale-esque tone than any of his other work and I think it really works for the story. As always the broader Cosmere overlap is perfect: subtle enough that those without context won’t be confused, but substantial enough that Cosmere readers will have treats to enjoy.

The world he builds is definitely one of the weirder ones and I don’t think would work with any other tone. I’ll be curious to see how I feel about it once I finish it, but so far I’m hooked!

I've read a whole bunch this month, most of which aren't really worth talking about. One that stands out is Godsgrave by Jay Kristoff. I read Nevernight at the beginning of the year and I've read something like a hundred books since then, many of which I don't particularly remember, but Nevernight is one that really stuck with me. I really like the author's world-building and mix of dark and humor. Starting Godsgrave I found I still completely remember everything (names aside) from the first book, which I suppose shouldn't be surprising as I would think back about the book at times throughout the year. This book... like the first one it's strange how enjoyable it is despite how claustrophobic and plodding the it can be. I love the way he contrasts the small, constrained setting with the massive world building--and the use of footnotes in particular. In terms of the pure story I was a little disappointed Mia wasn't more bloodthirsty. I'm curious how this all gets tied up in the third book given how slow a burn the broader plot points have been. I'm eagerly awaiting the third book to get here, definitely don't think I'll wait another year to read it like I did for the second book. I've also already bought another of his books from a different series.

I recently read Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection which is a collection of short stories and articles by Isaac Asimov collected posthumously with a forward by Orson Scott Card.

The book itself is split into three parts. The first part is fifteen short stories. The second part is essays about science fiction--most of these seem to be forwards for other short story collections--there is some repetition but still enjoyable. The third part is essays about writing science fiction.

The structure of the book is a bit unusual but very satisfying. It felt like an appetizer and I'm craving more. Luckily, I haven't read many Asimov and he's written over four hundred works. I've been concurrently listening to the audiobooks for Nemesis and The Gods Themselves and feel like my head is about to explode. I've been enjoying both stories a lot but I should probably slow down.