What are you reading these days?

I picked up an ereader for a myself as a Christmas gift, the Pocketbook Verse Pro, and am really appreciating the convenience of it. It's also been helping me to read more by being readily available everywhere I go.

I breezed through the first Dungeon Crawler Carl book. It's full of pop culture and gaming/rpg references ala Ready Player One without any of the nostalgia fetishization. Currently on the second book Carl's Doomsday Scenario.

Alongside that series, I'm juggling King of Ashes by S.A. Crosby. This is my first book of his and it's a captivating crime novel. Fairly intense in parts so I'm finding it enjoyable to bounce between the two. I discovered this from Anthony Jeselnik's 2025 recommendations.

After finally finishing watching season 1 of Silo on Apple TV+, or whatever it's called, I've started reading the 3 part novel series. So far, the books are amazing.

I finally read Lord of the Flies, having never read it in high school. I see why it's a must read. The author has masterful control of descriptive visual language. I could vividly picture the island, the boys, the ocean, the rocks, the creatures, the forest, and the sky. It was very interesting watching the amount and intensity of metaphor gradually increase over the course of the book, which matched up with the events of the story.

I'm not sure if this was a great time to read this book though, because the book easily made me feel dread from beginning to end, and a pretty large amount of despair by the end. I was hoping to come away with a smidgen of hope, but I did not. On the other hand maybe this is the perfect time to read this book. Not recommended to anyone having mental health struggles though.

I just finished Stiff by Mary Roach, and wow. It's definitely more graphic than I expected it to be. It was also wild reading something like this that was written so long ago (it was released in 2003), and her quoting Dr. Oz before he was known as a crazy right-winger, and just a famous surgeon.

It was a hard read, even though I am fairly immune to the macabre, the gross, the medical. She managed to find something that got to me, lol. I am glad I read it, though, because now I have a definite plan for what I want done with my body after I die.

I'm currently trying to find a short, silly read (under 200 pages) to read as a book, rather than an audiobook.

I just finished reading the fifth book of A Song of Ice and Fire, A Dance with Dragons. It was probably my least favorite of the series, mainly due to a lot of retreading from the previous book and too much exposition. But it was still a pretty good book.

I previously read The Lord of the Rings, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. I'm now I'm looking for something new after a long journey of pre-planned reading.

I'm considering picking up The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Churchill's WWII books, or perhaps some of C.S. Lewis novels (The Chronicles of Narnia or his Space Trilogy).

In addition to reading Dungeon Crawler Carl book 1, I have been reading Surface Details by Ian M Banks and have Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow next up.

I just finished my second book of the year, it was Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice, by J F Martel.

It's one part philosophy, two parts manifesto about the nature of art and how aesthetics are co-opted by commerce and government, and get used for control via fear (propaganda) and control by desire (pornography.)

Fascinating read, it can be a little obtuse in places.

I'm reading "Rendezvous with Rama" by Arthur C. Clarke and it's great. The chapters are short and sweet.

I looked for a simpler description of the ship elsewhere because some things are ambiguous in the book. Just enough to help me picture it. No spoilers.

I decided that 2026 is the year when I educate myself on science fiction classics. It'll be great.

I just finished Song of the Lark by Wila Cather.

I'm currently reading The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah.

I'm also on the second book of the series about Fred the Vampire Accountant, which isn't great actually.

I am about to start Fire On the Mountain by Terry Bissen for Tildes Book Club discussion at the end of January.

Working on Book 5 of Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I've really enjoyed the series so far, and I appreciate the serious tone that he keeps in his very serious epic fantasy western. Don't know if I'm sad or relieved that this is the first book in the series that he didn't reprint his "On Being Nineteen" intro (which I read dutifully every time, I figured it was part of the experience ha).

Also read the third Murderbot book, as a short and more fun interlude between serious epic novels.

Currently shower-listening, recently wrapped Frankenstein and am now on Paradise Lost (inspired by Frankenstein's description of it ha). The only other time I read Franky was in high school, and I must've had an abridged version, as I didn't remember nearly this many details being included, so I was glad to have the full story. Paradise lost has been fun, and the audiobook I got has short chapter summaries before each chapter, so you can quickly understand what the plot is, and just enjoy the following flowery verse without worrying too much about parsing details

Halfway through Fahrenheit 451. Browsed reviews briefly and the general complaint was the book is not well written, despite the brilliant setting.

I admit the text can be confusing, but I think it perfectly captured the confused state of someone "waking up" while the rest of the world prefer to continue to sleep walk and live life in auto mode. Can't help but think the parallels with our world, where the rich and privileged prefer to numb themselves in pleasure (whether legal or illegally) whilst turning a blind eye to the sufferings of the less fortunate.

Can't wait to see how the rest of the book turns out!

I am reading through Karen Hao's Empire of AI after hearing her on a myriad of podcasts I like (especially Tech Wont Save Us). Its incredible how a book written over the years of 2021 to 2024 still feels so relevant and important. I feel like the way a lot of people are talking about AI and especially the tech industry just echos the thread that Karen is pulling between these companies and how they work. Great read, very verbose, and slightly horrifying.

Alongside with that, I am finally reading the third book in the Ripliad - Ripley's Game. I'm about 4 or 5 chapters in and not nearly as captivated as I was with the first two books (The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Ripley Underground). Highsmith is a good author, and I am expected this story to really take off, but so far I'm kind of just bored.

Before all that I just finished the Andromeda: A Space Age Tale and let me tell you - that was a real snooze-fest. I got the recommendation from a Youtube comment on a Sovietwave music mix and was really excited about reading some Soviet scifi but man that book went no where. I'm glad I read it but I would not recommend it.

I just finished Neuromancer audiobook. Didn't know it was in production as an Apple series when I started it. I payed about 90% of attention as I listened (didnt't help that Spotify can't keep track of progress when listening intermittently). I found it reasonably enjoyable, a bit hard to follow here and there, but maybe I need to read the rest of the Sprawl before finalizing an opinion.

Now reading paperback Gentleman Bastard book 2. Quite enjoyed #1

I don't have too much to say about any of the things I'm reading, but I recently listened to the "complete" set of Oz books (as in Wizard of). I never realized just how many books there were and never really got into the movie or anything, but of course knew the major plot points from cultural osmosis. The books were, of course, written for kids, but it's hard not to consider it from an adult perspective. Because, oh my god, Oz is a hellish totalitarian dystopia with an eternal monarch that hoards all magic, dictates where everyone is allowed to live, and uses magic artifacts to spy on and constantly record every single action everyone does. Not to mention the tin emperor sitting on a throne of tin (the tin woodman of oz has a lot of moments right out of a horror story, like when he is cloned Ship of Theseus style). Baum also got weirdly fixated on shapeshifting magic, especially non-consensual shapeshifting into demeaning forms.

The funniest thing is the way the "canon" goes utterly off the rail as the books add up. At some point along the way, he establishes the "fairy people" are all immortal. This is even though the very first thing that happens when Dorothy arrives in the first book is one of them dies, which they in-character explain as the witch being very old, even though later it's established that all the fairy people were created as-is, and unaging, at the beginning of time and therefore were all equally "old" (even though an earlier book establishes that the throne of Oz that Ozma took {side note, I'm a little surprised I hadn't heard of Ozma before given her quasi-trans origin story, like surprised she didn't get Wicked-ed} had previous generations of Oz-s and Ozma-s).

The most hilarious part of the whole thing is the gradual reveal over the course of many books that Toto could speak the whole time but just chose to keep barking.

Just finished Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and really disliked it in comparison to Circe! If I hadn’t read Circe first I may have enjoyed it more, but I just felt every aspect of Circe was better.

Started on Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and wow I’m instantly hooked. The world building off the bat is so interesting and the unique non-human narrative perspectives are so well written. I’m only a few chapters in but already I’m expecting it to be a 5 star read.

I'd started a re-read of The Eye of the World a while ago. I first read it a long time ago and never made it past the fourth or fifth book in the series. We'll see if I get farther this time. But I certainly enjoy re-reading bits from the first book now and then. Especially since it brings back good memories of that summer in my life when I first read it.

I'm a relatively slow reader when it comes to fiction - I like to enjoy the sound of the prose and the dialogue in my end, skip back and re-read bits, and even sometimes skip back whole chapters when a relevant connection comes up.

My big new thing now is that I finally have my own e-reader - I purchased a Kindle Scribe for myself when they were on sale back in October. It's nice to be able read a little while under the blankets in bed without waking my spouse up.

The thing that's really surprised me though is how much I've come to enjoy using the cover stand to stand it up on my kitchen table and read a bit hands-free while having my lunch each day. I've been making slow but steady progress that way. (It's more relaxing on my lunch breaks than doom scrolling on my phone and I don't have to keep touching the screen every 30 seconds to keep it on.) I also like that just turning it on brings me right back to where I left off; much as I love paper books, I sometimes get distracted by random pages when flipping them open.

I just started Arthur Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes The Definitive Collection (2011) read by Stephen Fry. I've gone through a lot of Holmes stories, but this has it all in order, which will be interesting.

If you want a really nice, light read with a lot of food and some celebs, Stanley Tucci - What I Ate in One Year (2024, 350pg) is great. It isn't every single day, but about 2/3rds of the year. Not only does Tucci eat well, but he seems to be a fairly good cook. Plenty of realistic inspiration if you're looking for that, too.

Next up, Bryan Burrough - Days of Rage: America's Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence (2015, 608pg). I've wanted to cover this for ages, but it kept getting put off.

With the massive Sherlock collection, I think I'll simply intersperse those. A Study in Scarlet was neat and had a different structure than I expected. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is an excellent writer without being flashy.

Vorkosigan Saga still. Now reading Ethan of Athos - nearly finished that, then on to Miles Errant probably.

I was sold this saga by friends on the basis of it being a mil series. I've just read 2 books in a row (Cetaganda and Ethan) which are like Cadfael or Columbo in space. Not mil.

So it wasn't what I was looking for but... Can't put them down basically. So all good :)