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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 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.
I just finished book 7 of DCC! Fantastic series and I can't wait for book 8 to come out in May. I hear the audiobooks are phenomenal as well.
I just read that first Dungeon Crawler Carl book as well. Had I known it would be a single day read I'd probably have checked it out from the library.
everything from Cosby is pretty good if you like the genre. you’re lucky to have a small backlog to queue up.
Maybe I’m just out of touch, but wow this gave me whiplash. “Book review” is not what comes to mind when I think of Anthony lol. But I’m watching the video now and it seems legit!
Sorry if slightly off topic for the thread, but congrats on the switch to ebooks! While regular books still have several advantages, I think e-books are one of the places where the digitization of a thing made it way better in almost every way, especially with an e-reader.
More on task, how did you get Dungeon Crawler Carl working on your non-kindle device? I've been wanting to read the series, but I don't get my books from Amazon anymore since they keep tightening the noose on DRM. Did you find another digital storefront to get them from, or did you perform some sorcery on Amazon files?
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 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 don't know exactly what your humor is, but a short silly recommendation I don't see very often is Starter Villain by John Scalzi. Basically some normal dude inherits his formerly-unknown-uncle's super-villain organization, and figures out how to manage that. It's not very long (kinda wish it was a little longer tbh) but it's got fun goofs and some actual tension too
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.
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).
My favorite C S Lewis novel is Til We Have Faces his retelling of the myth of Cupid and Psyche.
That book happened to come across my radar this week. And having recently read as much Greek mythology as I can, that seems like a good one to prioritize. Thanks for the rec!
P.S. My favorite C.S. Lewis novel is The Screwtape Letters.
There were a few years where I read everything C S Lewis. Screwtape is well written and interesting, but it is much more overtly religious (specifically Christian) than Til We Have Faces.
A quick follow-up read to Lewis' The Screwtape Letters is Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth (1909). Its black-humored satire of Christian dogmas feels surprisingly modern and apt for the times we live in.
Such an underrated book. I'll never not recommend it!
Much as I enjoy Lewis's other works, this one always stands out to me for how different it is in style. Like, hmm... dark chocolate, maybe? Sort of a darker, richer, slightly grittier (cocoa nibs?) taste compared to his other books. I love the opening lines which establish the mood so well:
Narnia, this ain't.
Congrats, now you can wait 20 years for the next book like the rest of us!
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.
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).
Spoilers for the first 150 pages of book 5
Holy shit, I just made the connection between that intro and the fact that the number "19" keeps being foreshadowed heavily as important. Was that a setup this whole time?? I guess I'll find out
Also read the third Murderbot book, as a short and more fun interlude between serious epic novels.
mild Murderbot spoilers
Enjoying seeing Murderbot have to deal more and more with its identity, and having to contend with the fact that you can't just opt out of having agency in your decisions and feelings
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'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.