What are you reading these days?

Started and finished This Is How You Lose the Time War, a little novella about time travel and love. It was really great, hard to describe it too much without spoilers, but it was a good romance book that felt developed but also didn't overstay it's premise. Would highly recommend

I finished Satantango the other day, so pinging /u/plutonic. I definitely didn't feel as strongly about the ending as you did, haha. I knew in advance about Krasznahorkai's long and meandering sentences, but tbh I did not struggle a lot with them. Still a dense book though. Great writing.

My usual caveat that I'm an audiobook listener rather than a sit-down-and-reader.

Just finished Beyond Band of Brothers, which has been on my "Want to read" list for years, but I finally made an effort to get to it, and I largely enjoyed it. The depiction of the life of a parachute infantryman in world war two was pretty harrowing, in an enlightening way. And there were a few points about "being a good leader" than resonated with me, both in my past professional experience, and in things I "could do better, to be a better leader".

Up next is Armored, by Mark Greaney. I bought in to Mark Greaney from his Gray Man book series. I was looking for something to listen to on a long drive I took last summer. As a kid, I read Tom Clancy, and I saw that Mark Greaney co-authored some stuff with Clancy so I decided to give him a try. I loved the Gray Man series, burned through all 14 books over the second half of 2025, and the newest 15th book came out last month, took me about 8 days to get through. With no more Gray Man to get in to, I decided to try out another one of Greaney's works (Armored).

Apparently Greaney first released Armored as an audio drama/play in 2021, and after it gained success, he re-released it in 2022, using the more traditional "book" style of much more internal monologue, tactical details, and character backstory that wasn't in the audio play. I decided to go in to the 2022 re-release, but I wonder if I'd enjoy it more if I'd started with the original 2021 release first.

I tried getting into The Way Of Kings, but after ~400 pages in I still wasn't hooked. I'm about a third of the way through The Will of the Many and am enjoying that significantly more.

Patiently waiting in my library queue for Operation: Bounce House and for DCC Book 8 to come out.

My wife got me an e-reader for my birthday last week and I've been loving it. I tend to gravitate toward physically large fiction books and it makes the physical act of reading much easier!

Just finished up The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie this morning. One of my book club friends recommended the Netflix show but mentioned that she wished she had read the book first, so in the queue it went. It's the second book in a series, so I read The Secret of Chimneys first. I enjoyed Chimneys but it didn't blow my mind or anything. Seven Dials, however, surprised me with just how funny it was. I'm used to some humor in Christie's books, but this one was chock-full of dry humor and satire about the British elite and I really enjoyed it. Bundle's conversations with her father literally had me laughing out loud.

As with many Christie mysteries, your chances of completely solving the mystery are low since the author saves the juiciest tidbits for the reveal, but it's a fun ride and she is generous enough with clues that you can at least pick up on most of the twists.

I finished Mountain in the Sea. It was much better than I expected, lots of fun things to think about and deals with something close to what I've always wondered: If we met advanced aliens could we really be able to communicate at any meaningful level? Most non-horror sci-fi just assumes yes but if we still can't communicate well with other intelligent creatures on this planet right now I have my doubts.

I just started book one of The Stormlight Archive and I was a bit confused at first but it became a lot more interesting after chapter 3. I'm sure I'll like it more the further I get.

Having abandoned Vorkosigan for reasons I’ve already stated, I started on Bobiverse book one.

It started really strongly. Loved the opening.

About half way through now and I’m not so sure. There’s a lack of charters despite (or perhaps because of) all the Bobs.

I’ll keep going to the end of book one though. Wish the second quarter was like the first though. Damn

While waiting for the next book in the Pillars of the Earth series (even though I'm pretty sure it will follow the same "guy who can solve any problem takes longer to solve societal problem that keeps him from love interest" pattern as the others) I picked up The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. I'm only a little way in but enjoying it so far.

Still working on The Wings of the Dove by Henry James Published 1902. This book is extremely difficult. Henry James is way smarter than I am, his intricate, meandering sentences are very hard follow. The perspective of the book is also difficult. He writes mostly from an omniscient hovering view, not really allowing the characters to speak for themselves but telling you what they are thinking and saying, analyzing them deeply while doing so, not concentrating on a single character but everyone at once. Then he will zoom in and you will get actual back and forth talking between characters just to quickly zoom back out again. It is very hard to follow, I've found some success reading the book aloud to myself to find the rhythm of the text. Very little plot, extreme amounts of character development.

He also repeatedly pulls off this trick where he is referring to people using 'he, her, she ect' where you think he is talking about one character only to realize on the next page or two he is actually speaking of someone else and then you have to go back and re-work what you just read to match it to the correct character. He does this multiple times and there is no way he isn't doing it on purpose. He even shows it being done internally to the book once where it happens between characters, one thinking the other is talking about someone they aren't. Why is he doing this? Need to think about that some more. 350/500 pages in.

Audiobook: Something completely different, I've started into Friedrich Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England 1844 Published in 1845. I consider myself a 'leftist', probably more in the traditional? sense instead of in the modern focus of social justice. I find myself not agreeing with many leftists these days, especially younger people, but I am fundamentally against social conservative ideals and can't see myself ever wavering on that. I am definitely not a Communist, and believe those ideals are extremely naive and something you fall into the trap of believing when very young with little life experience and more importantly experience in dealing with other human beings. In my view the ideas of Communism are fundamentally not in line with the human condition. Works great for insects, not for humans. But that is a whole other discussion.

I have read a few of a classic 'Socialism' books and I've always really enjoyed them, it is really important to understand the conditions of the working class during these times to understand where and why the ideals of Communism came about. Books like 'The Grapes of Wrath, Down and out in London and Paris, The Jungle, ect' Those books are in a way novelized versions of what Engels saw and experienced in England during this period (applied to other times, places and situations). He wrote this book when he was 24 years old which is just incredible and really shows just how smart and what vision he had. This is more of a non-fiction style systematic look at the working conditions of the 'Proletarian' during the uprising of the industrial revolution, probably the most brutal time there ever was for workers in this world.

I'm about halfway now and I don't have too much to say except I was completely shocked by a 12 minute long ruthless, racist rant about the Irish who were immigrating to England during this time looking for work. It is possibly the most racist thing I have ever read, it is really brutal. It shows that these people are still a product of their time and we have to remember that. We are also not used to seeing racism from white Europeans against what we today consider other white Europeans, but this was not always the case, race lines move and shift around throughout time. The Irish and Italians faced brutal racism from the 'pure' British or French whites of Europe for a long time, in Europe and America. What is also interesting is the same racist claims made by Engels against the Irish are the exact same ones you will hear used today against whomever the targets of racism are now. However much things change, they really stay the same. Shocking and I wasn't expecting it.

Nearly done with The Dream Machine

If you care about computing (truly care and not just see it as a simple means to a simple end ($)), I highly recommend it. And, if you don't... I still do.

What is and what could have been... I weep.

I'm currently reading Stiff by Mary Roach. It's the first book I've read in probably close to a year. I really enjoy how easy it is to read and, of course, the subject matter.

Do any of you have similar recommendations? I've read a few of her other books along with books by Caitlin Doughty and Lindsey Fitzharris.

Audiobook user here. No remorse - it just makes sense for my life.

I recently finished The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson and quite liked it. The twist ending was spoiled for me, but I'd already had a bunch anyways. I enjoyed the way magic is used and explained in the book - I found it clever. The characters were likeable and well put together, overall, though occasionally things felt a bit flat.

I picked up The Well of Ascension now, and a few chapters in I'm not enjoying it nearly so much. Those same characters now suddenly feel less dimensional, and I'm increasingly struggling to get over the ick factor of Elend and Vins relationship - she's a teenager, he's in his twenties, why? Why set that up? Every romantic or touching scene between, that fact comes to mind and it's just weird to me.

I'm going to keep giving the book a chance for now, but unless something changes I'm going to put it down.

I'm currently reading Dungeon Crawler Carl #6: The Eye of the Bedlam Bride. I've been enjoying this series, having read them one after the other from the beginning until now over the past few months, but it is starting to wear a bit thin. Carl and friends lurch from one extreme situation to the next, over and over. I get that that is the nature of LitRPG, but I think it probably could have wrapped up a book or two earlier. There's one more already published after this one, and at least one more on the way after that.

I'm glad the author found success, and I hear it has even been optioned for TV/movie development. I have also heard that audiobook is the superior way to consume this series, but I much prefer to read text.

I finished Ryk Brown's Frontier Saga Part 1 and 2. That was like 20 books. They became what I can only describe as comfort books and I just saw that a part 3 is released so it's never-ending it seems and that's fine.

I just started Altered Starscape by Ian Douglas and so far it's pretty interesting. I like science fiction but it's hard to find the right books and most times end up with easy digestible books as previously mentioned because I just can't muster the patience to get into something bigger. I don't know where this book is categorized but so far so good.

I'd say more than 95% of my reading is fiction, but for some reason I'm finding myself in the middle of three nonfiction books:

• How To Build A Car by Adrian Newey. He's arguably the most famous designer in F1, and this is his autobiography. I wish it had more about the cars themselves versus just his life events, but it's an OK read.

• A couple friend of mine likes to give as Christmas gifts books they read that year and thought their friends would enjoy. This year, they gave me The Nineties, which has been a fun nostalgic read so far. I'm not too far into it, but I grew up in the thick of it, and I'm curious to see how it goes.

• Lastly, on audiobook I've been listening to Blood in the Machine, which is the historical account of the Luddites in England. It's obviously contemporaneously relevant in the face of AI, and it's interesting to see the parallels with the industrial revolution.

Im reading My Own Country a Doctor's story by Verghese. It's a memoir of his work with aids patients and his family life during that period of time.

Just over half way on You were not meant to be human

Visceral horror about an autistic trans dude with an unwanted pregnancy in an Appalachian worm cult.

It can be a lot, you probably want to read the content warnings on it. It's the kind of book after which you are done, you want to ask the author "are you ok?". It's clearly being drawn from their personal experience.

Finished Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I guess I don't have much more to say about this book beyond what I posted last time halfway through. I feel like most of the point of the book was already made before the ending was revealed, which was not much of a surprise. It seems like the apocalyptic result was due to a society with higher technology but lower morals and lower checks and balances than ours. In the book, most of the damage was done by an individual, but in modern times I think it's hard to get anything significant done without a large team working together in multiple stages. It looks like the current state of tech isn't empowering individuals to do society-level damage, but I wonder if future technology will eventually change that.

Currently reading The Alignment Problem by Brian Christian, about halfway through. It's about aligning AI systems with human values and brings up some ethical dilemmas introduced by AI models. Although it's from 2020, I think it's modern enough to remain relevant.