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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.
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!
Idle curiosity: which e-reader model did you get?
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 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.
Absolutely great writing! What did you think of that ending? Did it work for you?
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
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.
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.