What are you reading these days?

I have been reading old stuff off Project Gutenberg. Right now I’m working my way through all of Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, and for the next couple months my plan is to just read “classics”.

I just started my 9 month parental leave and am trying to set a better example by not being on my phone as much, so I've been reading a lot more than normal!

Here are the books I am currently reading / just finished:

• Project Hail Mary (4th time reading it)
• World War Z (first time in over a decade)
• Silverthorn, my favorite book series of all time, starting it over and gonna read all 31 books plus the new series.

I have been reading World War Z out loud (french translation) to my newborn haha, gives me something to do while she's just on the ground playing.

Finally finished Against the Day. Of Pynchon's tomes, it's probably my least favorite, or about on par with V. That being said, it was still an enjoyable experience, and I suspect with just how diffuse the plot is it would benefit more than most of his from a reread.

I also read Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds. This is an interesting one, it follows the life of a young author as well as the novel he is working on, which is about a novelist who moves all his characters into the hotel he is living in, when they decide they don't like him controlling him and rise up. This is a very funny book! It took a while to figure out how it was structured, and I was bored by some earlier portions that parody Irish folklore, but once it got going it held me and I read through it very quickly! The James Joyce influence is apparent, a lot of sections reminded me of the Ithaca chapter of Ulysses.

After that, prompted by nothing other than the similarity of the names, I picked up a collection of the stories of Flannery O'Connor. I've only read a few stories, but have enjoyed all of them so far! "A Good Man is Hard to Find" was the only one I had heard of before, and it did not disappoint. The southern gothic thing really works for me and I think this will push me to finally read some Faulkner pretty soon.

Now I am reading Giovanni's Room, the second work of James Baldwin I've checked out. I'm only in Part 1 but clear that this will be similarly devastating to Another Country. God, Baldwin really can put a sentence together!

The second Captive's War book - the new series from The Expanse authors James S.A. Corey - is due out on the 14th so I reread the Livesuit novella last week and have since wound up diving back into The Mercy of Gods. I'm really enjoying picking through the details and trying to the connect some extra dots on the second read here. In comparison to The Expanse, these books lean a bit more into the fi than the sci, but there's still some basic grounding in science, particularly in Livesuit which carries a strong influence from Joe Haldeman's classic The Forever War.

Perdido Street Station, after just finishing Embassytown and seating it as my latest favorite. I was going to read Generation Ship as part of a casual book club with my dad, but my mom spoiled the ending to me after we'd been discussing for a bit that I'd only just started it. I wasn't loving the prose, so having the ending spoiled killed my ambition to read it. I might come back later.

I finished Ted Chiang's short story collection Story of your Life and Others. It was fantastic. After reading (and enjoying) his other collection, Exhalation, I think he might be one of my favorite modern short fiction writers. I grew up reading the short fiction of Asimov and Clarke, and there haven't been many that I've enjoyed as much.

Now I'm listening to There Is No Antimemetics Division by Qntm. It has a feel similar to Charlie Stross' Laundry Files books. It also has vibes of the FBC in the game Control. So far it's really good!

Atlas Shrugged.

There was a topic back in November about hate reading. I had just bough the audiobook then and it was funny to see it discussed here.

@cfabbro wrote almost exactly how I felt with their comment:

The only book I can think of that I legitimately "hate-read" was Atlas Shrugged. I dislike Ayn Rand, and view modern Libertarianism as a selfish, short-sighted, naive, and destructive political ideology. But I wanted to know where they got some of their core beliefs from, so I'm still somewhat glad I read it even though I hated everything about it.

I had a road trip a few weeks back and used that time to actually get into the book. It had the vibe of an old science fiction book except that in Sci Fi there would be some villain or shadowy cabal in that was the cause of the collapse rather than just a bunch of people who thought that what they were doing was the best way to do things.

I do have to say, the part that leads up to the Winston tunnel disaster... as someone that works for a railway, that felt pretty damn real. I've seen too many managers that are more concerned with what their boss wants done and don't care about the real world consequences of their decisions. The best managers I've worked under got skidded out. The worst managers I've seen get promoted or if they do leave just end up working for other railways.

I started Gardens of the Moon, from the Malazan series. I'm about 25% into it, I don't love it, but I don't hate it either. I've heard so many good things that I feel like I need to keep going and it's gonna hook me. But so far, I'm only somewhat understanding of what's going on.

But gonna put it on pause when the next book from James S.A. Corey drops this month, really excited for that one.

I finished reading Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War by Joe Bageant. I picked it up on a whim, because of a Youtube comment that referenced it in a discussion about US rural voters. What immediately struck me was the first page, where if you replace the explicit date of Nov. 2 2004, you could absolutely believe that the following was written about the 2016 election. This book was published in 2007 and the author himself passed away in 2011. I was in middle school then, and honestly I am guilty of deliberately not tuning into US politics with no desire to tune more into it. That being said it's depressing yet morbidly fascinating to read this book that seems to have a finger on the pulse of modern day US politics... many years before 2016, which is probably when most folks my age would assume this all "started".

I've actually been meaning to write up a post about some of the book's theses for a while now... but avoided it because like I said, Politics. And even if I were to avoid the modern day partisan politics aspect, it's just... depressing! I was born and raised in a large city in California to immigrant parents. We certainly were not very well off and "working class" feels a lot more accurate than anything else to describe my grandfather and father (not me, I'm cushy and overpaid). But I've visited some internet friends living in tiny towns in flyover states pre-COVID, and... the biggest culture shock to me was a silent one, and I couldn't really put my thumb on what bothered me. Now I know: in a small town of <10k, where cost of living may be cheap but your wages are also extremely low and your own opportunities for employment don't extend much past Walmart cashier or restaurant server or fast food... what the heck do you do if those are not the kind of jobs you want to hold for the rest of your life? Move, I guess. With what money? What education? Join the military I guess! etc etc...

And all this is just a tiny tiny tiny blip when it comes to the original question of, why do these people - the working poor who need Social Security, who need food stamps, "vote against their interests". Heck, there's an entire chapter dedicated to the mortgage industry which hadn't quite full on crashed yet as of the book's writing (I was in middle school; I don't know the timeline leading up to it). It's depressing even if I'm the first person to tell you that I can't find it in me to worry about the lives of anyone other than myself right now. Perhaps it even makes me feel a little grateful for my current life.

Tad Williams - To Green Angel Tower. I'm thinking of buying his newer novels too.

Update: on part 2 right now. The books are at my parents' place so whenever I visit I read a couple of hundred pages.

Finished Graham Greene's Brighton Rock Published 1938. Strange occurrence with this book, previously I finished James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice which is an early Noir book, the first I've ever read. Then I chose 'Brighton Rock' and it turns out it's another Noir book. So my first 2 Noir books in a row without trying to do that. Anyways, the book wasn't great and maybe the weakest Graham Greene book I've read. There are better titles to chose if you want to read Greene. 6/10

Finished Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane Published 2013. I actually did enjoy this in the end, it's decently well written with some imagination put into it. I little trope-ish for my liking, does every YA book have to feature a kid who discovers something mysterious or secret and have parents that just don't understand and/or are unreliable? But I guess that is a big chunk of YA fiction and it isn't written for me. I enjoyed how Gaiman played with the idea of memory and how memories can be different depending on who is doing the remembering and how memories can change over time. 6/10.

Started into Carson McCullers' The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Published 1940. Heard a lot about this book, the plot summary definitely sounds like my kind of thing and it's one of those books you can tell is going to great within the first 30 pages. Looking forward to getting deeper into this one. I'm hoping for long monologues of these lonely, lost people pouring their hearts out to this deaf mute 'listener'.

I'm going to give The Martian a first time listen (read it years ago).

I'm also planning to read Voltaire this month.

After seeing Project Hail Mary in theaters (fantastic!) I was discussing it and Andy Weir's other novels with some friends. I was considering rereading PHM or The Martian (or maybe Artemis) but instead a friend pointed me at The Mare-tian by Kris Overstreet. It is, as absurd as it sounds, a crossover fanfic between My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and The Martian. I know, I know, but hear me out. Overstreet adopts Weir's writing style pretty damn closely, the addition of magical horses may solve some problems from the original book, but it introduces plenty more to be worked through and solved by the group of castaways stuck on Mars. Magic isn't free, and is instead a limited resource that has to be budgeted and used as effectively as possible, just like food or water or power or heat.

Giving Mark Watney people(/ponies) to talk to gives the story a different feel and flow, so although it follows all the same broad plot points as the book, it doesn't feel like a retread. I greatly enjoyed reading through it, as I'm always desperate for more of Weir's methodical hard scifi problem solving tales, and this just feels like another book to add to that collection.

I’m breezing through Psycho-Cybernetics and the amount of religious shit shoehorned in is very much a product of its time and they should simply remove most of it.

I think I’m going to reread The Count of Monte Cristo next.

Edit: I hate when self-help books go in circles. Maybe a lot of dumb people read these books and need reiteration — but they should have a normal route and a fast track for people who get it.

Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
It's very derivative of The Handmaid's Tale. However, I still found it worth reading. Layered over the dystopian tale are themes of female agency, reproductive rights, and identity.

The protagonist is an Ojibwe woman, raised by white adoptive parents, who reconnects with her indigenous family while on the run with her unborn baby as the world as we knew it is replaced all around her. As an apple Indian myself, this part of the story resonated deeply with me. That said, I think most anyone can relate to it, and you don't specifically need to be indigenous to relate to the struggle to find yourself.

Some common complaints I saw were people wanting to know more details about the world building — how the reverse evolution worked, more about the forming dystopian governments, etc. — but, while interesting, I don't think it would've added anything to the story being told, and would have bogged things down.

The protagonist has these thought patterns and moments that are often whimsical and almost surreal. At times I found it difficult to relate to her because of that, but at the same time, I enjoy reading about ways people think that is vastly different than the way I do.

Overall, the main plot isn't all that great. It's been done before, and it's been done better. But it's the smaller narratives and themes nestled within that make it worth the read.

Gone to See the River Man by Kristopher Triana
Warning: Though I wouldn't call this novel extreme horror or splatterpunk, the author does write other books in those genres, so this novel gets lumped into those categories. I'd personally just call it horror, and I don't think it's worse than anything, say, Chuck Palahniuk has written.
I went in expecting a creepy, folklore-y southern gothic horror. I got all that, and a lot more. It's been over a month, and I still find myself thinking about this story.

Gone to See the River Man doesn't rely on shock to gain impact the way much of extreme horror does. Even though it covers some deeply unsettling topics, it doesn't feel gratuitous, graphic, or obscene. Instead, everything disturbing in the story serves a purpose that builds to a complete moral unraveling. It's psychological and deliberate. The shocking scenes get their weight from the restraint in what isn't shown, and revealing more about the characters than the acts themselves, instead of just trying to provoke a reaction from the reader.

The prose, the plot, the readers connection to the characters, and the physical journey the characters are on are all linked. The author skillfully weaved all of those elements to mirror each other. You begin relating to the protagonist, and by the end you're repulsed by her. The further they go down river, the more morals unravel, the more surreal the river becomes as well. I'll put it this way. I started the book with oh wow I relate to this character and ended with oh no I relate to this character.

The story pulls you into the protagonist's perspective, then shows all the cracks and flaws in how she sees the world, and turns uncomfortable and introspective. Underneath the back cover description of the story is a surreal, folkloric delve into desire, guilt, and self-deception. It's an exploration of how evil can arise from a series a small choices, and how far someone will go when they fully commit to a version of reality they want to be true. The book isn't going to spoon feed you, or give you many answers. I'm still not sure which elements were real, which were supernatural (if any), and which were distortions from the characters warped perspectives.

It's definitely horror. It's disturbing and unnerving. But it was also much more rich, nuanced, and complex than I bargained for. I didn't even really discuss what the plot is about on the surface, because it's what's below that's so interesting and unsettling.

If you don't like horror and disturbing content, just stop here.

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Picked up something that wasn't on my radar until recently, Entrances and Exits, Michael Richards' memoir. It's a deeper introspective look at his own life, which has been defined by his intense artistic dedication and complex public legacy. For anyone unfamiliar, Michael Richards is the actor best known for playing Cosmo Kramer in Seinfeld. Richards is, in my view, one of the great masters of physical comedy and his talents are in full display on Seinfeld. Unfortunately, Richards' legacy is largely overshadowed by his 2006 racial outburst which effectively derailed his career and led to a nearly 20 year self-imposed exile. He effectively "cancelled" himself before it became more common place. I've been enjoying the memoir because Richards avoids a lot of the usual "setting the record straight" other celebrities do when they are in some public incident. Instead, Richards opts for a beautiful, eccentric narrative that addresses the various chapters in his life, from his turbulent early years to his military career and eventually comedy. He talks a lot about his own internal chaos that fueled his greatest performances on television and how it unfortunately led to his most public of failures.

just started The Call of Cthulu, so far the classic is meeting my expectations

I've been meaning to read C J Cherryh, so I'm halfway through The Pride of Chanur

I'm a third of the way into Isabelle Allende In the Midst of Winter I'm loving the descriptive prose and the rich inner lives in some parts of this. It's a book in sections and I don't like all parts equally.

This month's book club read the Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane was one of my nominations. I liked it a lot but I'm not sure if I'm going to fully reread it this month.

I finished Connie Willis The Doomsday Book which is good but dark.

I finished Heart the Lover This starts out as a straightforward college/university romance and moves on to complex adult themes while keeping me invested in the characters.

In case anyone is wondering, I wrote this, scrolled up and realized I wrote a much shorter summary a couple of days ago. I kept this which is the better entry. My first one was pretty terse.

I finally finished RIpley's Game and it really picked up after the half-way mark. All the exposition at the beginning of the novel to set up the character of Jonathan felt so boring. But once Tom was back in the main plot things really started moving again. One thing I had trouble with is really understanding Jon's motives throughout the book. Not sure I'm buying it all, but at the end I didn't hate the story at all. There's a lot to work with if they keep working on the Netflix series.

Anyways, now I'm on to reading the Mythical Man Month since its apparently must-read material for development managers like myself. Its been interesting so far but I've just started scratching the surface.

As for fiction, I am thinking of giving Inherent Vice a read since its one of my favourite films.

I read Death of Grass by John Christopher. It's a dystopic sci fi novel though it mostly concerns with the human elements [the dystopia involves a world where a virus basically wipes out any blade of grass; essentially agriculture being done for and madness that follows ). It's within 200 pages and quite a decent read.

Since I've found that a lot of my reading time has been fractured lately, I've been opting more towards short story collections in electronic format, particularly Clarkesworld and Lightspeed Magazine. In so doing I've found that I'm a sucker for the art of incluing, even it's particularly dense (thinking about one story in particular which made me stop several time due to the sheer number of implied systems in the world to go "Wait stop the plot I want to hear more about this entire other thing").

In a similar vein I've also started The Universe Box by Michael Swanwick, which I hope to get through gradually and not forget about when next month's magazine issues come out.