What are you reading these days?

I just finished Blindsight, a hard SF horror novel that explores a lot of ideas around consciousness and what it means to relate to something alien.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet; I didn't know much about it going in, not even that it would turn out to be a horror, so that turn and ending surprised me and hit pretty hard. Maybe I shouldn't have been suprised after the vampires showed up. The more it sits with me, the more I like it.

About to start Pnin for Tildes book club at the end of May.

I'm reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. This has some absolutely savage descriptive writing. I'm going to have to look at what else Kesey might have written.

I'm reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter which is also very well written.

I'm 2/3 finished with Stephen King's The Stand. This book contains several distinctive sections and could have been published as a series rather than a novel. I really 'enjoyed' the first third of the book that shows the disaster and how people react/respond. I was surprised that King randomly quotes poetry in his narrative without ever telling the reader that that is what he is doing. There is a sunset 'like a patient etherized on a table' in this book. This and several other poetic easter eggs were fun discoveries. This book is written in very accessible English vocabulary, but King is doing sophisticated work.

I recently finished Stephen King's memoir/how to manual On writing I really enjoyed this excellent book.

Last month's book club selection The Tea girl of Hummingbird Lane was my nomination. I enjoyed rereading it for the discussion and I might add some of my thoughts. It's never too late to add to a book club discussion.

About a quarter way through Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, which I got a rec from a meme of all places haha. It's been really good so far, it's a grounded drama following some Korean peasants at the beginning of the 1900s. Despite being very low-key (in addition to being realistic, these are peasants struggling to get by, not British nobility having balls), it has had a lot of Drama, and has also been a very smooth read.

I've been doing a lot of bouncing between books, with some of them being after a chapter I come back a few weeks later and read some more.

I figured I'd include the ones I've been making some progress in here, and then I can maybe work on finishing some of them before I start even more books that I want to read.

AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models is my current professional development book. I'm not studying this super deeply and there are some bits that I'd need to reread a few times to understand fully, but I'm wanting to familiarize myself more with the underlying technology behind this new tool.

Tarzan of the Apes has been an interesting read. I actually was able to read the last few chapters while putting my son down for a nap before I was able to come back to finish this comment. I don't know if I plan to read any more of the books, but I do enjoy some pulpy adventure books occasionally so I may be back.

Warlock of the Magus World is a Chinese web novel. I'm ~550 chapters in to it and recently started reading it again. It is enjoyable and not very challenging. Not a ton of suspense and it is mainly about the main charater growing stronger.

Imperial Smuggler - Book 2 of the Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire. The first book was short and fun. This book continues the hijinks with the characters showing some more depth. The author took the Roman Empire when the Western Empire was in its decline and just threw it in space.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is one of those classic sci-fi books I've heard about and finally got around to reading it. I'm a bit over half way and have been enjoying it.

The Fort by Bernard Cornwell it feels like Cornwell's work, but I've not been able to really find myself rooting for any of the characters. I've read a lot of his books over the years so I'm enoying it, but I'm guessing once the main battle of the book starts I'll finish it in somewhat short order.

The Fellowship of the Ring - recently started reading some more of this. The Fellowship is about to leave Rivendell and I enjoy getting sucked in to Tolkien's writing when I get around to it.

Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation has been a slow burn read for me. The book is dense, and I usually get to read it a few pages at a time.

Swan Song. I enjoy post apocalyptic books, but this one was definitely a very bleak picture and has those horror elements to it. I do plan to finish it eventually, but I tend to only read a little bit at a time and haven't been in the mood to dive back in to it fully.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight has been a very enjoyable read. It has its fill of tropes and I haven't read through anything DnD/TTRPG lore based in a while. The chapters are short and when on nights when I'm not putting my kids to sleep I usually read a chapter or two.

The Emperor's Gift is a Warhammer 40k Grey Knight's book. I'm a fan of 40k lore, but had stopped my long read through of the Horus Hersey due to being annoyed with Games Workshop. I'm reading this as a book club book with a friend, and I'm liking a classic fast paced Warhammer novel.

The Brother's War is a Magic the Gathering lore novel. I'm reading through some of the older lore books as part of a book club with a friend who is more familiar with it. So far not amazing, but a fairly good book.

The Legend of Corinair is part of the Frontiers Saga series. It reminds a bit of Stargate SG 1 in it's feel while reading it. I loved that show but I haven't passed the point where I'm really engrossed in the story.

The Three-Body Problem I'm reading this for a book club with another friend. Life happens so this read through has been very slow, but I am curious as to what happens in this book as we haven't gotten very far.

I’m finishing Conrad’s Heart of Darkness today.

I also read Much Ado About Nothing. Fun, quick read. I’m not big into Shakespeare, but I think I should run through the hits.

Before that I did Don Winslow’s The Power of the Dog — good book, but very much ‘this then this then that’

Lots of short books.

I am...some amount of a way through Malazan book 2...I might finish this series but only because i'm kinda out of audiobooks for the commute right now.

I just....don't care about anyone? It feels very very "seen this before" as far as fantasy goes (oh look its a half orc berserker jacked up to 11 and the edge lord drow and on and on).

That's underselling it, because it IS well done, but after kinda drifting through the first book I'm doing much the same with the second. I know roughly what's going on with each POV, but I don't particularly care for any of the characters or care what happens to them/their goals. In fact so far I care less about the characters of book 2 than 1.

The world itself is fascinating, but the little "early edition dnd" tropes drag me out of it, and makes me feel like i'd rather just read a wiki on it. I'm not jumping ship yet, but it's the "fallback" option for audio books right now. I'm still wondering "why would I read this" for most of the book.

Operation Bounce House has replaced it currently for car rides. It's the same guy who did Dungeon Crawler Carl and vastly less edgelordy/shock humor (and I do like Carl). Nothing great about it, but enjoyable and his usual cynical absurdist take on things.

Physically i'm still getting through Wind and Truth which has only gotten better (which was easy because it certainly started weak for sanderson), and have Priest from Matt Coleville in the wings as i'm curious what he'd write.

I’m just finishing Hail Mary because I wanted to read it and then see it in theatres. Great book and what I would call a love letter to science.

I started Look to Windward by Iain M Banks. I read Player of Games a while back and I enjoyed it quite a bit, but I always liked tech SciFi. This one got me hooked instantly as I was expecting. The storytelling so far is 2 parallel plot lines, alternating with each chapter. It took me a bit to connect some dots as I was reading through the first chapters and the author is careful to help readers gain a deeper understanding of earlier chapters as they make progress. I don’t want to spoil it in any way otherwise.

The Origins of Efficiency by Brian Potter (author of Construction Physics newsletter and writes for worksinprogress.co). It's about the effects and uses of efficient processes in the industrial revolution. I'm only halfway through. I've been starting to read again after reading voraciously as a student then failing to read any books in full for the past few years.
It is one of the most well cited books I've ever read with a few hundred footnotes and citations combined. ~1/5th of the page count is the citations and index.

[Usual disclaimer that I'm an audiobooker rather than a traditional reader, now a days]

I got pretty in to Mark Greaney from his series The Gray Man (the first book of which Netflix turned into a film). I'm about 50% of the way through one of his other books, Red Metal, and ho-lee-shit do I love it. It's my favorite of all his works so far. I've burned through all 15 Gray Man books, as well as his Audible drama turned into a two book series, Armored. I've enjoyed all his works, but Red Metal has, by far, been my favorite. I'd highly recommend if the description interests you.

Bobiverse, book 4 "Heaven's River"

I wasn't totally sold in the middle of volume 1, but as I've gotten to know the personalities involved, I'm invested. Book 4 is really I think Bobiverse Act 2. I look forward to going to bed to read this every night.

I read Run by Blake Crouch this week while on flights. It's a short sci-fi thriller that has themes of religion, tribalism, adaptation, family, survival. I like Crouch as a writer even if he is heavy-handed in places to get his ideas across. I don't think that's inherently a bad thing. I've read his other books and enjoyed them.

Now I've picked up A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, which I tried to start once before and didn't make much progress on.

The new installment of the Murderbot Diaries, Platform Decay, is out. I’m in the first bit of it right now and it starts off pretty engaging but with a whole lot of moving parts and incomplete information. But Murderbot does continue to Murderbot through and through and there is considerable diary portions, so no complaints from me quite yet.

I finally started Kämpfen by Karl Ove Knausgaard, the last installation in his Min Kamp series.

The plot is very interesting - KOK gets ready to release his first installment of the series and struggles with self-doubt as well as attacks from friends and family that are mentioned in the books. It gets very philosophical, too - what is the truth? And why should one even write?

I've been told that there will be a longer mediation on Hitler, we will see how that goes.

I'm reading The wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, obviously more aimed for kids but so far it's pretty enjoyable.

I dropped out of Sword of the lictor by Gene Wolfe, as I found it unnecessarily confusing. It's supposed to be a classic, but then again, some people's taste are better understood through the lens of social status games...

Finished Carson McCullers' 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' Published 1940. WOW! This book is absolutely amazing. Solitude, loss of purpose, sadness, misery, fear, it's all in this book. A deaf-mute man who acts as a vessel for the worries, dreams, and problems of the lost people around him while himself being more alone and lost than anyone. An amazing examination of the human condition. I was expecting a good book, but this is a great book. A rare 10/10. Read this book.

I started and finished an Audiobook of Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Cranford' Published 1853. This was a cute short episodic book about a group of 'fallen' aristocratic old ladies trying to hold together what they have. They live in a world of past greatness and have all their little old lady cliques and societal 'rules' to live by. Highly sarcastic, reminded me of a mid-1800's version of 'The Golden Girls' without a laugh track.

Started in to an Audiobook of Stella Gibbon's 'Cold Comfort Farm' Published 1932. A comedic novel and literary parody. Not usually my kind of thing but it's considered a comedy classic so I figured I would give it a shot. Young woman moves onto a farm in Sussex with distant family and takes it upon herself to 'reform' these people into her view of what they should be. Parodies often dark novels romanticizing country life such as those written by the Bronte sisters or Mary Webb, some Jane Austin jabs in there too. So far pretty good, 40% in. Less silly humour and more satire then I was expecting, which is what I was hoping for, so great.

Started into Wolfgang Von Goethe's 'Faust Part I' Published 1808. The great Faust! I've been waiting years to read this one and it's finally time. Previously I have read Thomas Mann's 'Doctor Faustus' and Klaus Mann's 'Mephisto' who just happens to be Thomas Mann's Son. This is one of the very famous German stories, starting in Fairy Tales and Myths, the first written version being Christopher Marlowe's play 'Doctor Faustus' from 1592 which was contemporary with Shakespeare. Part I is very approachable, the language, even translated is beautiful. I actually expected more of a challenge with this one but so far it has been remarkably enjoyable and easy to digest. The question now is do I attempt the much more abstract Part II? I am leaning towards giving it a try.

I recently finished A Study in Scarlet, the original Sherlock Holmes book. I haven't read any Holmes books before and I've consumed very little Holmes content in general so I wasn't sure what to expect besides the general mythos of the detective. I certainly wasn't expecting the second half of the book where it gives the backstory of the crime totally detached from the European narrative. Like half the book is about Mormons. And strange how much effort was put in place to legitimize the "criminal" which, of course, led to the ending suddenly going in a different direction. I have to wonder if ACD hit the end and realized "oh shit, I can't have him just prosecuted now." Overall I liked it, might read some more Sherlock in the future.

Currently I'm reading The Empty House by Michael Gilbert, another UK crime fiction book but from a century later. I'm halfway through and it's starting to drag on, something about the writing style really flattens out what I suppose is supposed to be exciting bits. The "of the time" aspect is interesting, like where they describe the knowledge of the existence of DNA as this very cutting edge thing. Having the main character be an insurance adjuster is amusing but I had to roll my eyes when it was revealed he had a photographic memory. I'll be glad when I get done with this one.

I've spent the past couple of weeks reading Worm, a web serial about a world where people can gain superpowers almost at random. It's... a stressful read. It's disrupted my sleep a few nights, and the constant worsening of the situation left me feeling pretty hopeless throughout. Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty cool look at the genre. I just don't feel like I'll read it again.

I'm restarting the Cosmere books now, since it's been a minute and I've forgotten enough that I want to refresh before I get to the couple of new books I haven't read yet. It's funny, I usually don't have any problems reading multiple things at once and keeping it all straight, but my memory isn't that great once I've finished something. Oh well, hopefully it's a fun process to catch back up.

I need very much to figure out how to read regularly again. I used to read voraciously as a kid and as an adult, but in the past four or five years I've just sort of... stopped. It's weird and concerning. I've even almost entirely stopped playing video games regularly, with a handful of exceptions.

I read all four of C. M. Waggoner's books and really enjoyed them. They were all good, but The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society was my favorite. I watched a lot of Father Brown, so a comedy about a priest and a libarian finding out why the small town has so many murders was exactly what I was looking for. The author did a good job of establishing what was going on early in the story, and the protagonists internal narration was hilarious.

I also read a lot of LitRPGs. The Transcendent Green by Mati Ocha had a magic system based of teamwork and helping people, which was really nice. A lot of creatures in it are from Scottish folklore, and most of the characters speak Gaelic.

I also read Prophecy Approved Companion, a series about the Chosen One's childhood best friend, who was supposed to die in the doomed hometown. Due to buggy shenanigans, she is now a permanent party member, and invisible to almost everyone.

It's an amazing parody of video games, with scenes like the viewpoint character being horrified when the Chosen One ignores the prince and princess in favor of standing on the table to steal candles from the chandelier, and being confused when the cold weather outfits for the party are just palette swaps of the skimpy nonsense half the party is wearing.

Then there's Terminate the Other World, which is just a fun power fantasy isekai by a author I like. It's about a robot girl who ends up on another planet, and becomes stupidly overpowered.

I accidentally posted the same comment twice.