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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 am reading Heir to the Empire. I've read it before but I got caught up deep in other hobbies before finishing the trilogy. I don't recall whether I finished the second novel. It's Star Wars, set after the original movie trilogy, for anyone not familiar.
I don't have much substantial to say about it other than that I enjoy reading it, but I guess Thrawn is a bit of a Mary Sue. I find it kind of hard to judge this kind of book where I'm already very familiar with and love the setting, so it's difficult to tell to which extent my enjoyment is just me having a great time with basically anything in that setting as opposed to qualities that would stand on their own. It doesn't have to though, and can lean on the familiarity of the setting and characters to achieve a pretty high pace.
I listened to the Thrawn books through audiobook and have a copy of the trilogy on my bookshelf waiting to read through someday.
It's interesting to me how much of an impact Thrawn has on the EU, like he has more of a rep/impact than the freaking emperor. I get it from the real-world side (an early big hit, the first pure-EU big bad, and the trilogy showed what the EU could be), but in-canon it just feels silly it at times.
I'm more in the "Thrawn is overrated" camp, the whole "I perfectly predict what is going to happen by appreciating art" is very... well, Mary Sue is one term for it.
As with most things EU, my memory of Thrawn is:
Star Wars, like Comics and some other large properties to come after (40k, Halo, god knows what else i'm forgetting) kinda wound up being a dumping ground for content. My main memories of Thrawn don't actually come from books he's the focus of, and hell have a lot to do with little "Flavor" bits.
Namely things like his appearance in Tie Fighter or pretending to be Jodo Kast in Side Trip. It's a shame because just like comics, the EU has lots of "there's some really good ideas here among the fan fic level stuff", and a decent clean up of that should mint them money, but sadly they've just tunneled under that fairly low bar (not that marvel knows how to do it anymore either)
Yeah, the people who really get into these things really get into them and can't get enough, so they're a good and forgiving market. Battletech and D&D are another couple of fandom magnet names attached to a whole bunch of novels of varying quality.
I like to pick stuff like that up outside franchises I have a strong relationship to occasionally just to get an idea of what's up, but usually never finish. I think there's probably some great stuff in there, but it's difficult taking advice from fans who may like it for other reasons than the quality of storytelling.
Perhaps Thrawn does have some 'Mary Sue' characteristics (although I think he is closer to a 'Sherlock Holmes'-type character), but I feel that his being 'overpowered' works quite well in the Heir to the Empire trilogy where he is written as a villain and antagonist. The main characters of this story are still Luke and his allies, who have already defeated the Emperor and other threats. The story is about how the protagonists adapt and develop to overcome a new challenge (ie, Thrawn), against which they cannot rely on their previous strategies.
I remember absolutely loving these books when I read them in my early teens, and often think about reading them again, but I'm too afraid I'm going to be disappointed that they're not as great as in my memory. Especially after watching Andor, I don't think anything Star Wars related will satisfy like that for a long time
I just finished Artemis by Andy Weir.
In general, it was very entertaining, but it didn't feel as good as his other books in terms of "science." This was more action-focused which is not bad, I did like the humor and how tangibly real the moon city felt.
Some of the characters are also great, humor-wise, the protagonist's quick comebacks and Svoboda always cracked me up.
I will try to read something from the past Tildes book club submissions since I found some real gems there, like Elder Race or Hyperion.
I tried it a few times but could not get through it. To me it just felt like the protagonist was a female Mark Watney in disquise and that character can only work in limited set of stories.
To be honest even Project Hail Mary felt to me like a copy of The Martian with a different pallette but there it works.
I agree, they all follow the same pattern in terms of protagonists and story progression, but I'm a sucker for this kind of plot.
I borrowed this book from a friend and sat on it forever after getting stuck a few chapters in.... Loved The Martian, but disliked this main character. I think that at the time of writing Weir needed more experience (which i guess really only comes from trial and error) on writing non-cis male characters. I have yet to ready anything else from him, but maybe its time to give Artemis another shot, and step on to his new stuff.
Project Hail Mary was very fun to read. I haven't tried reading Artimis, but as I mentioned in my comment, I couldn't focus on the audiobook for the life of me. I had a lot of fun reading Project Hail Mary though. So might be worth just skipping to that one and then going back to Artemis another time.
I need to try giving this one another shot as a book because I don't remember anything from listening to it as an audiobook. Then Project Hail Mary blew me away a couple years later because my expectations were so low.
I finished (i.e. finally stopped somewhere during book 4) reading books 1-4 of Stormlight Archives, i.e. Way of Kings and so forth. By Brandon Sanderson. It might have been one of the worst reading experiences I have ever had. The prose was horrible, the pacing was horrible, none of the characters nor the world was interesting. It's like I was reading a description of an average D&D session but over 3000 pages.
And I was burdened by the knowledge that this book series was at the top of my Goodreads list when sorted by user reviews. A lot of people seem to like this but obviously wasn't for me.
As a sort of mindrinse, I started reading Blindsight for the 3rd time. Perhaps I'll pick Echopraxia after it too -- it has bad reviews in Goodreads but I think I've been viscerally shown how little that matters.
I am genuinely curious and say this without any sarcasm, why did you read them all if you weren't enjoying them? Like those are HUGE books right, so why not stop after the first?
I genuinely like Sanderson, enjoyed the Mistborn Series and Wax and Wayne Series. I'll start the Stormlight Archives sometime in the next year and have a bunch of friends who loved the series. So your post gave me a really solid laugh just from the surprise of seeing someone who didn't enjoy them for a change. Which is great because my post was mostly me complaining about books I've finished that people rave about and just were not for me at all.
A pretty stupid reason: I had bought them in a bundle. And I guess reading it had become a before-sleep habit -- this all happened over quite a long time after all. I did finally give up near the end though.
Gotcha. That makes sense to me at least. Navigating my sunk cost vs cutting my losses on a book still feels tricky. But hey, cheers to starting something new!
Was this your experience of all the books? I really enjoyed The Way of Kings, struggled through the second, and never finished the third. I haven’t read any part of the fourth. I’m wondering if your experience was similar or if you just didn’t click with it at all.
I had lingering doubts when reading the Way but really I relied a lot on the Goodreads rating and assumed there was something look forward to. It wasn't a tough read so I wasn't having a hard time really, so I just kept going and going, waiting for that something.
In modern terms, I felt like I was reading something written by LLM, with lots of D&D session transcripts in the training set. But of course that's not possible, since Way of Kings was released in 2010. It didn't help that the last book I read before Way of Kings was Garth Marenghi's Terrortome, which is a parody of slop horror writing. A lot of WoK felt like I was still reading Garth Marenghi, I recognized the same tropes all over the place.
I’ll validate that reaction. For me, it was a fun book to read without thinking too much. I think many Sanderson fans, like D&D players, enjoy the story for the world and the big, flashy moments. The prose and storytelling nuance isn’t the pull.
Interesting. I just recently finished Mistborn Era 2 and when I first started Era 1 I thought the writing was a bit lacking, and I eventually reached "no complaints; I'd like to read era 1 again to see the foreshadowing," whereas I am just over two thirds of the way through Way of Kings and it is much more engaging to me. I'm not sure I'm as "into" it as I was with Wheel of Time, but I'm interested.
Perhaps the experience is different to listen to it while I run and drive instead of reading it.
Hello, I'm new here, not sure how I feel about this topic, but I do want to read more again. (I'm a little cautious around it though so it doesn't become neither school work nor doom reading [see doom scrolling].)
(kimmy) (by Alyson Greaves) this was part of a bundle I was lent by a friend after I asked to read another book. I like it. The typesetting is somewhat upsetting (too large, and other editions might not suffer from this!), but the story is entertaining and deals with trans... stuff(?) in an almost not centered way - in a good way. Like the transitioning is definitely a core part of the story but the story would work without it.
The Weirdest People in the World (by Joseph Henrich) was recommended by a tilderastian and is a brick. I'm not used to read this kind of dense books anymore, so I'm slowly working my way through it. It's about why and how The West is weird compared to the rest of the world and hopefully what consequences that has on many fields and what can be done about it (we'll see!)
ANSPRÅKSLÖSA FÖRSLAG (by Joakim Pirinen) a collection of short texts interspersed with his surrealistic drawings. This is one if my favourite authors/artists who mostly does graphic novels in Swedish. I found this in my shelf in the pile of unread graphic novels. Yay! It's fantastic. "Anspråklösa förslag" is a translation of the plural form of "A modest proposal" and is a collection of absurd (but not entirely untrue) proposals to deal with current (2018, Sweden) social problems. Very fun! Also like comfort food.
I'm kind of eager to finish (kimmy) so that I can start a couple of books that where recommended to me at a party by a person that pegged me as the contrariant I am. They said they where in a genre called decadent literature, seems fun!
Welcome, thanks for sharing! Premise of Kimmy seems neat, think I'll seek that one out.
I had a really restful day in the shadow of a tree and finished (kimmy).
At first I felt irritated that it ended in a Happily Ever After state, but the more I think about it the more I like it. I often find that books/movies end just when the story gets interesting, and the Happily Ever After schtick somewhat covers (both as "obscure" and "takes care of") that in a kind of nice way.
It's a really cute story, and the simplistic arch works really well. It explores some themes around transexuality, robotics, AI, personhood, etc in a kind of shallow and fairly matter of fact way while still mentioning them. I find it respectful of the themes, the characters and me as a reader.
The author, Alyson Graves, is new to me, but I will definitely try to find more books from her.
Alyson Greaves is a trans woman living in the UK and pretty much all of her published work is "about" being trans in one way or another. She's almost certainly best-known for The Sisters of Dorley, which is available on AO3 (as is most of her work, though likely in rougher form than what's officially published, as well as some fanfiction for various fandoms; see her profile page), and her website is https://alysongreaves.com/.
Currently reading The Tower of Swallows by Andrzej Sapkowski, which is either the 4th or the 6th or the 20th book in The Witcher series depending on who you ask. For me it is the fourth book and I feel stupid for saying this but I'm blown away by how good the series is, but hear me out.
I played all three The Witcher video games, starting with the first PC game in 2007. I didn't really like any of them and as a result I didn't pay attention to the story. People went nuts over the third one but I don't generally like open-world anything and the combat is simply not very good. I'd say the second game is the best if I had to choose.
Anyway, the books are excellent. I have no idea how exactly book translations work but with the original being published in Polish I find myself wondering if the English translator is doing some heavy lifting.
I read the series back when the only English for most were clumsy fan translations. I still quite liked them back then, slammed through them though still felt like the quality of some prose didn't make it over (and they needed an editor with better English). I think I even still have those somewhere and both translations? IIRC there's a US and UK translations. I'm interested in comparing against an official translation, I've got the series on audiobook now. But yeah, Sapkowski is good as long as you can deal with how he handles women.
I started with Last Wish and read the whole series, I don't regret reading them first, but also get folks wanting to jump right into the saga itself.
Witcher 3 had the most callbacks and Easter eggs to the original stories, shorts included -- like the event leading to Dijkstra's injury that keeps him in the bath house and Geralt/Yennefer's wish (these are both from short stories). 1 feels like a fever dream where 2 starts to feel more grounded in the witcher verse. I feel 3 is the best adaptation, but agree that it suffers from being of its time whereas 2 was a tighter experience with more witcher feeling combat. I'm worried about 4.
I'm halfway through The Thirty-Nine Steps by James Buchan (1915). It's about an ordinary fellow caught up in a spy plot, and ends up on the run. It's very entertaining and the countryside is lovingly described, which I always enjoy, being a country girl. It's also meant to be one of the great Scottish novels- and indeed the archetype of man-on-the-run novels. I'm excited to see how he gets out of the latest mishap!
Reading Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. About a quarter in and enjoying it so far. It hasn't gotten into too much meat yet, but I am enjoying the faux-scientific explanations for Kaiju etc shown so far.
This is only my second Scalzi after Starter Villain last year. I don't remember it in starter villain, but at least in this book he is in love with the "witty banter"; it seems like no character can speak more than two lines without another character interrupting with a jokey joke. I do wish it was toned down a bit, both for the flow of dialogue and because it's kind of homogenizing the characters (since they all do it), but we'll see how it shakes out.
I am concerned this may have my same gripe with Starter Villain, in that the book will be too short to explore the interesting facets of the book's conceit (professional supervillainy and Kaijus, respectively). I felt like SV didn't touch on that nearly as much as I hoped, instead getting caught in doing the plot, and I feel like Kaiju is headed in a similar direction. But like I said I'm only a quarter in, so we'll see. I almost wish these books were like serial "episode of the week" type things, Scalzi seems to set up a lot of base to work with but then being just the one sorta short book isn't enough time. Curious to read his Old Mans War series later, wonder if that was a similar situation that he was able to expand.
I really like starter villain, and kaiju Preservation Society was fine.......but:
Uhh...yeah. That's his thing. It was all over starter villain and kaiju.
In general in both I felt there were possibly more interesting things to explore that we just...didn't. It's fine because the books don't overstay their welcome, but I would've probably enjoyed at least a sequel to Starter Villain and a little more actual evil rather than "well actually...." evil.
I just wrapped up the fourth book in the Dresden Files series. They're pulpy as hell and a little repetitive, but interesting enough that I'm probably going to keep reading the series. They're short compared to so much of what I've been reading lately so it's kind of fun to rip through a few books in a short time for a change. They definitely have their moments where I think they're pretty fun, but I don't think I'm quite the target reader. My most spoiler free gripe is that the formula feels like "the protagonist is constantly in peril and perpetually weaselling out by the skin of his teeth." It's just constant action and kind of exhausting. I don't find any of the characters to be particularly compelling and find myself distracted by how dramatic it constantly is. The books are kind of like a desert that's just way too sweet so it's not satisfying, but you also keep taking bites since it's in front of you and there's nothing better at hand.
I'm also hobbling through House of Leaves. I think I'm near the end and boy is this book not for me. I was so excited because of the way I've seen people talk about it, and feel bummed that it didn't turn out to be the fun I was hoping for. I went into it pretty blind other than knowing it was weird and supposedly did fun stuff through the physical structure of the book. I'll hold off from turning my comment into a complaint party, but if someone else didn't like it can you let me know so I don't feel like there's just something wrong with me because I "just don't get it?" I borrowed it from my brother and he also wasn't a fan, so I feel better knowing it's not just me that hasn't enjoyed this mythic book, but it's still a bummer.
I also just finished Daggerspell which took me a year to get through. I wanted so badly to like it. I really did. Probably should have DNFed it, but by time I was feeling that I was close enough to the end that I just finished it. It just took such a bizarre turn around 10% and that probably would have been a fine point for me to just put it down, but I was hoping I'd find the world interesting so I kept pushing. But no, it never did really recover for me. ಠ ل͟ ಠ I have been hoping to read more classic sword and sorcery pieces, but now I'm feeling kind of burned from this book.
I'm really just looking for anything that can stoke the sense of enchantment that Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel gave me. By far probably my favorite of all time that I read last year. Waiting for my turn to get the author's next book from the library because I suspect I'll get some of the same feelings. If anyone has other recommendations though I'm all ears.
I guess thanks for giving me a space to complain about my recent duds!
Edit: ok I was pretty close to done with HoL and just finished it. Did some googling and found people discussing hidden codes and layers to it. And honestly, meh? Since it didn't hook me early on (or even later on) like some people describe I can now confidently say it's not for me. I won't turn this into a complaint party, but I can now confirm that even after some searches about the deeper mysteries of the book I don't even find those particularly compelling or interesting. Heckin' bummer, but hey, I finished it without skipping anything, so I'm glad I chased it to the end just to be sure.
House of Leaves is very divisive, yeah. I really loved it, while my SO barely got through, just to be done with it. I don't know what made me like it so much, especially when some parts of it were really dull, but it was great for me overall.
Maybe that's why I also loved Lost and The Leftovers. None of those stories made much sense in the end, but the journey through the unknown with the characters I liked was enjoyable
I'm all for a weird journey which is why I'm so disappointed HoL hasn't delivered for me. T.T I'm maybe more excited to finish it so I can Google stuff about it without getting accidental spoilers. I'm going to be curious to read the range of opinions about what other people did and didn't like.
I will say if you start enjoying them more, or want something of his that's a little more polished, the Codex Alera series is pretty great. His other series (Cinder Spire) i just got to where it took a bit for Dresden to get in my eyes. It was "fine" but now i'm hooked (except the hook hit at the end of the last book).
Also worth mentioning I've been burning through his kids series (James Butcher). Why yes it's urban fantasy but it's uh...different flavor of pulp. So another maybe if dresden starts scratching an itch, or if you want to jump ship.
I love it, but I get it. I know what some of the very common complaints are, I know what some of the uh...i dunno..high brow complaints are? I don't think any are wrong (i roughly agree with the more common one), but there's also not much else like it. Honestly for me it was just nice to have a horror story execute so well...even if there's other parts I personally could've skipped just...because that's not what I enjoyed about it even if they hold a deeper meaning.
I still need to read this. I enjoyed the netflix, but then tried to dive into the book shortly after and had the same issue I had with altered carbon, where it was similar enough that it wasn't holding me. I'm curious what you enjoyed so much about it, as while I'd recommend Dresden to anyone who enjoyed it, it'd certainly be with a lot of caveats as it's 100% not the same tone. I'm struggling to think of much that is unfortunately. Glancing at the shelf it's on I've got mostly more epic/high stakes stuff like Name of the Wind or Gentleman Bastards which uhh...are not it (and you know...not finished so there's also that).
I definitely intend to keep going through the Dresden Files. 1 was fun, though again, constant peril, but then 2 kind of felt like a replay of 1. I didn't feel like it was bad, but maybe that's also just because it wasn't long enough to start annoying me too bad. But the development in 4 started to go an interesting direction, so I'm intrigued.
I have a friend who also recommended Codex Alera so I'll probably start that either after or in between the Dresden books if I need a break.
For House of Leaves, I don't know if it's an ADHD thing or what, but there's some books people have raved about and I just cannot gain traction on them. I've been pushing through House of Leaves, but haven't found either narrative particularly interesting. Like the footnote author kind of sucks (and maybe he gets some kind of redemption, or his bad personality is the point? I don't know, guess I'll see). Then the way the main section narrative is written is very strange to me. It feels academic (and I've had to read and write my fair share of scholarly work, so maybe that's why I don't find it fun), but I keep finding myself having a hard time suspending disbelief because keep going, "there's no way anyone would take a couple short films this seriously that a guy would be able to get SO MANY HIGH QUALITY SOURCES." Who knows, I've still avoided much in the way of spoilers, so maybe the whole thing will turn around for me soon. And there's been moments where I was like "woah, that's a spooky idea, that's fun," but they've been so fleeting and I feel like I'm so close to the end without them ever really going anywhere. I'm at a part where Navidson has returned to the house with a bike.
Boy I've been trying to figure out how to articulate why I loved JS&MN so much since I finished it because I'm genuinely surprised I liked it so much. I didn't even know there was anything on Netflix, so maybe it helped I hadn't watched anything first? I normally struggle with books that start slow and establish the stage and all the characters first (Dickens and the like which is exactly the style Sussana Clarke was imitating, also Assassin's Apprentice which I though was awful), but somewhere between 20-30% I was completely locked in. So not sure how far you got, but once she's introduced and established the characters, the actual stories begin. And I stay stories rather than story because I think that's what I found really fun. Once the stage was set, the rest of the book felt like lots of interconnected short stories. There's certainly a larger plot, but just loads of interesting stories that could almost stand on their own along the way. And each one of them felt so layered and rich with texture. So many parts feel like you get a glance of something so much bigger and deeper. She gives enough to explain why things are happening, but never over explains and gave me a lot to sit and wonder about. When magic starts getting into the mix, there are lots of moments that feel kind of dreamy and surreal. I love surrealism in horror and like when fantasy uses it. I also think SC's depictions of Fae and classic British folklore are really well done (which also folds in with the surrealism). I just found myself constantly wanting more.
A bit rambly, but it's late, so best I could do. Thanks for engaging though!
I'm just starting Shadows of Hyperion, the fourth (maybe final?) book in Ryk E. Spoor's Arenaverse series. It's a space opera where the main conceit is that whenever a space faring species first develops the technology to travel faster than light, instead of it actually working they get warped to a mysterious place (possibly alternate dimension) called the "Arena" which is basically a universe-sized dick measuring contest where thousands of different species have been forming factions and challenging each other for ownership of "spheres" (the Arena's version of planets) for millions of years. The Arena is run by a mysterious omnipotent being (maybe AI) that enforces various rules that everyone must abide by. The books follow the group of humans who first tested a faster-than-light drive and unexpectedly find themselves in the Arena. Oh and by the way these humans are all, incidentally, endowed with various anime-inspired super-saiyan-esque powers that give them a massive advantage over every other species in the arena.
It's as dumb as it sounds, but I'll eat schlocky sci-fi junk food like this right up and ask for seconds all day long.
Spring Snow - Yukio Mishima (1965)
Mishima was one of the more prominent Japanese novelists from the late 40s thru the 60s. His story is incredible as a man let alone an author. This being my intro to him, I was surprised how immersed I was in the descriptive world he portrayed as Japan in the early 1900s. The psychological struggles of young love translates not only to the high sect setting of this book but to everyone who reads it. I felt like my own immature lusts and loves, jealousies and doubts were explained in excruciating beauty.
This being the first of a tetralogy, I’m continuing with the second book, Runaway Horses (1965). It’s such good reading.
I've tried to read this book twice and threw it across the room in anger both times. I gave it a year between my first and second attempt and went into it the second time thinking that I'm finishing this thing no matter what. I could not do it. The male protagonist is so insufferable that it just me up the wall, I just wanted to reach through the pages and strangle him. I'm not claiming at all that this isn't a great book, it is well written, just something about how the character deals with his love interest I just couldn't ignore and push through.
Maybe this is it, 'excruciating' is a great description. It didn't remind me of myself, but instead like watching a horrible train wreck. Noooooo my man, don't do that!!! Don't say that!!! Serious case of 'vicarious embarrassment' for me.
I would love to know after you finish the second book, can I just forget Spring Snow and move directly into the other books without issue? I really want to explore more from this author, and Spring Snow is the only attempt I have made.
This was my second time trying to finish the book… the first time I had gotten halfway and had to take a break. I took maybe a few months and tried again. It ends up being so damn good I can’t stop thinking about it.
Runaway Horses is so much different from Spring Snow, but the ties to the first are so strong, I would heavily recommend trying to finish it before reading the second. There are plot points that I didn’t want to spoil in my recount above that are really important to the second book.
I’ll add one last bit of history; Apparently these books were serialized in a magazine called Shinchō. Imagine having to wait a week to hear what other mistake Kiyoaki makes.
I think I'm going to read something outside of that series instead.
It's going to be 'The Sailor who fell from grace with the Sea'. I'm going to start it tonight!
I finished 'The Sailor who fell from grace with the Sea'. What a crazy book! I don't know if you have read that one but I highly recommend doing so. So much to say in 180 pages, the book is disconcerting and unsettling. When you think about this book and about Mishima himself it becomes even more unsettling, what was he trying to say here? I'll say more about it when the next 'What are you reading?' thread comes up. Thanks for getting me to read something else by the author.
You would like this one for sure, it speaks to the lost glory of the pre-war Japanese, masculinity, expectations, westernization and nihilism. Somehow it encompasses all this in 180 pages.
Stranger, Baby by Emily Berry.
I only started reading poetry this year and it's ridiculous I hadn't done it sooner, it's so much fun. Many of the poems relate to the feelings left behind after the loss of a loved one, but others have such brilliant humour it never feels like a downer.
She writes with such candour and humanity it's like her personality is just spilling onto the page. I even wrote a thank-you email (most authors don't hear enough praise in my opinion) but I couldn't find an email address so it's just sitting in my drafts.
I bought her other two books before I was even halfway through this one.
Finished Woken Furies, which is the book in the Altered Carbon Trilogy (not the actual name but whatever).
It's inconsistent. I could write a lot on what I thought about this book and the trilogy, but overall it kinda boils down to "some neat ideas, not enough time spent with them, too much Point Break".
Just started reading the first book in the The World According to Jeremy Clarkson series. If you're familiar with Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear/The Grand Tour, he used to have a Sunday newspaper column where he'd write about real world things in the same sort of arrogant know-it-all "character" you'd see in his shows. The books are simply a collection of his columns. The book series is pretty old so a lot of what Jeremy Clarkson writes about is now outdated and part of the humor for me is just seeing how wrong some of the things he predicted ended up being.
Finished Patrick White's 'The Solid Mandala' Published 1966. Wow, what a finish! I can't say much about it without ruining it but the switch to the other brother's perspective is something else. Really makes you question what is important to one's life. It's not as simple as 'oh, this so-called disabled brother has such a great outlook on life, it's really his brother who is 'disabled'. These are most complex characters than that and a more complex book than that, they each have flaws that are driven by their experience of life, each one relying on the other to fill in their blanks. Powerful ending leaves you questioning a lot. Another winner by Patrick White.
Finished listening to William Golding's 'Pincher Martin' Published 1956. I was hoping this book would be better than it was, it isn't bad at all, but it also isn't great. The decent into madness was portrayed somewhat convincingly, but also the book was only ~6 hour listen so the depth just isn't there. The ending I have mixed feelings about but am not angry at, I see what it is trying to do and I'm okay with that, just not what I would have chosen. Single line 'flip the whole book on its head' endings are a bit cliche. I've never been a fan of them unless they are very clever. This one is somewhere in the middle.
Started listening to Graham Greene's 'Our Man in Havana' Published 1958. Graham Greene's books aren't all that deep, these are not masterpieces of literature, but they also are not pulp. I've enjoyed everyone that I have read. A darkly comedic Cuban spy story! I'm hoping for an entertaining listen here. My only complain so far is the version I'm listening to, possibly the only version on Spotify has these overly loud ~15 second 'Cuban music' montages between the chapters. No thanks!
Now I have something interesting for you. I started reading Oliver Goldsmith's 'The Vicar of Wakefield' Published 1766. 1766, this is getting into the formative years of the English novel, they aren't quite fully developed yet, some experimenting still going on, some of the old ways of verse still going on. They are usually pretty challenging to read and can be somewhat incoherent. The Vicar of Wakefield isn't too bad in that regard, but it is not a long book and it is taking me a long time to read it, maybe 20 pages an hour. Mostly because it is clunky, there isn't a great 'flow' to the writing. There are some full length multi-page poems inserted into the text.
What is more interesting is the copy that I possess. I had a Uncle who was a voracious reader and collector of books and I always looked up to him. When he died I went and extracted some of his library which became the beginning of my library. He had a lot of very old books, I only ended up taking about half his collection and looking back I wish I had taken it all. My copy of The Vicar of Wakefield was his copy. It appears to have been printed in 1899. It is very small and well worn, the most interesting thing is that it contains names, notes, and underlines from someone in school. Written dates of 1908 on the inside jacket, another pages says 'Grade XI' with a date of 1924 written. Same names, I'm guessing that the 1908 date is their birth date, which would make them 16 in 1924 and around Grade 11. I love finding stuff like this, this is probably the oldest notes/stuff I have found in a book. Since most of my library has comes from used bookstores and thrift stores I have found all sorts of things inside books. Notes, post cards, 50 year old receipts, 40 year old boarding passes, shopping lists. For whatever reason I really enjoy that stuff.
Images of cool old book: Gallery
I'm halfway through rereading Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind at the moment. I reached the point now where the story goes weird I think, until now it was pretty straightforward but I remember being very confused in my first read from around where I'm at (finished chapter 4 / book 1 of the two-book edition).
Finally got around to reading Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, been meaning to do that at some point for what would be over a decade now.
Both of these I considered good, Messiah I found shorter than I was expecting (noting also that parts did seem like authorial hammering in that the ending of Dune might not have been a win for everyone in universe) but did help tie off the initial story. Children of Dune was more of a first book into a new direction of the story with new main character(s) along with familiar supporting ones.
Another good couple of weeks of reading on my end.
Finished:
The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien - This was a great read, and it really does hold up, I'm glad that I was able to read this an adult as I definitely appreciated it much more compared to when I was younger reading it. I'm looking forward to more diving in to Tolkien's legendarium in the future.
DECEMBER BATTLES by Mark Loren and Boyd Craven Jr. is the third book in the October Fall series. This book continued in the readable pulpy way that the previous books in the series laid out. Unfortunately, the ending did not stick for me as I found the main characters grief filled decisions to be incredibly dumb and face palm worthy. I understand grief can make people do things out of character, but no other character taking a moment to say "hey this is a terrible idea, let's not do that" and everyone went on with it made no sense.
There is supposed to be a 4th book in this main sequence, but I don't think I'll touch it any time soon. I may come back and read a different series in this expanded world when I get the itch to read this type of story again. I wouldn't say finishing this third book left a bad taste in my mouth, but more that it annoyed me how everyone treated the main character's actions as necessary and heroic instead of short sited and harmful to their post apocalyptic community.
Progress made
The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine by A.W. Tozer I've made some progress here and there. I feel like reading this as a paper book would help me to sit down and read through this short book without distractions.
Return of the Crimson Guard by Ian C. Esslemont is another Novel of the Malazan Empire. I've had slow going with this as I find myself wanting to read it a lot slower and also look characters to remember who is who. It again is showing me why reading this series in publication order would help fill in some of the gaps raised in later books. It is solid so far, and I think it is a bit of a step up from the previous book in the series as I know Esslemont was still getting his feet under him as an author while publishing this.
Warlock of the Magus World by Wen Chao Gong this is a Chinese web novel in the Xianxia genre. This genre is one that helped influence the progression fantasy/lit RPG genres in the west. I have a friend who loves web novels, and spent ~4-5 years devouring tons of them. He recommends me different ones and so far I've read one other one besides this. I tend to take them very slow and will read in short bursts when I get in the mood.
I picked this series back up and finally crossed the halfway point (600 chapters). I wanted something that was easy to read when I have little moments in my day as reading Malazan doesn't work as well for me in those moments. After getting through a mini arc I didn't enjoy the story is back to seeing the main character be a self-interested sociopath and power scaling himself.
Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation by Peter Marshall as the title suggests this is a book covering the history of the Christian reformation in England. I picked this up at a used book store a couple of years ago and have been slowly reading through it. After finishing the Silmarillion I decided to finally get this book finished. I enjoy reading history and plan to read more of it as there are so many fascinating rabbit holes I'd love to dive deep in to or learn more about.
Though not at all reading if you are into History/Religion, I highly recommend The Great Courses if you have never heard of them. College level lectures delivered by award winning teachers and respected experts in their fields. Usually broken up into 30 minute lectures ranging from 6-60 hours per course, most are 12-24 hours. So many rabbit holes, and I really like them because these are actual teachers, mostly PhD's instead of a bunch of random people speaking authoritatively on topics in which they have no business doing so. (Most Podcasts or Youtube channels)
I listened to a free lecture series from them that I definitely enjoyed, thanks for the recommendation I'd love to explore more of them and will check to see if they have other free offerings. With their price in USD the lectures would be a bit outside my leisure spending budget.
I have a very large collection from various era's (they have been making these things for a long time). I have 160 series in my 'History' folder alone. If you find something that really interests you feel free to reach out and I might have it, though if it is anything made in the last 1-3 years I probably don't.
You can also DM me and I can send over a list of what I have, a mix of audio and video series. The video series can be pretty big 10-20gigs, but I could always extract the audio from them.
Thank you for the kind offer! I've made a note so I can come back and ask you for some of those.
I was actually chatting with a good coworker friend of mine and my wife, and I'm planning to cut down a bit on leisure time and work more on my professional development. Switching more of my reading time to the small pile of professional development books I purchased with my company's education budget that have been sitting there for most of the years, and doing some training/other course work. I don't want to make a complete switch and go "grind only" but more of adjusting things to where a balance where I'm making sure I keep my skills up and can provide for my family.
I just finished Fourth Wing, the full cast, dramatized, unabridged audiobook, the first in the popular romantasy series by Rebecca Yarros. It was OK, I didn't really care for the romance going in and skipped the explicit scenes, I started it since all my family is reading it and I wanted to have something to talk about with them.
I liked the characters well enough, probably bolstered by them each having their own skilled performer. I appreciated the disability rep and how the author incorporated her lived experience to the protagonist, but felt the queer rep was tacked on, even though it contributes to normalizing that queer folk exist. The main character, Violet, is a woman that's realistically proactive about her feelings and sexuality instead of an extreme, a choice I welcome if I'm to read a romance. The "new best friend and fellow peer" character, Rhiannon, felt under-developed/utilized, I wanted more interactions with her.
My first observation was that it'd be formulaic to a T, and yeah, nothing really surprised me. That doesn't keep it from being a solid plot that sets up for more, it's just more simple since it's also romance. The love triangle bit fell apart pretty quick as one guy just kept sucking and the other got plot boosted.
The writing itself was OK. It conveyed thoughts, feelings, dialogue, and moved plot forward, but generally descriptions weren't very vivid, no prose, it's like the text wanted to get you to the next scene more than sit with the current one. Dialogue sounded modern, I felt it clashed with the setting and world building, though I get if folks prefer it.
There were 3 extra chapters written from another character's perspective, it seemed each was selected to highlight how the author foreshadowed later events. To her credit, even if I knew where things were going, those lines weren't obvious call-outs and blended well into the dialogue.
So it's fine, I'll continue the series and enjoy it enough as a snack and chat with the fam about it. Sometimes, it seems that the vast majority of fantasy and sci-fi are meals, but they don't all need to be, variety is good.
I most recently finished Vampires Anonymous. It follows a pair of vampires, one of whom decides to swear off blood and drags the other to Vampires Anonymous (as in AA for blood). They're also being hunted by a mental patient and an incompetent cop. In this world, 95% of the population is male and they're all gay. The female 5% are child abusing, conversion camp supporting, night-bitches. It's about the furthest you can get from the Bechdel test. The first woman doesn't appear until midway through the book, and then there's never another woman in the same scene for her to even talk with. The plot is rather nonsense, the bad guys never get any clear motive for what they're doing. The characters are flat and homogeneous. And it's not even particularly erotic or anything, like PG-13 style innuendo and early cuts to black. I don't say that to suggest it would somehow justify the flaws, but it would at least help make them make sense. It was written in the 90s so the metaphor of Vampirism to HIV of course applies, and there's a clear metaphor between VA and forced-closeting and conversion therapy. So I'm sure there is an audience, or at the very least was an audience, that would appreciate the book a lot more than me.
I'm now going back to Star Wars, working through the lot of mostly early EU books I got off ebay, with The Truce at Bakura.
I bit the bullet and decided to start reading Neuromancer. It is very fast, slightly confusing, but I think I get it and am following along well. One question though - I am reading a questionable epub of the novel and in the physical version of the book is there massive paragraphs and all dialogue is inline and uses guillemets? Anyway, I just finished the first part and I can absolutely see the influence this book has had on basically everything in the cyber-punk world. Its a good read so far.
Before that I finished up The Tall Window, the third Philip Marlowe book by Raymand Chandler. It was not as good as the first two but it read quick.
I just checked my trade paperback and it has normal paragraph lengths and just uses quotation marks for dialogue.
Thanks for the confirmation!