What are you reading these days?

I just read the first two books of the Book of the New Sun series, for the first time.

The first book is... rough. The formatting, the writing. His adherence to using any sort of punctuation, his dialogue style (momentary pauses in speech are broken by new lines in the same quote), and the authors kind of juvenile focus were all offputting. But the story seemed interesting enough, and I slogged my way through it, by about the third fourth mark, I was able to get into the direction and enjoyed the worldbuilding. It's regarded as one of the greatest science-fiction novels even though its written entirely like a pulp fiction medieval fantasy novel. I read a general world spoiler and that helped keep me going (down below).

I made it through the first book, as said it was rough, but by the end I was invested in our little Executioner/Torturer (main character is a from a guild of torturers. who are revered for their work, this is how he makes money on the road, by lopping off the heads of those found guilty - the character doesn't quite enjoy it, but it's all he knows) - he also makes an earning being in a traveling theatre troupe, yes, really.

The second book I immediately started reading the same night I finished the first, and by the Autarch it was monumentally better written. I can't imagine he had gotten that much better within a year of his break-out hit, but he did certainly send it to a phenomenal editor. Kept some of his unique styles, but now it's far better to read, understand, follow, and enjoy. Glory to the editors, the unsung heroes of the writing world. I finished that one just recently as well, it was enjoyable and quite interesting up until the third fourth of the book, which was the opposite of the first, and then in the last ~15 pages it picks up speed. Then ends.

Looking forward to the next book, I've seen scant writings online and it seems to be getting to what the story has been kind of getting around, if they can steer clear of the author's weird predilections for describing women's bodies in the worst way possible - like a thirteen-year-old boy describing a playboy centerfold to another who has never seen a naked woman, or the romance plots (they are horrible, absent one), then this could really make a great story. In a way, the fact that they keep ignoring the main story makes it more enticing.

The other interesting thing, other than the spoiler above, is that the narrator (the main character, writing about his travels well-after the fact) is that he loves to re-iterate how perfect his memory is, and that he never lies, and remembers everything perfectly and he is proud of it. Authors note: Dear reader, he is the most unreliable narrator I have ever read, and it makes figuring out intentions, and reasonings, and his stories he tells others inside the story he is telling you, even more interesting because he will tell a story three times, leave certain things out in one version, change another in another version, and you get to figure out what the "real" story is. The books themselves are like a fun and interesting puzzle of finding out the real story under cover of an offputting one.

I highly suggest them. I am rather enjoying them.

House of Leaves, baby! I don’t know why Markie bothered publishing this when it was clearly written exactly and entirely for me, but i’m happy for him? Anyway it’s a blast. I hope like the house it never ends.

I’m also reading a small volume called “French Stories and Tales,” edited by a Mr Stanley Geist which is… not great. There’s some weird francisme in the introduction, some real invention of french literary culture which i find amusing but also a little disturbing, and his footnotes are so far inane. After this, ill go back to reading Greene’s Power and the glory, which i picked up after blasting through a half dozen of his works, Third man likely the most famous of them. (Better than the film, imho!)

I’m finishing Treasure Island tonight and then I’m on to Gilgamesh, Michael Richard’s autobiography, a little bit of Mary Oliver’s Devotions, a Sherlock mystery (I’m slowly doing them in order), and then… Jackal by Joby Warrick.

Edit: Michael Richards has a sad affect — but the book is pretty good. He’s had a far more interesting life than I would have assumed.

With the Neuromancer show trailer releasing, I decided to revisit the book and finally read the entire Sprawl trilogy. I've only ever read the original Neuromancer book by William Gibson and it was many years ago by now. This time I'm starting from the originating short story, Burning Chrome, from the collection of short stories of the same name.

There are several really enjoyable stories in this collection. It's my first time reading Johnny Mnemonic, having seen the film several times. Really fun seeing what was changed in the adaptation. The Belonging Kind also stood out to me, having an almost cosmic horror angle.

Finished listening to Graham Greene's 'Our Man in Havana' Published 1958. I finished this just this morning! Got exactly what I was hoping out of it, a fun little darkly comedic cold war espionage story, great for listening. A vacuum salesman is recruited to be a spy while living in Havana, he doesn't really want to do this buy agrees anyway and instead of actually doing his 'job' he makes up everything and invents sub-agents, naturally hilarity ensues. The fake information he provides excites both the people he is reporting to and the enemy. His cover-ups of cover-ups begin to spiral around him and soon his fake agents are being assassinated. This is high on the list of enjoyable Graham Greene books.

Finished Oliver Goldsmith's 'The Vicar of Wakefield' Published 1766. I didn't pick this book because I thought it would be good, I picked it because it was published in 1766 and that puts it firmly in the very early, still figuring it out stage of the English novel. Dickens was a big fan as many of the early English novelists were. It wasn't great, clunky in spots, strange in other spots, but glimpses of what would come in English novels. It is totally readable and not difficult. Super cheesy ending in my opinion, but that's what you get in this era. This is for literature geeks, would not recommend to casual readers.

Started and finished Yukoio Mishima's 'The Sailor who fell from grace with the Sea' Published 1963. I picked this via @Jeakams who said they were reading 'Spring Snow'. I had previously tried reading 'Spring Snow' twice but found the main character so incredibly insufferable I could not force myself through the book. I was honestly pretty bummed about this because the writing is wonderful and Mishima is important to the world of literature. After thinking maybe I could just skip 'Spring Snow' and move onto the other books in the series it was suggested I should not do that. Instead I checked to see if I had something of Mishima's that wasn't from that series, turns out I do, I have 2.

First I need to start with Mishima. You need to know a bit about this author before diving in because I think who he is and how his life ended is integral to understanding his writing. I'm not going to write a biography here since you get seek that out if interested but he was very unhappy with the Japan and the Japanese people after their loss in WWII, after finishing the last novel in the series I referenced above he tried to launch a coup of the 'Japan Ground Self-Defense Force’s Eastern Command'. He was actually successful, he took the commanding general hostage, barricaded himself in his office and went out on the balcony and tried to persuade the soldiers to revolt against Japan. Instead they mocked him. Mishima then went back inside and committed ritual Seppuku. WILD. This guy was a true believer.

Now we get to 'The Sailor who fell from grace with the Sea'. This is a very unsettling, strange novel. It is short, 180 pages total. On the surface the story is simple and straight forward. A lone mother with young child (Norboru) are living in post-war Japan. She meets a sailor who happens to be in port at the time and falls in love. Norboru who belongs to a group of friends led by 'The Chief' who is a Nihilist. These are 13 year old boys and they are very niave, but that doesn't matter. Noboru sees this sailor as a sort of hero, he tells sailing stories and he's sort of everything Norboru thinks a man should be. The sailor leaves port and returns again months later but this time he is ready to give up his dreams of war/sailing glory and settle down with his woman he has met and fallen in love with. Norboru and his friends see this as a disaster and a total betrayal of their image of what a man/hero should be. I won't say anything more about the story.

When you combine this story with the knowledge of the author things get more interesting. So what was Mishima trying to say with this book? Here's my take: The sailor probably represents Japanese society or the Japanese men who existed before the war but are now defeated and giving into Westernization and giving up their masculinity and glory in exchange for comfort. The Nihilism of the boys is maybe what has become of the defeated Japanese, without the old ways of honour and the samurai ethos the only outcome Mishima sees is brutal Nihilism and the self-destruction of Japan. Themes of expectation, masculinity, nihilism, Westernization all run through this book. The boys views are extremely naive but they are 13, they think that they and their views are pure and correct, it maybe highlights the danger of the longing for purity and heroism, which is what really destroyed the author himself. A sort of clash between a changing society and rigid ideals.

There is a lot to think about here and yet the book is only 180 pages and I'm torn between wanting it to have been longer so we could see these themes really develop and thinking that it was short on purpose, not letting you get sucked into these characters but forcing you to look at them for what they are, ideas and critiques.

Started and just finished an hour ago William Styron's 'The Long March' Published 1952. Here is a really short one, not really a novel 80 pages. Of Styron I have read 'Lie Down in Darkness', 'Sophie's Choice', 'Darkness Visible', and 'Set this House on Fire'. You can say I am a fan. 'Sophie's Choice' and 'Lie Down in Darkness' are masterpieces. This one comes off of Bloom's Western Canon, the only Styron he includes. How can you include this and not Sophie's Choice? This book, while good does not compare to that. 'The Long March' is a war story about a 36 mile forced march. A feat like that much like ultra marathon running becomes more of a 'you against yourself' situation. Through grit, passion and self hatred you push yourself through, it's not pretty and you might be changed on the other side but you made it.

I missed the last thread or two but I borrowed and finished Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. This was my first exposure to Ishiguro, largely driven by wanting to read the book before the film release that finally escaped development hell and is coming out this October

This book is about Klara, an Artificial Friend (AF) and her life ranging from a display model in a store to being purchased by a family and all that comes after. This book is very approachable. I devoured a section/chapter per day and never found my desire to turn the page wanting. The sections are well constructed and give you a logical place to pause and reflect on the books events. I would recommend this book

I loved this book! Klara was enjoyable to follow and, while I wouldn't call her an unreliable narrator exactly, I did catch myself wondering just how much her knowledge or limited knowledge tinged her interpretation of people and events. I was really impressed with how human Ishiguro makes Klara felt despite many reminders that she an android and I think her experience from the store to the final scene is a pretty obvious allegory for a human life. I think one of the questions Ishiguro wants us to ask after reading this book is, what makes a human? Klara may be an AF but seems to run a wide swath through the human experience...she learns, she sacrifices, she ruminates on her experiences. She's not human but where do we draw the line?

I found making predictions as I read the book

and nearly every one was wrong. I'm not sure if this is an Ishiguro calling card but the misdirection was masterfully subtle and I never felt cheated when the book took a turn I didn't expect. Ive caught up on some of the major criticisms of this book, like Klara should have been programmed with wide knowledge before leaving the factory but I never felt like any of the gaps took away from my enjoyment during reading. I found the ending a little sad but also peaceful. It never occurred to me that AF would age out as quickly as Klara did (maybe I missed a key line in the book) and I hated how she was discarded but I found the final encounter in the book to be a fine closing point for the novel in a way that wraps up the human life allegory I mentioned above.

I'd love to discuss Klara further with anyone else who has read it. It really made an impression on me and I almost certainly will pick up a copy for my bookshelf when I happen across one. I'm fairly interested to try more Ishiguro with the perhaps obvious The Remains of the Day being near the top of my list. Depending on which is available from the library first, next for me is likely Ursula K Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness or John Williams' Stoner, both of which come highly recommended

Some decent reading, but I think my "finished" section won't have as many books added in the previous months for awhile as I read some bigger books, but we'll see how that pans out.

Finished:
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison is the first book in publication order of the Stainless Steel Rat series. These are some older pulpy scifi books and this was a quick and fun read. This was published in 1961 and it really does show. Computers work by entering in information and them taking awhile to provide you feedback, but at the same time there are fully functioning autonomous robots. There is also the hallmark of older fiction, people smoking copious amounts of cigarettes and cigars.
I'd recommend it for a fun look in to how the past viewed what the future could look like.

Progress made

The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine by A.W. Tozer I've almost finished this book. It has been a great read and hope to find a little time to cap this off

Return of the Crimson Guard by Ian C. Esslemont is another Novel of the Malazan Empire. I'm very much enjoying this when I have time to read it. It has been cool seeing characters that were only mentioned in previous books and explore more of the actual Malazan side of things and not just their armies in distance

Warlock of the Magus World by Wen Chao Gong this is a Chinese web novel in the Xianxia genre. I enjoy reading it, but every time I start reading more than a ~5-10 chapters I wonder how my friend binges through these things.

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'm still enjoying slowly making progress through this work. It is interesting to learn about, but my progress has definitely slowed down as I'm reading other paper books.

AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models by Chip Huyen is a book covering building applications on top of AI models, and also explains how models are created. When I'm working on professional development I tend to prefer physical books as there are less distractions for me and I can sit down and focus with them. While AI can be contentious, I feel like in some way/shape/form it will be sticking around and I'd like to know how it works.

I chatted with one of my coworkers/friends about my lack of drive to develop professionally, but knowing that I should so I can make sure I'm up-skilling and providing for my family and he challenged me to give it ~20-30 minutes a day to get back into the groove of it, so I picked this book back up after having read ~1/5 of it earlier in the year. I do tend to find myself at the end of each year when working at a company with an IT education budget needing to spend the money and purchasing some books with whatever remainder I have. I was thinking if I should buy more books this year but I know my wife will mention that I haven't read the books I purchased at the end of this last year so I want to make a change and get those read.

Introducing Python: Modern Computing in Simple Packages by Bill Lubanovic this book is part of why I prefer buying physical books. I had years ago purchased some humble bundles and found myself never really locking down to use them since there with other things I could do while at my computer/ereader/phone.

I don't do programming in my work, besides some light scripting, but I also know that programming can be handy and is somewhat creative. I've thought about doing the r/roguelikedev Python tutorial for awhile and figured this would be a great reference to remind myself of some concepts and dust off that skill before trying to do something fun as a personal project. I'm going decently fast as I'm not doing a bunch of the example work in the opening chapters as I've done similar exercises before and reading about it is enough to job the memory.

I finished Vineland a week or two ago. I did enjoy it, but like Against the Day, not quite as much as Pynchon's other works I've read. I expect my various rankings will change with rereads, but that's my impression right now. At this point all I have left to read of Pynchon are his two most recent books and his collection of short stories, all of which don't have quite as high a reputation as most of his work. I will say that I don't think seeing One Battle After Another first impacted my read of Vineland much at all, aside from picturing Zoyd as Leo. They both manage to stand alone as their own works.

After that, for my book club, I read Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, my first Discworld book. While I find the humor very much to my taste, the book still wasn't grabbing me too much until the point where

From that point on I was hooked! I do appreciate that this (and to my understanding the rest of the Discworld books) is pretty standalone, so I don't feel like I have to keep going right away.

Now I have started Antkind by Charlie Kaufman. I love his movies, I don't mind how up his own ass he can get, and so far this is working for me! So far it's had me laugh out loud even more than the Pratchett. I hear it gets to be a bit of a slog later on, but I'm still early on so remains to be seen.

Has anyone else picked up the Dungeon Crawler Carl Series? It's kind of silly but I find myself devouring the books since my friend lent me his copies. I was reading Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown and Chigozie Obioma's The Fishermen for book clubs but they both left me seriously depressed whenever I would put them down. Dungeon Crawler Carl has been a real breath of fresh air and the first thing to really capture my imagination since I finished all the Discworld books a couple months back. Discworld felt like a good mixture of high and low art that kept me fully interested for the entire saga. For the longest time I was obsessed with reading important and difficult stuff but now I don't seem to have the energy for it. Does anyone else feel torn when reading stuff that is popular in the moment instead of reading literature? I'm probably just overthinking it and should read whatever the hell I want.

I’m reading the second book in the Shadow of Leviathan (or now as it’s less interestingly called, Ana and Din Mysteries): A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett. Loved the first book and I intend to read all three. The Sherlock Holmes + sci-fi/fantasy blend feels like a tough genre combo to balance, but this series does a pretty good job I think.

I think I slightly preferred his Divine Cities series, which also had a mystery vibe within its fantasy world but very differently written. That world was just so interesting, and the worldbuilding in Shadow of Leviathan is a little lighter I feel.

I started The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander. Taran, young and foolish, is bored of the peaceful life and dreams of being a hero. When his pig-charge, Hen Wen, escapes in a panic when the forces of evil draw near seeking her oracular powers, it's up to our Assistant Pig-Keeper to track her down before they do. He meets a variety of lively characters on his adventure and learns that maybe there's more to being a hero than the stories let on.

It's a charming fairytale where the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad. I appreciate uncomplicated stories. I read this one quite a while ago and loved it so I'm revisiting it with James Langton's narration, he's doing a great job. While simple enough and written for a younger audience, it isn't afraid to, say, show the bad guy setting baskets with people inside on fire.

Folks are probably more familiar with the Disney adaptation going by the title of the sequel, The Black Cauldron. Though I'd quite prefer to see the entirety of The Chronicles of Prydain adapted more accurately.

After finishing a year-and-a-half read of all the Aubrey/Maturin books by Patrick O'Brian, I now continue my nautical journey with the Hornblower series by C.S. Forester.
That one is not quite as amazing as the POB series, but still good.

Regarding the Aubrey/Maturin series: The Mauritius Command & Desolation Island are my personal favorites.

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series. Currently on book 2.

I have recently started (re)reading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. I have read the first six books, but I recently learned that since the last time I read them, more books have been released in the series. I have started on Lord Foul's Bane.

Broadly, the series is fantasy, and focuses on Thomas Covenant, a man from the "real" world who is brought into The Land, a fantasy realm of monsters, heroes, and magic. Covenant has leprosy, is frequently detestable, and does not believe that what he is experiencing is real, hence his eponym, the Unbeliever. His wedding ring, which he wears despite the fact that he is divorced, is a talisman of power, and the underlying struggle that he experiences is mostly about various impotencies that he experiences in the real world - physical, emotional, spiritual - and the fact that The Land returns his potency and heals him. The first book is particularly difficult to get through because near the beginning of the book, Covenant sexually assaults a teenage girl, yet remains the protagonist.

I remember really liking this book 25 years ago, and I think it's still quite good. I'm looking forward to getting to the new books in a few weeks.

I absolutely devoured Rachel Reid's "Time to Shine" in the last 2 days.

She's almost mastered MLM romance and it shows, the book was enjoyably written from start to finish with very few nitpicks from my end.

For any MLM romance fans, this is a solid recommendation (as is the rest of Reid's bibliography).

I read Toyota Production System: Beyond large-scale production and basically made me sad instead of being insightful.

I choose it because I always heard it was a good read and there are certainly good ideas that made car manufacturing more productive, but thought the book you can tell how the author sees workers as something in way of profit, and how they are noting more than numbers to reduce.

I was constantly reminded of how there's people with only the mindset of growth and profit, without question if it's a positive thing that improves lives.

In general the book also repeats itself a lot, circling trough the same ideas multiple times, and gives the feel that it could be a shorter blog post or a tiny manual without the self praise and bluff.

I have been going through Dream Machines for some time now and I still find it astonishing how we are reliving the struggles of the 70s right now.