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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.
So a few weeks ago I had a conversation about smut and romance with someone who told me that female oriented smut and romance is like where the men in those books are always sweet, respectful, follow boundaries, etc, while male oriented smut and romance is fantasy fulfillment for men to have sex with multiple women and completely disregard all their feelings.
This person admitted they don't read those genres, in fact they didn't really read much at all, but was trying to make an absolute statement that men's romance/smut novels were exploitative, disrespectful and disgusting, while female romance/smut was an escapist fantasy to escape the patriarchy and manosphere men.
I had next to no experience reading any of that, but from what I understood Dark Romance was a genre that is currently highly popular with female book readers, and that male smut was more non-serious.
She'd seemed to think that harem fantasy and men's smut/romance was patriarchal indoctrination material that taught men to be disrespectful towards women, and I tried to tell her that I highly doubt that manosphere men are out there writing OR reading romance novels at all, much less harem fantasy lit with monster girls and video game mechanics. Like if these guys knew how to read and write they probably wouldn't be in the manosphere to begin with.
Well, I don't like talking about things or forming opinions on things that I don't have first hand experience with so I started reading "Trailer Park Elves" a LitRPG Fantasy Harem Monster Girl book and also reading Lights Out, a popular dark romance novel.
Trailer Park Elves was a book this person specifically mentioned as being "disgusting" because it featured a harem.
Anyway's I'm about 12 chapters into Trailer Park Elves and I thought there was going to be a lot more spice but so far it's just been the MC managing a magical trailer park and leveling up while redneck monster girls argue over him. There's been like 1 description of breasts and the MC wore a pair of boxers with a reindeer sock for his... well you know... in a Jacuzzi. So far it's been fairly respectful from what I can gather, so the MC's not being a douchebag.
If there's any fantasy fulfillment, so far at least, it's the MC getting lusted over by multiple beautiful women, which isn't something most men experience IRL, so I can understand why that would be a bit of a fantasy fulfillment for men who read these books.
It's been interesting reading Trailer Park Elves. It's not something I've ever picked up, but it's not as horrible as I thought it'd be. Not a whole lot of spice so far, and I think this is what "slice of life" means in this context because it's been pretty low stakes magic trailer park management so far. lol
Haven't started Lights Out yet though.
Edit: So I got to my first spicy part. Well the guy took care of the woman before himself and she had a magical tattoo that made her taste like lemonade and grape soda. The spice wasn't disrespectful, the only thing I thought didn't need to be mentioned was that this adult elf girl was a 200+ year old virgin.
Checked out that Trailer Park Elves link. Holy crap, even the 'authors' are gen AI! Where's all the proper handcrafted, artisanal smut gone?
I dunno, when I was researching the book, the authors are active on the haremlit subreddit and often interact with people. There's often feedback on writing getting better as series goes along. One of the authors is a husband wife duo under a pseudonym and have done other books too. Reading it doesn't seem like AI either.
I've mentioned in other posts that I've been around generative AI since before it was mainstream and I'm usually pretty good at fingerprinting it.
I have noticed that a lot of authors in the harem lit space operate under pseudonyms. I have an audiobookshelf server that I am meticulous about, and when I'm updating author photos and information, the few harem lit books I've downloaded are all pseudonyms, even ones that are more popular and well known throughout the men's romantasy space.
Plus I'm listening to the audiobook version and the narrator is definitely not AI either.
Now I know the cover artwork is AI generated but frankly for niche harem romantasy smut, they probably can't afford or expect to make enough off of it to justify a real artist to begin with.
I don't know about the book description either, that might be AI. I have seen some things that say "best selling" and even seen this addressed on some reddit threads and it seems like a tongue in cheek ironic thing because these books are obviously not supposed to be award winners. Lol
I figured pseudonyms would be standard practice for the genre, just playing off the obvious AI in the covers and for the author photo. The rapid fire publishing rate was a little suss too but makes some sense if there's a team behind the books. In any case, I am curious to hear how you get on and whether you find any substance to the question of the smut-level divide between demographics. My own guess would be that there's something out there to cater to every kink and persuasion, but I suppose it's a question of genre conventions here.
Started reading Mario Vargas Llosa's 'The Feast of the Goat' Published 2000. I have seen this author recommended over and over. Latin America is still one place real literature is being produced and I would like to read more of it so here we are. I chose this book because it was a lot shorter than 'Conversation in the Cathedral' which I also have, diving into a new author it's better for me to pick something shorter before diving into a 600 page brick. This book is a look at the fascist dictatorship of Trujillo "El Jefe" in the Dominican in the 1930's-1961 when he was finally assassinated. The book follow 3 stories: 1) The daughter (fictional character) of one of Trujillo's right hand men, 30 years later finally returning to Peru to face her now mute, stroke afflicted father and her family and her own past/childhood. 2) Trujillo and his inner circle in the 3 days before he is assassinated. 3) The assassins as they stalk down Trujillo and recall their histories.
This book is serious business, dense Latin American politics from Fascist Dominican. Lots of characters, lots of nicknames. I'm only really enjoying the story following the daughter which is very good. The other 2 sections while not bad are really dense and just non-stop politics and flashbacks of past events and more politics. The quality of the writing is very good, it's not super hard to follow but the going is very slow and I'm feeling worn out and tired after 15-20 pages. It cycles through the 3 stories in repeated order, so at least you are not stuck on one thing for too long. I'm going to finish this thing but I don't think this is entirely my cup of tea, but the daughter's story is interesting enough to keep me going.
Started listening to Ursula K. Le Guin's 'The Dispossessed' Published 1974. Sci-fi! I used to read a lot of Sci-fi, I have mostly given it up in recent years as it kept missing the mark for me. I used to go back and forth between some serious piece of lit and a Sci-fi book but I always found myself disappointed with the Sci-fi book I was reading. There were some really good stories, some interesting ideas, some cool tech and stuff but they really lacked what I was pining for: deep dives into the human soul. Sci-fi is a big ideas genre and it is great at that, some big societal idea usually, doing social experiments and thought experiments in book form.
I have read a number of Le Guin books: City Of Illusions, The Left Hand Of Darkness, The Lathe Of Heaven, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, and The Farthest Shore. Obviously I'm a fan. 'The Dispossessed' is about 2 worlds next door to each other, one a Utopian Anarchist society and the other a Capitalist society, they don't really have much to do with each other and are kept separate. Now someone from the Anarchist world is going to the other world under the guise of physics research and to exchange ideas. I think I'm around 40% into it and I have to say I'm pretty disappointed and I expected more from Le Guin. But I won't judge it yet and I'm going to let it finish, it's too early to pass judgement. Maybe the problem is I'm too biased against societal Anarchism which I think is laughably naive and shows a real lack of understanding of humanity. I was hoping she would take a more critical look at the 2 systems and interestingly compare and contract them, but so far I haven't run into anything interesting at all. Maybe more is coming? Hoping for better things ahead.
We read The Dispossessed for Tildes Book Club, so you can review others' thoughts when you're done (spoiler warning before that).
I personally really enjoyed it, and feel that much of the uncritical arguments for anarchism in the first half were by design. This is a story told from the perspective of one raised on Anarres, after all. But their thoughts and views may change as they're exposed to other worlds and new ideas.
Good to hear, that's why I'm trying not to pass judgement yet :)
I'm on a mission to tell people who read Earthsea when it was just a trilogy that she revisited it years later, and the total is five novels plus a collection of short stories. Maybe you already know this, but my quest compels me to spread the Word just in case.
I picked up Tom Lin's Babylon South Dakota after seeing it recommended by Jacob Geller and Angela Collier. I'm not too far into it yet (50 pages or so) so I can't really comment on the plot or characters, but I really enjoy his writing style. Multiple times I've had to pause for a moment just to appreciate how pleasant the phrasing of his descriptions can be.
I had a decent chunk of reading the last couple of weeks. Getting some more professional development reading time in which was nice.
Finished:
The Pursuit of God: The Human Thirst for the Divine by A.W. Tozer I sat down and finished this when I checked and saw I only had a couple of chapters left. I felt like this was a great read I've always found it interesting to me how applicable works can be years later. This was published in 1946, and (in my opinion) it doesn't need to be changed to be applicable in 2026.
Progress made
Return of the Crimson Guard by Ian C. Esslemont is another Novel of the Malazan Empire. I've found that, like with other Malazan books, I most enjoy this when I can sit down and really engross myself in the world. If I can get a longer reading sessions, it is fantastic, but this book series doesn't lend itself well to shorter sessions. There is also the classic Malazan "problem" of having a huge cast of characters. Since I read the Book of the Fallen first I recognize some of the characters, but I'll also find myself looking up people just to see if I'm thinking of the correct character or someone else.
I'm 1/3 of the way through this book and do hope to finish it sometime soon as I took a break from it and for a bit and was only reading in smaller chunks.
AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models by Chip Huyen I sat down and finally crossed the half way point of this book. I do find it interesting to learn more about how this technology works, and I also know when to just skim through certain parts that aren't as relevant to me right now (i.e.: an entire page talking about different algorithms to search through text and their merit).
I hope to finish this soon.
The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier I bought this last year with the education budget my company had, as I had spoken with my manager about eventually going in to management. This isn't a very long book and I'm at a crossroads, at least for my immediate career path, so I thought I'd give it a quick read and think more about my options.
I also had a cafe work date with my wife and didn't feel like carrying around a bigger book with me so this being smaller helped.
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, I've been occasionally reading this to my kids. Sometimes when they get put to sleep later and I don't want a night light on I'll read to them using my phone with low brightness and a very strong blue light filter. We're at Beorn's house and when I do read this to them I sometimes get the urge to just read ahead myself and finish the book again.
The Eagle's Conquest by Simon Scarrow book 2 of the Eagles of the Empire series. It's a straightforward Roman military historical fiction book that follows a few fictional characters and the future emperor Vespasian I was feeling sick over the weekend and wanted something that didn't require too much thought and after a quick scroll through some books I wanted to read/read recently I figured a sequel in a setting I'm fairly familiar with would be nice. It turned out to be a correct decision, the book was easy to read and took my mind off of being sick.
No progress made:
Introducing Python: Modern Computing in Simple Packages by Bill Lubanovic a job posting for a position in another department for my work came up that I'd like to apply for, and coding in Python isn't relevant to it. It wasn't relevant to my previous role either, but I was reading this more a refresher to go work on a personal project and now I'm putting more time into things that more directly applicable.
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante
I just started The Jackal: The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World's First Super-Terrorist (Joby Warrick, 2026, 384pg) after finishing All the Pieces Matter: The Inside Story of The Wire (Jonathan Abrams, 2018, 340pg) last night.
The book on The Wire was good -- but its an oral history, so it can be a little annoying to have the names over and over.
With this Carlos the Jackal book, it seems good so far. Its funny how he got his nickname from the book/movie and went on to be a key character in the Jason Bourne series.
Recently finished The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab, and it was so good that I picked up her next book, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. I don't relate to the lesbian vampires quite as much as I did with Addie and Henry from the other book, but the storytelling is still great and I'm invested in seeing where things end up.
I've done part of both books as audio books during my commute, and Julie Whelan did a great job narrating, with just the right amount of characterization and accent.
Finally finished the original Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, reading Hero of Ages this week. Enjoyed it overall, did think it was a good ending to the trilogy (which overall I did enjoy).
Debating either following it with the Wax and Wayne series, or see if I want to try starting The Stormlight Archive series again (I read the first 3 I think, but it was a long time ago so I would probably want to re-read...even if I remember them a bit, I think I would maybe still enjoy re-reading them). My bigger issue is not knowing how much time I would want to set aside for them, I'm really, really bad at putting down a book once I have started reading it (which does not bode well for the 1000+ page books of the stormlight archive...)
I also have a bunch of sci fi books I should probably get around to (Old Mans War series by Scalzi, plus a bunch of others - I think I picked them up in a humble bundle?).
Basically trying to find something to tide myself over since the web serials I follow are both on hiatus for the rest of this month.
Is Mistborn really good? Would you say it’s more “fun” or more “deep”? A colleague read it and is a big fan. I’m not sure if it’s up my alley. I do like sci-fi and fantasy in general. Would love to hear your thoughts.
I liked it, but I really liked the world building and the magic system and learning how it works.
It’s not a super casual read, but it wasn’t like super dense and wordy.
If you’ve liked other Sanderson books, I think you’d probably like it. If you haven’t, but you like fantasy world building and magic systems, I’d recommend giving it a shot in general. Otherwise, I’d say it depends on what other books you’ve enjoyed.
I would probably give the first book a shot, and if you don’t like it, you probably wouldn’t like the second or third one either. But if you like first one, the next two continue to flesh out the world and magic system in interesting ways.
Edit: It also looks like the prologue and first 3 chapters are available on Sanderson’s blog, so that gives a pretty good example of the prose & also a pretty decent hook into the world to see if its of interest.
https://www.brandonsanderson.com/blogs/blog/mistborn-prologue
Three full chapters! Wow! This is great. This will give me a taste of it for sure. Thank you!
In terms of magic systems I think what I’ve read in the past may have been more like Lord of the Rings stuff. But there was one series that was heavily reliant on a magic system and that was the Runelords. I enjoyed that one a lot, but it’s also been about 20 years since I read that!
Will check out that preview. Thanks for the quick answer and for sharing your thoughts on it. I have not read anything else by the author.
Got into Expeditionary Force, which is pretty trash. It's military fiction, but also Sci Fi space opera that bounces between the AI being the light novel cheat ability that doesn't get everyone killed, the human protagonist jerking off to competency porn by suggesting the obvious thing the AI overlooked because it's so stupid it just might work, and the two of them ADHDing off each other so hard that I hate that I like it this much. Worst part is that I'm running out of the books at my library, the rest of them are Audible exclusive which means I have to start paying to continue, and there are 20 of these things so it's a giant time commitment that I know is just going to break down into lowest common denominator by the time I get to the end.