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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.
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I'm reading The Name of the Wind, on recommendation from this thread, actually! It's quite good so far. I like how it threw me into the world, and little bits and pieces of it keep getting dropped in to keep me interested. It's delicious.
I also just finished re-reading Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is one of my favorites. It mostly holds up; I found the parts that departed from the radio play (my first version) to be a little jarring. I think the books really get good around the third one, so I'm looking forward to those.
Hah, I'm also currently reading The Name of the Wind (or rather, listening to it). It's a good one, and my next one will be the second book in the series. Stumbled upon the book a couple times on here, a friend of mine has recommended it, and another book I recently read made an obvious reference to it (obious as in: It directly mentioned the title) so I finally decided to get it
Same with me! I read about it a few times here, then I heard about it IRL from (a few) friends, so here we are :)
Island at the Center of the World tells the history of the Dutch colony in what later became New York. It's quite a good story about early explorer craziness, what the Indians were thinking, how this colony was different from its English neighbors, and early conflicts over its governance.
I'm reading Mercury in Retrograde by Paula Froelich. It reads like a woman's version of Glamorama but is played strictly for laughs. Each Chapter starts off with a horoscope which somehow relates to the book. Most of the story deals with Penelope Mercury and her friends. Most of the characters work a fashion magazine, so think 'The Devil Wears Prada' with pratfalls. Here's a sample of the dialogue:
“Your coverage of the Whitney Gala and the fall season was superb. But May is going to be tough. It will be war. It seems Nan Thrice’s botched face-lift has finally healed and she has come out of hiding. She is chairing the American Ballet Ball and the Burkhas for Bahrain gala.”
“Bahrain?” Lipstick said. “Why does Bahrain need a charity ball?”
“Do you know how many inappropriately dressed indentured servants there are in Bahrain that need our help?” Jack said. “That, and Nan’s niece is dating the prince of Bahrain. Either way. Nan is out and about and back leading the circuit, and Elsie Courter is pissed.
This type of frivolity isn't for everyone, but it's laid on so thickly that your head will be spinning trying to keep up with the plot. Had I not read Brett Easton Ellis' Glamorama I'd probably have put it down by now. But the concept of "Mercury in Retrograde" , based on superstition and incorrect astronomy, is a whimsical subject. So the title caught my eye and I'm going with it.
Here's a pretty good article on the topic if you're interested: https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/what-does-mercury-retrograde-mean
I like to use the term during one of those days when totally weird things are going on. I look at my friends and say "Well, Mercury is in Retrograde today." But they expect comments from me like this.
I'm also finishing up The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What it Means by George Soros. The billionaire certainly has a different take on financial markets, sort of like "Markets in Retrograde."
Still reading the Iliad. Losing interest but it still has it's moments.
I'm also about 65% of the way through Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. It's a scifi classic and simultaneously one of the most interesting and one of the slowest books i've ever read. It follows 18 "species" of humanity through 2 billion years. It's truly fascinating, the scope is incredible and at least to me comforting. It's actually eased some of my collapse anxiety, humanity, might, keep on trucking even if it's in a barely recognisable form.
However it's not a story in the expected sense, there are no "characters" barely any dialogue, after the first men it's mostly theoretical species and places. Just the constant rise and fall of Man.
I absolutely adore stories that involve the changing of humanity over massive timescales, like this and Forever War. Any recommendations along similar lines would be appreciated.
DNFed Jennifer Government by Max Barry. Unfunny hamfisted satire with some of the worst characters i have ever read.
I've just gotten into long-time-scale books, the most recent I've read is Children of Time, which I cannot stop hyping. It takes place over maybe 12,000 years. I'll have to see if I can find Last and First Men, it sounds awesome!
I enjoyed Children of Time but man i hard time forgetting they were massive fucking spiders.
Another friend of mine had that problem when I talked about it with them... I'm lucky not to have any hangups with spiders so I really enjoyed the book :)
I originally started with the Alexander Pope version which was poetic and felt epic but is apparently not "accurate". Reading it was fun but tough because of how vague a lot of it was and the Roman names for gods which i dont know as well as i do Greek names.
Now i'm reading the Fagles translation which is apparently the go-to version for university students and is "accurate" but it feels very modern and so loses the charm and sense of epicness that Popes version had.
I'm about a third of the way through Effective Java by Joshua Bloch. I'm really enjoying it. I've heard people recommend bits from it all the time. I love the concise examples.
Had an interesting mix this round I feel, and currently working on the Watchmen Graphic Novel again. Second time around that I'm reading it, figured I need to give it another go as a refresher for the show.
Fool's Gold by P.J. Skinner
Series: Sam Harris Book 1
Well this book was incredibly dull and uninteresting and didn’t really have any mystery or intrigue at all. Most of the book didn’t have anything to do with a mystery and treasure, instead it was a book about a group of people trying to find gold. And this search was conducted in an utterly boring normal way that made me wonder if I was actually reading a non-fictional book following an actual gold mining expedition. Then in the final 100 pages or so the treasure pops up and it becomes a search for it, but it doesn’t get exciting or interesting after that at all. Because it is essentially the same story as the first part of the book, but this time with an extra character and some characters being a bit more aggressive. Overall though the actual story just isn’t something interesting to read and follow at all.
The dialogue and characters I feel were major issues with my enjoyable of the book also. In that they all kinda felt wooden or fake, like they weren’t actually people and just kinda going through the paces. There is a more main point in the female lead trying to fit into a male dominated profession in the late 80’s, but it never got brought up and explored in a way that felt natural. Characters will just make a sexist remark, and she doesn’t respond in a very natural way. It almost feels more like a parody of sexism then actual sexism in the way it gets presented. Many times, dialogue between characters didn’t seem to fit very well, and it could have been an author’s choice to show language barriers between an English speaker and a Spanish speaker but if it was, it wasn’t done in a very good way. And instead just made the dialogue very bland and forgettable.
The twist at the end of the novel was really terrible also, it wasn’t built up well and felt thrown together. It doesn’t feel like something that could ever happen in real life, simply because of human greed. And I feel the whole reason it went the way it did, was so a second book could be written while keeping the characters in the same scenarios and conditions.
Overall, I didn’t enjoy the read at all and had to force myself to really finish it. When I expected it to improve or change it never did, and just continued with more of the same. Just know you can’t go in expecting this amazing treasure hunt and adventure through the jungle, or a deep mystery novel. And instead expect a rather mundane expedition into the jungle with an unbelievable twist at the end for no real reason. But at least it had good enough editing and was perfectly readable.
Score: 2/5
The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley
There is something about Time Travel novels that I just love, especially when they are done really well. When things start to come together, the stories and various pieces join together it feels so satisfying. And that is what this book did really well, put this rather complicated Time Travel story together in a way that gives a rather satisfying conclusion and storyline.
I think you are given enough information throughout to put together some of the pieces if you want to. Even though the timelines get complicated; different places, different times, different people, and different main character, the writing stays pretty simply and easy to follow. You get just enough information about the events and get to know the characters just enough to care about them and build connections with them, but not enough that it got bogged down in names and places and times.
It is interesting how war and this never-ending looping battle was portrayed through the various characters interacting with Time Travel. The fates and story of the main evils in this story was interesting in how little it really explored it. The only thing that mattered and was expanded on was the soldiers fighting the wars, while the actual evil got relatively little exploration. They stayed mostly faceless groups, creating chaos and war in a never-ending search for profit and power. And even in the end they never say what was the final conclusion, it doesn’t really matter, the man you care about escaped his never-ending war and the mysteries were solved. But I could easily see a cyberpunk novel written in the same universe pretty much at any time during the wars.
Overall, I loved this book immensely it was incredibly satisfying Time Travel story that brings you on a crazy never-ending ride but stays comprehensible thanks to the great writing. And would recommend it fully to anybody who enjoys Time Travel novels.
Score: 5/5
I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level Book 1 by Kisetsu Morita
Series: I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level Book 1
Well if you are looking for a nice slow relaxing novel to read, that doesn’t have any drama or conflict, then this is the novel to read. The main cast is a bunch of cute girls just living life and enjoying themselves. And when a conflict appears it gets resolved in a nice enjoyable way, maybe they do have a fight or just talk it out. But it never seems like something bad will happen in the fight, from the start you can tell it will all just work out.
The writing itself is simple and easy, anybody could read this and be fine. And it fits the style of the story fine. The translation also is really good, and I didn’t see any issues or have trouble.
Overall if your looking for something that is easy and simple to read. And just have some fun following cute girls enjoying themselves, this is a good novel to read.
Score: 4/5
I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level Book 2
Series: I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level Book 2
If you enjoyed the first book in the series, this one you would also fully enjoy. It is pretty much just more of the same, cute girls, basic simple plot, and not a bunch of drama. This book did have more drama than the previous one, but it gets started through the hilarious means you would expect and also solved in similar ways.
So yeah, if you want another nice enjoyable novel than this is the one for you. Just like the first book, and I feel like the upcoming books as well.
Score: 4/5
I'm still reading Stephenson's current book Fall; or Dodge in Hell, it's quite a big one, and I'm roughly halfway through. Love it so far and it keeps surprising me. There's a lot going on though.
Currently also listening to The Name of the Wind, and my next audiobook will be the second book in the series. Stumbled upon the book a couple times on here, a friend of mine has recommended it, and another book I recently read made an obvious reference to it (obvious as in: It directly mentioned the title) so I finally decided to get it
Just finished L'Éducation sentimentale by Flaubert and started The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë. I like it already, I'm a sucker for Brontë's prose. I'm also reading a Tourgueniev on the side.
I recently finished with Captured: The Corporate Infiltration of American Democracy by Sheldon Whitehouse (yes, that's his real name). I would pretty much unconditionally recommend it to any American regardless of where they are on the political spectrum. It's a solid companion read to Jane Mayer's Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, but arguably more applicable and accessible. If someone were interested in reading both, I'd recommend starting with Whitehouse's book.
He is a current state Senator, a former state Attorney General, and a former lawyer, so his indictments of monetary corruption in government are both thorough and knowledgeable. You could say that, in addressing the operations of government, Whitehouse is well within his wheelhouse (har har!). I've read plenty of diatribes about the role of money in politics from political outsiders, but his experience gives his perspective and words weight and specificity that others lack. It's easy to point to corporations and decry their political influence in a vague and undefined sense, but it's much more damning to see their specific methods of political control and manipulation laid out in black and white.
As such, the book is thoroughly depressing. I listened to it on my commute to and from a government job (teaching) that has been systematically infected and decayed by suffocating corporate influence, and there were some mornings where I simply couldn't listen to the book because I didn't want it to kill my mood for the day. There is little hope to be found in its pages, and the tales of corruption he lays out are so omnipresent and flagrant that it's hard not to walk away from the book feeling like this country is doomed. How can we little guys compete with people who have millions and billions of dollars?
He gives a legal rundown of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, including specifics of the case that were very interesting given how much he knows about law and its proceedings. For those not familiar with it, the ruling allows corporations to donate effectively unlimited sums of money to political campaigns and candidates under the doctrine of "free speech." Whitehouse includes a quote on the ruling from, of all people, Warren Buffett that really stuck with me:
I feel like that, more than anything, captures what American politics has felt like for the better part of a decade right now. We, with social media, have now gotten to see a modern reinterpretation of "how the other (wealthy) half lives" and, with President Trump and seemingly everyone associated with him, have had front row seats to the rampant corruption and antisociality that can manifest in the wealthy and powerful. It's clear that solving economic issues is our only path forward, and the real question is whether America (and, consequently, the world, because we're still doing nothing about climate change) are past our point of no return. Some days it feels like we are, and some it feels like we aren't. I really hope we aren't.
Hmm, I'm not really a fan of the metaphor behind that quote. Apparently we can speak a random number of times on Twitter? Getting attention is such a crapshoot. Usually you're ignored, but sometimes you become famous for free. There's no predicting it and it may be unwelcome.
But thanks for the review! I should check it out.
Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding your post, but he's not referring to Twitter or attention with his quote. He's highlighting the idea that, in tying political influence to money, the wealthy receive outsize benefit and power that's unattainable to everyday individuals.
They do have an advantage but it's complicated, certainly not as linear as that quote implies. Sometimes putting money into lobbying or political ads turns out to be wasted. The candidate doesn't win, or the bill doesn't pass, because the voters won't go for it and it's a political non-starter, or due to complicated inside-the-beltway reasons.
I'm in a reading drought and don't really know what to pick up next. Just been reading a little bit of poetry but I'm looking for something longer. I just finished Cat's Cradle, which was good but I didn't like it as much as I should have hoped. Some possible books on my list:
Does anyone have opinions on the above? I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for so it's tough to choose!
I was reading Tribe of Hackers and one of the books that popped up a lot under recommendations from the people was The Cuckoo's Egg. I'm about halfway through the book and I love it.