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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 always feel weird coming back to these threads because I don't regularly participate so a whole bunch of books stack up which I don't remember well enough to say much. Then I get self conscious, as if anyone's keeping track of how many books I talk about and judging me if it's not enough :P
Anyway, I've recently finished Reeling Through Life: How I Learned to Live, Love, and Die at the Movies (loathed 95% of it), Convenience Store Woman (kinda enjoy what it's doing but wish it was much more explicitly political), and The Night Watchman (adore it with no caveats other than massive TWs, Erdrich is so fucking good).
I'm just starting Kafka's The Metamorphosis, which is apparently high school-core that I was never exposed to. I don't wanna go out there either buddy, I feel you. I can immediately see why this would work so well with students, it's really approachable and explicit with its themes (at least those which have been introduced so far). Lots of room for discussion without needing to dive into something too dense.
Next up are Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, Vonnegut's Deadeye Dick, and a film theory textbook because I want to fill in my knowledge there from the few classes I took on the subject. Might get a chance to study that more in school, since I'm changing my major. Feeling good about books right now :)
Hope you enjoy Wuthering Heights. Easily my favorite work by any Brontë and one of my most loved books overall.
Read a fair amount the past 2 weeks but none of it hooked me in a way i was hoping for.
Finished in the past two weeks
Green Mars by KSR. The parts i enjoyed, i loved, i skimmed the parts i disliked. Too much of the stuff i disliked to read Blue Mars. Similar thing happened when i read Red Mars years ago.
Tom Swan and the Head of Saint George [#1-6) by Christian Cameron. Love the author and his short story novellas are the only thing i havent read but i wont be reading the rest of them. The protag was just too good at everything and that it made him uninteresting.
Bronze Age Mindset by Bronze Age Pervert. It popped up often enough that i had to give it a try. Absolute trash.
Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov. God i loved this. You know you are onto a winner when the titular character doesnt get out of bed for the first 50 pages.
I am Slaughter by Dan Abnett. Okay book, probably the least interesting Warhammer book i have read so far. I was promised orks but i dont care enough to keep reading the series.
Mutineers' Moon by David Weber. Not a fan of Webers writing. I've tried his Honor Harrington books but i couldnt enjoy them either.
I've had the Mars books on my list for a while. Not likely to start them soon but I'm curious what you didn't like. Boring?
It is very heavy on the science and describing the scenery. Large parts of the books are people in buggies pondering about rocks, microbes and aquifers. I loved the people, relationships and cultural explorations of the books. They are 2d and very stereotypical but it was interesting to see how different people and groups took to colonising and terraforming mars. I highly recommend the books, even if i dont personally love them.
Thanks for the reply. I'm not big on the scenery descriptions. I can live with them in an otherwise great book, but I'm in a bit of a reading slump and looking for things with a bit faster pace to keep me interested. I'm sure I'll get around to these eventually...
I generally have a fiction and non-fiction book going on at the same time. (Initially started doing this when I would find it hard to get through a book, I would start up another easier to read book, and switch between the two. Soon, I made it a habit to have two books going on at the same time :)
In the non-fiction category I am currently reading:
David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell
This was suggested to me a while back and have been putting off reading it, finally decided to strike it off my reading list.
I am about halfway into the book and I don;t really have much of an opinion about it. The tone is a little preachy and sometimes I feel like he is doing a lot of cherry-picking data.
Next Up: Heavy: The Obesity Crisis in Cultural Context by Helene A Shugart
In the fiction category am currently reading:
Of Sea and Shadow by Will Wight
This is supposed to be a 2 part series with 6 books [1], [2]. Each of the parts telling the same story from opposing perspectives. This "gimmick" piqued my interest.
I am about 25% into the first book and I like it so far. Pretty good world-building and pacing.
Next Up: Of Shadow and Sea
I've been reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. I'm really enjoying it. Something about the writing is very soothing in an interesting way. I've been having trouble remaining committed to books lately, so I'm glad to have picked it up.
I second the 'soothing' feeling. When I feel stuck by my current reading choices I always pick up a Murakami to get the pages turning again. I ended up reading 4 during shelter in place.
I read Part 2 Volume 4 of Ascendance of a Bookworm when it was released a week ago, and it's impressive in the plotting (bizarre and mysterious actions from previous books make more sense now), the thought put into minor characters' motivations, and the callousness of the noble society being described. It's also turning more and more into a power fantasy. But there are fun parts too.
I got 2081 by Gerard O'Neill a while ago, finally got around to reading it. It's basically an overview of technologies he thinks will have transformed the world by the titular date, and while he's off on a lot of things even only forty years later, it's certainly interesting, especially with how a number of the ideas in the book are rehashed by futurists of future generations, like the hyperloop. I also found out that my copy, bought used on Amazon for like $1 with no mention of this, was signed by O'Neill himself, which was kind of a squee moment for me; big fan of his work, died well before my time.
Continuing with the theme of year titles, I also read 2001, and found it much more enjoyable as a book than as a movie, though maybe having read it now I'll feel differently about the movie. Enjoyable, original, 60's hard-SF fare, and to my surprise I felt like the book was well and quickly paced, never wasting any time. I'll probably rewatch the movie soon.
I reread The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks, and enjoyed it even more than the first time. As much as I love the rest of the Culture series, Player of Games is still my favorite entry. It's just so tight and well done; I feel Banks is often a little over-indulgent in the multiple-POV style in the later Culture novels, whereas the single-POV style of PoG keeps the book more focused and readable, especially to a newcomer. Consider Phlebas was a bit more in that style too, but its overall story was somewhat weaker and less coherent, and I say that as someone who liked it more than most.
The 2nd book of the Xenogenesis series. I'm really liking it. It's as good as the first for me and has some themes that are so actual it scares me.
I'm currently reading Dune. I think it's pretty good thus far. I don't yet see why it's praised as one of the best books of all time, but I'm not deep into it yet!
It can definitely seem like the hype surrounding it seems superficial at first glance/read, but multiple readings and analyzing the text shows that Herbert tries to pack a lot into little.
With my local library still closed awaiting Phase III, I've taken to reading more books digitally. I've been reading my way through the Game of Thrones series, and just finished the fifth book today. The series is very gripping - George R. R. Martin writes character POVs very well, and by the end of each chapter consistently kept me wanting to just read more, while still being interested in the next chapter's character. Haven't seen the TV show yet, maybe I can stretch it out until The Winds of Winter arrives... (ha)
Next up will probably be the Red Mars trilogy (which I happened to check out before the pandemic hit, but haven't touched since). I think I was about a quarter of the way through the first book and enjoying it, so I'm looking forward to reading those.