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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.
Finally finished Catch-22 earlier this week. Just, go read it, if you haven't already and don't mind twisting up your own sense of morality and logic just to reach any degree of relating with any of the main characters.
Anyway, picked up East of Eden by John Steinbeck to follow it up. It's a lot more distinct from Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men than the way people group them together would suggest, so far at least. The greatest part of Steinbeck's writing continues to lie in his deceptively simple phrasing. He says exactly what he means, and all that he implies, and doesn't ask for some subtle teasing apart to get to what could be conveyed more clearly. Poetry is beautiful, but sometimes prose gets the job done more than well enough.
There’s something about Steinbeck’s prose...like he has a direct line to my heart. He conveys so much emotion in his writing.
Catch-22 is a book that gets better each reading so try it again in a few years!
Exactly, I think of it as him writing how people speak. His words carry tone and emphasis, without need for accessory, better than most.
I definitely will revisit Catch-22. I started reading it almost 6 years ago, but couldn't ever stay invested for more than a chapter or two at a time, and finally gave up on it a couple years back. That predigestion definitely helped me connect with the characters this time around.
I am on book 8 of The Wheel of Time series, continuing my first attempt to read through the books after taking a yearlong break in the middle of book 7. Overall, I love the attention to detail, I find some of the characters relatable, and I enjoy the magic system; however, it has been a slog. The story is great, but it's full of tropes, repetitive actions, and extremely long descriptions that force me to fight to maintain my attention on the story. Getting halfway through book 7 last year, I set it down after feeling discontent with the pacing. Now, after a year of reading other incredible stories, The Witcher series, The First Law trilogy, the most recent Stormlight Archive books, and a handful of other titles, I am ready to push through. I will hopefully discover why people love Robert Jordan's fantasy epic. As a huge fan of Brandon Sanderson's work, I also know that if I can keep reading, Sanderon's writing awaits me at the close of the series.
Ha, you're about where I stopped reading. I'm like you, I really enjoyed the world and some of the characters, but I do feel like it turned into a slog. I think I have a big case of sunk cost fallacy with it, I do want to eventually finish it because I have invested so much time into it, but if I'm honest I really hadn't been enjoying reading it for a book or two.
Andy Weir’s new book Hail Mary. Its about as good as The Martian. Weir isn’t the best author, but he is very good at keeping me engaged.
Update: Book finished. Would recommend.
A few chapters into Braiding Sweetgrass. Some good storytelling in there, which is totally my jam.
I read that about a month ago. It quickly became an all time favorite. I've got a botanical background and can relate to her messages and stories. I particularly love the idea of Reciprocal Ecology. We need much more of that these days.
I'm still reading The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands. I'm about a third of the way through it and I'm really enjoying it. I also picked up Crime and Punishment again. This is probably about the third time I've attempted to read it. I've read The Brothers Karamazov and loved it, so hopefully I can get my teeth into C&P this time.
~500 pages into Anniversaries. From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl (the recent Damion Searls translation) and I'm enjoying it very much. Shifts between two stories: one of a mother in New York during the Vietnam War and one of her parents (her hometown, really) during the rise of the Third Reich.
And other things, of course. But that's the main bit.
I'm reading Bruce Sterling's latest book: Robot Artists and Black Swans: the Italian Fantascienza Stories. The stories are all based around Turin, Italy. The conceit is that they're written by Bruno Argento, an Italian Science Fiction writer, who tries to make them "more Italian than any real Italy could ever be." I couldn't say how well they succeed in that, but I like the stories so far.
I'd like to figure out what strikes me as odd about how he writes conversations. They make sense and move along rather briskly, but there's something odd about the style. The characters seem rather ready to monologue, or something close to it? There is a tendency to proclaim things.
Currently reading the following:
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (1986)
Restricted Data: A History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States by Alex Wellerstein (2021)
Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun by Paul Barrett (2012)
We're beginning A Year in Provence. It's already filled with charming characters and heaps of the ingenuous cultural chauvinism that so endear the French to the rest of us. I knew of its popularity, but this book may have played a larger role than I realized in nurturing "foodie" culture in the U.S.
I've started The Hustler by Walter Tevis. The Color of Money is the sequel, as you probably know.
I'm about 1/3rd through The Hustler -- its beautifully written and somehow makes pool sound thrilling.
After this I'll be finishing the Ripley series, which I love. If there is ever a movie (or movies) based on a book, I watch them and am almost always disappointed... but its still worth it.
I've been reading some of H.P. Lovecraft's stories, some stories like The Nameless City, The Colour Out of Space, and The Doom That Came To Sarnath were far too long with an underwhelming ending. In The Vault and The Cats Of Ulthar were all right but I wouldn't consider any of them scary.
The Weird - A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. These days I read to get inspiration for the speculative fiction book that I'm writing. Previously I was reading The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu, which is awesome, but I realized that even though fantasy is always present most of the book is basically science fiction. And I really need to read more fantasy right now.
The kind of story that I seek right now is not so easy to come by - weird fantasy/supernatural, definitely not sword and sorcery. Like a less sophisticated Borges' or a pop Ítalo Calvino. Inventive, for sure, but also easy and readable. The kind of thing I'd like to write myself.
The Weird is huge, with short stories ranging from 1908 to 2010. I read two short stories. The Portal is about a family that discovers a magic portal in their garden. A common premise with a great, original development. The other was "Saving the Gleeful Horse", about a troll trying to save the life of a magical piñata. A story with very dark turn.
The stories were awesome, definitely weird, and right up my alley.
Because the book is so huge, I intend to pick and choose according to certain criteria. I'll probably not read it in full.