For context I did not grow up reading books, came to it in my early twenties and found I preferred historical, academic or social books. Therefore reading really felt like a chore and I struggled.

Read what I would consider my first novel/story book last year which was The Iliad and found that I quite enjoyed it, decided I was going to try something else. The Lord of the rings came to mind as I have rewatched the movies countless times, I researched recommendations on editions and how to read, therefore I started with the Hobbit back in June.

I just finished reading the last book of the trilogy today, which compared to my previous reading habits is lightening fast. And I am a little sad, I will read the appendices but am uncertain what to do next. I'm thinking unfinished tales and then the silmarillion.

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions, also about any other series or universe to read about after these, preferably with movies that I can watch before hand as it helps me with imagining what I'm reading.

Edit:
First of all I wanted to thank everyone for sharing your ideas, it has been immensely insightful and I feel like there are a lot of possibilities for me to pursue even if not immediately but in the near future.

I've decided I'm not quite ready to leave middle earth yet and so I will be persuing the silmarillion, and then unfinished tales. Any thoughts on tom bombadil?

After this the following quite interested me:

• prince of nothing
• the resurrection OST
• dune

I feel like I might actually start with dune as it will be a foot in the door into sci-fi but let's see

Spoiler warning for Dawnshard and previous Stormlight Archive books (Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Edgedancer, & Oathbringer).

I'd seen mentions of the sleepless and Dawnshards when browsing the Arcanum and so was primarily hoping to learn more about these in this book. But in a short period of time I was surprised with how attached I grew to Rysn! In particular at the end of the book when the captain appreciates Rysn's role as Rebsk and allow here to steer the ship (showing their trust) for a few minutes, I let out an audible cheer. (Also when I noticed that she gained perfect pitch and perfect color recognition) Rysn and Vstim's interludes in the previous stormlight books were some of my favourite interludes and I'm so glad that we got to see more of them here.

The other thing I was surprised by was the set up for the two Winderunners swearing their third ideal here. Lopen says quite clearly that the third ideal is saying that you will protect even those you hate. And then a few chapters later we see Huio swear the third ideal in order to protect Lopen. I honestly thought this was just going to be played off as a joke since they have a fair bit of banter early in the book. But I was heart warmed to see that realisation that Lopen has that his jokes and teasing hurt people, and him swearing his own version of the ideal to protect other people from himself. It reminded me of some of the similar (but not same) character development moments we get with Wayne in Mistborn.

I'd love to hear what other people who read this book thought about it as well. Once I can get my hands on Yumi and the Nightmare Painter in paperback form, I hope to discuss that too with all you Cosmerenauts!

I have been a reader in my teens and my early youth. This all changed when I started to develop a depression back in the days. I had no will, interest or strength to pick up a book. During my university years I read a lot of textbooks but no prose. Picking up a book today feels like a chore for me. I find a lot of them bland and have to force myself to read/finish the story. So basically, my text boils down to: What helped you to rekindle your love for books/reading again? I am curious about all the answers.

EDIT:
Thanks to the comments so far, I have seen that I did not answer the important question why I stopped reading and why it now feels like a chore. So I'll try and give a bit more answers.
Besides "having no strength" during my phase of depression, I kind of started to hate the worlds the books offered. I wished to be part of these worlds, where my depression would not mess with me, where I could be happy or at least experience cool adventures. But after every reading session came the hard realization that I was still in this world with my depression and all my problems. That was when I decided to stop reading.

As to why reading feels like a chore today: I don't know. I started to read books again that I loved as a teenager/ young adult, but the magic was gone. Meanwhile, I also started to pick up more books from up-to-date bestseller lists, but I found a lot of them pretty boring, or I did not like the style of the author.

For me, Up the Down Staircase is a charming, funny epistolary novel about a school teacher in the city that I love.

Advise and Consent is tragic because its gay character faces legal discrimination but it is the best portrayal of the US Congress I have seen in print.

Dorothy Sayers murder mysteries feature brilliant sleuth Harriet Vane who has an egalitarian love story and is very much an early feminist without making it the focus of her identity. It also sets its mysteries within work place and other mundane settings providing great cultural history.

Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser fantasies are sexist but they are vivid ground breaking entertaining stories that shaped dungeons and dragons the game and fantasy as a genre.

Patrick OBrian Master and Commander and sequels about two friends in the British navy during the age of sail

Not too long ago, I came across a book that changed my life, or at the very least, my writing. While I have some trouble remembering specifics, I do remember it going deep into the world of philosophy and psychology, exploring the intricacies of what makes a book, and what our writing really means. The book analyzed the craft of writing, discussing how humans perceive the differences between good and bad writing, the difference between a good speech and a dull monologue, and how good writing becomes great. This, as well as the nuances of human perception on language in general. Alas, I have since lost the book's title and author, but the captivating writing style and genre remains with me, and I’d really enjoy some recommendations of similar works. I don’t expect to ever find it, as my search has led me to other good books about this sort of writing.

*Please forgive me if this is not the method I should be following when I post, this is my first post here. *

Edgedancer (a stormlight archives novella) came out a few years ago, but since there's little Cosmere discussion in Tildes and I just finished reading it a few days ago, I figured it would be worth posting my thoughts on this. The only book of relevance to this which I haven't read is Dawnshard, so please mark any discussion about that with spoilers.

I've seen a lot of complaints about Lift on reddit, and I can see where people are coming from. But I always liked the way Lift think and is written. I feel like Lift's stories would make great bed time stories because of how sweetly they end. In the first interlude where Lift appears, the people of Azir are having trouble picking a "king" because they keep getting assassinated. Lift's involvement solves this problem that we're introduced to at the start of the story. And now in Edgedancer, Nalan is still hunting down budding Radiants because he doesn't believe that the Everstorm has really come back. But at the end of the story Lift swears the third ideal "I will listen to those who have been ignored" and shows Nalan the truth. Which feels like a very fairy tale ending, compared to them getting involved in some epic battle. I honestly expected Szeth to intervene and team up with Lift against Nalan.

The moment at the end where she hugs Nalan to comfort him as he's crying was touching. It got me crying! I didn't expect to feel any sympathy for Nalan, but at the end it feels like a fog is lifting off of him and he's been in a haze this whole time. Which I suppose is true of all the Heralds at this point.

I kept trying to guess who the Radiant in Yeddaw was. Of course it had to be a minor character that we've already seen. So I was thinking it would be that guard we met earlier, since they mentioned trading to get some spheres with stormlight so that she can read. I thought this was a lie, with the real reason being using the stormlight to practice some surgebinding. The other candidate was the old man, but that turned out to be a very interesting misdirect that I'm hoping to learn more about in Dawnshard. (The actual radiant was the woman at the orphanage)

The description of the city of Yeddaw was very interesting and new. I wish there was more art to go along with the descriptions, but I feel like I don't really understand the layout of the city. I feel like it would be dark all the time (except noon) if it was carved into the ground like I imagined. Also I wonder if there's more to the story than it just being created with loaned out shardblades. We know that the total number of shardblades in Roshar is very small. Even assuming something like 5 shardblades that were loaned out, how is it possible to create a whole city with that in a reasonable amount of time. Feels like it would take many decades.

I read through He Who Fights with Monsters and it was not only my first read into the genre, so far it's been my favorite. I've come to absolutely love the characters, especially the protagonist, and the humor. Interesting and likeable characters are what makes or breaks a book for me.

I'm waiting on the next book to release, and in the mean time I've tried reading some others, but I've disliked what I've read so far. I read through the first three and a half books of Defiance of the Fall, but not only is the main character just hands down boring and contradictory, it's made worse by the fact that I don't believe the author is a very good writer. The amount of times a character has "snorted" and "rolled their eyes" is honestly a bad running joke.

After this I tried reading the Iron Druid Chronicles. It's not a LitRPG book, just a fantasy novel that takes place in modern times, but the author spent very little time on anything but the major plot points. Everything happens in such rapid succession that there's no depth given to the characters. I don't think it's poorly written, I just think it's just written for a different kind of reader. The books are also incredibly short for me, and I finished the first three in just a few days.

I'm halfway through the first book of The Primal Hunter now, and the writing is far better than Defiance of the Fall, the protagonist much better written, except I'm not sure I like him all that much. Very much the "I'm quiet, smart, and better than everyone" kind of attitude you'd get out of the know it all in high school, except supposedly this guy is a grown adult.

I've read all of these through Kindle Unlimited and they were all suggested to me by the app itself. I've only recently picked up reading again since dropping Reddit altogether, so I'm not super well versed into the best ways of finding new series to read.

Been reading a lot of Malazan BotF and while I love it, I'm looking for something breezier to read for a bit. Preferably something with under 5 PoV characters, 150-300 pages, a mostly linear plot and that doesn't take 100+ pages just to get my bearings on the world. If it's got humor or a bit of mystery too it, all the better.

Are you stuck in a reading rut? Can’t decide what to read next? Overwhelmed by choice? Join me in my reading challenge!

The challenge is simple - read the alphabet. Start by choosing an author whose surname begins with A, next book the surname begins with B and so on through the whole alphabet.

I did this a few years ago after having a baby, and in my sleep-deprived haze couldn’t make decisions easily. The library was too overwhelming and I needed to narrow down my options somehow!

I have additional rules for myself, like I try to prioritise female and POC writers as I find myself tending to read a lot of white men, but it isn’t a hard and fast rule for me - first and foremost it has to be a book I’m keen to read.

I propose organising the comments like this: top line comments will be the letter, replies to that will be the book you chose, plus a short summary or review (even just a rating out of 5 will do) to help others find books they might like, and then people can discuss the individual books under those comments if they like. This keeps everything in one post for people not interested to ignore, and hopefully builds up a nice reference of all sorts of books in one place.

Happy reading!

Edit: I guess there’s a limit on quick comments to avoid spam so we’ve just got the first few letters for now. I’ll come back to complete the alphabet when I can :)

Don’t get me wrong. I love Ray Porter narrated audiobooks. Sometimes I’ll give listen simply BECAUSE it’s Ray Porter.

But at some point, every book starts to sound the same, and his tendencies and flavour as a voice actor start to color the story. You can almost predict what voice he’s going to use and when, and it starts to take away from the story a bit.

So I was wondering if you all had any recommendations for great audiobooks that came to mind simply because the narrator was amazing?

I think I feel the same way about RC Bray. There’s always a Skippy just waiting to make an appearance.

Marc Thompson (of Thrawn and Star Wars) is tremendous and memorable as well.

My 10 year old son asked me the other day what feminism was. He had never heard of the word and when I tried to define it on the fly he looked a little puzzled. It surprised me that he hadn't been introduced to the concept since he goes to a pretty liberal public school. I think the school has focused more on racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity. Also, i have to admit that I feel a little guilty that he's practically a tween and he doesn't have a clue what feminism is (im feeling like this is a big mom fail).

Usually when I want to introduce a topic that I think is important with my kids, I find an appropriate book as a jumping off point. But I'm really stuck on this one. Everything is either way too young (picture books) or written with girls as the target audience. And the books don't seem to define feminism exactly, just give vague descriptions, slogans, and historical examples. I'm looking for something along the lines of Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, which is a book his entire 4th Grade class read and discussed last year. ETA: He reads at a high level - for example, he breezed through The Hobbit. So a book at a High School level might also work.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Hi everyone :) I am pretty obsessed with consuming information as someone with ASD, and one of my preferred topics to really dive into is Psychology, Philosophy, and Business ethics that can relate to the other 2 topics. I generally read a lot of articles, journals, and studies, but I have found myself really wanting to dive back into the course topics that I was learning about in college before I dropped out, as I don't do well in structured school settings.

I have been re-visiting a lot of Freud's work and other basic course stuff, but I do love more advanced topics that make me connect the dots between my personal studies and my schooling, so honestly just drop some titles for anything nonfiction and not as self help directed and I will check it out.

Thanks guys :)

I’m looking for new things to read, having more time on my hands as I work on some things in my personal life.

No rules, I just want to challenge the way that I think. Anything goes.

Edit: wow, I didn't expect such an incredible response, thank you everyone! I will try my best to grab as many of these that sound up my street as possible, and I will reply properly with my thoughts. Bare with me! <3

I have tried Calibre & SumatraPDF, I was so excited for Calibre until it never worked properly on the one textbook I needed. For example, whenever I went to the next page it would stall on loading forever, and this is apparently a known issue that's [according to the posts I read from the owner] caused by a graphics driver that I'm not interested in delving into just to read an ebook.

The ebook itself is pretty large with a lot of mathematical equations and images, but nothing my computer should be stalling on. The issue with SumatraPDF is that it can't seem to render the mathematical equations properly, and I couldn't find any simple way to load them without having to do more work.

This is the Discussion topic for all those who participated in Tildes Pop-up Book Club: Roadside Picnic, or for anyone who has previously read the book and wishes to join in.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For all the latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

So, I had this chat with a friend about verious topics. It made me realize how much I love engaging in discussions, but I also noticed that I struggle to articulate my thoughts logically and effectively frame my arguments. I want to improve my reasoning and argument skills so that I can confidently present my ideas in such conversations. So I'm seeking a book recommendation that can help me develop my logical thinking and persuasive abilities. I'm looking for a book that explains things in a straightforward way, with fun examples to practice with, covering diverse topics to make logical thinking enjoyable. If you have any suggestions, I'd be super grateful

What's your general philosophy around this? In theory, we learn all our fundamental vocabulary from context. But at the same time, it may be important to know the precise meaning. When do you look it up? When do you make an educated guess and keep going?

So, I’ve recently remodeled my home office and added a big Murphy bed and bookcase wall unit. It is massive, amazing, and not nearly full enough for my literary standards. :)

I’ve been hunting for older, good condition, hardbacks from some of my favorite authors. I’m a massive Clive Barker fan (Imajica, Weaveworld, The Great and Secret Show, etc) and have been trying to track down good editions on eBay. I find it’s really hit or miss, and Amazon is really no better. Short of exploring Etsy for stuff (and my local thrift stores, which have not been remotely useful) are there any good places on the internet I should check out?

There was a time when googling for this worked, now it’s rather useless.

Thanks, all!

I have dug around the net for a little while now, and other than direct purchase from Japan I am having trouble finding light novels. Specifically for several anime series I liked and want to read the originals for. Anyone know where I can find light novels in general for purchase or otherwise?

Edit: Some context if you're unfamiliar with mistborn: A bend alloy misting (slider) can create a bubble where time moves faster. A cadmium misting (pulser) can create a bubble where time moves slower. These bubbles can't be moved, unless they're on an object of significant mass that is already moving, like a train. The civilisation in The Lost Metal is roughly in the industrial age.

I was reading "The Lost Metal" and the newspaper ad after chapter 2 mentions hiring bend alloy mistings for a fast food restaurant. And I was thinking of more commercially profitable uses. Because fast food, wouldn't (I think) have sufficient margin to support consumption of bend alloy which is supposed to be expensive. So here are some ideas I had:

• One idea I had was a CEO using a bend alloy misting to give them more hours in a day. Time for CEOs is already at a premium so giving them more I think would be economically worth it, but I don't know if they have anyone comparable to that in mistborn era 2.
• I also think this would work for lawyers. I'm not sure how much a lawyer in Elendel gets paid but we do know they exist. In the real world sometimes lawyer bill for more than 24 hours a day (illegally)! But imagine if a lawyer could do that legitimately now. Maybe even 48 hours in a day!
• An idea I had for cadmium mistings was to speed up travel. Maybe for rich people you could use a slider to get up time so that their train journey appears to them to go by really fast. But that might be counteracted by their circadian rhythm getting messed up.

The following links contain some discussion on the usage of bend alloy and cadmium for commercial uses.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cosmere/comments/ajdsjh/practical_usage_of_powers/

Some ideas mentioned there include using a slider in the waiting room of a hospital, or to preserve food, or to reduce the amount of food needed to support a siege, or to reduce the amount of supplies needed for Interstellar travel.

What are some other ideas you have for how a pulser or slider could be used during that time period in a profitable manner?
If you find other discussion online about these powers, please link them here.

I'm currently reading The Priory of the Orange Tree, and really enjoying it, but I've got to confess I'm a bit disappointed by how predictable the world is. There's an obvious pseudo-medieval European culture, a vaguely Eastern culture of respect and honour, a wise Southern Arabic-flavoured culture, and so on.

It's making me long for some fantasy that feels genuinely different - as far away as possible from this vision of monotheistic courts, swordsman's honour and mysterious wisdom from far away. Something that feels refreshing in trying to portray a world that I have never seen before.

I recently read C.T. Rwizi's Scarlet Odyssey series, and while that definitely involves analogues to a lot of our cultures, it was told from an African perspective, which was very refreshing. So I'd welcome suggestions for fantasy books that approach the typical enemies from a perspective that I don't often see as an English-speaking European reader. But is there much in the way of fantasy that truly tries to explore places and people that are completely out there and away from any of our experiences?

Hey folks! I’m looking for some audiobook ideas (preferably fantasy and science-fiction). I want them to have a TV series or Movie about them though I could watch before listening to them.

All ideas welcome!

I just finished it today and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what parts I enjoyed.

The rest of the book felt very preachy and a lot of it felt unnecessary. I don't think I liked a single character in the book. They all felt like caricatures and not how people would genuinely act or respond to the events happening in the book. Almost every single action taken by every single character felt forced to fit a narrative.

I cannot fathom why this won a Hugo award other than the fact that it was the first piece of science fiction originally written by a Chinese author in the Chinese language to win. [edit: In terms of novelty. The fact that it was originally written in Chinese has absolutely no bearing on my opinion other than possibly due to the translation the characters seemed to have no depth.]

I listened to the audio book, as I was told the names can be confusing and the audio book helped with it. I kept waiting for it to go somewhere, and when it was over I thought to myself, "that's it?"

Maybe someone can give a different perspective on it, because right now I'm just frustrated I spent money on it.

Edit: I love the films too, but I'm really looking for examples in the text, even if the adaptation does the scene justice, I'm interested in how Tolkien himself wrote it.

I'm on a bit of a JRR Tolkien kick recently and revisiting some of my favorite bits from the books. One thing I really appreciate about Tolkien's writing is the outright poetry of some of the paragraphs and lines. I think the only "wordsmith" who appeals this much to me is Cormac McCarthy (and to some extent GRR Martin) -- but for very different reasons. Anyways, I'll share my favorite section from the Legendarium.

Théoden's charge at Minas Tirith - The Return of the King

To set the stage, the Rohirrim have navigated to Minas Tirith and are greeted by a dying besieged city steeped in darkess and fire. Upon seeing this, we get this line about Théoden:

But the king sat upon Snowmane, motionless, gazing upon the agony of Minas Tirith, as if stricken suddenly by anguish, or by dread. He seemed to shrink down, cowed by age.

Merry utterly loses hope at seeing the city and the reaction of the king. Then as all hope seems lost, we get one of the best sections in the whole trilogy:

At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:

Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

With that he seized a great horn from Guthláf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

This might be my favorite bit in all of LOTR because we see good king Théoden shed all his fears and doubts and actualize into the man he was meant to be. And to be compared to the Valar Oromë to boot! Wow. I am also a total sucker for any moment in the trilogy when a deed or character gets compared to events or characters of the First Age. Anytime that happens, you know it's a big deal since the First Age was so much "larger than life" than the events of the Third Age. Tolkien does a similar thing when Sam faces off Shelob noting that not even Túrin or Beren with any craft of the elves could have injured her -- yet Sam stood his ground, nonetheless.

I am not a Tolkien scholar, but I know Tolkien was incredibly steeped in medieval and ancient literature (I mean, he was a Professor of English literature) so I know his heart was really in old mythologies in Germanic or Norse traditions (for example Túrin Turambar's story is directly inspired by the Finnish tale of Kullervo, or how almost word-for-word bits of The Wanderer poem end up in Rohan's culture and song). Because of his Christian faith though, I suspect he had qualms with the often-brutal mortality of those tales and the cultures which produced them. This section with Théoden charging bravely against hopelessness and despair I think represents the "merger" of all the positive qualities he found in heroes like Beowulf with his more temperate worldview. It's an idealization of the heroic good-pagan Germanic king.

It's one of those highly praised series that I've been waiting to read for years. When I finally did (I bought the full set of used and slightly wearied paper books), I bounced off quick. I tried reading it in 2019, so my memory of that book ("The Shadow of the Torturer") is foggy, but I wrote down some notes at the time.

I dropped the book somewhere around the Botanical Gardens, mostly because of very annoying female characters, all of whom were the protagonists so-called love interests. It seemed like every attractive woman he met would fall for him and it was so unnatural. I don't even have a problem with the idea per se, for example I'm buying into how macho-men are getting women in Wilbur Smith's adventure books because it feels organic, in Wolfe's book it was like a teenage boy fantasy.

I don't actually remember it well, but here's an excerpt from what I noted at the time:

I don't understand Severian's actions - he is challenged to a duel using the flower of vengeance - neither he nor the reader knows what's going on. At the same time, he is tasked with reaching Thrax and assuming the position of local executioner there. He interrupts his journey and decides to take up the challenge, of course, with a girl he has just met in some inn. He is convicted and instead of serving his sentence, he engages in some foolishness. I wanted the girl to disappear from the pages of the novel. Then a second woman appears and I feel that there will also be something between her and Severian.

The Polish edition which I read is 326 pages long, I dropped off at page 245, I just couldn't bear it anymore. I occasionally see those books, either on my shelf (I have not given them away) or in stores and keep thinking that maybe I misunderstood it or didn't see their greatness and wondering if it would click if I tried again.

Maybe it is just me?

I'm part of an IRL bookclub, and we choose books based on themes each month. Our upcoming theme is "short story collection", and I'm looking for suggestions.

Don't worry about specific genres or catering your recommendations to our group's tastes. I'll filter that myself and nominate the one that I best think fits the group's interest (we all nominate books to the group and then everyone votes to determine what we actually read). I want the topic here to be general so that anyone looking for short story recommendations across any genre can get them.

Virtually none of my friends read books. I don't think my neighbors do, either. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only book reader. There's no one to talk to about the books I'm reading. I can post on the Internet and I will get a few upvotes here and there, sometimes a comment, but there's no depth to it. Also, I'd like to talk about books in person, not keyboard. The statistics of readership as conducted by our national library (Poland) were always piss poor, while I think they don't cover the whole society (because they focus on books lent from libraries?) it still seems accurate. Our nearest southern neighbors (Czechia) have high readership, same as our western neighbors (Germany, gosh I envy the sheer amount of books published in German). Poles not only don't read, but because of that we get only a small chunk of published books, oftentimes I search for a book online and there are English, German, Spanish, Russian, Czech (not as often, but a lot more than Polish) translations available, but not Polish -- I understand it, it's not worth it business-wise to publish some obscure books in Poland. It's a sad affair.

Hi all. As the title says, I'm looking for recommendations on books about African American history. I'm Irish and I know the basics about the civil rights movement and some other bits through documentaries like 13th . Outside of that I've realized that my understanding of what African Americans have been though over the last couple of hundred years is pretty piss poor. I'd really like to educate myself a bit more, so any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

I've recently become interested in exploring history. However, though I am usually quick to read and process large amounts of information in other genres, I find myself struggling with the dates in history books. For example, here's a excerpt from the book I'm currently reading [1]:

During this period, tsarist policy was contradictory along its Western borders. In Finland, a Parliament was convened in 1863 for the first time in fifty-four years. In 1860, its own currency, the Finnish markka, was introduced, initially tied to the Russion rouble before being tied to the value of silver from 1865, which enabled the Duchy to trade more easily with the West. By 1906, Parliament had passed 400 separate pieces of legislation, and by 1883, Finnish had equal status as a language to Russian.

It takes me surprisingly long to process this; my mind struggles to put together the timeline and most relevant facts. This style is used throughout the whole book and others like it, where multiple dates (and names or facts) are mentioned in a short piece of text, often in seemingly random order. This makes it difficult for me to truly get something out the book -- either I don't remember the information well afterwards or I can't relax while reading because I'm constantly puzzling it together.

For people more familiar with historical works: are there any tricks to this? Does it perhaps get easier in time, when you become more familiar with the genre (similar to keeping track of the characters in fantasy books like Game of Thrones)? Or do some people have a natural affinity for dates, same as others have a mind for numbers or for languages? Looking forward to hearing your opinions and experiences.

[1] N. Taylor, "Estonia, A Modern History", 2nd edition, C. Hurst & Co, 2020.

Update: This was my first post here, and I’m loving the thoughtful replies. Here’s a summary of the tips so far:

• Combining specific dates into a higher level time periods, e.g. start/middle/late century.
• Using historical dates with a personal meaning as anchors to keep an overview of the time period.
• Paying special attention to the first line of each paragraph, the first section of each chapter, and the first chapter of each book, which should be a summary of the following paragraph, chapter, and book, respectively.
• Writing or drawing your own timeline of events, outside of the book.
• Adding context information to your own timeline, based on understanding why each event occurred in that time and that way.

Some of my favorite books are nonfiction, so I'm looking for more. These could be from your field of expertise, but could also just be books you have enjoyed. They just need to be comprehensible to a moderately intelligent reader with little to no background in the subject matter.

Here a few I have enjoyed.
A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr,
Being Wrong Adventures on the Margin of Error,
Cadillac Desert,
Facing the Mountain by Daniel Brown,
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah,
The Day the World Came to Town,
Travels With Charley by Steinbeck

Edit, a couple more,
Flow the Psychology of Optimal Experience,
Bowling Alone by Putnam,
Because Internet by McCulloch

Books that make you want to side eye the author, because why....would you come up with that?

For example, Frank Herbert, you know, the guy that came up with a beloved series that examines philosophy, religion, human nature, and the dangers of power, also wrote The Whipping Star - a book about a noirish, twice-divorced space detective who has to free a star from being contractually obligated to be whipped to death by a notorious, billionare dominatrix.

I'm looking for books where the premise is played straight, like the author doesn't know what a little weirdo they're being.

I appreciate Goodreads for its pretty extensive catalogue of books, the ability to see reviews from other readers, and the social aspect of following what my friends are reading. However, I find both the website and the app very slow and not very well designed. Plus, I liked to minimize my interactions with Amazon. Has anyone used or built any alternatives? While the features I listed above are nice, the only ones I would really want are:

• The ability to quickly look up and add a book to my "want to read", and to keep track of books I have read
• The ability to leave notes or reviews on books (not necessarily visible to others).

I've started to keep a reading log in Notion which satisfies the second point above, but there's no easy way to search through a data base of books and add a book to one of my lists. It would be nice to be able to do so on the fly as I browse books at the store. So Tildeños, what solutions have you all come up with to track your reading?

I'm in need of "the next" great Sci-Fi / action series to binge on. I've currently gone through read most / all of:

• Craig Alanson
• Andy Weir
• Jeremy Robinson
• John Scalzi
• Jonathan Maberry
• Timothy Zahn (all his Star Wars works)
• Max Brooks (WWZ)
• Earnest Cline (RP1/2)

I like Star Trekky plots and plucky nerd protagonists.

Also, I'm finding that I'm getting a bit tired of R.C. Bray (I think he narrates the majority of the above. At some point every snarky AI sounds like Skippy). Marc Thompson of the Star Wars series is an amazing narrator.

Side comment: I'm inclined to listen to a good audiobook just for the narrator's performance alone.

We're halfway through 2023, and I thought I'd check in and ask if anyone has a favorite book they've read this year. Doesn't have to be released this year, just a book that wow'd you in 2023 up to this point.

My contribution I read this year is Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. Two boys with Cree upbringing find themselves enlisting in World War I. A hard book to read that doesn't pull punches, with descriptions that put you right there with them. Broke my heart several times.

How about you?

I'm wondering how to read this book. I'm about 2 chapters in, and I've read all of these footnotes/references to other material at the bottom of the page. So far, they basically mean nothing to me, and I think it was implied during the introduction that some of the footnotes are real and some of them are fake? Do they reference other parts of the book? Am I supposed to be flipping somewhere else in the book every time a footnote refences something? Or should I be going outside of the book to hunt down the references to read those? Is it worth it to try that if some are fake and some are real? Is there a wrong way to read this book? Can those footnotes/references be ignored sometimes or most of the time? Am I overthinking this and I should just keep reading normally without thinking about the footnotes?

New to Tildes, so I wanted to kick things off by asking—do you have any sci-fi horror recs you reckon I might be interested in? Here's some of what I've read:

Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

• Solid read, but definitely more about the weird vibes than anything else. Sequels didn't hook me as much.

Blindsight by Peter Watts

• I generally try not to DNF my reads. But this was one of them. I'm sorry, I just can't buy vampires in a sci-fi world that's trying to take itself seriously, without proper grounding. It's also incredibly dry.

Dead Silence by S.A. Barnes

• A pretty solid read, I like how the narrative is told via flashbacks and then suddenly terminates in a way that makes you want to know more, in the most tantalizing of ways. Unfortunately I thought the reveal of the lurking horror was incredibly meh, and it went mostly downhill from there.

Diamond Dogs by Alistair Reynolds

• Fantastic novella with a mysterious locale functioning as the backdrop of the setting, and the horror elements being both external (as in the setting) and internal (how far our characters are willing to go to crack the mystery).

Paradise-1 by David Wellington

• A really solid space horror novel, with a pretty interesting protagonist trio (including a self-aware robot with plastic bodies) and it has some genuinely uncomfortable moments of horror that I can absolutely get behind. My main issue though, is that it ends in a cliffhanger and I'm still mad about it.

Salvaged by Madeleine Roux

• Decent read, but the horror reveal came super early and in reality, it's less space horror than it is human drama involving horror elements which is basically the Protomolecule from the Expanse. Fun read though, if you're okay with that.

Salvation Day by Kali Wallace

• I thought this was somewhat bland, the concept and initial plot were interesting, but it trails off and overall, overstays its welcome with some scenes that pacing-wise, feel like they belong in the middle part of the book. Some solid moments of horror though.

Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo

• Probably the quintessential space horror book for me. A fantastic setting, an intriguing protagonist narrative interspersed with religious themes and a genuinely solid pacing, horror-wise.

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty

• This would have been an interesting murder mystery in space... if it actually had good and compelling characters. It does not. Everyone feels like a cardboard cutout with One Defining Trait and that's it.

The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling

• This was... a disappointment. I still rank it amongst the worst books I've read, simply because the protagonist is unbelievable. I can buy a protagonist doing things under duress or from being manipulated, but I cannot buy a protagonist who constantly flip flops 5 minutes after making a decision and then
  hooks up with the person who was manipulating her, because yay fucked up sexytimes! Look, I want queer representation in my books too, but this came off too much as just doing it for the vibes. Queer rep deserves better than stupid protagonists.

Walking to Aldebaraan by Adrian Tchaikovsky

• A great novella; it's a retelling of a really well-known story but reframed in sci-fi terms, and I love that approach.

We Have Always Been Here by Lena Nguyen

• A really haphazard book I think; I like some things about it, but others just don't make sense, or contradict it. E.g. the protagonist is a psychologist, but is absolutely horrible at reading human emotion and speech, and a loner who prefers robots. Throw in some Michio Kaku-esque pseudoscience and while it's not a horrible read, it feels like a book that could have been better with a rewrite. The setting and suspense are pretty neat though.

So, as you can see, I have met the good, the bad and the ugly of sci-fi horror. I'd love to find more! For non-book horror or horror adjacent works I've enjoyed, those include Alien, The Thing, Event Horizon, Sunshine, Underwater and Dead Space. Please don't recommend tie-in novels though; I can find those myself and generally I've found that they're not really up to par.

I think the most interesting and individual suggestions come not from someone's absolute favorite book, but from the contenders, the runners up. These are more likely to reflect a niche interest or unique perspective imho. Anyway, if you are willing, please name some of your best lifetime book experiences.

I usually just read ebooks on my phone using ReadEra, but I'm going to the beach in a few weeks and I'd like to buy a dedicated eReader so I don't burn through my phone charge (I usually stay on the beach from as close to sunup as I can manage to sundown). I'd like something that handles multiple file types, especially ePub, or at least doesn't require a proprietary file type or have RDM. I'd also like it to have a long-lasting battery (I frequently read for several hours at a time), and be sturdy/waterproof (because beach). I guess backlighting might be nice, togglable if possible, and if I could get on the internet to download files directly to the Reader that'd be nice too so I don't have to plan ahead. It doesn't need to be huge, in fact smaller is probably better. Price is definitely a factor, but I'm open to refurb if available for a higher-priced model.

Needs: Inexpensive, waterproof/sturdy, strong battery, ePub/open file types/no DRM

Wants: Backlighting, internet

I've done some comparison shopping but I'm waffling so I want other people's opinions. TIA!

From what I have seen discussions here seem mostly about published books but I had figured I will try posting here and see if anyone is interested. They have both positives and negatives compared to published/or even just completed fiction but mostly I am interested in them for the higher variance which also means that it is harder to find something good.

Just listing some I liked over the years, both more and less known:

• The Gods are bastards by DD Webb (on hiatus, extremely long) - set in a world in a magical industrial revolution where adventuring as career is all but over it follows a class of students in the University. Contains several other viewpoint characters and ever expanding cast.

• Fall of Doc Future trilogy(and extras) by WD Rieder (on hiatus, very long) - a story about superhumans where the abilities and their effects are treated seriously. Contains some social commentary and several polyamorous relationships in later parts.

• Time to Orbit: Unknown by Derin Edala (ongoing, long) - a psychological mystery/horror set on a colony ship. A colonist wakes five years early to find that the crew is missing and things are wrong. The mysteries so far constantly escalate but in way that mostly makes sense. The culture of this future is detailed and interesting.

• Mother of Learning by nobody103 (complete, extremely long) - a time loop progression fantasy following Zorian - a student mage from a minor merchant family.

• This Used to be About Dungeons by Alexander Wales (complete except epilogues, very/extremely long) - a slice of slice comfy story(at the beginning it slightly escalates later) containing extremely light litrpg elements. Focuses on the group dynamics of a party going to dungeons(sometimes).

What are some good ones that you would recommend?