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  • Showing only topics in ~books with the tag "ask.survey". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. 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.

      13 votes
    2. 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.

      15 votes
    3. 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.

      16 votes
    4. 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.

      21 votes
    5. 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.

      23 votes
    6. Possibly changing Tildes Book Club schedule?

      A Couple of library users have said Project Hail Mary is going to take time to get ahold of. Edit Based on responses so far I propose the following schedule We will discuss Cloud Atlas in early...

      A Couple of library users have said Project Hail Mary is going to take time to get ahold of.

      Edit Based on responses so far I propose the following schedule
      We will discuss Cloud Atlas in early March,
      Piranesi in Mid April,
      The Dispossessed in Late May
      And Project Hail Mary at the end of June.

      Can those of you who use libraries, check our four books and see if there is one to start with that is less in demand? Please report back with hold times and we can see if a different schedule works better.

      Books are the Dispossessed, Cloud Atlas, Project Hail Mary, Piranesi.

      Let me know.

      @cfabbro
      @kfwyre
      @slothywaffle
      @DefinitelyNotAFae
      @0d_billie
      @Bifrost51
      @skybrian
      @Sodliddesu
      @kfwyre
      @azaadi
      @fraughtGYRE
      @Nsutdwa
      @PnkNBlck71817
      @chocobean
      @lackofaname
      @RheingoldRiver
      @OnlyGhosts
      @csos95
      @Wes
      @CannibalisticApple

      14 votes
    7. 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.

      22 votes
    8. 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.

      28 votes
    9. Which books did you read in 2023 and how did you like them?

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      I didn't have as much time for reading this year. My daughters kept me quite busy (and happy). However, I managed to squeeze in one or the other title. I don't want to discuss all of the forty-something books I read, but here's an incomplete list of what I can recommend (and what not).

      I really enjoyed the following books:

      • number9dream by David Mitchell
      • Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
      • The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
      • Red Rising (all six books) by Pierce Brown
      • The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis
      • Dark Rome by Michael Sommer
      • A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman
      • The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
      • At Night all Blood is Black by David Diop
      • The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World by Tim Marshall
      • First Person Singular by by Haruki Murakami
      • Guitar Zero by Gary Marcus
      • This is your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin
      • The History of Heavy Metal by Andrew O'Neill

      I think my favorites were Black Swan Green and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. Both are very powerful stories with complex protagonists.

      I didn't really enjoy these books:

      • The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami (seriously, I like Murakami, but I hated this book – the plot was annoying, stylistic choices were questionable and the protagonist bland)
      • The Vegetarian by Han Kang (the book was interesting, but also a bit "too much" for me)

      I think those books taught me something, although they weren't necessarily fun to read:

      • Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss
      • The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim
      • Atomic Habits by James Clear
      • The Great Mental Models Volume 3: Systems and Mathematics

      Especially Chris Voss and James Clear can't stop boasting and/or advertising. I learned something from their books, but I found them annoying to read. The mental models book and the Phoenix project were fun, though.

      I'm a software developer and read quite some books about this topic this year. I can recommend the following of them:

      • Efficient Linux at the Command Line
      • 100 Go Mistakes
      • The Staff Engineer's Path
      • TypeScript Cookbook
      • Principles of Package Design

      But I didn't really like those (although they're good from a technical perspective):

      • Cloud Native Go
      • Security and Microservice Architecture on AWS

      So, what did you guys read? What can you recommend? Which books disappointed you?

      19 votes
    10. 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.

      22 votes
    11. 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.

      27 votes
    12. 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.

      22 votes
    13. 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.

      25 votes
    14. 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.

      20 votes
    15. 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.

      87 votes
    16. 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.

      20 votes
    17. 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.

      18 votes
    18. 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.

      33 votes
    19. 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.

      27 votes
    20. 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.

      25 votes
    21. Do you look up words while reading a novel?

      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...

      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?

      56 votes
    22. 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.

      46 votes
    23. 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.

      43 votes
    24. Which Kindle/e-reader are you using?

      Mine is Basic 11th Generation (16gb version) . I buy it on my birthday recently. I really love because i only reading book on there . How about your ? Which kindle devices you are using?

      51 votes
    25. Do your friends read books? Is the readership rate high in your country?

      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...

      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.

      19 votes
    26. What's your favorite read of 2023 so far?

      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...

      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?

      52 votes
    27. Best of all time book lists can get repetitive, I'm asking for your top five to ten

      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...

      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.

      66 votes
    28. 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.

      46 votes
    29. Worst books of the year

      You always see a lot of threads around the best books of the year or of their favourite ever books, but how about the opposite - let’s have a thread of books you hated. There are so many books in...

      You always see a lot of threads around the best books of the year or of their favourite ever books, but how about the opposite - let’s have a thread of books you hated. There are so many books in the world to read, it can be handy to know which ones to avoid!

      I’ll start in the comments! I’m not sure how to do spoiler tags (if that’s possible here?) so I suggest putting the title of the book in the first line so anyone who hasn’t read it can minimise the comment without seeing spoilers :)

      14 votes
    30. Is there any book that you keep trying but can not get through?

      Like the title had said is there any books that you had picked up multiple of times but simply set down? Mine would be Dune by Frank Herbert. I simply can not get through the first chapter, let...

      Like the title had said is there any books that you had picked up multiple of times but simply set down?

      Mine would be Dune by Frank Herbert. I simply can not get through the first chapter, let alone the whole book. I think I had picked up the book like 5 times already from my library and failed to get through it. I get that is a classic sci-fi space opera, part of the reason I keep punishing myself with trying to read it. And because I keep hearing good things about it.
      Edit: forgot a period

      65 votes
    31. Does anyone here enjoy poetry? If yes, what are your gateway drug poems and what are your hidden gems?

      So as an American whose love of poetry started in early childhood with A A Milne and Lewis Carroll, I have a theory that the teaching of poetry in typical schools (at least for my generation which...

      So as an American whose love of poetry started in early childhood with A A Milne and Lewis Carroll, I have a theory that the teaching of poetry in typical schools (at least for my generation which may be 30 years out of date re what happens now) that poetry as taught is almost tailor made to destroy any interest in poetry. I like to compare it to introducing music by teaching music theory.

      So, if anyone here reads poetry and is willing to talk about it, what poems would you use if you wanted to come up with a gateway drug. They should be easy to appreciate. And on the flip side, if you met someone who said they were really into poetry, are there sophisticated poems that you think are just cool and insightful and moving and impressive in some way? Please feel free to explain your choices or to talk about your experience with poetry in or outside of education.

      36 votes
    32. 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.

      74 votes
    33. What are you currently reading?

      What are you reading and what's next on your list? Are you enjoying it or just trying to get to the next book you want to read? I'm almost finished with Columbine by Dave Cullen. It's an in depth...

      What are you reading and what's next on your list? Are you enjoying it or just trying to get to the next book you want to read?

      I'm almost finished with Columbine by Dave Cullen. It's an in depth look into what led up to the massacre, the aftermath, and how it could have been avoided. It's a well written book and sadly still very relevant today. I would recommend it to any true crime enthusiast.

      Next up is either Mindhunter by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker or Children of Dune by Frank Herbert. I've been in a true crime phase for the last year, but I'm also trying to finish the entire (original) Dune series.

      57 votes
    34. How do you feel about eBooks and eBook readers?

      eBooks and eBook readers feel a little stagnant at the moment. No significant increases in tech, the storefronts are stagnant and locked down with DRM, and it just isn't really an exciting field....

      eBooks and eBook readers feel a little stagnant at the moment. No significant increases in tech, the storefronts are stagnant and locked down with DRM, and it just isn't really an exciting field.

      That said, I love my Kindle Paperwhite because it lets me get English books for cheaper (I live in Japan) and it lets me carry them around.

      Do you use an eBook reader? Do you read eBooks on a standard tablet or phone? Or are you married to paper?

      76 votes
    35. Any other ASOIAF fans here?

      Title, basically. The A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit has seemingly gone indefinitely private, so I was wondering if any other ASOIAF fans migrated here during or after the blackout. I definitely...

      Title, basically. The A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit has seemingly gone indefinitely private, so I was wondering if any other ASOIAF fans migrated here during or after the blackout. I definitely miss all the crazy theories we could read on there (I cannot believe D+D=T, the most legendary ASOIAF theory, may become lost forever if the subreddit never opens again, truly a loss of a masterpiece.)

      Since it was still pretty active despite the book series being rather dormant, I wondered if any other fans came over here and wanted to chat about it. Just crazy theories, favourite characters, that sort of thing.

      20 votes
    36. Bobiverse

      Any fans of this series over here? I was planning a series reread before book 5 comes out. It was going to be hosted on the bobiverse subreddit, but... well, ya know. If enough people want to do...

      Any fans of this series over here? I was planning a series reread before book 5 comes out. It was going to be hosted on the bobiverse subreddit, but... well, ya know.

      If enough people want to do one here I'd be happy to host it, probably starting in about 4 weeks and doing one book every 2 weeks.

      22 votes
    37. 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.

      7 votes
    38. 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.

      11 votes
    39. 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.

      11 votes
    40. 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.

      9 votes
    41. 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.

      9 votes
    42. 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.

      9 votes
    43. 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.

      9 votes
    44. 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.

      9 votes
    45. 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.

      9 votes
    46. 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.

      9 votes