61
votes
What books are you reading nowadays?
Following on the spirit of the book recommendation topic we can just log here what we are reading recently. I'm guilty of reading many books in parallel and oftentimes not finishing them nevertheless, here is my current list:
Doing a re-read of Wheel of Time, currently on The Great Hunt (book 2)
I stopped at 7... do they get better or is it more just moving forward reading them just to finish it?
7, 8, 9, 10 are all pretty bad then it starts to get good again. (caveat I am only on book 12)
I would say 7 is the last one really worth pushing through. I got stuck at 8 and kept starting and restarting it. 8, 9, 10, and 11 are all a huge slog and try to do too much world building.
I ended up using http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/ to read the chapter-by-chapter summary of those books, seriously. 12-14 are amazing and worth it, but there is a lot of bad book standing in your way.
7 is the beginning of a slow decline downward into 10, and it picks up from 11 onward again. I didn't find the books that terrible just... slow.
Is 7 where that one plot line (the one that finally, FINALLY finishes in book 11) starts?
Shit, there's more than one plot line that could apply to.
WoT gets pretty rough in the middle
Those guys are crazy. 7/8 can be a little slow, but yes the series picks back up after that, and especially the finish of the whole series is just so amazingly worth it.
This has been on my to do list. I stayed caught up until Robert Jordan died. I then decided to wait until all of the remaining books were released before finishing it. I haven't yet gotten together the willpower to do a final massive reread and finish off the series, but I think I'm getting close.
Brandon Sanderson did a great job in finishing the series off. Sanderson is great on his own, too, if you haven't read his other work. I'd recommend starting with Mistborn.
One of the best series <3
I too am reworking through the Wheel of Time. I feel like I am always reading it though because I start from the beginning again every couple years and it takes me the majority of a year to get through them all. For those who say 7,8,9,10 are a slog I absolutely agree. I have, however, grown to love them as a part of the series and really do think it's worth pushing through to the end. Good bedtime reading!
Been working on Moby Dick and it's surprisingly fantastic. The language used in it is astoundingly good. I think it, and other classics, can be a bit daunting and I use https://www.serialreader.org/ to make sure I get a few minutes in each day. Really helps to get through them.
I really WANT to read moby dick, and I have read the first 100 page of that book about 20 times, but for some reason I always end up putting it down and not picking it back up, even though I'm quite engaged!
Try setting up a regular time to read every week. When I read Moby Dick, I muscled through it by bringing it to the laundromat with me every week.
There's an app called Serial Reader - breaks up classics into 10 minute chunks. It's how I got through it. :)
After seeing the show, I've been reading Altered Carbon. Holy hell the book is awesome!
That's good to know! Does it follow the same storyline?
Yeah some stuff is slightly different and other things are expanded upon but it's definitely the same story so far!
I just started Broken Angels, it has been good so far, and I really hope they do a sequel to Altered Carbon.
I've been reading this incredible online series by Wildbow called worm
It's a really fantastic book! I only finished it around a year ago and already want to re-read it. I was very surprised that I actually liked it, since I despise most (if not all) superhero media-- but it's definitely not your conventional superhero story. One of my favorite parts of it is how creative the author gets with the superpowers. Most other superhero books or content (Marvel, Watchmen, ...) pale in comparison.
A family member wanted me to read The Poppy Wars with her. I'm on chapter 5. The main character I think is supposed to be a strong female character but she's obviously depressed, engages in self-harm/mutilation, makes decisions emotionally and impulsively, and generally upsets me. The author sets it up like the character is putting herself through a trial by fire to survive a trial by fire, but these are absolutely NOT strategies for success.
I think the author is setting the protagonist up to be a hero and female icon, but absent some serious discussion about mental health I'm not sure there's going to be a redeeming quality to it in my mind.
I also think they way they address racism is kind of basic (this is nit picky). The author does a decent job of describing the insecurities and excuse making that comes along with racist ideas (e.g. I'm better than these people after all because of my skin color! It doesn't matter that I suck at this thing compared to person of another color skin because my skin makes me special.) I think they do a bad job dealing with the kind of racism that goes along with war/genocide where it's also a social glue that makes people feel safe. I think that's a more complex kind of racism and harder to break because it's rooted in successful survival strategy.
I'm just about to start the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. It has been sitting by my bed for months now and it's finally about time to dig in.
How is it so far? Would you recommend it?
3 on the go! one for fun, one for learning, one for struggling with in a foreign language.
I'm reading the Craft Sequence by Max Gladstone (currently on two serpents rise, I'm reading them in order, not in release order - so weird.)
I'm struggling through the first of the harry potter books in brazilian portuguese (a language I BARELY speak but have been attempting to learn for a couple of years.) Harry Potter e a Pedra Filosofal ;)
and I'm working my way slowly though Woodworking Basics by Peter Korn, because I want to become a woodworker over the summer!
I'm reading We're going to need more wine by Gabrielle Union. I'm mostly reading it in the bathtub with a glass of wine. It actually covers some pretty heavy topics-- racism, sexual assault, etc.
I'm a few chapters away from finishing book 7 of "The Expanse" series. I started them 6 weeks ago, so slightly more than a book a week. Missed the novellas so am going to go back and get those too, then the comics, and short stories.
Then...on to another series until book 9 comes out.
Not sure where I will go next.
How are the books? The show his captivated me to no end, but I've held off on the books because the show is just so damn good (to me).
They're incredible. Absolutely worth reading. They cover a lot lot more than the series, and in a very interesting way, switching between viewpoints of characters. Each chapter is a characters viewpoint and they merge in/out and overlap all over the place.
I also find that the books don't ruin the series, and vice versa, unlike lots of (most?) other book-to-TV adaptations. The series shows you all the cool action and key story points in a visually stunning way, but the books dive deep into individual stories and each location in a much more detailed and explanatory style. You really get a feel for the struggle of the Belters, the arrogance of Earth, Miller's emotional rollercoaster, etc.
Good to hear that the series might have been saved at the 11th hour
https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/26/the-expanse-amazon/
It has been confirmed by Bezos, and the word used was seasonS. S.
Best show on TV right now, and I include GoT in that list.
Try the audio books too. They're awesome.
I'm reading through them for the second time. Read them as they came out originally, but went through them pretty quickly. Now going slower and really absorbing it all because it's one of my favourite sci fi series ever (and I'm almost exclusively a sci fi reader).
Definitely worth reading the novellas. They add a LOT of details missing from the main books, such as Amos' background etc.
Amos' background is almost definitely coming up soon, they've hinted at it so much with the reporter stuff that's been happening. There's that part of the books that is like 'everybody splits off to go do their own thing for a bit' that I expect season 4 to cover.
I didn't realize that there was an entire series, and mistakenly started with book 5. I went back to the beginning and have read up to book 6 but am thinking of waiting before picking the series up again. I have been too caught up with the show!
Mount Analogue by Rene Daumal (again): a scientist writes an essay about a hypothetical mountain and a fellow scientist and mountaineer persuades him to climb it. Absurdist novel.
Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith. Exploring the evolution of intelligence by contrasting the human mind with the mind of cephalopods.
Currently reading:
-The Maltese Falcon
-The Light Fantastic
-Infinite Jest
Recently finished:
-The Colour of Magic
-The Pole Vault Championship of the Entire Universe
-The Mistborn Trilogy
I'm reading infinite jest too! It's quite the undertaking.
Yeah, I was trying to keep up with an Infinite Summer reading group, but I think I'm going to need to continue at my own pace. I might pick up a reading companion to help.
I liked The Maltese Falcon but preferred Raymond Chandler's novels more.
I would recommend them if you like the genre and haven't checked them out yet.
I'm actually not well-read in the genre. I'm writing a story that turned out to be a mystery, so I wanted to get more familiar with the conventions and style. I definitely appreciate the recommendation!
The Colour Of Magic was great. It was probably the first book that I ever read for pleasure and really loved.
I'm busy re-reading Discworld. Is this the first time you've read them?
I just finished Myth of the Maker, which was alright for a tie-in book. I just started Adrift.
I'm currently reading The Just City by Jo Walton. I'm not finished it yet, but so far it has been kind of tedious. There are parts where I feel like I'm reading about a really long and boring board meeting filled with conversations about starting sub-committees and who should be on those sub-committees. There's also philosophical discussions, but even those parts are dry.
I'm also reading Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Not too far into it yet, but am really enjoying it.
Same here. I've been doing:
Pretty fascinating stuff. Kind of been wanting some simple fiction but just haven't settled on anything.
Can you tell if 'Art of the deal' is worth reading? Cause I feel like the book is just full of filler content written so YouKnowWho can earn more money after the TV shows thanks to his publicity and so not caring about the content. :S does it have good info worth my / our time?
It was published in 1987, that's considerably older than The Apprentice - so while it may be yet another means of acquiring money, which Trump pursues voraciously, it is not really that it is built upon the fame and publicity from his show.
What I have read so far I have enjoyed. Everything that is in it matches with the way he conducts business so far as I have read and observed. I would say that even if you hate the guy, if you want to understand better how he thinks and operates, it's essential reading.
I'd say that if I were to summarize the essence of it (from what I have gotten through so far) it is that making deals is far far better than conflict, and that there are strategies that you can employ which greatly improve your chances for positive results in your deal-making career. It might not be the best book on deal-making strategy - I wouldn't be surprised if someone out there has put together an objectively more complete and succinct arrangement - but I would say that it is the book which symbolizes the new age we're in the beginning of as a species.
Come now, everyone knows it's "He Who Must Not Be Named". ;)
If you're looking for good fiction, try The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Wonderful story. It feels like a dream.
Thanks for the recommendation!
No problem!
The Ocean at the End of the Lane is fantastic. One of my favorite Gaiman books.
I'm amazed at people who can read multiple books at a time. The characters and plots all tend to get blended whenever I try it, so I stick to just one at a time.
I'm currently reading Rabbit, Run by John Updike. Next up on the list is The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin.
How is Rabbit, Run? I've only read one short story by Updike, years ago.
Overall it was good. It took me some time to get into it. I spent the first quarter of the book waffling between shelving it or continuing. I stuck it out. His writing is very crisp. I could almost picture everything in the book.
I just got Stephen King's new book, The Outsider. Would love to hear [spoiler free] thoughts from anyone else who's reading it!
Ooh, that's me! I'm listening to it now and it's definitely got me hooked. I'm a Stephen King fan, though, so take that with a grain of salt. :-|
I've been less interested in his crime novels, but this one has such a good premise. I'm hoping it turns a little supernatural because I love the helplessness of "oh no, how are we going to solve this problem now? " Though if it ends like Under the Dome, i'm going to feel a touch cheated.
What are you thinking about it so far??
After spending two years reading business management and leadership books, a change in circumstance gave me time to return to fiction.
English and Scottish Popular Ballads, collected by Francis James Child, is a fascinating look at the English language folk/fairytale tradition. It's amazing how many stories we tell today have ancient roots. Part of the fun (and sometimes frustration) is puzzling over the Middle and Old English spelling; "gode" for good, "wæs" for was, "seruyse" for service, etc.
The Maid of the North is a collection of feminist folktales, retold by Ethel Johnston Phillips. Great stuff if you're interested in stories where the girl is the hero.
I also just finished a re-reading of Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson. Some of the political themes are particularly prescient for modern times.
Currently reading Skin In The Game by Nassim Taleb and Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli.
Be carefule with Taleb, not everything works in a way he explains in financial systems
He has useful insights though. And economists seem to be the people that know the least about financial systems, since their most popular theory has the 2008 crash as a 25 sigma event.
Economists (and law makers) could learn a thing or two from reading about fat tail distributions and non-equilibruim theories. His concept of skin in the game is also something that's been applied for centuries and has only quite recently in history been removed.
Working with high name economists in the last 3 years and reading the articles, I would say that most of them know what the fat tail distribution is and what are the consequences since the 80s. Who are mostly not aware of these things is traders and lawmakers. He popularizes these concepts which is good even though he does not fully understand the math and the details of the theories. I would not go now into the debate about the total popular misunderstanding of the connection between 2008 crash and economics models.
I read his earlier books, most recently Antifragile. It had some good insights, I'm not a mathematician so some of that was over my head.
The Portable Atheist by Christopher Hitchens. It's a collection of poems and philosophical essays from the likes of Hobbes, Spinoza, etc.
I mostly read Sci-Fi, detective novels and IT related books.
To be honest, I don't "read" for fun anymore, I listen to audiobooks.
My latest favorite books are
Campbell, Steve - Hard Luck Hank series. Sci-Fi humor. REALLY great.
Hutchison, Barry J - Space Team (and Deadman Detective) series. Sci-Fi humor, also really great.
Forbes, MR - War Eternal series. Sci-Fi "time travel" war. Really good.
Various authors, HALO novels. Honest, of the thousands of books I've read/listened to, this is in my top 3 favorite universes and story lines. There's so much more than what's in the games.
Bartlett, Scott - Multiple series, Ixan Prophecies being the most recent.
Bible, Jake - Roak Galactic Bounty Hunter.
Campbell, Jack - Various series.
Dalzell, Joshua - Various series, Black Fleet most recently
Corey, James SA - The Expanse of course.
Green, Simon R - Ishmael Jones Mysteries. Paranormal detective series. Really any of this author's series.
Heppner, Vaughn - all of his books.
McGinnis, Mark Wayen - Scrapyard Ship and Star Watch ships.
Nutall, Christopher G - Various Sci-Fi series.
Webb, Nick - Various Sci-Fi series.
Weil, Raymond L - Various Sci-Fi series.
Have you read any of the Edgar Allen Poe detective novels? They are considered to be the first and the edifying novels in the detective fiction genre. Wondering what your opinion is.
I have. I really like them. They are definitely different in style and "feel" to other "detective" novels.
But I also like Stewart Woods' books, Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels, Perry Mason novels and John Sandford's books.
Interesting "showerthought", I realized a long time ago that almost all Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Paranormal books are detective stories with different wrappings.
I'm currently reading Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom, which is about how AI will affect humanity if and when it's developed in the near future. It's an extremely well thought out, researched and written book, I'd definitely recommend it if you are interested in AI.
Books I've read recently:
Books to read:
Oh, man, do I feel you there. For about a year now, I've been very slowly working my way through:
A lot of people are reading Discworld at the moment
I'm reading Sapiens now. I'm a little put off with his idealization of pre-history Homo Sapiens, particularly what sounds like envy of their simple lifestyle. That's a view that has been held off and on through history and always sounds Utopian to me. I didn't expect a current author to get back into that mode.
Another book I really liked dealing with history from an anthropology and philosophical viewpoint was Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright.
I'm currently reading House of Leaves and I'm waiting for The Book Thief and The Song Poet to be returned so I can start on those next.
I absolutely loved House of Leaves. It's been a long time since I read it and I keep meaning to give it a re-read.
I'm loving it so far. I was attracted to it because I heard about how strange it was formatted and released and it's definitely kept me interested!
Definitely, the format is a huge part of what makes it unique. I think it's the first time I've gotten literally lost in the pages of a book. That experience would be really hard to replicate on an e-reader.
Yeah... e-readers don't do it for me. I tried a lot of e-reader and e-pub books that my library would let you rent for (x time) based on how wanted it was and I can't stand not having real pages in my hands.
I'm reading this right now, too!
I should pick House of Leaves back up. It is... challenging. After the coded section (the one in the letters) I felt like a crazy person. It took several pages before I stopped trying to read normal words in code.
I generally listen to books rather than read them, and i tried to find House of Leaves in audio format for a long time but never could. Once I finally cracked the book open, it was clear why it could never be in audiobook format.
Reading Satya Nadella's book Hit Refresh right now. Almost finished. I have about 10 books (and growing) on my bookshelf to read next :)
Currently working my way through two series. The Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian and The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson.
The Aubrey-Maturin books are divine. They are filled with wit, humor, and adventure. Imagine if Jane Austen had written about the lives of a naval officer and landlubber naturalist at sea during the Napoleonic Wars. Stephen Maturin is probably my favorite character ever in any medium. I don't know that I've ever read a book with such complex and interesting characters. I'd recommend these books to anyone.
The Malazan books are a treat too, if you like epic fantasy. The writing is average, or just above, but the scope and imagination of the story and world is grander than anything I've ever experienced.
I really want to finish the Malazan series (left off on Reaper's Gale), but wow those books are fat. And I read slow, so one of them is something like a three month commitment for me. They're good but dense.
Lately, I haven't been feeling like reading anything complex. I've been looking for simple, fun, predictable books, with quality being a secondary requirement. So, to that end, I've been reading a bunch of LitRPGs. The most recent one I'm reading is Threadbare by Andrew Sieple, which is actually surprisingly good. Many LitRPGs basically read like a power fantasy crossed with a person reciting an MMO log, but that book managed to be fairly entertaining.
I just finished All The Ugly and Wonderful Things which isn't my normal type of read. I usually stick to non-fiction, specifically autobiographies and history. It was an interesting read and left me feeling quite conflicted to be honest.
I went from Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries, a giant Victorian-era novel set in gold-rush New Zealand, to the first two Murderbot Diaries novellas by Martha Wells.
The Luminaries started well for me but I got bogged down in the middle and finished it out of obligation. I must have missed something but I haven't done any reading to find out what that might be.
The Murderbot stories were quick and easy, which I needed. The other two novellas are due this year and I'm looking forward to them.
I've got the recent Questlove book, Creative Quest, on right now but I'm tempted to re-try The Three Body Problem instead because I've hopped into sci-fi mode. It didn't stick the first time I tried it.
I've been reading
I've been listening to The Malazan Book of the Fallen while working, it's been fantastic so far. The narrators do a great job at giving the characters life
I recently finished reading the Merchant Princes books by Charles Stross (at least the ones published so far). The first trilogy was so-so, especially compared to his Laundry Files series. But the book for the new trilogy is much better.
After that I started reading the Dresden Files. Currently about halfway into the second book. The character is ... sometimes annoying, but the books have been good so far.
Trying to read August 1914 by Solzhenitsyn . Bit of a slog so far to be honest. I love a lot of his other works, especially Cancer Ward, but this one has been real hard to get into.
I love Graeber's Debt by the way. An instant seminal text in modern anarchism. If you like that I'd also suggest reading Peter Gelderloos's recent book : Worshiping Power.
I just started The Professor and the Madman tonight and I have to say for a book about the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary it is pretty engaging so far. However, I just found out that a sequel to one of my favorite books of all time, Blue Blazes, was released a while back and I was completely unaware so I cannot wait to get into that.
I've been trying to get through Infinite Jest, but I'm not good enough at paying attention to read more than a few chapters at a time. It's a great--and INSANELY detailed (the footnotes have footnotes--) book so far, though.
I'm currently wading through:
House of Leaves
Snow Crash
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha
I have:
The Heart's Invisible Furies
A Short History of Nearly Everything -
Waiting next to my bed.
Snow Crash was awesome!
Currently reading The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. It's not exactly literary genius but it's a damn fun read.
I'm currently in the middle of Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor.
I'm really only a couple of chapters into it so I can't really comment on the book but I like Tom Clancy.
I had The Hunt for the Red October on my Kindle for probably years before I picked it up and actually read it last summer. Since then I've been reading them in order in between other books. I'm not really a "military" book kind of guy but I think the novels really appeal to my sense of '90s nostalgia.
I'm also guilty of reading many books in parallel. Currently I am in various states of reading:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have the omnibus, I'm just over halfway through now. Good comedy that deconstructs sci-fi tropes, but gets surprisingly philosophical at times.
The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern. It's part of the Jim Qwilleran detective novel series by Lilian Jackson Braun. I quite like the series. Short, snappy detective novels with charm and cats.
Dracula. Bram Stoker's seminal novel. Reading it for a writing project I'm working on. Can't say much more about the project, but the novel is great. Very rich characters, excellent setting.
Dragonflight. By Anne McCaffery, this is the beginning of the Pern series. Honestly I'm only in the first few pages but the series comes highly recommended by my family and the internet. More to come, I suppose?
Ethica, Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata. Philosophical treatise by Baruch Spinoza. Spinoza is credited as one of the foremost panpsychist philosophers, famous for his philosophical deconstructions of God and Nature. I'm reading it in the original Latin because I'm an insufferable arse.
Witcher games were a lot of fun, so I've started reading the Last Wish.
I just snagged myself a signed copy of Sanderson's newest Stormlight Archive novel.: Oathbringer
Similar price to the other hard covers at my local book store. I'm very happy.
I really enjoy his world building for this series. An entire planet experiencing devastating weather phenomena, giant insects instead of horses, etc.
Unfortunately I feel like Sanderson is getting a bit of a Stephen King Pop Culture reputation nowadays. Nothing wrong with that, but being known comes with its own troubles.
I've very much been enjoying the Stormlight Archives. The poor guy gets a lot of flack for taking on other projects (finishing Wheel of Time), but I get it. You can't just spend every waking moment writing this series. I'd be really disappointed if he ended up hate-writing it just to finish it so everyone leaves him alone rather than take his time and tell the story he wants to tell at his own pace.
I feel he finished up the WoT series rather well. That was a MONSTER undertaking, and he managed (in my opinon) to capture the feeling of the main characters fairly well. I particularly thought he got the tone of Matt right. Then again, maybe I'd followed the character so long I didn't really care any more how he was approached, I just wanted the story done with.
Sanderson did that well enough and I'll always appreciate that. WoT was my first real fantasy series.
I mean, when I start to explain Perrrin's story in the later books, the glazed over look people get on their face is totally understandable. Robert Jordan was covering way too much and Sanderson tied it all up in a way I didn't hate. Class act there.
If anyone ever wants to talk wheel of time, I'm here. There's precious few of us that read all of that.
I'm listening to the audiobook of Ready Player One.
Pretty funny.
I have that on audiobook too, I've been meaning to get around to listening to it. I take it your recommend it?
I recently finished Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It's a Sci-Fi book about slower-than-light interstellar travel, the collapse of human civilization, and first contact with non-human intelligent life.
Much of the story is told from the perspective of said non-human intelligences, and I thought that perspective was very well done by the author.
I'm also about to finish Empire in Black and Gold which is the first of a Fantasy Epic by the same author, but I haven't liked it nearly as much. I'll give the 2nd book in the series a shot before making up my mind though.
Working on a book, a serial, and another book that I've kind of forgotten.
The serial is a webseries called Pact, by Wildbow, the person who wrote Worm (which has been mentioned in this thread and is pretty popular). It's pretty good, enjoyable, but the format lehttps://pactwebserial.wordpress.comnds itself to… well, tv series-style cliffhangers. Take that as you might. The story is interesting, about a guy who inherits a house and with it the responsibility to become a practitioner in magic stuff, trying to do the right thing when you've inherited burdens.
Secondly My Bright Abyss, a prose-y book on belief, hurt, confusion, and, well, i'm not sure. I've read maybe a chapter and each paragraph has loads of stuff to think about which makes it hard to summarize.
Thirdly I'm "reading" The Master and Margarita, although I haven't touched that one in a while since I got busy. Entertaining, but I feel like I'm missing some context quite often.
I am nearly finished with Gene Wolfe's - Book of the New Sun
I have enjoyed the whole series so far, but I'm looking forward to reading some non fiction next. Maybe some economics, political theory or history, I have yet to decide. I saw Sapiens also mentioned in the thread and that has been recommended to me so I will look into that.
Until recently I was reading Terry Goodkind's The Sword of truth books. Then he ripped a poor artist apart for such a silly reason, that put me off his books to the point I couldn't get myself to pick up the book, I am 2 from finishing the series so it sucks. but I don't feel I'm missing much.
So currently reading "What the hell did I just read" by David Wong the 3rd book in the John dies at the end series. Like the previous two, it's nuts and amazing so far.
What did Terry Goodkind do? Honestly, those books were my middle school and high school.
I did also feel that the books were declining the further in you got. You aren't really missing a ton, in my opinion.
it was the cover for his latest book, he tore the artist apart saying things like "this book is fantastic but you won't see that from this cover, it utterly ruins the book" the artist tried to defend himself but it didn't really get far.
Each book seemed to be basically the same, it was disappointing in the end
Oh that's such a bummer. You'd think they'd have done more communication during the process, but I guess I don't know much about that stuff.
I thought the same, surely you would work with the artist so they can draw / paint / whatever your idea perfectly. But things happen, there was a huge post on r/books that's where I read it
Ohhh noo...I freaking love this series. I didn't hear about the drama between him and someone else. Dare I ask what it was about? I don't want it to sour my love for the series, but jerks are jerks.
To be fair after the first 10 books I began to lose interest little by little. I'm only on the Third Kingdom, but couldn't get it finished. If I picked it up again I would want to read from the beginning.
The artist didn't capture is idea, the cover produced looked amazing but unfortunately Terry didn't think so and went on Facebook or Twitter and ripped it apart.
The Third Kingdom is the book I've stopped at, each of the last few were basically the same. Same theme, same arcs, it all became too slow.
a little tangent, have you read Brent Weeks and Peter V Brett? those books have to be my all time favourites.
Ahh well that's lame. I think I am done with the series as a whole though. I would love to go back and read the first 10 books at some point in my life. They were some of the best I've read personally.
And no I haven't. I will have to check them out. I've been slacking in the reading department lately because work and life has been draining me, but I keep trying to make myself pick up reading again. Even if it's only a chapter or two a night I truly miss it.
Hopefully they are books you will enjoy, I need to do the same. Really just focus and actually get back into reading before I turn in and not just watching some TV show.
I hope so too. We have the same issue. Video streaming or games are what I end up doing before I go to sleep nowadays while up until I was out of highschool it was always reading.
when I was at uni I read a ton while on the train. then working nights helped a bit, just need to get back into it and be more aware that reading will help me switch off at night
Well good luck to you! Hopefully we can both get back into it.
thank you. and you too!
Recently finished Sapiens, recently started the collected works of HP Lovecraft. No regrets on both so far.
Lovecraft's stuff is a bit hit or miss, some pieces are definitely droll compared to others, but it's a worthwhile read. Great way to learn heavy prose and uncommon ways to describe stuff.
I've been reading Noumenon by Marina Lostetter. It's a series of vignettes about a colony of space ships that travels from earth in the near future thousands of years to a distant star that appears to have some man(alien) made substance or unique element around it. the ships population are all clones of the original few thousand something crew.
It reminds me a bit of Asimov, in that it comes off as hard sci-fi but focuses on human problems rather than the technical details.
Apparently a sequel is coming out later this year, which I'm pretty excited for.
In the last few months, I have gotten through:
I've been continuing to read primarily a lot of Stephen King. I found that I particularly like the "Bachman" books.
I just finished "Misery" and I absolutely loved it.
Reading a lot of manga and ffn. Sue me. Lol.
TBH I think the wish fulfilment is a large part of why I like ffn. Also it's just more content with characters I already have a vested interest in. Thoughts? read any?
I'm reading Dark Star by Ellis Amburn, it's a biography of Roy Orbison. In case you haven't heard of him, he was a rockabilly/blues singer back in the 50s + 60s. His music influenced a lot of people, from Elvis to Bruce Springsteen.
How is Artemis? I loved The Martian, when i saw Artemis in a bookstore i knew i had to read it.
Currently i'm reading End of the World Running Club. A story about a world after asteroids hit earth.
Unfortunately, not as good as the Martian. It feels like it was intentionally written in a potential movie adaption in his mind.
I have to agree with OP's sentiment on Artemis; I read it a while back, and, while it was decent, it wasn't anywhere near as good as the Martian.
I’ve beeen reading “The Moral Landscape” by Sam Harris. So far it’s been a really interesting read!
Without spoiling, does it relate to White Noise in any way? Honestly I got about a hundred pages into WN before I realized what DeLillo was doing. Have you read The Sellout by Paul Beatty? Some biting satire there.
White Noise doesn't relate to Underworld and the way they are written is different. Underworld is more serious in tone than WN, which I personally like.
I have never read The Sellout. What is it about?
It's a wicked satire about a Los Angeles black man and his life, starting with being raised by his father who was a single College Professor and used his son for research on black culture. The man, who is only referred to as Me, grows artisanal Marijuana and Watermelons in his neighborhood.
Halfway through Donna Tartt's first book The Little Friend. It's very good and very Mississippi based. It feels like she was trying to follow in the steps of Harper Lee. The protagonist is a young girl.
It feels like a first novel, which for Tartt is above a lot of other's first novels. Not as developed as either The Secret History or The Goldfinch but very engaging.
+1 working through Infinite Jest. I also usually have a couple architecture books I'm going through. I have a queue of a few things like the Martian waiting in the wings, but I know if I let myself get distracted from IJ I'll never pick it back up again.
I got about 3/4 of the way through John Dies at the End by David Wong and then put it down and haven't touched it in like a year, unfortunately. But, I will say it was a comedic sci-fi type book that I really enjoyed, whenever I was reading it.
I'm reading Dan Brown's Origin. I love his books because they're so easy to read yet keep my interest the whole time.
I've been reading the expanse series. I'm on book 4 and I'm thoroughly addicted. If you like sci fi/space at all this series is for you. Also there are two seasons on TV that just got picked up by Amazon for a 3rd season
The things they carried - Tim O'Brien
I am all over the place when it comes to reading. Right now I am working on Broken Angels, the sequel to Altered Carbon, before that it was Fire Season by Philip Connors. A couple months ago I was told about a book I might like, but that it was not in the typical setting for something cyberpunk/sci-fi. The book is When Gravity Falls by George Alec Effinger, and I was pleasantly surprised, it's worth checking out if you are into the genre.
Finishing up the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. By far, the most comprehensive and engrossing collection of accounts on Hitler's rise and demise. Excellent book. Highly recommend.