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What books are you reading right now?
I think I'm finally going to start on The Fatal Shore, but I was also hoping to read the Earthsea books again soon. What's everyone else working on right now?
I think I'm finally going to start on The Fatal Shore, but I was also hoping to read the Earthsea books again soon. What's everyone else working on right now?
Currently, I'm beginning to read Artemis by Andy Weir, the author of The Martian. It's about someone living on the only lunar city getting caught up in some sort of conspiracy or something? I'm not sure, I'm in chapter two, haha. However, if it's anything like The Martian with its wit, which it has been so far, then I'll love it.
The thing that most impressed me about Weir's writing in The Martian was his ability to accurately portray plausible human technology that would allow a person to exist in that sort of environment, along with concerns that would reasonably dominate the mission parameters surrounding it. I hope he's able to repeat the experience with Artemis because hard science fiction done well is so hard to come by.
If you're looking for more hard sci-fi and you haven't already read The Expanse, I highly recommend checking it out. The show is great, but the books are even better in my opinion. They do an amazing job of worldbuilding and a solid job of character development while sticking quite close to what is scientifically possible whenever such accuracy is possible (There're a few holes, such as the drive technology, which Scott Manley on YouTube made a cool video about).
I really like The Expanse's level of "hardness", where they keep it realistic but not restrictively so.
I read Artemis last year. IMO it's a decent read, but not as good as The Martian.
Quick question, is your username a reference to Star Trek TNG and the way Capt. Picard always asks the computer for his tea? "Tea, earl gray, hot" if you're unfamiliar and it's a coincidence.
Yes it is!
I'd be surprised if someone could come up with the name without knowing about TNG :P
Just starting The Plague by Albert Camus. I'm not sure what I'm going to get out if it, although using it to help me read the French version is a small plus
I picked up a copy of History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides a while back. Although I've never finished it, I find it fascinating how different the style of writing was in a time as long ago as ancient Greece. The translation I have is also ~100 years old, so the different style of English adds another cool (in my opinion) style to it.
The 100+ year old British translations of classical text usually annoy me more than help me understand the text. They typically take way too many liberties of their own to force the text to meet some meter they have decided it should meet, and they far too often sacrifice the writing style of the author to achieve it. Not to mention their Victorian insistence on removing anything that can be deemed "morally disreputable" in their time. So any lurid details that are in the original text that might be important to understanding events will be replaced instead with euphemisms that make no sense to a modern reader.
That said the translation of Thucydides I have is from 1954, so that's not much better.
I've read The Stranger, but that was back in my Sophomore year of high school (although as a recent high school grad, that isn't too far back). If I read it now, I think I would definitely have more insights on the book and absurdism but I still find it fascinating. What I do remember about it is how aimless the main character seemed, which led to a plot that seemed to be driven not by the main character but by the the world around him.
I just finished Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson and started Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman today.
Back to back cosmology books. 10/10 would do again.
I read Tyson’s book so fast. Then went on to American Gods.. I liked it. Planning on reading Anansi Boys soon.
I never got around to reading American Gods. Adding it to the summer reading list now. Thanks for the reminder.
The Mask of Masculinity by Lewis Howes
The writing isn't amazing, but you can see through it and the ideas behind it are intriguing. It's got some interesting takes on the idea behind masculinity in our culture, and some insights from people who exemplify different aspects that our culture admires, and how they disagree with that aspect.
The concept reminds me a lot of some books I was assigned in a History class in college last year, it was on Sex and Violence in the Old South and there were a few fascinating readings on masculinity, Honor and Slavery was an interesting one.
Could you dive into specifics more? What's one big idea behind masculinity in our culture?
What is it that makes you not be able to read fiction, if you don't mind me asking?
That makes perfect sense. I recently heard about Charles Stross' (of Accelerando fame) critique of the science fiction genre and wondered if it was connected.
I'm reading Three Dark Crowns as part of a book club thing at work. Never been much of a fantasy reader, but I'll give anything a try.
On my personal time, I've been reading The Recovering by Leslie Jamison. It's a mix of autobiographical + history of addiction (mainly of alcohol). Very interesting read, for anyone that's curious about that taboo topic.
I'm reading The Right Stuff by the late Tom Wolfe now, very interesting look into NASA and the space race in general. Would definitely recommend reading it to anyone interested in space travel or the history of the US, as Wolfe dives deeper into how the whole nation viewed astronauts and the space program at the time.
I love this style of journalism. I'm currently enjoying Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer, which combines so much history with a compelling fictional narrative. Wolfe is such a master at weaving in the personal, intimate narrative to the historical reality.
I’m about to start the new David Sedaris book (Calypso). I’ll probably do audiobook since I love listening to him read.
I didn't realize he'd put out a book recently, thanks for letting me know! Definitely need to grab that one.
Speaking of audiobooks, I got Bob Saget's recently and I'm really looking forward to listening to that one. I loved listening to Tina Fey read hers, and Bruce Campbell reading his. There's just something about actor/authors reading their own books that just has a fun feel to it!
I just recently finished both Ulysses and Look Homeward, Angel. Ulysses I'll admit was more out of a desire to have simply read the book, and having finished it I see why its consumption resides most often within the confines of academia. It's a very difficult read that requires hard scrutiny and study, but even so there were portions that were very much worth it to read, while others were dense and difficult slogs to get through.
Look Homeward, Angel I started reading because I had heard it tackles nostalgia and homesickness with grace. Overall I don't think it was exactly what I was looking for, but it had moments of genuine and passionate beauty. But man, Wolfe is a goddamn mouthful. Passages that could've been told in two pages took ten, and whole chapters could've easily been cut by 20%. Evidently F. Scott Fitzgerald worked to publish a longer, more experimental version of the novel which better captures the spirit of what Wolfe originally intended, but I'm not so certain how much I'd like to give it a try. Even so, I enjoyed the book when all is said and done. Enough so that I'm going to read its sequel, Of Time and the River at some point. But that's more than 1000 pages, so I'll come around to that later.
But to come off the slog of those two books I'm tackling To Kill a Mockingbird, as it's my mother's favorite book and I never had to read it in high school even though I wanted to. I figured a much more straightforward narrative will be a breath of fresh air over the headiness of the modernists.
I wish I had the patience for Ulysses, but I'm sure I don't. I tried Finnegan's Wake once, because it's fascinating, but it's so surreal and I legitimately needed to look up several words at the beginning of the book.
I'm not sure I'd have gotten through it in my free time. But it's a lot easier to get through it when you ride the train 40 minutes to work every day. It's definitely worth reading for its importance, but I wouldn't call it a fun read.
If you want a taste of Joyce without as much of the headache, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is his quintessential style while still retaining a modicum of traditional structure.
Thank you, I'll have to throw that on my to-read list!
I've tried to read Ulysses about four times now and haven't managed to get through it. What copy did you have of it? I had a copy with annotations that made it so much easier to read. May try pick it up from the library again.
Just a Project Gutenberg royalty free version I downloaded for my Kindle. I made it needlessly as difficult as possible to get through the book... No endnotes, intro, or footnotes. On one hand it destroyed any kind of context, but on the other it was less distracting and forced me into a rhythm of just experiencing the prose as written without forcing myself to wrap my mind around all of it. It's a book you either have to read through multiple times or else study each chapter exhaustively over a week if you really want to understand it thoroughly.
I think there's something to be said for just diving into his writing, though. In the end this book was published to be read without any pretense, so might as well read it the same way anyone would have when it was first put on the shelves.
Wolfe is very wordy. I first read Look Homeward, Angel because my mom bought me that when I requested a nice copy of a Tom Wolfe book for Christmas. It was a happy coincidence, because I really enjoyed the book. I agree -- it could have been more concise. Many years later, the thing I love and remember the most about the novel was how he captured the character of the older brother through the letters that he sent home. Wolfe somehow captured this hilariously stuck-up letter-writting style in a way that stuck with me. The example that comes to mind immediately was when the brother writes "Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth" in one of his letters in reference to some (as i remember it) trivial difficulty he was enduring in his life. I looked that line up and found it was a famous poem... I don't have any great insight into it but I thought it was hilarious and I know have that phrase tattooed. I also laugh to myself every time I put a phrase in quotes in an email. :)
Yeah, I think what Wolfe really captured were the vicissitudes of growing up among a somewhat dysfunctional family in a small town and the yearning that comes to see the world while suffering the heartache of leaving behind what you've grown to know and love. The passage in particular where Gant returns to Altamont from California is particularly powerful and has stuck with me since I read it.
On The Road by Jack Kerouac. Feel like it's the perfect time of my life to read it. I'm about halfway through and loving it!
I encourage you to read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley after you're done with 1984 if you haven't before. Two different ideas about a dystopian world but both very, very relevant today.
I've been listening to The Dresden Files series audio book and I highly recommend. I think there's like 13 books in the series and it is damn good.
16* and we're waiting on the 17th to be finished. How far in are you?
Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today - by John Spong
My wife was raised conservative christian and is just starting the exciting journey of questioning all of it. So we're reading it together. So far the author's beliefs seem to line up closely with mine. So I'm enjoying it too, though I'm much more solid in what I believe :)
I am reading:
So far I've liked Don DeLillo's style. I read White Noise and I am amazed by the amount of depth that Don DeLillo was able to achieve with that book. Based on what I have read, many people recommend to read them in that order due to the fact that many don't like his style.
I can't vouch for White Noise, but it would make sense to me. I tried reading Underworld, but I found myself quite annoyed with how he was trying to structure the book. It's a lot of words and a fancy time-structure for a pretty simple plot and I'm just not sold on the central mystery the book is trying to get me interested in (I grew up around baseball, but I'm not old enough to care about things like listening to a team's performance on the radio). And I have no reason to care about the central protagonist, who gets introduced in the second scene rather than the much more interesting first.
I agree with you, the way he writes his books makes it seem like he is overcomplicating the reading experience in a way that is unnecessary. However, I think that is one of the points he wants to make. A friend of mine told me that the main reason why you want to read Don DeLillo is to force yourself to question your own culture and way of seeing the world.
I totally get that, and that argument was (combined with it being incredibly popular in Obama's advisors' circles) the main reason why I tried to pick up Underworld. But I'm not going to wade through 1000 pages of annoying mediocrity to get to the point about American culture that gets me to rethink something I might have already rethought before reading this book (skepticism and analysis of American culture is something I try to keep up on a regular basis).
Hopefully your experience is better.
Well, I suppose that enjoying Don Delillo's books depends purely on the perspective of the reader about the plot (influenced by the personal experience of the reader, as to be expected). Although this argument is completely hypothetical, I supposed you do not get as much from reading Don Delillo as I do due to the fact that you might have grown in a time/place that makes Don Delillo's "teachings", or critiques, redundant to your personal experience. What has been your favorite book in terms of being able to see the world in a new light?
That's a lovely and dangerous question, and I think you might be right that I am simply in the wrong place to appreciate DeLillo. Certainly what is world rending to one person can be just an essential truth to another.
So my favorite world-rending literature that I can think of right now (in no particular order):
Edit - Oh, thought of two more.
Welp, you just made my reading list significantly longer. I have been trying to make reading a habit again, and the kind of books that you listed are the kind of books I am interested in. The books that you mentioned after the edit seem to be, based on your descriptions, the kind of books relevant enough to make them mandatory readings.
The book Enemy of the People sounds fascinating, could you elaborate in which ways it talks about democracy?
I have never watched nor read The Black Swam. Do you think the movie achieves the same level of depth as the book?
I'm glad (and sorry) to help!
A couple things: Enemy of the People is a play by Henrik Ibsen that I have in a larger collection (which is why I put it in quotes even though I probably should be italicizing it). It is about a doctor who finds scientific evidence that the local corporation is poisoning the water, and his attempt to get the people in the town to grapple with his findings. Given what I've said about how it impacted, you can probably guess it isn't a happy tale.
Second, The Black Swan has nothing to do with the movie. It is a non-fiction book about human thought (namely, the insistence that there could be nothing so preposterous as a black swan, until we found one). The movie is fine and lovely, but quite distinct. Taleb is brilliant but a bit of an asshole, and so the first half of the book is a wild ride, while the second half is kind of him just showing off. Unfortunately, it's one of those books that could have benefited most by just being a great essay, but the guy wants to make money so ...
The way you are describing Enemy of the People reminds me of Clair Cameron Patterson. He discovered that the lead in gasoline could cause lead poisoning and fought to create new regulations.
Anyone have advice on finishing books? I was reading a book called Of Wind and Sand by Sylvie Bérard and it was really really interesting (I liked it's scifi take on racial tension and colonization) but for some reason I just couldn't pick it back up after putting it down when I was distracted by other life shit. So I moved on to the first book of The Expanse series, Leviathan Wakes, which was also really interesting but alas I ended up not finishing it. I think I'm at the climax of that book? I also do this with a lot of video games too oddly enough. I for the life of me can't finish the main quest in Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, and The Last of Us. Just wonder if anyone has insight into this sort of behavior.
Someone once told me to read what excites you. If you can't get yourself to finish books, keep exploring other genres.
If you're really adamant on finishing a book, maybe you can schedule in reading time into your week to ensure that you will make progress.
Everyone is different, but I think one big thing is progress. Life shit kills progress, and you give up. So don’t let life shit completely kill progress. Give yourself the leeway to read only one page before bed sometimes. It’s ok. Not every reading session is glorious. Just keep making that progress and stay with it. Also, probably only reading one book at a time.
Halting State by Charles Stross
It's good fun.
I've read his Laundry Files series, which I really like. Is that one similar?
I honestly don't know.
This is the first book of his that I've read.
I'll have to put it on my list.
I only picked it up because I stumbled across his reddit account where he was talking (albeit vaguely) about stuff he was working on, so I got the first title of his I saw from the library.
I'd recommend the Laundry Files. It's about the British civil service tasked with dealing with Lovecraftian horrors, magic, etc. Lots of good dry humor and office drudgery.
I just finished Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky and it was amazing. It's about a bunch of Russians living in the metro train system after the surface was nuked. So much more character than the games, which were also pretty good. I'll probably start Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson next, since I've heard good things about it.
I read Snow Crash for the first time when I was working at a pizza restaurant. During lunch, I worked in a basement room answering phones. Someone had left that book down there and I started reading it during my shifts and eventually took it home and devoured it. So glad someone left it there for me to find! I have absolutely loved reading other Stephenson books since. Educational, historical, vocab-enhancing, and hilarious! :)
I'm currently reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. in the book he recently had a child and realized he wasn't sure if he wanted to raise his kid as a vegan or not so he decided to thoroughly research the matter and factor in the cultural value of food, especially as he is the son Jewish immigrants and food is tied to culture. it's brutal and shocking but very thoughtful and fair. it's made me think a lot about the dietary choices I make and why I make them.
oh dude, yes! there's the bit where he discusses the Omnivore's Dilemma and he makes a really solid argument about it: it's easier to just be a vegetarian than to try to eat meat ethically, especially in social settings. there's nothing wrong necessarily with being an ethical meat eater but it's logistically far more difficult.
I just got Dune from the library. In no way will I be able to read it in the 2 weeks (11 days now been a busy few days) but I am really interested in it though I don't know much about it. Does anybody have any thoughts on it?
Oh man. Dune is probably the most impactful science fiction novel ever. Its so iconic that not a lot that's come after even tries to imitate (rare in the genre). But it is a slow burn at the beginning, so set aside some time to get through the first bit. If you've only got two weeks, I'd suggest focusing most of your games/TV/movies/music time to it. Get ensorcelled.
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett right now. I've been picking up reading a lot more recently, been getting the girl I'm seeing into Discworld and I've gotten the bug to go back through and read them again. So far she's read Equal Rites and Monstrous Regiment, I think next I'm going to suggest Guards! Guards! to get her on the City Watch stories.
I also recently finished up the Fifth Season series by NK Jemisin, I really liked the world she built but I think the final book was a little disappointing.
I'm supposed to start reading The Emperor's Beard: Dom Pedro II and His Tropical Monarchy in Brazil by brazilian historian Lilia Moritz Schwarcz. It's a very dense book, so I have been thinking about reading a few chapters and posting my understanding of them. I'll try something like that in /r/brasil, and might share here too.
I have 3 books on loan from the library at the moment:
Serial Killers - Butchers and Cannibals
Dawn of the Dead
Ian Irvine's Vengeance.
Actually reading Dawn of the Dead. Pretty good so far
I'm currently re-reading the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, mostly because of his AMA on reddit a while back where he mentioned a fifth book and partially because I wanted to read the scene in Brisingr where Rhunon forges Eragon's sword again. If you haven't read those, they're absolutely worth the time.
When I've finished those, I'm planning to read Stephen King's Dark Tower series on the high recommendation of a few of my friends.
Oh man, I should really re-read the Inheritance Cycle. Trouble is the books are so big I can't take them out anywhere!
I've been reading All Souls Rising by Madison Smart Bell. I picked it up on the end of my rather tepid affair learning about the Haitian revolution, and goddamn it doesn't really pull punches. What was already an extraordinarily bloody and violent affair is made more real by this admittedly highly speculative historical fiction (much of the plot revolves around the rise and fall of Toussaint Louverture).
I'm reading:
I was going to get back into reading for pleasure once I'd graduated and no longer had academic papers and textbooks to wade through, but I haven't quite restarted the habit yet.
I am about a third of the way through "The Happiness Trap." It's definitely not something I'd have picked up if my therapist hadn't recommended it, because it definitely gives off "self-help" vibes. I need to get better at putting it into practice, and I don't know if ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) will work for everything, but it's pretty informative so far. Just the idea that maybe I don't have to suppress negative thoughts or replace them with positive ones is helpful.
I've finally started to read A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
I'm currently listening to the audiobook of Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey, its the 1st book in the series 'The Expanse' show is based on and it's really really good
The first book is so engaging, and I’m only ten or so chapters into it
How do you enjoy the pacing compared to the show up to where you are in the book?
unfortunately im only like 5 chapters in but so far it's slower but for the better. When I read the book after watching the show/movie i want it to be slower to get more detail
That’s about how far along I am at this point.
I appreciate the pacing now, and I would be curious what you think of it after 10 or so chapters down the road.
I'm on the third book right now. It's my first real Sci fi series other than like Animorphs.
I like it, but I don't find myself itching to read it the way I do with other series/genres. Not entirely sure why, whether it's the genre or just this particular series.
Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright and Aftermath: Start Wars Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens by Chuck Wendig.
I am reading Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer. Love it! such a great mix of history and fiction. Something that I've loved about Mailer and James Ellroy.
I just started working on “The Path of Heaven” by Chris Wraight. I’m a big fan of the 40k universe and I’ve recently gotten on a White Scars kick.
I’m not a big fan of the extensive focus on the Emperor’s Children thus far, but I’m optimistic. The White Scars are one of the only Codex Compliant legions I really enjoy reading about anymore.
"The Archaic Revival" by Terence McKenna. He has so many interesting (if not slightly out there) insights on humanity and the role psychoactive bl substances have played into the evolution of humans. Mostly about how things like psilocybin open us up to a Jungian collective consciousness that helps people relate and understand one another. Beyond that message, he is a pretty amazing wordsmith!
I just recently started my latest reread of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. It's a fairly well known fantasy series that gets a lot of flak for the slow pacing of the middle few books, but I find the world and story incredibly immersive.
I lost steam during book 10 and always keep telling myself to go back and finish but I haven't yet found the effort to go through the tor re-read to the point I stopped and finish off 11-13. Maybe later this year
I could never make it past the first book. It took me so long to trudge through. I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn't get into it.
That's kind of how I feel when I try to read the Malazan books. I hear that they're incredible, but I've never been able to get past the first book.
I just finished Ritualist by Dakota Krout and am currently reading through Hemlock by Jesse Teller
Hemlock is pretty good so far, and I loved Ritualist like I love all the other mediocre gamelit fantasy Ive read
Just finished Paul Beatty's The Sellout, which I loved, and now am reading the latest from Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind.
I'm wrapping up How to Change Your Mind right now, it's been a really interesting read. I especially enjoyed the look at the history of psychedelic research -- I was aware of some of it, but didn't really grasp just how widespread and mainstream it once was.
Currently reading Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia, Inc.). Really interesting read on business and management philosophy.
Just started Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson. Pretty good so far.
I just finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. It's the second time I've read it, which is an endorsement in itself, as I rarely find myself wanting to do such a thing. It's very sci-fi, and it understands that the best sci-fi is really about people.
Edit: And it's not a recent read for me, but I also have to wholeheartedly suggest The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North, which is the best book I've read in the past ten years.
The most recent book I've read was one with a misleading name. It's called Meet Me in the Bathroom, but it's not a romance novel like the title may imply. It effortlessly flows with passages from interviews of a bunch of people who were involved in New York's rock scene in the 2000s.
I want to start reading A Song of Ice and Fire, but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to get through before the next season of the show starts.
I'm reading The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.
Very different than what I expected. Was thinking it would be more like The Invention of Nature with more of a fictional twist. Enjoyable though! Was recommended by the Sawbones podcast.
I just finished Tomorrowland: Our Staggering Journey from Science Fiction to Science Fact last night. Amazing and eye-opening book. Makes me want to push my kids into biology :|
Re-reading two eternal favourites: Infinite Jest, and making my way through all the Sherlock Holmes stories.
IJ: can’t even really be described to anyone who hasn’t read it. But I know I would not have made it through university without that book/ finding DFW at the right time.
Sherlock Holmes, god. These stories are so dumb and sloppy and inconsistent and I love them absolutely unconditionally.
Currently reading two books:
First one is "The Worldly Philosophers" by Robert L. Heilbroner. It's a fairly brief history of classical economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and Marx. It also goes into later ones such as Keynes. It outlines their thought as well but the way I'm describing it is doing it a disservice, the real cool part is the way he outlines the historical context that creates the theory these men conjure. It's written so smoothly and the introduction alone makes it a worthy pickup for anyone interested in economics.
The second one is "What About Me?: The Struggle For Identity in a Marketbased Society" by Paul Verhaeghe. Verhaeghe uses psychoanalysis as a tool to understand how recent social change has led to what he referred to as new psychic crisis of loneliness, depression, and loss of identity. The introductory chapter, like the other book, is an excellent read and it delves into how identity is not solely an individual genetic predispositon but is created from everything around you and even is coalescing into something symbolic before you're born.
12 Rules For Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Dr Jordan B Peterson
Reamde, by Neal Stephenson. It is my second time reading it, and it is about hackers, hit squads, and MMORPGs, in the confines of a world much like our own.
It begins with a beautifully imagined game, and then uses it to delve into the very non-videogame world of covert deals, hidden code, viruses, ransom money, and spycraft. It is one of my all time favorite novels, and I think that it does a wonderful job of appealing to both the tech-savvy, and the action based crowds.
Highly recommend for anyone looking for a new book to read. It is mainly set in the Pacific North West (Canada and the USA) but it also spends a lot of time in China, with people (legally in this world) farming characters to sell for real world money. It does a great job of bringing up interesting topics of online currency, story writing, business management, and a lot of other topics too.
I’m currently reading The History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. Just looking to get a more historically tied view of different philosophers and what impacted them.
Am halfway in Hitchhiker's Guide. Finally had to read it after hearing so much. It's genuinely super funny and good.