Hello Everyone!
What are you all reading?
I am currently going through a re-read of Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Currently on 2nd book, Fool Moon.
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I just finished Project Hail Mary. A wonderful and fun read. Highly recommend if you like science fiction.
I found it to be one of the most engrossing and wholesome books that I’ve read in years!
I just got it during my latest book shopping! Going to read it soon.
As you should. It was very interesting.
Just read an erotic romance, Heart of the Mountain by Snek Guy. It is about a mercenary going up a mountain to slay a dragon and take her hoard of gold. Things don’t go quite as he planned. It was well written, but a bit too much smut for my taste. I wrote a bit more here.
Just started the My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror series.
Is “My Best Friend is an Eldritch Horror” available as a web novel somewhere?
It was originally published on Royal Road, but has since been moved to Amazon.
Ah, okay. Thanks for the info!
The Wheel of Time
What do you think of it? It’s on my list to try and read before the end of the year.
I watched the first 5 or so episodes of the Prime show a while ago and was interested but it didn’t keep me hooked.
I watched s1 and thought it was ok. A little too teen angsty for me, but the introduction to the universe was enough to get me to start the 1st book. A year and a half later, and 14 books in ( I’m halfway through the very last one) and I’m absolutely floored.
The whole series is nothing short of epic; the world building, magic system, character arcs, the story. One of my favorite reads so far, and certainly my most favorite in the fantasy genre.
It’s a great series, but like many such stories, some of the books in the middle are a bit of a slog, but still a great series overall.
It’s one of my favourite series, and probably one of my most re-read one. Maybe because it was one of the first epic fantasy of such huge proportions that I ever read.
It has been a long time since I read it last. Just not sure I have the time to start 14-book series these days. Maybe some day…
Bit late to the party, but I just started reading the Final Empire, Mistborn series #1. Only a few chapters in, but I’m enjoying it so far!
I’m almost done with Mistborn! Hope you enjoy
Ah, great series. Have you read any other of Brandon Sanderson’s work? Or is this your first?
My first. I have Way of Kings on hold at my library, so certainly not my last haha.
Welcome to the club!
I’ve read maybe 3 books all the way through in my entire life. My girlfriend has been trying to get me to read before bed and on the recommendation of some discord friends I purchased Infinite Jest and am a quarter of the way through it. It’s been a jarring book with the tonal shifts and the way it rapid fires between characters and settings, but I’ve absolutely loved some of the perspectives and dialog that DFW creates. If anyone else is a fan, I’d love more recommendations in the same vein, specifically the type of warped humor and how it stems from the human condition.
I haven’t read Infinite Jest, so can’t recommend anything like that, but keep visiting these posts, I am sure you’ll be able to find something you like.
Or you can create a separate post, asking for recommendations, it should get you more visibility.
I just started City of Refuge by Tom Piazza. It’s a fictional account of two families in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina. I’m only 12% in but so far I’m impressed by how real I feel like the pov characters are.
Also reading Lichtenbergianism by Dale Lyles. It’s about using procrastination as a creative strategy. 30% in, and juries out on whether I’ll find anything helpful in it.
procrastination as a creative strategy
I want this. I like procrastinating! Share your opinions about finishing it.
City of Refuge looks like an interesting book. Going to check it out.
I got more inspiration from the Lichtenbergian book than new information. Among other things, it made me start a kanban for my personal projects and now I have less anxiety over how much I need to do and in what order. If you’d like, I’m happy to mail you my copy, since I’m unlikely to read it again.
Currently Reading:
The Iron Heel, by Jack London
Basically one of the first major political dystopias written in the modern sense. It’s super cool too, basically the book is an old manuscript about an attempted socialist revolution, before the world was taken over by oligarchic tyrannical capitalists. There’s basically two stories being told, one in the socialist narrative itself occurring in the past, and one in the footnotes, showing glimmers of some of the capitalist horrors in the “present time”. Super neat way to tell a story, and I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s super heavy handed, and I would maybe call it similar to a socialist version of an Ayn Rand dystopia, like Anthem, but you know… Actually good. And thematically opposite to any coherent thought Ayn Rand tried to impart onto her readers.
Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World, by Henry Grabar
Not too far into this one, but it’s a non-fiction book about parking policy, and how parking has basically ruined American cities over the last 70 years. I’ve been really getting into city planning books lately, so we’ll see how much I like this one. Some pretty eye opening statistics so far, and the writing style seems fine.
DNF’d recently:
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau
Jesus this dude is insufferable. I read a lot of dense stuff, and have read many authors that like the sound of their own voice, but Thoreau takes the cake. Preaches self-reliance and disparages philanthropy but squats on his buddies land and lives off of gifts from friends, while doing absolutely nothing and providing no value to society. The guy just exudes a “holier than thou” attitude throughout the whole book, with absolutely nothing to back it up. I quit after 100 pages of this absolute joke contradicting himself the entire time. He would occasionally stumble upon some brilliance that I found a bit insightful, but it was few and far between, and the 98% of the rest was pure, unadulterated garbage. I really haven’t had this negative of a reaction to something I’ve read for quite some time, I generally like everything I read. Maybe I’m just too simple to understand his self proclaimed brilliance.
Interesting list of books. Not the kind of thing I usually read, but The Iron Heel looks to be an interesting book. I would also be interested in hearing what you thought about Paved Paradise once you are done with it.
As for Walden, if you didn’t know anything about Thoreau and his life, would you still think the same about the book? I am just wondering if it’s the contradiction between his life (which I know nothing about) and his work that turned you off.
Honestly I noticed the contradiction first, then looked up his life as I got progressively more and more annoyed with him. The first time I noticed it was when he talked about the benefits of solitude, and denigrating people who felt loneliness. Then, not much later, he mentioned his “solitary location” is a measly 2 MILES from a town, and a railroad goes right by him. He literally hears the train whistle every day, and seems trains and train riders all the time, while acting like he’s in solitude Alaska or something. He also mentions that people visit him almost every day. Of course you don’t get lonely you idiot.
Basically I noticed some contradictions in his writing, and his tone was just so insufferable so I started looking up things to learn more about him. The more I learned, the more I realized I just hate this guy.
Heh. Well, at least he made you learn you something new, even though it was just hate for the guy himself. 😃
Thanks for the details.
re-reading the Malazan, Book of the Fallen. Currently on Toll the Hounds. I’m enjoying the re-read.
One of these days, I need to finally start reading Malazan series. Maybe time to start collecting the whole series.
Have you also read all the novellas, prequels, sequels, and malazan empire series?
📖 Les Furtifs by Alain Damasio
and
📖 Mathematica by David Bessis
Les Furtifs looks interesting, from what I could glean. Is it available in English?
And Mathematica is just a Mathematics book, right?
I do not think that Les Furtifs is available in English yet…
As for Mathematica, yes it is about the Mathematic however at a personal development level. David Bessis tries to explain that people’s brain is compatible with the mathenathic. Some people wrongly think that they are bad at this because nobody taught them how to do. For him abstraction is something that need to be trained. An example is that each one of us can easily imagine (to watch in our head) a perfect circle even if it does not exist in our reality. The author explains that to do Math is to learn to fail, to make mistakes, to correct our intuition.
That’s very interesting. Thanks for the info!
House of Leaves. It’s sick. Anyone got other books that go off the rails like that?
The Sword Defiant by Gareth Hanrahan. It’s enjoyable.
I really wish he’d describe scenes visually, but it’s character driven and he does a good job with their internal lives.
I used to skip all the visual descriptions, didn’t care much about them (also, didn’t understood half of the words used to explain the appearance of things or people). I have started to pay attention to them now, but I would probably still like a book that doesn’t worry about these too much.
Is it a series? Or a single book?
There’s definitely a balance to be struck with descriptions. Too little beats too much, IMO, but I appreciate a little food for my imagination.
It’s the first book in a series (I think). It’s epic fantasy, but it’s set in the Happily Ever After. The protagonist is part of the motley crew that defeated the big bad twenty years earlier.
His previous series (Black Iron Legacy) was a lot of fun. Of recommend them both.
Sounds interesting, going to check them out. Thanks!
I’m about two thirds of the way through Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane. And I finished The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore today.
I don’t think Lehane ever really misses. His plots aren’t usually all that dense but the characters are deep and compelling. And the writing is way better than it seems like it should be. Every once in a while you I read a line and think, “Where did that come from, and how did it get here?” He’s a really talented writer.
Moore is not that. But he’s fun and entertaining. This book was not his best effort. But it was fine. If you like Moore, you’ll like this one we’ll enough.
Moore is on my to-read list, will get some of his work one of these days.
Didn’t know about Lehane, just looked him up, he has written some good books. Well, at least the movies based on his books were pretty good 😀 Will check out his work.
BTW this is probably one of the only two (or maybe three) non fantasy/sci-fi book mentioned in this post. It’s interesting to see that majority of people here are speculative fiction fan.
A web book, the wandering inn by pirateaba
This looks interesting. Are you fully caught up? Or are somewhere in the middle?
I’m currently in the end of book 7 so still got a lot to read.I’ve been reading it several hours per day since March! So it is a lot of text but I like those kind of big books/series
Nice. I am taking a break from web novels, it effects my other books, but adding it to my list, for when I get back to them.
Iron Gold by Pierce Brown.
I had a really hard time with Iron Gold. So much so that I couldn’t finish it. I keep meaning to go back to it and try again, but I haven’t yet.
Have you read the previous Red Rising series? And what didn’t you like about Iron Gold?
I have, and I really enjoyed them. I have to talk about a major event in the story, so for those who haven’t read and want to collapse this comment, this is your spoiler warning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SPOILERS BELOW
This is a little vague since it’s been awhile.
I got really upset when Darrow was going totalitarian and fighting with his wife (can’t remember her name) and wanted to eradicate the last of the gold resistance to the new order they had established. When they had the fight amongst themselves and Darrow killed one of his friends (also can’t remember his name) and then fled, that was just really hard for me to take in.
Objectively it makes sense that it happened. It just really hit me hard. Maybe because of this political climate we’re living in. At the time, I just couldn’t finish it. I want to, but I don’t know if I’m in the right headspace to be able to.
Ah, a sequel series to Red Rising. I have heard of that, but never got around to read it. How is the series?
I recently finished the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Wonderful books. I read it in order of subseries which is a good way to get into the books, but it does make it a bitt jarring when going back to the first books, before Pterry really found his stride. Once I get around to a reread I think I’ll do it chronologically.
As a change of pace i continued with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Something of a whiplash change from Discworld and a it got me a bit too amped when reading right before bed. Still a very fun and interesting read.
Now onto SAS: Rogue Heroes, which i started earlier but have yet to finish.
I have read about a quarter of Discworld novels, wanted to read them all in released order, but couldn’t find many books. I plan to start the re-read again once I have found some of the remaining books.
The books are very much worth rereading. The layers of jokes and references are so deep that you likely won’t catch all on the first or second reads.
I can recommend The Annotated Pratchett File, https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/, for an in depth review of a lot of jokes and references. It explains a lot of things that are hard to catch if you haven’t grown up in England. Many things i thought Pterry had made up for the Disc is just references to real world things and events.
Wow, just took a quick peek at the that, and it’s really detailed. Bookmarked the page and downloaded a copy. Will check it after reading each book.
Sadly i’ve just discovered that from Going Postal and onwards there are no annotations. Seems the project never finished with all the books :/
