Had a pretty busy work week, hardly got time to read anything. So still on The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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Fahrenheit 451 :3… there was a sale on books at my grocery store yesterday, and that one seemed to be topical to current events
Get it before it’s gone!
Have you read any of the other dystopian classics, like 1984 & Brave New World?
I’ve read a decent chunk of them :3… don’t think I did brave new world tho
What a good idea, a classic I never read yet. Will get it next.
The Kaiju Preservation Society. Really light, fun read.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765389138/thekaijupreservationsociety/
I am incredibly jealous you are reading this for the first time. It was my first Scalzi read and I loved it.
Scalzi was hired to reboot a classic sci-fi series. His book was “Fuzzy Nation”, but the OG book “Little Fuzzy” should be read by everyone!
I’ve read Fuzzy Nation and it was great too. I’ve enjoyed all of Scalzi’s books. I have a copy of The Complete Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper that I found at a thrift store after I read Fuzzy Nation. I haven’t read it yet, but it is on the ever expanding TBR
Little Fuzzy is totally worth it and you can probably blow through it in 2 hours.
Free and easy! Thank you! So begins my evening.
Same here, have Old Man’s War lined up next.
“The Andromeda Strain” on my phone to pass time and “The Bear and the Dragon” on my Kobo.
Is it weird to read two books at the same time lol?
Loooooove The Andromeda Strain!
Such a great book, both the story and the fragmentary structure of it. Got a paper copy somewhere, must read that again soon.
EDIT - found it 😁
It depends on the setting your are listening to and reading the books. I listen to audio books on my daily commute.
So if you are listening to one book for the soul sucking drive and another to relax at the end of the day…
That’s kind of what I’m doing now that you made me think about it. One book is usually a light read that is easy to hop in and out of and the other is usually more intensive. The light reads are for killing time and the heavier ones I read before bed.
Just two? Those are rookie numbers.
theorychapter above is also binge reading Crichton. It’s weird, sometimes you don’t hear a name for quite a while and then suddenly multiple people are reading them. 😀
The Andromeda Strain was my first Crichton book, loved it.
I haven’t posted in some time and while I did read some books in the interim, right now I’m back to reading The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. I’m now on the seventh book, A Crown of Swords. People say this is where the series becomes a “slog” for some books. We’ll see. I was already frustrated with the last book, since Jordan seems to be a bit too enamored with his own writing and progress is glacial.
Yeah, books 7-10 can be a bit of a slog, haven’t read them in quite a while though.
44% through War and Peace…stuck in the wolf hunt, going very slowly…
I just finished Eye of the World by Robert Jordan about two weeks back.
Been slowly working my way through Great Hunt (next in the Wheel of Time) but haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to it recently.
It’s good so far. It’s definitely hooked me more than the first book.
I started listening to Stephen King’s IT.
I have read and listened a number of his books, but never IT. I am only three chapters into to it and so far It is King at the top of his game.
There is something… cozy?.. about reading IT. Not because there is anything cozy about the story, but there is something about his stream-of-consciousness writing style and approach to horror that satisfies, but only if you’re into that style of narration, and it’s one of those books you have to be content to hang out with, cause you’re gonna spend a long time with it.
and it’s one of those books you have to be content to hang out with, cause you’re gonna spend a long time with it.
Absolutely. When it was published King was the reigning king oh horror
Just got James by Percival Everett. Been looking forward to it for a while, plan to start reading it this weekend.
I did the audiobook and really enjoyed it
Radical: The Science, Culture, and History of Breast Cancer in America.
My best friend was recently diagnosed with breast cancer (very treatable and likely curable), and we both have the type of personality where it helps to deep dive/learn a lot about scary stuff. I picked out a few books for us to nerd out together on, and this is the first one. It’s super good so far, as frustrating as some of the aspects of the US healthcare system are.
Good luck to your friend, hope things work out well 🤞
All the best to you and your friend.
Hope she gets well soon!
Why did I have to see this post now?
Three books:
Righteous Victims by Benny Morris, the detestable Zionist who laughs about starving children. It’s very weird reading about Israel’s historical atrocities throughout this book given the author’s recent behavior.
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. About a quarter of the way in, and this book is strange. It has not proven its legacy to me yet, despite the descriptive writing and impressively gritty plot.
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. Some of these poems make me cry. That is remarkable.
Just wrapped up Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. The book is better than the movie, and I enjoyed the commentary.
Try looking again in umm… 48 hours or so…
Still on “Rama II”, it’s also been busy. Not much progress since last week.
I know the feeling. Have been on same book for last 2-3 weeks, and it’s a Sanderson book which I generally glide through.
Currently I’m on holiday, and I haven’t read a word in the last week.
Same, except an important deadline at work.
Reading the “Ender’s Shadow” series after finishing Ender’s Game.
Card is… something else. I’m on Shadow Puppets now, and while the previous books were good, his Mormonism is seriously showing in this one, with Petra being all baby crazy despite the fact they’re literally young teenagers.
It was weird to me finding out about Card’s anti-gay and Mormon views considering there were some rather homoerotic undertones to portions of Ender’s Game (or maybe I’m reading too much into it). Plus all the IVF and genetic manipulation stuff in the Shadow series. Though admittedly, the later Ender books (Children of the Mind, Xenocide) are utterly batshit, like he was having a mental wank.
I grew up in a boarding school and Ender’s Game really resonated with me when I was younger. Shame the author is an asshole. “Never meet your heroes” and all that.
Yeah, I can’t read Card’s stuff anymore. The 3rd and 4th Game books got real weird, and I only finished them because I didn’t have much else to read. The first Shadow book about Bean was pretty decent, but it was mostly a retelling of Game from another perspective instead of a new story.
The Shadow series covers what happens on Earth after the events at battle school as all kinds of conflict breaks out globally, but it mostly centers on Bean , Petra, and Achilles, along with Peter Wiggin taking on a leadership role.
But a lot of it is just weird, and much like how the later Ender books go batshit, the later Shadow books involve Bean’s gigantism and sending his descendants into space.
Fought my way through to the end of If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller yesterday - it’s a remarkable book, but I’m not sure if I actually enjoyed it exactly. Appreciated it as a challenging piece of post-modern fiction, sure… enjoyed… Kind of.
Have now moved on to my second attempt at reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (first published 1759).
First attempt was years ago, and I do think I’m getting more out of it now than I did then. It’s quite challenging, with the old-fashioned language, and the many endnotes which I find useful in understanding but also distracting in maintaining a reading flow, but it’s funny and I think I’m getting the overall gist. We’ll see if I stick with it though!
Just finished Sphere by Michael Crichton this morning on my commute. And started State of Fear by Michael Crichton on my evening commute 😅. Kinda binging through his books currently and saving Jurassic park for last.
I remember his writing style was exciting. It’s been so long since I read any of it, but I recall his books being pretty binge-able.
Picked up:
Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History
while traveling recently. Haven’t gotten far yet but it seems like a good, fun science based read.
