Sorry missed last week’s post, just busy with life.
The silver lining is, I don’t have to stay “still reading” for yet another week, as I finally finished Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch. Book 3 of Rivers of London series.
Yet another case involving magic in London and the Police solving it.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
For details on the c/Books bingo challenge that just restarted for the year, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and its Recommendation Post. Links are also present in our community sidebar.
Many years ago I bought the book adaptations of ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘Yes Prime Minister’, which I then forgot to take with me in the divorce around '08. I recently spent far too much money getting new copies from Booktopia.com.au. My god they’re still hilarious.
These shows are on my watchlist, but I have never gotten around to watching them. Maybe I should just get the book adaptations…
I highly recommend both. The show is great. The books are done as mostly diary entries by Jim Hacker, interspersed with notes from Sir Humphrey, TV transcriptions and interviews Bernad Woolley had with the ‘editors’ in the far flung future of 2019. They’re really quite well done by the writers of the actual show. It really adds to it when you can read it in the voices of the characters, though.
Cool, will try to get my hands on the show.
Yarr!
I’m starting House of Leaves today.
I don’t think I’m ready for this wild ride but only one way to find out.
Remember to share your review when done!
I am waiting for a copy to come into my life by chance as I think that will add to the story. Cant wait for that day
You’re only allowed to wait that way if you add notes in the margins. Keep it going
I caved and stopped by Barnes and Noble after work so I’m about to get started lol
Neuromancer by William Gibson. Slowly realising how many cyberpunk books cribbed his homework.
It’s crazy to me how much this book is the root of the cyberpunk tree. So much of the terminology is identical across the genre. Great book!
Working on the new T. Kingfisher, Hemlock & Silver.
__
Read since last time:
The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy (fantasy horror, novella) | bingo: creature, minority author, short, LGBTQIA+ lead, alliterative, cover
A wanderer visits an anarchist commune that’s protected by a preternatural being.
I think I’d put this in the “fine” category; not sure if I’m interested in the sequels.
The Tea Master and the Detective by Aliette de Bodard (space opera-ish mystery, novella) | bingo: creature, different continent, minority author, orange, short, award
A prickly detective and a sentient ship discover and investigate an unusual corpse.
Intentional Holmes and Watson vibes. Cute enough, but the mystery felt a bit secondary.
I love Kingfisher’s stuff.
I’d agree with Tea Master. I definitely enjoyed it, but it was more a book about their dynamic than an actual mystery.
I’m on The Shadow Rising (WoT #4).
The Dragon Reborn was my favorite entry so far I think. I loved Perrin and Mat’s chapters the most. Mat’s choice at the end really made me appreciate the character.
I’m very excited to see where the story goes from here!
I’m already looking forward to rereading the Eye of the World haha.
Edit: removed broken spoiler tag and content.
As someone only on WOT book 2. You’re spoiler tags are broken 😞
I am so so sorry. They are showing up just fine on my end, so I figured it was fine.
I am envious! I wish I could read them all again for the first time
I finished Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson this week. Great read! Stephenson is a very long-winded and meandering author but I love it every time.
I just got a copy of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski because I was inspired by mushroommonk (I don’t know how to tag users) here in the comments. Super excited to finally crack this one open.
I am also about to start in on Ursula Le Guin but I dont know if I should start with The Left Hand of Darkness or The Word for World is Forest.
Anathem by Neal Stephenson. Starting slow but it’s kind of intriguing.
I loved that book so much. I definitely wanted more math-centric stories after that.
Anathem was such a wild fucking ride. Stick with it and I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Thank you I will, I have become skeptical but I’ll keep going!
That is one of my favorite books of all time. I love almost all of Neal Stephenson and just finally finished Cryptonomicon this week.
That’s one of my favorites.
I’m starting V. by Thomas Pynchon. I’m going in pretty much blind, don’t know the author or the book at all. I just saw his name in the news and realized I’d seen this book at the library, so here we are.
I also recently read Solaris by Stanisław Lem. I first read it in my early teens and I liked it then, but I feel these decades have allowed me to appreciate it more deeply. What a wonderful book! I love the idea that alien intelligence is truly alien - not just humans from another planet - to the point of making communication practically impossible. Any recommendations for books like Solaris and Roadside Picnic, which explore this theme, are welcome.
Solaris sounds interesting, will take a look.
Thanks for the Solaris recco! It’s been on my To-Read for a while.
Solaris has been on my list for a long time but ive yet to find it anywhere
Dungeon Crawler Carl. It’s fun so far, but I’m starting to suspect it’s going to be a bit repetitive.
I’m on book 5 right now. It’s kept my interest so far. The repetitive bits are usually comforting. It’s encouraging to know that the series does end.
How many books are there total?
7 total.
Ahan, thanks for the info!
Reading “this inevitable ruin” by Matt Dinniman. I don’t have much time to read at the moment, so about 1/3rd through after two weeks.
This was a really good one. Recency bias I suppose, but it was my favorite of the books.
I like this one so far, I took a hiatus from the series after “The Butcher’s Masquerade” because it felt convoluted and a chore to read. “Eye of the Bedlam Bride” I listened to as an audiobook over the summer, but it took me over two months on my commute.
Ah. I read through the whole series (so far) earlier this year. Started in early May and had finished by mid-July.
I struggled getting into Feral Gods (4) and Anarchist’s Cookbook (3).
I may have hyper focused solely on this book series for about two months.
I finished The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe by Steven Weinberg and enjoyed it. It’s actually remarkable that we as a species can tell such a specific story about the beginning of the universe using science.
I’m currently reading A Century of Fiction in the New Yorker: 1925-2025 by Deborah Treisman, which is an 1100-page long short story collection. So far, I enjoyed “The Weeds” by Mary McCarthy, and “Symbols and Signs” by Vladimir Nabokov.
Weinberg was such an intellectual giant, I’ve been too intimidated to try his pop-sci type stuff. I think it’s time though.
I thought his writing was very accessible. In the first few chapters, he lays out the story of the first three minutes after the Big Bang in a very understandable way, and the rest of the book talks about how modern science figured it out (which is probably a more interesting story). Equations and more technical explanations are pushed to the appendix.
Just finished Kropotkins “The Conquest of Bread”. Might be time for some fiction again.
I’m currently reading Men at Arms (Terry Pratchett), and it’s delightful!
I’m roughly 1/3 of the way through all of the Discworld books.
Started the first book of the Culture series, Consider Phlebas, only through the first three chapters, however I’m enjoying it so far – especially compared to the writing of Red Rising (which was my last sci-fi read, at DNF atm).
I’m sorry you didnt like red rising but I also totally get it. I had a lot of fun with them as I usually read more austere sf like Greg Egan, Alastair Reynolds, and Banks. So on that note; enjoy! The culture series is amazing and unique, and some of the best literature I’ve ever read. The Player of Games and Use of Weapons are at the top of my all-time favorites list.
Glad to hear that, I heard lots of great things about the series that led me to coming across it, so far I’m pretty hooked! I’ve come those authors too, still need to check out their works, any recommendations for where to start with Egan and Reynolds?
I’ll probably attempt Red Rising, as I often do finish books tbh, however I found I just gradually lost interest with it, to the point the non-fiction I was reading in parallel was more engrossing. Thinking about why, after starting Culture novel… I found the main character a bit annoying, the technology being almost over-explained (more tell than show) --especially compared to Consider Phlebas so far, and something about the pacing being a bit off. I’ll definitely try to get back to it, though I’ll give it some space first.
Happy to recommend!
For Reynolds, if you want to try a standalone novel I would say House of Suns is a great place to start. Very fun read. If you want to get in to the meat and potatoes of his writing instead, I’d say just go ahead and jump right in with Revelation Space, which is the first full installment of the series by the same name.
As for Greg Egan, I started with Diaspora and after reading four or five others I think that was a lucky start. He’s basically the farthest point on the hard side of the soft-hard sf spectrum, and if you find Diaspora to be not quite to your liking, you almost certainly won’t like his other works as they are even more whacky. The other startinf point that could be good is Permutation City which is SLIGHTLY more grounded in the modern day and not as far-reaching in some ways. Still, it’s a crazy book because he doesn’t know how to not write crazy books. He always has resources on his website to help parse some of the more mathematical concepts so perusing that can help, or make things worse lol.
Addendum: my friend is an avid reader like me and also didnt care for Red Rising, largely due to the pacing, so don’t feel bad if that isn’t your cuppa tea.
Thank you for the recommendations, sweetness, it’s much appreciated! More for the tbr 🥲.
Glad to know I’m not alone in my experience with Red Rising, as part of what drew me to it was all the hype from others.
Prophet of Discontent by Douglas and Loggins.
It’s about MLK and his place in the tradition of American black radical thought. It’s pretty academic and dives straight into the race/class Marxist discourse. Which is catnip for weirdos like me.
