So, What Are You Reading?

Même pas mort ("Not even dead"), by Jean-Philippe Jaworski, a French fantasy author who as far as I know has not been translated despite being one of the biggest names in our business. Which I can understand because his works rely a huge lot on slang - Gagner la Guerre ("To win the war") being the most obvious - and since I - a native - often have trouble understanding what the characters are talking about, I assume you would need world-class Woolseyism to properly convey the original meanings.

Still, an interesting read as it is fantasy set in pre-Roman Gaul, an era that is very rarely discussed, including in French history (we tend to start everything with Caesar). His works in general are a little bleak and too "manly" for my taste (not sure I've seen him write a proper female character in three books, and his heroes are mostly macho men in one form or another) but his prose is so, so good that I pretty much read it entirely for the style.

edited 16th Apr '18 4:46:03 PM by Julep

My current list:

• The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done by Sandra Newman. just started it and not sure yet if I like it or not as the narrative is a bit non-linear. Basically it's about a girl whose adopted father apparently worked for the CIA and whose adoptive brother is a scam artist who creates a phony cult based in their home.
• Brass Man, a book by Neal Asher set in the universe of The Polilty .
• Black Dog Summer, a Magic Realism novel by Miranda Sherry about the ghost of a murdered woman watching over her daughter. Set in South Africa it also features African magic and folklore
• Impulse, a Space Opera by Dave Bara

edited 12th May '18 2:05:16 PM by tricksterson

Just finished reading Magnus Chase and The Ship of The Dead by Rick Riordan and How to stop time by Matt Haig, yesterday

Oh boy: Revenge of the Rose(Michael Moorcok's Elric Saga), the first Ulrich Von Beck book the first book in the Stormlight Archives, the first Wheel of Time book, and the last Michael Vey book.

Why did I start reading six different books?

I'm in the middle of... 8 right now? Hey, it happens.

Picked up SPQR by Mary Beard, the other day. Love it, one of my favorite history books on Ancient Rome.

I'm currently reading The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton, and I have really mixed feelings about it. The premise is really interesting, and some of the characters are definitely compelling. The villain is set up relatively well, and some of the stuff she does is actually disturbing. However, the writing itself has the quality of mediocre fanfiction, almost everything is compared to food, and it's starting to get really tedious. The main character herself is kind of flat, and she doesn't really do much. The love interest is the least developed character I've read for a long time, his only traits are that he's rude and attractive. What's most disappointing for me though, is that the interesting premise is barely developed. I realise that not everybody is into intense worldbuilding, but I would have been satisfied by even a little more than what we got. IDK, it's looking like a 6/10, fun enough to read, but I don't think I'll be going back to it.

The Last Wish: An Introduction to The Witcher.

My current reads:

• George Bernard Shaw by G. K. Chesterton. More a critical analysis of the former by the latter than an actual biography although biographical tidbit appear.
• Playing With Fire, second book in the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landry
• Mort(e), the story of a feline hero in the war against humanity by the Colony, a race of sentient ants who uplift animals as their soldiers, whose real motivation is the search for his pre-uplift friend, a dog named Sheba.
• Conservation of Shadows, a collection of stories by Yoon Ha Lee.

edited 23rd Jun '18 1:49:50 PM by tricksterson

I'm currently about half way through The Burning Maze by Rick Riordan.

Since I've been without access to a computer regularly for the last few days, I've had the opportunity to get a lot of reading done.

After forever, I finally finished The Haunting of Hill House. I wish it hadn't taken me so long so I could have had a more continous experience with the novel, but it was still pretty cool. It was interesting how the horror of the house was mostly pretty underplayed and left with a lot of ambiguities.

I also finished This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. My favorite short story was the last one where the main character suffers an extremely bad breakup and the next five years of his life get explored as he struggles to deal with it. As someone who experienced an awful one about five years ago myself, it was quite relatable. I was sad to find out that in spite of the well-meaning messages about the value of women and the critiques of toxic masculinity in his work, that he is a sexual harasser himself. It's really a shame.

I'm planning to read Couples by John Updike next, or maybe Tender Is the Night.

The Retreat of the Elephants: An Environmental History of China by Mark Elvin, a detailed, nuanced and all-around brilliant study of how the development of the Chinese society interacted with the environmental forces around it. I wrote a long-ish take on some of its most interesting findings here.

I'm reading Tinseltown by William J Mann and Born Trump right now. I'm... note entirely sure why these books are so engrossing, but they are. Also I recently read Dinosaur Lords and hoo boy I think I've found one of my favorite fantasy series ever.

Ringworld. Nuff said.

Currently just under halfway through The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken.

My current reads:

The Delirium Brief, latest, I think, book in The Laundry Files series.

The Just City, first in the Thessaly trilogy by Jo Walton

Going Going Gone, a book by Jack Womack set in an alternate 1968 where the Kennedys are part of the Irish Mob and Henry Cabot Lodge is President. Much psychedelia is featured as is dimensional travel

What Should We Be Worried About?, a collection of essays about possible apocalyptic scenarios and what might be able to be done about them.

Edited by tricksterson on Jul 28th 2018 at 9:02:07 AM

••• The Last Wish: An Introduction to The Witcher.

You're so lucky if it's your first time reading the Witcher! Lookin forward to memory-removing therapy to forget the whole Saga and re-read it.

Right now, Michael Z. Williamson's A Long Time Until Now.

Basic premise: A US Army convoy making a supply run in Afghanistan gets dumped back about 15K years, along with some folks from other eras including somewhere during the days of the Roman Empire (haven't gotten far enough yet for the details).

Kinda-sorta similar concept to Eric Flint's Ring of Fire series (starting with 1632), but not connected in any way.

Markus Heitz's Dwarves.

I'm reading "Fear Nothing" by Lisa Gardner, which is a detective novella. Is it normal to like the supporting characters more than the main characters themselves?

Edited by sabrina_diamond on Aug 22nd 2018 at 7:55:29 PM

Just read the first three books in The Lunar Chronicles. Though some of the plot points are predictable, it was still much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. I've heard in various places (including this very wiki) that Fairest (the prequel that tells the story of the wicked queen) should be read before the final book in the series. Is that recommended or not?

Just finished: Petty by Warren Zanes. A biography of Tom Petty - pretty in-depth bio covering his career up until 2015 (when it was published), with quotes from Petty himself, almost everyone who was in The Heartbreakers ^note their second bassist, Howie Epstein, died in 2003, well before the book was written. There are some flaws, but it's worth a read to see what drove him, the good and the bad.

Currently reading: Communion by Whitley Strieber. So, I found this in a thrift shop one day and the cover illustration looked oddly familiar to me - turns out they parodied it in The X-Files episode Jose Chung's From Outer Space. Basically I'm interested in tales of alien abduction and related phenomena, but I wouldn't classify myself as a believer and tend to take things with a grain of salt. Conspicuously, all of the author's repeated encounters with these non-human beings ^note he never actually calls them "aliens", as he doesn't know where exactly they came from tend to only have indirect witnesses - other people he mentions will hear/see something unexplained, but only he has direct contact. Still, it might just because he's a convincing writer and packs in a lot of details, but at this point in the book I at least believe he believes what he's saying happened.

Currently listening to: This Round's On Me by Mamrie Hart. I enjoy this, but it sort of feels like it's primarily for people who are already fans of her vlogging/youtube comedy stuff - mainly because I personally find her writing (and by extension, speaking) style funny and endearing, but can see how someone else could find it kind of annoying. I've been slowly listening to this, like a chapter or two a week at most - this is mainly because I've been more into listening to music for my commute lately, but it works for the format it's written in: There's some continuity, but each chapter is largely its own self-contained story, usually revolving around travel, drinking, and the silly shenanigans she and her friends get up to. The effect is sort of supposed to be as though you're catching up with a friend who always has a million funny stories to share.

Edited by MikeK on Aug 29th 2018 at 4:39:42 AM

Yesterday, I finished the last few chapters of In The Afterlight by Alexandra Bracken, read the entirety of iBoy by Kevin Brooks and started Mirror Mirror by Cara Delevingne.

Edited by Anddrix on Sep 1st 2018 at 6:18:07 PM

x4 Very common

Darius the Great Is Not Okay, a YA novel by Adib Khorram about an Iranian-American boy visiting his ailing grandfather. It has Tolkien, The Shahnameh and depression, so it's totally my jam.