So, What Are You Reading?

Currently reading Temeraire series. Interactions between dragons and their captains are my favorite part. The long travelogues that go out of their way to be depressing are the least favorite part.

The Call by Peader O'Guilin, The Stand by Stephen King (the complete and uncut version) and (unfortunately) The Elite by Kiera Cass.

Why unfortunate?

• Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes, an author who like to genre jump. Her first novel was cyberpunk, then Zoo City was urban fantasy, followed by The Shining Girls a horror about a time traveling serial killer now this is mostly straight thriller/policeprocedural athough there is a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane vibe.
• Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow
• Lowball another book in the shared universe of Wild Cards
• Crystal Nights, a collection of stories by Greg Egan

Trying to get into Anne Rice's latest instalment of her Vampire Chronicles. That I can't remember the title of the book and I don't think I'm out of the first few chapters yet shows how well THAT'S going. I dunno. Maybe I'm burned out with vampires or something.

Fiction: Virginia Woolf "Mrs Dalloway" Second attempt to finish the novel. I quite don't understand what it's blocking me, it has all the ingredients I usually appreciate.

Non-Fiction: Henri Bergson "Time and Free Will" John Hale "Renaissance Europe"

I'm half-way through "The Hidden Life of Trees". Plants do suffer.

On my first re-read of 1636: The Chronicles of Dr. Gribbleflotz. You learn so much in these books it's stupid that they don't seem to be on anyone's required reading list at school.

I mean, they're basically "How to build a functioning monarchist democracy 101"

Which is not usually considered a necessary part of most schools curricula. Although maybe it should be. Right next to Machiavellianism for Fun and Profit.

Currently reading Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue but I have just bought Slaughterhouse-Five and Brave New World, as I feel I ought to have read them by now. But first, I need to read The City of Mirrors, as I bought that first, after reminding myself what on earth happened in the first two books...

edited 10th Nov '16 9:36:26 AM by Ulysses21

Well... Depending on the school, and how you define "school" (lots of Americans use that word for what Brits always either call college or university),"The Prince" is a candidate to be on the curriculum.

Anyway, I'm reading the Ciaphas Cain books by Sandy Mitchell. Got one left of the ones I have available to me. I'm thinking of reading Gaunt's Ghosts as a compare and contrast exercise next.

College? Oh no, I'm thinking Machiavelli should be required reading in grade school.

On that note, that reminds me of a JL 8 comic:

http://limbero.org/jl8/223

One of those kids reads Machiavelli. No surprise it's the kid in the batsuit.

Starting 'Why zebras don't get ulcers?"

Felt relief when I read the bit about how stress-adrenaline suppresses pain. So feeling hopeful for now that being eaten alive feels mostly numb rather than searing pain.

Edit - (middle finger to chronic stress)

edited 14th Nov '16 5:10:37 AM by probablyinsane

I've been reading Jack Chalker's Four Lords of the Diamond series. I'm on the third book, Charon: A Dragon at the Gate, now. It's a fun series with lots of twists and turns, like any good Chalker novel. The main action of the four books is concurrent, with each book taking place at roughly the same time as the others. But the framing device works sequentially and some of the reveals have a stronger impact if you read it in order.

Latest reads:

Dreadful Skin by Cherie Priest about a pistol packing nun pursuing a werewolf across post-Civil War America

Inferno by Dan Brown Yeah, I know

Devil Said Bang, a Sandman Slim novel

The Trials, second in Linda Nagata's The Red trilogy.

edited 17th Nov '16 4:12:41 PM by tricksterson

Now reading about 100 pages into Mycelium Running which feels more like science fiction to me than non-fiction.

Still have issues with plant sentience but it turns out that fungi sentience is way easier for me to take cause mycelium reminds me a lot of Grey Goo.

Ya know, Trump being the next POTUS like convinced me that the Great Filter theory is It and that's why there's still no evidence of a United Federation of Planets out there - sobs.

But Hidden Life of Trees has done a dandy job of convincing me that plants are pretty much like aliens operating on a different time scale and now current book is making me go - oh, lookie nature's already started on nanomachines a billion years ago.

Here's hoping these mental connections are not signs of pending nervous breakdown.

Has anyone read The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet ? Is it true outside the character's relationships and interactions there's not much else going on?

edited 27th Nov '16 5:45:58 AM by WolyniaBookSeries

Read it recently, and the main emphasis is definitely on the relationships between crew members and the adjustments they have to make to each others' cultures. There is some action but its not the main draw. If "Firefly set in the Mass Effect universe" sounds appealing to you, then check out TLWTASAP. I found it only so-so.

edited 28th Nov '16 8:02:14 AM by MrShine

I'm going to do some Star Wars canon reading this week.

Catalyst, Ahsoka, and Dark Disciple.

Then go on to Mistborn.

I read the Apology Of Socrates a few days ago, I loved it.

Currently reading:

Kushiel's Dart, first book in Jaqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy series

House of Daniel by Harry Turtledove, set in a Depression era America WITH MAGIC!

Half A War, final book in Joe Abercrombie's Shattered Sea trilogy.

God save the Queen a book set in an Alternate History where Britain is still ruled by a vampiric Queen Victoria.

Well, I don't know if I'll finish them (I have a problem with finishing books), but:

I've gotten through some of The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell and The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. I like them both so far.

So has this been subsumed by the Chatterbox thread? For now at least here's what I'm currently reading:

The Buried Life by Carrie Patel, a noir set in an underground city After the End

The Blinding Knife, second in Brent Weeks Lightbringer series, set in a world where magic and society as a whole is based on the colors of light.

Wanderlust, second in Ann Aguirre's dark Space Opera Sirantha Jax series.

The Tooth Fairy, by Graham Joyce about a boy being haunted by the title critter after he sees it making it's rounds.

edited 15th Dec '16 3:00:18 PM by tricksterson

Just this hour or so finished reading what looks like the last book in the Vorkosigan Saga, and it ends, fittingly enough I think, with where it started. Cordelia in love. "Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen." Lovely book.

It would be a fitting end but I won't rule out more books involving Miles, Ivan or even Miles offspring. Or has she actually said this is the last book in the saga?

edited 31st Dec '16 3:14:45 PM by tricksterson