Books

Just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Service Model" after really enjoying "Children of Time." Fun, as this was a rare book that I and my sweetheart read at the same time, so we had fun talking about it. Not mind blowing, but very fun and with a loveable main character.

I am really struggling to read Umberto Eco's "Name of the Rose." If anyone can give me a pep talk I'd actually appreciate it, but the incredibly long introduction set me back. I'm starting to pick up some Holmes/Watson vibes which I am tentatively enjoying, but motivation is low...

Which is why I am here looking for a new book!

I just finished Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett. I really enjoyed it, and felt like it's a big improvement over the last few books in the chronological order of the series. Deals with problematic benevolence and imposing one's will on others, and really cemented the personalities of the Discworld's three primary witch characters Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, and Magrat Garlick. Laughed a little too hard at Magrat reading martial arts books about the Way of the Scorpion by Grand Master Lapsong Dibbler of Ankh-Morpork.

I also recently read The Last Unicorn, by Peter S Beagle, which I have mixed feelings about. Not unlike Witches Abroad, it deals with the concept of how people interact with the stories we well, and the written language is poetic and really lovely, but there is a discordant note about how people just kind of... become whatever a story demands of them. People gain maturity or magic powers when they fill the role that requires it in a story, and bad stuff happens with people resist stories. It means the only entity in this book with any real self-determination, or whose actions may actual matter, is the unicorn, who kinda doesn't usually do much anyway and is not affected by stories and roles like mortals are. I don't know, I appreciated the book and really enjoyed reading it, but something about the orderliness-of-existence that rubbed me personally the wrong way, though I felt touched by the characters' pathos.

I also read The Kite Runner, by Khaled Housseini, which gave us an incredible, painterly portrait of the intimate relationship between two children, and went on to give us a window into the Afghan expat community in America, but I felt like the strength of the story was in the childhood relationship, and the book tried to stretch that story into a three-act story involving world politics that I don't think worked. I like the overall feel of the book, but at times it felt like plot points were glued together in a way that didn't feel genuine.

Finally I also read Love, Death, and Robots, the anthology of short stories used for the Netflix animation feature. I felt like it was a good introductory collection of science fiction short stories for people who might not be used to reading them; a good gateway from adaptation to source material. I didn't care for all of them, and I liked most of them. I really loved:

• Three Robots, by John Scalzi,
• Beyond the Aquila Rift, by Alastair Reynolds
• Good Hunting, by Ken Liu
• Zima Blue, by Alastair Reynolds
• The Secret War, by David W Amendola

Today I've started ´The Voice of the Silence´ by Helena Blavatsky. It is a book that gives me good vibes, peace and calm. I've read about a 33% of it.

Clockwork angels! Got the whole trilogy now so im re reading the first one to kick it off.

Also ray kurzweils ai book. Very good.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

Great space fiction, if you liked the Martian you'll dig this.

The LOTR series read by Andy Serkis. Beautiful Narrator. I started with the Silmarilion and am now almost finished with The Hobbit.

Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Not usually my type of book but every time I try and get a few pages in, I enjoy what I read.

About half way through Player of Games by Iain M. Banks.

Decided to re-read the entire series. Read it years ago and it’s as good the second time round.

I use my commute to alternate between audiobooks and podcasts. Just finished Death of Dulgath by Michael J. Sullivan. Catching back up on podcasts and then I'll jump into book 4 - The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter.

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.

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.

I went on a reading blitz in 2023 but haven't done much since then, which kind of sucks.

I did Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, loved it. Becky Chambers? Read everything she wrote. Love.

Some other things in there that were kind of dumb but enjoyable (Rysa Aoki's Light From Distant Stars) or just shallow (Legends & Lattes) or forgettable (Alice Oseman's Loveless) but I have tried several others and it isn't sticking.

Too bad; I really do enjoy reading but nothing's really taking hold.

44% through War and Peace...stuck in the wolf hunt, going very slowly...

Fahrenheit 451 :3.. there was a sale on books at my grocery store yesterday, and that one seemed to be topical to current events

Black AF History

I'm on Shakespeare for Squirrels by Christopher Moore. I recently worked through Lamb, A Dirty Job, and Secondhand Souls by him during a couple of long road trips.

I picked up reading You by Caroline Kepnes assuming I might be able to get back into print reading with material that I'm vaguely familiar with ( I watched a season of the show years ago), but I've stalled with it the same as I have every time when attempting reading over listening in recent years.

Currently on book 3 of the Abhorsen saga (which actually goes by the name 'Abhorsen' after Sabriel (book 1) and Lirael (book 2).

The Kaiju Preservation Society. Really light, fun read.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765389138/thekaijupreservationsociety/

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.

Currently reading:

Richard Schwartz - No Bad Parts. It's an introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.

Michael Cisco - Antisocieties. A short stories collection about loneliness and isolation, definitely in the weird literature area, gives Ligotti vibes.

"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?

I'm stalled in the middle of like 6 different books and I'm not feeling any of them at the moment.

I just DNFed Assassin of Reality as the second in the Vita Nostra series (I really liked the first book, but...), so I ended up rereading The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik instead.

I started the Four Quarters series by Tanya Huff last night, and I just aggressively don't care about any of the characters. I don't know what I'm looking for in books right now, and I'm getting a little cranky about 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.

I'm still reading Controversies in Queer Theology by Susannah Cornwall. It's been a great read so far, and I'm currently reading a section about queer art in Christianity where she talks about the Ecce Homo art series of Elisabeth Ohlson, which contains such images as this:

spoiler

Nattvarden

Still on "Rama II", it's also been busy. Not much progress since last week.

I’ve finally gotten around to The Expanse series and I’m about a third of the way into Cibola Burn, the 3rd book.
I really enjoyed the first two and I’m liking this one but it’s starting a bit slower then the other and I find the tension ratcheting up different not worse but different.

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.

Just got James by Percival Everett. Been looking forward to it for a while, plan to start reading it this weekend.

The Conquest of Mexico & The Conquest of Peru by William H. Prescott. I am only 200 pages in so I have a lot more to go but its good so far. For someone from the 1840s he does a remarkably good job at countering colonial propaganda and supremacist thought. There is still some of course but better than I expected

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!