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It's a horror week for me. Currently reading Shoot Me in the Face on A Beautiful Day by Emma E. Murray and also beta reading a horror novel by someone I know. Quite enjoying them both.
Recently read Albert Camus' The Stranger. That was pretty decent. Think I'll go for one of his nonfictional works soonish, been intending to for a while.
The Stranger is such a strange (ha) book, but what a sense of serenity at the end.
Finished Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary In Cold War Africa. A very nuanced look at the man. A real idealist bursting with energy, a brilliant man and a visionary, yet inexperienced in politics and governance and prone to misjudging people by assuming (and demanding) the best of them. By nature an improviser, trying to improvise an entire government, and often with a mindset too military for civilian tastes, but too 'revolutionary' for military tastes. It's made me hungry to read more about the situation 'on the ground' during Sankara's administration.
I'm 80% of the way through my star wars: aftermath book by chuck wendig. I plan to pivot to Billion Dollar Ransom by James Patterson after this, instead of reading the rest of the series. I will likely come back to the series after i read that Patterson book.
I ended up tearing through Babel by RF Kuang and finished it today. It was a solid 4/5. I think at times it was very in your face with the anticolonialism and racism but was probably very in line with the time frame. I would have enjoyed some more delving into how the magic system worked/was created as well. But if you can make etemology engaging i feel like you did a pretty good job.
Maybe now i can focus on finishing Lady of the Lake.
I finished Grendel by John Gardner. There were some parts I really liked and some that were just ok. Overall a decent read.
I've started rereading the Lady Astronaut books by Mary Robinette Kowal. They are just as gripping and bingeable as I remember them being. I finished the first one (The Calculating Stars) and am currently on book 2 (The Fated Sky).
Lady Astronaut books
Is the series finished? Or atleast have non-cliffhanger ending?
So I've only read the first 3. The 4th just came out recently, hence my reread. Each of the books I've read had a non-cliffhangery ending and was self-contained enough that I'd be satisfied even if the series didn't continue.
Nearly done with Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir! It's quite good, and I'm glad I'd read somewhere here to go in with zero context. Would highly recommend.
Continuing to listen my way through the Otherland series by Tad Williams. Currently in book two, River of Blue Fire. It seems to me that he wrote all four books as one book and was told that was ~3000 pages wouldn't sell well. I'm very much enjoying it. Williams writes in a detailed pace, which can seem slow at times, but I love his use of 20th century literature as the basis of all the VR worlds. They're never the same as their origin and are wonderfully permuted.
Just started From Volga To Ganga by Rahul Sankrityayan
Well, I was in a reading slump so I opened Overdrive on my Kobo and the Britney Spears memoir was right on the front page so I checked that out. It's pretty bad, reads like the diary of a 5th grader, but maybe it'll shock the system. I have trouble not finishing books once I start.
I am considering going back to the Otherland series by Tad Williams next. I have City of Golden Shadow (book 1) but I never made it through the other tomes. They are pretty dense and I don't remember much. Might try to get that first one read and then visit the library for the others if it goes well.
Gender Identify and Faith, by Mark A. Yarhouse and Julia A. Sadusky.
About two thirds of the way through A Wizard of Earthsea.
I adore this book.
The Left Hand of Darkness - I read most of it a few years ago, never finished it. On my way to finish it in a few days!
Almost finished 'Les entretiens' de Confucius (in French, because, well, I'm French). Started today: 'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'.
Work of fiction waiting to be started: Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', J.M. Barrie 'The complete Peter Pan'.
The Rivers of London books are fantastic, and keep getting better.
I've literally just finished reading the latest one, Stone and Sky.
This series keeps popping up on my To-Read list! Might do it after Wind and Truth.
just about finished my current library read The Divinity Student by Michael Cisco. really enjoying the prose and imagery of this gothic horror novella. definitely want to see if i can get a physical copy of this edition with art by Harry Morris.
About 20% into Nietzsches Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Not an easy read but fascinating.
I just finished my first ever audio book. Always thought this was not for me because I like reading, you know. Then I gave a try, and that's indeed better than I thought. With audio book I can enjoy literacy while doing activities that never would allowed me to do so, like working (for stuff which do not require 100% concentration) or driving (especially in traffic jams). And I really enjoyed having a story told to me, you know a bit like a madeleine de Proust, something bringing you back to childhood.
So for the first one I choose one in my native language, French. Γ retardement, by Franck Thilliez. This is a great thriller around topics on psychiatry, psychotic criminals and so on. I thought it was very well written and, knowing a bit of the topic through the stories of my psychologist partner, I think it's very well documented about the illness and management of it in asylums (although there are parts that are pure fictional without any scientific veracity).
I'm also reading to another French novel, Le signal, by Maxime Chattam. This is an horror story, maybe inspired by what Stephen King could have written (but as far as I'm in not as good as King - but ok it's very difficult to reach). One interesting suggestion, in the introduction of the novel, the author suggests some music to listen while reading (horror movies soundtracks), never done that before and this is a very good idea (I don't have the ability at each reading session but when I did it, indeed I enjoyed more the book).
I'm in the last quarter of Death's End by Liu Cixin, and not really enjoying it. It reads more like a documentary, and the plot seems to rely on people making the stupidest decisions possible. I'll finish it, but I'll be glad to move onto something else when I do.
Just this book, or whole series?
I just finished Fahrenheit 451. It was pretty decent but the ending was kind of a letdown.
Nowβ¦ Iβm searching for a new book and donβt know what to read.
About halfway through Roman Sexualities. I know the broad concepts, but the details elaborated on are fascinating.
Finished Roman Sexualities, very good but typically dry and academic in prose; moving on to Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary In Cold War Africa.
ahem Any interesting tidbits?
Sure thing! It's noted, for example, that scratching one's head with one finger was considered a 'dainty' affectation and potentially indicating a passive homosexual - likely in relation to the connection Romans saw between vanity and passive homosexuality, with scratching one's head with one finger being to minimize mussing one's hair (Julius Caesar, famously handsome and vain, was noted by Cicero to scratch his head with one finger).
Another is that Romans considered a man performing oral sex on a woman to be more degrading than a man performing oral sex on another man, or receiving anal sex from another man. This is largely because the Romans didn't conceive of sexual relations in the form of their partner's sex, but in what acts were performed on who. Some men in Roman history are noted as liking men or liking women, but what defines their sexuality is not that, but rather whether they 'give' or 'receive'. The former is entirely normal for a RESPECTABLE citizen; the latter is proof of some inherent servility and disreputability.
During the Principate, sexual and gender boundaries weakened with the rise of the autocracy of the Roman Emperor disrupting traditional social divisions. Part and parcel with this was a spike in concern from moralists about the decline of 'traditional' Roman morality. Nowadays, all the men are going down on girls, marrying boys, and worrying about their appearance! O TEMPORA! O MORES! π
Regardless of whether that kvetching represented an actual increase in such behavior (it likely did, to some degree), it gives insight as to how the Romans perceived sexuality as part of the broader social structure, not just a private matter. It was not that transgressing it made you 'bad' or adhering to it made you 'good', unlike later Abrahamic notions of sexuality; it was that transgressing it was a challenge to the social order of inviolable citizens who could 'defend' their liberty and their self from 'intrusion' of others. The worrying, thus, was connected to the worry that the autocracy of the Roman Emperor was stripping Roman citizens of their liberty-oriented mindset, and creating a more 'servile' citizenry and social order.
I'm reading "This is How You Lose the Time War" and "His to Be Perfect" currently.
I recommend both of them!
I'm 90% of the way through The Master and the Margarita. It's a completely surreal plotline and I think it'll help if I do some reading into the background (both the setting and the author's writing process) once I've finished. It's made me laugh a couple of times though, in particular:
spoiler
the scene in which the theatre accountant is desperately trying to deposit some cash, only to witness a group of employees involuntarily bursting into a sea shanty.
one of my faves!
I am in a book hole..
I started listening to
About a month ago but put it aside when The Fort Bragg Cartel was released. I finished that an I returned to IT.
I am really struggling with it. I have read a number of King books and after four or five you learn his conventions and tropes. I suspect I would like IT a lot more if I had read it when it was released
Iain M. Banks' Matter. It's the second-last Culture novel and I'm sad because I'll be done with them soon. It's also been a pleasant surprise because it seems like a lot of people suggest that the novels drop off in quality, but I've really enjoyed the last couple and this one so far.
I finished The Black Tongue Thief a few days ago so I've bounced around a few books. But I seem to have settled on Swords & Deviltry by Fritz Leiber and The Mosaic Effect by McGregor and Mitchell
How are these? Would you recommend any of them?
I enjoyed the light hearted narrator in a dark world aspect of Black Tongue Thief. And I would recommend it, if that is appealing.
I think I'd caution some people on Leiber. He's a good writer, and important in fantasy Canon. And I am enjoying him.
But he is writing during the 1950s to 80s, so there is some inherent misogyny. He tries to make powerful women characters, but it doesn't quite work. I think he was pushing boundaries in the 60s, but a modern reader with modern conceptions may not enjoy his work.
The Mosaic Effect is about the CCP setting up an underground and parallel state in Vancouver/Canada. So if that's your thing, yeah read it.
Bradbury's, The October Country stories to get a jump on the season.
Iβm reading through The Long Walk for a second time, mostly because it seems like they insist on forcing every Stephen King story into a movie, regardless of how little it makes sense.
The Long Walk is bleak. Something tells me the Hunger Games guy canβt hope to deliver nearly the same level of bleakness that the book insists on.
Iβm still working through Drew Hayes Super Powereds series, Iβve finished book 3 and am reading a spin-off called Corpies that takes place during book 3.
The quality has definitely improved. Still could have benefited from a good editor but not quite as much as before. Itβs moved into A tier.
Still deeply down the TrekLit rabbit hole.
Finished the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy early last week (amazing, BTW) and am now through the first two books of the DS9: Millennium trilogy.