Literature
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The Expanse, the whole book trilogy!
It's a bit more than a trilogy lol. It's a nonology!
Amazing series, be sure to check out the novellas as well! There are some guides online that will tell you where they happen chronologicaly
I just finished up reading The Return of the King for the first time since childhood. I like it a lot more than I remember. I think two things stuck out at me most: how dense it was compared to modern fantasy and how great the hobbits were portrayed. Fantasy tends to portray great heroes that came from nothing (ex. the chosen one/orphan trope). However, the hobbits were solely because they were common that they were able to do things the great heroes of their age couldn't.
Since then I've started reading Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. I kept hearing Pynchon's name come up for about a month at random and figured I should pick up one of his books. He has a very frenetic style that can be a bit difficult to parse but I'm loving his sense of humor.
Just finished Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer (loved it, just discovered the "new weird" genre and it's totally my vibe). Now started reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, the structure of the book and the setting seems cool and intriguing.
If you liked Anniliation and the rest of the trilogy (well worth it!), Check out Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfeild.
H.P. Lovecraft - Tales of Horror
I've been blown away by all of this, up until the one I'm currently powering my way through (Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath). It isn't terrible, though. It just feels very out of place after the overall tone and flow of all his other stories within the volume.
I really enjoyed the Expanse books, so just started one of the Author's other series, the Long Price Quartet
Just finished Children of time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Absolutely amazing uplift-scifi, but you better stay away from it if you have arachnophobia
Terry Pratchett's Jingo, currently. After that, more discworld.
Though I'm not much of a reader anymore, my wife has been absolutely obsessed with Sarah J Maas' Throne of Glass series. I enjoy listening to her talk about it and sum up the stories, wouldn't be surprised if it ended up on Netflix soon.
Any recommendations for audiobooks to listen to at work? I'm big on science/science fiction and philosophy, anything that challenges my way of thinking really.
Since November I'm slowly working through the The Witcher books. Just finished the 5th book recently and currently looking for a book I can read before I continue with the 6th book. Normally I read mostly in german but I'm thinking about picking a english book as my next book.
Currently I'm finishing the fifth book of the Wheel Of Time by Robert Jordan. Next will be the sixth book of the Wheel Of Time by Robert Jordan :)
I'd highly recommend We are legion we are Bob and off to be the wizard to any fellow tech nerds
We are legion we are bob is about a guy whose brain is uploaded as an AI into a Von Neumann probe and sent into space to explore the universe.
Off to be the wizard is about a guy who finds out the world is some kind of simulation, and there's essentially one big file detailing absolutely everything that can be edited, uses it to go back in time and live as a wizard and make spells with his programming skills
Both of them have plenty of nerdy references and humour, would highly recommend
I've been getting into beekeeping so I'm soaking up as much info as I can. Just finished up Honey Bee Democracy by Tom Seeley. Fantastically interesting book regarding honey bee swarm preferences and decision making. Next up is an English translation of Beekeeping for All by Émile Warré, mostly because I want to read his thoughts on his hive style and management practices.
nobody reads this junk here so i'll just shout at a cloud
a deadly education, naomi novik - this should finally unjam the block i've had on fiction; i don't do well with fiction when the world is burning. i've picked this up and set it down many times, but the novelty is that normally, a fiction book that stops after the halfway point to do world-building is one that will end up propping open a door. but in this one the late add increased my interest.
keep my heart in san francisco, amelia diane coombs - an adorable fluffy book set nearby that ended up on the to-be-finished pile during some political firestorm or other.
guide du routard, catalogne - americans don't want to see what i want to see and american guidebooks know it. i often drag in other people's guidebooks when i think about going other people's places.
Essex Dogs. It's a historical fiction novel about a band of mercenaries aiding England's invasion of France in the 1300s. It's my palate cleanser after finished the third Stormlight Archives novel.
I'm reading the savage detectives by Bolaño. I read it about 6 months ago and haven't stopped thinking about it. Re-reading it now in Spanish to help practice the language and it's great. He writes pretty simply and i can't put it down!
Kim Harrison’s Demons of Good and Evil that just came out yesterday :)
My partner is almost done with it already and is dying to talk about it but I’m taking my time xD
I'm reading count zero by Willson Gibson. Its the sequel to neuromancer and so far it's pretty different. A whole different vibe, I'm not sure if I like it yet.
I am deciding between finishing the long way to a Small angry planet or starting howls moving castle
Finished the sequel to Becky Chamber’s A Psalm For The Wild-Built. Can’t recommend this series more highly for a glimpse into a calming and peaceful alternative future.
Started book #9 of Malazan this morning on a flight. It's been a long ride, and I'm looking forward to a climax. That's literature, right? ;)
Last night I started reading Children of Time out loud to my GF as we fell asleep. It triggered an excellent conversation about biological imperatives and evolution. Plus, Portia is cool ;)
I’m reading through Le Guin’s Earthsea cycle for the first time, and I’m currently on Tales from Earthsea. Fantastic, unique books.
Bumped, a feminist dystopia where only teenagers can reproduce. The book is very confusing to get into (it's narrated by two teenagers in 2036, so you need to learn alll the slangs) and the writing style rubbed me off as amateurish, but it's been very entertaining nevertheless. It gets even funny when you get what's going on because teens be teens.
I just started reading 'The Name of the Wind' by Patrick Rothfuss.
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. Great read so far.
Currently reading "Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West," by Calder Walton.
Roots by Alex Haley The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson Ten Years of Madness: Oral Histories of China's Cultural Revolution by Feng Jicai
Read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami, and liked the dreamy atmosphere. Currently reading Kafka on the Shore by same author. Many people recommended Norwegian Wood so that is also on the reading list.
I usually keep a couple books going so I can switch between them. I'm currently reading The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland and Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig.
I'm currently reading Oblomov by Goncharov, after it I might jump to "Ears of corn under your sickle" by Karatkievič
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. I love reading science fiction from people with engineering and science backgrounds. Another good book I finished recently was Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.
Project Hail Mary was such a fun read for me! I loved how concrete the engineering problems were throughout the book. It kept me tied to the stakes of the story.
Haven’t been able to finish Three Body Problem, unfortunately, it kind of lost me within the first 100 pages. May have to give it another shot! I hear a lot of good things about it.
If that's your vibe, try Blindsight by Peter Watts. It's a very technical examination of the phenomenon of consciousness which isn't afraid to get into the weeds, but never quite gets lost in them.
Blindsight was great, I need to read it a second time.