Currently making my way through The Guns of August. It's pretty dense compared to what I usually read but something about the writing style makes each chapter fly by faster than expected!
Books
Book reader community.
Currently reading Baseball: an illustrated history. Quite a thick book so I'll probably be reading it for a while. It's a nice change of pace since the book I was reading last month was pop fiction
Number Ones by Tom Breihan
A history of the songs that made it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 list. I'm really enjoying it!
I'm finishing up A Crown of Swords this evening.
I just now finished "The Dawn of Everything" by Graeber and Wengrow, which was an excellent investigation into early civilizations and a nod to their cultural implications for modern society. Looking to steal ideas for my queue in this thread!
That sounds interesting!
Currently reading The Winter Fortress by Neal Bascomb. It’s a good read so far!
Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner
Arrival by Ted Chiang. Movie was great so though of reading this one. Only in the very beginning though.
Wasn't Arrival based on the short story The Story of Your Life by Chiang? I recommend Tower of Babylon which is in the same collection as Story. Awesome, mind-bending writing.
I'm just about to start Berg by Ann Quin, which seems to be about a man who stalks his dad and mistress through a seaside town. It looks really good from the first few pages.
The Knights of Erador (The Echoes Saga: Book 7) by Philip C. Quaintrell (Kindle Edition)
SS by Barış Pehlivan and Barış Terkoğlu. It's basically a book about Süleyman Soylu's crimes. It's indeed a heavy read, but I think the book does a good job with shedding light on who Soylu really is, so far (I'm at Chapter 5).
Finished reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. I haven’t read this good Science Fiction book in a long time. On to Echopraxis, as it’s a double edition
I have been reading The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East by Nicholas Morton which I am really enjoying. Nicholas has a clear way of describing events and putting them into context without getting too dry with it. I am also reading A Vast Conspiracy: The inspiration for Impeachment by Jeffrey Toobin which I am a little over half way into, but I am considering just giving up. I have been pecking away at this book for probably 2 months now. It's just too long winded. I don't need to know every single conversation, meeting, plot, dinner that people had - I feel this would have made an incredible long-form article in something like the New Yorker but a multi hundred page book seems to be pushing it for me.
The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence. Such a cool fantasy concept, I'm about 1/4th of the way in.
I also finished Forth Wing this week. It was okay for what it was.
The Journey to the West, translated by Anthony C. Yu. Given that it is 100 chapters long and I'm still at chapter 6 it's gonna take a long time for me to finish, so I'm thinking about reading another book alongside it.
Just finished Iron Gold by Pierce Brown. It feels kind of like a "bridge book" where it wasn't all that great compared to the others in the series so far.
Now I'm off to Shards of the Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I've started to read a lot of his stuff and I'm enjoying them all.
Wow. Your taste in books is right up my alley! I'd add Brandon Sanderson.
I am currently listening to the Way of Kings on Audiobook. I did mistborn years ago and I didn't enjoy it enough to keep going with the series. I've heard the second trilogy is much better.
Exhalation by Ted Chiang. About 3/4 through so far and really enjoying it. The scifi concepts are great and I like that it doesn't always have a black mirror, technology is going to kill us ending.
Bit of a strange pairing, but currently reading:
Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai
Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler's Best by Neal Bascomb
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Vanishing Hitchhiker by Jan Harold Brunvand. Recaptures the magic of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, but as an adult.
Victor Of Tuscon
I’m reading To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, but only because my girlfriend told me to read from more modernist authors. I’m liking her prose despite the dry beginning, but I’ll see how it comes along over time.