this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Hello Everyone!

What are you all reading?

I am currently going through a re-read of Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Currently on 2nd book, Fool Moon.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Currently: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo.

Probably will jump into another Discworld novel next because I have so many things on my tbr list that I always have trouble to choose something and I go the easy way: discworld.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I recently finished the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. Wonderful books. I read it in order of subseries which is a good way to get into the books, but it does make it a bitt jarring when going back to the first books, before Pterry really found his stride. Once I get around to a reread I think I'll do it chronologically.

As a change of pace i continued with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Something of a whiplash change from Discworld and a it got me a bit too amped when reading right before bed. Still a very fun and interesting read.

Now onto SAS: Rogue Heroes, which i started earlier but have yet to finish.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have read about a quarter of Discworld novels, wanted to read them all in released order, but couldn't find many books. I plan to start the re-read again once I have found some of the remaining books.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The books are very much worth rereading. The layers of jokes and references are so deep that you likely won't catch all on the first or second reads.

I can recommend The Annotated Pratchett File, https://www.lspace.org/books/apf/, for an in depth review of a lot of jokes and references. It explains a lot of things that are hard to catch if you haven't grown up in England. Many things i thought Pterry had made up for the Disc is just references to real world things and events.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm currently reading the new Michael Moorcock, Woods of Arkady, with new Justin Cronin novel The Ferryman on deck.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Psychology of Time Travel. It's an interesting twist on the topic!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The synopsis sounds interesting. How are you liking it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's fantastic. Each chapter hops to another character in another time period, each one filling in another piece of the story. It has a very pragmatic approach to time travel with time spent developing time traveler slang, thought given to personalities that thrive or struggle with time travel, and how time travelers interact with their other selves (they frequently cross their own timelines). The time travel organization even has its own detective agency and court system!

It was a lot of fun to read with the details of the time travel agency fitting in nicely with the development of the story. I highly recommend it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks for the review. Going to add it to my list.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm about two thirds of the way through Since We Fell by Dennis Lehane. And I finished The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore today.

I don't think Lehane ever really misses. His plots aren't usually all that dense but the characters are deep and compelling. And the writing is way better than it seems like it should be. Every once in a while you I read a line and think, "Where did that come from, and how did it get here?" He's a really talented writer.

Moore is not that. But he's fun and entertaining. This book was not his best effort. But it was fine. If you like Moore, you'll like this one we'll enough.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The Cuckoo's Egg.........a nonfiction about catching a computer hacker in the 1980's. Great book if you are a techie.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

House of Leaves. It's sick. Anyone got other books that go off the rails like that?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm pretty capable of setting down a book for extended periods of time and remembering everything when I pick it back up, and have a habit of hopping between books; so the list that I'm "currently" reading is... large. That said, focusing on the most active ones:

I'm just gonna say Discworld, for reasons elsewhere expounded upon. Mostly working through the City Watch stuff at the moment, Jingo should be on my doorstep in the next couple days. Knocked out Mort while I was waiting for it, might do Reaper Man too if it takes much longer.

I'm also thumbing my way through The Selfish Gene; I've always been fascinated by the concept of memetics, and that's its birthplace (while also being a pretty potent contextualization of evolutionary biology). Probably gonna pick up Extended Phenotype when I'm done.

Then there's Tristram Shandy, which I've had for a while but only recently had a chance to start properly. It's fun so far, takes a minute to get used to the writing style which is simultaneously archaic by modern standards and progressive for the time. I think "hobby-horsical" is gonna find a permanent home in my vocabulary.

Got about halfway through Gravity's Rainbow on a cruise a few years back, I might pick that back up soon actually now that I think of it. That one's pretty dense though, I might need to go back and skim what I read already to remember the character names.

Technically I'm listening to this one because he did read-throughs of a bunch of his books during COVID and I like the extra context he added, but Lon Milo DuQuette's 'Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot'. If you're into that sorta thing, I highly recommend DuQuette's work, he's both very knowledgeable and very accommodating to the casual reader.

There are a few other books living on my coffee table, but those are the most active right now.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wow, that's lots of books. I am terrible at multi-tasking, and if I start more than one book, I have trouble ending either of them.

Tristam Randy, is that Tristam Shandy? "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" or am I confusing it with something else?

I am thinking about doing these threads every week, or bi-weekly at most, so just sharing your active books is good enough. You can share the rest in next post.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've read maybe 3 books all the way through in my entire life. My girlfriend has been trying to get me to read before bed and on the recommendation of some discord friends I purchased Infinite Jest and am a quarter of the way through it. It's been a jarring book with the tonal shifts and the way it rapid fires between characters and settings, but I've absolutely loved some of the perspectives and dialog that DFW creates. If anyone else is a fan, I'd love more recommendations in the same vein, specifically the type of warped humor and how it stems from the human condition.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I haven't read Infinite Jest, so can't recommend anything like that, but keep visiting these posts, I am sure you'll be able to find something you like.

Or you can create a separate post, asking for recommendations, it should get you more visibility.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm doing a reread of Human To Human by Rebecca Ore. It's the third book in the trilogy.

It's an old scifi series from the early ninties, but holds up well. I absolutely love how she designs her aliens.

The first book is Becoming Alien.

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