Books

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.