Still reading Whispers Underground by Ben Aaronovitch. Book 3 of Rivers of London series.
Though, technically I hadn’t read anything last two weeks to it’s more of “got back to reading”.
It’s still book 3, but I found it interesting how different it is from Dresden Files. There is no forces of nature with personal enmity with the protagonist (yet), it’s just (magic) crimes being solved by (magic) police. More of a police procedural then whatever genre Dresden Files is 😀
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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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.
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
It took me a long time to get through it as well. I feel like the book didn’t need to be as lengthy as it was. I didn’t find a whole lot really happens in the grand scheme of things and there is a notorious taboo scene that made no sense whatsoever plot wise but I guess he just really wanted to write that scene lmao.
All right, well feels good to know that I’m not the only one that struggled/Struggleswith it. It’s a very popular title of his.
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 really loved Babel. There is one character that does a quick 180 that I could see being too abrupt but sometimes people are just like that. The book spoke to me most on the level of despair and apathy and hopelessness in the face of a society that is keen on subjugation.
I need to start a new book, just finished the last one. It was a Sklyler Ramirez book, and I shared in a post this weekend that I strongly suspect him using AI to write. That said, the books are fine if you’re in the market for some light scifi reading, I’ve read most of it in bed before sleeping.
Next will be “This inevitable ruin” by Matt Dinniman. I’ve read the first five DCC books early this year, and listened to “the eye of the Bedlam bride” this summer, so I’ll just complete the series so far.
Omensetter’s Luck by William H. Gass. It was described as a tie for the “all-time best U.S. book about human loneliness” with Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress by David Foster Wallace, so I look forward to it on that endorsement.
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.
The Master and the Margarita
“Many critics consider it to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, as well as the foremost of Soviet satires.”
Looking forward to your review!
Great book. I hope to read it again, one day.
one of my faves!
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.
Nice. It’s good to know that it keeps getting better.
Right now I’m reading the biography of a Finnish conservationist Pentti Linkola. He was controversial but interesting a character.
I also have City of Darkness on the table, it’s about Kowloon Walled City. Both books are great!
I remember learning about that Kowloon city from playing the game Stray, whose setting is heavily inspired by it. While not a book, it might be something you’d be interested in if you haven’t already played it.
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!
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.
Thanks for the info!
Just started From Volga To Ganga by Rahul Sankrityayan
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 actually read all Culture novels until Matter, but stopped reading that one after a few chapters. I couldn’t get into the story, it was too complex for me.
It gets a bit easier a few chapters in once you’ve got a few of the more annoyingly verbose names committed to memory. There is still one plot thread that throws me for a loop because it only comes up once every hundred pages or something and has no apparent ties to everything else going on, but still, I don’t think it’s any more complicated than say, Use of Weapons.
I’m 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 can’t hope to deliver nearly the same level of bleakness that the book insists on.
I never finished the Long Walk (had to return a borrowed copy before I was finished). The concept is interesting and hits a personal note as I was forced to walk for long distances throughout my childhood, sometimes to a traumatizing extent.
Apparently there was a screening of the film that required viewers to walk on treadmills at 3mph for the entire length of the movie and if they stopped, they were removed from the theater.
I just finished Fahrenheit 451. It was pretty decent but the ending was kind of a letdown.
Now… I’m searching for a new book and don’t know what to read.
The ending is kinda not amazing but it’s the rest of the book that’s worth so much. He was so spot on on so many things.
Now… I’m searching for a new book and don’t know what to read.
Also from Bradbury, have you read his Martian Chronicles? My favorite between the two ;)
I feel like Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 go hand-in-hand if you haven’t read it already.
Yeah, I have read 1984 a while back ago. Was a really good book. I still think about Winston and o’Brain with the … scene.
I freaking dislike how Lemmy does the spoiler tag. So I will avoid what, I wrote previously.
Yeah. The spoiler tool is a little janky.
I haven’t read that book in so long, I can’t clearly remember what happens but I do remember it left me feeling rather hopeless.
Oh yeah, the book does give that kind of feeling. Especially the ending. However, I have decided to pick up Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It’s the third book in the series of ‘‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’’ and I do highly recommend the books.
I’m currently almost completely through The Capital / Das Kapital by Karl Marx.
