Books

Currently reading Fairy Tale by Stephen King. It's a light, fun read with an engaging story..

I'm listening to the audiobook of In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez.Its based on real people in the time of the Trujillo Dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. Its a fictionalised account on the life of the Mirabal sisters who were executed by the regime in 1960.

And I just finished I Saw Her That Night by Slovenian author Drago Jančar. Its coincidentally also based on true events, in WW2 Slovenia. Honestly I read it, because I haven't found any other books for the Slovenia category of my "Read around the world" challenge. I'm glad it wasn't very long.

I finally finished The Vanished Man after 3 attempts at starting. The book was great but I just couldn't get myself to focus long enough to get in to it properly but it was a really good read.

Next is Slow Horses and I've managed to get stuck in straight away on this one. I really enjoy the TV series so looking forward even more to the books.

Enjoy the Lovecraft! Big fan myself.

Decided I wanted to go back and zone up on my 'skills' given we're approaching Halloween season so I decided to re-read the Zombie Survival Guide (by Max Brooks) and the Zombie Combat Manual (by Roger Ma).

Enjoy Lovecraft! I wish I could go back and read them for the first time again!

I've got a few more Deathlands books under my belt since last I posted, I think I'm up to number 11 now, still enjoying it quite a lot.

As a break however I started Gideon Sable: The Best Thing you can Steal by Simon R Green today. Haven't got very far in yet but have enjoyed the introduction to it.

I'm reading a book on grief. Grief has been an important part of my life for a good long time now, but last year has been difficult. And things will only get worse in the next few years. I suppose I'm bracing myself, even if I know it doesn't help much.

That's the book I start leafing through when my D&D players screw around for too long, they know something bad is about to happen.

It's such a cool book, I love the silver edges on the pages. Not a huge fan of the stories themselves, sadly. Someday I hope they'll click with me.

Currently rereading The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson in preparation for Wind and Truth in December. Also reading the preview chapters as they come out.

Currently breezing through Auberon by James S.A. Corey, the story between books 7 and 8 of the Expanse. Not sure what I'll read next.

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Finished Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. The world-building around the Zone was as cool as I'd hoped, and I appreciated that expeditions into it were realistically strenuous, grimy, and dangerous. The overall tone is a bit bleak, though, and I didn't find the characters particularly relatable. There's a cool afterward from one of the authors, describing how difficult it was to get the book published (and when it was, how censored it had to be).

Bingo squares: Older Than You Are (1972), It Takes Two, Now a Major Motion Picture, (alt) Translated (hard).

lol I swear every time I see one of these topics I'm on another read through of Karen Rose (audiobooks). (She just released number 30, so I decided to dive in again).

I'm almost through Elements of Choice by Eric Johnson as my current ebook read, though. It's a pretty good look at how choice architecture affects decisions. Kind of similar to Richard Thaler's Nudge in terms of material, but I think I prefer Johnson's presentation (it's been a while though). Both are interesting and well worth the read, because people are using these tactics to affect your behavior.

Audible recently had an OK 5 credit bundle sale, so I finally pulled the trigger on the Stormlight Archive series on Audiobook. I've been working on the ebooks for a while, but it benefits from longer stretches of deeper immersion and I bounce way more on ebooks. I'll just start that over and do what he's written back to back once I do the dozen Rose books I have left.

still working through the first He Who Fights With Monsters audoiobook.

Liking it quite a but. Has nothing to do with national pride being an Aussie.

I just finished The Mercy of Gods which I enjoyed overall but I was a bit let down. It certainly wasn't as entertaining as Leviathan Wakes. I didn't find the characters particularly enthralling but the plot could go in some interesting directions in the coming books.

Still working on The Rise of Endymion which has become a bit of a slog but is starting to pick up.

Just finished CJ Tudor's "The hiding place" and starting today with "The last time I lied" by Riley Sager. For non fiction I'm reading "EMDR therapy" by Francine Shapiro.

I finished The Wheel of Osheim by Mark Lawrence (The Red Quern's War book 3). The character growth across this trilogy really made this book satisfying, though it made the earlier books a bit rough for me. I really wasn't a fan of the main character's flaws early on.

Now I'm on to The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson (Wheel of Time book 12!). Only just started so no real impressions yet but I'm so excited to see how this series wraps up. It feels like I'm actually getting close to the end of this giant journey!

Reading “Woman In Cabin 10” by Ruth Ware. The story is weakened by a really annoying protagonist.

I never did finish The Passage for some reason. I need to pick that back up and try it again. I was disappointed the TV show they based on it wasn’t renewed.

Reading Ball Lightning, by Cixin Liu. For now, I find it a bit less good than the Remembrance of the Earth's past trilogy I read before.

I've been listening to the "Destiny's Crucible" series by Olan Thorensen. Currently on the 8th book "A Fearful Symmetry".

It's about a guy from earth that has been transported, by aliens, to another planet that happens to also have humans but their culture is at a much lower technology level(around what earth was in the 1600s). And it follows him as he adjusts to the culture, and carefully starts introducing innovations.