Books

Listening to murderbot diaries and restarting my read of house of leaves

Road to little dribbling by Bill Bryson. He is so funny, i have to laugh out loud lots!!

I have just started Tress of the Emerald Sea by Sanderson. I love Sanderson books in general so I know I will like this but I have also read about 10 Deathlands books in the last couple of weeks so needed a break with something else for a bit :D

Right now, Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I'm reading it because a couple of friends, a cousin and I do a little bookclub podcast. We do speculative fiction. We take turns picking a book then nerd out about them. This was Will's pick. Last pick was mine, it was the first three books in the Hitch Hikers Guide trilogy.

After this, I'm pretty sure I'm going to re-read The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. Its been dozens of years since the last time I read that.

I am reading the sixth book in The Wheel of Time series, Lord of Chaos. I've been working through the series for the last six months or so, with some other books in between.

I'm reading it now since it's finally finished and I can get all the books. I first read some of the books, first three or so, in the late 90's. At the time I was heavily in to fantasy and it was a well known series. I liked it back then, but for whatever reason dropped it. I guess I feel I need to finish something I started a long time ago.

Now, the Lord of the Rings has been my favorite book for a long time, and I see a lot of people comparing WoT to LotR, but I think it's not a very valid comparison. Similarities between the books are fairly superficial fantasy tropes. Jordan just isn't the writer Tolkien was, though he's not without his merits. It's clear he's heavily invested in the story and world he's creating, and it feels infectious. I like reading the books. However, where Jordan falters most I think is his characters, who tend to be insufferable all of them, with few exceptions. They constantly lie to, mislead and insult each other and it's hard to figure why they think they are friends. His gender dynamics are exasperating, with characters constantly acting like the other gender is completely inscrutable in all ways. It gets real old real fast. He's also overly verbose, this series could have been a lot shorter. But still, I read on and even enjoy myself. I might finish this series yet.

Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. I enjoyed the first two books (Cordelia prequels) in the author's Vorkosigan Saga enough to want to try something else by her (since I've failed twice to get into the first Miles book). I think this is her only other big series? Anyway, it's been sitting on my TBR pile for a long time now, and I finally picked it up to read for bingo.

I don't mind a slow start, but IMO this had a very looooong slow start (~30%), to the point I put it down to read something else. Of course, it turns out I paused right before things started to pick up, so now I'm chugging along with it just fine.

I just finished "The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames". Ames worked for the CIA during the hayday of the Middle East issues (60's onwards) and was a direct back channel to Yassir Arafat. I picked it up on the recommendation of my ex wife, and for anyone interested in ME politics of that era it's an absolutely brilliant read. I'm now taking a gap with some much loved Terry Pratchett's Discworld (Guards Guards to be precise).

A stubborn skill grinder in a time loop, royal road/kindle unlimited

I love time loop progression fantasy, ever since mother of learning I can't get enough of the sub genre

The Long War, sequel to The Long Earth by Stephen Baxter and Sir Terry Pratchett.

They're pretty interesting.

Listening to Die Respawn Repeat.

On the fence about it. I like the premise but the execution seems not there.

I'm reading the Doorways trilogy. I read it as a kid and could never find it anywhere (even on zlib/Anna's). But i found that the author released it under a creative commons licence, and put it on his website, so I'm reading these books again.

I’m currently reading Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon. I recently finished The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley which is a scifi-horror with really heavy topics and events. A few were moments pretty disturbing but it’s a great book, I recommend it.

IPB is my palate cleanser before finishing off the third Kushiel book, which also has somewhat heavy topics in places. I try to read lighter books in between my heavy stuff. I just needed something that didn’t have too much death, mutilation, and dismemberment lol

Right Wing Women by Dworkin.

Honestly a hard read. The usual esoteric language we expect from academics, mixed with a confrontational/ polemic writing style. It would be easy to dismiss her as the stereotypical fire-breathing man-hating lesbian radical feminist if it weren't for how compelling her arguments are.

Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan. I've read most of Riordan's other books (really need to catch up on the last few Percy Jackson related books), and I'm always head over heels for the way he takes existing myth and recasts it into a fun story that still plumbs the depths of the source material. This one is essentially "unknown to the wider world, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was based on actual events; what is the fall out of that today?" I've never read 20,000 Leagues, but I might have to do so after I finish this.

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. It was in my shame pile

The Broken Window by Jeffrey Deaver

Why, because it's the next in the series. I first started reading the series because I enjoyed watching The Bone Collector movie and they are an easy/fun read. The Stone Monkey is my favourite so far.

The „Ibis“ trilogy, set in the time of the opium war. Heard about that in the great Podcast „Empire“.

Neuromancer.

I loved Cyberpunk 2077 and everyone keeps saying that it’s a rehash of Neuromancer so I had to give it a go.

I’m enjoying it but I feel like I might need to read this more than once, the writer’s style is strange to say the least and I feel like I’m never quite understanding what’s going on. I’m not finished but so far I think Cyberpunk’s plot hits harder, but that’s probably because I’m a brainlet maybe.

Also slowly working through Prologomena For Any Future Metaphysics. I’m trying to read Marx but to read Marx I need to read Hegel and you can’t read Hegel without reading Kant so here I am.