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What Are You Reading? (February 2019)
- Thread starter ara
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Saw some hype on Blindsight by Peter Watts in a thread about Watts.
Really interesting so far and pretty confusing too.
Really interesting so far and pretty confusing too.
Have any of you heard or (and maybe read) the novelizations of these Batman comics? The Court of Owls came out today and was the only one I knew about, but it turns out there's three. The Owls one has good reviews or so it looks.
I broke down and bought the three of them as a gift to myself, but I'm not sure if it was a wise purchase given they were almost $100. The library doesn't have it, and when I asked for it to be ordered by one they put the graphic novel on hold for me.
I broke down and bought the three of them as a gift to myself, but I'm not sure if it was a wise purchase given they were almost $100. The library doesn't have it, and when I asked for it to be ordered by one they put the graphic novel on hold for me.
One of my favorite series and authors. The quality just gets better as Abercrombie's writing matures. The stand-alones are fantastic as well.
I read the series for the first time last year and immediately picked up best served cold. I got sidetracked reading cold but the first law trilogy is one of my favorite recent reads and I plan on diving into the rest of his work soon. His style is at once both brutally oppressive and filled with gallows humor and small moments of heart. I did find the first law books sort of wore me down at the end with how bleak they can get but I wouldn't change a thing about them. It's part of the appeal honestly. His world building is fantastic and character work is right there with it. As for Glotka I heartily disagree. He's a heart throb. Just one that's been mutilated beyond recognition lol. I love Rush but hes not some chiseled God that just grew old and haggard
Have any of you heard or (and maybe read) the novelizations of these Batman comics? The Court of Owls came out today and was the only one I knew about, but it turns out there's three. The Owls one has good reviews or so it looks.
I broke down and bought the three of them as a gift to myself, but I'm not sure if it was a wise purchase given they were almost $100. The library doesn't have it, and when I asked for it to be ordered by one they put the graphic novel on hold for me.
Saw The Killing Joke at Barnes and Noble the other day, and I thought about picking it up! Looking forward to hearing what you think.
I'm still deciding if I can justify blindly spending that much on just three books, all of which would be blind buys.
Just received Game Changer by Matthew Saddler and Natasha Regan today. It is a book about the development of Alpha Zero (self-learning chess engine) followed by human analysis of a bunch of interesting games of Alpha Zero against the strongest traditional chess engine. Pretty good read so far and the analysis of the games is fairly to the point with side lines used mostly just to illustrate tactical points. Alpha Zero plays in a very direct strategic manner which is easier to understand than the mysterious maneuvering typically found in engine chess. Lot of instructive points about the style and themes of attack used by AZ.
Are you able to request it from an out of town library though an inter library loan or something?
I tried that. I tried three libraries, but none have it. When I asked for one to be purchased, I didn't hear back and don't see it. And when I asked another library to purchase it, they put the graphic novel on hold for me.
I DID notice that the furthest library has the Harley Quinn book on order, but it hasn't come in yet and multiple people have reserved it.
Couple of quicker books read over the last two days:
The Walking Dead Book 15 (The one with Princess on the cover)
My brother-in-law always buys me one of these for my birthday/Christmas and I think I've got them all now. They're okay but they have become pretty formulaic - Rick and his party meet a new group who, no matter how they start it eventually becomes a battle of some kind. It's interesting comparing it to the show (although I gave up on that after the Negan storyline sort of concluded) but they are simply good now - no more, no less.
Also finished:
After hearing about it on Bonfireside Chat podcast and saw it in a bookshop in Leeds. Really good - although it took me a while to get used to the right to left style of reading, I actually think this helped the spooky nature of the story as I had to concentrate a bit more. Some of the stories were very creepy and I think I'll be seeing spirals everywhere for the next few days. Some of the stories were a bit odd and not in a creepy way - for example the girls with hair fighting! Overall though, really glad I've read it.
In fact, I've just realised my cup has a sort of spiral design.
The Walking Dead Book 15 (The one with Princess on the cover)
My brother-in-law always buys me one of these for my birthday/Christmas and I think I've got them all now. They're okay but they have become pretty formulaic - Rick and his party meet a new group who, no matter how they start it eventually becomes a battle of some kind. It's interesting comparing it to the show (although I gave up on that after the Negan storyline sort of concluded) but they are simply good now - no more, no less.
Also finished:
After hearing about it on Bonfireside Chat podcast and saw it in a bookshop in Leeds. Really good - although it took me a while to get used to the right to left style of reading, I actually think this helped the spooky nature of the story as I had to concentrate a bit more. Some of the stories were very creepy and I think I'll be seeing spirals everywhere for the next few days. Some of the stories were a bit odd and not in a creepy way - for example the girls with hair fighting! Overall though, really glad I've read it.
In fact, I've just realised my cup has a sort of spiral design.
Finished The Lathe of Heaven. Was definitely an engaging read and it explored the places I wanted it to go. I think it, very purposefully, approaches a certain loftiness that it can't live up to in the end, but the dissatisfaction of that inability to end up in a neat and tidy conclusion is itself incorporated into the theme in a satisfying way. It's good science fiction, great even, at times.
Still deciding on what to go for next.
Still deciding on what to go for next.
I'm reading The House on Half Moon Street, but not sure about it yet. Having a trans male detective in a historical novel is interesting, but the book seems to wallow in his dysmorphia to a degree I'm not sure is actually necessary?
Not sure if this counts but just finished:
I've put someone else's video as it gives a better impression than just a picture of the front cover. It's made me want to go back and play MGS I-IV again just because I'd love to look for all the details they put in. The books themselves are really beautifully presented with silver glitter edges on the pages, comes in a lovely box and the images are really good. If you are a fan of MGS I'd strongly recommend it!
I've put someone else's video as it gives a better impression than just a picture of the front cover. It's made me want to go back and play MGS I-IV again just because I'd love to look for all the details they put in. The books themselves are really beautifully presented with silver glitter edges on the pages, comes in a lovely box and the images are really good. If you are a fan of MGS I'd strongly recommend it!
Finally jumping into the final book of the Mistborn trilogy after a break from the series. I've been enjoying the series a good amount, it's one of the most intriguing of Sanderson's world. The characters and plot don't feel quite as tight as the Stormlight books, but there's a lot to like in the story so far, and I can really respect a fantasy book that goes so well out of its way to be unique. It also covers some interesting themes like what's actually necessary to be a good leader, and the value and pitfalls of religion. After this I can finally close the book (haha) on Mistborn!
what do you mean there's an additional quadrilogy and a planned additional trilogy?
On the continuing saga of a Fullmetal Alchemist read-through, I'm up to Chapter 19 being completed. As always, you either know the series or not, but I do still love how Arakawa keeps things moving, while always keeping characters in mind. The latest chapter dealt with finally revealing the full details of the Ishbalan War and it remains quite strong.I'm also appreciative of the way chapters 16-18 radically alter the stakes, introduce new threats and allies, and reframe the entire story in a fairly organic manner.
On more "traditional" reading, I also read through Denis Johnson's Largesse of the Sea Maiden. It's a collection of five short stories from someone considered a master of the art, and these stories don't dispel the notion. I'd give heavy credit to the first two tales. In the opener an aging marketing manager relates seemingly disconnected vignettes of his life in sparkling prose and knotted cul-de-sacs. I'll give a special nod to the following story, "The Starlight on Idaho", though, which revolves around correspondences from a fuck-up in his nth stay in rehab as he writes to God, Satan, his parents, and even his first love, a girl he knew in 5th grade. Rather than write up so much more, I'll just quote my favorite passage/metaphor -
I followed up with Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. I approached the book expecting more of a clinical analysis of the actual specifics of our epochal moment, but Kolbert threw a curveball by analyzing the history of how humanity came to even realize the possibility of extinction as real, filtering each new discovery through a particular extinxt species and illuminating the threads of our current issues, from climate change to human proliferation, throughout. Essentially, each chapter is trying to perform two or three balancing acts, all feeding into a greater whole, and it accomplishes it with aplomb.
I then moved on to Akwaeke Emezi's Freshwater, which relates the life of a young Nigerian woman who is born housing numerous demigods that operate more as the coping mechanisms of a traumatic life. The clever conceit here is that nothing Ada undergoes is particularly traumatic in ways that exceed normal human bounds, implying that any of us house just as many personalities. In many ways it attempts to stifle the usual uber-traumas that precede most narratives of this nature (until a kind of off-kilter ending that feels both abrupt and momentous). The prose is also quite gorgeous, though occassionally nebulous enough to prove difficult. An early passage -
As a final note on this roundup, this last weekend I blew through Kwame Appiah's The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity. As a long-gestating follow-up to his wonderful take on cosmopolitanism, Appiah's primary task is presenting countless examples of how identity, a relatively new idea in human history but one that suffuses our modern discourse, is far more malleable than many assume. He devotes a chapter to religion, nationality, class, race, gender, and culture. The strongest bit of writing revolves around religion and nationality, in which he points to the way national identity was particularly difficult to ascribe to, say, a German-Italian writer of the late 1800s for whom neither country fully existed at his birth. Or what of the tantamount entwining of religious identities and edicts over time? Appiach can give you a hundred examples of how religious identity is based more in location and time, and the beliefs follow, rather than the erroneous view that belief influences identity. The weakest section, sadly, lies with race. While Appiah delineates all of those liminal places in which identities abut and rebound, his discussion of race feels extremely clipped and rushed. Still, I love Appiah, and it's a book worth reading, especially if this is a new or interesting topic to you. I came to love Appiah due to the clarity of his writing and his deep humanity, and this new book only reinforces those qualities.
On more "traditional" reading, I also read through Denis Johnson's Largesse of the Sea Maiden. It's a collection of five short stories from someone considered a master of the art, and these stories don't dispel the notion. I'd give heavy credit to the first two tales. In the opener an aging marketing manager relates seemingly disconnected vignettes of his life in sparkling prose and knotted cul-de-sacs. I'll give a special nod to the following story, "The Starlight on Idaho", though, which revolves around correspondences from a fuck-up in his nth stay in rehab as he writes to God, Satan, his parents, and even his first love, a girl he knew in 5th grade. Rather than write up so much more, I'll just quote my favorite passage/metaphor -
I followed up with Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. I approached the book expecting more of a clinical analysis of the actual specifics of our epochal moment, but Kolbert threw a curveball by analyzing the history of how humanity came to even realize the possibility of extinction as real, filtering each new discovery through a particular extinxt species and illuminating the threads of our current issues, from climate change to human proliferation, throughout. Essentially, each chapter is trying to perform two or three balancing acts, all feeding into a greater whole, and it accomplishes it with aplomb.
I then moved on to Akwaeke Emezi's Freshwater, which relates the life of a young Nigerian woman who is born housing numerous demigods that operate more as the coping mechanisms of a traumatic life. The clever conceit here is that nothing Ada undergoes is particularly traumatic in ways that exceed normal human bounds, implying that any of us house just as many personalities. In many ways it attempts to stifle the usual uber-traumas that precede most narratives of this nature (until a kind of off-kilter ending that feels both abrupt and momentous). The prose is also quite gorgeous, though occassionally nebulous enough to prove difficult. An early passage -
As a final note on this roundup, this last weekend I blew through Kwame Appiah's The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity. As a long-gestating follow-up to his wonderful take on cosmopolitanism, Appiah's primary task is presenting countless examples of how identity, a relatively new idea in human history but one that suffuses our modern discourse, is far more malleable than many assume. He devotes a chapter to religion, nationality, class, race, gender, and culture. The strongest bit of writing revolves around religion and nationality, in which he points to the way national identity was particularly difficult to ascribe to, say, a German-Italian writer of the late 1800s for whom neither country fully existed at his birth. Or what of the tantamount entwining of religious identities and edicts over time? Appiach can give you a hundred examples of how religious identity is based more in location and time, and the beliefs follow, rather than the erroneous view that belief influences identity. The weakest section, sadly, lies with race. While Appiah delineates all of those liminal places in which identities abut and rebound, his discussion of race feels extremely clipped and rushed. Still, I love Appiah, and it's a book worth reading, especially if this is a new or interesting topic to you. I came to love Appiah due to the clarity of his writing and his deep humanity, and this new book only reinforces those qualities.
I finished Eve of Man tonight.
It wasn't too bad I suppose, typical (and kinda predictable) young adult fayre. I think I've said already in here that it's essentially a young adult version of The Handmaid's Tale, with bits of The Truman Show thrown in.
It's the first part of a trilogy anyway, so I more than likely will pick up the next installment in the summer.
Next up I'm reading this.
I know the title sounds lame and the cover looks lame, but it deals with a pretty dark subject, and I read a good review of it somewhere, so fingers crossed I haven't wasted my money.
It wasn't too bad I suppose, typical (and kinda predictable) young adult fayre. I think I've said already in here that it's essentially a young adult version of The Handmaid's Tale, with bits of The Truman Show thrown in.
It's the first part of a trilogy anyway, so I more than likely will pick up the next installment in the summer.
Next up I'm reading this.
I know the title sounds lame and the cover looks lame, but it deals with a pretty dark subject, and I read a good review of it somewhere, so fingers crossed I haven't wasted my money.
next series starts three hundred years after the initial trilogy. many are hoping the last trilogy takes place in space.🤞
One of my friends gave me this for Christmas, as it's one of her favourite books. I liked this, though I think this sort of purely comedic novel isn't to my interest to nearly the same extent it is to her.
The Marv Wolfman/George Perez run on the Teen Titans in the 1980s is one of those really storied runs in the history of comics; I wasn't around for it at the time, of course, but with the publication of DC's Omnibus editions from the period it's a good time to get started. This collects the first 20 or so issues, as well as a four-issue miniseries that is basically just the newer Titans that Wolfman and Perez had created elaborating on their backstories. The Wolfman/Perez era is often talked about as DC's answer to the Claremont-era X-Men, and I will give them one thing in comparison to their rival title, Wolfman is far less reliant on narrative captions to convey his stories. I liked this quite a lot; it's easy to see why it was so popular.
This series came on the recommendation of my local comic store owner. The setup is vaguely reminiscent of the beginning of the 2000s Battlestar Galactica reboot, perhaps crossed with Saga, as a child's companion robot wakes up after a ten-year hiatus to find that an attack by unknown robots on his interplanetary civilization has led to domestic robots being basically purged by mobs. The eclectic cast of characters takes shape pretty quickly in this first volume, as does the worldbuilding. The most interesting feature is Dustin Nguyen's artwork -- I was familiar with him from his work on The Authority with Ed Brubaker and on parts of Paul Dini's time on Detective Comics; here he's using a watercolour-influenced style that has way less in the way of hard lines that you get used to expecting from comics art.
Just finished the 6th Culture novel, Look To Windward by Iain Banks.
Am I stupid or does that book not have a single identifiable character arc?
I think this was my least favorite Culture novel? Not sure. Certainly these last three haven't made the impression on me that the first three did. There's absolutely far too much time spent with Ziller listening to him bitch only to have nothing come of it. Conversely, there were other characters and settings within the novel I would have much preferred to explore in greater depth.
I think I'll be putting the remaining books on the backburner for now. I want to read Blindsight next.
Am I stupid or does that book not have a single identifiable character arc?
I think this was my least favorite Culture novel? Not sure. Certainly these last three haven't made the impression on me that the first three did. There's absolutely far too much time spent with Ziller listening to him bitch only to have nothing come of it. Conversely, there were other characters and settings within the novel I would have much preferred to explore in greater depth.
I think I'll be putting the remaining books on the backburner for now. I want to read Blindsight next.
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Working through this:
Absolutely wonderful. Impressive how much his words could improve today's world.
Also reading a very old Spanish version of Paradise Lost.
And I'm waiting right now for my delivery of Maria Popova's Figuring, which is bound to be beautiful. And also a small book called "Decisions towards the end of life" from an indie editorial from Colombia.
Absolutely wonderful. Impressive how much his words could improve today's world.
Also reading a very old Spanish version of Paradise Lost.
And I'm waiting right now for my delivery of Maria Popova's Figuring, which is bound to be beautiful. And also a small book called "Decisions towards the end of life" from an indie editorial from Colombia.
Finished Drift by Bregje Hofstede (only available in Dutch for now), in which she semi-biographically recounts the end of her long-lasting relationship and marriage, and tries to figure out who or what's to blame. It's beautifully written with clear and sharp prose, though at time I found she lost herself in a essayistic style en overthinking. It's also quite interesting that she had finished another novel first (based on her childhood), but didn't deem it good enough. Chapters of that novel are spliced in this one as the 'debute novel' of the main character. It makes it even harder to separate fiction from reality (it's clear the novel-in-novel is mostly fictuous, but you recognise elements and themes that played a part in the break-up).
Not sure what I'm going to read next. I have lots of unread books lying around. Might go for Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney, but also have the fourth part of the Napolitan novels on the list, etc.
Not sure what I'm going to read next. I have lots of unread books lying around. Might go for Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney, but also have the fourth part of the Napolitan novels on the list, etc.
I've just started Aliette De Bodard's In The Vanishers' Palace, a Vietnamese retelling of Beauty and the Beast in a postapocalyptic world:
Maybe a dumb question, but is there an easy way to follow upcoming projects from specific authors? I feel like GoodReads isn't very good with this. I want to put in like 20 authors and basically know when they have books coming out? WIthout constantly having to check these specific authors pages or sites and stuff.
My library had that service, for when they purchased any new items from a given author. It also sent word of repeats and alternate formats though.
Started this on the bus this morning:
This was assigned for one of my MA classes ten years ago, but I never read it then. I like it so far. Been in a Greek mythology mood of late.
This was assigned for one of my MA classes ten years ago, but I never read it then. I like it so far. Been in a Greek mythology mood of late.
I was stuck in a house in Lake Tahoe over the weekend due to it snowing constantly for days at like 2 to 3 feet per day so I decided to start The Indifferent Stars Above... Seemed topical for some reason
This surprisingly took a lot of googling and looking around. Apparently there used to be a decent amount of sites that did this, but they're all basically dead now. Found one still up called FantasticFiction.com that you can make account for and keep track of your favorite authors. Not sure if it gives an alert or email but it at least keeps a calendar of the planned releases from your selected authors.
Over the past few days I finished Firefight by Brandon Sanderson, and also Heroes by Stephen Fry. I enjoyed both quite a bit.
Firefight was a nice step up from Steelheart , and I look forward to seeing how things turn out in Calamity, the final book in the Reckoners series. I'm semi-worried that
. But I trust Sanderson, so I'm hoping he subverts my expectations. Though I also like how in Steelheart they created
. I'm only a couple chapters in to Calamity, but it seems like a nice way to bring things full circle
As for Heroes, another fantastic retelling of Greek myth. If Fry ever does more retellings of myth - any myth - I'll definitely be all over that
Firefight was a nice step up from Steelheart , and I look forward to seeing how things turn out in Calamity, the final book in the Reckoners series. I'm semi-worried that
Prof will have willingly turned to evil as part of a larger gambit, knowing David would bring down Calamity and save him besides
the fake Epic, Limelight, not knowing at the time that Prof actually was an Epic, who it seems now goes by Limelight?
As for Heroes, another fantastic retelling of Greek myth. If Fry ever does more retellings of myth - any myth - I'll definitely be all over that
After not liking the way Mistborn series turned after the second book, after Firefight I had a lot of worries going into the third book. I would say he ends the trilogy really well and none of my worries really came to fruition or if they did it was in a way that was handled much better than I expected or just in a different way.
After Mistborn made me not want to read more Sanderson, The Reckoners series made me want to run out and read everything the guy had done.
I get emails from good reads like "an author you've read has a new book releasing this month" at the beginning of each month.
Huh, I'll have to look into see if that's some kind of opt in thing or something. I haven't seen that before. Thanks for the tip.
I have made a probably regrettable decision and basically picked up all 5 books of The Familiar and a hardcover (extra) copy of House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (obviously, as well as The Fifty-Year Sword). Read through the first volume of The Familiar, I like the format but the characters have not stuck yet. Rereading Dune now, as I finally got the rest of the series (Messiah through Chapterhouse). It's a bit weirder than I remember, and saw some people call it a "sexist screed" so now I'm reading it through a feminist(ish?) lens and it's very archetypal. After this I'll probably get to The Tombs of Atuan (in the illustrated edition of Earthsea).
I found a first edition of Gerald's Game today, for $1, but it looked like someone's cat had gotten at part of its slipcover. I hope I won't regret not buying it, but I'm sure they're not that difficult to find.
I've found the option.
https://www.goodreads.com/new_releases
In addition to that page, there is a check box on the top right
How do you add an author? My list is blank and if I go to an author's page there's no option to add them (I'm already following the author). :s
EDIT: Wait, it automatically adds all authors you've read by the look of it, there just haven't been any releases so far this month. Would be nice to be able to control that list.
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race is a really fun read so far.
Brave New World has really cool worldbuilding like the Bokanovsky process but the narrative isn't grabbing me and it's dull to get past 20 pages.
Brave New World has really cool worldbuilding like the Bokanovsky process but the narrative isn't grabbing me and it's dull to get past 20 pages.
Still reading Lethal White.
It's slow progress (I'm a very slow reader), but I'm making my way through. I'm really enjoying it, just like the previous books.
Have no idea where to go next after I finish this. Either something lighter or another fantasy/sci fi/fiction novel.
It's slow progress (I'm a very slow reader), but I'm making my way through. I'm really enjoying it, just like the previous books.
Have no idea where to go next after I finish this. Either something lighter or another fantasy/sci fi/fiction novel.
A friend introduced me to Brandon Sanderson last year and I've been on a binge on all his books.
I finished up all of Mistborn, up to the second book of The Stormlight Archive, and currently reading Elantris.
Going to read Warbreaker next, then Sanderson's short stories in Arcanum Unbounded, then Oathbringer.
I finished up all of Mistborn, up to the second book of The Stormlight Archive, and currently reading Elantris.
Going to read Warbreaker next, then Sanderson's short stories in Arcanum Unbounded, then Oathbringer.
OP
OP
Enjoy! The whole trilogy is fucking incredible.
The Luminaries is a super impressively constructed book, chock full of complex plots that intertwine, written well, flowing nicely. Ultimately it hasn't really connected with me though - the crime, mystery and deceit is all there, but I want to be hooked in more with what's going on in people's minds, why I should care so much about all these people.
Dune is... weird, my third time through.
It's just weird to see this idea of a "race consciousness that seeks to mix up its own gene pool through jihad", and I don't really like that basically all women are Bene Gesserit save for Chani, but I suppose that sort of archetypality is what you get. The sandworms and the like, the world building, is still good, but now I'm worrying constantly if I'm missing sexist/racist undertones.
I think it's shelved. So authors you've put on "want to read" should show up too?
Not sure.
There's like 8 releases there for me, but 3 of them are James Patterson lmao.
I...liked this book, I guess? Deserving of the Booker? Nah. I think the fact that a young-ish woman came up with it went a long way...
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