I’ve been on a scifi binge. MurderBot on audio is worth your time. After Atlas was quite good, stands out from the rest. Timothy Zahn’s Icarus series was fun.
As for fantasy it’s been a slog. We need better search parameters. It took the book people forever to separate scifi and fantasy, but there’s still work to do. Paranormal romance is there for some reason and clutters up Libby’s ability to search. That, and it feels like there’s a glut of books involving either the fae or dragons right now, and little else, not unlike the vampire thing 2 decades ago.
currently listening to the 4th book in the children of time series
i love these books
I got back into reading through Dungeon Crawler Carl and now that I’m finished with that, I started to read The Colour of Magic because the discworld novels where recommended to me. Though I find as a non native english speaker the writing a little bit more challenging than DCC.
DCC is so damn fun to read! Discworld is a great read, too!
Just randomly found DCC. I’m about 65% some truth the first one, it’s hilarious.
Favourites include Lord of the Rings, Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey & Maturin series, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! trilogy.
Currently reading Bleak House.
My user name is the title of a book by my favourite author, Jonathan Carroll. He’s highly underrated but also a cult favourite. I couldn’t pick between his books.
Another favourite book is an old humour novel by the writer Patrick Dennis, whose most well known book was Auntie Mame. However the best of his books IMO was The Joyous Season, it was written in the 1950s and so some of the language in his books is a bit antique (like using Negro as a descriptor), but honestly there’s not a funnier book in my opinion, I reread it last month, and I realized that I still routinely say lines from it in my daily life.
Finally a great book is The Speed Queen by Stewart O’Nan, it’s dark and a tough topic to read about but it’s so captivating. All of his books are really worth reading. Last Night At The Lobster, Snow Angels, Ocean State, Wish You Were Here, Songs For The Missing, Evensong, The Names Of The Dead, The Good Wife, The Odds, Emily Alone, are my particular favorites, all pretty gritty.
My favorite series is Dungeon Crawler Carl . Its so good. I have ALL of the physical books, the audio books (Jeff Hays is hilarious with his takes on the different characters).
My favorite book soap is The Wandering Inn . Its a free web serial and I find it VERY good. But it can have some lulls. I call it a “book soap” because if its size . I am a prolific reader and it took me YEARS to get though around 50% of the series. I have the ebooks, audio-books, and have enjoyed my forever book. The payoff is SO good. Tears of Liscor broke me. I had to take time off of reading for a while due to what felt like a bit of trauma.
When I was a kid, I loved the ring of fire series ( 1632 and such). I dont enjoy it as much, but the older books in the series I still enjoy re-reading from time to time.
Among my favorites I remember: Gideon the ninth, slavery by another name, worst journey in the world, anything by Ted Chiang, blindsight/echopraxia
Recent reads: little bosses everywhere (excellent), no more tears (also excellent), get in trouble (I really like parts of it but it’s classic Kelly link, super weird and abrupt)
Gideon the Ninth baffled me
The books in that series all seemed to follow the same pattern of something weird, interesting and mysterious happening, having no idea what was going on, spending the whole book getting a slightly better picture of it only for something else totally incomprehensible to happen and the cycle started again. I wanted to like it but I got sick of the antics. Really interesting world though
Jumping between 1984 and Inkspell when 1984 gets to bleak.
I don’t read books much anymore. Combo of internet and my close vision getting worse. I like piers anthony a lot as a general story teller and wheel of time although I only read the books jordan wrote and did not finish off the series. Honestly though there are tons of authors with great books.
It’s funny that you mention Wheel of Time because I’m on the Sanderson books now and I feel like everyone’s personality changed due to his different writing style.
At first I didn’t think Robert Jordan was a particularly masterful writer (at least not like Tolkien), but by now I have an appreciation for how each of his characters has a different personality which came through clearly in not only the dialogue and the character’s actions but also the narration depending on whose perspective the chapter is told from.
But Sanderson though, it’s like whoever the chapter’s POV is from, it’s all narrated in the same writing style. It loses a lot of depth and just feels kinda flat.
The dialogue is more bland too, and suddenly everyone seems just mildly autistic. It doesn’t feel organic. And all their personalities are the same now. Like there’s not much distinguishing one person from another anymore.
I’m still gonna finish the series now because I’m emotionally invested in it and want to see how the story concludes. There are a lot of plot arcs that really started to come together in Book 11 to set the stage for Tarmon Gai’don. I can’t just put the series down. But my imagination needs to do a lot more work to keep the characters true to themselves.
There are still some chapters that I feel like Robert Jordan wrote before he died. Where suddenly the characters come to life again and the narration is told with more depth. Hopefully that lasts, cause those chapters are still nice.
But also, he left detailed notes of how to finish the story, and Sanderson interviewed his friends and family to better understand his intentions. So at least the plotlines will conclude true to the original author’s vision.
And then there’s the prequel which I’m looking forward to. That one was written by Jordan.
The Trial - Franz Kafka The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood Fight Club - Chuck Palahnuik Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
My favorite are the Kushiel trilogy, anything by Ian McDonald, almost anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky or Michael Carey. Though it’s difficult to pick.
Currently reading The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.
Don’t know if mangas count, but I’ve caught up with Berserk a few months ago. Greate story and art, can’t wait on the next volume thats coming out in a few months.
Currently reading Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams, about her time at Facebook. Only 50 pages in, but pretty interesting so far. Started with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but it’s just to hard to follow what is happening lol. And I’ve just ordered 1984.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is one of my all time favorite fiction books and I’m re-listening to the audiobook right now.
How not to Die by Dr. Michael Gregor is one of my favourite non-fiction books, containing a great summary of our current scientific knowledge in nutritional science.
Currently reading Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser
The thesis of the book is basically that environmental pollution, particularly lead, might be the thing that caused so many serial killers to pop up during the period of the late '60s to the late '70s. Only half way through it so far, and not quite convinced by the theory yet. Although it’s indisputable that such pollution can damage brains to a severe degree, I’m just not sure how you get from “damaged” to “I’d better serial kill some women”. Random violence and anger management issues, sure. But the highly specific and MO-driven criminality of serials killers seems like something else entirely. We’ll see what evidence comes in later chapters!
EDIT: Finished. Yeah, sounds like complete bullshit to me. She was even attributing the existence of the Bloods and the Crips to smog, for fuck’s sake. It’s as though she’s genuinely unable to imagine any reason for any violence other than pollution-induced brain damage.
Elizabeth Lynn’s Chronicles of Tornor trilogy; currently reading a book of Larry Niven novellas and short stories.
