What book(s) are you currently reading or listening to? February 17
I almost forgot the weekly thread again, so just putting it up, will post my updates later.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
For details on the c/Books bingo challenge that just restarted for the year, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and its Recommendation Post. Links are also present in our community sidebar.
Path of Daggers! (Wot #8)
I’m officially past the halfway point.
I have thoughts on the series, but my spoiler tags have been known to fail here for whatever reason.
Suffice to say, I have been enjoying the books. The hardest thing about reading these books is that they’re just old enough to not be considered classics like LotR, but not modern enough to be at the forefront of social media, like Cosmere stuff.
So finding people to talk about these books irl has been very difficult! And the huge 14 books is such a daunting task to get someone to consider it.
I wish I was more online when I first read WoT and the Dragon Mount site was super active.
I'm currently listening to them, on book 11, whatever it's called. Read them all a few years back. My problem is I have a difficult time placing things in one book or another, so despite being in the midst of it, I can't discuss anything with you!
I feel your pain. Everything after book 4 is blurring together.
Just finished The Handmaid's Tale after having it in my to-read list for who knows how long. It was pretty bleak. I'll probably take a break and read some other things before coming back for the second book. Margaret Atwood is slowly becoming one of my favorite authors.
I am a book four of my audiobook re-read version of Dungeon Crawler Carl before the eighth book comes out in May. I just wanted to hear the audiobooks because they are done so well.
I also just finished A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher. (All she writes is great) And now I’m moving onto Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman, who I will be seeing on Thursday for a signing.
I really didn't care much for The Hollow Places. But the rest of her bibliography seems appealing to me. Would you say they are better than that book?
I also didn't care for The Hollow Places, and have avoided her horror novels ever since. I did pick up What Moves the Dead recently, though, and found it enjoyable. Maybe it's just that one book? Maybe she's better at gothic than straight horror? I don't know.
I do generally like T. Kingfisher's fairy tale-inspired titles, as well; the ones I've read do tend to have the same kind of spunky protagonist as The Hollow Places, but that kind of MC doesn't bother me in a fantasy setting. YMMV, ofc.
It depends on your preferences. I tend not to read a lot of Horror because it as a genre is something I don’t vibe with, but I have read a few because the writing or storytelling were solid. Hollow Places was like that for me.
If you tend to vibe more with Fantasy, give Paladin’s Grace a try. (Unless a romance aspect will turn you off). Alternatively, A Wizards Guide to Baking is enjoyable and shorter.
I like horror but definitely prefer fantasy. I'll have to give her another shot but I was really disappointed with Hollow Places.
I kinda just found it rather vapid overall. It was strange for the sake of being strange. It didn't have enough good aspects to make up for the parts I didn't like overall. I ended up giving it a 1.25/5. I think overall that "cosmic horror" might just not be for me.
I bought a collection of the Slough House thrillers by Mike Herron, the books on which the Apple TV show Slow Horses was based.
I find the way Herron writes, very nice. He usually designs every paragraph from the perspective of one of the Slow Horses, or someone useful to the story. But he also changes the tone, the wording, in the way that character would tell that part.
Plus the story kind of takes a modern twist on the tired old spy stories and it contains a fair amount of humour.
I enjoyed the show, thinking about trying the books out at some point!
I finished 2 books by Johan van Coenegham:
Level 1 readers for learning Dutch!
Started Dungeon Crawler Carl this week. It is a hell of a read so far. Probably going to have to put the rest of the books on my to read list shortly.
Will also start audio book of Disquiet Gods soon? Maybe next week. Looking very forward to that since I also grabbed the last book in the Sun Eater series in print. Last one isnt where i usually do audio books
I just finished dungeon crawler carl, and I'm so happy to hear that someone liked it, because I really struggled. There were parts I thought were really compelling though! What did you really like about it?
I think the absurdity of it got me. Its so over the top silly.
Honestly I just am having fun with it and sometimes thats what you need.
It's probably my favorite series for a few reasons. The humor is unhinged and I was cackling regularly. It also justifies the unhinged humor in-universe well enough that it didn't break my immersion. The worldbuilding is actually awesome. I like that even though the stakes are high, nothing too bad happens. Sure there's some rough moments, but nothing too painful to read (unlike red rising which is a constant series of dick kicks). What surprised me is it isn't just a silly series, there's a message in there. Like the title of book 3 isn't just for asthetic. Coincidentally that was also the hardest one to read. Too much shit going on for me to really visualize and follow.
I just finished book 1. While I didn’t find it hilarious, I am interested in the overall message of the series that I feel like is going to be a slow burn. Overall looking forward to reading more as the series is light hearted.
I need to start reading Red Rising again! I stopped at some point in the third book, but really loved that series as well.
You're dead inside. /s
I like the world building in red rising. It's very derivative of brave new world, but super fleshed out and the solar system really feels huge and alive. I did NOT like that it's a ridiculous rollercoaster. Every good thing must be immediately followed by the worst thing to happen in the series, repeated ad infinitum. I stuck with it because the story is compelling but holy shit does it get rough.
I read the first one over my Christmas downtime. Moved on to the second one in the new year. I have a large collection of Stephen King, and Joe Hill books. Ive had a love of reading for a long time. These books have been like eating popcorn or chips. They feel like fanfiction of all my favourite games mashed together, but then had the quality increased about 10%. They arent bad. But they arent... Amazing. Like... I have bought 5 of them now, with the intention of supporting the author and finishing the series as I can. But I wouldnt say... Man you need to read this book. The Martian? Operation Hail Mary? Gotta read. Ready Player One? Yeah, that was solid. You should read.
Dungeon Crawler Carl? Its like a bathtub book. Or what I would consider a bathtub book if you weren't interested in anything 'spicy' or vampires. So far solid 8/10
I'd honestly recommend the audiobook for DCC. Jeff Hays absolutely kills it, and there's a legendary in-joke in one book that only comes across in audio.
I'm currently reading Kings 'It' for the first time. The mix of nostalgia and horror is fun
And Shirer's 'Fall of the Third Republic' which is a fascinating bit of history that rhymes with contemporary authoritarian politics.
The preteen orgy in the sewer was completely unneeded.
Yeah, I haven't got there yet, but it's literally the only thing I knew about the book going in.
I love that book. Ive only read it twice, and decided to skip the uncomfortable part on the second read through. Overall its near the top of my Stephen King list.
I've not read much King. Heart's in Atlantis and 11/22/63.
It's fascinating, his prose isn't beautiful but he captures human emotion in a very visceral way. I understand why people read him.
Insomnia was the first book from King that I read and had a real emotional connection to a story.
Even if you haven't connected on other stories. That one was so good on a human level.
I've read "the stainless steel rat" by Harry Harrison last week. I didn't find it quite as good as the previous books I've read from Harrison, but I started the second book in the series "the stainless steel rat's revenge" anyway. I have some hopes it gets better since the first one was also one of Harrison's first books. If not, it was still okay-ish.
Just started Red Country by Joe Abercrombie this morning and already hooked.
I started off the week with an Outlanders book (I think it was number 5)
Since then I have been binging on Dungeon Crawler Carl. After hearing people constantly mention it and good things being said I thought i would give it a try and I am loving it. I am already half way through the third book.
It reminds me of a mix of Solo Levelling with Buy Mort. It is very similar to Buy Mort in how it is presented, written and the humour behind everything. So to anyone who loves a bit of Dungeon Crawler Carl, I would highly highly recommend giving The Shopocalypse Saga: Buy Mort books a go, I think you'd love them as well!
Similar. Picked up 'Carl' at the library and killed it in two days. Have Book #2 on hold.
Will check Shopocalypse, thank you for the suggestion.
Have you ever tried "Red Harvest" by Dashiell Hammett?
No worries, I hear Carl mentioned a lot but no one has ever spoken about Buy Mort and it is done in such a similar vein that I think people would really enjoy it!
Never heard of Red Harvest but will check it out for sure, thanks!
If the plot of 'Red Harvest' seems familiar it's because that book is the original; all the versions you've seen ripped it off.
I finished a Confederacy of Dunces, and Three Body Problem. Now I'm about ⅓ through The Dark Forest.
I'd recommend all three of these books!
A Confederacy of Dunces is a Pulitzer prize winning comedy. By the end of the book you really like Ignatius, even though you hate him in the beginning.
The other two books are part of the "Remembrance of earths past" trilogy. Easy recommend for sci-fi fans.
Ooooh we have similar tastes cause I loved all of those. Igantious was a selfish moron, but an endearing selfish moron I was rooting for by the end.
Dark forest was my personal favorite of the Remembrance trilogy, it has deeply colored my view of any potential IRL aliens in the universe.
A word of warning though, after the trilogy a fan fiction by a different author picked up steam as the "unofficial 4th book" and was even packaged with the original three by the publishers. However, The Redemption of Time is pure stinkin' hot doggie doo-doo. Stay away and let the story end where the Liu Cixin intended.
Thanks for the heads up about redemption of time! I heard about it, and was unsure whether I was interested.
A Confederacy of Dunces is hilarious! It has been awhile since I read it, but the part where Ignatius is in his college classroom and yells Zorro had me cracking up.
Since my last check in, I started and finished Yellowface by RF Kuang. Read it in one day; the narrator was so insufferable I just had to know what would happen to her lmao.
Almost done with Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu. I like reading short stories before bed because there's less chance of me staying up all night trying to finish a book haha. I like it so far, some stories more than others, but overall they're pretty solid.
Also around halfway through None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. It's stressing me out a bit, not sure in a good or bad way lol. Pretty decent so far and keeps me on my toes.
I'm reading Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History. If you can't tell, it's about the history of the Gulag system, a collection of Soviet concentration camps. Interesting stuff, though gruesome.
I recently also read through IAEA's INSAG-7 report on the Chernobyl accident. HBO's Chernobyl is a wonderful series, but the last episode bothered me since I knew it gets a lot of things wrong. After digging around YouTube videos for a bit, I found a lot of them confused and contradictory. Eventually I decided to go to the source and read the report in an effort to understand what happened. It's a surprisingly understandable and not terribly long, and pretty much the most authoritative source on the accident. It's amazing how many people make videos about Chernobyl who clearly haven't read it. What really boiled my coolant, however, was how it was clear the Soviet nuclear institutes knew about the design flaws that caused the accident and even knew how to fix them, but they chose to do nothing. They. Fucking. Knew. They just blamed the operators and got away with it.
The HBO series is great, but it is really inaccurate.
Applebaum's book on the Soviet take over of Eastern Europe was a fascinating read.
Guncle
Its for a book review podcast I am listening to, "words about books"
Its a story of retired gay Hollywood celebrity, Pat, taking care of his former friends kids after she lost her battle with cancer.
The father fell into addiction and wants Pat to take care of the kids for 90 days while he goes to a near by addiction treatment center.
I am only 90 pages in, but so far, I am not impressed by the story's humor and for the most part, I am tired out by celebrity stories/culture.
Freak Fall by Dave Cheadle. It's Christian fiction that reads like a thriller and isn't preachy. Reminds me of Frank Peretti.
I listen to books on my hour commute. I am currently working through The Iron Druid Chronicles. It’s a fun world where all the gods and monsters are real and the last Druid is being hunted down by his nemesis and all the trials he under goes. Each book takes a stride through a different pantheon and the story is died together nicely, albeit this is clearly young adult fiction, I’m enjoying it.
The Middleman by Olen Steinhauer. This is a new author to me. It's about a group of left-wing activists who suddenly disappear and go off-grid. A lady FBI agent has been monitoring them for a while, even though there's no evidence they intend violence. Well, things happen, people die, and the surviving members are officially labeled terrorists. Anyway, I have about 100 pages left and some very suspicious characters haven't yet had their involvement adequately explained. If it finishes strong, I'll add Mr. Steinhauer to my list of authors I would read another book by.
I'm slowly but surely making my way through 1984. I think I'm not in the right mood for it to grab me better, but it's interesting so far.
__
Finished (since last thread):
Days by Moonlight by André Alexis (magically realistic literary fiction) | bingo: minority author, award
A grieving scientist agrees to join his parents' friend on a trip to research a missing poet.
I liked this a lot in the beginning, and found the writing style engaging. However, I could tell a lot of the Canadian references were going over my head, and the last third went off in a direction that killed a lot of my enthusiasm. It's not a bad book, and I might try something else by the author eventually, but I think someone who reads a lot of lit fic would appreciate it more.
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (historical detective noir) | bingo: minority author HM, motion picture, award HM
A recently unemployed WWII vet takes on a shady request to find a missing girl.
It was cool to see noir from a Black perspective, but I didn't like it enough to want to read more of the series. Maybe I don't have the patience for noir tropes I thought I did.
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (historical gothic fantasy horror) | bingo: creature, short, lgbtqia+ (maybe), award, late to the party
A The Fall of the House of Usher retelling. An ex-soldier visits a friend, whose sister is gravely ill. On arrival, it quickly becomes clear that something is very wrong with, well, everything.
I was wary of trying another horror from T. Kingfisher after disliking The Hollow Places, but I really liked the cover, and it was short, so I gave it a shot. Turns out, this was great! Pleasantly disturbing and didn't overstay its welcome.
Not technically a book but a book length fanfic. It’s called “Saving Grace” It’s basically the book Project Hail Mary (spoiler in case the tag is not showing up in your client)
::: spoiler Tap for spoiler But from Rocky’s perspective and it’s as if he wrote it :::
So far it’s pretty good. Would recommend for fans of the original book
Currently reading God's Junk Drawer by Peter Clines, and listening to Dungeon Crawler Carl, Book 6. Both are fantastic so far!
Literally just finished "The Last Days Of Night" by Graham Moore.
Thomas Edison is suing George Westinghouse for $1 billion. Westinghouse hires a young, untested lawyer. Great historical fiction with enough violence to make it a crime novel
Just finished Antihero by Gregg Hurwitz. Fav action thriller series. Currently listening to Worst Case Scenario by TJ Newman. Not loving the narrator but the story is great.
Next up - another go 'round with Project Hail Mary in preparation for the movie! Probably my fav book of all time.
I'm reading The Book that Held her Heart (book 3 in Mark Lawrence's The Library trilogy). I really liked how the series started, but am not a huge fan of the ending it's working towards, which is not my usual experience with this author.
Next up, I have 5 bingo squares left so I'm going to try to focus on getting those done.
Still plugging away at Field of Roses by Philip Pullman
It’s been a slow reading week as I prepare for gardening weather, but I’m going to finish this book this week. I want to make sure I reread Project Hail Mary before the movie comes out!
"Twelve Months", by Jim Butcher, book 18 in The Dresden Files. Been waiting over 5 years for this new installment. At least the next one is about a year out.
I just read it as well, and was left feeling surprisingly "meh" about it at the end. Maybe because I didn't love the previous book and there was a long wait for this one?
I'm not sure, but i'm not excited for the next book. I'll read it anyway, but it's a bit of a come-down as this series used to be one of my favorites.
Honestly, a 6 year wait between installments really breaks up the narrative flow and kills hype. I'm at the verge of saying I won't read any more until the whole series is completed. IF it gets completed, since there's at least 5 more books on the way (apparently).
I had a lot of big emotions with this book.
I got the new Kant and Wittgenstein biographies that came out last October. Pretty good stuff so far.
I finished both Julia by Sandra Newman and 1984 by George Orwell. I liked 1984 better, much more depth and great writing, but Julia was good too.
I've now started Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. I like it so far, but I feel it could have had a bit more depth to it. Still an interesting story so far.
The State of Affairs, by Esther Perel; I'm also reading The Reemergence of Liberation Theologies, ed. Thia Cooper.
The Crucible - historical fiction by John Sayles.
does my shampoo bottle count?
I've largely been rereading older releases for comfort, since I keep bouncing off the new (to me) books I've started--and the end of this bingo year is approaching!
Mr Wilman's Motoring Adventure by Andy Wilman. A behind the scenes look at Top Gear and The Grand Tour. Not very far in yet, but it's an entertaining read so far. Reading it in spare moments at work.
"Head Off" by John Scalzi. It's the sequel to "Lock In", which is a book about a disease that causes people to be conscious and whole but stuck in their minds.
A Wizard Of Earthsea
I'm loving this book because it gives a little bit of Harry Potter vibes. As always, Le Guin's prose is fantastic. This might as well become one of my favorite novels.
I just started Carl’s Doomsday Scenario! Book 2 of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series which seems to be extremely popular given all the comments in this thread about the book series!
It is light hearted and fun which I think is needed.
I'm currently reading "Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy" (in spanish: "Introducción a la crítica de la economía política"). It's a summary of Marx's "Capital" from the perspective of its author, Simon Clarke. It's very interesting.