Finished The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson. Book 1 of 2nd era of Mistborn. This was a very interesting book. Set about 300 years after the first era. The changes in the world, and to learn about some of the characters, it was all very interesting, and I am very glad that I re-read the first era before reading this.
Finished Five on a Treasure Island by Enid Blyton. The book was surprisingly good. I quite enjoyed it, and it didn’t even feel old.
My kid is already on book 5. So, highly recommended your for your 9-12 year olds.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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Currently reading The Radium Girls. It’s going a bit slow since there are so many names to keep up with, but it’s really interesting nonetheless.
I have only heard about them in relation to poisoning and radiation, didn’t know they had effect on labour laws. Should check it out.
Cleveland, William L., and Martin Bunton. A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, c. 2016), 6th edition
Nicholas Riasanovsky and Mark Steinberg, A History of Russia (Oxford University Press, 2019), ninth edition
Gatrell, Peter. Russia’s First World War: A Social and Economic History. London: Pearson Educated, 2005.
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery
Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy
All except the last one are for school and I have not finished them but I they are much less dry than I expected.
I love history, but that feels like too much history at once.
Which of these is most enjoyable?
Currently the poverty of philosophy is the most fulfilling work but if it is your first marxist literature I wouldn’t recommend it. Second best Russia’s first world war.
Currently half way through Morningstar, third book of Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I think I’ll have it finished roughly a week from now and then move on to the fourth book. Still enjoying the series, and it’s nice to be able to talk to my wife about it as she’s on Lightbringer. There’s quite a bit of overlap with what we read, but she tends towards cozier books than I do, and I’ll listen to stuff like the darkstar trilogy which I think she wouldn’t enjoy at all
Finished the Bobiverse series. It was a nice read, but I don’t think the last one leaves room for another book in this series. I’m gonna start “all systems red” by Martha Wells next, see how that goes. I’m not to sure about the novella format though, I like doing a little longer with a story.
I did Bobiverse and Murderbot straight through a few months ago. They pair nicely!
I also caught up on the Bobiverse recently! According to his website, Taylor plans at least ten books, though I see what you mean with the most recent having few leftover threads to follow.
時をかける少女. I suck at reading japanese and the only way to get better is to (try to) do it. Not the most interesting as a dude in his 40s who’s not generally into this sort of genre (written in the 60s, it’s about an elementary school girl with some sort of ability to experience other times), but the internet was correct in that it’s about the right level of difficulty. I do kinda dislike some of the dated stuff (not useful, which is my primary concern) and there’s a ton of jargon to learn. Overall, it’s ok for it’s purpose, though it’s certainly not something I’m excited to pick up when time allows.
Ah, interesting. I am at very beginner level myself, could read the hiragana but not the Kanji, so would eventually need to find some books for my level, but with my speed, it’s probably going to be years before I get there.
Doraemon isn’t bad early on once you have some grammar. It tends to have furigana over most kanji. I read some slice-of-life manga (特別じゃない日 or something like this) when my wife finishes. Slice-of-life is probably good to start. Good luck!
Reading right now „Déjà Dead“ from Kathy Reichs. It‘s so good that i already dreamed of it last night … but it was a nightmare xD
I read (part of?) this a few years ago, but it wasn’t for me. However, your comment reminded me that it might be something for my wife, so it helps out!
Finally read Animal Farm. My takeaway was that any form of government eventually devolves to corruption. Despite having read the last lines in the past, was surprised when it ended.
About to finish A Short, Sharp Shock by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s a bit surreal, not sure where it’s going, but it’s a quick novella.
Love his writing, but damn, the Mars trilogy burnt me out on geography. I have a fair vocabulary, but Robinson must have majored in the subject.
I have these on tap if anyone cares to comment. Guy on reddit shared his Gdrive ebooks with me years ago, these sounded interesting.
Read Eifelheim a couple of times, downloaded it because I don’t have a good copy. It’s a fascinating look at how crash-landed and ill aliens are treated in Medieval Germany. The author is sometimes a little heavy-handed with the, “did you know this was the origin of this belief\word\thing\whatever?!” But yeah, I did not know those things and it was a great learning experience.
I’m listening to “the light of all that falls” which is the third book in this trilogy by James Islington.
It’s an interesting fiction with a couple of good magic systems, there’s a lot of world building to take in, tons of places, characters, the concept of watching each other’s memories, seeing into the post and future. Can be a bit hard to follow at times but it’s engaging enough
Yes! The Licanius Trilogy is one of my all time favorites. Partially it just hit me at the right time, but I also think it has a lot to offer on its own. It might not be the most original series at times, and there is a particularly odd part near the end of the series that felt underdeveloped, but overall I love the world, characters, and story. Definitely one of my favorite endings for a fantasy series too.
I’m about done with Character Limit, it’s about Musk’s takeover of Twitter. It’s super fascinating, an absolute page-turner. If that whole shitshow remotely piques your interest I’d recommend it.
This looks interesting. Adding it to my list.
I am still reading Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight book 2). I’m about 3/4 of the way through and enjoying it immensely. However everything I’ve read so far feels like set up, which is a little frustrating because mistborn did not have this feel to it.
I’m about 600 hours in on https://wanderinginn.com/. Just started book 8. Really enjoying the series. I still have hundreds of hours left in the series. I started reading it years ago and went to the audiobook. Feels pretty good.
Now I know how people feel like with their soap operas 😆.
I have been thinking about starting a new webnovel, this looks like a good option, have heard it mentioned a few times.
There’s no way to buy ebooks for anything other than kindle though, so if I get into it, would have to find some way around that.
I was able to get it on the kobo. I’m not sure what you mean by anything other than kindle?
Well, there was only amazon link, and it said “kindle format”, I assume that meant it’s only for kindle?
Ah gotcha. It’s hidden but you can have Amazon give you the ebook format. You may need to look that up. That’s what I do with all my ebooks I can’t get directly from the author.
If they give you their proprietary format you can use Calibre as well.
Ah okay, thanks! I generally don’t buy much ebooks so am a bit oblivious about this. My very short e-collection is pretty much all public domain and direct from author books.
And yeah, Calibre is great, use that to connect / transfer books to my very old reader.
Nice! Yeah direct from author or open publisher is the best. Thats why I like bean free library so much…
Oh, didn’t know about Bean Free Library, thanks for the mention!
I recently started reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. I want to see if I can somehow regain control over my focus
A Feast For Crows, by GRRM. I recently finished up The Three Body Problem. It’s a decent book, and I enjoyed reading it, but I don’t feel the need to read it again.
I gave up on A Song of Ice and Fire when I realised he is never going to finish it.
Also, books are just too depressing. I don’t like my fantasy to be that dark.
That’s definitely fair. I play a lot of the ASOIAF miniatures game, so I figured I should probably brush up on the background material. The books are fine, but he’s never going to finish them. The game based on those books is fantastic, however.
Finished Sandman and Joyce’s Dubliners.
Restarting Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson after setting it down over a decade ago. Usually I can just pick up a book I paused right where I left off, but I completely forgot what any of those made-up words meant.
- Finished Hyperion - excellent tale all round and I am impressed with Simmons’ breadth of styles within the each of the pilgrim’s tales. To me, the open ending was perfect and since there seem to be some division around the later books and they way that they resolve the mystery, I will leave it there for now. I may return to the other ones at some time though.
- Finished Project Hail Mary - which has a lot in common with Dennis E. Taylor’s Bobiverse books in overall approach. I suppose that they could be termed ‘procedural’ SF, with the focus being on the resolution of successive problems. Intellectually rewarding, but with limited emotional engagement, I found. It was certainly entertaining, and I enjoyed the worldbuilding but, between this and the Bobiverse, I far preferred the latter.
- (Re)Started Consider Phlebas - I had started this a few years back, but put it aside for some reason and never resumed. I can just about recall the overall scenes, but none of the detail. I have never read any of the other Culture tales and am eager to get to grips with these books. So far it is taking a while to develop, but I only started it a couple of evenings ago.
