What are you reading?

[yxanthymir]

6 hours ago, leons1701 said:

Anubis Gate is pretty darn good. Powers is one of those authors that I always seem to love when I'm reading him and then is immediately forgotten for another five years or so. Really need to make a deliberate effort to track down some of his stuff I haven't read.

 

It is only my second book from him. But I am starting to love his work. On Stranger Tides is the other book I read and it is a great book also.

[cailano]

There's a fantastic John Scalzi collection on Humble Bundle right now. Includes the Old Man's War series and Redshirts.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/john-scalzis-interdependency-old-mans-war-and-more-tor-books

[leons1701]

Yup. I'd have snapped it right up if I didn't already own almost all of it. Still considering it since there's only a couple I own as ebooks and few like Fuzzy Nation that I only read from the library and don't actually own.

[cailano]

On 11/24/2023 at 9:27 AM, leons1701 said:

Yup. I'd have snapped it right up if I didn't already own almost all of it. Still considering it since there's only a couple I own as ebooks and few like Fuzzy Nation that I only read from the library and don't actually own.

I was surprised at how much I did NOT own. I've enjoyed all the Scalzi work I've read. Old Man's War was borderline brilliant. I just keep getting distracted by all the other books I want to read. How am I supposed to find time to read all the books I want when there are all these other freaking books that I need to read first???

But now I've got a good Scalzi collection, too.

[Butchern]

I'm reading The Keep by Jennifer Egan. The only other thing I have read by here was A Visit from the Goon Squad (which I liked a lot). The Keep is very weird, like a meta-novel married a Gothic novel and had a baby that was set in the modern day.

[Basil_Bottletop]

I picked up A Secret in Scarlet because my other audiobook lending expired and I don't want to commit to anything super long. I think it's a 3 hour audiobook, but I can't say I've ever actually read the book that introduced the world to Sherlock Holmes. I've read other stuff with him, but this is the first.

[Raistlinmc]

Considering how much I've come to like the show (especially the new second season), I think it's high time I picked up the Shadow and Bone series. Season one was solid but season two is stellar.

[yxanthymir]

Unfortunately the series was cancelled. 😢

[Seth0194]

Rereading a GOT

[cailano]

14 hours ago, Seth0194 said:

Rereading a GOT

Spoiler alert: It still doesn't have an ending. ;)

[agricultural_chessman]

For non-fiction I'm working my way through "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess". I'm around halfway through with it. The problems after it teaches the very basics of he game start off easy as expected, focusing on checkmates, but now they're multiple steps and require more awareness of the board.

 

For fiction I'm revisiting the Konosuba series of light novels. It's already on the old Kindle Paperwhite I found while cleaning. To my pleasant surprise it cleaned up and charged up just fine, even though I hadn't touched it in years.

Edited December 2, 2023 by agricultural_chessman (see edit history)

[Basil_Bottletop]

Because of a conversation had on a Discord server about fan bases and how much of an author's work they actually read... I find myself downloading The Gunslinger and starting that series again. The first book is a low commitment. I hate burning up my limited time by re-reading a series, but we'll see.

[cailano]

On 12/1/2023 at 10:20 PM, agricultural_chessman said:

For non-fiction I'm working my way through "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess"....

I went down that rabbit hole about 12 months ago. I started with a book my dad just randomly gifted to me when he was down visiting. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess." Haha, what were you trying to say, Dad?

Not that he's a grand master himself. He's played a lot but hasn't really studied the game.

Anyway, he got some karma for that gift. I read the whole book and practiced the tactics and techniques therein. I'd never studied chess before and found it fascinating. Eventually, I made an account on Chess.com and started playing a couple of games daily. I also did some of their lessons on checkmating patterns. Then, I hit YouTube and found a couple of openings I liked.

I ended up climbing to the 800 level in rapid on Chess.com. Not a world-class rating by any means, but the next time I saw my father he got to find out what an 800 ELO means when compared to a casual player. Sorry, Dad!

Unfortunately, I don't think he's going to bring me any more chess books.

[Basil_Bottletop]

This year, you're getting 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to Smoking Brisket'. Then he's going to mock your cooking skills. Then in a few months he'll get solid brisket.

Dad-scheme.

[Eric]

This is the 3D chess version of parenting.