What are you reading?

[Raistlinmc]

Oh man, Butchern, you're dedicated indeed. Impressive book club you have there!

I don't normally struggle with books but The Sound and the Fury through me for a loop the first time I read it. The second time, though, I genuinely loved it. That first read-through was rough though.

[Hyaenneh]

I've been struggling reading the past few years, I'd lose interest or just not be able to start. A YouTuber recently punched me in my third eye and made me remember that, as a child, I used to keep two to four books on the go at a time, flitting between whatever most interested me on a moment-to-moment basis, rather than making myself finish a book (or permanently DNF it) before allowing myself to start the next. I've re-adopted this old habit, and so far it's going really well! Saying "it's okay to read two chapters of this and then forget it exists for six months" has oddly revitalized my interest and appetite in reading.

Anyway, right now I'm in the middle of re-reading Starship Troopers (blame Twitter's Helldivers discourse), and just started K.S. Villoso's Wolf of Oren-Yaro, which is a little thin on plot early but has some solid character work.

[Raistlinmc]

I'm enjoying Six of Crows a lot. I didn't really like the Shadow and Bone trilogy, so I was skeptical, but I liked the two seasons of the show on Netflix enough to give this one a try (especially since the best parts of the show were the characters in this story and not the ones in the original trilogy). Turns out, it's really fun stuff. I'm looking forward to finishing it and heading right on to its sequel soon.

[yxanthymir]

Finished All systems Red by Martha Wells.

 

And now I am reading and almost finishing Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells. Fast and fun read.

[leons1701]

Murderbot is amazing.

 

Just about done with Valdemar, by Mercedes Lackey. Then it's time to finish my reread of Wheel of Time with A Memory of Light.

[Butchern]

On 3/12/2024 at 9:46 AM, Raistlinmc said:

I don't normally struggle with books but The Sound and the Fury through me for a loop the first time I read it. The second time, though, I genuinely loved it. That first read-through was rough though.

We have an English professor who is an expert on Faulkner coming to our book club meeting on Saturday. In our group chat, we asked him for some tips for reading Faulkner, and he said, "Not sure what to say other than 'Read him, read him, and keep reading him until you love it!'"

Almost sounded like a threat. 😁

[MrAndrewJ]

The Hobbit was on sale a couple years ago at the Kindle store. I haven't read the full book since I was nine. Re-reading it has been very enjoyable so far.

[Raistlinmc]

4 hours ago, Butchern said:

We have an English professor who is an expert on Faulkner coming to our book club meeting on Saturday. In our group chat, we asked him for some tips for reading Faulkner, and he said, "Not sure what to say other than 'Read him, read him, and keep reading him until you love it!'"

Almost sounded like a threat. 😁

That's pretty solid advice, actually. haha

[Butchern]

For the April book club, we are reading a small book of poetry by a local author (who is coming to the book club). For May, we are either going to read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke or A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry. Still deciding.

[Basil_Bottletop]

Blackfish City was pretty good. There was some interesting ideas in it and I didn't find that it needed to extrapolate those ideas too long or too deep. I don't know why, but I did not care for the narrator(s). That probably ding'd it more than anything. The third act dragged for me, but again, I think it might have been the audiobook reader and not the story (or at least not 100% because of the story).

Now I'm reading How to Lose the Time War which was recommended to me by a few people. One in particular finished it up really recently, so I'll be able to compare notes with them (which I always enjoy doing after reading something).

Edited March 18 by Basil_Bottletop (see edit history)

[Niven81]

Currently reading A Call to Vengeance the third book in the  Manticore Ascendant series by David Weber and Timothy Zahn.

Baen Books always keeps me happy.

[leons1701]

Baen gets a lot of flack from 'serious' SF fans, but they really do have a significant stable of entertaining authors. (Says the guy who at one time estimated somewhere between 25-30% of his bookshelf was Baen and that doesn't even count the whole Electronic Library).

[cailano]

Starting Peter Flannery’s Battle Mage today. I’ve heard good things!

[Raistlinmc]

I just read (and taught) Dawn, by Elie Wiesel, for the first time and really enjoyed it. He's much more famous for his autobiography Night, of course, but I actually like Dawn more since I'm much more of a fiction guy in general. Essentially, the novel follows an alternative version of the author himself after WWII, but instead of becoming a peace activist and writer (as Wiesel did in real life), the main character Elisha becomes an Israeli freedom fighter. The whole story takes place over the course of one night as the protagonist weighs his charge of executing a prisoner at dawn. It's a quick read - under a 100 pages - and if you like historical fiction at all, I recommend it highly.

Edited March 22 by Raistlinmc (see edit history)

[Suzuki Stumpy]

Just finished reading The Three-Body Problem. Blimey, it was good. Now got the second and third books arriving tomorrow.