This week's consoomer poll is about what type of materials we are currently, have already, or will be reading.
As per title, the mediums and subjects are up to choice: books, light novels, web novels, manga, comics, websites, etc.
Feel free to include as much detail as you wish, including any impressions if you care to share.
I vaguely remember Trump saying something last spring about people staying in their house all the time ruining their eyesight.
My eyesight has worsened, but I'm usually a shut in anyway, so it's probably related to weird sleep patterns and odd, at times longwork hours. I don't get enough regular sleep.
Reading through The Great Replacement at the moment.
Starship troopers.
I had to read this one a second time before it really clicked. The first time through I just wanted more bug hunt, but the second reading allowed me to process the underlying philosophy.
If you like Starship Troopers go read the Ender's Game series. Same great Sci-fi frosting with a great philosophical core.
Only notable caveat that Ender's Game and the rest of the series are wildly different in tone/material.
I lost steam somewhere in the Bean saga, but I don't recall nearly as much of the philosophy. Then again I read them when I was younger.
On book 13 of Wheel of Time. I enjoy it but this series is a commitment! Reading also different comic books I picked up from the back issues section on my last comic book run. Currently some older Batman comics.
What'd you think of the WoT ending? I read through Book 11, Knife of Dreams, do you think it's worth finishing it off?
By now I've forgotten everything but I remember very small bits of it, wouldn't re-read any of the volumes due to the time sink.
I haven’t finished it yet. There is one more book after this one. I think it is worth finishing. Each book has stuff that could be trimmed but I’m a big reader so I dont mind details. I have little faith that Amazon will do it justice.
Rereading the second Draconis Memoria novel by Anthony Ryan to be able to read the third one and actually understand what's going on. I love dragons. Anything that has them makes me automatically 300% more interested.
Recently got into Super Powereds, a story that started out as a web serial by Drew Hayes, but now you can buy it as a book series. It's about kids who go to college to become superheroes. It's like.... not the best written stuff ever, but it's easy and fun.
I'm done with the first two. They get longer and longer, the next one will be over 1000 pages, so I am hesitant to just start. The last will be almost 2000, holy shit.
I really recommend Richard Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible for an accessible but scholarly attempt to reconstruct who the authors were of each book of the OT, along with a better contextualization of their political and historical settings.
There's so much in the Old Testament that escapes the reader because we're so far removed from the context in which it was written, and modern readers will always reinterpret texts through their own presentist biases.
Also, if you're looking for a great Bible with scholarly annotations, get the New Oxford Annotated Bible. Probably the last one you'll ever need.
I am reading: Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody.
And listening to Timcast IRL.
That's an extremely dark read but very pertinent to most everyone here, please share findings in a dedicated topic for the main points.
It's a good book but dense. Unfortunately the reality of the situation is that it's probably not possible to defeat these ideas on an intellectual level, because they deny the validity of any kind of consistent system of logic or reason. You have to win emotionally, by demonstrating how cruel and evil the people who promote this are.
Other than that, not much.
Gotrek and Felix Anthology concerning novels. My hero academia concerning manga. Starting to write my own poetry.
Books - Been planning to read Christopher Hitchens' book on Bill Clinton. I've kept punting it for many months, but I'll get around to it sooner or later. I enjoyed his other titles, especially The Trial of Henry Kissinger.
Manga - Haven't touched it in weeks, last read Destiny Lovers through Volume 4, and was in some later volume of Tokyo Ghoul re.
LNs/WNs - Numerous titles that I started years ago but have touched extremely few within several months.
Titles that I actively read as released:
Websites - Nothing of note regarding polictics, economics and the like. Rather dark on this front, sadly, for gaming...especially censorship stuff.
Sevens had Volume 10 released last winter, forgot about that. Guess that's what I'll be reading next / eventually.
Went to a torrent site and found a couple of "hundred best scifi books of all time" audiobook downloads. Merged them into one list and been doing it in reverse order.
Favorite so far was "The Postman" by David Brin, set in post-apocalyptic Oregon. Felt like something straight out of a Fallout game.
Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants and Things I Won't Work With are both interesting reads on the subject of inventing new and energetic chemical compounds.
I recently picked up reading again. An e-reader, Calibre and experience in sailing the high seas are a must when consuming digital books.
Wealth of Nations - I've been reading this one for some time. Everybody should read it, you'll understand how wrong most people are about economics.
The Tactical Guide to Women - This one basically teaches you what look for and what to offer when browsing the marketplace. It's kind of a black pill for me since I'm busy most of the time, no chance to meet girls in-person.
*Neuromancer *- "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." Just started reading this one, I always liked cyberpunk as a genre, so I have high hopes for it.
Please don't bully me Nagatoro - Amusing, cute drawings. Great for Japanese practice because it has furigana.
Konosuba - Great series. I particularly like the humor. Some books are weaker than others, but you can get through each of them in one evening.
Haven't been reading in a while. Started trying to fix that last month.
Finally read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I'm amazed that the book is still allowed to be taught in public education. Other than Nurse Ratched's muscle getting called niggers, it's at its heart a story about the positivity of masculinity and manly bonds.
Fantasy wise, I'm re-reading William King's Gotrek and Felix books. Loved them as a kid, never read any if the series after he stopped writing it. Like most Warhammer novels, or any book about games really, the writing is nothing amazing but it's not bad either. If you're looking for Warhammer books I'd highly recommend.
Manga wise I follow i lot of stuff. Would recommend:
Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san - Bully girl rom-com, getting an anime next season
Sousou no Frierin - An elf from the adventuring party who saved the world starts another adventure years after their passing. One of the best fantasy manga out there along with Dungeon Meshi imo
The Ride-On King - A Putin expy gets isekaied and attempts to ride as many mythical creatures as he can, also becomes president of a fantasy country
Asuperu Kanojo - A woman with severe Aspergers stalks and then lives with a lonely manga writer. Can be very brutal in its depicition of a nearly unfunctional autist.
Don't want to type forever so I'll add more recs in the next reading poll
Books: Madness Of Angels, which is a... weird read. It's a modern fantasy setting about an urban techno-druid, more or less. But what is weird is the book is written primarily in free-writing first-person, which honestly, no book should EVER be written in free-writing (that is, writing literally anything that comes to mind, no matter how on or off topic it may be). Still, once you get into the cadence and tempo of it, it's a fun modern fantasy story.
Manga: Dungeon Meshi, which is clearly a D&D party going off their DM's rails but the DM going along with it anyways because they're at least pretending to follow the plot. It's about brave Standard Fantasy adventurers exploring... And preparing meals from the remains always seeking out weirder foods, done in a comedic (but not "comedy") style.
Also Creature Girls, which is a semi-bio-realistic take to the isekai and monster girl genres. A lot of worldbuilding, minimal plot so far, but I like how they try to explain how a Spider Woman could mate with humans, and how that bizarre biology framework comes about, or how harpies could possibly fly.
I also powered through all of "The World Of Moral Reversal", but I think that's a bit too... cultured for this group. Person is isekai'd into world where men are treated as women, and women are treated as men. Comedy ensues. The regular-ecchi manga is a female MC, the 18+ doujin H version is a male MC, they have crossovers (meaning the doujin is canon). A bit interesting to see how a Japanese author considers gender roles, but it's "cultured" reading for sure.
It was a pretty fun read (caught up to the scanlation). I've seen multiple moral reversal titles before on Syosetu, 1 of them might even be the basis for this, but this manga really balanced humor and raunchiness
Yeah, that definitely had the perfect amount of plot and culture. Thanks!
I think you underestimate this group's collective desire for culture, mate. Noted and will read.
Do RPGs count? I'm near the end of Dragon Quest six.
Having played through all of the first five, eight, and most of six and seven; unless nine or eleven blow me away, I'd say five really is the best in the series.
I've been perusing The National System of Political Economy by Freidrich List. It's about conducting nationalist trade wars and appears to be the inspiration for Qiao Liang's and Wang Xiangsui's Unrestricted Warfare.
Doesn't seem to be covered, but it's fairly applicable right now considering China's at war with India and they've used relations with Pakistan to broker presence, leveraging their lands and 1 of the deepest rivers in the world to dispatch troops.
This is in conjunction with the SE sea agreement that came out of seemingly nowhere but was being worked upon the better part of half a decade...
Everyone knows about the obvious IP theft and other underhanded means they've executed to get their current might, but it's still ongoing, extending into a decidedly more physical way. Just doesn't get attention. Even their dealings with Africa or the ME countries remains quiet.
I've barely gotten into it, but he's making a good argument that everyone is always in a state of economic war that requires protectionism, and, if you think you're not because you're the big kid on the block, you are losing that war.
The Game Doctor by Bill Kunkel The memoirs of the late writer and fan of video games.
I havent been seriously reading in a decade or more but when on the occasion when I do it is a Jocko book. Im almost through leadership strategy and tactics which is my last one if his.
After that ill get About Face then the rest of his reading list will probably last the rest of my life https://jockopodcast.com/jocko-podcast-books/
Right now finishing up Mercenaries and Their Masters which is a bit dated but a great analysis of 14th and 15th centuries army compositions, contracts, supply lines, and other logistics, particularly as it pertains to Italian city states. I worked in the oil industry for a few years and it's pretty surprising how much an army of 10,000 pipeliners resembles an medieval army, straight down to the raping and pillaging.
I set it down for a while but I've picked up Capitol in the Twenty-First Century again. About halfway through. It's a very technical analysis of wealth disparity over the past few centuries, mostly from tax records. It's interesting, but as dense as it is it's still missing a lot of data and it never really seems to question whether wealth inequality is an actual moral hazard, and the author is far more concerned with inherited wealth than market actors colluding with government to protect their interests (the latter of which I think is the real hazard). Maybe he gets there, but I doubt it.
I'm about 150 chapters into "Kumo desu ga, nani ka?" WN. Started it earlier in the week after watching the anime. Loving it so far, might have to check up on LN after.
"The Forest Passage" by Ernst Junger. The only serious stuff on the list.
"Peerless dad" - nice to binge manhwa about family values in chinese-themed martial-arts world. "Foreigner explores the dungeon" - LN is actually is a quality stuff. A generic isekai trope with a little twist that makes things interesting. "Mieruko-chan" - it gets interesting later on. "Dungeon meshi" - A good ride that'll end soon. "Isekai ojisan" - Manga that hurts a fucking lot. Because it's not about the characters, it's about you the reader.
Reading through all my Clive Cussler stuff. Currently on Corsair. Waiting for my Copy of Unmasked by Andy Ngo and a warship encyclopedia to arrive.