I like asking this every couple of months. I’m currently reading the first book of the Three Body Problem and the book I finished before it was a book about Angels by Billy Graham that my mother gave me when I was in middle school but finally read recently. Better late than never
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Currently reading Dune Messiah. Before that was Hyperion.
Nice. I just finished Children of Dune (where the whole Abomination thing finally pays off) now I'm on The Prince and the Pauper by Twain.
I have both but haven’t read them yet. I read Dune but still need to read at least the next two
It is good so far.
The Tales from the Flat Earth series by Tanith Lee for probably the ninth or tenth time.
I would emphatically indicate it for anyone curious about how a traditional, non-woke 'feminine sensibility' would come across in fantasy fiction. A nigh-Shakespearean cadence of thought with a bevy of vocabulary building.
Here's a cucky pseudointellectual complaining about how the gender roles are "dated and binary." So, completely missing the deep intuition the author has about the way men & women (and effeminate men and so on...) actually are, 'fantasy' setting aside, because as usual reality doesn't comport with his misguided and simplistic ideals.
Sounds interesting! Thanks!
Spent the last few months re-trudging through American Psycho. Anyone whose read it themselves knows how slow of a process it is to get through.
Think I'm gonna re-try 20000 Leagues Under the Sea next, to see if its as garbage as I remember it being or if I just was too young to appreciate it.
I remember in 1st grade there was a free book fair and I picked 20,000 leagues under the sea. It was too advanced for me to read but I watched the Disney movie and found it fascinating.
Then I finally picked up a copy last year and starting reading it. Holy cow what a slog. I made it halfway through and haven’t been able to pick it up since Christmas.
It was just pages of lists of scientific names for sea creatures and flora and fauna and a slow process of the plot.
Probably a fascinating book for it’s time but not worth reading today.
Yeah, my memory of it from middle school is "way too many words, painting a picture instead of actually going anywhere."
Its kinda like American Psycho in that way, wherein you keep reading for the handful of paragraphs per chapters that actually involve something happening. But that is deliberate in American Psycho and he expects you to start skipping so he can slip shit under your nose.
Jules Verne just seems like he had a great idea for a novella and then stretched it into a fucking doorstopper.
I stopped reading American psycho about 80% through, this year.
I'm all for gore but it was really gratuitous. The first half I liked
It is. It's hemmingway bad
A historical novel: 'The Coffee Trader - David Liss' (Main character is a Sephardic Jew living in 17th century Amsterdam, by the way. Consider this your trigger warning, haha.)
And two books filled with future predictions about the upcoming dystopian Big Tech fueled disaster that is the 21st century.
Yuval Hariri - Deus Homo
Yuval Hariri - 21 lessons for the 21st century
I was more triggered by Hariri!
You read his books in order to get a better picture of future developments. I had the same hesitancy when I began reading it and wasn't entirely convinced. He also said a lot of dubious stuff, but it's still worth the read. They like to trudge him out at WEF conferences and such but his warnings about Big Tech are pretty prescient.
Herodotus' The Histories
Before that The Brothers Karamazov
Books plural, the first three of the Dragonlance series. I've been taking time to reread childhood favorites.
It's still top tier in terms of DnD novels, and although I give the authors a lot of flak for basically inventing Chaotic Stupid, they're still good books. A lot of their later stuff is just trading on the popularity of the original but never really managed to capture the feeling of the first trilogy. Only Soulforge and maybe Brothers in Arms really pull it off. Time of the Twins is really a very different kind of storytelling and while it works fine it still doesn't capture the original.
I would actually love to read some DnD books. Are those books a good starting point
The first three certainly are. Most of the rest have sequelitis.
I'm not currently reading anything, but I just finished Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars, which was interesting, if not as good as most of his other books I've read.
Before that I was reading through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I don't want to say it's overrated necessarily, but I don't think I like Fantasy as much as Sci-Fi, and based on the recommendations I'd seen I got the impression that Jordan (and Sanderson, who finished the series) was more conservative, or at least centrist with more traditional values.
I read Podkayne of Mars a number of years ago and I thought it was decent. I love sci-fi and fantasy but do prefer Sci-Fi more. Did you finish Wheel of Time? I hear Amazon did to it what you’d expect for modern day.
I got all the way through WoT and the one prequel book Jordan wrote. I don't think it was bad (except for book 8. The story goes nowhere in that one) but for a series I hear discussed along with things like Lord of The Rings, Game of Thrones, Dune, etc. I was expecting an 8 or 9 out of 10, when I got something closer to a 7 overall.
I could break down my criticisms a little more, and I don't recommend against it, but it just wasn't what I was expecting.
I've been re-reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series; currently I'm up to Book 3, The Waste Lands.
I love Stephen King. Have the dark tower series but haven’t read it yet
Monster Hunter: Fantom. Except I'm reading the original and not the English translation. HA HA!
(I need to check out the translation though, I really wonder how some of the references and cultural in-jokes carried over.)
How many books are in the series?
8 books in the main series written by Larry Correia, 4 "Monster Hunter Memoirs" books written by other authors but from the same universe, and then Fantom which is a complete side project - unlike all the other books it's an anthology of short stories from different authors, they vary in tone but they're all focused on monster hunting in the middle of Europe.
Cool! I still need to read Shogun
For my Legionnaires by Codraneau and Catacomb Saints, a history book about the Orthodox church during the communist regime in Russia.
close to finishing atlas shrugged, no idea what i'll read next.
I am currently read the Culture series novels by Iain Banks. I think I got tipped off to them from a poster here, as a matter of fact!
They're really good space opera, set in and around a post-scarcity society. I can highly recommend them for light reading.
Sounds good! I love space opera
Culture series (IMO) goes off the rails after you've read ~3-4 books. Banks was a communist, and his vision of The Culture is essentially communism with AIs managing everything.
The problem this poses for the books is that Banks presents The Culture as this ultimate post--problem setting, so basically all of the actual stories are taking place outside of The Culture. By the 3rd book taking place in some relative-backwater space-feudalism, the formula wore a bit thin.
I just bought Ten Minute Moment and Vistas of Infinity, after reading Multidimensional Man by the same author. They're basically a dream journal of the author's lucid dreams/astral projections and his meditation. It's very interesting and I'm definitely enjoying them.
I want to listen to audiobooks of the Wheel of Time series, and get through the Sherlock Holmes stories, but I haven't been doing that as much before bed lately.
That sounds fascinating. I’ve had a few lucid dreams and even wrote a short story about a guy who loses his grip on reality through lucid dreams. What is multidimensional man about? I enjoyed Wherl of Time and have the complete Sherlock. You will love it
Nothing wrong with that. I mix it up as well.
Between books right now, but just finished “A River Runs Through It” yesterday, as a tribute to a late friend who fly-fished.
I liked “Young Men and Fire” just a touch better, but damn Maclean could write. Yeah, he was an English professor, but he was one of the breed of guys who’d been there, done that, and got their hands dirty.
Currently reading Casino Royale, planning on reading a collection of short stories by Louis L'amour. After that, who knows. By that point it might be time to start proofreading my own stuff.
I recently read a collection of short L’amour stories and loved it. Have a number of his books that I haven’t read yet due to finding them at yard sales or estate sales. I guess because a lot of people were selling their dad’s books
Just finished up Twenty Years Later, the second book in the Three Musketeers series, and now I'm reading From the Earth to the Moon.
I just downloaded 3 body problem series. probably won't get to it for a whole though. i'm re-reading The Archaic Revival
What is that about? I’ve had 3 Body Problem recommended enough so I decided to check it out. I know Netflix adapted it but Id rather read it
"The Archaic Revival" is an exploration of the intersection between psychedelics, shamanism, and human consciousness. It's a collection of essays, interviews, and narrative adventures, McKenna takes readers on a mesmerizing journey deep into the Amazon rainforest, explores hidden aspects of the human psyche, and pushes the boundaries of our culture. The book offers startling visions of both the past and the future, making it a must-read for anyone interested in these fascinating topics.
Sounds fascinating. I’m very interested in that sort of thing
Have you read Huxley's Doors of Perception?
Have it but haven’t read it yet. Love the Doors and I always wanted that book because that was where they got their name
Thanks for the links