What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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Rereading book three of Dungeon Crawler Carl, working my way toward reading the newest one in the series.
I finished My Husband’s Wife by Carla Kovach (2-3/5; nothing to write home about. it didn’t keep me engrossed and was incredibly predictable).
Now I am reading The Astral Library by Kate Quinn. It’s pretty good so far. But I’m headed into a reading slump, so it’s taken me nearly a week to get 50% through
Still reading The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell. It’s still fine, I just haven’t been reading more than 5-10 minutes a night.
Finishing Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb, I think I only have the last chapter left. Liveship Traders is among my favorite fantasy series, I’m liking Rain Wild Chronicles so far, but I’d say I enjoyed Liveship Traders more. But it’s only the first book of four, so that may change. It’s a slow read for sure…
So are you doing the whole Realm of the Elderlings, start to finish? Definitely my favorite series, even beat out WoT. The jumping between storylines (first person and third person, not to give away much) were such huge changes in tone. I want to continue talking but I’ll hold my tongue. I’m just jealous, if you are reading it for the first time, that you get to experience it all new.
I read WoT a few years back, and got a friend interested and so I’ve been doing a listen of that with him, and we are at the penultimate sequence of events there. I intend to eventually convince him to join me for a listen to RotE.
I don’t particularly like the Fitz books, except the very first one, sorry. I read the first Fitz trilogy, then Liveship Traders, then listened to audiobooks of the second Fitz trilogy and now here I am, reading Rain Wilds. I am in the minority, since people love Fitz and some even ask if they can skip LT :) It’s the opposite with me.
Totally understandable, the tone shift is very substantial. Glad you trudge through them, the thought of skipping a piece of a series is nuts to me. I think it’ll end up being a rewarding read regardless.
I think my problem is the 1st person POV in books featuring Fitz. Liveship Traders is more like all the other fantasy series with a rich cast of characters and shifting perspectives. Meanwhile, we can only see through Fitz’ eyes and learn of his interpretation of who did what and what HE felt about it. We don’t really KNOW why THEY did something, including the villains. What I loved about Liveship Traders was how deep Hobb went into psychology of her characters. Especially
spoiler
Malta, whom I hated and then loved, it was such a natural progression, so human, I can only applaud the author.
I’m getting a feeling that something similar may happen with Sedric in Rain Wilds. Currently I really dislike the guy.
Back to Fitz - I was expecting something else from books with “Assassin” in their title ;) I thought he was the worst assassin in the world, haha. Eh, I wish I loved those books like you do. But there’s something to Hobb’s writing, I have to admit she makes beautiful prose, her books give me pleasure from reading the words and sentences, apart from the story (I am not a native English speaker, but I read her books mostly in English).
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Re WoT – did you mean Wheel of Time? It used to be my favorite series when I was a teenager. I am actually re-reading it after 20+ years, I’m somewhere in the middle. I learned it’s very difficult for me to read such a long series, though, because I keep forgetting everything between the books, it just takes too long for me.
Yep, WoT. I won’t read a series unless it’s complete (that’s probably not true but I try to stick to that because I’ve made the mistake before), so that I can just burn through. I thought RJ, and later Branderson, did a good enough job of reminding you of things later on. I also think my memory is good at books and stuff, bad at car keys and work.
And yeah, I found all the non-Fitz books to have a much happier feel to them. You’re on the boat, you’re in the wilds, you’re following these stories. It’s definitely more tradition fantasy. From the Fitz books though, I feel like we get this limited perspective of a character you literally watch grow up, and it’s got a much more serious tone to it. And it’s imperfect, and it’s meant to be I feel.
I don’t wanna talk a ton about it, but the series and it’s conclusion are great, love it all. Fitz’s growth just feels a lot more slow than the other books in the series, but him and his relationships all feel very intimate in a way that the other half of the series can’t capture.
The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.
Its a slow read, but certainly interesting.
I just finished The Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. It was an interesting read, but sometimes felt more like a lot of historical short stories that were connected to each other.
Now I am reading Murtagh, the fifth book in the Eragon series by Christopher Paolini.
I was just thinking about that series. I read the first three I think when it first came out. I saw someone talk about how they reread it and decided it wasn’t as good at they thought it was when they first read it. But I’ve always thought I might still give it another go, mostly for nostalgias sake. Is this your first read through. Is it a concluded series?
I read the first four books of the series three years ago for the first time (I have not reread them since). I enjoyed it very much to learn about the world through Eragons and the other characters travels and eyes. Knowing beforehand what happens would take away some magic. But there is a lot happening in the story, so you might enjoy them nevertheless before you read on. The main story ends in the fourth book Inheritance.
All About Love by bell hooks. I truly recommend it.
Been traveling with kids the last week and through the end of this one so it’s been tough to read. Trying to get through the entire rest of the Ransom Riggs Peculiar Children series so I can start Red Rising.
I’m still working my way through Red Rising. I’m in book 5, Dark Age. Then I’ll still have the 6th book, and a 7th should be it this year or so I hear.
The first book is amazing, the next two are still really good.
The fourth I really didn’t like at first, since the whole style of writing changes to the viewpoint of multiple characters. But by the time I was halfway through it I was starting to appreciate it a lot more. Now that I’m 2/3 through the fifth book, I’m looking forward to hearing the different perspectives.
Still, there are times when it’s a slog. But I just put it down for a few days and then I’m roped back in.
Also the audio book version keeps changing voice actors between books, and they aren’t ok following the same pronunciation of some names, and even some words are just straight up mispronounced. Which is annoying.
Worse yet, two of the actors really struggle with proper sense stress and inflection. It’s sometimes confusing whether a character is speaking or thinking/narrating, or even whether an ACTION is being described. It’s hard to explain, but occasionally jarring. They’re getting better as the books go on though. I think they might be cold reading it 🤷♂️
Use of Weapons from the Culture series.
I envy you of this is the first time reading that series.
The Bible says so by Dan McLellan. I’ve always been interested in where the biblical canon comes from and how it became it’s current state. About four chapters in currently and I’m really enjoying it.
Keep us updated. I’m really interested. I like his short videos and have been wanting to check out his book.
I finished the book a while back and I reference it often.
Its really good. All of the book is formatted as long form responses with citations and solid academic reason without being inaccessible.
What jargon there is is fully explained in the intro or in the text.
It was in fact a wonderful resource for a modern interpretation for the bible and a resource on modern discourse around it if you’re not religious like myself.
Its good enough that I keep a spare copy to give to friends if they’re interested in interpretations of stories inspired by or from Dan.
Bart Ehrman is good for this too.
To add to this, I personally recommend “Did Jesus Exist” as the Dr. Ehrman follow up.
It has the same vibe as Dr. McClellan’s book while also being an incredibly useful popular academic book. Just as accessible and covers the second most important part of Christianity to understand, the origin as opposed to the current discourse.
“How Jesus became God” being a natural progression.
Never read it but I watch a lot of his YouTube videos and they’re great.
I just finished Metamorphosis and started The Trial (Kafka, sorry Ovid fans) I’m struggling a little with the translation which doesn’t seperate dialogue by paragraph, but it is a lot easier, than I initially feared, to read.
One quality I take away from Kafka is how he makes you feel powerless and almost childlike in his worlds; you’re presented with these absurd scenarios that everyone else assures you are reasonable.
John Scalzi - When The Moon Hits Your Eye. Very interesting choice after reading Project Hail Mary. Another outer space mystery with the entire world trying to figure out what happened. I love John Scalzi books so I’m interested in seeing how this book goes.
Listening to Stormlight Archives - Rhythm of War while falling asleep. Kalladin in his own Die Hard situation is pretty awesome. I use books I’ve read before as something to fall asleep to because it stops me from ruminating or having an ear worm bug me for hours while trying to sleep. I now fall asleep in 5-10 minutes most nights. Sometimes it can still take over an hour to fall asleep, but at least I don’t stress out about not sleeping since I’m at least enjoying a story.
I’ll eventually do something similar for Stormlight. I’m listening to WoT for first time, but read it a few years back. I listen while I run. It’s good, because sometimes when I run I get tired, I guess, and don’t pay the greatest enough attention, so I wouldn’t want to be listening to material I wasn’t familiar with. I hate having to rewind.
That’s exactly how I got started with my sleep listening I wanted to reread WoT but was dreading the slog in the middle. So I figured if it put me to sleep, that’s no problem! It worked out really well and the slog really wasn’t too bad although there were some sections I just didn’t bother rewinding to listen to.
Currently reading Bloom by Delilah S Dawson for the podcast which is a sapphic-themed horror.
Also dipping into Ursula K LeGuin’s short story collection The Real and the Unreal, which is very good.
Currently posting from alt account as my usual account’s instance is down.
I finished Chaos Vector by Megan E. O’Keefe, the third book of The Protectorate trilogy. That was a really fun and exciting space opera. Each book started a little slow, but picked up pretty quick. Lots of good fun.
Currently reading Whirlwind by Charles Grant. It’s an X-Files book that I’ve had for a while. I love reading these or Star Trek books in between larger series as a break. This one takes place in Arizona and is about multiple murders with suspicious circumstances, so of course Mulder and Scully are on the case!
I also have some aphantasia and reading books about tv show characters helps me see images easier as I read.
Re-read Persepolis. RIP Marjane Satrapi :(
RIP. She was an absolute gem
