Had a busy week, so couldn’t get much reading done. So still at pretty much the same place in Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire (first book in her October Daye urban fantasy series).
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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I finally finished The Complete Lovecraft. Boy was that a tough 3 months! Don’t get me wrong, when he’s good he’s really compelling and tense but my gid when he’s bad it’s such a slog to get through, I also had a problem with how hyped Lovecraft is; I was expecting existential dread of the highest order, but it felt kinda tame compared to other authors replicating his tone.
Colour out of Space was my favourite, my least favourite was the one where he named his cat a racist slur.
I’m listening to Andrew Sean Greer’s Less as a reread. I finished rereading Red White & Royal Blue to rebuild my heart after tearfully devouring TJ Klune’s apocalypse road trip short novel, We Burned So Bright.
Just bought this (the alchemist’s secret by clare marchant) and will start reading tomorrow. it was $2 :D
Finished Metro 2033 the other day, so now I’m continuing with Metro 2034.
I grabbed “The Shadow Out Of Time” by H.P. Lovecraft in the new section of my local library and holy shit!!
Got a big pile of shame (shame on me) but my current reading list (selected out of that pile) is ‘Caesar’ by Shakespeare, a collection of Albert Camus’ dramas and a book by Alberto Angela about love and sexuality in ancient Rome (couldn’t find the title in English so I think it hasn’t been translated?).
I just finished up The Expanse with the final novella after restarting the series on book 7 last week and now I’m back into fantasy land with book 10 of The Wheel of Time, Crossroads of Twilight. Sadly this is the lowest rated of the series and supposedly the “final boss” of “the slog” between books 6 and 11. Robert Jordan is just so easy to read and/or listen to though so I’m still having a good time, even if not a lot happens. I’ll probably plan on polishing off the remaining 4 books after this and then I need to decide what series I’ll start next.
Having recently finished book 10, yeah, it’s sort of difficult. It’s kind of the culmination of Jordan’s navel gazing where the whole book has maybe two chapters that move the plot along, and not a lot at that. Practically nothing happens, and the progress could’ve been just quickly summarized in the next book. Note that I did like the book, and I’m not saying it’s bad or anything, just sort of emblematic of what I find most annoying about Jordan’s writing. Luckily, the next book picks up the pace considerably and develops a sense of urgency.
A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell, and 3rd Murder Bot. Just finished listening to In the Devil’s Snare which was quite enlightening.
I’m in the middle of Mossflower, the second redwall book. It’s taking me far longer than I expected to read. I like the writing style but something about it puts me to sleep right away so I’m only reading like 2 pages a night.
I’m also listening to Accomplice to the Villain which is just light and fluffy.
“The 22 Murders of Madison May”. A science fiction thriller about a serial killer traveling through parallel dimensions and killing the same young woman in every dimension.
This is my first time using Libby to borrow a book from my public library.
The dead take the A train
I completed book 8 of Dungeon Crawler Carl yesterday and now I’m on to the new Dresden novella OutLaw.
I just finished DCC 8 for the second time today. I like to speed through a new book, then go back and read/listen to it at a more leisurely pace to make sure I catch details and highlight themes, foreshadowing, favorite bits, etc. Also to see how I did with my first round of highlighting foreshadowing. 😁
Can’t wait for the next two!
Can’t wait for Mirror Mirror, going to speed up on Dresden Files and catch up by the time it’s released.
Yeah, following it regularly.
I’m reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
I’m not sure how much I like it. It does a very good job of giving a look into African society around the time of slavery and missionaries, so I can see why it is touted as such an important novel. That said, I don’t love the writing style or the characters.
Almost 1/2 way through project Hail Mary. I liked the Martian so I expected to like PHM, but I didn’t realize to what degree I would like. As a Molecular Biologist myself, I feel quite connected to Ryland.
i haven’t read the book, but i saw the movie, and i was astounded at how good it was.
I also loved project hail mary. Just saw the film adaption recently, and while it is certainly impressive in some sense and has some strengths of its own, it generally skips most of what i enjoyed about the book which was a shame and i honestly think it must be superconfusing to watch if you have never read the book. The way it is is written it was always going to be tricky to turn into a movie but i was still disappointed
I am interested in the movie, but I have to finish the book (audible) so my wife can read it, and then we will go see the movie. One of my coworker’s who has read the book and seen the movie said there were instances where an entire chapter was summarized in a sentence. This just reaffirms my long held belief that books should not be movies. Limited Series are a much better platform for screen adaptations of books. you have 6-10 hours to tell the story. With streaming services you are not constrained to a 44-minute episode so you can make each episode the right length to capture the rising and falling action and end on the right beat. You can set the release schedule to generate more hype and it’ll sit in the public conscious for longer. And yes I realize that it costs more to make 10 hours of video than 2 hours of video, but I kinda don’t care because Hollywood already has such absurd margins.
I tried The Martian a few years ago and it didn’t click and Project Hail Mary is never available at my library in English, but I’m thinking maybe one of these needs to be my next read.
There’s a lot of stream of consciousness in both books, and within that, a lot math, which definitely does not click with everyone. If you can get PHM as an audiobook, it is way worth it!
My 10 year old daughter is reading Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief.
And asked me to read it with her. So that’s what I’m reading now. And I have to say… I’m really enjoying it so far. Plus doing a mini book club with my daughter is pretty much the best.
I’m so excited for this when my little one gets older. Both sharing what I used to read as a kid and reading along with whatever the new hot series of the time will be when the time comes.
