Literature

I’m halfway into “Guards! Guards!” by Pratchett. My first story of his, and I’m having so much fun!

The Murderbot Diaries.

I've been enjoying it, it has a surprising amount of heart for a series about an emotionally damaged not-robot.

Currently reading Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy really fun reads though it got weird in some places

Currently reading "Brave New World", Aldous Huxley. Next up Isaac Asimov's Foundation.

Currently working my way through the Three Body Problem series. They are very good but I'm not sure how much I'm enjoying them, they are pretty bleak in places.

I'm currently reading through Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I'm a fan of SciFi, and cyberpunk especially. This book was on my reading list, and I decided to pick it up while in the bookstore the other day.

So far I'm really enjoying it. It feels a bit more pulpy than some of the other cyberpunk classics such as Neuromancer and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but that's not a bad thing. It certainly doesn't take away from the entertainment in my opinion. Not every book needs to have a grand philosophy behind it.

Just started Howl's Moving Castle. Liking it so far!

Not exactly like the movie, but it's pretty close.

The Count of Monte Cristo! Liking it so far and I've heard good things

working my way through Discworld again. currently at Unseen Academicals.

I will read Shepherd's Crown this time.

Just started Lavinia from Ursula K. Le Guin.

https://bookwyrm.social/book/31585/s/lavinia

I am in the middle of reading Men at Arms, one of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchet. Very much recommend!

I'm reading The Stranger, by Albert Camus. It's a short read and I'm already focusing on some of The Atlantic's recommendations in the Summer Reading Guide.

Not beehaw 🤭 but I am reading Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. While it wasn't explicitly a feminist work, you can uncover by reading it the roots of feminist thought and literature.

Just finished the audiobook of Thud by Terry Pratchett while my wife and I were on a road trip

The eyes of the dragon by Stephen King

I've been reading the 40K Horus heresy series, currently on my 21st book of it.

Just started both Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett and Speaking Bones by Ken Liu which is the 4th book in the Dandelion Dynasty. Highly recommend that series.

Pattern Recognition, William Gibson.

Gibson is tough to get into, personally, but his stories are very cool!

I'm currently reading through the "Starship's mage" series by Glynn Stewart, he writes more or less exactly the kind of books that I like, kind of pulpy entertaining competency porn where most of the people are nice to each other. And it does feel kind of refreshing since so many books the last years feel so bleak to me.

My 'big read' this year is Finnegans Wake - which I am (or have been) reading week by week along with the TrueLit sub on reddit. It would be a profoundly different experience to read it without the analysis and discussion going on there, so that is something...

Otherwise, I am reading The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher, which is engaging and entertaining, as was her The Hollow Places which I read immediately before. I am also dipping into a collection of the Para Handy tales by Neil Munro, which are a cosy - if stereotypical and patronising - glimpse into another time and pace of life.

I have just returned from a couple of weeks away during which I finished an anthology of Clarke Ashton Smith short fantasy tales (all about the atmosphere: story and worldbuilding are very much secondary and character scarcely features); Haldor Laxness's The Atom Station (a sparse look at the clash of modern - written in 1948 - and traditional Icelandic values); and Blackwood's The Willows (an extrapolation of the original idea of "panic" - as several of this other tales are).

1356 by Bernard Cornwell. Its cheesey typical damsel in destress stuff set in a bloody french chevauchée, but I'll be damned if it aint a whole lof of fun. Think the expanse, but with horses as worse charachters.

I've started listening to wheel of time! I'm digging it so far. I finished the first book a week ago and am a few chapters into the second

I usually have a print/ebook and an audio book (for the car) going at the same time.

For print book, currently reading Crooked Kingdom, one of the books in the Grishaverse series/world. I, uh, got a little obsessed after watching the first season of Shadow and Bone a year or two ago.

For audiobook, currently listening to Children of Ruin. Not too far into it yet, but I loved loved loved Children of Time (also listened to the audiobook version), so I'm excited to see where this one goes.

My current read is Abarat by Clive Barker.

I'd not heard of it until last week, when folks on r/books were singing its praises in a thread, so figured I'd give it a shot. Yeah, it's enjoyable. Definitely aimed squarely at the middle of the YA crowd, but it's an easy read at a time when my brain isn't letting me really get into any books.

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Not bad so far. I just finished The Dark Tower series (loved it) so it is definitely an adjustment.

Just read Lavender House, a murder mystery set during the Lavender Scare and gay-bashing in 1950s San Francisco.

Sometimes you want a neat little mystery that does exactly what the genre says it's supposed to do. Sometimes you want it to be super gay.

If that is the case and if you don't mind a few graphic police beatings of gay men, this is the book you want.

CWs: gay-bashing, homophobia, violence, obviously murder, infidelity.

Just started reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Before that it was Moby Dick by Herman Melville

I'm currently re-reading Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg, for Pride Month!

Neuromancer. It's okay so far.

I just finished Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle. I LOVED it.

I’m reading Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson.

I've just started reading Cribsheet.

It's quite interesting. I've seen some reviews complain that she doesn't conclusively tell you what is better, but from the bits I've read so far it is really just tearing apart common advice, showing there's very little evidence for most of it.

Recently finished "how to do nothing" by Jenny Odell. Working on her latest book now about saving time.

Children of Time By Adrian Tchaikovsky, a piece of evolutionary sci-fi about the hubris of man.

Within the first 20 pages it threw all my expectations out the window and since then its just been a ride. Never eaten my way through a book this quick. If you like spiders, or even if you hate them but think they're pretty cool, this book is deffos for you!

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. Wonderful, with characters lovingly rendered. Something like cozy solarpunk?

Jessica the Wizard Eats a Third Horse by Jason Steele (of Charlie the Unicorn renown) is my alt-read at the moment. He posted about his novelettes on his Patreon, and I bought the bundle of 4 on itch.io. Gloriously silly. I can't remember ever laughing so hard while reading before.

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman for non-fiction. I'm hopeful it jibes with my flavor of ADHD. I heard him on Adam Conover's podcast and it sounded like an antidote to all the methods and systems I've tried before.

Expeditionary Force: Match Game

Memories of Ice - Malazan Book of the Fallen I am really enjoying this series so far. I get absorbed right in even with how dense it is at times.