Right now, I am reading Neuromancer by William Gibson (physical book) and Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky (e-book), as well as listening to Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (audiobook).
I haven’t gotten far enough into Neuromancer to form an opinion yet, but I’m enjoying the other two books. Children of Ruin is the second book in a series about future humans trying to speed up evolution on distant planets and dealing with the consequences thousands of years later. Alexander Hamilton is a biography on the US founding father from childhood until his death. It has a lot of interesting facts I never knew.
I have a hard time picking just one favorite of anything, but I think my favorite book might be World War Z by Max Brooks or Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.
World War Z is a novel about a zombie apocalypse. It stands out from other books in the genre by having a frame narrative where a journalist is compiling a bunch of interviews with survivors telling their stories. Each chapter is its own short story with new characters from everywhere on the globe, and you get a lot of different perspectives this way. If you pick up the audiobook, each chapter is voiced by a different person, and there are some famous people lending their voices.
Annihilation is about a mysterious zone that appears in a remote wilderness. Things in the zone begin to act strangely and mutate into otherworldly objects. Over time, a government agency closes down the area and begins sending in expeditions to try to discover its secrets.
I got back into reading through Dungeon Crawler Carl and now that I’m finished with that, I started to read The Colour of Magic because the discworld novels where recommended to me. Though I find as a non native english speaker the writing a little bit more challenging than DCC.
DCC is so damn fun to read! Discworld is a great read, too!
My user name is the title of a book by my favourite author, Jonathan Carroll. He’s highly underrated but also a cult favourite. I couldn’t pick between his books.
Another favourite book is an old humour novel by the writer Patrick Dennis, whose most well known book was Auntie Mame. However the best of his books IMO was The Joyous Season, it was written in the 1950s and so some of the language in his books is a bit antique (like using Negro as a descriptor), but honestly there’s not a funnier book in my opinion, I reread it last month, and I realized that I still routinely say lines from it in my daily life.
Finally a great book is The Speed Queen by Stewart O’Nan, it’s dark and a tough topic to read about but it’s so captivating. All of his books are really worth reading. Last Night At The Lobster, Snow Angels, Ocean State, Wish You Were Here, Songs For The Missing, Evensong, The Names Of The Dead, The Good Wife, The Odds, Emily Alone, are my particular favorites, all pretty gritty.
The Alice books by Lewis Carrol get frequent rereads from me.
I am currently reading (for the first time) The Night Circus
reading now ?
The Culture of Contentment by John Kenneth Galbraith
https://bookwyrm.social/book/1805003/s/the-culture-of-contentment
it’s somewhat depressing to read for its prescience
favourite?
Tom Neale’s An Island to Oneself
My favourite book when I was a teen was Bloodtide by Melvin Burgess. It an imagining of the Icelandic Volsunga Saga (so lots of Norse gods and myths) but set in post apocalyptic London controlled by ganglords.
I think my overall favourite it probably Shogun by James Clavell - people are probably more familiar with it now because of the recent TV series but the book is huge and goes into huge amounts of depth along with a gradual shift in focus and character as you migrate from being thrown into this alien society with strict but unclear rules to large scale political outmanoeuvres
Right now I’m reading Her Majesty’s Royal Covern by Juno Dawson - about milennial witches operating in secret in modern society (think nature, earth, pagan witches, not the ones from the series that must not be named). Written by a trans woman with trans topics in the plot.
I also want to read a new series I only discovered a day or two ago called Custodians by Dan Alexander. I don’t actually know a huge amount about it other than it is a detective mystery that involves magic and queer representation. I only mention it as, in a bizarre chain of events, I met and spoke to the author and the actors involved in the audiobook and tv pilot.
Currently I’m dipping my toes into romantasy, out of curiosity. My SO like to read that genre. So I’m reading the Fourth Wing series by Rebecca Yarros. I’m at 75% of the second book. All in all a good fantasy series, with quite some smut/horny jail material. In the second book a bit to much for my liking.
Looooove fourth wing, I got far more into it than I thought. I tried ACOTAR but… Eeh, don’t really get it. I currently like the slightly edgier ones, A Rain of Shadows and Endings (Legacy series) is one I was a bit obsessed with and really want to get on with the rest of the series. I also have some of the really dark romance books, the kinds that make my friends worry about me, that I need to get on and read (Twisted Heathens is first on that list).
Don’t know if mangas count, but I’ve caught up with Berserk a few months ago. Greate story and art, can’t wait on the next volume thats coming out in a few months.
Currently reading Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams, about her time at Facebook. Only 50 pages in, but pretty interesting so far. Started with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but it’s just to hard to follow what is happening lol. And I’ve just ordered 1984.
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch is one of my all time favorite fiction books and I’m re-listening to the audiobook right now.
How not to Die by Dr. Michael Gregor is one of my favourite non-fiction books, containing a great summary of our current scientific knowledge in nutritional science.
My favorite is probably The Books of the North of The Black Company series. The rest are good too but the first 3 are great.
Currently I’m reading the bakemonogatari series just finished kizu. Only started because my friend sent me a screenshot of him listening to the audio book but then he gave up cause it’s too complicated to listen to in the background.
Favorites: the book version of the blog Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh and also The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Currently reading Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell and the new Penguin Classics translation of Towazugatari/A Tale Unasked by Lady Nijo, translated by Meredith McKinney.What did you think of hyperbole and a half? I haven’t really met anyone who read it. I read it when I was undergoing a major depressive episode and I feel like it did kinda help. But I don’t remember much
Basically the same, I read it and it helped me process. I reread it more recently and related to the final chapters about identity. It was also just really funny, I’m basically always thinking 24/7 about the party chapter which was taken from the blog.
It’s just really funny, whimsical, and insightful beyond any expectations. Definitely worth rereading imo
Aww, really thanks for the link and the neuron activation! I’ve been going through a lot of anxiety and just tough times in general lately, maybe I’ll reread the book
I read a lot of fantasy when I was younger but gradually fell out of love with the genre. It started to feel really trope heavy and I got tired of everything feeling like it needed to be a 3-5+ novel epic series that was so enamored with its own world-building it felt more like a history lesson. Perhaps my choices on reading material were to blame, but still. I moved onto sci-fi and fiction for a good while.
I’ve been trying to rekindle my passion for it with one off “weird” fiction. Standalone stories that are just interested in doing weird stuff, whatever that may entail. It’s not well-defined and if anyone has any recommendations I’d be happy to hear them but so far some of my best discovies,
- The West Passage, Jared Pechaček. A palace the size of a city ruled over by giant, eldritch ladies and mired in ancient bureaucracies is threatened by a forgotten prophecy. I like it because it doesn’t overexplain its world, it just throws a bunch of interesting events and scenery at you while gesturing at the architecture of the world that holds it up, leading you to speculate on the mystery of it all.
- The Starving Saints, Caitlin Starling. Claustrophobic, horrifying, vaguely sapphic. It follows the storylines of a knight, a nun, and a peasant girl trapped in a castle under siege. As supplies diminish and things are looking grim, their saints miraculously appear to save them but not all is at it appears etc. etc. Just a good read, I liked this one a lot
- Currently reading: Mad Sisters of Esi, Tashan Mehta. This one got off to a bit of an uneven start but it’s an interesting mashup of myth and sci-fi where the universe is referred to as the black sea, planets are islands, and spaceship may be literally ships with sails. Not done with it yet, but enjoying it as it has strong characters and a good emotional core.
I’m currently reading Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett … fantasy, but not like any other.
It’s a nice palette clenser in between all the lesbian smut I usually read :-)
I’m up to Wyrd Sisters!
I have that on my to-read list … my wife has read them all, and then chosen which ones she thinks I’ll enjoy :-)
Terry Pratchett is a classic of course. I was making my way through publication order, but can’t remember where I stopped at this point.
As for the lesbian smut, definitely give The Starving Saints a look. Not spicy, but more the painful aching, if that’s your thing.
When you say painful aching … do you mean “lustful longing” or “having trouble sitting down without wincing”?
Hah, lustful longing.
Cool, sounds like I could read it when it’s quiet at work then - I’ll add it to the list :-)
I’m up to “Thud!” and getting a bit sad I’m almost at the end of the series.
Check out the Bas-Lag novels by China Miéville. Lots of strange and interesting creatures and cultures in those books. Each of them is standalone but they take place in the same world.
Oh yes! I’ve read Perdido Street Station and The Scar and greatly enjoyed them. I should get back to checking out more of his stuff, I know Iron Council is also in that setting but I’m not sure of much else. I tried Un Lun Dun back in the day and while it was fun, it was a little too YA for me.
Jumping between 1984 and Inkspell when 1984 gets to bleak.
Favourites include Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series, Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy, Susanna Clarke’s Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell, Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series, Ursula K Le Guin’s Hainish cycle.
Currently reading Le Guins Dispossessed.
Dispossessed is among one of my favorite books. You’re in for a really interesting time. I feel like it’s one of the few rare fiction books which manages to show non capitalistic systems quite well. I really love it! Plus Le Guin was apparently based as hell, too
I have read it before but a very long time ago and I think a lot of the societal points passed me by at that younger age. I’m definitely enjoying re-reading it with a more mature eye.
I always came down on the Hornblower side. Have you read that series? How do they compare?
Hornblower is OK. I enjoy some of it but O’Brian has a knack for humour and tragedy thats mostly absent in the Hornblower series.
Re-reading the Sundering duology by Jaqueline Carey at the moment. I loved it years ago so I’m checking to see if it really was that good or if I was just young. It has held up fairly well. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes fantasy.
