Books

Reading Redwall to the kids at night.

Rereading Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

My wife is reading Murder on the Orient Express.

Still working my way through Harry Potter. On goblet of fire at the moment, he said, calmly.

"Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World" by Vivek H. Murthy

Been looking for something to read after "Bowling Alone". "Together" is not as dry-sciency as the book by Putnam though it jumps to "evolutionary psychology" conclusions too quickly at times. The anecdotes are so overly positive that sometimes they're hard to believe.

My personality for the longer while has been "guy who read Bowling Alone recently". I started to drink cofee at the bar rather than go sit down. I've watched Quadrophenia (set in 1964) recently and the scene with the big ballroom dance party (i.e. people socializing) gave me "look what they took from you" vibes.

If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe by Jason Pargin

Just finished Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. Weird ride.

Book 5 of Discworld, Sourcery by Terry Pratchett. Pretty entertaining sillyness that I listen to @ work mostly.

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie.

I appreciate sci-fi that's more sociological and cultural commentary instead of just pew pew space battle. Leckie feels like the modern Ursula K La Guin, blending imperialism, racism and sexism into a centuries long narrative from the perspective of AI immortality. The world building is delightful yet shocking at the same time. Highly recommend.

My book club book this time around is “Medusa’s Sisters” by Lauren Bear. It is awful. And boring. And graphic for the sake of being graphic. And I hate it. And book club is gonna get an earful from me.

Outside of that I just started “Well of Ascension” by Brandon Sanderson. I devoured “Mistborn” and can’t wait to get into this one.

I finished the third and fourth book in John Scalzi's "old man's war" series. Currently on the fifth (out of six), so I expect to be looking for something else in the following week. I probably won't be reading a lot this weekend due to carnival though.

The books in "old man's war" are overall a good read, I liked the third book a little less (the fourth one made up for this), and I'm also not sold on the fifth one yet. Depending on my mood after reading the sixth book I'll probably look into other works by Scalzi. I might also check out some SF books by Charles Stross, I did enjoy "the laundry files" a lot.

I just finished Yes You Are Trans Enough by Mia Violet, and now I’ve started both The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy and Filterworld by Kyle Chayka

I am curently reading "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson. But I am not just reading it, I also do write an extensive summary. Yes, I know these probably do exist on the net, but my summary is something I write for myself to get a better grasp at this book.

I finished Cosmos by Carl Sagan a few weeks ago. It was a nice read. I'd recommend it anyone.

Due to recent events, I am currently reading 1984 by George Orwell for the first time in over a decade. I've reread about 2/3rds of the book and I would like to be finished within the next few days. It's nice remembering certain details of the book that I've forgotten.

I've been reading the Disc World series for a while now, just finished with the Rincewind books and am starting on the Death books with Mort. This series has been a fun ride and I'm enjoying seeing what will come next with every page

Finished “The Hazards of Urban Life in Late Stalinist Russia: Health, Hygiene, and Living Standards, 1943–1953” and am currently working on "Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System after World War II".

Fascinating stuff, very data-oriented.

About 150 pages into The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. I heard it's divisive and I can see why. On the one hand, I tend to like when an author experiments and has fun with their craft. But I can also see when the writing becomes a bit self-indulgent without progressing the plot much. I'll have to see where I stand at the end of it.

I just finished Mind Bullet by Jeremy Robinson, it is a continuation of the Infinite timeline books I have been listening to.

As with a lot of the other books there were links to the previous books but where as it has been mostly subtle before with this book it becomes more apparent and starts forming more links your weren't aware of.

I believe from now the series will now merge a lot of separate threads that have been running through out and start making its way towards some kind of conclusion across the last 5 books I have. I'm looking forward to it!

I've also been hitting Deathlands of course, the one I am currently listening to however has changed the narrator. I do not like the new narrator much but I see this is going to be happening going forward where the cast is changed from time to time. Still enjoying the stories though so I won't drop it :D

100% serious here:

Anal Pleasure and Health, by Jack Morin, Ph. D.

My therapist recommended it. Seems great for anyone to read if they have a butt, even if they have zero interest in the pleasure aspects the book discusses

The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Teper

around 85% of the way through; it's homophobic, transphobic, arguably misandrist ... yet I'm having a hard time not enjoying a fantasy world where misogyny is subverted and eliminated ... call it a guilty pleasure.

(EDIT: finished the book last night, I liked it, but I probably wouldn't recommend it simply because it is so reactionary. Definitely wouldn't want people uncritically adopting similar views, lol.)

Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

nobody expects sentient spiders

I've been rereading a book I liked as a teen, called Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams. It's pretty good, a little more eyebrow raising now as a wiser man (he's a white guy from New Mexico writing about two Black characters from made up future ethnicities which have some clear parallels to real world oppressed peoples, eh.......)

What surprises me most is how much of the story is a romance, it's very 50 shades, a working class woman and a billionaire fall in love. But the billionaire is kind of a leftist revolutionary and the woman is kind of a sorcerer but its future science magic. Anyway, neat stuff, but I'm amazed teen me put up with so much romance; the science magic is really rad though, i did remember that!