Very busy couple of weeks, so didn’t actually read anything.
Still on Streams of Silver by R. A. Salvatore, 2nd novel in Icewind Dale series, which is a subseries of Forgotten Realms series (D&D world).
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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I’m still reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. My area had some unexpected weather a couple weeks ago so I’ve been off my usual routine.
The book is good and I’m about half way through. I want to finish it by tomorrow.
Just finished Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos rising. Next up, the second in the series.
It was such a great book. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series
How is it, if you haven’t read any Star Wars novel, and have only watched the movies?
I will also say that the star wars books, from what I have seen, aren’t sequential. You can start anywhere in the universe and it doesn’t matter, notwithstanding the actual series books, like Thrawn series and whatever. It’s more like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. It’s a bunch of independent stories set in the same universe.
I am in the same situation. I have not read any other SW books, and have only seen the movies.
It’s great. I can’t put my Kobo down. It’s enthralling, it’s enticing. It’s very well written. I love it.
Perfect Victims And The Politics of Appeal by Mohammed El-Kurd
It seems to have nice reviews, what do you think about it? Does it cover the conflict for mostly ignorant?
if you are interested in books for the mostly ignorant may I recommend instead: Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide by Ben White
Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappé
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi
For more on israel’s crimes: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World by Antony Loewenstein
Environmental Warfare in Gaza: Colonial Violence and New Landscapes of Resistance by Shourideh C. Molavi
Gaza Unsilenced edited by Laila El-Haddad and Refaat Alareer
you may have heard of Refaat Alareer, a prominent Palestinian writer and poet who was assassinated (very much the same way Ghassan Kanafani was) in December 2023. There is a collection of his poems and writings released in memory of him in 2024 called If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose that is also worth a read. There are also way more books, fiction or nonfiction, by Palestinian authors that are very much worthwhile once one gets a better understanding of the history of settler colonialism.
Reading the Patternmaster books by Octavia E. Butler. Weird but interesting. Definitely not hitting like the Xenogenesis books did but still seem good so far.
Also re-reading the Expanse books because I just read The Mercy of Gods by James SA Corey and it made my love of the expanse series resurface.
How are the Xenogenesis books? They look interesting.
They’re really interesting. As with a lot of Butler’s works, they’re extremely human which is a bit surprising for science fiction books. She is able to juxtapose aliens against humanity and use it to highlight aspects of our selves and talk about them. I would say that if you’re mostly looking for a good narrative with something that conforms to the standard story arc you may be disappointed, but otherwise they are a must-read imo.
Lonesome Dove on audiobook. The production quality is pretty bad, but the story is good.
Finished the fifth book in the “dungeon crawler Carl” series, and decide to step away from that for a while. The fifth book was a lot longer than the previous four, and this doesn’t work out for me (I know, just weeks ago I complained about the novella format of most murderbot books:)). After that read through “midnight black” by Mark Greaney, which was nice, but not the best in the gray man series imo. Now about a third through John Scalzi’s “the collapsing empire”. So far a nice book, but I liked most books in the “old man’s war” series better.
Hehe, it happens. Some books are too short and some books are too long. It’s nice to have the book that’s just the right size.
Listening to Project Hail Mary. I’ve been utterly absorbed by the story and the scientific concepts being pushed around.
I never took physics and didn’t take much math for my job but am jealous of people who have a natural, stronger affinity for those subjects
Shout out to my boy Rocky
I never could get this one checked out at the library.
Not Till We Are Lost
Latest book in the bobiverse.
Great book!
I just finished reading The Mercy of Gods by James S. A. Corey (authors of the Expanse series). Overall I really liked it and am excited for this series! I feel like the characters haven’t hooked me as much as the characters from the Expanse series, but I’m going to give them more time to develop.
I am now reading The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. This one has surprised me how much I’ve enjoyed it so far. I have read his Founders trilogy and Divine Cities books and found them hit or miss.
Felt exactly the same about the Mercy of Gods.
I have started reading ‘The Master and Margarita’. I am only a couple of chapters in and its pretty wild already.
It’s been a long time, but I once read a paperback copy I found. I remember enjoying it.
I recently started The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I’m a 100 or so pages in, and slowly getting a feel for the characters. It’s a large book, but I’ve got some long flights coming up so hopefully I’ll make a good dent in it :)
How’s the book? I have thought about starting it a few times, but I am afraid it might be too dry or complex.
I’ve just finished Part 1 (around 200 pages out of 1000 - unfortunately the flights I had planned were cancelled, and I didn’t get time to read over the weekend!). So far I’ve been introduced to the characters and the book has explained their natures as well as the dynamics between each of them. It’s quite heavy reading at points, especially some of the religious discussion and the fact that there are a good number of footnotes explaining certain references in the text. That said, the web of interactions and different moralities is quite fascinating. It requires a level of concentration to get through, but there’s enough of an interesting story and exploration of big ideas to keep me hooked so far.
I just finished Shades of grey by Jasper Fforde. What a weird fascist dystopian future. It took a long time to get interesting and only the last 15% got me to actually want to know more. I don’t think I will read the rest of the trilogy.
He just released the second book recently after so many years, and while I haven’t read it myself, haven’t heard many great things about it.
Just started Holly by Stephen King. I have no idea what’s happening. I got it as a gift for Christmas and left the book cover at home so no summary.
I prefer to start books without reading the summaries. Sometimes they spoil some stuff even 50 or 100 pages in.
Careless People - Satah Wynn-Williams
Not only it is a fascinating look into Facebook, it touches me personally because I’m a Canadian female tech worker in a US based company and her perspective on a lot of thing is very relatable to me.
Speaking Bones - Book 4 of the Dandelion Dynasty by Ken Liu. This is probably one of the best fantasy I’ve read. The setting is based off of ancient China. It’s similar to Game of Thrones in the sense that there’s a lot of world building, there’s no main character, no one is safe from death and the fantasy is lightly applied.
It introduces interesting ideas like storing electricity in objects made with glass, intestines and gold, then utilizing it in warfare. Also logic gates implemented with just basic materials like wood and ropes. Basic AI (non-ML). Etc.
I’m quite confident anyone who enjoys programming will enjoy this series.
Wow I’m going to go read this now. I’ve been in between bigger reads, doing shorter stories, and doom scrolling, but definitely looking for something to escape for a bit!
Yeah I’d definitely recommend it. Loved that when there’s a fantasy-based beast, people investigate how it works from a basic science perspective, then derive a new weapon that play crucial role in combat.
Also loved that alliances shift and change. The story likes to lull you into complacency before pouring cold water over you.
How dark is it? One of my issue with Game of Thrones is that it was too dark / depressing and things just kept getting worse and worse.
It’s quite mild compared to game of thrones. The ‘dark’ parts are not personalized, but description of things happening at a population level.
Ah, cool. Thanks for the info, will add it to my list.
