Why did I have to see this post now?

Three books:

Righteous Victims by Benny Morris, the detestable Zionist who laughs about starving children. It’s very weird reading about Israel’s historical atrocities throughout this book given the author’s recent behavior.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. About a quarter of the way in, and this book is strange. It has not proven its legacy to me yet, despite the descriptive writing and impressively gritty plot.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein. Some of these poems make me cry. That is remarkable.

Just wrapped up Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. The book is better than the movie, and I enjoyed the commentary.

The Kaiju Preservation Society. Really light, fun read.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780765389138/thekaijupreservationsociety/

Fought my way through to the end of If on a Winter's Night a Traveller yesterday - it's a remarkable book, but I'm not sure if I actually enjoyed it exactly. Appreciated it as a challenging piece of post-modern fiction, sure... enjoyed... Kind of.

Have now moved on to my second attempt at reading The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy (first published 1759).

First attempt was years ago, and I do think I'm getting more out of it now than I did then. It's quite challenging, with the old-fashioned language, and the many endnotes which I find useful in understanding but also distracting in maintaining a reading flow, but it's funny and I think I'm getting the overall gist. We'll see if I stick with it though!

"The Andromeda Strain" on my phone to pass time and "The Bear and the Dragon" on my Kobo.

Is it weird to read two books at the same time lol?

I haven't posted in some time and while I did read some books in the interim, right now I'm back to reading The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. I'm now on the seventh book, A Crown of Swords. People say this is where the series becomes a "slog" for some books. We'll see. I was already frustrated with the last book, since Jordan seems to be a bit too enamored with his own writing and progress is glacial.

44% through War and Peace...stuck in the wolf hunt, going very slowly...

I'm stalled in the middle of like 6 different books and I'm not feeling any of them at the moment.

I just DNFed Assassin of Reality as the second in the Vita Nostra series (I really liked the first book, but...), so I ended up rereading The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik instead.

I started the Four Quarters series by Tanya Huff last night, and I just aggressively don't care about any of the characters. I don't know what I'm looking for in books right now, and I'm getting a little cranky about it.

Still on "Rama II", it's also been busy. Not much progress since last week.

Just finished Sphere by Michael Crichton this morning on my commute. And started State of Fear by Michael Crichton on my evening commute 😅. Kinda binging through his books currently and saving Jurassic park for last.

Starsight from brandon sanderson and dune messiah

The Southern Reach series and a bit of Clarice Lispector and Lydia Davis short stories added in for the psychedelic spice.

edit it is WAY easier to read these comments if you bold book, author, and series names!

Reminder surround text with one pair of asterisks to make italic text and two pairs of asterisks to make bold text.

Still on book 1 of the Farseer series and still really liking it. She creates a warm and comfortable world that I enjoy being in.

About start Horns by Joe Hill.

I just finished Eye of the World by Robert Jordan about two weeks back.

Been slowly working my way through Great Hunt (next in the Wheel of Time) but haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to it recently.

It’s good so far. It’s definitely hooked me more than the first book.

Reading the “Ender’s Shadow” series after finishing Ender’s Game.

Card is… something else. I’m on Shadow Puppets now, and while the previous books were good, his Mormonism is seriously showing in this one, with Petra being all baby crazy despite the fact they’re literally young teenagers.

It was weird to me finding out about Card’s anti-gay and Mormon views considering there were some rather homoerotic undertones to portions of Ender’s Game (or maybe I’m reading too much into it). Plus all the IVF and genetic manipulation stuff in the Shadow series. Though admittedly, the later Ender books (Children of the Mind, Xenocide) are utterly batshit, like he was having a mental wank.

I grew up in a boarding school and Ender’s Game really resonated with me when I was younger. Shame the author is an asshole. “Never meet your heroes” and all that.

Picked up:

Being Human: How Our Biology Shaped World History

while traveling recently. Haven't gotten far yet but it seems like a good, fun science based read.

I’ve finally gotten around to The Expanse series and I’m about a third of the way into Cibola Burn, the 3rd book.
I really enjoyed the first two and I’m liking this one but it’s starting a bit slower then the other and I find the tension ratcheting up different not worse but different.

Currently reading (on different devices):

• Babel by Rebecca Kuang
• The Solitudes by John Crowley
• The Best of Cordwainer Smith
• Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

The Boomer Bible, as a pdf.

Currently reading:

Richard Schwartz - No Bad Parts. It's an introduction to Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy.

Michael Cisco - Antisocieties. A short stories collection about loneliness and isolation, definitely in the weird literature area, gives Ligotti vibes.

"The Giza Power Plant" by Chris Dunn, nonfiction.

As a mechanical engineer it was absolutely fascinating and should be a must read for technical people.

Now starting the follow-up "Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt" by the same author.

Reading Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko, along with Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz when I need a break from Vita Nostra's slow pacing.

__

Finished:

No One Will Come Back for Us by Premee Mohamed (fantasy and cosmic-y horror short stories) | bingo: minority author, alliterative, short HM

I don't really have a description for this one. A few of the stories have a shared setting; a few others have a war/revolution theme.

None of the stories in this were bad, they just didn't all appeal to me; the shared-setting ones were coincidentally my favorite. I've realized that part of my issue with collections/anthologies is that I'm stuck diving in blind for every single story, hoping that the author/theme is enough to carry my interest.

The Siege of Vraks, by Steve Lyons

I'm on Shakespeare for Squirrels by Christopher Moore. I recently worked through Lamb, A Dirty Job, and Secondhand Souls by him during a couple of long road trips.

I picked up reading You by Caroline Kepnes assuming I might be able to get back into print reading with material that I'm vaguely familiar with ( I watched a season of the show years ago), but I've stalled with it the same as I have every time when attempting reading over listening in recent years.

I went on a reading blitz in 2023 but haven't done much since then, which kind of sucks.

I did Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy, loved it. Becky Chambers? Read everything she wrote. Love.

Some other things in there that were kind of dumb but enjoyable (Rysa Aoki's Light From Distant Stars) or just shallow (Legends & Lattes) or forgettable (Alice Oseman's Loveless) but I have tried several others and it isn't sticking.

Too bad; I really do enjoy reading but nothing's really taking hold.

I'm still reading Controversies in Queer Theology by Susannah Cornwall. It's been a great read so far, and I'm currently reading a section about queer art in Christianity where she talks about the Ecce Homo art series of Elisabeth Ohlson, which contains such images as this:

spoiler

Nattvarden

The Conquest of Mexico & The Conquest of Peru by William H. Prescott. I am only 200 pages in so I have a lot more to go but its good so far. For someone from the 1840s he does a remarkably good job at countering colonial propaganda and supremacist thought. There is still some of course but better than I expected

Radical: The Science, Culture, and History of Breast Cancer in America.

My best friend was recently diagnosed with breast cancer (very treatable and likely curable), and we both have the type of personality where it helps to deep dive/learn a lot about scary stuff. I picked out a few books for us to nerd out together on, and this is the first one. It’s super good so far, as frustrating as some of the aspects of the US healthcare system are.

I finished two short novels and I did not like both: Everyday Is For The Thief by Teju Cole and You Dreamed Of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue.

So it's back to non-fiction and my next book will be Empire of A.I. by Karen Hao.

Just got James by Percival Everett. Been looking forward to it for a while, plan to start reading it this weekend.