Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

Somewhat randomly I read The Remains of the Day a little while back and loved it, even though it's entirely unlike the stories I usually read.

I'm really enjoying Klara and the Sun too - in-particular I'm enjoying how the story has these quite sharp shifts in where you think the story is going, but they're just dropped casually, almost as a throw-away line, and you're left thinking about the huge implications of so few words.

I also just love Ishiguro's writing style and creativity - it's like he's painting a picture with black on white, and that picture is great - but the white space forms a picture too, and with that he adds so much more.

With each story he's setting out to take you on a specific emotional journey, but he's not holding your hand and showing you so much as guiding you with as little effort as possible such that when you get there, you feel like you got there on your own, and so it hits so much harder as a result - even though he very carefully led you. It's hard to describe! But it's amazing, I'd be surprised if I've not read everything of his soon!

Currently making my way through The Guns of August. It's pretty dense compared to what I usually read but something about the writing style makes each chapter fly by faster than expected!

Currently reading The Light on Farallon Island by Jen Wheeler. It's a novel that follows the story of a young woman in the 19th century who takes a job as teacher for the few children of the lighthouse keepers on remote Farallon Island. As you read, you slowly learn about the life she has run away from.

Currently reading Baseball: an illustrated history. Quite a thick book so I'll probably be reading it for a while. It's a nice change of pace since the book I was reading last month was pop fiction

The Spy and the Traitor [Non Fiction] by Ben MacIntyre. It's the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a kgb agent who was working with MI6 during the height of the cold War.

I took a chance on it and was pleasantly surprised.

Number Ones by Tom Breihan

A history of the songs that made it to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 list. I'm really enjoying it!

Currently reading The Winter Fortress by Neal Bascomb. It’s a good read so far!

Stand on Zanzibar - John Brunner

The Knights of Erador (The Echoes Saga: Book 7) by Philip C. Quaintrell (Kindle Edition)

Exhalation by Ted Chiang. About 3/4 through so far and really enjoying it. The scifi concepts are great and I like that it doesn't always have a black mirror, technology is going to kill us ending.

SS by Barış Pehlivan and Barış Terkoğlu. It's basically a book about Süleyman Soylu's crimes. It's indeed a heavy read, but I think the book does a good job with shedding light on who Soylu really is, so far (I'm at Chapter 5).

Finished reading Blindsight by Peter Watts. I haven’t read this good Science Fiction book in a long time. On to Echopraxis, as it’s a double edition

I have been reading The Mongol Storm: Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East by Nicholas Morton which I am really enjoying. Nicholas has a clear way of describing events and putting them into context without getting too dry with it. I am also reading A Vast Conspiracy: The inspiration for Impeachment by Jeffrey Toobin which I am a little over half way into, but I am considering just giving up. I have been pecking away at this book for probably 2 months now. It's just too long winded. I don't need to know every single conversation, meeting, plot, dinner that people had - I feel this would have made an incredible long-form article in something like the New Yorker but a multi hundred page book seems to be pushing it for me.

Read This Book on a Silent Hill: Meditations that they won't tell you about

Victor Of Tuscon

I’m reading To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, but only because my girlfriend told me to read from more modernist authors. I’m liking her prose despite the dry beginning, but I’ll see how it comes along over time.

I'm finally reading Declare by Tim Powers. All I can say is holy shit I never knew how much I needed this book in my life.

The Book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Lawrence. Such a cool fantasy concept, I'm about 1/4th of the way in.

I also finished Forth Wing this week. It was okay for what it was.

Chuck Palahniuk - Consider This

The Journey to the West, translated by Anthony C. Yu. Given that it is 100 chapters long and I'm still at chapter 6 it's gonna take a long time for me to finish, so I'm thinking about reading another book alongside it.

Just finished Iron Gold by Pierce Brown. It feels kind of like a "bridge book" where it wasn't all that great compared to the others in the series so far.

Now I'm off to Shards of the Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I've started to read a lot of his stuff and I'm enjoying them all.

Bit of a strange pairing, but currently reading:

Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai

Faster: How a Jewish Driver, an American Heiress, and a Legendary Car Beat Hitler's Best by Neal Bascomb

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

I'm just about to start Berg by Ann Quin, which seems to be about a man who stalks his dad and mistress through a seaside town. It looks really good from the first few pages.