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What book(s) are you currently reading? 27 July

Hello Everyone!

What are you all reading?

I am currently going through a re-read of Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. Currently on 2nd book, Fool Moon.

139 comments

  • I just started City of Refuge by Tom Piazza. It's a fictional account of two families in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina. I'm only 12% in but so far I'm impressed by how real I feel like the pov characters are.

    Also reading Lichtenbergianism by Dale Lyles. It's about using procrastination as a creative strategy. 30% in, and juries out on whether I'll find anything helpful in it.

    • procrastination as a creative strategy

      I want this. I like procrastinating! Share your opinions about finishing it.

      City of Refuge looks like an interesting book. Going to check it out.

      • I got more inspiration from the Lichtenbergian book than new information. Among other things, it made me start a kanban for my personal projects and now I have less anxiety over how much I need to do and in what order. If you'd like, I'm happy to mail you my copy, since I'm unlikely to read it again.

  • Currently: Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo.

    Probably will jump into another Discworld novel next because I have so many things on my tbr list that I always have trouble to choose something and I go the easy way: discworld.

    • Discworld is always the right answer!

      Looked up Crooked Kingdom, and learned the word "dilogy", I always thought for two books it was duology, first time I ever seen the word dilogy.

      • Wow, never heard of dilogy either. I had to Google it to see it for myself. I guess you're never too old to learn something new.

  • I'm doing a reread of Human To Human by Rebecca Ore. It's the third book in the trilogy.

    It's an old scifi series from the early ninties, but holds up well. I absolutely love how she designs her aliens.

    The first book is Becoming Alien.

    • I was itching for a good alien show recently, didn't find anyhting I liked (though with so many streaming services, couldn't figure out where to watch half the stuff).

      If not TV, I can atleast read a good aliens book. Will check it out.

      • It is pretty hard to find a good alien show on TV or in movies.

        The downside of Star Trek is that aliens are often TOO human, and the downside of Star Wars is some of the aliens are TOO alien...

        I find SFF literature does a much better job than visual media at really exploring alien psychology and and how communication might go with aliens who do not look human. Because it can base things in real scientific concepts without worrying overmuch about how much the CGI or prosthetics will cost, or if you'll lose the casual non-nerd viewer.

        I've a few quibbles about how Rebecca Ore looks at human behavior with a little too much "nature" over "nurture", esp. re: gender dynamics, but the biology really is solid with the aliens. And you could argue she's only looking at humans through the same lens she uses on her aliens.

        She posits that intelligent life will sort of fill certain convergently evolved body plans, much like how in an ecosystem animals with very different ancestors can come to look like one another.

        Like the mammal wolf and the marsupial tasmanian tiger (Thylacine) have converged to have even really similar skull shapes despite one being a placental mammal and the other a marsupial, or how sharks and dolphins have very similar body plans despite one being a fish and the other a mammal.

        So in the series, there's a few "buckets" that most sapient aliens evolved to fit in...ape-like ex-brachiators, bipedal ground-walking birds/aivan lizards, bear-type creatures, bat-like creatures. There's cases where the main character runs into two "birds" but they're not even from the same planet, they just both evolved a bird-like form and became intelligent separately.

        The computer tech in her series is old--pre-internet sci-fi didn't do the greatest job of predicting how fast or complex computer and information technology would become--and the main character is a not-too-bright everyman sort of character...

        ...but it still works pretty well, to allow us to deconstruct her world through his eyes.

        Interestingly enough, my favorite characters aren't the humans (they're all very flawed), but instead the aliens, esp. the Rector and the Sub-Rector.

  • 📖 Les Furtifs by Alain Damasio

    and

    📖 Mathematica by David Bessis

    • Les Furtifs looks interesting, from what I could glean. Is it available in English?

      And Mathematica is just a Mathematics book, right?

      • I do not think that Les Furtifs is available in English yet...

        As for Mathematica, yes it is about the Mathematic however at a personal development level. David Bessis tries to explain that people's brain is compatible with the mathenathic. Some people wrongly think that they are bad at this because nobody taught them how to do. For him abstraction is something that need to be trained. An example is that each one of us can easily imagine (to watch in our head) a perfect circle even if it does not exist in our reality. The author explains that to do Math is to learn to fail, to make mistakes, to correct our intuition.

  • I have a couple of overdue library books I should probably finish and return, but instead I'm reading a couple volumes of Combatants will be Dispatched because laughing is better than being a decent human being.

    • laughing is better than being a decent human being.

      Heh, that made me chuckle.

      How is "Combatants will be Dispatched"? I have read Chinese and Korean light/web novels, but am not acquainted with Japanese ones. Any recommendations?

      • Combatants will be Dispatched is hilarious. It might be the dumbest, most useless cast of characters I've ever read about. After a couple of volumes most of the main conflicts are problems they caused for themselves which is very satisfying.

        I find I read a lot of web novels (or more commonly the graphic adaptations) to tweak certain tropes I crave now and then. It's not often I find one that is actually just a satisfying read chapter to chapter. Light novels are often similar, but they've gone through some more editing and development so it's more common for a volume to actually be some sort of satisfying chunk of story to read.

        If you're looking for genuinely good reads, I recommend Apothecary Diaries, Death's Daughter and the Ebony Blade, or the Monogatari series. If you want some dumb fun there are so many options, but The World's Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat, Konosuba, and I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level are a few different but good ones.

  • Currently Reading:

    The Iron Heel, by Jack London

    Basically one of the first major political dystopias written in the modern sense. It's super cool too, basically the book is an old manuscript about an attempted socialist revolution, before the world was taken over by oligarchic tyrannical capitalists. There's basically two stories being told, one in the socialist narrative itself occurring in the past, and one in the footnotes, showing glimmers of some of the capitalist horrors in the "present time". Super neat way to tell a story, and I'm really enjoying it so far. It's super heavy handed, and I would maybe call it similar to a socialist version of an Ayn Rand dystopia, like Anthem, but you know... Actually good. And thematically opposite to any coherent thought Ayn Rand tried to impart onto her readers.

    Paved Paradise, How Parking Explains the World, by Henry Grabar

    Not too far into this one, but it's a non-fiction book about parking policy, and how parking has basically ruined American cities over the last 70 years. I've been really getting into city planning books lately, so we'll see how much I like this one. Some pretty eye opening statistics so far, and the writing style seems fine.

    DNF'd recently:

    Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

    Jesus this dude is insufferable. I read a lot of dense stuff, and have read many authors that like the sound of their own voice, but Thoreau takes the cake. Preaches self-reliance and disparages philanthropy but squats on his buddies land and lives off of gifts from friends, while doing absolutely nothing and providing no value to society. The guy just exudes a "holier than thou" attitude throughout the whole book, with absolutely nothing to back it up. I quit after 100 pages of this absolute joke contradicting himself the entire time. He would occasionally stumble upon some brilliance that I found a bit insightful, but it was few and far between, and the 98% of the rest was pure, unadulterated garbage. I really haven't had this negative of a reaction to something I've read for quite some time, I generally like everything I read. Maybe I'm just too simple to understand his self proclaimed brilliance.

    • Interesting list of books. Not the kind of thing I usually read, but The Iron Heel looks to be an interesting book. I would also be interested in hearing what you thought about Paved Paradise once you are done with it.

      As for Walden, if you didn't know anything about Thoreau and his life, would you still think the same about the book? I am just wondering if it's the contradiction between his life (which I know nothing about) and his work that turned you off.

  • Psychology of Time Travel. It's an interesting twist on the topic!

    • The synopsis sounds interesting. How are you liking it?

      • It's fantastic. Each chapter hops to another character in another time period, each one filling in another piece of the story. It has a very pragmatic approach to time travel with time spent developing time traveler slang, thought given to personalities that thrive or struggle with time travel, and how time travelers interact with their other selves (they frequently cross their own timelines). The time travel organization even has its own detective agency and court system!

        It was a lot of fun to read with the details of the time travel agency fitting in nicely with the development of the story. I highly recommend it.

  • I'm pretty capable of setting down a book for extended periods of time and remembering everything when I pick it back up, and have a habit of hopping between books; so the list that I'm "currently" reading is... large. That said, focusing on the most active ones:

    I'm just gonna say Discworld, for reasons elsewhere expounded upon. Mostly working through the City Watch stuff at the moment, Jingo should be on my doorstep in the next couple days. Knocked out Mort while I was waiting for it, might do Reaper Man too if it takes much longer.

    I'm also thumbing my way through The Selfish Gene; I've always been fascinated by the concept of memetics, and that's its birthplace (while also being a pretty potent contextualization of evolutionary biology). Probably gonna pick up Extended Phenotype when I'm done.

    Then there's Tristram Shandy, which I've had for a while but only recently had a chance to start properly. It's fun so far, takes a minute to get used to the writing style which is simultaneously archaic by modern standards and progressive for the time. I think "hobby-horsical" is gonna find a permanent home in my vocabulary.

    Got about halfway through Gravity's Rainbow on a cruise a few years back, I might pick that back up soon actually now that I think of it. That one's pretty dense though, I might need to go back and skim what I read already to remember the character names.

    Technically I'm listening to this one because he did read-throughs of a bunch of his books during COVID and I like the extra context he added, but Lon Milo DuQuette's 'Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot'. If you're into that sorta thing, I highly recommend DuQuette's work, he's both very knowledgeable and very accommodating to the casual reader.

    There are a few other books living on my coffee table, but those are the most active right now.

    • Wow, that's lots of books. I am terrible at multi-tasking, and if I start more than one book, I have trouble ending either of them.

      Tristam Randy, is that Tristam Shandy? "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman" or am I confusing it with something else?

      I am thinking about doing these threads every week, or bi-weekly at most, so just sharing your active books is good enough. You can share the rest in next post.

  • Finally pushed through The Sound and the Fury. Definitely lived up to it's reputation for being difficult and inscrutable. Probably could have just stuck with the spark notes on this one, frankly.

    I picked up Ovid's Metamorphoses on a whim and I'm finding it surprisingly fun and approachable. I've always had a healthy appreciation for western mythos, so this is a fun little dip back into that world for me, and I am also enjoying going back and reading some academic commentary once I finish a section. Makes me feel like I'm back in college in a good way.

    I also started The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath and I'm really enjoying her prose so far. I am a little surprised, frankly, with how much I'm enjoying this one and how hard it is to put the book down. Maybe because I tend to select books I don't expect to like, but rather which I believe will be beneficial to read (which provides it's own form of enjoyment for me, rest assured).

    Also trying to maintain momentum on my second read through of Infinite Jest. One of my favorites, even (especially?) the second time through.

    Last year I read mostly nonfiction so I guess this year I've swung in the other direction as I've read almost exclusively fiction so far.

    • Nice list! I looked up The Sound and the Fury, from wikipedia:

      It is nearly unanimously considered a masterpiece by literary critics and scholars, but its unconventional narrative style frequently alienates new readers. Although the vocabulary is generally basic, the stream-of-consciousness technique, which attempts to transcribe the thoughts of the narrators directly, with frequent switches in time and setting and with loose sentence structure and grammar, has made it a quintessentially difficult modernist work.

      Interesting. Will add it to the list of "literary classics, some day" to-read list.

      Which translation are you reading for Metamorphoses? And any interesting academic commentary you can link to? Recently, I have been thinking of reading some of the older, historical work, starting with the most obvious choice, Homer's Odyssey. Haven't started it yet though, so many things to read, so little time.

      And respect for reading books that are beneficial to you!

  • I'm a little over halfway through "Devils unto Dust" by Emma Berquist. It's a zombie story set in late 19th century Texas. It took me a while to decide to read it, as honestly I just wasn't that into another zombie story. But damn is it well written!

    Stealing the book description:

    Keep together. Keep your eyes open. Keep your wits about you.

    A horrifying sickness has spread across the West Texas desert. Infected people—shakes—attack the living, and the surviving towns are only as safe as their perimeter walls are strong. The state is all but quarantined from the rest of the country. Glory, Texas, is a near ghost town. Still, seventeen-year-old Willie has managed to keep her siblings safe, even after the sickness took their mother. But then her good-for-nothing father steals a fortune from one of the most merciless shake hunters in town, and Willie is left on the hook for his debt. With two young hunters as guides, Willie sets out across the desert to find her father. And the desert holds more dangers than just shakes.

    This riveting debut novel blends True Grit with 28 Days Later for an unforgettable journey.

    • This sounds interesting. Will check it out.

      I am actually up for some Zombie novels, which ones do you think are some of the best?

      • I finished Devils unto Dust yesterday and can confirm that it was superbly written all the way through, and I very much reiterate my reccomendation.

        As for other zombie novels, it's not really a genre I'm super into, hence the reluctance to get started on this one. That said, World War Z is a book that I hear is far better than the movie. Isn't that always the case?

  • Ariadne by Jennifer Saint, which is quite outside my normally preferred genre, but I've heard good things.

    Also, The Emperors Soul by Brandon Sanderson, which has been great so far.

  • Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

    By far liked it. His style is surely captivating.

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