What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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Too busy to read for pleasure these days so I mostly just listen to audiobooks when I mow the lawn, but my lawn’s not very big.
I’m working through the industrial revolution Discworld books by Terry Pratchett. Finally finished Moving Pictures last week after like 6 months, started on Going Postal yesterday.
Still reading The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell. It’s still fine, I just haven’t been reading more than 5-10 minutes a night.
I just finished Metamorphosis and started The Trial (Kafka, sorry Ovid fans) I’m struggling a little with the translation which doesn’t seperate dialogue by paragraph, but it is a lot easier, than I initially feared, to read.
One quality I take away from Kafka is how he makes you feel powerless and almost childlike in his worlds; you’re presented with these absurd scenarios that everyone else assures you are reasonable.
Finished The Princess Bride. Honestly, I liked the movie better.
Started The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler based on someone’s recommendation in one of these threads. I’m liking it so far, but only a quarter into it so far
I loved all the asides and backstories and extra world building in the novel. I actually wish the movie included more of it
Really liked “The mountain in the sea”, and everything else I’ve read by Nayler. If you like this I recommend his other books, also Paolo Bacigalupi for near future distopias
The Bible says so by Dan McLellan. I’ve always been interested in where the biblical canon comes from and how it became it’s current state. About four chapters in currently and I’m really enjoying it.
Bart Ehrman is good for this too.
To add to this, I personally recommend “Did Jesus Exist” as the Dr. Ehrman follow up.
It has the same vibe as Dr. McClellan’s book while also being an incredibly useful popular academic book. Just as accessible and covers the second most important part of Christianity to understand, the origin as opposed to the current discourse.
“How Jesus became God” being a natural progression.
Keep us updated. I’m really interested. I like his short videos and have been wanting to check out his book.
I finished the book a while back and I reference it often.
Its really good. All of the book is formatted as long form responses with citations and solid academic reason without being inaccessible.
What jargon there is is fully explained in the intro or in the text.
It was in fact a wonderful resource for a modern interpretation for the bible and a resource on modern discourse around it if you’re not religious like myself.
Its good enough that I keep a spare copy to give to friends if they’re interested in interpretations of stories inspired by or from Dan.
Never read it but I watch a lot of his YouTube videos and they’re great.
Re-read Persepolis. RIP Marjane Satrapi :(
RIP. She was an absolute gem
Been traveling with kids the last week and through the end of this one so it’s been tough to read. Trying to get through the entire rest of the Ransom Riggs Peculiar Children series so I can start Red Rising.
I only managed to do the first chapter. I keep hearing about how great it is, but the writing itself is ass. But hey, art is subjective.
Thankfully, I have a pretty high tolerance for sub-par writing if the story is good.
Whereas, I have DNFed a few books where the prose is florid and beautiful, but the story is banal or underdeveloped.
I’m still working my way through Red Rising. I’m in book 5, Dark Age. Then I’ll still have the 6th book, and a 7th should be it this year or so I hear.
The first book is amazing, the next two are still really good.
The fourth I really didn’t like at first, since the whole style of writing changes to the viewpoint of multiple characters. But by the time I was halfway through it I was starting to appreciate it a lot more. Now that I’m 2/3 through the fifth book, I’m looking forward to hearing the different perspectives.
Still, there are times when it’s a slog. But I just put it down for a few days and then I’m roped back in.
Also the audio book version keeps changing voice actors between books, and they aren’t ok following the same pronunciation of some names, and even some words are just straight up mispronounced. Which is annoying.
Worse yet, two of the actors really struggle with proper sense stress and inflection. It’s sometimes confusing whether a character is speaking or thinking/narrating, or even whether an ACTION is being described. It’s hard to explain, but occasionally jarring. They’re getting better as the books go on though. I think they might be cold reading it 🤷♂️
I finished up the Lord of the Rings trilogy today, loved it. Now I’m about a third of the way through a reread of Battle Ground (Dresden Files) so that I can get to Twelve Months, probably starting on Thursday. I also listened to ~40% of the last Alex Verus book, I’ll be finishing that in the next two workdays too. This is the one good thing about working night shifts in security.
Re-reading Varley’s Gaea trilogy after about 30 years. I had only a vague recollection of it so it’s more like an initial reading than a re-read. I’m not sure what to think of it. I mean, it’s by no means bad, but… I dunno. I think one of my problems with it is that it’s quite soft sci-fi, and I prefer mine harder.
Use of Weapons from the Culture series.
I envy you of this is the first time reading that series.
Alfred North Whitehead - Process & Reality (1929)
The most difficult read of my life, but it changes worldviews.
I just finished Hench after reading about it on the Ask a Manager site. It was so good! I highly recommend it.
I’ve been on a Larry Niven kick again and just finished Lucifer’s Hammer. I last read it back in high school, so like 20+ years ago. Definitely hit differently than back then. Before that I had wrapped up Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Children” series. Most of those were pretty great. None come close to the first one though. I’m about halfway through Project Hail Mary with my daughter, so that’s been fun. And I’m almost to the end of “Mort” by Terry Pratchett.
I reread King David’s Spaceship recently. Makes me want to read The Mote in God’s Eye and Footfall
Mote in God’s Eye and Footfall are both great. The Ringworld series is my favorite, but the Heorot series has some great world building.
Making my way through Star Wars legends book Darksaber, it’s NOT about the sword, so interested to see if it spins into that, how I don’t know.
After the next book in the line up is Dungeon crawler Carl #2.
Just finished I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for $200 by Robert Brockway . It was so fun and creatively written, scary and heartwarming at times. One of the comments said “Sesame Street meets Stephen King”.
