Reading The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson, 3rd book in the 2nd era of Mistborn.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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Eight: New Blood, Old Bones
All caught up on the webserials and am partway through the 5th book of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series.
I plan to read Saint Death’s Herald by C. S. E. Cooney next, and I think I can get back on track with my Bingo card after the holidays.After I finished Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness, I bought The Hainish Novels and Stories. Yesterday I finished Rocannon’s World and started Planet of Exile.
They’re great books, I’m a fan. What I liked about Rocannon’s World is the mixture of science fiction and fantasy elements, and how they’re used to show different perspectives on the same events. Also, I would love to fly one of those windsteeds.
Looking forward to what Planet of Exile has in store.
I’m re-reading Eines Menschen Flügel by Andreas Eschbach. It’s about a society started by refugees from a far future civilization, and because touching the ground is deadly, modified their children to have wings.
I re-read the book every few years, because it describes essentially a utopian society and I find it very inspiring, while also just being interesting.
Working my way through Discworld for the first time. Just finished listening to Witches Abroad and enjoyed that a lot, though the previous Reaper Man story spoke to me a little more. Small Gods looks to be next, which I’ve seen people speak highly of, so I’m looking forward to starting that.
Life on the Disc has been such fun to read about! I’m a bit sad I never got around to reading these sooner, but then again, it’s been a real highlight of this year.
I’m between books again.
Finished Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold (fantasy, novella) | bingo: creature, short, steppin’ up HM
The youngest son of a minor noble house unwittingly becomes host to a long-lived magical being.
Set in the same universe as The Curse of Chalion. I’m not sure I’m interested in reading the rest of the series, but it was enjoyable, well paced, and managed to cram a good amount of story into its short page length.
Hell yeah on the Cosmere books.
I’m going through yet another reread of “Way of Kings” at the moment, the first of Brandon Sanderson’s “Stormlight Archive”. Something recently had me thinking about Kaladin’s overall arc so I’m basically speeding through focusing on his story.
“Speeding through”
Just the Kaladin parts of TWoK is probably the size of a normal non-Sanderson book, lol.
Reading “The Will of the Many.” I see why people like it. I’m a little less than thrilled with the YA academy setting but the rest is pretty good.
Listening to “Gideon the Ninth.” I understand this one’s popularity less, but it’s okay enough to try and finish it to see if there’s something I’m missing. The narrator is great but there’s something about the writing style that leaves me feeling disconnected.
Also I didn’t realize that “The Will of the Many” was YA or close enough to it. I really should not try and consume two YA novels at the same time, as I’m not really all that fond of them typically.
I really enjoyed The Will of the Many, but it was mostly because of thr world and thr mysteries, I think. I agree that the YA-y relationship stuff was less my thing, but it didn’t bother me too much.
I binged the whole Gideon series when I was sick once. I found it enjoyable to read, but I agree that I do not get the hype around it.
Re-listening my way through the Dresden files. But reading krampus by brom
Love me some Mistborn! Currently I am reading “Dishonored: The Veiled Terror” which is the third and final book based in the world of the Dishonored games. All three are decent books. Relatively quick reads at ~200 pages, and the stories tie in with the games well enough.
Book 1 is Corvo’s POV, book 2 is Daud (yuck), and book 3 is Billie Lurk post “Death of the Outsider”. I wish there was more emphasis on powers used, but the author kept it light just in case the player went the “Mostly Flesh and Steel” route. Corvo just Blinks, and Daud only Transverses. I haven’t gotten far enough in Veiled Terror to comment yet, lol. I wish they could have thrown in Dark Vision at least. Still, I am enjoying them.
Nonfiction: Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.
In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
Fiction: Little Eyes by Samantha Schweblin
They’ve infiltrated homes in Hong Kong, shops in Vancouver, the streets of in Sierra Leone, town squares in Oaxaca, schools in Tel Aviv, bedrooms in Indiana. They’re everywhere. They’re here. They’re us. They’re not pets, or ghosts, or robots. They’re real people, but how can a person living in Berlin walk freely through the living room of someone in Sydney? How can someone in Bangkok have breakfast with your children in Buenos Aires, without your knowing? Especially when these people are completely anonymous, unknown, unfindable.
The characters in Samanta Schweblin’s brilliant new novel, Little Eyes, reveal the beauty of connection between far-flung souls–but yet they also expose the ugly side of our increasingly linked world. Trusting strangers can lead to unexpected love, playful encounters, and marvelous adventure, but what happens when it can also pave the way for unimaginable terror? This is a story that is already happening; it’s familiar and unsettling because it’s our present and we’re living it, we just don’t know it yet. In this prophecy of a story, Schweblin creates a dark and complex world that’s somehow so sensible, so recognizable, that once it’s entered, no one can ever leave.
Almost finished with this one and enjoying it far more than I expected to.
Reading „Our Man in Havanna“ by Greene. It’s funny, in an interesting setting and I am really enjoying it. Has anybody read anything else by Greene?
Ooooh. I used to devour his books around the time of uni.
I also really enjoy the various settings in his stories, and the thrill. His first book I read was The Quiet American, right after Dispatches by Michael Herr (non-fiction about his time as a Vietnam War correspondent), which was a big motivator to study journalism, so of course I had to read more of his :)
Another really good spy thriller I read was I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes. Although I sometimes feel it’s a bit heavy with the American imperialist perspectives.
I’m reading The Ax, by Donald Westlake, in preparation for watching No Other Choice. I’m really enjoying it so far. It’s nice anticapitalist goodness.
Was reading “the sacred cut” by David Hewson, but put it down after reading about a quarter of it. I don’t know if it’s the book or if I’m generally tired of the genre. So, was looking for something else, found Ian Banks’ “the hydrogen sonata” on my e-reader, and decide to read it. I’ve read a number of the other culture books, but stopped during “matter” (it read more like fantasy than SF and I wasn’t in the mood for that). This one’s nice so far, we’ll see how it unfolds.
Started Book 1 of Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust, “La Belle Sauvage”. It’s good so far, easy read. If it’s good enough I’ll do the whole trilogy now that Book 3 is finally out, I’ve been waiting to start book 1 for over 5 years since I found the hardcover at a secondhand bookstore for $8
Just finished number 3 and would love to chat with someone about i.t
