this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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Asklemmy

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Last book I finished? The Dragon Reborn. Currently reading? The Princess Diaries.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ayyyyy, are you reading The Shadow Rising soon? I liked it more than the Dragon Reborn.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yep! Just need to find a bit more time for it. I've got a book club with a friend where we're reading through the series.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I love that! If it's your first time through, I hope you both enjoy it!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Do audiobooks count?

Leviathan Falls by James S. A. Corey. It's the final book in The Expanse series. Really got hooked on it. I haven't made time to find another book since then though πŸ€”

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

They absolutely do! I don't understand the snobbery against audiobooks. When Borges lost his sight he had to have books read to him, and just consider the amazing stories he came up with (and the literary devices he developed) to make up for his blindness.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I read up to Cibola Burn but then ran out at the time, I haven't gone back since books beyond that came out. I need to start over.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yes, I was more than happy with the ending. Loose ends were pretty well tied up.

One day there'll be an expanse movie that covers what the tv series didn't.. one day..

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

They definitely count as ingesting books but there is a difference between reading a book and listening to an audiobook.

Reading IS the activity but I feel like with audiobooks people are typically driving or something where the book is in the background. Though maybe some people put on headphones and just sit and listen or something. I don't know if this makes me a snob lol.

Also The Expanse was the first book series I ever read. It was so good. And it made me like the show less even though the show is still great.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I just finished Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. Great book, that not only coined terms like "avatar" and "metaverse" (for better or worse), but is also really well written. It somehow manages to find a tone that is consistent for the dystopian worldbuilding, the silly and self-aware things that happen in the world, and the philosophical aspect dealing with culture, religion and free will. Highly recommend!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And I'm currently reading his newest novel, Termination Shock. Quite different, but still has that Stephenson sense of world building that I love.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Last finished was Acceptance by Jeff Vandermeer. Currently reading Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Project Hail Mary was excellent. Loved every second.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Same, I'm flying through it right now. Started it on Monday and already like 3/4 of the way through it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Story-wise, it felt a bit clunkier than the Marsian but I liked the worldbuilding a lot.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Old Man's War by John Scalzi - not high literature by any means, but a fun read nonetheless. Currently reading the sequel, The Ghost Brigades, which is equally as fun :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I was recently reading Scalzi too! His blog is great too.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, and I hated it.

It takes a very cool premise, then fills it with incongruences and predictable twists that you understand chapters ahead of the protagonist. Then it all ends up being (SPOILERS AHEAD) a "humans used to literally talk to nature, modern society bad" mumbojumbo with some kind of unexplained multiverse in it.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The iRobot series by Asimov. Going into Foundation now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I loved the 'Foundation' series! The 1st is in my top 5. 'I, Robot' was such a fantastic book as well, infinitely better than the movie.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I loved the first Foundation, but never read beyond that, for some reason. I know I have the first trilogy around here somewhere. I should dig up the other ones.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just finished this yesterday! Great read esp since I'm right around the same age as the main characters all the gaming nostalgia rang particularly true to me.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Most recently finished: The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher - an enjoyable, but not exceptional, folk horror.

Currently in the middle of: Finnegans Wake, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, Flashman and Madison's War by Robert Brightwell, and a collection of Para Handy tales by Neil Munro.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch -- a really fun heist-y story set in an engaging and well-crafted fantasy world

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Last book on paper: D&D 5th edition Player Handbook (German edition)

Last novel on paper: Frank Herbert - Dune

Last audiobook: P. Djèlí Clark - A Master of Djinn

[–] chiscake 4 points 1 year ago

All but my life by Gerda Weissmann Klein.

An amazing autobiography of a lady who survived WW2 and Nazis. It was very emotional and it felt like she was paying homage to all the little things that contributed to her survival.I would highly recommend.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Broken Earth Trilogy by NK Jemisin. Fantastic and heartbreaking. It's kind of a crossover in science fiction and fantasy, set in a world that experiences apocalyptic levels of climate and geological change every few hundred years. Jemisin does excellent world building and a very admirable job of writing parts of the narrative in second person in a way that seems seamless/not gimmicky. Highly recommended.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I loved those books! In the beginning second person felt extremely weird, but the "resolution" of why it is written that way made so much sense that it made the books even more enjoyable IMO.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I keep starting some books after this one but I can't seem to finish anything.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

hemingway's debut the sun also rises, i went in blind and didn't expect it to be about bull fighting. i enjoyed the vibe of the 1920s travel through spain and france, the aimless plot and the character interactions.

i learned that bullfighting is terrible and cringed at the casual anti-semitism all over the book

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Brent Weeks' "The Way of Shadows".
Currently reading second part "Shadow's Edge"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yumi and the nightmare painter by Brandon Sanderson. (very good)

Last series I finished was Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. (probably the best fantasy series I've ever read)

Current read: The God is Not Willing by Steven Erikson

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Upgrade by Blake Crouch. Great book.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I read The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb and it was fantastic

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell. It's book 5 in the last kingdom series that the TV show is based off of. I love the time period.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Greenlights" - Mathew McConaughey, surprisingly good. Currently reading 'Look to Windward' by Iain M. Banks

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Last I finished: A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

Currently reading: The Witcher: The Last Wish (for the second time)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Recently finished the seond book in Ken MacLeod's Lightspeed Trilogy, Beyond the Reach of Earth. Nice SF series with some interesting takes on the complexities of FTL travel, First Contact, global politics, and more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The last book I read was one of Jack Reacher novel series. Truth be told, I need to restart that reading for enjoyment habit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Napoleon: A Life, really well written biography that reads like a novel highly recommended!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

1984 (nineteen-eightyfour) from George Orwell. Currently reading nothing but news.

[–] sneakyninjapants 2 points 1 year ago

Raft by Stephen Baxter. Part of the Xeelee sequence series.

Currently on book 2: Timelike Infinity and I'm liking it quite a bit.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

β€œToll The Hounds” by Steven Erikson, it’s book 8 in The Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis.

Reading some of the history that gets left out elsewhere. Did you know that before the end of the Civil War lynching was primarily used to terrorize white abolitionists? After the Civil War during reconstruction, during Jim Crow, white supremacists needed to find a reason to terrorize and control the black community so the myth of the black man as rapist was woven into public discourse. It was the most convenient excuse to find a reason to violently punish and control black people who in whatever way challenged or violated the status quo. Accusations of even inappropriate forwardness were enough to justifying hanging. But the real reason would be that some black person or family started a business, sought education or became empowered in some way, challenging the white supremacist social hierarchy - and were lynched for it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It was called β€œDrunk” and was about human’s history with inebriates with an emphasis on alcohol. For a book on booze it was incredibly dry and while the author made some decent points he tended to just repeat them over and over again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne.

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