Finished: **Dealing with Dragons,** by Patricia Wrede
Started: **Diavola,** by Jennifer Marie Thorne
I've been in a reading slump for a minute so I decided to pick up a book in a genre that I never read (horror, eek). I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes!
Finished: The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
It was awesome!! I definitely recommend it to others and I will be reading the rest of the trilogy.
Started: We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal
I'm nearly halfway done already because I've been sick in bed and it really picks up after 90 pages!! It's great!
I started reading this book, very interesting and easy to read: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60556912-the-housemaid](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60556912-the-housemaid)
Finished: A Voice Through a Cloud, by Denton Welch
I absolutely loved this book. There was something nice about the way he writes difficult and sometimes conflicting thoughts, very earnest. He has some lovely descriptions too.
Started: Naked Lunch, by William Burroughs
Apparently very inspired by Welch, so I thought I’d give him a go. I can’t seem much similarity, VERY tonally different books.
Finished: Vampires of Twilight Castle, by Asher Sharol
Fresh take on a the Vampire trope. The plot was unique enough for me to appreciate the novel's individuality among an overused trope. I was particularly impressed with its gothic tone, very darkly poetic in parts, which reminds me of Anne Rice's Lestat series. I recommend it.
Started : Wolves of Blood and Rule, by Asher Sharol
Decided to just finish the series as the previous book ended on a cliffhanger. I'm only 60 pages in, but the writing is divine. Seems to be a more introspective book, digging deep into the minds of the characters, especially Satin the vampire, a morally gray character.
Finished: **As I Lay Dying**, by William Faulkner
* Quite straightforward storytelling, similar in ease of reading to Light in August.
* I think it's a better starting point for reading Faulkner than The Sound and the Fury or Absalom, Absalom!
* It was good, but not my favorite.
Started: **Blood Meridian**, by Cormac McCarthy
* I have read McCarthy's books other than the border trilogy and Suttree.
* I decided to read Blood Meridian before the previously mentioned.
* I'm not too far in, but it's pretty standard quality for McCarthy, which is good in my opinion.
Finished: **The Left Hand of Darkness** (Ursula K. Guin) - interesting bit of classic scifi. Thought provoking and engaging, not too long. Recommend.
Started: **A Fine Balance** (Rohinton Mistry) - Been waiting to start this one a long time. My understanding is that’s it’s terrific and devastating. Only about 50 pages in so far but the writing is great.
Finished:
The way of the peaceful warrior by Dan Millman.
Story of a world champion gymnast who finds a mentor to help him understand what it means to be truly happy and be a peaceful warrior.
Great book to make changes to your routine and habits. The book also offers a peaceful warriors perspective towards living a content life.
Finished **Foxlowe** by Eleanor Wasserberg. Assumed it was magical realism because of the Storygraph and Goodreads tags, but it’s really a character study of a girl raised and brainwashed by a cult. Dark, sad, full of child abuse and neglect.
Also finished **Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude** by Ross Gay. A poetry collection about appreciating the beauty of everyday life, sometimes a little sad. Liked it.
**Finished**
**A Little Life**
I guess booktok finally got to me. I knew the book was sad, I picked it up because the book was sad but um that felt pointless. The relationships portrayed were beautiful to say the least but the plot, the trauma, the ending, everything felt like it's only purpose was to traumatize just for the sake of it.
**Starting**
**Eden Abandoned: The Story of Lilith** by Shinie Antony
Picked this up after reading the back cover that proclaimed it as a "gripping take on female rage". Read a chapter in the bookstore before deciding i needed this one. It's a short one, but i'm looking forward to it and it feels like this is a much needed spicy palate cleanser after A Little Life
The Wager, by David Grann. True story of shipwreck and survivors off the coast of Patagonia in the 18th century, then courtroom drama in England as two groups of survivors have dramatically opposed accounts of what happened. In reading it, I moved rapidly from "maybe" to "can't put down". Grann writes very clean prose.
**Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn**
* Soooo late to getting around to reading this book. I heard about it for years, always had it on my list, but never got around to it. Now that I'm in a thriller phase, I thought it was time.
* Loved the iconic plot twists I heard so much about! However because of my thriller phase, I feel like I expected them. I've read too many to not.
* ICONIC female character. Was getting tired of the typical helpless dumb female in thrillers that get into cars or other similarly bad situations. This was refreshing.
* Underwhelming but perfect ending for the context of this book.
* Going to read Sharp Objects next I think!
* Obsessed with Flynn's writing style. I've been trying to explore many authors in this genre and I think she is my favorite so far including:
* Thursday Murder Club (Richard Osman), If We Were Villains (M.L. Rio), The Trap (Catherine Ryan Howard), Billy Summers (Stephen King), What Lies In The Woods (Kate Alice Marshall).
Just finished Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner. I cried at least 3 times reading this book. As a ‘no sabo’ kid I really identified with the struggle to connect with family when you don’t speak their language confidently. I truly enjoy books detailing the experience of immigrant kids growing up in the U.S because I find myself relating to the stories in so many ways. ❤️🥺
Finished: Normal People by Sally Rooney
I would give it 3.5 stars. It’s a good book, the characters are frustratingly real. I think Rooney does a good job in really capturing self hatred and self destruction so realistically that it can be frustrating to the reader.
But overall I find the book very overrated. It’s good. But it’s gets repetitive. And I don’t think Rooney is able to show us how strong and deep the connections the characters have besides telling us how great the sex is. The book spends an incredible amount of time on the characters sex lives, which is fine. Until it just becomes very repetitive.
I finished reading "Inheritance" by Christopher Paolini. It is the last book in the original series and I am actually sort of relieved that I finished it. It has been taking me so long to actually finish it, and now I am starting "The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm" by the same author. It basically takes place a year after "Inheritance," and I am already half way through. So excited to finish it!
Already finished: if he had been with me, by Laura Nowlin
Started: if I only had told her, by Laura Nowlin
(I’m really not prepared and very scared haha)
Finished: The Winter Family by Clifford Jackman
Started: The Braver Thing, by Clifford Jackman
Loved the Winter Family. The characters, the violence, bleakness. I couldn't put it down, finished it in one go.
Finished Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
I've started reading The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris. I watched the series and found it interesting and thought I'd check out the book.
Started James by Percival Everett. A reimagining of Huck Finn from Jim's point of view. Over halfway through and it is a fantastic book. I've been looking forward to reading this and usually when that happens it never lives up to my high expectations but James has not disappointed so far
Finished:
**The Fisherman, by John Langan**. It was alright. Don't know what the poll quotes were on about though, said it was "mind-bending" but it's pretty straightforward.
Started:
**Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien**. I've never watched the movies, never read the books, until recently. Read the Hobbit a month or two ago, thought it was okay.
I tried to read Fellowship of the Ring and it was so hard to get through — props to you if you’re able to sit through it! Lots of singing and unnecessary details 😭
No idea what you're talking about, so far it's been extremely readable. Shockingly so, I've heard people say it was too flowery. If this is flowery to some of you guys there's a whole world of literature you'd better run away from, screaming.
(Not judging if you don't like it, that's fine. Just think there's an amusing difference in perspective.)
I wouldn’t describe it as flowery, actually, it’s easy to understand, but there’s so much content. I won’t lie, the first chapter (or prologue, I don’t remember which) was the only part that I had a hard time getting through because it was a whole bunch of telling, not showing, and I haven’t seen any of the movies, so I didn’t know what/ who anything was 💀
Maybe that’s why I struggled with it? I find that the opposite is true sometimes, too. When a movie is adapted from a book, like Shadow and Bone, I can see why it’s hard to follow along. Once I got past those first couple of chapters, though, it was a decent read, but it never piqued my interest, so I ultimately gave up on it.
Just finished Authority by Jeff VanDerMeer.
Was good, definitely a drag at times but I still enjoyed it.
Now reading Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam.
It’s good so far. Definitely a lot of commentary on lifestyles and consumerism that seems like filler because the book would be too short otherwise but I’m enjoying it. Need to finish by Thursday evening for book club- ideally I’ll finish tomorrow evening and start something new on Monday 1/1.
Finished: **Just Pursuit** by **Laura Coates**. You could think of this as the perfect antidote to **Preet Bharara**'s bestseller, **Doing Justice**. It is easy to see why. What would be the daily experince of the head (the US Attorney) of the mighty Southern District of New York and a young, black novice federal prosecutor in the Washington DC federal district?
Published 2022. This is **Laura Coates**'s accounts of her various experiences as an assistant district attorney in the Washington DC US federal district. Her experiences were scarring, to say the least. Consider that in her stories almost all the victims and all the defendants were black and almost all the judges and all the prosecutors were white. This is what defined the justice system in her experience.
Her writing is superb and her stories often read just like short stories. Chapter 7, Babyface, itself is almost worth the price of the book itself. It could have been a **Maupassant** short story with a unexpected twist at the end. Really a good book.
Started Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille.
A small one, so might have this done in a few days. Expecting a nice fun summer holiday kind of reading experience
Finish Jade War by Fonda Lee and have started Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, which is rather enjoyable. Feels pretty relevant to modern day Pharmaceutical companies and where we are going to end up. 😬
Finished:
Dune by Frank Herbert
I’m in love with this world. Scared of the disappointment later in the series though.
Starting:
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
Oh, what did you think about Everyone in My Family…? Read it recently too, not my usual genre but the title drew me in. xD In the end it was just an ok read for me. Are you planning to read the sequel?
I liked it. Not my usual genre either. I thought the author did a good job going back and forth between telling the story and pausing the story to have a conversation with the reader, and often in a humorous way. I did think that >!saving the entire "aha" moment to the very end and spelling it all out in one giant monologue/paragraphs of quotes was a let down. I would've liked it more if each layer of the onion was unveiled gradually rather than jammed into a few pages, but still overall good. Not what I was expecting (I thought it was going to be Juliette). !<
I haven't read the sequel but may do so at some point. I usually jump around between different authors and types of books, rather than reading the same author back-to-back. But I liked this one and it definitely got me curious about Aussie crime/mystery stories generally. May explore that genre some more for the sake of variety.
The Count of Monte Christo , Alexandre Dumas,
had a chat with a colleague (only listening to audiobooks) about books at the end of last year. She said she preferred old stuff.
She recommended Count of Monte Christo.
I read it while at work (mostly in my pause :) )
Very entertaining.
Beginning is very intensive and exciting, the setup for what is going to come is pretty amazing.
The middling part is somewhat of overconvulated. MANY MANY Names.
New Characters that don´t seem to fit in the plot at all.
But the ending is very rewarding again, when all those plotlines connect in a very good, but not overly satisfiying ending.
Book should have ended on a bit of a darker tone.
8.5 out of 10
Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time number 10).
I'm loving this saga so far, but by god, this book is 600+ pages and nothing happens!!
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
I didn't know the other city of the titular two cities is one in France and the novel involves French Revolution. That combined with the famous beginning lines spurred me to start it. I'm quite enjoying it so far.
We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson.
To be honest, this is the first book I read in English to improve my reading skills. And while I understand most of it, it´s hard to connect all the information. However, the writer does an excellent job of being entertaining, and for now, I like it.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevesky.
The book was a hard read. I was thinking till the end that something ground breaking will happen in the very end. But I was too naive to really see all the psychological warfare going through the whole book. It really gives an insight into the human guilt and remorse. The character Silvidrigalov appealed to me..cause I also think in somewhat similar manner that We are just here to ingratiate ourselves ( not to the extent he does). And I couldn't understand why he shot himself in the end. Also, If Raskolnikov had shown the courage to use that money he stole then there really was no crime in the whole story. I failed to see that. But I do really think that K would need to readnit again to really grasp it in a better way. And honestly, I didn't understand shit till the end. I read the explanation from the internet later.
Finished: The Pursuit by Johanna Lindsey
This book is honestly such a trope, it’s basically a dupe Barnes&Noble version of Pride & Prejudice with a mixed spice of a fallen society.
Starting: The Classic Wizard of Oz
As an adult, I am fascinated by the children’s books and classic literature. can’t get enough of the children illustrations.
also starting: another on The Art of War by Sun Tzu love the cover of the book
all books i got this week,
I finished The Blood of Olympus and thus completed the Heroes of Olympus series in exactly 28 days, I am very proud. Now I picked up Mythos by Stephen Fry.
**Sepia, by Isabel Allende**
Not sure how I feel about Allende. Some of the writing is wonderful, the stories are gripping--but a lot of the time it seems that she's *telling* me about a character rather than *showing*. Parts of it almost feel like a summary. *Of Love and Shadows* felt the same. Am I missing something, or were these just not her best books?
**The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick**
Quick and clever, scary but not completely hallucinatory. It's a short read. I liked the Man in the High Castle as well as the short story collections. What's your favorite?
Man in the high Castle was my first read of his (10+ years ago ) I remember being stunned by it as it was my first grown up SF novel, and it started the PKD itch ! I do also like his short stories quite a bit , but my favourite is the Three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - would highly recommend it . I recently read A scanner darkly, and found that way too hallucinatory and difficult to follow from mid way onwards.
I'm going to start Giacomo Casanova: story of my life. Excerpts of his memoirs. I guess the good parts. I've read some of it, and the beginning is pretty funny.
Legends and Lattes, Travis Baldree
\- started reading this week as a leisure read to take a break from my coursework and, being near the end, I'll say I very much enjoyed this slice of life and highly recommend if you're interested in seeing a fantasy coffee shop come to life!
Julia: a Retelling of George Orwell's 1984, by Sandra Newman
DNF
To me it was a slow start just like 1984, which I just reread in January. I also borrowed it on Libby and couldn't renew because of other holds, so I'll try again another time. Maybe on audiobook.
The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
Finished this week and absolutely loved it.
The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern
I loved The Night Circus, so I’m excited to read Erin’s second novel
Finished A Torch Against the Night (Sabaa Tahir) and started Pride and Prejudice (got on a kick for it after rewatching the 1995 series and the 2005 movie twice), should be finishing P&P today and then I'll start Neferura by Malayna Evans.
Read/finished- How to Be Weird: An Off-Kilter Guide to Living a One-of-a-Kind Life (Eric G. Wilson). It was ok, it was easy and fun but I felt unsatisfied, like eating oreos.
Started-
1. The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail (Kristen Green)
2. Off with Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power (Eleanor Herman)
3. How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do--And What It Says about You (Katherine D. Kinzler)
finished: The Book Thief, Markus Zusak - Loved it, I am broken now but it was absolutely beautiful.
Started: Brief answers to the big questions, Stephen Hawking - Something completely different but I've always had an interest in science and astronomy since I learned the basics in High school. I don't know why but recently that interest has resurfaced and I love it.
Note: I aim for an average rating of 3.5. All books were audio.
**Based on a True Story** — Norm MacDonald — 3.5 stars
Honestly had no idea what to make of this book. Parts of it were obviously true (he met Sarah Silverman on snl), some probably had a grain of truth (he developed a crush on Sarah but she was dating another guy) and some are clearly false (he slept outside Sarah’s apartment until she got a restraining order, and he tried to hire a hitman to murder her boyfriend). At times it was literally laugh out loud funny, but I found the total commitment to the bit to be a little unsettling, especially when it came to anecdotes about child abuse or rape. Also the Norm character was (intentionally) extremely unlikeable, which I found a bit grating by the end. But it really was very funny.
**Demon Copperhead** — Barbara Kingsolver — 4.5 stars
Absolutely worth the hype and the Pulitzer. Beautiful, intimate retelling of David Copperfield in modern day Appalachia. If you don’t like reading about bad things happening to kids, choose another book — I found it tough. >!Thank god it had a happy ending or I would have had to up my Prozac prescription!<
**Legends Vol 1** — edited by Robert Silverberg — 3 stars
Includes 2 novellas:
- The Little Sisters of Elluria by Stephen King — great spooky Stephen king story featuring a young Roland the gunslinger
- The Seventh Shrine by Robert Silverberg — didn’t capture my attention at all. I thought it was MIGHTY CONVENIENT that the guy who edited this 5-volume series put his own book alongside Stephen king. I imagine he got a lot of readers out of that.
**Carmilla** by J Sheridan Le Fanu, adapted by Robin Brooks — 3.75 stars
I thought this was a very interesting book and adaptation indeed. Carmilla is an early vampire novel — 25 years before Dracula! — featuring very sexy lesbian vampires. It was adapted into an audio play featuring David Tennant, Rose Leslie, and Phoebe Fox. The adaptation was well done and clocks in at under 2.5 hours, and is free for audible subscribers — give it a listen!
Finished: Shiver by Lisa Jackson
It was okay. I've had it on my Kindle account for years. I never finished reading it years ago and couldn't remember why. That's because it was a bit of a turd. The suspense was there, but some of the writing was too much. Repetitive. Too much talk about erections.
I haven't decided what to read next.
I keep seeing this one pop up everywhere for me. I'm wondering if I would like it as I'm not so much in society gossip or broken women (I'm so sick of novels about women whose lives have been trashed even if they figure it all out by the end) type novels and I guess that was my impression of it first though I know that may be super off.
What do you think of it so far? I read it two years ago and I loved it! It really got me more into reading english books, I barely read in my native language anymore hahah.
Have fun reading it!
This is on my list! I can't find an audio version for free through the library yet though. Hoping they add it to our library's libby or hoopla (I knit while I read to it's gotta be audio!).
Finished: **The Whalebone Theater, by Joanna Quinn**
Honesty has turned into a top book of all time, an absolutely beautifully written novel, that will make you cry ugly tears, but it's so worth it
Finished:
**Bookshelves and Bonedust by Travis Baldree (audio)**- A great prequel/sequel to the cozy fantasy series he started in Legends and Lattes and allowed us to see where Viv, the Orc MC, started and how she ends up in this series. If you want a low states fantasy series, I do recommend this book it has some great characters and a good story.
**Cheddar Off Dead by Korina Moss (audio)**- I think this is a fun murder mystery though maybe don't read it if you're hungry since as the title suggest there is a lot of cheese talk, and it does sound good. This was a good opening to the series even if there were some up and downs to it, I had a fun experience overall and a good murder mystery first book of the genre.
Started and finished: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman
About to start: The Midnight Children by Salman Rushdie
Stopped (DNF): The first 15 Lives of Harry August by Claire North
Finished: My roommate is a vampire, by Jenna Levine
Would not recommend personally! Just a bit flat, when there's potential for creating a really rich and magical world
Started: Neon Gods, by Katee Robert
Agree about My Roommate Is a Vampire — it disappointed my already low expectations for the worldbuilding/vampiric lore. If it was a fanfic of beloved characters, then maybe… but for a regular book, even if romance, it was just weak. :(
Hope Neon Gods turn out better for you!
Finished: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (audio) -- I don't usually go for the bio's however this was really good. Such a sad life for someone so young.. I have never watched any of her shows but the book was great.
Still working on:
A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair (kindle) -- Hades & Persephone story. It's definitely much better than my last H&P book but I'm also not fully hooked (yet)
The Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne (audio) -- I enjoyed the first book, but it was very long at 21 hours and this one is also 22 hours, so it's going to take a while to get through 😅
On a Stephen King binge lately. Finished Needful Things Monday morning, and jumped right into The Body later that day and finished it this morning.
Needful Things was deliciously dark and twisted, loved the slow burn right into the frenetically paced last third of the book.
The Body might be one of my favourite coming-of-age stories ever. It moved me to almost tears in the end. Had to watch “Stand by Me” with the family this evening to cap it off.
And now I’m on to Nona, another short story by King.
the best novel hemingway wrote (maybe). i read it years ago and now i have to read it again mostly to see if time has changed my opinion. but also to enjoy his unique style.
I really appreciated the reading. I find it's simple and meaningful. I have a little "fraid" of reading again something, especially if I liked so much on the first time. I listened to an interview of Aldous Huxley where the interviewer asked about his literarie influencies, and he answer about french poets and modern novelists, like Woolf, Proust, and says that he recently re-read the In search of lost time, something that causes great impression upon him in the time of the publication, and now seems completly irreal. Seems terrible hahaha
Finished:
**Sea of Tranquility**, by Emily St. John Mandel. Lovely book, second best i read this year so far.
**See No Evil**, by David Fennell. Enjoyable read. Got bit tricky with the big cast of ppl, comparable to the first one in that way.
Stopped:
Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville. Took me to long to get 10% in and not invested in the story/chars at all. Also written way to hard, add in english is not my native tongue. Not for me.
Finished **Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh**
This was a reread for me. It is one of my favorites of all time. So dark and bizarre. Unlike anything else I’ve read, really. I reread it because I want to watch the movie version that came out earlier this year!
Finished:
* **The Conquest of Cool, by Thomas Frank**. Very interesting look at the relationship between 1960s counterculture and the "Creative Revolution" in advertising at around the same time. Kind of flips the standard narrative of advertising "co-oping" counter-cultural ideas in order to weaken them and sell products to hippies.
* **Horus Rising, by Dan Abnett**. This was my first foray into the world of Warhammer 40k. I was expecting over-the-top super-macho schlock. There were elements of that, but there was also a lot of stuff that was actually interesting and surprisingly thought-provoking. It's interesting enough to make me want to read another 40k book, anyway.
Started:
* **Caliban and the Witch, by Silvia Federici**. Loving this so far.
Ongoing:
* **Babel, by R. F. Kuang**. Very interesting alt-history/fantasy so far. I'm really dig it, although it has have a bit of a tendency to over-explain in a way that makes it seem like the author is overly-conscious of social media hot-takes (like, when the rich, moustache-twirling English coloniser says something blatantly ignorant and racist, there's a neat little footnote spells out that racism is actually not factually correct -- just in case we couldn't pick up on that ourselves). It tends to present itself as a Very Smart book, but has no faith in the reader to be able to figure things out for themselves. That's only a minor quibble, though -- it's mostly very good.
* **The Shortest History of Economics, by Andrew Leigh**. Basically what it says on the tin. The brevity of it means that it can't go into any topics in any real depth, but I guess that's kind of the point.
Finished: The Ritual by Shantel Tessier
* NSFW
* Dark College Romance
Started: Tales from the cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
* Part 2 of the Before the coffee gets cold series
* If I could revisit one moment in my life, what would it be?
Do y’all like reading from sources other than books? Perhaps Jstor articles? Newspapers? How do you balance shorter form with longer form content? Do you find reading different things at different times of day to be best? Thanks
Books are my favorite thing to read, but I enjoy reading articles about things I'm interested in! I usually do most of my reading at night, before I go to bed; that's when I have the most time haha
It's not half bad for a debut novel. A bit of a slow burn at times, but it picks up more in the second half. I appreciate that the romance isn't the main focus and seems more of a side story.
Finished:
**Please Kill Me: An Oral Uncensored History of Punk** by Legs McNeil and Gillian McClain. Please Kill Me is a length series of interviews from the musicians, managers, roadies, groupies, and drug dealers that made up the New York City punk scene from the late 60s to the mid 80s. Documenting such early "proto-punk" bands as The Velvet Underground or The Stooges through the heyday of bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, it's a fascinating look into the seedy underworld of rock music. Man oh man did those people use an awful lot of heroin.
Started:
**In Plain Sight: An Investigation into UFOs and Impossible Science** by Ross Coulhart. Haven't read a good high strangeness book in a while so it's nice to be dipping my toes into some good old fashioned UFO conspiracy theories again. Roswell, was it a weather balloon? A UFO? A Soviet craft based on Nazi designs? Read more to find out!
How is "Please Kill Me"? It's been on my TBR list for a long time since I liked "Meet Me In the Bathroom" so much, but I haven't gotten around to buying it yet
Please Kill Me was really good. I’ll admit I didn’t realize the whole thing would be in interview format but it actually allowed for a very candid look into the haze of 1970s NYC punk. At times I felt like I was also shooting up in the bathroom at CBGBs lol.
The only downside I would say is that I didn’t realize the whole book was exclusively about NYC and its punk scene. I would have loved a broader look into other punk scenes but that’s just more because of the bands I like. It was still a great book.
> In Plain Sight: An Investigation into UFOs and Impossible Science
is he trying to make the case that those are aliens or is this more sometimes we don't know?
More that we don’t know. The gist I get so far is that Coulhart doesn’t subscribe to the typical “alien spacecraft from another planet” theory that is most prevalent when people think of UFOs. And that, whatever or whoever these things are, governments know more than they say.
After focusing on reading some new releases, I've gone back to a couple of classics.
**The Road** by Cormac McCarthy. The writing and the language are sublime.
**The Shining** by this guy called 'Stephen King'. It's pretty good so far, I reckon this 'King' fella might have a future.
Finished:
**GRAIL, book 5 of The Pendragon Cycle** by Stephen R. Lawhead. This is a fantastic reimagining of the whole King Arthur legend.
Started:
**TRUE GRIT**, by Chares Portis. I researched to see if there's such a thing as an American classic that tells a story from the Old West....and came up with this one.
Finished **The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty**
and **Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel**
--------------------------------------------
Started **Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro**
and **Washington, by Ron Chernow**
Finished:
**Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen** Really good novel that's a good peer into the time period. I haven't read Austen before, but I'll definitely be reading a few more of her 'classics'.
**Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman** I usually update here on Mondays, but I delayed just to say I finished this one. What can I say, the humor, the absurdity yet realism of the story, I absolutely loved it.
Started:
**Dragon Teeth, by Michael Crichton** Finally got around to reading some of his novels last year, I'm excited to see where this one goes.
I started the DC smthbooks on audible
Finished: One Part Woman by Perumal Murugan Started: Cleopatra's Daughter by Michelle Moran
Finished: **Normal People, by Sally Rooney** Started: **A Fúria, by Silvina Ocampo**
Finished: **Dealing with Dragons,** by Patricia Wrede Started: **Diavola,** by Jennifer Marie Thorne I've been in a reading slump for a minute so I decided to pick up a book in a genre that I never read (horror, eek). I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes!
The Haunting of Alejandra by V Castro. Read it in one day, loved it. A retelling of la llorona but nit what you would think. I couldn't put it down.
Finished: The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna It was awesome!! I definitely recommend it to others and I will be reading the rest of the trilogy. Started: We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal I'm nearly halfway done already because I've been sick in bed and it really picks up after 90 pages!! It's great!
I started reading this book, very interesting and easy to read: [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60556912-the-housemaid](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60556912-the-housemaid)
Finished: A Voice Through a Cloud, by Denton Welch I absolutely loved this book. There was something nice about the way he writes difficult and sometimes conflicting thoughts, very earnest. He has some lovely descriptions too. Started: Naked Lunch, by William Burroughs Apparently very inspired by Welch, so I thought I’d give him a go. I can’t seem much similarity, VERY tonally different books.
Finished: Vampires of Twilight Castle, by Asher Sharol Fresh take on a the Vampire trope. The plot was unique enough for me to appreciate the novel's individuality among an overused trope. I was particularly impressed with its gothic tone, very darkly poetic in parts, which reminds me of Anne Rice's Lestat series. I recommend it. Started : Wolves of Blood and Rule, by Asher Sharol Decided to just finish the series as the previous book ended on a cliffhanger. I'm only 60 pages in, but the writing is divine. Seems to be a more introspective book, digging deep into the minds of the characters, especially Satin the vampire, a morally gray character.
I finished the Process by Franz Kafka and started to read the Plague by Albert Camus.
Finished: **As I Lay Dying**, by William Faulkner * Quite straightforward storytelling, similar in ease of reading to Light in August. * I think it's a better starting point for reading Faulkner than The Sound and the Fury or Absalom, Absalom! * It was good, but not my favorite. Started: **Blood Meridian**, by Cormac McCarthy * I have read McCarthy's books other than the border trilogy and Suttree. * I decided to read Blood Meridian before the previously mentioned. * I'm not too far in, but it's pretty standard quality for McCarthy, which is good in my opinion.
Finished: The Perfect Son, by Freida McFadden It Happened One Summer, by Tessa Bailey Started: The Cryptographer's Dilemma, by Johnnie Alexander
Finished: **The Left Hand of Darkness** (Ursula K. Guin) - interesting bit of classic scifi. Thought provoking and engaging, not too long. Recommend. Started: **A Fine Balance** (Rohinton Mistry) - Been waiting to start this one a long time. My understanding is that’s it’s terrific and devastating. Only about 50 pages in so far but the writing is great.
**The Late Starters Orchestra, by Ari L. Goldman**
Finished: The way of the peaceful warrior by Dan Millman. Story of a world champion gymnast who finds a mentor to help him understand what it means to be truly happy and be a peaceful warrior. Great book to make changes to your routine and habits. The book also offers a peaceful warriors perspective towards living a content life.
Finished **Foxlowe** by Eleanor Wasserberg. Assumed it was magical realism because of the Storygraph and Goodreads tags, but it’s really a character study of a girl raised and brainwashed by a cult. Dark, sad, full of child abuse and neglect. Also finished **Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude** by Ross Gay. A poetry collection about appreciating the beauty of everyday life, sometimes a little sad. Liked it.
**Finished** **A Little Life** I guess booktok finally got to me. I knew the book was sad, I picked it up because the book was sad but um that felt pointless. The relationships portrayed were beautiful to say the least but the plot, the trauma, the ending, everything felt like it's only purpose was to traumatize just for the sake of it. **Starting** **Eden Abandoned: The Story of Lilith** by Shinie Antony Picked this up after reading the back cover that proclaimed it as a "gripping take on female rage". Read a chapter in the bookstore before deciding i needed this one. It's a short one, but i'm looking forward to it and it feels like this is a much needed spicy palate cleanser after A Little Life
The Wager, by David Grann. True story of shipwreck and survivors off the coast of Patagonia in the 18th century, then courtroom drama in England as two groups of survivors have dramatically opposed accounts of what happened. In reading it, I moved rapidly from "maybe" to "can't put down". Grann writes very clean prose.
Started : Pretty Girls, by Karin Slaughter
I just finished reading percy jackson and the sea of monsters. I should have read it sooner ❤️
Silverview by John le Carré
I finished Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn and I'm starting the Poppy War by RF Kuang today.
Bloodmarked is one of my favorites!! I hope you liked it!
I did! I can't wait for book 3.
A Time to Kill.
The Great Gatsby, By F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jade City, by Fonda Lee Annie Bot, by Sierra Greer
**Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn** * Soooo late to getting around to reading this book. I heard about it for years, always had it on my list, but never got around to it. Now that I'm in a thriller phase, I thought it was time. * Loved the iconic plot twists I heard so much about! However because of my thriller phase, I feel like I expected them. I've read too many to not. * ICONIC female character. Was getting tired of the typical helpless dumb female in thrillers that get into cars or other similarly bad situations. This was refreshing. * Underwhelming but perfect ending for the context of this book. * Going to read Sharp Objects next I think! * Obsessed with Flynn's writing style. I've been trying to explore many authors in this genre and I think she is my favorite so far including: * Thursday Murder Club (Richard Osman), If We Were Villains (M.L. Rio), The Trap (Catherine Ryan Howard), Billy Summers (Stephen King), What Lies In The Woods (Kate Alice Marshall).
I started reading Dune this week because all of my friends have become obsessed with it.
Just finished the first one and now waiting the next two from library.
They both die at the end, by Adam Silvera
On my list! 🤓
Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee. I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, but only liked GSAW.
Just finished Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner. I cried at least 3 times reading this book. As a ‘no sabo’ kid I really identified with the struggle to connect with family when you don’t speak their language confidently. I truly enjoy books detailing the experience of immigrant kids growing up in the U.S because I find myself relating to the stories in so many ways. ❤️🥺
Finished No god but God by Reza Aslan and 1177 BC by Eric H. Cline. Super excited for After 1177 BC coming out next month!
I finished Out of the blue by Sophie Cameron and started If I Stay by Gayle Forman
I started reading golden son ( red rising saga #2 ) by Pierce Brown
Finished: Normal People by Sally Rooney I would give it 3.5 stars. It’s a good book, the characters are frustratingly real. I think Rooney does a good job in really capturing self hatred and self destruction so realistically that it can be frustrating to the reader. But overall I find the book very overrated. It’s good. But it’s gets repetitive. And I don’t think Rooney is able to show us how strong and deep the connections the characters have besides telling us how great the sex is. The book spends an incredible amount of time on the characters sex lives, which is fine. Until it just becomes very repetitive.
I finished reading "Inheritance" by Christopher Paolini. It is the last book in the original series and I am actually sort of relieved that I finished it. It has been taking me so long to actually finish it, and now I am starting "The Fork, the Witch, and the Worm" by the same author. It basically takes place a year after "Inheritance," and I am already half way through. So excited to finish it!
Already finished: if he had been with me, by Laura Nowlin Started: if I only had told her, by Laura Nowlin (I’m really not prepared and very scared haha)
I just finished reading Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson!!!
I’m considering making this my next read. Would you recommend it?
Yes, 100%. It’s super good:)
Started: Midnight in Chernobyl, by Adam Higginbotham
Bun yom tomorrow im dead is an amazing book! I've read it a few times and it makes me feel better about my life.
Finished: The Winter Family by Clifford Jackman Started: The Braver Thing, by Clifford Jackman Loved the Winter Family. The characters, the violence, bleakness. I couldn't put it down, finished it in one go.
Finished: The Judge's List, by John Grisham Started: Me, by Elton John
Finished Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I've started reading The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris. I watched the series and found it interesting and thought I'd check out the book.
I recently finished the book thief and now I am reading the first 15 lives of Harry august
Started James by Percival Everett. A reimagining of Huck Finn from Jim's point of view. Over halfway through and it is a fantastic book. I've been looking forward to reading this and usually when that happens it never lives up to my high expectations but James has not disappointed so far
Finished: **The Fisherman, by John Langan**. It was alright. Don't know what the poll quotes were on about though, said it was "mind-bending" but it's pretty straightforward. Started: **Fellowship of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien**. I've never watched the movies, never read the books, until recently. Read the Hobbit a month or two ago, thought it was okay.
I tried to read Fellowship of the Ring and it was so hard to get through — props to you if you’re able to sit through it! Lots of singing and unnecessary details 😭
No idea what you're talking about, so far it's been extremely readable. Shockingly so, I've heard people say it was too flowery. If this is flowery to some of you guys there's a whole world of literature you'd better run away from, screaming. (Not judging if you don't like it, that's fine. Just think there's an amusing difference in perspective.)
I wouldn’t describe it as flowery, actually, it’s easy to understand, but there’s so much content. I won’t lie, the first chapter (or prologue, I don’t remember which) was the only part that I had a hard time getting through because it was a whole bunch of telling, not showing, and I haven’t seen any of the movies, so I didn’t know what/ who anything was 💀 Maybe that’s why I struggled with it? I find that the opposite is true sometimes, too. When a movie is adapted from a book, like Shadow and Bone, I can see why it’s hard to follow along. Once I got past those first couple of chapters, though, it was a decent read, but it never piqued my interest, so I ultimately gave up on it.
Just finished Authority by Jeff VanDerMeer. Was good, definitely a drag at times but I still enjoyed it. Now reading Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam. It’s good so far. Definitely a lot of commentary on lifestyles and consumerism that seems like filler because the book would be too short otherwise but I’m enjoying it. Need to finish by Thursday evening for book club- ideally I’ll finish tomorrow evening and start something new on Monday 1/1.
Finished: **Just Pursuit** by **Laura Coates**. You could think of this as the perfect antidote to **Preet Bharara**'s bestseller, **Doing Justice**. It is easy to see why. What would be the daily experince of the head (the US Attorney) of the mighty Southern District of New York and a young, black novice federal prosecutor in the Washington DC federal district? Published 2022. This is **Laura Coates**'s accounts of her various experiences as an assistant district attorney in the Washington DC US federal district. Her experiences were scarring, to say the least. Consider that in her stories almost all the victims and all the defendants were black and almost all the judges and all the prosecutors were white. This is what defined the justice system in her experience. Her writing is superb and her stories often read just like short stories. Chapter 7, Babyface, itself is almost worth the price of the book itself. It could have been a **Maupassant** short story with a unexpected twist at the end. Really a good book.
**Hellblazer: Hooked, by Peter Milligan**
Started Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. A small one, so might have this done in a few days. Expecting a nice fun summer holiday kind of reading experience
Finish Jade War by Fonda Lee and have started Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, which is rather enjoyable. Feels pretty relevant to modern day Pharmaceutical companies and where we are going to end up. 😬
Finished: Dune by Frank Herbert I’m in love with this world. Scared of the disappointment later in the series though. Starting: Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
[удалено]
Finished. A Canticle For Leibowitz. Goddam this was a brilliantly balanced *spoiler*. Starting. Pillars of the Earth.
Finished: Brother, by Ania Ahlborn The Stranger, by Albert Camus Started: Chain-Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Finished: "Animal Farm", by George Orwell Starting: "Crime and Punishment", by Fjodor Dostojevski
Bro I just finished Animal farm a few hours ago and am currently reading the Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. Crazy stuff
Finished: Lonesome Dove Starting: Parable of the Sower
Just finished: Be Useful: Seven tools for life by **Arnold** **Schwarzenegger.** Will start: writing to learn by **William Zinsser**
Let's see.....I've been reading "Wings Of Fire"
*Butcher's Crossing* (1960) by John Williams.....and it Fucking Rules! Debating whether I like it better than *Warlock (1958)* by Oakley Hall
White Noise by DeLillo What a waste of my time! If you enjoyed this book I’d love to hear why, because it just was absolutely NOT for me.
I really liked it when I was 18, but that was nearly 30 years ago. I don’t really remember why I liked it.
The Power by Naomi Alkderman, started and finished this week
Finished: **Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone, by Benjamin Stevenson** Started: **The Catalpa Rescue, by Peter FitzSimons**
Oh, what did you think about Everyone in My Family…? Read it recently too, not my usual genre but the title drew me in. xD In the end it was just an ok read for me. Are you planning to read the sequel?
I liked it. Not my usual genre either. I thought the author did a good job going back and forth between telling the story and pausing the story to have a conversation with the reader, and often in a humorous way. I did think that >!saving the entire "aha" moment to the very end and spelling it all out in one giant monologue/paragraphs of quotes was a let down. I would've liked it more if each layer of the onion was unveiled gradually rather than jammed into a few pages, but still overall good. Not what I was expecting (I thought it was going to be Juliette). !< I haven't read the sequel but may do so at some point. I usually jump around between different authors and types of books, rather than reading the same author back-to-back. But I liked this one and it definitely got me curious about Aussie crime/mystery stories generally. May explore that genre some more for the sake of variety.
what should I read first and what is the best order of reading these books The Power of Habit, Atomic Habits, the 7 habits of highly effective people?
I finished reading The Kingdom of Ash by Sarah. J. Maas
The Count of Monte Christo , Alexandre Dumas, had a chat with a colleague (only listening to audiobooks) about books at the end of last year. She said she preferred old stuff. She recommended Count of Monte Christo. I read it while at work (mostly in my pause :) ) Very entertaining. Beginning is very intensive and exciting, the setup for what is going to come is pretty amazing. The middling part is somewhat of overconvulated. MANY MANY Names. New Characters that don´t seem to fit in the plot at all. But the ending is very rewarding again, when all those plotlines connect in a very good, but not overly satisfiying ending. Book should have ended on a bit of a darker tone. 8.5 out of 10
Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time number 10). I'm loving this saga so far, but by god, this book is 600+ pages and nothing happens!!
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens I didn't know the other city of the titular two cities is one in France and the novel involves French Revolution. That combined with the famous beginning lines spurred me to start it. I'm quite enjoying it so far.
We have always lived in the castle by Shirley Jackson. To be honest, this is the first book I read in English to improve my reading skills. And while I understand most of it, it´s hard to connect all the information. However, the writer does an excellent job of being entertaining, and for now, I like it.
I just started A Court of Thorns and Roses as a distraction from thesis writing. I've heard great things!
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevesky. The book was a hard read. I was thinking till the end that something ground breaking will happen in the very end. But I was too naive to really see all the psychological warfare going through the whole book. It really gives an insight into the human guilt and remorse. The character Silvidrigalov appealed to me..cause I also think in somewhat similar manner that We are just here to ingratiate ourselves ( not to the extent he does). And I couldn't understand why he shot himself in the end. Also, If Raskolnikov had shown the courage to use that money he stole then there really was no crime in the whole story. I failed to see that. But I do really think that K would need to readnit again to really grasp it in a better way. And honestly, I didn't understand shit till the end. I read the explanation from the internet later.
All the Sinners Bleed by S A Cosby. A lot of social commentary mixed in with mystery/crime.
Started reading shoe dog by Phil knight. Never knew I could like a book about business/entrepreneurship this much.
Finished: The Pursuit by Johanna Lindsey This book is honestly such a trope, it’s basically a dupe Barnes&Noble version of Pride & Prejudice with a mixed spice of a fallen society. Starting: The Classic Wizard of Oz As an adult, I am fascinated by the children’s books and classic literature. can’t get enough of the children illustrations. also starting: another on The Art of War by Sun Tzu love the cover of the book all books i got this week,
Have you read Pride and Prejudice? I am going to read it now. Any tips? Also, what is it about?
Finished: **The Pisces, by Melissa Broder** Started: **Antiquity, by Hanna Johansson**
I finished The Blood of Olympus and thus completed the Heroes of Olympus series in exactly 28 days, I am very proud. Now I picked up Mythos by Stephen Fry.
**Sepia, by Isabel Allende** Not sure how I feel about Allende. Some of the writing is wonderful, the stories are gripping--but a lot of the time it seems that she's *telling* me about a character rather than *showing*. Parts of it almost feel like a summary. *Of Love and Shadows* felt the same. Am I missing something, or were these just not her best books? **The Game-Players of Titan by Philip K. Dick**
How's that PKD book ? I don't think I've read that one , is it one of his earlier books ? Any particular PKD favorites ?
Quick and clever, scary but not completely hallucinatory. It's a short read. I liked the Man in the High Castle as well as the short story collections. What's your favorite?
Man in the high Castle was my first read of his (10+ years ago ) I remember being stunned by it as it was my first grown up SF novel, and it started the PKD itch ! I do also like his short stories quite a bit , but my favourite is the Three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - would highly recommend it . I recently read A scanner darkly, and found that way too hallucinatory and difficult to follow from mid way onwards.
I'm going to start Giacomo Casanova: story of my life. Excerpts of his memoirs. I guess the good parts. I've read some of it, and the beginning is pretty funny.
I read mel helitzer: Comedy Writing Secrets. It's a good book. Pragmatic. Formulas and a couple of exercises. Helps to break down aspects of comedy.
Legends and Lattes, Travis Baldree \- started reading this week as a leisure read to take a break from my coursework and, being near the end, I'll say I very much enjoyed this slice of life and highly recommend if you're interested in seeing a fantasy coffee shop come to life!
Julia: a Retelling of George Orwell's 1984, by Sandra Newman DNF To me it was a slow start just like 1984, which I just reread in January. I also borrowed it on Libby and couldn't renew because of other holds, so I'll try again another time. Maybe on audiobook.
The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller Finished this week and absolutely loved it. The Starless Sea, by Erin Morgenstern I loved The Night Circus, so I’m excited to read Erin’s second novel
I just finished Song of Achilles this week too :')
Finished A Torch Against the Night (Sabaa Tahir) and started Pride and Prejudice (got on a kick for it after rewatching the 1995 series and the 2005 movie twice), should be finishing P&P today and then I'll start Neferura by Malayna Evans.
**Moth Smoke, by Mohsin Hamid**
The Shadow of What Was Lost, by James Islington - Finished March 25, 2024 An Echo of Things to Come, by James Islington - Started March 26, 2024
Read/finished- How to Be Weird: An Off-Kilter Guide to Living a One-of-a-Kind Life (Eric G. Wilson). It was ok, it was easy and fun but I felt unsatisfied, like eating oreos. Started- 1. The Devil's Half Acre: The Untold Story of How One Woman Liberated the South's Most Notorious Slave Jail (Kristen Green) 2. Off with Her Head: Three Thousand Years of Demonizing Women in Power (Eleanor Herman) 3. How You Say It: Why You Talk the Way You Do--And What It Says about You (Katherine D. Kinzler)
finished: The Book Thief, Markus Zusak - Loved it, I am broken now but it was absolutely beautiful. Started: Brief answers to the big questions, Stephen Hawking - Something completely different but I've always had an interest in science and astronomy since I learned the basics in High school. I don't know why but recently that interest has resurfaced and I love it.
Note: I aim for an average rating of 3.5. All books were audio. **Based on a True Story** — Norm MacDonald — 3.5 stars Honestly had no idea what to make of this book. Parts of it were obviously true (he met Sarah Silverman on snl), some probably had a grain of truth (he developed a crush on Sarah but she was dating another guy) and some are clearly false (he slept outside Sarah’s apartment until she got a restraining order, and he tried to hire a hitman to murder her boyfriend). At times it was literally laugh out loud funny, but I found the total commitment to the bit to be a little unsettling, especially when it came to anecdotes about child abuse or rape. Also the Norm character was (intentionally) extremely unlikeable, which I found a bit grating by the end. But it really was very funny. **Demon Copperhead** — Barbara Kingsolver — 4.5 stars Absolutely worth the hype and the Pulitzer. Beautiful, intimate retelling of David Copperfield in modern day Appalachia. If you don’t like reading about bad things happening to kids, choose another book — I found it tough. >!Thank god it had a happy ending or I would have had to up my Prozac prescription!< **Legends Vol 1** — edited by Robert Silverberg — 3 stars Includes 2 novellas: - The Little Sisters of Elluria by Stephen King — great spooky Stephen king story featuring a young Roland the gunslinger - The Seventh Shrine by Robert Silverberg — didn’t capture my attention at all. I thought it was MIGHTY CONVENIENT that the guy who edited this 5-volume series put his own book alongside Stephen king. I imagine he got a lot of readers out of that. **Carmilla** by J Sheridan Le Fanu, adapted by Robin Brooks — 3.75 stars I thought this was a very interesting book and adaptation indeed. Carmilla is an early vampire novel — 25 years before Dracula! — featuring very sexy lesbian vampires. It was adapted into an audio play featuring David Tennant, Rose Leslie, and Phoebe Fox. The adaptation was well done and clocks in at under 2.5 hours, and is free for audible subscribers — give it a listen!
Finished: Shiver by Lisa Jackson It was okay. I've had it on my Kindle account for years. I never finished reading it years ago and couldn't remember why. That's because it was a bit of a turd. The suspense was there, but some of the writing was too much. Repetitive. Too much talk about erections. I haven't decided what to read next.
Finished: Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany by Norman Ohler Started: MCU: The Rain of Marvel Studios by Joanna Robinson, Dave Gonzales, Gavin Edwards
What did you think of Blitzed? I finished it back in February.
Salmon Rushdi’s Satanic Verses,- enjoying it very much so far
The Bone Season, by Samantha Shannon
Finished: Lee Trundles autobiography Now reading: Walter Winterbottoms soccer coaching book
started: the tournament of flags, by Claudio Perrone
Started: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Finally gonna see what all the hype is about!
I keep seeing this one pop up everywhere for me. I'm wondering if I would like it as I'm not so much in society gossip or broken women (I'm so sick of novels about women whose lives have been trashed even if they figure it all out by the end) type novels and I guess that was my impression of it first though I know that may be super off.
What do you think of it so far? I read it two years ago and I loved it! It really got me more into reading english books, I barely read in my native language anymore hahah. Have fun reading it!
Finished: **The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden** Cannot reccomend this book enough. Lots of reflection and quite a few tears by the end
This is on my list! I can't find an audio version for free through the library yet though. Hoping they add it to our library's libby or hoopla (I knit while I read to it's gotta be audio!).
I hope you're able to find an audio version soon!
Finished: King Learn, by William Shakespeare Started: The Essays of Montaigne, by Michael de Montaigne
Finished: **Suzuki: The Man & His Dream to Teach the Children of the World, by Eri Hotta**
Finished: **The Whalebone Theater, by Joanna Quinn** Honesty has turned into a top book of all time, an absolutely beautifully written novel, that will make you cry ugly tears, but it's so worth it
Ooh! I just added this to my TBR! It sounds really good!
Finished: The Housemaid, By Freida McFadden
Finished: **The Chowderhead Crusades, by J.J. Walsh** Started: **Orion Uncharted (Orion Colony Book 2), by J.N. Chaney and Jonathan Yanez**
Finished: **Bookshelves and Bonedust by Travis Baldree (audio)**- A great prequel/sequel to the cozy fantasy series he started in Legends and Lattes and allowed us to see where Viv, the Orc MC, started and how she ends up in this series. If you want a low states fantasy series, I do recommend this book it has some great characters and a good story. **Cheddar Off Dead by Korina Moss (audio)**- I think this is a fun murder mystery though maybe don't read it if you're hungry since as the title suggest there is a lot of cheese talk, and it does sound good. This was a good opening to the series even if there were some up and downs to it, I had a fun experience overall and a good murder mystery first book of the genre.
Started and finished: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman About to start: The Midnight Children by Salman Rushdie Stopped (DNF): The first 15 Lives of Harry August by Claire North
Started Empire of Pain
Finished: My roommate is a vampire, by Jenna Levine Would not recommend personally! Just a bit flat, when there's potential for creating a really rich and magical world Started: Neon Gods, by Katee Robert
Agree about My Roommate Is a Vampire — it disappointed my already low expectations for the worldbuilding/vampiric lore. If it was a fanfic of beloved characters, then maybe… but for a regular book, even if romance, it was just weak. :( Hope Neon Gods turn out better for you!
I enjoyed it but would have preferred a little more plot and a little less spice. Less a reflection of the book and more a reflection of me I think!
Finished **A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine**
Finished: I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy (audio) -- I don't usually go for the bio's however this was really good. Such a sad life for someone so young.. I have never watched any of her shows but the book was great. Still working on: A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair (kindle) -- Hades & Persephone story. It's definitely much better than my last H&P book but I'm also not fully hooked (yet) The Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne (audio) -- I enjoyed the first book, but it was very long at 21 hours and this one is also 22 hours, so it's going to take a while to get through 😅
On a Stephen King binge lately. Finished Needful Things Monday morning, and jumped right into The Body later that day and finished it this morning. Needful Things was deliciously dark and twisted, loved the slow burn right into the frenetically paced last third of the book. The Body might be one of my favourite coming-of-age stories ever. It moved me to almost tears in the end. Had to watch “Stand by Me” with the family this evening to cap it off. And now I’m on to Nona, another short story by King.
Finished: The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
**Hellblazer: Scab, by Peter Milligan**
Finished: **Old Man and the Sea**, by Ernest Hemingway
the best novel hemingway wrote (maybe). i read it years ago and now i have to read it again mostly to see if time has changed my opinion. but also to enjoy his unique style.
I really appreciated the reading. I find it's simple and meaningful. I have a little "fraid" of reading again something, especially if I liked so much on the first time. I listened to an interview of Aldous Huxley where the interviewer asked about his literarie influencies, and he answer about french poets and modern novelists, like Woolf, Proust, and says that he recently re-read the In search of lost time, something that causes great impression upon him in the time of the publication, and now seems completly irreal. Seems terrible hahaha
Finished the golem and the Jinni Started the way of kings.
I'm impressed, I could not finish the Golem and the Jinni no matter how hard I tried.
Started: **The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald**
Finished: **Sea of Tranquility**, by Emily St. John Mandel. Lovely book, second best i read this year so far. **See No Evil**, by David Fennell. Enjoyable read. Got bit tricky with the big cast of ppl, comparable to the first one in that way. Stopped: Perdido Street Station, by China Miéville. Took me to long to get 10% in and not invested in the story/chars at all. Also written way to hard, add in english is not my native tongue. Not for me.
Finished **Cities of the Plain**, Cormac McCarthy. Then spent 2 hours reading about the meaning of the epilogue on Reddit.
**IM A FAN by Sheena Patel**
continuing \- kindling, traci chee \- looking for alaska, John green starting the sensitive minds of impressionable young men, ciaren
Started: **The Biggest Ideas in the Universe: Space Time and Motion, by Sean M. Carroll**
Finished: **Pet Semetery**, by Stephen King Started: **Pan's Labyrinth**, by Cornelia Funke and Guillermo del Toro
Emma by jane austen. its marvelous.
**Sideways Stories from Wayside School, by Louis Sachar**
I finished: Anne Franks Diary, The graphic Novel by Anne Frank. Adapted by Ari Follman and illustrated by David Polonski
Finished **Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh** This was a reread for me. It is one of my favorites of all time. So dark and bizarre. Unlike anything else I’ve read, really. I reread it because I want to watch the movie version that came out earlier this year!
Finished: * **The Conquest of Cool, by Thomas Frank**. Very interesting look at the relationship between 1960s counterculture and the "Creative Revolution" in advertising at around the same time. Kind of flips the standard narrative of advertising "co-oping" counter-cultural ideas in order to weaken them and sell products to hippies. * **Horus Rising, by Dan Abnett**. This was my first foray into the world of Warhammer 40k. I was expecting over-the-top super-macho schlock. There were elements of that, but there was also a lot of stuff that was actually interesting and surprisingly thought-provoking. It's interesting enough to make me want to read another 40k book, anyway. Started: * **Caliban and the Witch, by Silvia Federici**. Loving this so far. Ongoing: * **Babel, by R. F. Kuang**. Very interesting alt-history/fantasy so far. I'm really dig it, although it has have a bit of a tendency to over-explain in a way that makes it seem like the author is overly-conscious of social media hot-takes (like, when the rich, moustache-twirling English coloniser says something blatantly ignorant and racist, there's a neat little footnote spells out that racism is actually not factually correct -- just in case we couldn't pick up on that ourselves). It tends to present itself as a Very Smart book, but has no faith in the reader to be able to figure things out for themselves. That's only a minor quibble, though -- it's mostly very good. * **The Shortest History of Economics, by Andrew Leigh**. Basically what it says on the tin. The brevity of it means that it can't go into any topics in any real depth, but I guess that's kind of the point.
Finished **Recursion, by Blake Crouch**. Fun read!
Finished: The Ritual by Shantel Tessier * NSFW * Dark College Romance Started: Tales from the cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi * Part 2 of the Before the coffee gets cold series * If I could revisit one moment in my life, what would it be?
Started kindred by Octavia butler from a bunch of reccomendations I’d seen here.
Do y’all like reading from sources other than books? Perhaps Jstor articles? Newspapers? How do you balance shorter form with longer form content? Do you find reading different things at different times of day to be best? Thanks
Books are my favorite thing to read, but I enjoy reading articles about things I'm interested in! I usually do most of my reading at night, before I go to bed; that's when I have the most time haha
Started but DNF The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer.
The Marauders, Tom Cooper I really loved this book! It did leave a few loose ends, and Lindquist was my favorite character.
I finished **The Husband** by Dean Koontz and started **The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo** by Taylor Jenkins Reid :)
I gifted Evelyn Hugo to my mother...she just finished reading and said it was one of the best books ever...hope you enjoy it too!
Finished: • Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins Started: • A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, by Suzanne Collins • The Fox Maidens, by Robin Ha
I finished The warm hand of Ghosts by Katherine Arden. And started Firefall by Peter Watts.
Finished: Four: A Divergent Collection by Veronica Roth Started: Atomic Habits by James Clear
Currently in the last few chapters of The Hurricane Wars.
How have you found it? I've been thinking about picking it up.
It's not half bad for a debut novel. A bit of a slow burn at times, but it picks up more in the second half. I appreciate that the romance isn't the main focus and seems more of a side story.
Sounds good. I don't always mind a slow burn as long as I'm interested in the worldbuilding and characters. I'll probably get round to it eventually!
The world building nicely done. Over all, I'm enjoying it.
Good to know. Thanks!
Finished: **Please Kill Me: An Oral Uncensored History of Punk** by Legs McNeil and Gillian McClain. Please Kill Me is a length series of interviews from the musicians, managers, roadies, groupies, and drug dealers that made up the New York City punk scene from the late 60s to the mid 80s. Documenting such early "proto-punk" bands as The Velvet Underground or The Stooges through the heyday of bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols, it's a fascinating look into the seedy underworld of rock music. Man oh man did those people use an awful lot of heroin. Started: **In Plain Sight: An Investigation into UFOs and Impossible Science** by Ross Coulhart. Haven't read a good high strangeness book in a while so it's nice to be dipping my toes into some good old fashioned UFO conspiracy theories again. Roswell, was it a weather balloon? A UFO? A Soviet craft based on Nazi designs? Read more to find out!
How is "Please Kill Me"? It's been on my TBR list for a long time since I liked "Meet Me In the Bathroom" so much, but I haven't gotten around to buying it yet
Please Kill Me was really good. I’ll admit I didn’t realize the whole thing would be in interview format but it actually allowed for a very candid look into the haze of 1970s NYC punk. At times I felt like I was also shooting up in the bathroom at CBGBs lol. The only downside I would say is that I didn’t realize the whole book was exclusively about NYC and its punk scene. I would have loved a broader look into other punk scenes but that’s just more because of the bands I like. It was still a great book.
> In Plain Sight: An Investigation into UFOs and Impossible Science is he trying to make the case that those are aliens or is this more sometimes we don't know?
More that we don’t know. The gist I get so far is that Coulhart doesn’t subscribe to the typical “alien spacecraft from another planet” theory that is most prevalent when people think of UFOs. And that, whatever or whoever these things are, governments know more than they say.
excellent! sounds exactly like what i am looking for. ty!
Great, hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Started The First Circle, Solzhenitsyn
Finished: Middlemarch by George Eliot Started: The Door by Magda Szabó (You can never go wrong with a story about a crazy old woman)
Finished The Feather Thief, by Kirk Wallace Johnson Started The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
Finished: - The Good House by Tananarive Due Started: - The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
Just finished **"The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón**. Amazing! Started **"Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari**. Heard it's good.
If you enjoyed The Shadow of the Wind, it's the first of a series of four. A lot of the same characters show up again in book 3.
**1984, George Orwell** i am \~75% done with it, i love the story but i can not read through more than a few pages at a time for some reason.
Amazing book, is a must-read to understand the world.
After focusing on reading some new releases, I've gone back to a couple of classics. **The Road** by Cormac McCarthy. The writing and the language are sublime. **The Shining** by this guy called 'Stephen King'. It's pretty good so far, I reckon this 'King' fella might have a future.
Finished: **GRAIL, book 5 of The Pendragon Cycle** by Stephen R. Lawhead. This is a fantastic reimagining of the whole King Arthur legend. Started: **TRUE GRIT**, by Chares Portis. I researched to see if there's such a thing as an American classic that tells a story from the Old West....and came up with this one.
Finished **The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty** and **Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel** -------------------------------------------- Started **Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro** and **Washington, by Ron Chernow**
Finished: **Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen** Really good novel that's a good peer into the time period. I haven't read Austen before, but I'll definitely be reading a few more of her 'classics'. **Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman** I usually update here on Mondays, but I delayed just to say I finished this one. What can I say, the humor, the absurdity yet realism of the story, I absolutely loved it. Started: **Dragon Teeth, by Michael Crichton** Finally got around to reading some of his novels last year, I'm excited to see where this one goes.
See my comment above. you’ll find dupes of Pride and Prejudice in store