Books

I'm in something of a slump, so nothing atm.

I'm reading "Lost In Shangri La", It's a true story about an army plane carrying a lot of womens army corps personnel that crashed in the highland valley of Baliem in New Guinea, a place that almost nobody knows exists, inhabbited by uncontacted cannibal tribes, and surrounded by thousands of guerilla-style embedded Japanese troops. The three survivors, two men and one woman suffer horrific injuries and gangrene, and are on the verge of death when the US army parachutes a bunch of paratroopers in to treat the survivors, with no established plan to extract them. The mountains are far too high for helicopter extraction, and there's nowhere to land a plane in the jungle.

I recently got done reading "The Day I fell From the Sky", a story about a german teenager who was the sole survivor of a mid air plane explosion who survived her plunge into the jungle and self-rescued over the course of like 2 weeks.

Next up is "Cannibals are Human" by Helen Mcleod, an expedition back into Papua New Guinea. So I guess I'm on a bit of a jungle vibe this month.

I'm currently reading Sword and Citadel, which is an omnibus of two books by Gene Wolfe; The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch. They are the 3rd and 4th books in his series the Book of the New Sun.

It tells the odyssey of a man named Severian, traveling a world which is very old, very new, and utterly strange, on an evolving spiritual quest surrounding a mythical figure called the Conciliator. It's a dense book, and the way Gene Wolfe writes makes you feel like the text is undulating in your hands while you read it, so a passage you read a moment ago may have shifted since you last read it. Not unlike the way you can feel a snake move when you hold it. It's steeped in biblical and historical references, has wildly imaginative fantasy and strange-technology elements, and while I have needed to regularly look up a lot of new words, it's been a fascinating adventure.

The Immune Mind by Dr Marty Lymon, about how the nervous system and Immune system work in concert to keep us healthy.

What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher. Just started, so no opinion yet, but I loved The Hollow Places.

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania. What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves. Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

And I needed a physical book to read on the beach, so I've also just started All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld, and I'm really impressed by the prose so far.

Jake Whyte is living on her own in an old farmhouse on a craggy British island, a place of ceaseless rains and battering winds. Her disobedient collie, Dog, and a flock of sheep are her sole companions, which is how she wanted it to be. But every few nights something—or someone—picks off one of the sheep and sets off a new deep pulse of terror. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, rumors of an obscure, formidable beast. But there is also Jake's past—hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, held in the silences about her family and the scars that stripe her back—a past that threatens to break into the present.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea

I'm trying to read more non-fiction this year however I wouldn't consider myself a history buff by any means but this book has me hooked. Like I kinda knew but I also live in the United States so I've been so removed from anything like this my whole life. It's wild how 1984 it actually is.

I just finished Susannah Cornwall's Constructive Theology and Gender Variance: Transformative Creatures. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/121678665-constructive-theology-and-gender-variance

Along a similar vein, now I'm reading Linn Marie Tonstad's Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41114054-queer-theology

Just finished a re-“read” of Neuromancer by William Gibson, audiobook form this time. I hated the way the reader performed, especially his shitty attempt at a Jamaican dialect for the Zionite characters. Book still rules though.

Now I’m onto How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, read by the author. Picked it up in physical form last month but never got to it. The audiobook is based on the paperback version, with edits and notes that are helpful and further enlightening. Great stuff.

I read about 3 chapters of "Infinite Jest" by Wallace and put it down. Maybe someday. So I just finished "The fire next time" by Baldwin instead.

I'm continuing on Let This Radicalize You which is full of great hands-on practical "right now" tales and advice on creating the change you want to see in the world. It's so recent yet still reads like a million years away before the second Trump term and such. But it's solid although very detailed in its recounts of mutual aid stories, sometimes a bit needlessly I thought, but I'm already radicalized in a way so I guess some people might still need these horror stories of state abuse in such realistic grim detail.

Just started "The Ottomans" by Baer: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/22/the-ottomans-by-marc-david-baer-review-when-east-mixed-with-west

I'm taking a break from reading Mad Hatters and March Hares to read Persuasion, since I just watched the movie 2 days ago.

I really like the idea of short stories, and loved reading them as a kid--but as an adult I struggle with them. Getting into a new story before I'm invested in the characters is the slowest/most effortful part of reading for me, so anthologies feel like continually trying to restart a car when the engine keeps turning off. And when the stories are good, I'm usually annoyed that there isn't more about those characters or in that world (but standalone novels don't normally evoke that response and I don't know why).

I'm considering picking another book for my "Judge a book by its cover" square, since The Tangled Lands is also an anthology.

Just finished ADD Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life. Pretty good, there are better books but it's a good addition to the better books.

Reading Managing Neuro Diverse Workplaces and Wind and Truth. I thought I was falling out of love with Brandon Sandersons work but this book has me back in, hook line and sinker.

Not a big novel reader myself but I grabbed Dune oft my shelf after it sit for over a year. Gotitt in Christmas 2023.

Just finished Let Me In, by Claire McGowan. I found it very nicely written, a good page turner for my vacation week.

Now started something completely different, a non-fiction science popularization book: How to Make an Apple Pie from Scratch, by Harry Cliff. Popularization on particle physics. As of now, I find it very nice with large historical background and clear explanations.

• The City & the City by China Miéville
• Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I kinda hate Children of Time.

The City & the City is amazing, however. If you like Disco Elysium, I highly recommend reading China Miéville.

Listening to "The Republic of Thieves" by Scott Lynch for the second time. Just started reading "Artemis" by Andy Weir for the first.

I'm reading Neuromancer in anticipation of the Apple TV series. I'm impressed with Gibson's writing. It's quite a stylistic change from the last book I read (Handling the Undead by John Ajvide Lindvquist).

I just finished Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard. Never have I read such a good book that so desperately need an editor. Final third could have been chopped in half or more without losing anything.

Just started on Translation State by Ann Lecke. Hasn't pulled me in yet as much as her other books.

Just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky's Shroud, after a bit of delay in the middle. Some good world-building and interesting concepts, and an engaging tale - but not quite up with Children of Time, I'd say.

About a third of the way through Iain M Banks' Use of Weapons. It seems too focused on the flashbacks - which have not coalesced into a cohesive whole so far. There is still plenty of time, of course.

@jaymers I really liked the Golden Enclaves series. Fun magic system and good character building.

In the last two weeks I finished Two Twisted Crowns by Rachel Gillig and The Crown Tower by Michael J Sullivan. Two Twisted Crowns wasn't as good as the first book in the two book series but still decent. The Crown Tower was OK but got better by the end. It was great to get back into the world that Sullivan created. If you haven't read either the Rirya Revelations or Legends of the First Empire by Michael J Sullivan, you should.

I'm now reading The Rose and Thorn by Sullivan, the second book in this series.

On Tyranny (Timothy Snyder)

Still reading Josiah Bancroft's Tower Of Babel tetralogy, just started the third book "The Hod King". It's so fucking good. There was a nice interview in the last one, let's see... ah yes, here it is:

The original idea for Senlin Ascends came from reading Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, which is a beautifully written travelogue of fantastic, unreal destinations. It is a perfect specimen of literary accomplishment. So, naturally, I decided to rip it off.

At the time, I was trying to become a professional poet, which is sort of like trying to become a unicorn. The Books of Babel was going to be a collection of prose poems. The collection was going to be a fabulist pastiche, an impressionistic olio, a book of surreal psalms. In short, it was going to be dreadful, and no one was going to read it.

Then I woke up one morning and realized it was over. I was living a lie. I didn’t love poetry anymore. We had to break up. It wasn’t an amicable split. I called poetry some awful names, and poetry changed the locks. Lonely and bereft, I started hitting up my old flames— Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson— just to see what they were up to. Turns out, they were saying awful things about women and minorities. But once I got past their startling bigotry, I remembered what it was that I had loved so much about those musty old scribblers. I remembered why I had begun writing in the first place: because I liked adventure and mystery and romance. I wrote because I liked to be surprised and delighted, liked to gasp and laugh, and wanted to share the whole mad experience with someone else.

The plot came later. The story began with disillusionment.

Started and finished The Lost Fleer: Dauntless (book 1) yesterday. Still good fun despite my third or fourth time through the series.

A practical guide to evil by ErraticErrata (web serial)

I'm on book two, it’s an interesting read, kind of a satire of the hero's journey.

I recently finished the book "To our Friends" of the Invisible Committee. Right now, I'm reading "The Housing Monster," a pdf that can be downloaded in "http://www.prole.info/" and that reviews the key concepts of Marx's economic theory in a very simple way.

Currently reading Golden Terrace: Volume 1 by Cang Wu Bin Bai. Not my normal fare, but I was lured in by the description: historical Chinese PG-13 M/M arranged marriage romance with lots of court politics. I'm not super convinced by the romance so far, but the political aspect seems solid. I am getting a little lost with how many characters have already been introduced to the plot, but hopefully that'll settle down once all the important stuff's been established.

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Finished London Rules by Mick Herron. Basically more of the same as far as the Slough House series goes, and fun enough. Herron's bad guys are never really fleshed out or nuanced, which is fine, but I found the ones in London Rules to be especially one-dimensional stereotypes, to the point it was a little off-putting.

Just started Winter's Heart and I am excited. There are a lot of plot threads that need to be resolved and I am hoping they happen in this book. Mat during CoS ended in a cliffhanger and I know that he will finally meet the Daughter of the Nine Moons. Rand needs to cleanse saidin and also meet back up with Elayne and Aviendha. Perrin needs to find Faile again which I am kind of annoyed since Faile's capture seemed like an unnecessary and I dislike the Shaido chapters. I would rather have Perrin and Faile go ahead solve the actual problems in Ghealdan they needed to solve with the Prophet and were sent there for than an entire book of Perrin chasing after the Shaido. Its kind of awesome to get a book with a bunch of Mat, Perrin and Rand again in one. I wish I had more Mat and Perrin chapters and this delivers.