What book(s) are you currently reading?

9 years ago • updated 9 years ago • 18

I've always got a stack of books on tap to read, but I've been very busy lately.

I finished Andy Weir's "The Martian" and really enjoyed it. OMG, the scientific details! (I thought the movie was also really good.)

I'm a big military history fan, and I tried reading "The Armada" by Garrett Mattingly a-gain. Twice I started this book and twice I've failed. I'm sorry but his purple prose is Royal Purple. Just too rich for my blood.

What are you guys reading these days? Got any good recomendations for my stack?

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9 years ago

I just finished Maplecroft. Really great lovecraftian monsters with interesting women characters. Totally recommend.

9 years ago

Just finished Sword of Shannarra which was both awful and wonderful, and am currently doing The Demon Princes by Jack Vance, which is basically Star Trek meets Kill Bill. And then I've got Gene Wolfe's Latro in the Mist on deck for next time.

9 years ago

I'm reading Jill, which was the first novel by the poet Philip Larkin. Finding it unexpectedly gripping actually - thought it would be more dour and difficult to get into, but it's got a great sense of humour and a real humanity to it.

Under review

9 years ago

Love the Sword of Shannara series. I'm working on The Mongoliad series - who wouldn't love living the Mongols!

9 years ago

coyote blue

9 years ago

Oh, Sword of Shannara... my old frenemy.

Right now I'm reading "Black Wolves" by Kate Elliot. It had some long rambling scenes at the beginning and I thought, "I wish I was the kind of person who could more easily give up on a book" but now the characters are doing wonderful and interesting things, and there's an especially fascinating arranged marriage which I just love. (I have a friend with an older sister who's happily married by an arrangement set in place when she and her husband were kids).

I'm saddened when the real world freaks out about really minor things like who has which private parts, so I really enjoy it when I read books where no-one seems to care much about sexuality. This is one of those - a funny coincidence, since I just finished reading Tania Huff's "Quarters" series which does the exact same thing.

I love fantasy, especially the more fast-paced young adult stuff. Some of my favorites are Pamela Freeman, Garth Nix, Sandy Fussell (she actually writes children's books), and Scott Westerfeld. Oh, and Catherynne M. Valente.

9 years ago

Just came across a trigger warning-y scene in "Black Wolves".

9 years ago

I am into Silo series. Loved the first part!

9 years ago

I am now 100 pages into Gene Wolfe's Latro in the Mist and I could not tell you a single thing that's going on. I think he might be my favorite writer.

9 years ago

"A River Runs Through It." (A friend really loved it and recommended it.)

"The Human Comedy" by William Saroyan. (It's a bittersweet small-town teenager novel from the 1940s, just adapted by Meg Ryan into an indie movie with Sam Shepard and Tom Hanks, with music by John Mellencamp).

A biography about the life of Washington Irving. (Sometimes I wander off onto a history kick. I'm also reading Stephen Ambrose's book about Lewis and Clark, "Undaunted Courage" -- which right now is more about Thomas Jefferson.) I've also been working my way through "The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon". (Now I'm coming up on the original Legend of Sleepy Hollow...)

9 years ago

Currently re-reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. It's one of the funniest books I've ever read and I love the way Susanna Clarke blends fantasy and historical fiction. It's like a thought experiment where you get to see what a comedy of manners would look like if you added sorcery and faerie folk. Can't recommend it enough.