Right now I am reading An Urban History Of China by John Lincoln. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I am enjoying reading it, since I am a sucker for anything history.
Just finished the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by Cixin Liu a couple days ago…it’s reminded me of how mind-blowing and mind-expanding sci-fi can be. It’s an incredibly bleak and yet somehow still hopeful series and aside from issues with how Liu handles characters, I can’t wait to re-read it after I’ve had some time to digest the ideas in it. Definitely recommend if you like big ideas in sci-fi and can deal with some iffy character writing.
Friend’s bookclub has been working through The Locked Tomb trilogy which has been fun (both to read and to watch other people encounter).
Outside of that, I’ve been slowly working my way through The Knot Book (about mathematical topology, not kinky stuff), a book about “The Shambhala guide to Sufism”, and “Inside Scientology”.
I’ve been going through library books trying to find something at least somewhat straightforward about the modern Sufis and their beliefs/texts/rituals, but all the books I’ve encountered so far seem to be way more concerned with the historical lens of “Westerners through the centuries trying to grapple with the concept of Sufism and disagreeing with each other about what it is”.
I’ve started Cyteen by CJ Cherryh - I’m the type of person that reads dozens of books at once but everything’s else gone on hold for Cyteen.
Amazing so far but can’t shake the feeling that I’ve read the plot in the beginning before. I think Cyteen is too long / complex for me to have read it as a teen and forgotten about it, but I have read the Alliance/Union series in pub order up to it. Is there another book in the series with clones that includes a dinner followed by + a river boat journey?
I recently finished the 7th book in the Wheel of Time series, A Crown of Swords. I am currently contemplating whether to start book 8 or read something else to not get burned out. A Crown of Swords is the first book in the series I did not enjoy that much.
Definitely take a break! That’s about the spot where most people struggle to get through. Take your time; there’s a lot of setup, but the pacing is not great.
Also, I think book 8 is The One Without Mat, so it took me forever to get through it.
I first read this book years ago, and what has stuck me ever since was the vivid use of imagery by Cooper. I’ve also watched the movie, but it’s the book that has always stuck with me.
Currently reading Deep Work, the premise sounds interesting although the book starts of a little too money-focused for my taste. Finished Learning to Die in the Anthropocene, although it’s refreshingly honest it didn’t really have anything “Everything is F*cked” didn’t say.
Right now re-reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. It’s a weird comic scifi dystopia set in England where literary allusions abound, puns and tropes are plot devices, and Jane Eyre gets kidnapped and makes the ending of the book better. There are so many John Milton’s that they have a numbering scheme. Shakespeare is a target of forgery. It’s also ferociously anti-war, and imagines a world in which Thatcher is alive and well, and the Crimean war had had two charges of the light brigade… And has continued until the 1980s.
I can recommend it on its own for the Richard III is Rocky Horror Picture Show scene.
A phenomenal summer read, light but intelligent. And it happens to be the beginning of a good series.