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.
After two weeks, I’m on the last chapter of paradise lost by John Milton! It was a weird read to end my summer of working through several of the epic poems. It’s one of the most beautifully written poems I’ve ever read, but Jesus Christ has it been a weird and difficult read. My fav part was when Jesus out of nowhere rides in on a chariot and chases satan off the edge of heaven. Genuinely not enough talk about how some of this shit felt like a weird fever dream twist.
This is on my to read list. I have an annotated copy to help because I've heard it's hard going but I know it's hugely influential and so keep meaning to get to it!
It was definitely hard going. I had multiple browser tabs open, the heavily annotated modern library version, and my years of Catholic upbringing to guide me through it all and it was definitely a journey. I read it right after reading Dante’s divine comedy and while the comedy and they both really blew me away. Half of Paradise Lost (and Dante too for that matter) is just really deep references to the Aeneid, the Iliad, the odyssey, and Ovid’s metamorphoses.
I've read Dante and enjoyed that a lot. It's interesting how Dante also puts a lot more of his contemporaries into the various parts of the afterlife then I was expecting; so footnotes can veer from talking about Greek mythology to minor figures from the civil war that had led to his exile. Which can be a little jarring sometimes!
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.
Otherside Picnic by Iori Mizayawa (In Japanese) - Amazing sci-fi novel, that takes inspiration from Roadside Picnic, and urban legends. Quite nicely written too, characters are quite likeable.
Lost Gods by Brom - Amazing concepts, the way Gods are portrayed there, and lots of nice mythology details there and there. The story is very much engaging as well.
The Wandering Inn - Looong, fantasy, and lots of fun world building
Half Share - Fun sci-if space opera? Regardless, pleasant experience.
Re-reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. I read it as a teenager the first time, and I wonder if I’ll get something different out of it in my 30s now. I’m also reading Heart of Dominance by Anton Fulmen along with my wife. More of a book for them than me, but it still has good information to glean regardless. If I want to include graphic novels, I also just finished Sunstone. It was sweet and entertaining.
Letters from my windmill by Daudet, narrated by Stephen Fry. Discovered this audiobook by accident, but couldn’t help listening. Fry and Laurie read Daudet and Jerome, how cool is that?
I’m reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the first time ever. Can you believe I am 48 years old, a horror literature junkie, and never read it? It’s true. I’m enjoying it a lot.
I started this one in the middle of my 7 day camping trip last week. Maybe a quarter of the way through right now. Good so far, the first King book I’ve rear since around Gerald’s Game somewhere.
I really loved this novel. It gets better and better as you progress through it. I loved all the references to Jung, Gothic horror, and just about everything else! Enjoy!
I just finished ‘Player of Games’ - Ian M. Banks. I liked it, it felt immersive.
Just started The Passenger by the late great Cormac McCarthy. I’m about a 3rd through, listening on audio book via Libby (read at 85% speed). It’s a little hard not to put it in the context of No Country and the border trilogy - Mr. M does seem to have a type. I’m pleased that many of McCarthy’s liberties with words seem to come through on audio, but I imagine I’m missing a lot. All in all I’m enjoying it. Next up my book club is reading All The Pretty Horses, so I’m in for the ride as it were. (Weirdly, there was a longer wait for his other work than The Passenger. I guess people are in the wait and see mode).
A friend recommended Midlife by Kieran Setiya. I have to say - it’s quite dense, and I feel like I’m not doing it justice. I’ll definitely keep going.
@Kamirose I‘m reading „Kite runner“ by Khaled Hosseini. It’s a book about friendship, love, betrayal and reparation. I‘m surprised by how much the book catches me: once I start reading, I never want to put it down again.
Eight Thousand Years after the Glassing of Earth, Terran Descent Humanity has largely become a post-scarcity society based on consent and enjoying life. With the discovery of another ancient race beyond the "Great Gulf", events and history collide to draw the Terran Confederacy into war against a hundred million year old empire that has always won and believes it always will. With allies and enemies of multiple species, the Orion Galactic Arm Spur will be wracked by warfare the likes of which have not been seen. Cracked, harried, wounded, and damaged, Terran Descent Humanity willfully throws itself against the universe itself.
"The universe hates you and will take away everything you love, laughing while it does so." - Terran belief.
I am on chapter 907. According to the Royal Road page estimate, that's over 10,000 paperback book pages equivalent. It's a helluva ride, and the price can't be beat.
Vuxten appears around chapter 50, iirc. He's not the first to recur, but he is a fan favourite.
I tend to read it in bursts. I catch up about once every 3 months.
I’m allllllmost done with Yumi and the nightmare painter. It’s great! I was a little iffy on it at first. It was a little young adulty for my tastes (stereotypical teenage love interest awkwardness). But as per usual with Sanderson the end gets really good really quickly. Eager to see how it ends!
Just finished off The Deep by Rivers Solomon, a novella inspired by a song inspired by another song. Very compelling, character-driven narrative about generational trauma and slavery, plus a tinge of romance for the MC. Would recommend.