Probably some recency bias but I'll go with Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. Soooo many people told me it's their least favorite book, and it's terrible to read, and I'm so glad I disregarded their opinion. They also called it racist which uhh, kinda misses the point.
I loved the book though. Psychological, philosophical, critique of colonialism and imperialism? A psychedelic descent into madness? Sign me up for more please.
In hindsight, it's absolutely something I would like, but my expectations were pretty low.
After wrapping up book 6 of Murderbot Diaries I started in on A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. I've heard the wayarers series was good, have access to the first book so I am checking it out. So far it's okay.
Oh well that's unfortunate. I like series because I like to stick to characters on long journeys, getting to know them and care for them. Only the first book is available on Kindle Unlimited so I guess I just won't bother reading past book 1.
(The one exception to this so far is Malazan, which has so many characters and so many times those bounce around from being in a books to disappearing for 3 books, only to resurface again later. Malazan is fantastic though, and totally worth it. Erikson managed to make me care deeply about characters that we only saw for half a book. It's ridiculous.)
Currently reading The Haunted Forest Tour by James A Moore. The premise is a safari thru a forest filled with horror creatures that goes wrong, and I am LOVING it so far! I’m still pretty early into it, but so far so good. After this, I think I’ll go back to another Agatha Christie whodunnit
That sounds really cool and unique. If you're interested in joining another book community, you should share a quick review of that with us on m/horrorliterature. Trying to gather us horror fans together!
I'm currently reading Dune by Frank Herbert. I tried to read it once when I was in my early teens and didn't finish, but I figured I'd give it another go with all the hype over the recent TV adaptation. I've just passed the point where I gave up before (~150 pages) and I'm kicking myself, because it turns out I stopped just short of where all the action seems to really get going. The book is front-loaded with a lot of worldbuilding by way of sci-fi/fantasy terms presented without much context, so I can understand why my younger self got bored and gave up. I'm really enjoying it this time around though, I think I'm a lot more patient as a reader now than I used to be.
Oh, power through for sure! Dune is one of my all-time favorites. When you're finished with the book, be sure to stop over at the wiki and read about the lore. The lore is deep in Dune and not a lot of it makes it into the movies and doesn't shrine through in the first book. Especially check out lore on the various factions.
The Bene Gesserit for instance seem like a cult of witches at first read, but they are much, much, more with a 10,000+ year history of eugenics.
I am also reading through dune right now, I'm enjoying it so far. I was fine with the world building, partly because I really liked the sets in the movie and also because I found it novel compared to the very generic space faring stuff or Tolkien rip-off you get as a backdrop in sci-fi and fantasy respectively.
I'm also really enjoying a lot of the environmental musings in the book, after I finish it I will look up more about Frank Herbert's relation to these topics, I get the feeling there's something about it.
Environmentalism and colonialism are definitely interesting lenses to look at the story through. It also deconstructed white savior and heroes journey tropes. All of this is explored more fully in the sequel, which I also really enjoyed.
I've not read nearly as many books as I would've liked so far this year (four total, five if you count the graphic novel Maus). I just finished Cloud Atlas by David Michell (highly, highly recommended) and now it's on to Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I read a bit of Atlas Shrugged out of curiosity as well and that book squarely holds down this year's 'least favorite' position for the moment. It's clear that I'm not the demographic that Ayn Rand is writing for. I don't have any releases I'm particularly looking forward to, but I'll be shamelessly stealing everyone else's ideas from this thread.
Infinite Jest counts as like 15 books imo, so good luck. I gave it a shot a few years back and have been meaning to take another crack at it. I have Anna Karenina and some James Joyce on the docket so it will probably be a ways out.
Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor. A friend of mine turned me onto the book, Tharoor does a really good job of laying out how exactly the British Empire decimated in the indian region's economy through its brutal rule
Currently reading "The Kaiju Preservation Society" by John Scalzi. Lightweight, humorous sci-fi. Just recently finished "The Gentleman of Moscow" by Amor Towles, which is lovely storytelling if you enjoy character building. KPS is definitely a much different feel.
Depending on what you like to read, I would recommend both - but for different reasons.
I just finished KPS and loved it! It was fun in a "this entire thing is fucking ridiculous" sort of way that Scalzi (and the book itself) fully acknowledges.
"I lift things" started infiltrating my spoken phrases without me realizing it and I was like "wtf‽" when I realized.
Have you checked out "Fuzzy Nation", "Red Shirts", or the "Lock In" series? All fun stories by Scalzi in similar veins (Lock In is a bit more serious, but not like The Interdependency).
I really enjoyed Scalzi's Interdependency series. Definitely light compared to some (and there were arcs/characters I would have liked to see develop a bit more), but it's a decent enough ride.
Yeah The Interdependency felt like it really needs a few short stories in the same universe to cover a few of the characters and another novel at least for what happens after the ending!
Currently reading "The Kaiju Preservation Society" by John Scalzi.
This was a fun read. I enjoyed it enough to put Red Shirts on my reading list, just have not gotten around to it yet. If you want to stick with the Kaiju genre, Project Nemesis by Jeremy Robinson had a similar vibe.
I've been reading the Lonesome Dove series, not in order of publication, but in internal chronological order.
Dead Man's Walk
Comanche Moon
Lonesome Dove
Streets of Laredo
I would never have thought to read these books, but I was looking for something to read and my current favourite author, Joe Abercrombie, said Lonesome Dove was the best book he'd ever read so I thought I'd give 'em a whirl. I'm so glad I did. McMurty has such an excellent, calm, matter-of-fact way of telling these stories. I'm most of the way through Lonesome Dove at this point. I think that Comanche Moon is one of the oddest, but most authentic books about mid-19th century Western America I've ever read. The other thing that stands out to me is that each chapter could really be a short story that could stand on its own without any of the other context that the rest of the book provides. It's really a masterclass in storytelling. Can't recommend enough.
Imo it is always hard to go from a movie/TV show to the book. Books create a universe inside your head, but now you’re already going into it with expectations. And when it doesn’t meet expectations, it’s disappointing.
I read The Handmaid’s Tale back around 2016, when Trump was elected. I was actually stunned that he had won - because like many others, I had missed the warning signs of a wave of populism. To me, this set the stage for The Handmaid’s Tale to feel like a very real possibility - if this guy is now in power, then what next?
It was easy to insert myself into the rather basic world of The Handmaid’s Tale especially with the humdrum details of everyday life. This dystopian world does not always look like outright torture or murder. It looks like fear, distrust, and control that has been normalized.
And quite frankly, I found that the Handmaid’s sole societal purpose of being continuously raped and impregnated is disturbing to the core. In your post, you’ve accepted that this is just part of the narrative. The abuse of female genitalia and reproduction is often overlooked in depictions of a dystopian world, so I think we’ve sanitized this brutal reality from the realm of possibilities. And yet, this is still a lived-reality for girls and women across the world today.
You make a good point, abuse of women is normalised. I think in this particular case (book vs show), the show was a lot more visceral, whereas in my opinion it was kinda of 'glossed over' in the book. It might be part of the writing style - I usually read books in first person, so it's like you are the character. This story was written so detached, I didn't feel much for anyone.
@Hstansss For light mystery, The Thursday Murder Club books are a good read. A group of retirees in a senior living center have a hobby of trying to solve cold cases. The characters are funny and quirky.
Exactly what I was going to recommend. There are three so far, the first (The Thursday Murder Club) is the best but the other two (The Man Who Died Twice and The Bullet That Missed) are also both a lot of fun. They're light easy reads, but with enough seriousness and depth to keep you interested, and the character are just wonderful! They're by Richard Osman, famous for being on the telly and very tall prior to this!
One series I got into for a while was skull duggery pleasant. Very dick Tracey vibes from the main detective, but the catch is he is an animated skeleton who investigates mysteries in the world of magic and has a teenage girl that tags along as his apprentice. All in all a fun read that stays in the detective noir vein but also takes a couple steps into the fantasy realm.
Just started Gene Wolfe's The Shadow of the Torturer after seeing some good reviews about his Book of the New Sun series, going in blind though and it's pretty slow so far. Let me know if you liked it and think I should keep going
I definitely recommend reading the whole series. Agreed that some passages are slow or just obscure due to the style, but I found it quite enriching. I think this is one of these where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, though.
It's definitely weird, but I did enjoy reading it. I feel like it would make more sense if I read it again, but at the same time, I'm not sure I really enjoyed it enough to read it all again.
I like to fancy myself an appreciator of good writing, but man, Gene Wolfe just didn't quite do it for me. Felt pretty ponderous and self-important, like a Ralph Bakshi animated film meets Frank Herbert meets J.D. Salinger meets the Old Testament, and it was all just too much. I think Wolfe had ambition and intention and was a stylist in a genre that doesn't often reward stylists, but it was all just just... off somehow, and left me feeling yucky. I finished The Shadow of the Torturer and had no desire to deal with Severian or his world ever again.
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