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Post by Firebrand on Mar 20, 2018 23:33:08 GMT
Aka: Goodreads, the thread
For the past few years, I've made it my goal to read at least 52 books a year (so effectively a book a week), and I've managed to make that goal and go a little bit beyond each year I've done it. I'm always looking for new recommendations, and I thought it would be good for a community of writers like us to have a place where we could talk about what we're reading outside the realm of fanfiction.
For my last book I decided to go back and revisit Dan Simmons's "Hyperion", a space opera framed like the Canterbury Tales with a healthy dose of John Keats and Shakespeare, and also a nine foot tall time traveling alien killer robot made out of spikes. It makes a little more sense in context.
Right now I'm working through Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" which is a slightly more historical take on Dracula, and frames the story in the context of the mid-20th century rather than the 19th. I'm liking it so far, and the way the different narrative threads weave together reminds me a lot of how Bram Stoker did it in the original.
Next on my list is "Gnomon" by Nick Harkaway, but it seems a bit dense and heavy, so I might read something a little bit more pulpy first.
What are you reading?
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girl-like-substance
the seal will bite you if you give him half a chance
Posts: 527
Pronouns: xe/xem
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Post by girl-like-substance on Mar 23, 2018 19:52:27 GMT
Nice idea for a thread! I remember The Historian, although not well, because it must've been close to ten years ago, near when it first came out. I think I enjoyed it, although I think I'd enjoy it more coming back to it now having reread Dracula as an adult and realised what an excellent commentary on nineteenth-century British racial politics it is. If I remember right, The Historian picks up some of those threads and runs with them, especially the parts about borders and religious conflicts. Probably worth my revisiting it, actually.
The last thing I read was probably Ian Cobain's The History Thieves, which is about the history of the use of secrecy as a tool of state by the British government, especially with regard to how it's tried (often quite successfully) to suppress the sins of empire and control its own historical image; that was excellent, if a bit heavy. Angry non-fiction is always interesting to me, and The History Thieves certainly checks that box. At the moment -- well, at the moment I'm trying to read Anton Shammas' Arabesques, but I just moved house and I have no idea which box I put it in, so that's sort of on hold until I can dig it out. I'm liking it so far, though. It's one of those novels that show you how geopolitical and personal histories interweave, which I always like. If I can find it among my boxes, I'd like to finish Orly Castel-Bloom's Human Parts, too, which is this intricate, acerbic little novel set during the Second Intifada but focusing intensely on people's attempts to live their normal lives. I started it months ago, put it down and then forgot it existed till I picked it up to put in a box when I moved.
These choices are part of my project to read my way around the world, which I've already totally ruined by skipping from the Czech Republic to India and back to Israel and Palestine, but I figure so long as I get all the way round it doesn't matter if I don't do it in strict order. I didn't actually have a good route lined up anyway. At this point, I guess it's more of a "pick countries at random and dip into whatever of their literature I can find in libraries or for cheap online" tour, rather than a round-the-world trip.
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Dtmahanen
Witnessing (and participating in) shenanigans
Posts: 123
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Post by Dtmahanen on Mar 26, 2018 0:03:55 GMT
This is a really cool idea for a thread! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do as much fun reading as I'd like, since my MPhil is destroying my free time. However, there've been a couple of things that have grabbed my interest.
The last thing I read was Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. It's basically a collection of 10 different accounts of video game production, and more specifically, of the absolute hell development can be. There's games like Halo Wars, Stardew Valley, The Witcher 3, among other names, big and small. It's pretty fascinating.
In terms of fiction, the last thing I read was Imperium by Robert Harris. It's basically a fictionalized account of the life of Cicero, told from the perspective of the memoirs of his favorite slave, Tiro. It's meant to emulate Tiro's memoirs that actually existed, but were lost. I'm a classics guy, so that stuff is right up my alley, and the way they build the politics of Rome is utterly fascinating. It's the first in a trilogy, so the next book on my list is the second installment, Lustrum.
However, if I'm being honest, I also have an itch to revisit the Pendragon series. It's total young adult schlock, I know, but the world(s) and mechanics it builds are still super fascinating, and the fact that there are actual consequences to characters' actions without ever going grim-dark like so many YA series are want to do leaves it a special place in my heart. I definitely want to re-read them when I get the chance.
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starseed
Posts: 4
Pronouns: she/her (mostly) or he/him
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Post by starseed on Feb 14, 2021 15:06:40 GMT
Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare.
I'm very interested in this series mainly because it features someone on the autism spectrum. He's actually very well written, and I can easily relate to him!
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Post by ZigguratZag on Feb 14, 2021 19:47:39 GMT
I've never read anything by Cassandra Clare. Sounds interesting, though! Always nice to find a character whose struggles are like your own.
Just finished Cold Hand in Mine, a collection of short horror stories by Robert Aickman. Mysterious and unsettling, for the most part. He never gives a complete explanation of what's going on, so you're left to guess for yourself. I liked the later stories better than the first couple ones.
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