What Else Are You Reading in 2019? Showing 2,051-2,100 of 3,237

[Don]

Been Saving "Pump Six" for a day exactly like today. Bacigalupi is a visionary.

[Carolyn]

@Allison. Loved Rosewater. It’s wonderful to read sci-fi that’s so completely steeped in the culture of Nigeria and loved the author’s sly criticisms of current political culture that is embedded in the last part of the book. It really is a great mashup of sci-fi, psychology and mystery.

Think I’ll jump into Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe now.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Oh yay, Carolyn! I'm so glad you enjoyed Rosewater. I just read Aristotle and Dante, hope you love it!

[Faith]

My review of Traitor's Blade by Sebastien de Castell:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Gabi]

Yeah, I Made it through Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I thought I should give some of the non SFF books on those "x books you must have read before you die" lists a try. I looked up 4 lists and marked some books that were on all of them. I started with the above mentioned and after listening 27 hours to self-pitying, self-rightous monologues and dialogues I'm not sure If I should just stay with my SFF XD.

Next Stop: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

[Jen]

I love the classics! I didn't love Crime and Punishment, though I read it many years ago now. I preferred The Brothers Karamazov and I keep meaning to get back to Dostoyevsky, I have Notes from Underground ready to go.

I tried War and Peace and didn't get very far. I've heard it's great by those who love it.

[DivaDiane]

Wow, well done, Gabi. I wonder if it’s better as an eye-read?

[Gabi]

@Jen: I hope I will come to love them, too (instead of just being able to say "yeah, I read them"). With the exception of stuff for school I read almost nothing outside SFF since I was 13. So before I die I wanted to change that ;).

@Diane: in fact I'm quite glad that I listened to it. I'm not sure I would have picked up the book again if I had eye-read it. This way I could listen a bit here and there. War and Peace will also be an audiobook.

[Mareike]

I finished A Closed and Common Orbit today and loved everything about it.

I also started The Falling Woman and after a read of the first page, I'm looking forward to diving in properly.

[Jemppu]

Gabi wrote: "....Next Stop: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy ..."

Been meaning to read this as well.

[Mareike]

Gabi wrote: "Yeah, I Made it through Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I thought I should give some of the non SFF books on those "x books you must have read before you di..."

Oooh! I liked that one, but Tolstoy is one of those authors I need to really be in the mood for. Dickens is another.

[Stratos]

Gabi wrote: "Yeah, I Made it through Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I thought I should give some of the non SFF books on those "x books you must have read before you di..."

I tried 2 years ago to read Crime and Punishment and it didn't go well. I quit after 70 pages. All this sorrow and self-pity was too much for me.

[Gabi]

@ Stratos Chouvardas: the self-pity is horrible, isn't it? And of course it's always the fault of others.

[Pam]

Read Stephen King's The Outsider and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2950259389.

[Don]

Just finished "Blackwing" by Ed McDonald and It is The Annual Winner of the "burnt dead bodies and veins in my teeth" award!!! given for exceptionally graphic violence in a mostly medieval setting. I did enjoy it and will at some point continue the series.

[Raucous]

Jen wrote: "... I tried War and Peace and didn't get very far. I've heard it's great by those who love it."

I remember the first 600(!) pages or so being a bit of a slog due to all of the character introductions but I thought that it was fascinating once I got past that part of the book. Anna Karenina was another Tolstoy classic that I found to be an interesting period piece. I read both of these after taking a class covering this period of Russian history. I suspect that made these books more approachable to me.

[Pam]

Read Wild Chamber by Christopher Fowler and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2954357223.

[Phrynne]

I really enjoy Jay Kristoff's fantasies and this one was great!
My review of DEV1AT3 by Jay Kristoff

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jacqueline]

After having to wait three months for it to be released here after it was released overseas and then another month for me to actually be in the mood to read it I finally picked up Limited Wish by Mark Lawrence this morning and started reading it. And promptly finished it this afternoon after a lot of distractions from the dog.

Bloody brilliant. Again. The man is good. Really good. This is Book 2 of his Impossible Times trilogy which is sci-fi with time travelling instead of his usual fare of fantasy. Can’t wait for book 3, Dispel Illusion, which will be released in November 14 in the rest of the world and December 31 here in Australia.

[Gabi]

Jacqueline wrote: "After having to wait three months for it to be released here after it was released overseas and then another month for me to actually be in the mood to read it I finally picked up Limited Wish by M..."

That's cool to hear, Jacqueline, I bought the first one in this series (only reason it being cheap and SF), but didn't know anything about it. Great to see that the series is good.

[Jacqueline]

Yeah well I am enjoying it Gabi. It’s different to his normal fantasy stuff but still really good. He really is an excellent writer. The first one is great but I think the second one is better. And they’re only 200 pages long so you can’t go wrong.

[colleen the convivial curmudgeon]

I started The Wanderer in Unknown Realms this morning.

Which means I finished Strange the Dreamer last night. I need to sit on it for awhile before I decide how I feel about it.

[Amanda]

I just started Parable of the Sower, and wow, it's been a long time since I've connected with a character so readily.

[Anna]

Amanda wrote: "I just started Parable of the Sower, and wow, it's been a long time since I've connected with a character so readily."

Check out our discussions: First impressions (no spoilers) | Final thoughts (spoilers)

[Don]

Octavia Butler's writing has it's own space at the top of science fiction.

[Anthony]

I’m in the middle of Downbelow Station, which is my first encounter with the work of C.J. Cherryh, and I’m very impressed so far. She has an unusual style that I could see causing some folks to bounce off of it, but I’m finding it subtle and involving and incredibly richly imagined. It won’t be the last novel of hers that I’ll read.

[Jacqueline]

My Mum loved Cherryh. I’m going to have to go through her books when I go back down there and see what she has.

I’m somewhere in the middle of Pan’s Labyrinth by Cornelia Funke and Guillermo del Toro. I started it a while back but then had a reading slump and then a few other books jumped ahead of it for some reason. I’m enjoying it heaps. It’s really rather lovely in a dark fairytale kind of way.

Probably should get up and take the dog for a walk along the beach and go have a cuppa with my old FIL right now and then I can get back to it. Apparently sitting reading might be good for the soul but does nothing good for my fat butt. I spent all day yesterday reading too.

[CBRetriever]

Anthony wrote: "I’m in the middle of Downbelow Station, which is my first encounter with the work of C.J. Cherryh, and I’m very impressed so far. She has an unusual style that I could ..."

she writes both SciFi and Fantasy. For Fantasy, I recommend

The Morgaine Saga or the individual books in it

for SciFi, I enjoyed

The Chanur Saga or the individual books in it
and
The Faded Sun Trilogy of the individual books in it

[Anthony]

Thanks, all of the above — and others — are being added to my ever-expanding queue.

[Gabi]

Had to abandon my go at "War and Peace" for the moment after I realised that I would have to buy 4 single audiobooks which is way too expensive. Instead I went for another one on my list: The Trial by Franz Kafka. This was perfect after Dostojevsky's "Crime and Punishment", cause there are many parallels in theme and style. While Dostojevsky approaches the topic of guilt from the side of the intransigent murderer who deems himself too intelligent to be caught, Kafka comes from the other side, a man is accused of something he has no idea of and gets lost in an uncompassionate bureaucracy. Very surreal and frightening at times. I loved it way more than "Crime and Punishment".

On the SFF side I've lately read the Nebula Winner The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy, which turned out much better than I anticipated. A great study of an independent mind.

Merchanter's Luck by C.J. Cherryh which in contrast to other of her works I've read dealt with only two POVs which was a welcome change.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin with my boys. The morale part was rather lost on them, but they loved the scene where the temple crashed ;).

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson, my fav book of the Stormlight Archives so far. I'd love to dive into Oathbringer, but this time I want to read Lift's story in Edgedancer first and since this is an eye read I'm stuck in the group-read-BR queue.

[Jim]

Gabi wrote: "Had to abandon my go at "War and Peace" for the moment after I realised that I would have to buy 4 single audiobooks which is way too expensive. ..."

Can you get audiobooks through your library? We can here in the US & most states allow a person to join any library in the state, so I have access to 2 different audiobook collections: Overdrive & RB Digital. It's nice, but I wish we could also join other state's libraries. My daughter's membership in a different state has many more books available in their Overdrive collection.

I see you're in Germany. How do libraries work in Germany &/Europe?

I looked up "War & Peace" on one of my libraries. Narrated by Constance Garnett, it's 61 hours long! It's here:
https://kyunbound.overdrive.com/media...

[Gabi]

@Jim: Thanks a lot for the much needed hit on the head! Of course that's an option I have to look into! I totally didn't think of that. Since all the libraries I have access to are rather useless with English SFF books I completely crossed them from my mind. But a classic in German is something different. Thank you!

[Jim]

Gabi, Librivox.org has a couple of copies of "War & Peace". The Dole translation is in 3 parts here:
https://librivox.org/search?q=war%20a...

The Maude translation is in 17 parts here:
https://librivox.org/group/267?primar...

I don't know anything about them, but I've found the latest Librivox recordings quite good. Librivox is for works in the public domain & the narrators do it for love, not money. The early ones weren't nearly as good as they are now. Quite a few of the books I've listened to recently are done by people trying to break into the narrating business, so their equipment & training is excellent.

[Faith]

Jim wrote: "Gabi wrote: "Had to abandon my go at "War and Peace" for the moment after I realised that I would have to buy 4 single audiobooks which is way too expensive. ..."

Can you get audiobooks through yo..."

You can join other state's libraries for a fee. See the discussion here:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Jim]

Faith, thank you! I looked into this, but couldn't find any via searches on the Internet. In the topic you pointed me to, I immediately saw this link:
https://weightywords.net/best-non-res...
and the article pointed out the same issue with finding them. I even looked at NYC, but they don't allow out of state loans. Apparently Brooklyn does, though. Thankfully, they're better at searching than I am. By going to
https://brooklyn.overdrive.com/collec...
I can see they have about 20,000 books available, so the larger Overdrive collection like Nashville. Yippee!

[Pam]

Read Green Phoenix by Thomas Burnett Swan and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2950258456

[Faith]

Jim wrote: "Faith, thank you! I looked into this, but couldn't find any via searches on the Internet. In the topic you pointed me to, I immediately saw this link:
https://weightywords.net/best-non-res......"

The Brooklyn library is very good. Fairfax County is pretty good too, and it's cheaper.

[Kateb]

CBRetriever wrote: "Anthony wrote: "I’m in the middle of Downbelow Station, which is my first encounter with the work of C.J. Cherryh, and I’m very impressed so far. She has an unusual sty..."

I had forgotten about Cherryh , I have all those books. Looks like a massive re read coming

[Christopher]

Thanks Allison. Getting caught up on reading these discussions and just saw your update on Warchild and I think I'll pass on it. I had tried to read a bit more in the interim and was only getting more disturbed, so I'm glad to be able to put it down without going any further.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

You bet! This is why Anna and I try to read beforehand. For many of us it's good to have an idea what we're in for :)

[YouKneeK]

I’ve finished reading Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist. As I mentioned several posts back, I’m re-reading the first several Feist books with the plan of continuing to the last 15 or so books that I never read and finishing up the series.

I read the “Author’s Preferred Editions”, the same versions I had originally read about 20 years ago, which have quite a bit of additional content that was originally cut. I’ve never read the original version, so I'm not sure what all was added. I loved all the content in the expanded version the first time around, so I didn’t want to miss any of it the second time either.

This was the series that initially got me into reading fantasy, especially epic fantasy, so I was worried that it might not hold up as well as I remembered. I still really enjoyed it, though! I could see some flaws, especially in the second book, but I still loved the story and the characters. One of the things I really enjoyed is that it’s more of a feel-good story. Pug is a traditional orphan, yes, but he’s not abused or mistreated or ignored nor is it him against the world. He’s surrounded by good people, including good leaders. I enjoyed the camaraderie among the characters. Things get a little darker in the second book and there’s less of an ensemble feel, but there are still a lot of great moments.

For somebody hoping for strong female characters and/or diversity, these books will not satisfy that. The females are only minor characters and they mostly just show up long enough to act brave and to be supportive of their men. There’s a heavy dose of insta-love and let’s-pair-off-all-the-main-characters, but it doesn’t get too much page time so I wasn’t too bothered by it. There was one relationship in the second book that I found pretty creepy, though. For me, most of this was pretty easy to ignore because I enjoyed the story and the characters so much, so for me the good far outweighed the bad. Other people might hate it for these reasons, though.

My reviews:
Book 1 Review
Book 2 Review

Next up, I'm starting the next book in the series, Silverthorn.

[Anna]

Allison wrote: "This is why Anna and I try to read beforehand."

Thanks for doing all the work this month! It feels weird starting the month without knowing nearly anything about the group books :D

[Carolyn]

Gulped down Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe in one day. Thought the author did a great job of exploring the angst of teenagers that don’t fit in with their peers. Now reading The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy and really enjoying the development of characters and the archeology plot.

[Anthony]

I finished Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh and it really knocked me out. I wouldn’t have thought it would be so much to my liking, (military space opera isn’t something I’ve read much of, and I was worried it would just be cold and clinical, and it was so much more than that), but the manner in which Cherryh made all of the sprawling, complex machinations of her plot come together, really impressed me. It was my first encounter with her work, and it certainly won’t be my last.

[CBRetriever]

if you like that one, the Humble Bundle has a good deal on

Humble Bundle of Space Operas and Science Fiction

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/sp...

Charity = Challenger Center for Space Science Education

30 books for $15 minimum (you pay what you want)

I read War with the Newts which was surprisingly entertaining. It didn't feel like it was written back in the 1930s. I wonder if Max Brooks read it before writing World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War because it reads the same way with articles, stories from different people, etc.

[Beth]

Anthony wrote: "I’m in the middle of Downbelow Station, which is my first encounter with the work of C.J. Cherryh, and I’m very impressed so far. She has an unusual style that I could ..."

I come and go with Cherryh...

The ones of hers I liked, I really liked! Standouts are this one, The Dreaming Tree and Fortress in the Eye of Time (though the books after this one in that series are very skippable imo).

I bounced off Foreigner, Cyteen, Hammerfall.

[DivaDiane]

I have to admit I tried to read Chanur by Cherryh but couldn’t get into it. I can’t even remember if I actually finished it (probably, because even if I didn’t like a book I would finish it back then)! But I loved Cyteen and have always wanted to try the Foreigner series.

[Beth]

Maybe you and I are opposites on the Cherryh horoscope, Diane.

(What books indicate a Cherryh Pisces? I'll see myself out.)

[Don]

Is reading "The reckless oaths we made" by Bryn Greenwood. I find her work difficult to describe. I guess "Winter's Bone" is a book that I would call a cousin, in that it
elicits similar reactions and circulates in similar socioeconomic circles. I was initially put off by the autistic characters narration/ description but got past it. The woman can Write.

[Pam]

Read The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry and reviewed it - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2955788832.