What Else Are You Reading in 2020? Showing 1,651-1,700 of 2,960

[Phrynne]

I thought this short story was brilliant!
My review of There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jacqueline]

It is good isn’t it Phrynne. It was part of our comprehension test in our main school exams for the state when I was in Year 10 (School Certificate) in 1979. It’s stuck with me ever since but I didn’t know what it was called or who the author was. I googled it earlier this year and found it and reread it. Still gets me.

In 1979 we were still very much embroiled in the Cold War and the Nuclear Arms Race. It was all rather scary. Whereas now climate change and seismic shifts are the topics in apocalyptic type movies back then it was nuclear war. Anyhoo....

[Esther]

Christopher wrote: "As a diversion from SF I'm reading Less which won the Pulitzer a few years ago."

I liked that one a lot.

[Don]

Currently reading "PleshaCore" by Micah Sisk. very much enjoying the read. About 65% through and I cannot imagine where it is going next. Also enjoying the elite resort as a setting.

[Lowell]

“There Will Come Soft Rains” was one of those stories that was in the big compilation readers that my middle and high schools used. It’s one of those stories I remember so well, even 25 years after I read it. It made a huge impression on me. I rank it up there with “The Lottery” in terms of amazing and powerful short stories.

Really good stuff!

[Tamara]

Eva wrote: "But if you're asking if the majority of adults *also* at least sometimes read YA, then yes."

I think part of the reason is that we remember being young adults and teenagers, too; it was a very influential time for us, so reading books about characters of those ages feels normal - as long as they're written well. We remember all the ages we were, so have empathy as we read - just like we do for books with characters of our current age.

I do wish, though, that more books were written with characters of different ages - 30s and 40s, for example, and not just in 'regular' fiction, where they seem always to be about mothers or wives or divorcées, or women tired of being married or wanting a new life, or other things that are only relevant to some. Awesome heroes and heroines of these ages, because they have more wisdom, experience, and ability to do things, plus all the other things that come with these different decades of life. Not just "I feel old and am looking back on life and feeling nostalgic or disappointed".

[Phrynne]

Esther wrote: "Christopher wrote: "As a diversion from SF I'm reading Less which won the Pulitzer a few years ago."

I liked that one a lot."

I loved that book. It was an amazingly easy read for a Pulitzer Prize winner!

[Anna]

Please continue the YA discussion here! :)

[Gabi]

I've been without a decent access to the GR homepage (that is without being able to link or type longer texts) for two weeks and wanted to review the books I've read afterwards ... but I'm not sure I will get around doing it, cause I'm already immersed in the next bunch of stories. So just a quick overview:

I've read as BotMs for various groups here on GR:

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and The Memory Police, which both were excellent. The first paints such a relatable portrait of an older misanthropic woman who leans towards esoteric and animals that I instantly felt at home with her. The ending was different from what I was expecting and therefore better.
The later read like a surrealistic painting and got me completely immersed in its dreamlike, melancholic vibe. Beautiful prose and a topic that drove home in a hurtful yet artistic way.

The Pride of Chanur was okayish, but couldn't capture me in any way. The least captivating of the Cherryh's book I've read.

Servant of the Underworld reminded me so much of the Marcus Didius Falco series by Lindsey Davis that I felt at home. I devoured said series in my twenties as an avid ancient Rome and Latin fan and reading something similar was comfortably nostalgic.

Hidden Figures was a very interesting history lesson during the cold war period in the US told through the eyes of the WoCs who worked as computers for NASA and its predecessor. For readers who've read "Calculating Stars" this feels quite familiar. I've learned that there is a movie adaptation for it that I want to watch some time (even if it has Kevin Costner in it ^^')

The Leopard, The Awakening and Nathan der Weise were some classic BotMs, but I'm still struggling with classics. I try to get a better understanding for classics, but it's still a long way.
Out of those I liked "Nathan der Weise" best with its topic about religious tolerance.

For my countless challenges I read:

Pride (for the 'seven sins' prompt of the sugar pop challenge). A cute, modern take on 'Pride and Prejudice', but perhaps better suited for younger readers than I am. I liked it, but not much stuck out for me.

Vita Nostra (for the 'the next ...' prompt of our TBR challenge), which was ... FANTASTIC! I totally loved it, and it was totally weird and demoralizing. As if China Miéville or Kafka had a take on Harry Potter.

The Quantum Rose (for my attempt to read (nearly) all Hugo and Nebula award winners), which had a great worldbuilding and physics concept, but featured a really cringeworthy love story. I didn't know this combination existed. And I'm not sure I'm better off knowing it now.

Animal Farm I read because I stumbled over a 'most read SF on GR' list and to my utter embarrassment I realised that I hadn't read any of the classic top four.
I really loved this one and now have high hopes for the other three (1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451)

[Jennifer]

I just finished Artificial Condition. I heart Murderbot.
Now reading Our Children's Children. Simak is such a good writer.

[Michelle]

I think part of the reason is that we remember being young adults and teenagers, too; it wa..."

Tamara, have you read Dragonsbane? The two MCs are older. I love that book and have read it a few times. It could be considered a stand-alone, despite the books which followed. I didn't like those; they were pretty dark & disturbing. But the first had a completely different feel to it.

[Christopher]

I thought Animal Farm was a good book when I read it in high school, but I had a harsh lesson in double checking with regard to it. My teacher gave a 3 page test on it with page 1 having questions 1-25, page two having 26-50, and the FRONT of page three having 51-75. I answered those then handed the test in. It turns out my teacher had questions 76-100 on the BACK of that third page. I ended up getting a C, 75%, as I got all the first 75 right, but none of the last 25 that I didn't know existed.

[Gabi]

Christopher wrote: "I thought Animal Farm was a good book when I read it in high school, but I had a harsh lesson in double checking with regard to it. My teacher gave a 3 page test on it with page 1 hav..."

Uuuh! I guess I would hate the book after such an incident. ^^' Quite mean of the teacher not to inform the class of questions on the back.

[Beth]

Thomas wrote: "I've finally returned to reading the Deverry Cycle after finishing Dragonspell 3 years ago. Katherine Kerr is such an underrated author and I feel she deserves more credit for her work."

I read the first couple of these a few years ago and thought they were great, especially the first one. That was a reread on a SF blog that (not unusually) has gone belly-up in the meantime. One of the commenters noted how much care Kerr put into making sure that the civilization and tech levels of the various historical periods of alterna-Wales were consistent with their equivalents in our world. I'll have to get back to them!

[Melanie, the neutral party]

The Message is my preferred translation.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished another excellent short story collection by one of the writers behind many of the finest episodes of the original Twilight Zone TV series:


Night Ride And Other Journeys by Charles Beaumont
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading another Beaumont collection:


Yonder by Charles Beaumont

Because of the overlap of stories in Beaumont's various collections, I have already read many of the stories in this book.

[Jerry-Book]

Read “Caesar, Life of a Colossus” by Adam Goldsworthy and began reading “The Stories of Ray Bradbury”. Finished “The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War” by Ben Macintyre.

[Jacqueline]

I read 1984, Animal Farm and Brave New World when I was about 15 for school. I also read Z for Zachariah for school that year and There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury was the short story for the comprehension part of our main exam. Big year for dystopian fiction that year. It was 1979. Cold War, nuclear arms race, looming nuclear Armageddon. Fun times...fun times. I didn’t read Fahrenheit 451 until about 12 or 18 months ago. None of them disappointed me.

This week I read “Yellow and the Perception of Reality” by Maureen F McHugh. It was a short story that Tor shared on Twitter and Facebook and it was excellent. Makes me want to read China Mountain Zhang even more.

[Gabi]

Jacqueline wrote: "I read 1984, Animal Farm and Brave New World when I was about 15 for school. I also read Z for Zachariah for school that year and There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury was the short story for ..."

If I remember correctly folks at high school who kept English read at least Animal Farm. But I kicked English as soon as possible (yeah, I know ... but I always have been the science and not the language type), so the only English literature I had in class was something by Hemingway.

[Jacqueline]

Well your English is pretty good now for someone who ditched it for Science. I did French in my early years of High School but I’m lucky to say hello and goodbye in it now lol For some reason I can make out enough written Spanish to get me out of trouble. Might be all those years watching Sesame Street when they used to do it half in Spanish and half in English. I was surprised that I could understand it when I went to Colombia 6 years ago. And I had enough brains left to work out Italian when we were there a couple of years ago. Only the written language though. My brain has been working too slow to listen to someone and translate at the same time.

German though....sorry but I can’t get my head around it. My birth father is German apparently. Don’t know him, never met him and I have no idea where he’s from. Only met my birth mother about 5 or 6 years ago when I was about 50. I was thinking about learning at some point in time once I’ve stopped moving around so much.

[CBRetriever]

I lived in Germany for 3 years from 9-12 years old on an Air Force base, so I picked up some German. I can't speak it any more, but I was able to use amazon.de w/o too much trouble.

French, I didn't start to learn until I was over 55 so that was really difficult. I can still read it fairly well and can understand most of it, but I never did speak it very well even after 5 years in Paris

I had a year of Russian at University, but other than being able to sound out words and do a basic greeting, that's all I remember.

and I still read the French news on orange.fr. I have a copy of the Name of the Wind in French and the language in it is even more poetic than in the original English version and it's at least a third longer than the US version

[DivaDiane]

You guys. I just finished The Fifth Season. So so good. If you have not read it yet, what ARE you waiting for?!? There is no better time.

[Gabi]

Diane wrote: "You guys. I just finished The Fifth Season. So so good. If you have not read it yet, what ARE you waiting for?!? There is no better time."

If once in a far away future there will be some free space in my reading list I'm looking forward to re-reading the trilogy.

[Jemppu]

Gabi wrote: "If once in a far away future there will be some free space in my reading list I'm looking forward to re-reading the trilogy. ..."

Absolutely. Or, in my case re-reading the first half of it, before finishing! (I still haven't! For shame).

[Jonas]

Oh no! My vacation started today, and because of Covid-19, I have nothing planned! I'm currently reading Stoneblood Saga Boxset: Books 1-6 but I'm not sure it's my cup of tea, it seems very "A -> B -> C", no real twists. Which is sad.

I know most people like the "grand" stories, with multiple points of view, and grand schemes. But I always get way to bored, because the author always have fillers, some might call it character building, but I dont... Cuz they can be sooo boring.

Anyways, since I'm already reading the above mentioned book series, I'm probably going to finish it, even though it's NOT the kind of story I want to read. Meh... If anyone has a good story told in only one pov, I would appreciate a heads up :)

[Beth]

I went to the group's front page for something else and... we're reading Dreamsnake next month? Is it my birthday?? (It isn't.)

Another book that's been languishing in my library for decades even though I'm almost 100% sure I'd enjoy it. Reading it with mates #onhere is the perfect reason to pull it off the shelf and revel in its almost-certainly-musty goodness. ETA thanks to everybody who voted for it, 'cause I totally missed the whole nom and voting process.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Excited to see more 5th Season Love! Can't wait to talk about it Sunday!

Jonas, I hope you find something more like what you're hoping to read soon, enjoy your holidays!

Haha Beth, glad you're looking forward to Dreamsnake! I really enjoyed it, I'll be curious what others think.

Elowen, I hadn't heard that about Blood Heir! So interesting. You'll have to let us know how you feel at the end.

I just finished Walking to Aldebaran (loved it! Though...Red Rocket doesn't mean the same thing in British slang as American, I guess?) and The Riddle-Master of Hed (did not care for it! Am very sad!)

Now starting God Stalk for a buddy read and finally finishing 40,000 in Gehenna lol

[Kateb]

Rachel Adiyah wrote: "Mystic wrote: "30 years ago, isn't that old? It's definitely old for me, what I meant was that for someone like me who has read only the newer sci-fi books for example Dark Matter, Sleeping Giants,..."

fully agree
i have retired now after 45 years of working. i am re reading old series and also reading new series. Some old series have themes that are out dated, but some new series dont have any depth.

Then again it is interesting reading the differences in concepts over time. Some of the older books have concepts that today are accepted as " normal", others seem to indicate that they are the original ideas used for more modern books.

viva la difference

[DivaDiane]

Alison, I have no idea what red rocket as slang could mean in either British or American English! Please elaborate.

[DivaDiane]

Sorry for the lack of an L, Allison!

[CBRetriever]

Diane wrote: "Alison, I have no idea what red rocket as slang could mean in either British or American English! Please elaborate."

Urban Dictionary: https://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

It's quite vulgar, warning!

[DivaDiane]

Ewww. I’ve never heard that before. But then, I’ve been out of the country for 25 years.

[Jennifer]

Allison wrote: "It's quite vulgar, warning!"

I work at a veterinary hospital. Unfortunately it is a phrase I have heard often.

[CBRetriever]

I've always heard lipstick which is gross sounding too

[Mary]

Peace Talks by Jim Butcher

[David]

Jennifer wrote: "Allison wrote: "It's quite vulgar, warning!" I work at a veterinary hospital. Unfortunately it is a phrase I have heard often."

As a Briton who has also lived in Australia, I have never heard of this phrase, either - until I looked it up on google just now.

[Jennifer]

David wrote: "Jennifer wrote: "Allison wrote: "It's quite vulgar, warning!" I work at a veterinary hospital. Unfortunately it is a phrase I have heard often."

As a Briton who has also lived in Australia, I have..."

It could be one of those things that is said in the United States. Isn't it funny how things/phrases get to the mainstream...

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Oh my goodness, sorry to have derailed us so! I just meant to say it was the one thing that would pull me out of the story and I couldn't tell if Tchaikovsky was being cheeky or just happened to miss that one South Park episode however many decades ago lol

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished another collection of stories by original Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont:


Yonder by Charles Beaumont
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

As a result of finishing this collection, I have also read all the stories in these two Beaumont collections as was able to rate and review them as well - both are out of print but well worth picking up if you should happen to find them second-hand:


The Magic Man and Other Science-Fantasy Stories by Charles Beaumont
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...


The Edge by Charles Beaumont
Rating: 4 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I'm starting the final Beaumont collection, published posthumously and consisting of several unpublished stories:


A Touch of the Creature by Charles Beaumont

[Mystic]

I finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's a dystopian novel & that's all people need to know before reading it, most of you might not like it because it doesn't focus on the Sci-Fi aspects, I only read it because I really liked the title & was in the mood for something depressing. Turned out to be a great decision.

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

I wanted to read something more thrilling, fast paced & engaging after Never Let Me Go so now I'm reading You by Caroline Kepnes while also searching for my next Sci-Fi read.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Ishiguro is hugely popular here and in many speculative spaces! :) Glad you enjoyed it, Mystic.

[Karen]

I picked up Emergency Skin as an audible freebee, narrated by Jason Isaacs. Fast paced short.

Also getting more into The City in the Middle of the Night. Making myself leave the computer to pick up a book which hasn't been happening a lot lately.

My kindle read is Sleeping Giants which took off running and is making me take sneak peaks at my phone whenever I can.

Just finished listening to A Long Time Coming which was a light mystery about art theft.

[Carrie]

Mystic wrote: "I finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's a dystopian novel & that's all people need to know before reading it, most of you might ..."

I loved Never Let Me Go, it had been ages since I read it last.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

I finished:


Death's Master by Tanith Lee
Rating: 3 stars
Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

and I started reading:


The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin

Whew! I think that's it for me in July...

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Dang, RJ!

[Ines, Resident Vampire]

I was in the mood to revisit some sci-fi classics, so I'm rereading Foundation at the moment. I've first read it a long time ago and just listened to the audiobook two or three years ago, so I am enjoying myself a lot. Rereading the book makes me think the audio production I listened to was not that good.

[Jordan]

Okay, things I've finished recently:

The Worst Is Yet to Come. This was... fine? But in some ways it felt like it was just checking boxes off with its horror elements. Also I didn't really like any of the characters. They were all train wrecks, and not in an interesting kind of way. Apparently there are more books set in the same town, so I wonder if having read those would have helped.

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre. Just pure fun. I loved World War Z, so I was hoping that this one would be just as good. WWZ is still my favorite by far though, I liked the larger scale on it. This one has a much smaller focus on a limited group of people, which left me with more time to feel like the characters weren't as developed as I'd like.

Harrow County: Library Edition Volume 1. The art is gorgeous and the horror is... weirdly comforting? It's not like everyone is going to die horror, it's more like there are horrific beings and things that just are? Also, the art is fantastic.

Locke & Key, Volume 1: Welcome to Lovecraft. I read the first three volumes and I'm still on the fence about this. I love the keys and Keyhouse, but I'm not really caring about the characters and what's going on. I'll probably finish the series though since it's not too long.

Mexican Gothic. So atmospheric. Maybe a little too atmospheric. The middle just kind of was treading water for me. The creepiness had been established and then just went into a holding pattern. And then it got to the last bit and things went nuts and it was glorious. Will definitely check out more of her stuff.

Currently reading:

Red Sister. Still. I love this so much, but I somehow haven't had a lot of audiobook listening time lately. Hoping to finish it in the next couple days and go right to the next one. I love everything about this.

Big Stone Gap. This is one of my expand my reading horizons books. Also it's nice and light and basically stress free, which I really need sometimes. I'm enjoying it more than I thought so far.

Lords and Ladies. Love love love Pratchett. I may or may not put this one aside though as it's one I own and I just had several library books come in that I've been waiting for.

[Soo]

Jordan, can you talk more about Devolution without spoilers? I had planned on getting it on release day but I've held off because I don't like the female narrator voice that's in the sample. A lot of the reviews say that it's not a good story.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Allison wrote: "Dang, RJ!"

Right?!? That's 9 for the month, not including two short story collections that I "read" because all of their stories were in other collections that I finished. I think I'll take a nap now. After I read a few more pages of The Testaments that is....