What Else are you Reading - 2025

[Tina]

Stephen wrote: "I am reading the The Winter King Bernard Cornwell's Arthurian tale."

This is up next for me as well.

I want to get another take on the King Arthur legends — I just finished Taliesin ( I don’t know if I’ll read more in this series or not) and The Hollow Hills (2nd in Mary Stewart’s Arthurian series — I may read more in this series).

[Phil]

Finished The Swords of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber, the 5th book in the series. I believe it's the only one that's a novel, albeit a short one; the rest are all short story and novella collections.
I really enjoyed this one. It involved some wererats leading sentient rats to plague (ha!) Lankhmar and one of our heroes shrinking down to rat size and the other gets mixed up with a ghoul girl. It was good fun and adventure.
I kept thinking it would make a good basis for a D&D adventure and remembered they did make some Lankhmar supplements for the game around 40 years ago. I'll have to go dig into my boxes.

Next is Anima Rising by Christopher Moore.

[Silvana]

Rereading The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. Maybe after this I'll try Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang or a scifi book. Or maybe straight to the new R.F Kuang novel Katabasis which will be released three days from now.

[Stephen]

I am reading two books that are the 3rd in the trilogy. Excalibur by Bernard Cornwell, the 3rd inn his take on the Arthurian Myths and The Damned King by Justin Lee Anderson, the 3rd book in the Eidyn Saga.

[Tamahome]

I finally finished Blindsight. I feel like I just caught a ball without seeing it.

[John (Nevets)]

I've said it before but I'm pretty sure Blindsight is the book I dislike the most but have finished. It's been so long now, I don't remember what upset me so much, but I remember disliking it so much, but felt I should finish for the book club. I think it was one of the first times I was trying to read along with the pick. Since then I've learned to either not start or lem books that are that much not my thing.

That being said, I'm glad there are folks out there that enjoy it, and it's just important to remember that not everything has to be for everyone.

[Tamahome]

I didn't really understand it, but maybe one of my three other personalities will decode it for me in the background. Actually, the Methods of Rationality podcast just did 12 episodes on it called "Blindsided".

I'm trying to read Gaskell's North and South, which has the first girl boss, Margaret Hale. It has a good tv adaption. Turn and look at me!

[Scott]

Just finished The Overstory by Richard Powers for a local in person book club. I doubt I would have picked it to read on my own initiative, but I'm glad I read it. It's hard to categorize. Its complex structure, rich characters, and deep exploration of its theme mark it as literary fiction. The book cover describes it as "eco-fiction" and that label also fits. I would say it ventures at times into an almost surreal sense of magical realism.

The novel begins with Roots, which read almost as separate short stories of families and people with no connective tissue between them beyond an underlying thematic one. The next section, Trunk, is a wild plot ride that at every step leaves you wanting to know what happens next. It builds and builds and any comment I make could spoil the journey. The aftermath of Trunk spins into Crown, which slows the pace and explores a number of things, but not least what comes after an intense shared experience when people go their separate ways. And as the stories of the main characters in the novel wind down, we move to Seeds, hints and pointers at what comes next and perhaps that some of the messages in the novels characters understood one way at the time really held a pretty different meaning.

I struggled a bit through Roots because it felt more like thematically related short stories and while I can enjoy that format it doesn't tend to be my favorite. But then Trunk swept me away and I never looked back. Read the rest of the book today. The novel is not a light or easy read, but I found it well worth the effort.

[Seth]

I feel like it's been a while since I read a new book that I really liked, but it happened - The Raven Scholar is pretty fun. It's got a bunch of elements that seem to work well together - a tournament of magicians, lots of political intrigue, a murder to solve, the past coming back to haunt characters, plenty of twists and turns. Looking forward to the next in the series.

[Tamahome]

Ok, I started A Fire Upon the Deep. Hard sf like Blindsight. In fact they go right next to each other in the bookstore. I could live without the primitive society the doggies are in.

[Chris K.]

Seth wrote: "I feel like it's been a while since I read a new book that I really liked, but it happened - The Raven Scholar is pretty fun. It's got a bunch of elements that seem to work well to..."

100%. This is my favorite read of the year so far.

[Silvana]

Finished with Hemlock & Silver - pretty cool.

Starting Automatic Noodle.