What book are you currently reading?

[Antiokhos Euergetes]

I recently listened to the Alien series on Audible. I was pleasantly surprised, because I must admit I went in expecting to be disappointed.

[Narf]

Currently reading: The Blade itself

[TheDarkKnight]

World War Z and The Night Eternal have been finished. WWZ was really good though I have a hard time believing society could "recover" so quickly. Fascinating way to tell a story though.

And of course the movie adaptation was so spot on

The Night Eternal, along with the rest of the Strain trilogy, was pretty good. Could have been better but I really liked the overall lore. and I wish the story had had more lore opportunities.

23 for the year.

[Bande Nere]

Anyone in here a Tony Hillerman fan?

[Cyclops]

I've been reading to Cyclops Jnr a lot, we started the Hobbit again and he loves the absurd opening with the variously dressed Dwarves arriving to Bilbo's discomfiture.

For my work day commute I've resumed Tristram Shandy, which again is absurdism at its highest pitch. There's a handful of familiar yet lovingly drawn characters (cranky crackpot father, PTSD'd uncle, loyal manservant etc) and the story is told as an anti-novel, deliberating failing to complete scenes in the allotted time, dwelling self referentially in the author's shortcomings and botchinmg simpole structural elements like chapters (some are on line, others drag on) or even basic typesetting (it has hand-drawn descriptive doodles and one page blacked out in mourning for a sad loss). Uncle Toby is a bizarrely comic character, absurd humour from Poe to The Office descends through this almighty farce (which practically ranks with it mighty progenitor Don Quixote for silliness) and with Joyce and Tolkien (variously) for its deliberate exercise in socially nuanced academic drollery.

Its hard wading through the 18th century idiom, but most rewarding. I laugh two or three times each page, and sometimes have to put it down for a spell to fully appreciate a joke. At other times I'm hunting through the footnotes to make sense of the dense wordplay (often it turn out to be just a bum joke). It has a startlingly large catalogue of unique English words, often only appearing in a single instance.

Sterne is a genius, one of the greats in a great century for writers.

[Bande Nere]

Hey folks, I'd like to invite you to check the Tale of the Week here on TWC and, why not, vote for your tale of preference among the current three. I'm not in the contest but I'd like for it to "revive"... Hope you will check them, they are short and won't take away much of your time, but they are all quite interesting IMO...

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@Cyclops

A billion years ago my mother got me this beautiful, huge copy of the Hobbit with illustrations and such. Still have it to this day. Are you going to start him on LOTR soon?

I'll have to check this Laurence Sterne fellow at the local international library here...

[Basileos Leandros I]

Reading quite a few at the moment, particularly Ardennes 1944 (about the Ardennes Offensive in WW2) and The Toy Makers (novel set around WW1).

[Cyclops]

...

@Cyclops

A billion years ago my mother got me this beautiful, huge copy of the Hobbit with illustrations and such. Still have it to this day. Are you going to start him on LOTR soon?

No, too long and sad. Maybe when he is 10. He loves the illustrations in the Hobbit, they fascinate him as they still do me.

...I'll have to check this Laurence Sterne fellow at the local international library here...

Look its a bit of a disease, and you have to like long winded old fashioned books. James Joyce Ulysses is very much a tribute to Tristram Shandy, but I can't get into it. You may find it dull, but if you're pedantic and have read enough boring old literature its very droll.

[Narf]

Reading The Fifth Season, very weird book! Its presented and told in YOU format, like: You walked down the street and enjoyed the weather. Refreshing. Also if you like Avatar, this is a whole story of earthbenders.

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

Finished Vagabond, best manga I've ever read in my life (made me laugh & cry).
Takehiko Inoue is an unparalleled master.
He's inspired me to be better.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Also finished The Batman Who Laughs.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Scott Snyder delivers once again.
Here's a little excerpt that goes to the heart of the matter:

'No, Joker says that to ACCEPT that there's no meaning in your actions is to WIN. I say, to BELIEVE there is meaning in ALL your actions is to WIN.
That demon, what he says is that there is NO MEANING in your actions, therefore the only meaningful act is to WIN.'

This paragraph alone describes the Joker, the Batman and his evil alter-ego, The Batman Who Laughs, perfectly.

[Cyclops]

I'm reading Persians: Age of the Great Kings by Lloyd Llewellyn Jones. He's a smug smarmy twit who babbles about how his history is not like those other, he uses PeRsiIaN sOuRcEs. He proceeds to use Hellenic authors like Herodotus and Ctesias, actively promoting the latter as more trustworthy.

Strange I seem to recall Ctesias giving far more gossipy rumours such as the a manticore (and this was way before D&D 1st edition) , and Herodotus giving multiple accounts for events like an actual historian.

Jones repeatedly states Nisaean horses were stocky chariot ponies, the Argives sent troops to join Xerxes invasion of Hellas and other bizarre nonsense. There are also irritating spelling errors (Ctesias is variously from Cindus and Cnidus). Apparently editors have died out.

When the author is not embarrassing himself this book is little more than a cobbling together of some recent scholarship around the various inscriptions being unearthed and translated, but poses as a some sort of game changing rewrite.

I particularly wince when he gabbles on about Herodotus' "malign cobbling together a story" (even as he relies on it) and then passes Ctesias court gossip as fact.

Poorly edited, poorly written, self satisfied incompetent twit of an author. Not worth buying.

[Cleitus the Pink]

Currently reading Pachinko, a historical-fiction novel that takes place in the 20th century Korea/Japan regions. The story begins in the late 1910s when Korea was a Japanese colony with a small family of 2, a mother and daughter that own a boardinghouse in some village near Busan, a city in the south of the Korean peninsula. Eventually the daughter is seduced and impregnated by a very wealthy Korean man. At the same time a kind Christian minister has arrived in their boardinghouse with the intent to go to Japan and live with his brother there. He notices her plight and offers to marry her to save her family the disgrace of bearing a bastard child. So the girl breaks up with the rich Korean and quickly marries the Christian minister (of course converting to Christianity beforehand) and they set sail for Japan to start a new life as undesirables in a country of , to them, racist non-believers. The rest you should yourself find out as it's a fairly long novel. I highly recommend it, the characters are extremely believable and human, the historical setting and the themes of the imperialism, colonialism, war and xenophobia are conveyed very vividly through the subtle, visceral and realistic lens of the author (herself a Korean).

[Narf]

Started on the Wise Man's Fear

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

Saucy Scandalous Savory Sad Sublime

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Akar]

Read What if? by Randal Munroe and How to: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions - also by Munroe.

I've just started reading Reality Is Not What It Seems by Carlo Rovelli.

Up next I've got either Revolutionary Suicide by Huey Newton or Slouching to Bethlehem by Joan Didion.

[Narf]

Just finished reading the Gentleman Bastards trilogy, is about a group of thieves in a fantasy world with wondrous architecture, strange alchemy and a smidgen of magic. None of which the group have, so they gotta try to outsmart, outwit, or outrun their problems. Imagine the terrible fate and karma in store for a group that toasts like this: “To us — richer and cleverer than everyone else!”. Yeahh... Everything goes fine..

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

Great premise, poor delivery.





Entertaining, yet predictable.
Gave it away to a random girl in a pub

[Akar]

Finished up Reality Is Not What It Seems as well as both Revolutionary Suicide and Slouching Towards Bethlehem as well as three Jack Handy books, Deep Thoughts, Deeper Thoughts, and Deepest Thoughts. A couple weeks ago I finished up The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson which I would definitely recommend reading and now I've started on The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes which is a fascinating and well written but massive 800 page tome.

I also finished listening to the first two Mistborn books and am 2/3rds of the way through the final one - huge fan. I've got Narf to thank for getting me hooked since she bought me the first one.

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

Have you ever wondered why George R.R. Martin wears that stupid hat?
Well, that's a steamboat captain's hat.

George has never left the river.



Great book.

[Kyriakos]

Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said - by P.K.Dick.
Now in chapter 2, 2/5 in.
It is nice, the usual Dick theme of inverted image and loss of identity.