A community for all things related to Books.
At the moment I'm reading Dead Souls by Gogol. I've been at it for a while. It's a bit heavy for a summer read, but I'm enjoying it somewhat. It's fun to see all the colorful characters that come across, but I have the idea a lot is going over my head as I'm not that familiar with the Russia of that time. It's sad quite a bit is missing of the second part.
Only about 70 pages left. The next book will definitely be something lighter...
I have heard it mentioned before, but yeah, seems a bit heavy. Apparently the people the protagonist meet "typify the Russian middle aristocracy of the time", so yeah, not knowing much about the Russia of that time may diminish the book.
Yeah, and of course the superficial stuff is easy to grasp, like one character is lazy, or the other more of a dreamer who achieves nothing. But you feel like there are things going over your head.
Currently Reading:
The Passage - Justin Cronin, just as I feared. Just like the first time (over a decade ago), I felt myself losing interest as time skip hits. The new characters were many and ... uninteresting. Many are killed off before even fully developed, which dulled the effect. Currently chapter 46, bit eager to finish it up.
Well, the book just might not be for you, no point in forcing yourself when there is so much else to read. Though if you have reached chapter 46, might as well finish the first book at least.
might as well finish the first book at least.
That I'll do. It's kind of frustrated, I do love the premises and love the first part. But for some reason the new characters just simply doesn't click with me. I am now in "The Haven", something is not right here, it might get interesting.
I felt like that in the first few chapters after the time jump, but then got used to these characters. Hope you atleast enjoy the ending!
Oh, I got used to the characters, I just doesn't find them interesting.
spoiler
The fact that "The Haven" is making deals with the smokes is not surprising, in fact I guessed it the moment it bought up how the fact the idea of “The Haven" is a impossibility. Of course, this is might only because the books has been out for over a decade and the same idea has been used over and over.
Heh.
As for the spoilery part, I guessed that too. But at this point in the book, you have to know that something's up.
Are you going to continue the series?
Continuing the series, most not likely.
Just finished The dark forest, by Cixin Liu. As far as I read this sci-fi trilogy, I think I enjoy it very much. Now starting the last novel in the series, Death's End, by Cixin Liu.
Have you watched the show? How would you compare it with the book?
No, I always prefer reading novels before any movie/show because otherwise it disturbs the way I imagine the characters.
I'm still finishing up with Good Omens by Neil Gaiman, but I got a Kobo ereader recently and have started to read The Strand by Stephen King. I have 36hrs to go apparently!
36 hours! That's long. Though, that's mostly how King's books are.
Apparently, King went back and re-edited/revised The Stand to add things he liked and remove stuff he thought was pointless narrative, which made the book even longer.
I may also be reading a little slower to fully take in the words I'm reading. I think I have a habit of reading too fast and so I'm not really taking in a fuller picture of what I'm reading. So, not sure if that also factors in?
I didn't like The Stand much. I read it a long time ago, and was pretty young back then, but I always though the book would've been great if he had just cut out half of the stuff.
Funny story, for a long time I kept confusing it with The Shining, and whenever people would mention Shining as his best work, I would always reply that well, it was just okay, and too long. It was only somewhat recently when I figured out that The Stand is a different book and I have never actually read The Shining 😀
Apparently, in 1990, it "was reprinted as The Complete & Uncut Edition. King restored over 400 pages of text that had been removed from his original manuscript, revised the order of the chapters, shifted the novel's setting 10 years forward from 1980 to 1990, and accordingly corrected a number of cultural references." according to Wikipedia.
I haven't been able to put the book down but, I think I can see where young you was coming from. I've just got up to where a lot of stuff kicks off and that's at least 600 pages in with 2200 odd left. The Shining is 447...
But, I absolutely loved The Shining and would recomend going to read the actual version of it, and not it's strange much longer cousin, lol. It's one of my favourites, along with Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman and Dissolution by C.J. Samson
Making it even longer? I just checked my copy, it's the 80s version, with only 800 or so pages.
I'll check out The Shining, and the other favourites you have mentioned.
Apologies, it's 1153 pages. It's 2830 on the reader though. But, yes, he restored 400 pages that had originally been removed from the original.
I would like to read The Shining again. Maybe later this year, or next.
Enjoy :)
I’ve currently got three on the go, because I’m like that. For my non-fiction, read-with-my-eyes selections, there’s two.
First, The Rebellious Life Of Mrs. Rosa Parks by Jeanne Theoharis has been really interesting. I’m not American, and so didn’t learn about her more than “she helped kick start the civil rights movement in the US by refusing to give up her seat on the bus”. It’s weird how much her story has been written over and forgotten, and I’ve enjoyed learning about her and all of her efforts, not just the single one she’s known for.
Next up, The Little Book Of Satanism by La Carmina has been fascinating. I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of religion, but am an avid atheist. I am however quite familiar with the history of how Christianity grew and took over the western world before morphing into the unrecognizable behemoth it is today, and with it, some incredibly toxic ideas have grown as well. The history of the idea of satan lives in this same ideology, and this book explores the history of where the idea of a devil comes from, and explains how the thing that Christians fear most sprang up from their own ideas. Fascinating stuff.
And lastly, I’m listening to Witch King by Martha Wells while I’m at work, and I’m going to be honest here, but I really don’t have a clue what’s going on in this story. I’m going to have to return to this book again one day, and probably read it with my eyes instead of my ears. The story is interesting, though, despite my struggle to follow along
I should look up The Rebellious Life Of Mrs. Rosa Parks, it sounds pretty interesting
It is! Turns out she had spent a lifetime fighting back. It wasn’t just some isolated incident, and she was far from the first person to refuse to give up her seat. The book sets all this straight.
Just finished "Taking to Strangers" by Malcolm Gladwell. Currently reading "The Rise of Endymion" by Dan Simmons.
Will be looking for more sci-fi or sci-fi/horror to read next.
How is Talking to Strangers?
It was pretty good. Interesting look into why exactly we are unable to tell when people are being truthful or not. It discusses a lot of different situations like spies being found in intelligence agencies, judges/law enforcement, or the efficacy of "enhanced interrogation tactics". It also touches on high profile cases like Nassar, Maddof, Bland etc.
I picked Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin back up, and am now about 2/3 of the way through. It's a fast read, and I'm enjoying it, despite my irrational dislike of first person present tense.
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Finally finished On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. If you like Pirates of the Caribbean or Monkey Island, with a random dude getting caught up in a swashbuckling pirate adventure, this ticks (almost) all the boxes (it's not humorous). I was pleasantly surprised that the magic system makes reference to actual vodou, rather than just the pop culture version, and that there's a bits of history in the background you may recognize if you like pirate stuff. The pacing is a series of lulls and swells of action, rather than a steady build to a single climax (although there is a final culmination of events); I was never bored, but I also didn't find it un-put-downable, and I'm not sure how much of that was the writing, and how much was being too sleepy to read more than a few pages a night.
Bingo squares: Water, Water Everywhere; What's Yours Is Mine (probably hard mode?); Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie; Stranger in a Strange Land (hard mode); (alt) A Change in Perspective
I just finished Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks. It was very good
I read Consider Phlebas long time ago, and didn't like it enough to continue the series. It has been long enough that maybe I should give the series another try.
IMO it's the weakest of the series. The next two books, The Player of Games or Use of Weapons are much better, at least to me. Use of Weapons is great, but has a somewhat challenging narrative structure of two intermixed timelines, so if that's not your thing The Player of Games would probably be a good one to try.
Thanks for the recommendation. Will re-read the first book (it has been so long I don't really remember anything from it) and then read the next one to see if the series if for me or not.
Have you read the other Culture books, or is this your first one? I just found out now that there's [email protected] that could use some posts if you have anything you want to share about it. If you haven't read it yet (or if anybody else is curious for a quick taste of the series), here's the author writing a few notes on it:
http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm
I thought this was also a good read, though it does have a few spoilers across the first few books:
Nope, this was my first one. I read a lot of SF/hard SF but it took me a while to get on to this series even though it is pretty famous. It was really well written in my opinion which is not always common in the genre. I have now started the second book.
As an aside, I will always take an opportunity to recommend my favorite SF author, Alastair Reynolds. His stuff is 🤌
Nice! It's been a while since I've read any of his stuff. I should be done with my current book soon, what are a few of your favorites from him?
A fun standalone one is Hous of Suns, not part of any of his larger collections. In the Revelation Space series, Chasm City is a good one which can also be done by itself, or The Prefect (formerly Aurora Rising, not sure what the details of the name situation are) which is the first of a trilogy set within the Rev Space series and is tangentially related to Chasm City.