what's everyone reading?

[amos]

I think VNs count as reading. Fata Morgana is really good!

[turnip_juice]

I've been slacking on reading for the last few years, but finally started to get through Le Guin books with A Wizard of Earthsea which I enjoyed quite a bit. I think I got used to fantasy books being quite big so a few files I got to read on the Ebook and seeing that it was around 150 pages (I forgot the exact amount I was getting through) and thinking something like "did I get like a compressed version of something?" and it was really refreshing to read something brief (idk if it's a right word) like that. I lived most of my life near the sea in quite mountainous/hilly region and going through all the descriptions of seas and shores and harsh winds and rocky slopes gave me a nostalgic feeling for an imaginary place and just a pleasure to visualize in my mind. Also I was reading it in english and had to look up quite a lot of translations for various names of of seafaring professions and terms, plants and trees ( I honestly don't really remember a lot of tree/plant names in my native language and what they represent but I'm making an effort )

Also just recently started The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin and can't say much yet...But I'll try to update as I get through it.

[amos]

I had the same experience reading Left Hand of Darkness after a big break in reading, since I finished it in like 2 afternoons... turns out fantasy can be quite breezy!

Three Body Problem has been on my list for ages, I really wanna get around to it some time soon too.

[Wascie]

left hand of darkness is soooo breezy. It really did it for me and I could see myself reading it again not too long from now.

i have not been able to read more of john carter's barsoom adventures due to fatigue from robert e howardisms, but I'm reading Guards! Guards! on my discworld journey and it is always warm to come back to these since they are just such silly page-turners.

[onza]

three body is really really good at a lot of fun scifi concepts and crazy imagery and i think really less good at, like, 'characters', and the ultimate 'point' is kind of pessimistic, all the stereotypes of 'written by an engineer' ring true but i think the whole thing's definitely still wroth a read and not stupid whatsoever.


my first and still probably fav le guin is The Lathe of Heaven im from seattle its so short story chill

[amos]

I finished up Unlimited Blade Works the other day. I'm starting to see the good parts of FSN, but you really have to crawl through a lot to get there. Every time they said "I am the bone of my sword..." all I could think of is Ian McKellen's face.

The early bit of Heaven's Feel are pretty good so far, I feel like it's going to make good use of the fact that I've already gone through & seen most of the characters twice. I'm also a fan of the slight horror flavour it's going for at the start, I feel like UBW especially glossed over some of that aspect.

[amos]

doubleposting... Heaven's Feel was the definite highlight of FSN, but it's impossible to recommend since it comes with 500k shonen fic as required reading. I'm really mixed on it, but I had some fun with FSN or else I would've dropped it a week or two ago.

[carly rae jetfuel]

I really like Left Hand of Darkness - I read it twice this year, the second time for a book club which popped up in my area. I am definitely out of practice reading though because I really struggled to visualise the descriptions of the terrain and navigation thereof. The next book we're reading is White Nights by Dostoevsky but I'm not far into that yet.

I finished Foundation by Peter Ackroyd earlier this year which was a really fun general introduction to English history up to beginning of the Tudors, focussing mainly on the key events involving the monarchy but also giving broad overviews of daily life (housing, crime, food etc) for the average person, though annoyingly it's not very specific about the time period for these. My next history book is SPQR by Mary Beard.

I'm also about half-way through Pride and Prejudice and having a good time. I was not aware that Jane Austen was actually very funny.

three body is really really good at a lot of fun scifi concepts and crazy imagery and i think really less good at, like, 'characters', and the ultimate 'point' is kind of pessimistic, all the stereotypes of 'written by an engineer' ring true but i think the whole thing's definitely still wroth a read and not stupid whatsoever.

I agree with this though I'd be slightly less charitable as the author seems like kind of an asshole.

VN chat: I still need to finish Misericorde Vol. 2 and I am super excited for ggdg's Soul of Soverign Ch.3.

[margo]

i've been trying to read more as it's something i enjoy and makes my brain feel normal but as always i find myself always distracted by either drawing or watching movies which i find both equally productive activities...

i finished "masters of doom" recently which was a really fun read but kind of just made me mostly ruminate about how much easier it was to sort of slum it and chase ones dreams in 80s and 90s america. now i'm re-reading roland barthes "a lover's discourse" because the first go around i struggled with the prose but i guess i've exposed myself to enough flowery academic writing it makes way more sense to me now. the books below are things i picked up today after a long bike ride. i can't resist buying a physical book even though i have an e-reader...but i tell myself i'm simply supporting a local business and that these books can be put to good use later. i read a collection of james baldwin essays a couple years ago and thought it kind of funny i had only read giovanni's room so i'm excited to read another single work by him.



also, i'm curious, does anyone have any poetry recommendations? my friends are fond of frank o'hara but i'm unsure where to go from there. i was looking at the poetry books in the store and realized i had no idea what i would consider worth reading since every contemporary book i opened an flipped through struck me as kind of kitschy...but i definitely like poetry...maybe i'm the one who needs to change.

i'd like to get into vn reading again. i keep telling myself for japanese practice i'll read through the pc-98 'shizuku' as i'm interested in the sort of undefinability of denpa lately. i also downloaded subarashiki hibiki which i'm curious from both a pop culture standpoint and also because i have two friends who's opinions i respect view it as "kino" and "unreadable childish slop" respectively.

[higadoyrinon]

I enjoyed reading Sapiens a couple years ago. Thought it had some very interesting things.

I started reading Crying of Lot 49 but kinda fell off of it because I think I was reading it too late and even if I think I'm alright at English when reading it I realized it might be a bit more challenging than I thought and it makes it worse if I'm already getting sleepy. I will get back to it though. I was recommended to get more acclimated to Pynchon's style with V and then move on to CoL49.

I'm currently reading a spanish translation of I Am A Cat now.