1356 by Bernard Cornwell. Its cheesey typical damsel in destress stuff set in a bloody french chevauchée, but I'll be damned if it aint a whole lof of fun. Think the expanse, but with horses as worse charachters.
I loved his Warlord Chronicles trilogy, and I'm onto reading the Sharpe series now. In terms of story he definitely has a formula that he sticks to, but it's a really entertaining formula so I can't really fault him for it.
The Trouble With Peace, by Joe Abercrombie. Glad to be in a mood where I enjoy his cheerful cynicism again. Curious to see if any good deed in the whole long tale (this is book 7, depending on how you count) will remain unpunished though.
Currently reading Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder.
Is it particularly good? Honestly, no. I think all the characters except for the protagonist are frustrating, and if she ends up in a relationship with any one of them I'll be greatly disappointed.
Am I having fun? Kinda. I won't pick up the second book unless they introduce a great sequel hook, though.
Yes the book was first, and adapted for the movie. It's a trilogy. They did a good job on the adaptation, though there are some differences, as there always are. I'm reading it through my Library on Libby.
@lynn_literary@Kamirose and i am from Mastodon: about to start reading, "Don't Save Anything" by James Salter (would this comment be posted to both kbin and lemmy, as well as Mastodon in my home instance? That would be like magic)
I read this so many times that my hardback copy started breaking. You know how the edges of the outer cover about 2/3 of the way down start getting fuzzy from being held when you've taken off the dust jacket? Almost fuzzy enough to make into a rope for escaping from a tower.
Currently reading Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte, and in tandem I'm also going through HBR Project Management by Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez.
I'm restructuring my whole organization structure around PARA and CODE as described in BASB (It resonated with me because I realized I was already doing a form of PARA with my work files), and with that using Project Management as a primer for establishing how to complete my personal projects (I've always been bad at this because somehow I never registered personal stuff as projects in the way that I register my work projects). I'm an engineer so I have some project management experience, but I know I'm missing knowledge here and there so this is a twofer in educating myself on managing both my projects at work and my projects at home.
I'm also reading my way through *Hamlet *after becoming obsessed with the Kenneth Branagh adaptation. I've listened to two separate Librivox dramatizations and bought a dramatized version on Libro.fm.
I highly recommend the focus on the family Radio Theatre dramatization of Anne of Green Gables! Obviously focus on the family is highly problematic and this is no endorsement, but you can find the CD version used. The score and sound production is high quality, and Anne is played by Mae Whitman, who voices Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
I can vouch for Kobo! I bought a Kobo Forma earlier this year and it has quickly become my favorite device. It is both a very competently designed ereader, and not locked into the Amazon walled garden.
Cool thing about Dracula is that, because it is in the public domain, and because it is told through journal entries, it can be read in the real time of the entries. https://draculadaily.substack.com/ is a newsletter that sends you emails of the particular day's entries if you're into that. It's already well underway though, but could be fun for a reread next year
An author whose newsletter I am on, Joshua James, serialized HG Wells' "The War of the Worlds" in the run-up to the release of the first book in his tWotW-inspired alien invasion SF series. A chapter of tWotW was emailed each day. It was fun, especially since the chapters weren't overly long.
I thought that would be a fun substack to set up, sending out a public-domain classic one chapter at a time.
I'm re-reading Middlemarch by George Eliot. I had forgotten how funny it is in places, and what a wry and surprisingly modern voice she has (once you get used to the 19th Century writing style).
I usually have a print/ebook and an audio book (for the car) going at the same time.
For print book, currently reading Crooked Kingdom, one of the books in the Grishaverse series/world. I, uh, got a little obsessed after watching the first season of Shadow and Bone a year or two ago.
For audiobook, currently listening to Children of Ruin. Not too far into it yet, but I loved loved loved Children of Time (also listened to the audiobook version), so I'm excited to see where this one goes.
I really want to read Children of Time. I actually did start it and got half way through, but I have such an intense arachnophobia that I had to give up because I kept dreaming of spiders and waking up terrified. I enjoyed his writing style, though, and am curious about his new trilogy coming out.
Aah that's so rough, I'm sorry to hear that! I'm terrified of spiders IRL but fortunately it doesn't extend much to other media 😅
Is it the Final Architecture trilogy that's his new one? I've got the first book on my to-read list, but haven't gotten to it yet. It doesn't look like the audiobook has the same narrator as the Children of Time books, though, which is a bummer!
I'm in the middle of The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. I normally eat his books up quickly but this one has taken quite some time for me. Definitely my least favorite book of his so far, although I do enjoy parts of it.
I'm enjoying it, but I'll say that how to do nothing is a better book IMO. I actively recommend that to people. So far I don't think I'd tell someone to read how to save time unless they're already interested in the philosophy/ideas being expressed on consumerism and the relationship of socioeconomic class to how time is spent working, or they just really loved how to do nothing.
So with that if you're not already reading it I recommend the new book- my main criticism thus far is that it feels less focused than the prior book was. I think she was going for a non-linear approach as a metaphor for how time isn't necessarily linear, but something about that doesn't work well here and makes her points harder to retain and follow/connect. Or maybe that's just me. I could see myself rereading both books in the future though.