What book(s) are you currently reading or listening? October 29

Just started listening to the audiobook version of Robert Caro's "The Power Broker," about Robert Moses and New York. Will also check out the book from library in case it has pictures or diagrams.

99% Invisible did a 10-part series on the book this year, so will be toggling back and forth to hear the commentary as well.

The audiobook is around 60 hours. Guessing this all will keep me busy for a couple of months.

Just finished "The Message," by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Highly recommended.

Radicalized by Cory Doctorow. It's an anthology of four short stories that all share a common theme of dystopian applications of technology. So in other words... Pretty much on brand for the author and it's well done so far.

Kind of like Black Mirror (TV show)?
- Nah the stories are a little more hopeful. Like one about toasters that work like a Keurig machine and this refugee community learning how to hack them to work on unauthorized products after the company whose servers that authorize the bread goes bankrupt.

October by China Mieville

Perfect month to read it in!

I'm currently reading "The Coming Insurrection" by "The Invisible Committee"

How are you liking it?
- I am loving it. It is written in a very poetic language and really makes you reflect. In my case, it also generates a nihilistic feeling towards society and the possibility of change. It is a call to insurrection; it shows you, in an aesthetic and philosophical way, that there is no other way out but rebellion.

Just finished The Waiting by Michael Connelly and haven't started the next book yet.

How is the series? I have The Black Echo (first Harry Bosch) book but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.
- I love it, read all the books. I particularly enjoy the Lincoln lawyer series, but Bosch is great too. I read them in order starting with The Black Echo, and the series is consistently good. It's worth reading in order to have an understanding of Bosch's career and life progression.
  
  I'd say Michael Connelly is my favorite author. The only book I didn't really enjoy was "Chasing the Dime".

I'm currently reading the first book of the 3 body problem series. Still trying to decide if I like it or not even though I'm almost done with it.

I've read the English translations of the trilogy. If you like mystery, high-concept sci-fi, and epic storytelling, the series is pretty terrific. But if your into rounded and compelling characters, especially if those characters are women, your going to have a bad time.

Kinda reminds me of classic authors like Heinlein.
- I've never read anything by Heinlein, is there a particular book you would recommend?
Been wanting to read this, but I'm halfway through book 7 of 8 of the witcher series, and I don't want to leave the series undone before switching to the next book. The witcher series has been great, but this book is getting slow and hard to finish.

I finally got bored enough on a plane to watch the 3 body problem TV show. Based on liking the TV show, I'm hoping I'm gonna like the book too.
- I watched half of the first episode before it was mentioned to me that there were already elements of the second book there. To keep me interested in the tv show, I decided to read the books first but I'm glad to hear you enjoyed it.

I listen to A Night in the Lonesome October every October. It's the diary of Jack the Rippers dog from October 1'st to October 31'st.

How are you liking it? It was recently recommended to me in another thread, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
- I really like it. This is probably my 10 listen. If you can find the version read by the author it's better than the other audio book version.

I read Mur Lafferty's Station Eternity and then Chaos Terminal. I enjoyed them buuuuuuttttt... Station Eternity had hints that there may have been a breadcrumb mystery to solve outside of the narrative. After reading the second book, I think it was just plot holes, or else tokens that the author thought were wrapped up that I didn't catch. Either way, having lost what I thought was a clever puzzle to solve, I'd say both books were pulpy.

Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky

I've been on a bit of a Tchaikovsky binge lately. I read Children of Time years ago and enjoyed it, but for whatever reason, didn't read anything else by him then. I had a copy of Made Things knocking around though, and I finally read it a few weeks ago and was so impressed I started reading him in earnest. This is the... let's see... seventh book of his I've read lately.

He sort of reminds me of Michael Crichton. He's not a particularly notable prose stylist - his writing is entirely competent and sufficient, but not in any way really remarkable. But he tells very imaginative stories very well, so he's a satisfying read.

This one is a sort of political thriller wrapped around a mystery that plays out a bit like a science fiction update of a Lovecraftian eldritch abomination story, leavened a bit with Emily St. John Mandel style misfit spaceship crew slice of life. I'm enjoying it.

I have his Shadow of the Apt series, though haven't started it yet. Your comparison with Michael Crichton is making me want to start it soon.
- I haven't read those yet, but I intend to. And I expect that, like every one I've read yet, they'll be solid 7 or 8 out of 10 books.
  
  That's the thing that reminded me of Crichton. He has that same ability to start with some fascinating idea and run with it and deliver a solid, well-told and satisfying story, then move on to some completely different fascinating idea and run with it and deliver another solid, well-told and satisfying story. He's not locked into any specific genre or any specific approach to telling a story - just whatever works for that idea, that's what he does, and it just works.
I bought shards of the earth but I'm currently reading wheel of time again! Hopefully I like it!
Service Model was excellent.

Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson. It's the Third book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. I just started it but the second book blew my mind. I really enjoyed the first book, Gardens of the Moon but at times it came across as a bit generic fantasy perhaps aimed at a bit of a younger audience but Deadhouse Gates fully flipped that on its head. For a high fantasy series the battles of 'the chain of dogs' in Deadhouse Gates particularly stood out to me as some of the best depictions of historical warfare I've ever read. While a few battles from the entire wheel of time series stick with me I don't think I'll ever forget the chain of dogs. Looking forward to seeing what's to come from book 3. Highly recommend the Malazan Book of the Fallen if you're into high fantasy. Don't be intimidated by the crazy wordcounts, they're easy reading so far.

Oh man, I finished that series last year. Definitely some incredible parts, but it also drags a bit at the end. It finished with like 2000 pages of matching through a desert which was rough, but by that point you've read enough that you can't stop.

Younger audience is a crazy critique though, I can't say I ever though that.
- Haha it was mostly the Crokus centred part I got that impression from, plus a few other elements like edgy Anomander Rake. I got that impression a bit with the daru cabal plot but it is probably too harsh a criticism for most of the book.
- Man, spoilers much? So much of the beauty of book four was having that click in my brain. There's a reason Erikson doesn't use his real name through dead house gates....
  
  Not sure if Lemmy supports comment spoilers but that would have been the time to use them, might not be too late to prevent others from getting spoiled.

I'm currently on Children of Dune. I've listened to the core six a few times on audio book but figured I'd actually put the time into reading them. Its honestly pretty close to a first time experience. There was so many little things sprinkled throughout that I totally missed in audio book.

Currently reading There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, which involves a department of the SCP Foundation dealing with entities that delete memories, communication, etc. I don't intend to go down the SCP rabbit hole, but I'm finding the book inventive and enjoyable so far.

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Read Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge. Short, fun, mindless Halloween action horror.

Bingo squares: Family Drama; Eazy, Breazy, Read-zie; Now a Major Motion Picture; It's About Time; Award Winner; It's a Holiday (hard); (alt) A Change in Perspective

Dark Harvest looks interesting.

What's There is no Animemetics Division? Series of web novels?
- It looks like Antimemetics was originally posted online as a series of entries and short stories, as part of the SCP universe, which is an online collaborative fiction project (wikipedia for more info ). From a quick search, it seems some (all of?) it is still available if you look up 'qntm' on the SCP wiki, but I'm not sure if the self-published release included rewrites or additional material.

Finished Rhythm of War. The end hit hard, and I'm definitely impatiently waiting for Wind and Truth now.

Rhythm of War Spoilers

Right after Kaladin jumps through the battle for the tower were all super emotional, and I also really enjoyed Eshonai's last ride with the Stormfather. I had kind of been holding out hope that she was Venli's spren somehow, but I appreciated giving her that send off, at least.

I have used hard copies of Edgedancer and Dawnshard that should be showing up today to add to my collection, so I'll probably start into those.

In the meantime I read book 5 of CJ Archer's Glass Library series, The Secret of the Lost Ledgers. I think I prefer Glass and Steele over Glass Library so far, but that's partly because magic was more secretive at the start of the arc.

edit: the novellas are itty bitty.

I wish I could experience all of Sanderson's books again for the first time and agree Rythm of War was great! I can't wait to get to Wind and Truth either. Being an audio book only guy though I'm going to have to wait a bit longer until I can continue that story!

Have you read Mistborn?
- I'm mostly an audiobook guy, though I have both hardcover and audiobook preordered. I doubt I'll really read the physical copies, but I recently decided to refresh my bookshelves with some of my favorites just for the sake of having them and the Stormlight Archive quickly became a favorite once I finally buckled down and just bought all the audiobooks to listen straight through.
  
  I've read some of his random smaller stuff. I thought the premise of Rithmatist could have been a pretty fun VR game. I haven't read Mistborn yet, but it's definitely on my radar. One of my biggest things is availability, though. My binge on physical books the last couple weeks was an outlier, but I generally can't afford to actually buy anywhere near as many books as I read. They're mostly not as substantial as Stormlight Archive, but according to goodreads my new books this year are still comfortably in the triple digits, so I need libraries and subscription libraries to fill in most of the volume or I'd go broke pretty quickly. I definitely want to read Mistborn, but I'll probably wait a while, because my self control on buying books can get me in trouble if I'm not careful.

Am I the only one irked by the improper grammar on this weekly post going back months? How has it not been corrected yet? In a community full of readers.

Umm... what's wrong? And what would be the correct version of that?
- Probably "what book are you listening?"
  
  No one else has complained because no one cares lol.

Finished Lawrence Block's Evan Tanner series, and am now on the 2nd book of his Matthew Scudder series. The Scudder books will be a re-read for me up until about book 4 or 5. I hope to finish them all this time around.

Two books:

Bullshit jobs by David Graeber
Crack-up capitalism by Quinn Slobodian

BS Jobs was good!
- Good to hear. I just started it.

I’m currently reading Five Tales by Herman Melville. I also have a Herman Melville short stories book waiting for me at my library.

No Shortcuts: Organizing for power in the new gilded age by Jane McAlevey. If you are a leadership type I suggest it. Organizing labor is important given the times we are in.

Interesting, will check it out. How are you liking it so far?

I'm enjoying "The Overstory" by Richard Powers for my fiction fix.

Just got in the mail today, currently on chapter 3, "The art of receiving and giving" by Betty Martin. This one I'm going to have to read piecewise.

Just looked up The Art of Receiving and Giving and it sounds interesting. Do share how you are liking it as you read it.
- I'll try to.
  
  Related: I'm new to lemmy, is there such a thing as a remindme bot? Or should I just write a reminder message in the last page of the book to myself ;)

Iron Coffins by Herbert Werner

It's a memoir by one of the handful of Uboat Captains who survived WWII.

That's an interesting topic. How are you liking the book?

Hey Dressy!

Hope you are well, bet you can't guess what I've been listening to ;p So as always Deathlands has been on rotation and I am just finishing number 25 and still enjoying it.

Other than those I listened to a couple of Goosebumps books. They were fun, I'm not sure how old your son / daughter (?) is but I would suggest giving one a try if they are interested in reading some light horror. They weren't to graphic but still enough to instill a good, slightly unsettling image in parts that I imagine someone younger would find a little scary but in a good way if they were interested in horror as a genre. I remember enjoying them a lot when I was around the age of 10 and may be a little bit simplistic for say a teenager but it was an engaging story and well written.

I also listened to "The Others" by Jeremy Robinson which is the second book in the Infinite series of books. It was a really good book that I couldn't stop listening to and blazed through really quickly. It reminded me a lot of Dean Koontz stories in the way it was written, it had supernatural elements as well as a group of people vs government type agencies vs a supernatural element sort of interplay similar to the way his stories often go. I'm looking forward to what the rest of the Infinite series holds and enjoyed it a lot more than the first book!

So, after reading this, I finally decided to buy the first Deathlands book right away, it's about time I at least check it out.

Well, it turns out they aren't available anywhere. Not even as ebooks. Only audiobooks are available. Amazon (not my place of choice to buy ebooks) also has only book 48 and 49 available, rest are audiobooks only.

On a positive side, one less series to worry about!

Thanks for the recommendation. He is around 10, and likes horror / spooky stuff. Will get first book or two and see if he likes them.

Infinite series seems pretty interesting. Will check them out in a few months, hopefully they have better availability than Deathlands 😀
- Oh, that's a shame to hear about Deathlands, can't win them all I guess!
  
  In terms of Goosebumps the two titles that stand out in my mind from when I was a child (not that I remember the plots now) are Monster Blood and Night Of The Living Dummy. I believe both of them have a few books continuing the stories as they were popular too, so those may be good ones to start with :)

Just finished the latest Jack Reacher novel. Standard Reacher Murder She Wrote with a giant as protagonist plot template. I find the Reacher novels helpful if I’m having a rough week and need a low cognitive load book. Working on Candle & Crowe now, which is the third book in Kevin Hearne’s Ink & Sigil series set in his Iron Druid universe. It’s also good for a bit of cheerful escapism, but not a pulp novel.

I recently started the Jack Reacher series and got the first 3 books (though have only read the first one yet). They are much longer than I expected them to be. Are all books in the series like that?

It didn't get boring so I don't mind the length, just curious about it.
- I haven’t considered them to be very long, but maybe I’ve read too many Sanderson novels. They all tend to have the same pacing and plot devices. It’s been long enough since I read the first few that I can’t remember if they get shorter or longer. The more recent ones where Andrew Child co-authors seem shorter to me.
I really like Jack Reacher books. There's something about the matter of fact, purely mechanical approach to utter brutality that's just a fun ride.
- Exactly. Just practical, sometimes preemptive violence.