What are you reading? (June 2023)
Hey Beehaw, whatcha reading right now?
Hey Beehaw, whatcha reading right now?
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.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Not bad so far. I just finished The Dark Tower series (loved it) so it is definitely an adjustment.
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.
I started ‘watching the English’ by Kate Fox, it’s very interesting! Maybe it will help me blend in in the crowd a bit more.
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.
Hi! I'm not on Beehaw (hope my responding anyway isn't problem) but want to see if I can comment.
I'm reading In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang today.
Of course you responding isn't a problem! We're happy to have you as long as you're willing to follow the only rule here, which is be(e) kind.
@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 just finished Custer Died for Your Sins, and am about half way through Killers of the Flower Moon. So far it's definitely been worth the read.
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.
Just started Howl's Moving Castle. Liking it so far!
Not exactly like the movie, but it's pretty close.
I legitimately did not know there is a book. It’s my favorite movie so I might pick this up.
A lot of Miyazaki's films are based on books! Kiki's Delivery Services is a book as well, and Secret Life of Arietty is based on The Borrowers.
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.
Neuromancer. It's okay so far.
I just finished Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle. I LOVED it.
I did not expect to love Wolf in White Van as much as I did, but I loved how it was written.
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson.
Gibson is tough to get into, personally, but his stories are very cool!
Conspiracy of Truths by Alexandra Rowland.
So far, it is intriguing and enjoyable! Got a ways to go, but I think it'll hold up.
If you like Project Gutenberg, you should also check out Standard Ebooks. They take Project Gutenberg books and format it to be nicer on ereaders.
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.
That would be a fun substack! War of the Worlds was the first book that terrified me as a child, to the point that I still can have nightmares of the giant tripod ships, but for whatever reason I really enjoy it!
I was actually thinking more about this today at work (don't tell the boss....)
Dickens published a lot of his work serially. And his stories were wildly popular, like 'Harry Potter' levels of popularity. It seems like the stories of Charles Dickens would work well for this kind of medium; the only problem I came across is that he didn't necessarily serialize each chapter every week, rather, he would serialize 1-3 (-ish) chapters each week. So breaking the story up as he would have broken it up seems the sticking point.
If I ever do this, and it's not against the rules of c/literature, I'll make a post so people can sign up and get stories emailed to them piece by piece :)
I am in the middle of reading Men at Arms, one of the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchet. Very much recommend!
Claudius The God, which I'm enjoying. (I watched the BBC adaption years ago, but only got around to reading the two books recently.)
working my way through Discworld again. currently at Unseen Academicals.
I will read Shepherd's Crown this time.