What Book Are You Reading XV - The Pile Keeps Growing!

[Ajidica]

Currently working on two books. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Phillip II Vol.2 by Fernand Braudel. An absolute doorstop of a book, but a massive history of the economic, social, and political drivers. So far I enjoyed Volume 1 more, which was all about the economic relations, with Braudel talking about prevailing winds, patterns of trade, shipbuilding, etc. Vol 2 is focusing more on political developments and the nature of the territorial state.
My trashy book I'm reading is The Eagle and the Sword by Harvey Schreiber, a trashy pulp retelling of Attila the Hun reimaged as a Conan-like barbarian king. The authors historical research is pretty minimal - referring to the Akatziri tribe as Alcatziri - evidently he misread in his notes a K and LC..... But it is passable pulp trash for the time being.

Link to previous thread:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/which-book-are-you-reading-now-volume-xiv.652801/

 

[Birdjaguar]

My bookmark is a post card sent from The Ninth Archive. I'm not sure were it would fall.

 

[Synobun]

I use my rent receipts as bookmarks for physical books, so I guess that puts me in chaotic good.

 

[Kyriakos]

Wondering if @red_elk has found the Sophons (3bodyproblem).

 

[red_elk]

Wondering if @red_elk has found the Sophons (3bodyproblem).

Working on it.

 

[Arakhor]

Fair dos - I sighed at NE and then winced at CE.

 

[tjs282]

I guess I fall somewhere between TN and CG, generally much closer to the former than the latter.

I would never go full NE (and dog-earers should be burnt at the stake, frankly), but I am still a little concerned: sometimes when I can't lay my hand on a bookmark immediately, I'll lay the thicker portion of a partly-read book flat on the edge of a table/desk/whatever, with the smaller portion hanging vertically downwards*. Would that also count as some kind of Evil...?

*Spine outwards, obviously -- I'm not a complete monster! (Nonetheless, still not a recommended technique for use with small/cheap/old paperbacks)

 

[Takhisis]

Chaotic good, true neutral, lawful evil, neutral evil.

Anyway, it's Tom Sharpe's Wilt for me.

 

[H4run]

I used to be chaotic evil, but nowadays I'm just evil for not reading books , well I plan to

 

[Birdjaguar]

"On Fragile Waves" by E. Lily Yu. A beautifully written tale of an Afghan refugee family trying to get to Australia. Worth every moment spent.

I finished "The Poppy War" and will move on to book 2. Book one was a fantasy rewrite of Chinese history in a new world. Great fun.

Just started "The thousand Crimes of Ming Tau" by Tom Lin. Revenge story that takes place along the Central Pacific Railroad as the transcontinental line is almost completed. It takes some clever liberties with reality. This one too is superbly written. I'm almost halfway through.

 

[Kyriakos]

I did read the first 10 pages of Love in the Time of Cholera. I am not seeing much of interest, though :/
Besides, I am pretty sure I have read part of a plot twist, which was actually nice - so it won't have an effect.

Apparently he isn't my type of writer, given I also read 15 or so pages (or more, don't recall) from his other famous novel, and then lost interest.
He certainly is good, but a bit too barbaric imo At least Borges was always alluding to his disgust with barbarism, while Marques seems to revel in it, indirectly or not.

 

[Synobun]

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (3/5)
Build Better Characters by Eileen Cook (5/5)
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White (2/5)
Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop (4/5)
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire by Karen Elizabeth Gordon (2/5)
Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor (5/5)
The Adventures of Lanoree Brock, Je'daii Ranger by Tim Lebbon (3/5)

 

[H4run]

Start reading Tim's book, I can't believe his first experience of being a bank robber, the guy basically just went to the bank told the teller "this is robbery hand out the cash", she did and everyone just too afraid to take a chance to fight back while he is also equally afraid of the retaliation, he took the money, put it in his jacket and went off walking down the street, having no ideas what he just done or how everything happened, lmao, I can imagine something like that in many things and event, you prepare for the worst case, you came in do the thing that you "should" do while you having little to no clue of what you are doing, and it suddenly work out just like that. But I never thought the same can happened on the topic of "robbing" a bank.

 

[Ferocitus]

You buy our weapons.
We'll buy your excuses.

Kafka is quoted as having said that there is always hope—just not for us. In its own little way, this book seeks to second that.

 

[Takhisis]

Tom Sharpe's The Wilt Alternative. Always hilarious.

 

[thetrooper]

About to start The rooster bar by Grisham.

 

[Kyriakos]

I actually tried to read Ito's collection (maybe it is the complete works).
Some of the stories (imo) really didn't need to be 300 pages long.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Yesterday I finished reading:

Parallel

by

Lauren Miller

It is supposedly a gripping Sci-Fi book about a collision between two parallel Earths with
memory replacement and anomalies, but degenerates into a soppy alternative romance.

What I find peculiar is that is accepted in it as background that all the urban school pupils drive to
school without any debate about acquiring, maintaining, repairing and paying for their vehicles.

I shall let my daughter who tried to steal it from me, saying she has seen the film, read it.

 

[Gorbles]

Good to know I'm regularly all three alignments of evil, hah. I only read books I own, at least, and . . . well let's just say unless my kids get into my specific brand of nerdery (Warhammer, mainly), I don't have much incentive to consider other readers.

I have at times been true neutral and chaotic good, but given how book ribbons inevitably fray and break over time (my deluxe editions of Harry Potter are very well-read, though not so much anymore. Still, most of the inbuilt ribbons have broken). While writing this I Google'd the correct name for the version I had ("collector's edition" wasn't it, "deluxe special edition" apparently is), I found out mint copies go for kinda silly money. Here's another. Mine are obviously worth nowhere near that, but hey, books are for reading! They definitely weren't that cheap when they released (£30 to £50, from memory, over the years).

The only complaint I had is the spines kinda easily went on those versions, especially on the thicker books (too much weight for the thickness of the spine as the paper was incredibly thick. The regular hardback copies didn't suffer from this as much, as the paper was much thinner).

Anyhow. Trying to get back into reading, slowly. I used to devour entire fiction libraries, but something's changed in the past five years or more that makes it very hard for me to stick with anything bookwise. I've picked up my copy of Ravenor: The Omnibus (a set of Warhammer 40,000 of novels) by Dan Abnett, who is genuinely regarded as one of the best 40k authors the Black Library has to offer. I've always liked his stuff, so figured it'd be the easier to try and get back into.

 

[Arakhor]

Chaotic Evil book readers are monsters and should be ashamed of themselves.