What book are you reading, ιf' - Iff you read books

[Spidernova]

Have you read about Asterion yet? Or the two kings and their labyrinths?

I loved the Asterion story. The story about the two kings is in a different collection, it would appear, but I found it on google. That's fantastic, I love it.

 

[Josu]

Ended El infinito en un junco. La invención de los libros en el mundo antiguo (Infinity in a reed. The invention of books in the ancient world) by Irene Vallejo.
Not a bad book, but not very concise to be an essay

Still readin The Ugly Ducklings by Boris Cyrulnik, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber & David Wengrow, and Kim Staley Robinson's Years of rice an salt

 

[Josu]

Ended The Ugly Ducklings by Boris Cyrulnik.

It was a re-reading, which did not bring anything to my life.
A social worker recommended me this book when we adopted our daughter, first time I read it, the book gave me a good introduction to resilience and some guidelines on how to help the girl on being resilient. I thought that a second read a year later would give me some new nuances. It did not.

 

[Ordnael]

Finished House Atreides book 2 of the Dune prequels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson and started book 3 House Corrino. I am loving the prequels, thinking about rereading og Dune once I finish them. I've been thinking about upgrading my Dune for the graphical novels but the admission price is kinda steep since they divide the original epic in 3 parts!

 

[Smellincoffee]

I'm reading Robert Harris' latest, Precipice, about a prime minister getting involved in scandal after it's made public he's sharing state secrets with the young lass he's courting. To make matters worse for him, WW1 is opening. Like a few others of Harris', this is loosely based on a true story.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Yesterday I finished reading:

Generation Warriors
(Volume Three of the Planet Pirates)

by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Moon

Copyright 1991

It is a quite enjoyable sci-fi space opera, and an interesting collaboration with Anne McCaffrey (she of humans riding teleporting
and time travelling dragons fame) clearly leading on the fantasy alien side and Elizabeth Moon (ex marine) on the militaria.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I just finished Precipice by Robert Harris: I found it utterly underwhelming. Because it sticks to a fictional version of the facts, nothing happens: we get an inside look into 10 Downing Street during the first two years of the Great War, but the PM isn't exposed for being reckless with state secrets, and the relationship fizzles out -- as did the book, for me.

 

[Josu]

Ended Kim Staley Robinson's Years of rice an salt.
Did not like it too much, I did know that they were independent storyes with diferent characters in each chapter, but I did not spect such a collage. The "leitmotif" is OK, but most of the chapters did not bring anything.

Started Planet of the apes by Pierre Bouelle

 

[bene_legionary]

Started The Secret History by Donna Tartt a couple nights ago, halfway done.

Everyone is quite odd. Maybe it’s the fact they lie easier than they breathe, and don’t think thrice about killing their close friend.

Best way I can describe it is Dead Poets Society with murder.

 

[Josu]

Ended Planet of the apes by Pierre Bouelle.
I like very much the film series, however I consider this book a better concept.

Starting Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

 

[BenitoChavez]

I finished The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, and Deathʻs End trilogy. Easily the craziest story Iʻve ever come across. It can be broadly described as an alien invasion story but the plot twists and the ideas put forth make it so much more interesting, bizarre, and horrifying than your standard sci-fi fare.

 

[Plotinus]

I read the first two and then gave up. I thought they were pretty bad, mainly because the characters were mostly quite repellent and not remotely believable.

 

[bene_legionary]

Finished The Secret History. Need a nap. The likeness to Dead Poets' Society is superficial but eerie. Everybody seems comtemptible in that book, I didn't enjoy the novel but I am happy to have experienced it (I suppose like other uncomfortable novels like 1984... not Tess of the d'Urbevilles).

 

[BenitoChavez]

I read the first two and then gave up. I thought they were pretty bad, mainly because the characters were mostly quite repellent and not remotely believable.

Yeah, the characters are definitely the weak point of the series, though I thought it improved slightly in the last two books.

 

[Plotinus]

Heh, I thought the characters in the second book were worse than the first (e.g. the main character who spends much of his time on dates with an imaginary girlfriend, and when handed unlimited power uses it to search for a woman who resembles his imaginary girlfriend and then gaslight her into marrying him), but maybe it gets better in the last one!

 

[Smellincoffee]

I find myself somewhat becalmed, reading-wise, not able to get into anything at the moment. I read a novella last night called Ghosts of the Titanic, which features a billionaire deciding to raise the Titanic, and then its presence causing people to drown themselves at 2 am. And...that is the story. On the plus side, it made me aware that the Mary Rose, a Tudor ship whose hull was partially recovered, exists.

 

[Arakhor]

I went to see the Mary Rose as a small boy in the mid 80s, I think. They were still spraying it with endless gallons of water at the time.

 

[Strong Reaction]

With the Old Bread: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge

WWII Pacific Theater Marine retells his experience, its pretty damned macabre what the Americans and Japanese did to prisoners, dead and civilians. I watched the Max series The Pacific and found out it was based on two books this is one of them. The series is almost exactly like the book sometimes the movie/series are quite different. The book is tons more detailed of course.

 

[Smellincoffee]

With the Old Bread: At Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge

WWII Pacific Theater Marine retells his experience, its pretty damned macabre what the Americans and Japanese did to prisoners, dead and civilians. I watched the Max series The Pacific and found out it was based on two books this is one of them. The series is almost exactly like the book sometimes the movie/series are quite different. The book is tons more detailed of course.

Lots of visceral detail in that. Sledge taught biology at my university, so every history student would be urged to read him.

Just finished Over my Dead Body, a disappointing look at American cemeteries -- a mix of cemetery tourism and very sketchy history. Definitely unimpressed. A third of the way through The Dead Beat: The Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries, on obituary writers.

 

[thetrooper]

Lords of Chaos* (1998) by Moynihan and Søderlind.

* subtitle: The bloody rise of the satanic metal underground.