Hey Beehaw, whatcha reading right now?
My current read is Abarat by Clive Barker.
I’d not heard of it until last week, when folks on r/books were singing its praises in a thread, so figured I’d give it a shot. Yeah, it’s enjoyable. Definitely aimed squarely at the middle of the YA crowd, but it’s an easy read at a time when my brain isn’t letting me really get into any books.
Barker has a fascinating imagination. I finished Coldheart canyon recently. I almost walked away repulsed many times but there was good story under all his signature flair. After Imajica I will try to read anything he writes.
The Murderbot Diaries.
I’ve been enjoying it, it has a surprising amount of heart for a series about an emotionally damaged not-robot.
I was put off by the pricing on these. Full price for novella length. I really enjoyed the first one, I’ll grab the rest if they go on sale
Currently reading Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy really fun reads though it got weird in some places
do comic books count? i just started reading DCeased. otherwise i’ve finally cracked open Lolita, it’s an interesting but disgusting read.
My ‘big read’ this year is Finnegans Wake - which I am (or have been) reading week by week along with the TrueLit sub on reddit. It would be a profoundly different experience to read it without the analysis and discussion going on there, so that is something…
Otherwise, I am reading The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher, which is engaging and entertaining, as was her The Hollow Places which I read immediately before. I am also dipping into a collection of the Para Handy tales by Neil Munro, which are a cosy - if stereotypical and patronising - glimpse into another time and pace of life.
I have just returned from a couple of weeks away during which I finished an anthology of Clarke Ashton Smith short fantasy tales (all about the atmosphere: story and worldbuilding are very much secondary and character scarcely features); Haldor Laxness’s The Atom Station (a sparse look at the clash of modern - written in 1948 - and traditional Icelandic values); and Blackwood’s The Willows (an extrapolation of the original idea of “panic” - as several of this other tales are).
Just started Howl’s Moving Castle. Liking it so far!
Not exactly like the movie, but it’s pretty close.
Finally finished with Pattern Recognition, William Gibson. It was… nice, it definitely felt like Gibson was uncomfortable writing in the present tense.
Next up is a Brazillian book, As águas-vivas não sabem de si by Aline Valek
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson.
Gibson is tough to get into, personally, but his stories are very cool!
I have 2 going right now:
- Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash is good, but IDK. It just isn’t pulling me in the way I expected it to, so it’s taking me too long to get through.
Then I have some Jack Reacher novel on my bedside table waiting to be started, and I was just eyeballing a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories on my shelf.
Snow crash was great back in the days! I recall 14 years old-me being upset at the "wrong acronym* but I remember it as great fun. I was coming from the darker novels and short stories by Gibson and Sterling and the lighter touch by Neal Stephenson (and others, like … Rudy Rucker if I am not mistaken) felt nice, while at the same time did not drop the expectations on being engaged on the same kind of reflections/analyses on the human nature like the previous cyberpunk novels.
Those were the times! Plus, I was playing a lot of Cyberpunk 2020 (the tabletop rpg)… :-)
Yeah, I’m not sure what isn’t connecting with me. You know how when you try to get into an early, influential work - be it a book, movie, whatever - you see the origin of all kinds of tropes and you KNOW this thing came first, but you can’t get over the tropiness of some things? I think that’s kind of what it is.
I’m determined to finish it this week though, I need to move on to other things.
I’m reading The Stranger, by Albert Camus. It’s a short read and I’m already focusing on some of The Atlantic’s recommendations in the Summer Reading Guide.
To sleep in a sea of stars.
A very interesting sci-fi book that was a little slow for the first 50 or so pages but then really took off after that. It’s honestly caused meany sleepless nights as I stay up far too late reading because I just can’t put it down.
Currently reading The Wandering Inn: Volume 7 by Pirateaba.
The Two Towers. I’ve been needing to read more slowly in the past few years for health reasons, and I am finding lotr just so perfect for that. The nature descriptions are absolutely to die for.
“After all, why shouldn’t I write about trees for three pages? It’s my own book, my precious.” - JRR Tolkien
PRECISELY.
Not beehaw 🤭 but I am reading Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. While it wasn’t explicitly a feminist work, you can uncover by reading it the roots of feminist thought and literature.
Not a Beehaw member, but still gotta answer it, lol.
Been enjoying post-modernist books right now, and just straight philosophy. It’s all so intriguing.
Reading the classic White Noise by Don Delillo, in the middle of Discipline and Punish: The Birth of The Prison by Michel Foucault. Finished Shibumi by Trevanian a month or two ago, one of the most funny and badass reads I’ve been through. Looking forward to picking up some Byung Chul Han books after reading a PDF of his book The Burnout Society.
