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What'cha Reading?

I'm reading Flesh by David Szalay, the Booker winner about a passive man who nonetheless leads an exciting life. Feeling a little mixed on it so far: It's all so cold and terse.

Alternating that with Anthony Burgess's A Dead Man in Deptford, a stylish novel about Christopher Marlowe, his life, his sexuality, and his murder. I've had this book on my shelf since 2007. Glad I'm finally reading!

I read and enjoyed The Tower and The Ruin by Michael D.C. Drout, which is a critical study of Tolkien's work. Not always reader-friendly, but I ultimately liked it. Unfortunately there's a paywall, but I reviewed it for The Boston Globe.
 
Well, for a few months I was pretty confident that Fire and Song by Bryce O'Connor was going to be my book of the year, but then Empire of the Dawn happened, and my God, it played with my emotions every which way, and then that ending?! Are you kidding me, Jay?! How dare you, sir! Absolute genius. I can't believe he had the balls to do that. Anyway, 2025 is in the books. 86 books read, 11 less than last year, but still, quality over quantity. Get to start another reading year tomorrow
 
Joyful Recollections of Trauma by Paul Scheer. A weird mix of funny stories and genuinely harrowing. In many cases in the same story. This guy has lead a weird life before making Balloon Cops!
 
First thing I read this year was Animal Farm by George Orwell. I really enjoyed it. One of my foals this year was try to read one anthology a year, so I'm finally reading The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams
 
If you're a fan of Mr. Adams, The Salmon of Doubt comes recommended. Up next: one of my favorite Booktubers is doing ASOIAF readalong throughout the whole year, so I'm rereading A Game of Thrones, also started volume 6 of The Wandering Inn and started a new-ish (came out last month) fantasy called Tarou: The Fall by Dana Fredsti and David Fitzgerald
 
Currently about 100 pages into This Year by John Darnielle. As a former Mountain Goats superfan, my first reaction to hearing about this book was "there's no way he's gonna talk about the actual songs in any meaningful way", because John Darnielle has always been loathe to openly explain what's going on in any given song. I got it from the library anyway and so far I've more or less been right, though there have been a few moments where the curtain unexpectedly drops. Mostly it seems like he's more interested in the circumstances surrounding a song -- where he was (geographically), who he knew at the time, etc. I was really hoping for a deeper dive into the narrators of some of the older, weirder, more cryptic songs in the catalog but even when he talks about those songs, he generally talks around the songs instead. It's what I expected, but still a little frustrating anyway. I'm curious to see if he'll become a bit less opaque once the book gets to the 2000s-era material and beyond since he opened up a lot more as a writer and performer in those years.

One unexpected consequence of reading a book full of song lyrics is that I can't help but hear each song in my head as I go through, which has been slowing me down a bit! I also had one funny moment where I read the lyrics for Full Flower, a song I've heard countless times but never thought that hard about. Seeing the words written out on the page without the loud distorted guitars that play over them on the recording made me suddenly go "Oh, this song is obviously about heroin." And then immediately after, JD writes (paraphrasing): "This song is about heroin use and addiction. I covered that up with loud distorted guitars."
 
Tarou was fairly lackluster. It had an interesting concept, but the climax fizzled out. Now, reading (finally) Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell and Deathstalker: Legacy by Simon R. Green
 
Forgot my classics book club was this month and quickly read through Jane Austen's Persuasion. Despite liking classics overall I'm not a huge fan of Victorian English writing and despite her unique perspective on female characters just never really clicked with her books. But I think I like this one more than her others for being a bit more pointed in satire. Still just a lot of social status stuff that I can never muster up the energy to care about though.

masterthes said:
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
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I'll be curious what you think. I thought it was fine but not amazing, looks like I gave it a 3/5, but so many people loved it and I guess there's a TV show now too, huh. I'm wondering if something about it just didn't click for me.
 
Movie, not TV show. I'm just about halfway and I'm kind of with you. It's alright. I'm not crazy about the back and forth narrative style, just make it linear
 
Hamnet[/b} got much better with the second part, and the ending I thought was beautiful. I have since read Murder at Spindle Manor by Morgan Stang, which I thought was fantastic and Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher, which was great as well. Now, reading Twelve Months by Jim Butcher
 
masterthes said:
Hamnet[/b} got much better with the second part, and the ending I thought was beautiful. I have since read Murder at Spindle Manor by Morgan Stang, which I thought was fantastic and Shockaholic by Carrie Fisher, which was great as well. Now, reading Twelve Months by Jim Butcher
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Oh nice, I'm glad it improved for you. I can't recall feeling the same but I did finish it so it probably did for me too. And dunno where I got TV show instead of movie...

Also FYI you have a curly bracket instead of a square one so the bold didn't stop for the rest of the post.
 
Twelve Months was well worth the wait. Let's just hope Mr. Butcher doesn't wait another five years. I also read Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher. Now reading Mythos by Stephen Fry
 
Mythos was great. If you have a loving for Greek mythology, you need to read this. Will be reading Heroes next month. Now, finally committing to The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. This is my third time attempting this, and I think third time will definitely be the charm.
 
Buffalo Hunter Hunter is the native American vampire story I never knew I wanted or needed. Just fantastic.
 
Violentvixen said:
Starting Lessons in Chemistry which I've heard wildly varying reviews for, people seem to love it or hate it.
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Quick joke review is they should re-title the book Lessons in Deus Ex Machina.

I guess I'll be a rare "somewhere in the middle". 2.5 stars out of 5, I guess. I was entertained and I didn't want to put it down and move on, but I was rolling my eyes a lot.

Overall it feels like something a high schooler would write. So many tropes, so many obvious twists, and trying to cram too much into one book. Strong female character? Check. Woman in STEM who says a lot of science-y words that aren't actually correctly used? Check. Men trying to be in her way? Check. There are a number of others that give away too much plot, but the very goofy one is [spoiler for something that happens in maybe the first quarter of the book] Talking dog? Check... wait what? Yeah, uh check. Why not. Actually I think I liked the dog's narration the best out of the story.

Also (content warning) the main character and other women are sexually assaulted, mainly after trying to stand up for themselves. I am torn on calling this lazy writing like I would for many books that use rape to depower a female character, because honestly that is exactly what would happen if you challenged a male superior in an environment like this in the 60s. I dunno, I can't tell if I'm having a knee jerk reaction and finding it lazy writing or if it actually is.
 
Update time:
*Extremely late to the party, but The Dragonbone Chair was really good. I'll be reading the sequel fairly soon.
*For my anthology of the month, I read The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee. It was solid, not great, and because it was so short, I may read another one this month
*Currently reading Heroes by Stephen Fry and Blankets by Craig Thompson
 
A few recent books worth mentioning.

The Chronicles of DOOM by S H Fernando - a fairly recent (2024) biography of MF DOOM (remember all caps when you spell the man's name). This was okay, but the author was clearly writing as a massive fan and sometimes can't keep from fawning. The writing and editing were also not amazing in general, but what I did like is that the book is probably 75% quotes from primary sources, the people who were around DOOM when he was making his records or growing up. The author talked to a lot of people, be it folks DOOM hung out with as a teenager all the way up to record label executives and other artists he worked with. Appropriately enough, for such a notoriously private person, DOOM ends up almost feeling like a guest star in a book where he's supposed to be the main character. Obviously some of that is because he's no longer around to speak for himself, but by and large it's other people talking about him. I doubt he would've sat down to be interviewed for a biography if he were alive! When he does show up (in the form of previous interviews, or in his lyrics) it feels a little special. Overall I'm not sure I'd recommend it exactly, but I still enjoyed the read.

The Future of Truth by Werner Herzog - I'm not sure what I expected this book to be, and having read it I'm still not entirely sure. But it's still fun to hear Werner Herzog's voice in your head for 100+ pages.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson - I was primed to like this one due to how bonkers Exordia was, but it turned out to be a very different book from what I expected. I thought it was going to be sci-fi when it was actually a medieval political intrigue novel. (Not actually Medieval Earth, but an invented world with roughly that level of technology.) The writing was good but the pacing was very slow. I don't think I was into it enough to read the sequels.

Currently reading Helm by Sarah Hall and enjoying it quite a bit. It's kind of like if Richard Powers decided to write a book about a specific wind pattern in northern England - @Violentvixen and everyone else who enjoyed The Overstory in the Talking Time Book Club recently, you might want to give this one a look too.
 
I enjoyed On Beauty a lot. Also read Vagabond by Tim Curry, which was so good. Can't help but feel bad for him because of his strokes. Who knows what great roles we were deprived of? Now, reading The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman and Game Shows FAQ by Adam Nedeff
 
I just finished the gamma read for the forthcoming Sanderson novel, Fires of December, and it might be my favorite Brandon Sanderson story to date.
 
masterthes said:
Now, reading The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman and Game Shows FAQ by Adam Nedeff
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The game shows book was great, but extremely comprehensive, and I thought Lesser Dead was good, a unique vampire book with some inspiration taken from a certain Lindqvist book. Not as good as Between Two Fires, but I had a good time. Finally, reading Dark Age by Pierce Brown
 
Started Dungeon Crawler Carl and i'm not sure what i think about it. It's light and breezy reading but the in game announcer/narrator is a real dick and makes it hard not to be annoyed.
 
Recently finished T. Kingfisher's new-ish book from last year (she released two books last year?) Hemlock and Silver, which I think I enjoyed as a close third place behind A Sorceress Comes to Call and What Moves the Dead. There's some interesting worldbuilding and I wouldn't mind spending some more time with these characters.

Last night I started Tim Curry's Vagabond because folks here have been enjoying it so much. Surprising nobody, he's a very charming narrator. Though there's a part of me that keeps hearing Brennan Lee Mulligan's Tim Curry impression as I read.
 
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