What are you reading?

Oof. No love for Bradbury? I love Fahrenheit 451! Oh, well. Each to his own. :void:

That being said, 1984 and Brave New World are two of my favorites, as well, so I can’t fault you there.

I finished The October Country and now I’m reading The Stories of Ray Bradbury. Normally, I’d read something from a different author next, but I’m low on money and I already own this one. :serpico:
 
FitPlatinum said:
I also agree, though I would call it bad (but not terrible). I'd also add 'We' by Yevgeny Zamyatin to the list, which I would place above Fahrenheit 451.

Currently reading 'The Samurai' by Shusaku Endo which I'm enjoying thoroughly. It's from the same writer as 'Silence' and has a lot of similarities. It's about a few of the first Japanese that visit Europe and the resulting clash of cultures etc. It can be a bit repetitive with it's ideas at times though.

I also picked Berserk as the book to read in my book club, I'm looking forward to the next meeting!
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My partner has "We" phisically. I will borrow that one. Thanks for the recommendation. I was just going to ask for more books in the same line.

How did the book club react to you picking a manga? I have a friend who loves to read but is reluctant to reading Berserk.
 
blodvind said:
My partner has "We" phisically. I will borrow that one. Thanks for the recommendation. I was just going to ask for more books in the same line.

How did the book club react to you picking a manga? I have a friend who loves to read but is reluctant to reading Berserk.
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It wasn't really a recommendation to be honest, it was just better than Fahrenheit in my opinion haha. But it may be the right pick if you're looking for something in the same line.

As for the reaction of the book club for picking a manga, they had an open attitude about it. I did give a speech beforehand haha. Anyway, the first comment from my bookclub on Berserk is in: "that elf is kinda fun."
 
Somnambulist said:
I agree. It's not bad, but it is by far the weakest of the dystopian "holy trinity" (the other two being 1984 and Brave New World, both great and some of my favorite books in general).
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I still haven't gotten over 1984. It's been 6 or 7 years. I read it quite late in my life but yeah, one of my all times favorites. Brave New World was different and interesting but, in my opinion, it cannot compare.

FitPlatinum said:
It wasn't really a recommendation to be honest, it was just better than Fahrenheit in my opinion haha. But it may be the right pick if you're looking for something in the same line.

As for the reaction of the book club for picking a manga, they had an open attitude about it. I did give a speech beforehand haha. Anyway, the first comment from my bookclub on Berserk is in: "that elf is kinda fun."
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There is a reason you added "We" to the list. Good enough for me. :)

Please, do tell about your speech. I can learn about it. If you can, please, update about your book club when the black swordsman is done!

Rhombaad said:
Oof. No love for Bradbury? I love Fahrenheit 451! Oh, well. Each to his own. :void:

That being said, 1984 and Brave New World are two of my favorites, as well, so I can’t fault you there.

I finished The October Country and now I’m reading The Stories of Ray Bradbury. Normally, I’d read something from a different author next, but I’m low on money and I already own this one. :serpico:
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I can say I liked the... machine-gun robot hound (?)!
 
I wrapped up Book of the Long Sun a few months back, which means that I've finally finished Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle. So now, I've dived straight back in to the beginning, with Book of the New Sun, and I'm already up to the end of Sword of the Lictor (book 3). I said it at the time I first read it, but this is a series I will probably re-read until I'm dead. Every page completely captures my attention in a way that no other books have, because every little encounter rewards a close reading.

I will say though—the best is at the start. Book of the New Sun is the one to read. The rest were written a bit later in Wolfe's career (10-20 years after New Sun), and in my opinion it shows how much his style changed over the years. The concepts are still good. But he shifted how he told stories. In an interview, he said he was tired of his writing being called obscure, so at a certain point, he started writing less descriptive prose and more dialogue. That resulted in making the story more straightforward in terms of pushing things along, but with fewer opportunities for readers to be dropped evocatively into scenes. So something was lost in that transition, and it’s felt in his later books. I’ll always love them. But it’s hard for me not to go back to New Sun and think “this is the shit!”

I’m sure @Grail understands…
 
Walter said:
I wrapped up Book of the Long Sun a few months back, which means that I've finally finished Gene Wolfe's Solar Cycle. So now, I've dived straight back in to the beginning, with Book of the New Sun, and I'm already up to the end of Sword of the Lictor (book 3). I said it at the time I first read it, but this is a series I will probably re-read until I'm dead. Every page completely captures my attention in a way that no other books have, because every little encounter rewards a close reading.

I will say though—the best is at the start. Book of the New Sun is the one to read. The rest were written a bit later in Wolfe's career (10-20 years after New Sun), and in my opinion it shows how much his style changed over the years. The concepts are still good. But he shifted how he told stories. In an interview, he said he was tired of his writing being called obscure, so at a certain point, he started writing less descriptive prose and more dialogue. That resulted in making the story more straightforward in terms of pushing things along, but with fewer opportunities for readers to be dropped evocatively into scenes. So something was lost in that transition, and it’s felt in his later books, and though I’ll always love them, it’s hard for me not to go back to New Sun and think “this is the shit!”
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No idea but I really want to read this now!
 
Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes, recently emerged from a self-imposed exile lasting almost 30 years to release a new book called The Mysteries. I would probably call this a children's book, as it amounts to a brief parable—72 pages, many with just one sentence. The visuals are comparable to a more sedate Dave McKean, and were done in collaboration with Watterson and another artist (John Kasich) using primarily constructed art, not just brush to canvas.

I bought it immediately without reading any reviews, because I was so excited to see what Watterson had been up to all these years. But I was disappointed. This is not a terrible book. I would probably rate it 3/5. It's well crafted, but too simple for the effort it clearly took to produce. It's a story about learning to respect the universe's mysteries and not be so confident that we know all there is to know. That's probably something that will roll around your head for a day or so. And unfortunately, that's all I have to say about it.

The other day I closed out Jack Vance's Dying Earth, a trilogy of novellas (I think?) that inspired Book of the New Sun. It's relatively older sci-fi (1940s-50s), so that holds it back a bit. But I enjoyed it, all the same. It's still a pretty fascinating approach to sci-fi, and Gene Wolfe absolutely used Vance as a stepping stool to do New Sun. But if I wasn't exposed to that iterative experience, I don't think I'd be perceptive enough to recognize what makes it great as a standalone work. That's more on me than Vance, though.

Finally, I also recently picked up Book 2 of Remembrance of Earth's Past, which is commonly referred to by its first book, Three-Body Problem, on the recommendation of a friend. I really could not get into the first book when I attempted to read it 5 years ago. The translation from Chinese holds everything back. As a result, it is not particularly fun to read. The dialogue feels unbelievably unrealistic. The premise seems quite basic so far (from Wikipedia: The series details humanity's discovery of and preparation for an alien invasion force from the planet Trisolaris.) I suppose what's captured most people's imaginations is the sciency details through the sci-fi elements play out. But I'm far from enraptured, and I'm mostly just working my way through it to check it off a list. Sorry!
 
Finished Flame Dragon Knight. Definitely not recommended, if only for the fact that at 3/4 of the way through the plot has not actually moved forward. As canon I would have to say
the invocation of doom was not given clear legs to stand on. The sacrifice itself would be considered a cop-out because it includes people who are already dying. Sacrificing someone on their deathbed in a moment of desperation is different from doing it from a place of total selfishness. It is also frustrating that Grunbeld is effectively unbeatable as a human... even being shot simultaneously by six cannons could only bring this guy to his knees... and he simply is too dispassionate to understand why he is sacrificing his comrades. Ah well, don't regret reading it. I also do not believe for a moment that his invocation was related to Griffith in any way. I'd prefer a character closer to Zodd in his age as an apostle.
Sure, the novel lacks development, but it also needed quite a bit more time to actually get to a point of empathy... I'm glad that other characters in this universe do not go around saying preposterous things like "I'm a dragon", with the notable exception of Adon.
 
I started reading "Dodoro" , which according to Puella's translation of Miura's comments following the sixth edition of the Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize, was Miura's favorite Tezuka work.
I really enjoyed it and can see how it gave inspiration to Berserk's dark "murky" fantasy. I particularly liked the ghosts/demons and the protagonist's prosthesis body and how it evolves as an organism as he conquers his quests. Aaand the gender detail too ofc
Has anybody else read "Dodoro"?
 
I took a break from The Stories of Ray Bradbury to read Michael Crichton's Easy Go. It's about a motley crew who attempt to find and rob the last tomb of the pharoahs in Egypt. It wasn't my favorite of his early pulp novels, but it was entertaining and a quick read.

I'm currently reading Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick. So far, it's excellent. :guts:
 
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

The prose is astounding. The understanding of landscapes, equipment, and true-to-life accuracy is the best I have ever read. Some of his books have apparently taken forty-plus years to be researched and it shows. You'll notice his structure lacks punctuation, but everything still flows through your mind like a graphic novel or film. If someone gets killed, who cares whether they spoke their last words or thought their final thoughts or--- dead. Reading this after seeing the film made it no less impressive.

His work is a must-read for any fan of Berserk.
 
Johnstantine said:
Just finished the first part of Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight. It's possibly one of the best books I've read. Just overall a really beautiful book.
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It’s a flawed book but it’s closer to my heart than most that I’ve read. And yeah the ending to Part 1 is incredible. Part 2 has a loooooong and slow start. It kind of lost me there for a decent chunk, if I’m being honest. But toward the middle it reestablished the excitement.

guuuuuuuuts said:
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

The prose is astounding. The understanding of landscapes, equipment, and true-to-life accuracy is the best I have ever read. Some of his books have apparently taken forty-plus years to be researched and it shows. You'll notice his structure lacks punctuation, but everything still flows through your mind like a graphic novel or film. If someone gets killed, who cares whether they spoke their last words or thought their final thoughts or--- dead. Reading this after seeing the film made it no less impressive.

His work is a must-read for any fan of Berserk.
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Awesome! I read it well after the movie and thought the book was much more exciting. It’s like an action movie in McCarthy’s style, which I found pretty novel (all those surface-of-your-soul scratching descriptions along with a quickly paced plot).

I highly recommend All the Pretty Horses, even if you don’t really think a book that mentions pretty horses in its title is for you. After The Road, it’s my favorite McCarthy book. It’s one of those “I will re-read this until i’m dead” books, for me. And likewise, thematically relevant to Berserk, as it deals with the consequences of living a life by leaning on a dream.
 
Just finished my first Manga of the year: Black Jack vol. 1!
Any fans here? I really love the main character's rough and kind personality and the fact that he never really belongs anywhere, which is kinda pointed to by his nickname "hazama", which includes 間. I also appreciate the short stories with realistic medical depictions mixed with fantasy.
Does anyone have a reading plan they want to share? I've made a loooong list, trying to read and watch all the classic works (Manga and Anime mainly) that I come by this year!
 
Well, Solar Lottery ruled. I wasn't overly excited when I read the brief description of it on Wikipedia, but I enjoyed the hell out of it and can't wait to read more of Dick's work in the future.

After finishing Solar Lottery, I reread Raymond E. Feist's Prince of the Blood. It's been about 20 years since I last read it, which is mind-boggling to me. At the time, I was on a vacation with my girlfriend and her family up at Lake Okanagan. I don't like swimming in lakes on a good day, much less when a creature called Ogopogo is rumored to swim in said lake, so I camped out on the beach reading my book for most of the weekend. I finished Prince of the Blood in less than a day. My girlfriend wasn't very happy with me, but I got a lot of reading done and that relationship didn't work out anyway. Probably wouldn't make the same decision these days if I was on vacation with my wife, hehe. Anyway, it's the most enjoyable of Feist's novels that I've reread, but it definitely didn't hit me the same way it did 20 years ago. I believe time has matured my tastes a bit; his work is coming off more juvenile to me these days (and it's obvious when he's pulling something straight from one of his DnD campaigns). I still plan on rereading the rest of his books, though, and going through the ones he's written after I caught up back in 2006 or 2007.

I'm currently in the middle of William Gibson's Virtual Light. Aside from some of his short stories, it's probably the work I've enjoyed most since Nueromancer. (God, Neuromancer was good.) I love the idea of the San Francisco-Oakland bridge getting damaged in an earthquake and becoming the coolest shantytown of all time. Anytime a character is at The Bridge, the book just takes off in such imaginative directions. I'm looking forward to finishing it sometime this week or next.
 
I bought the new Stephen King book "You like it Darker". Havent really started it yet but its a collection of short stories, i really like these types of books.
 
I recently read Black Sunday by Thomas Harris and The Dragon in the Sea by Frank Herbert.

I'm a fan of Thomas Harris, so I was really looking forward to reading his first novel, Black Sunday. I wasn't disappointed, but it definitely wasn't as fast a read as Red Dragon or The Silence of the Lambs. Somme parts of the novel really dragged for me, but when it was good it was great.

The Dragon in the Sea was terrific. I wasn't sure how interesting even someone like Frank Herbert could make a submarine story about poaching oil from a hidden location behind enemy lines, but this one flew by. For those who haven't read it, it's set in the near future where the East and the West have been at war for about 10 years. The West is desperate for oil, so they're sending submarines out to a hidden reserve behind enemy lines, filling up a giant inflatable container that is pulled by the so-called subtub and then trying to make it back. Twenty of the last subtugs sent out have been destroyed, either by a spy on board or by a spy planting a homing beacon device on the subtub before it's sent out to alert enemy subs to its location. It's up to the main character to infiltrate one of the last remaining subtug crews in order to find the spy or spy device. I highly recommend it, especially for fans of Herbert's more famous works. It reads very differently from Dune, but it's still excellent.

Right now, I'm in the middle of The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. So far, it rules. :badbone:
 
Kurt Vonnegut "Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday". Liked it more than "Slaughterhouse-Five". And now planning reread of King's "The Dark Tower" series. First time I've read it in 2002 (when there was only 4 books).
 
barayarayara said:
I've read it all (last 3 books ongoing) and if you mean expectations about the ending, I'm ok with it:ubik:Just want to revisit whole story from different perspective. 20 years is a long time.
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I didn't enjoy the last three books much, that's what I meant. If you've already read them then enjoy!
 
guuuuuuuuts said:
LA Quartet by James Ellroy:
Black Dahlia, Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, White Jazz
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Nice, I love Ellroy but I've only read his Underworld USA series. I know he switched to his now-trademark staccato writing style for those books in White Jazz, so I've always wanted to go back and read that one. But for whatever reason, the 30s-40s setting isn't as intriguing to me as the 50s-60s setting.

If you like noir-detective stuff, you should check out one of my recent favorites from a first-time novelist (which just blew me away when I realized that, after I'd already finished the book): Five Decembers by James Kestrel.
 
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