Not much change at my end. A bit further in the books, but still reading the same books:
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Ultra-processed Food by Chris van Tulleken
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The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Caroll
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The Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson, 3rd book in the 2nd era of Mistborn
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
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I just finished “Cannibals are Human: A District Officer’s Wife in New Guinea” by Helen McLeod.
It’s a very interesting book about the wife of an Australian district officer who was trying to curtail inter-tribal warfare between PNG highland tribes during the decades when PNG was an Australian mandate.
The woman herself is quite admirable hiking 100kms in the highlands mostly barefoot and covered in leeches. It also describes the state of tribal warfare as it stood, in objective terms, without being too derogatory or dismissive. It emphasizes the truly vast differences between regional tribes, their farming prowess, and the existential threat that looms over all of them from centuries of war. It also doesn’t wrap everything up in a neat bow at the end. The Australian governance wasn’t perfect, the influence of western technology and medicine was paradigm-shifting and both good and bad, independence was a shitshow, but the author considered it a painful necessity.
Is it a good book for someone who has no idea about any of the things you have mentioned?
It would be helpful to learn about the pre-war colonial divisions of the island of New Guinea (it was divided into 3 sections, Dutch, German, and British), the wartime significance of New Guinea (Japanese foothold and March to Port Moresby, US airbases in Hollandia) the handover of West and the postwar UN decision that PNG should be an Australian mandate (many underdeveloped but war-impacted areas were made ‘mandates’ of colonial, great, and middle-powers. In the context of the time, Australia was considered a ‘middle power’) until independence was viable.
That gives you some context as to why Australians, Germans, British, and Dutch are romping all over the island.
But otherwise, it is a pretty encapsulated story of a handful of individuals that’s easy to follow
I’m listening to Pratchett’s Mort and noticing how neither Pratchett nor Serafinowicz had quite figured out the Death character yet.
I also DNF-ed The Great When (did Moore swallow a thesaurus?) and Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale.
This week I finished up Star Wars “The Shadows of Mindor”. Has some interesting lore with some potentially disastrous consequences.
I’m a little ways into book 3 of the Silo series “Dust”. The entire series has been a fantastic read so far. Just when you think you got a grasp on things, another layer is ripped apart to start unraveling again.
Up next I have Star Wars “X-Wing” series which consists of 10 books, so my alternate reading while doing this batch will probably be catching up on some my Short story collections. Like Nebula and Hugo yearly “Greats”.
I saw a few Star Wars Legends book at my local store, was wondering if they are good ones or not and thought will ask you about it, but then I forgot the titles and author names 😀
There’s just SO many, it’s hard to look at a list and try to remember the couple, I totally get it haha.
Finished The Strength of the Few by James Islington on Monday.
I need some time to digest. I don’t know if I’m gonna get anything else read this week as I need a palate cleanser from reading so many heavy and dark books lately, but I also can’t imagine anything but a direct sequel to be a satisfying follow-up after that book.
That one has been on my list for a bit. I read the Licanius trilogy by the same author and loved it.
If you liked Licanius, good chance you’ll love Hirarchy.
Just finished The Will of the Many on Monday and started Strength. There’s a lot going on in this second book and I’m only 10% in
The end of The Will of the Many really puts a spin on everything that happened prior, and The Strength of the Few runs with it and it’s insane. I don’t know how Islington does this, his books are amazingly paced and plotted.
I have to admit, I had to take periodic breaks while reading Strength, no spoilers, but it’s extremely involved with separate concurrent plots that are all in depth.
Yeah I listen to audiobooks and the interweaving plotlines with similarly named characters is confusing
Trying to remain spoiler free here, but how does the audio book handle the… context switching, shall we say, when there’s a perspective change? I’m curious since I recommended the series to my wife who also enjoys audio books.
On the written novel there was a icon below the chapter header to signify.
No helper audio to indicate the difference.
a different narrator, for example, would REALLY help
Re-reading house of leaves since it’s been so long and just started Dracula for a book club
How is the re-read going? Will you do anything different? Like completing a chapter or going back and forward?
Yeah it’s been like 5 years so far I remember some of it but I definitely missed some footnotes from last time. It’s basically brand new loving it so far
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
This was a summer read of mine last year. Good stuff.
I recently finished listening to Watership Down by Richard Adams, read by Peter Capaldi. ~11 hours long, if Libro FM was right.
I’ve been listening to him at work, and Peter Capaldi making animal noises and accents just maaaaade my days :3
That sounds amazing. I love Capaldi and had no idea he did audio books. I’ve also been wanting to read Watership Down.
Finished Winter Tide for next podcast episode (recording is on Saturday) and have just started Old Soul by Susan Barker. I’m only 30ish pages in but its a strong start - for fans of literary horror akin to Peter Straub’s work.
The William H. Gass Reader. It’ll take a while, but I’ve rarely come across someone with such an enjoyment of literature, writing, and criticism.
A short story collection by Elwin Cotman
I’m spending my commute learning, so less audio book listening
Im reading Fledgling by Octavia Butler. My first book of this genre in a long while, and it does seem to live up to its promise that it would break from form.
Empire of the Dawn, the third book in the Empire of the Vampire series that just recently dropped. Which I am quite digging, a big epic fantasy series about vampires that is really engaging and well written.
An acquaintance of mine recommended it to me, but the last book wasn’t out then. Is the series finished now or are there more book in the series?
Also, what are you opinions about the whole series?
I chose to read “Reform or Revolution” by Rosa Luxemburg this week. I’ve just finished it today. It’s a very interesting book, with a critical perspective on capitalism, militarism, and reformist “socialism.” It should be remembered that Rosa was also against authoritarianism.
Started the Memory Police today and before I knew it I was 70% in. Easy read, and sad. Will likely wrap it up tomorrow.
I really enjoyed Memory Police!
Bullet Journal is good, I can also recommend “Getting Things Done” (but don’t take everything seriously though) and any book on the Pomodoro technique.
Right now I’m reading
- Designing Your New Work Life which seems interesting (science-backed philosophy on why work sucks and how to love it, it’s a fun book so far), and
- the latest version of Discrete Mathematics with Applications for computer sciences (the latest version).
BTW, why are we using librarything instead of goodreads? It’s the first time I’ve seen this web site.
I read about GTD and watched some videos when it was released, but never got around to reading the book, may do that.
Nice books! I enjoyed Discrete Maths in college but never really used it anywhere after that.
Well, I believe LibraryThing has been around since before Goodreads, but I can be wrong about it. For cataloging books, it is pretty much the best site around (though I haven’t really checked up any other sites in last few years), you have the ability to select the correct edition of your book, have proper cover page etc. There are also library related features if you are interested in that. All accounts can also act as a mini library, giving you complete features of lending etc.
I don’t really care about social features much so after trying multiple applications / websites settled on LibraryThing more than a decade ago.
I migrated from GoodReads to Hardcover.app and I really like it
