June 2020 Reading Thread

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Finished The Curse of Chalion, which was enjoyable. Enough to order the sequel Paladin of Souls.
Meanwhile a reread (from, I guess, 40 (forty? Yes, forty) years ago), Mythago Wood.
 
Finished reading The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin. On the one hand, this was a very clever book, in terms of second-person POV, challenging character defaults, and the character reveals of the plot. On the other hand, it got a little too forced with those character reveals to the point where the book loses continuity when you think about it.

In the end I felt I'd read an amazing exercise in creative writing, rather than a novel. The ending was a little sudden, too, and despite mostly really liking this book, I just don't feel compelled enough to read further.
 
HoopyFrood said:
Reading Don Quixote for the first time. It is absolutely ridiculous.
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Ooh, I've a battered old Penguin Classic paperback of that, (somewhere in my upstairs bookshelves).
I've never actually opened it since I picked it up in a charity shop years ago.

Is it worth starting?
It's a "one day I'll read that"
 
dannymcg said:
Rob Hart - The warehouse.

A bit tricky to categorise so far, I think I need to read a few more chapters and get my head around what's going on.
Weird
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Finally finished this one, dystopian Amazon warehouse adventures!
A good few references in it, surprisingly, to "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin
 
A new (to me) writer now, I'm doing a picture because I'll mess up trying to spell that name
Screenshot_20200616-000835.jpg
 
dannymcg said:
Ooh, I've a battered old Penguin Classic paperback of that, (somewhere in my upstairs bookshelves).
I've never actually opened it since I picked it up in a charity shop years ago.

Is it worth starting?
It's a "one day I'll read that"
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it's one of the greatest works of writing of the western world. but there tastes for everything i imagine. for your sake don't try to read the lusíadas by camões. it is an epic of the portuguese voyages of discovery written in verse. it's beautiful, profound and imaginative. here, have a sample
Love is a fire that burns unseen,
a wound that aches yet isn’t felt,
an always discontent contentment,
a pain that rages without hurting,

a longing for nothing but to long,
a loneliness in the midst of people,
a never feeling pleased when pleased,
a passion that gains when lost in thought.

It’s being enslaved of your own free will;
it’s counting your defeat a victory;
it’s staying loyal to your killer.

But if it’s so self-contradictory,
how can Love, when Love chooses,
bring human hearts into sympathy?
 
Parson said:
I tried to read this not long ago, and I agree! I felt it an utter waste of time.
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Yeah, I kind of meant it as a good thing.:lol:

dannymcg said:
Ooh, I've a battered old Penguin Classic paperback of that, (somewhere in my upstairs bookshelves).
I've never actually opened it since I picked it up in a charity shop years ago.

Is it worth starting?
It's a "one day I'll read that"
Click to expand...

I think we have the same copy! I didn't even know I had it, but as it's apparently a discarded book from my old sixth form, I must've had it over a decade.

I've barely been able to get into fiction for a very long time now, and especially not anything new; many reasons, probably, but a big one is that I just don't want to read grimness and characters going through trauma and hardship, which is basically what makes a book. So it would seem that an insane story about a guy whose one character trait is that he's thoroughly deluded and keeps getting hurt in increasingly slapstick ways is the remedy!

I'm 140 pages in, so he's still going around the countryside, starting on literally anything that moves. It's getting rather repetitive and yet, I haven't ever laughed out loud at a book as much as I have with this. It teeters perfectly between the sublime and the utterly ridiculous. I wasn't sure I liked it but now I think I love it.
 
If it's any consolation, Elkerlyc, I'd never heard of it either, and Collins online has this:

Squick​
New Word Suggestion​
To cause disgust or revulsion​
Submitted By: DavedWachsman3 - 16/12/2012​
Approval Status: Reject – not enough evidence​


Judging by the date it was submitted it's been around in some circles a lot longer than I'd have supposed, but it looks like it's still a somewhat niche word, of dubious origin and antecedents!

(And I note that although Collins' submission has it as a verb, it's already morphed into becoming an adjective as used by Danny.)
 
so i finished the way of the shaman, which was quite interesting followed by a new kerr and now year 4 of quincy harker. quite interesting books. there's a few more in epub like the new john conroe which are quite enjoyable
 
tobl said:
so i finished the way of the shaman, which was quite interesting followed by a new kerr and now year 4 of quincy harker. quite interesting books. there's a few more in epub like the new john conroe which are quite enjoyable
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Quincy Harker - is that the writer or the protagonist?
 
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