October Reading Thread

[The Judge]

I've hardly done any reading over the last 4 weeks and still have the same 3 books on the go, and several other part-reads to which I need to return at some point.

I did manage to read one entire book, though. An old schoolfriend visited whom I've not seen for 40 years, since she left on a world tour, got to Australia and decided to stay put, so we had a lot of catching up to do. For some reason I was telling her about my favourite childhood book, from when I was very small, in which a thin and scrawny lion is planning to eat a rabbit, but the rabbit persuades him to eat carrot stew instead, whereupon he becomes a sleek, fat lion, and never eats anything else -- this was the first time I'd heard the word "sleek" which I promptly adored. My friend announced this was a book she'd read to her own children, namely Tawny, Scrawny Lion (by Kathryn Jackson, as I later discovered) -- and as it's still going strong on YouTube, I went and read it there! The plot is slightly different from how I remember it, as I didn't recall the other animals the lion does eat (bit of a plot hole there, to my mind) and I thought the rabbit was in fear of its life and tricked the lion, but there was the thin and scrawny lion and -- joy of joys -- "sleek"! Memory lane got well trodden!!

Anyhow, what are you reading this month?

 

[hitmouse]

I am starting The Best of CM Kornbluth. This is a book I bought a couple of months ago, but kept on the pile while I finished some other stuff.

 

[Bick]

I’m currently reading The Sioux Spaceman by Andre Norton. Interesting idea and rather of its time, but Norton appears to have written a 60s SF novel without a single European/white character, which is interesting in itself. I’m enjoying it.

 

[williamjm]

I finished Ann Leckie's Translation State. It's loosely connected to her Ancillary trilogy but mostly focusing on new characters. In the previous trilogy the Translators, humans bred to be able to be intermediaries between the largely incomprehensible alien Presger and humanity (and other alien races), had played a significant role in some parts of the story but we did not learn much about them. The two main plot threads here both involve Translators, one focusing on a juvenile intimidated by the thought of following the path its elders have laid out for it and another focusing on a seemingly hopeless search to track down a Translator who went AWOL decades previously. The portrayal of how the Translators grow up is memorably unusual. This is a book in which there are potentially huge events happening in the background but most of the focus is on the characters and their efforts to try and live their lives they way they want (if they can figure out what it is they want). Overall, the plot is perhaps a bit less compelling than in Ancillary Justice and occasionally seems to rely on some pretty huge coincidences but the characters are engaging and it does come to a satisfying ending.

I have now started Neil Gaiman's Death : The High Cost of Living.

 

[Dave Vicks]

THE DAY OF CREATION, by JG Ballard.

 

[Danny McG]

I've just finished book one (The Tinfish Run) of Ronald Bassett's trilogy about Royal Navy signalman Charlie Ludd in WW2.
An old school ripping yarn, I enjoyed it a lot.

Now I'm starting book two The Pierhead Jump.

 

[Dave Vicks]

On deck UNDENIABLE: By Bill Nye, 2014.

And Shirley Jackson THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES.

 

[Orcadian]

I'm about half way through The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. The writing and characterisation are excellent - IMO the equal of Hilary Mantel (winner of the Booker Prize for Wolf Hall). But the premise and its development are so preposterous that they are keeping me from full involvement, and I have struggled with the religious spectacles through which the characters view events (albeit with a healthy dose of humanism). Still, Russell raises and examines interesting ethical questions and along the way scrutinises the lives and practices of Jesuits, what makes a person good rather than devout, and even a way of life that I can only call consensual slavery. If you love ideas and are less pernicketty about scientific plausibility, I can recommend this book.

 

[Dave]

I've begun reading Fairy Tale by Stephen King.

I didn't enjoy it, he's done much better

I'm over 3/4 of the way through now. I'm enjoying it, but I think I can see why you would say that. I liked the first half of the book much better. After he reaches his set goal it changes into a kind of The Hunger Games. Another thing I didn't like is all the forecasting of what will happen next within the first half of the book.

 

[AE35Unit]

Next up, The Empty Hours, a mini collection of 3 stories by EdMcbain

 

[Dave Vicks]

Comic book GHOST IN THE SHELL ,Vol 2.
Japanese.

 

[BAYLOR]

I am starting The Best of CM Kornbluth. This is a book I bought a couple of months ago, but kept on the pile while I finished some other stuff.
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I have that book , It's terrific ! It's got the classic stories Little Back Bag and The Marching Morons .

 

[BAYLOR]

I just finished The Drown World by J G Ballard It was quite good . I had never previously read anything by him.

 

[Danny McG]

I'm over 3/4 of the way through now. I'm enjoying it, but I think I can see why you would say that. I liked the first half of the book much better. After he reaches his set goal it changes into a kind of The Hunger Games. Another thing I didn't like is all the forecasting of what will happen next within the first half of the book.

It got a bit too 'woke preachy' for a Stephen King story.

 

[Danny McG]

I'm trying what, so far, seems to be a cyberpunk novel.
The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I'm currently reading Making It So. Patrick Stewart's autobiography.

 

[Elentarri]

Leave it to Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse.
My first Wodehouse.

 

[Dave Vicks]

THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE HUMAN RACE, Thomas Ligotti. Non-fiction.

 

[Randy M.]

Started a couple of books and set them aside as "not what I want right now." So, I'm intermittently reading from The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard until I make up my mind what I do want.

 

[Dave Vicks]

BLOWING THE BLOODY DOORS OFF,by Michael Caine. Biography.