September Reading Thread

[Dave]

Caught up with some newsletters and journals. I'm also still reading Stephen King's The Wasteland. It just isn't gripping me. Everyone rates it highly, and I do really want to get to the Dark Tower and learn what has happened to the world, but it isn't page-turning for me at the moment. I have been watching a lot of TV recently, and very busy too, so that I'm too tired to read in bed (my usual best reading time) but since it's made up of several books/parts, I may give it a rest and read a Slow Horses book again first. Going away later this month and will certainly pick it up again and finish it then.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

... and David Hepworth's latest music non-fic, Hope I Get Old Before I Die: Why Rock Stars Never Retire.

Good author. I saw that just published in Waterstones recently.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

On Saturday I bought the new Yuval Noah Harari, Nexus.

 

[HareBrain]

Stephen King's The Wasteland. It just isn't gripping me. Everyone rates it highly, and I do really want to get to the Dark Tower and learn what has happened to the world, but it isn't page-turning for me at the moment.

Not everyone. I found it pretty weak compared with the first and fourth books. I couldn't get into the fifth one and gave up.

Good author. I saw that just published in Waterstones recently.

I've read most of his. He has a very engaging style.

 

[Bick]

Now reading Those Who Walk Away, by Patricia Highsmith. I must have read ten or more of her novels by now. This is shaping up well, and is one of her more well-known books. I’ll have to have a think of how I might rank them after this, and provide a cheat-sheet of what to read from her.

 

[Dave Vicks]

THIS IS YOUR MIND ON PLANTS.
Michael Pollen. 2021.

Comic book. CATWOMAN:COPYCATS.
2018. Written by Joelle Jones.

 

[Elentarri]

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay [horror novel supposedly]

Stupid, pointless plot. Mediocre writing. I can't believe a professional publisher published this!

 

[Danny McG]

The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay [horror novel supposedly]

Stupid, pointless plot. Mediocre writing. I can't believe a professional publisher published this!

I agree, it was cack

 

[Elentarri]

I agree, it was cack

Danny, I love you. It's so nice to have one's feelings about shitty books validated. An internet book-club buddy thinks this novel is great, shows touching family dynamics and it's one of her favourite books. I'm now wondering how much the author/publisher/amazon paid her to say that/write it in her reviews.

 

[Dave Vicks]

ARGUMENTATION:THE STUDY OF
EFFECTIVE REASONING 2nd ED.
By David Zarefsky.2013

 

[dask]

Finished SS-GB, excellent alternate history where, like Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, authority swung back and forth with yo-yo regularity and you never knew who was in charge of whom.

Starting this next. Never heard of the author but intrigued with the subject.

 

[Extollager]

Going on to P. D. James's 4th Dalgliesh novel now, Shroud for a Nightingale.

Not the cover of the loose-pages Sphere paperback I'm reading; the above design is much more pleasing.

 

[Ian Fortytwo]

I'm currently reading Hamlet, by William Shakespeare.

 

[Chris von shannow]

New Chris Nuthall out “Exiled to glory” it’s very good

 

[kythe]

I have now finished "The Other Wind" by Ursula LeGuin, the final full-length Earthsea book. It is a good ending for the series, where details throughout the stories are wrapped up and the world remade into what it should have always been. This book lacks an edge to the adventure, having little of the suspense or sense of excitement which is present in the earliest books. But just as people may mellow out with age, so does the Earthsea saga. I still enjoyed the philosophies explored and the way the diverse characters pull together.

I understand there are also some stand-alone Earthsea short stories as well. The Earthsea series is one which I will keep revisiting over the years. I get something different out of it with each read.

 

[Chris von shannow]

Agatha H and the Airship City by Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio

This was fun, fairly amusing, and wild. Agatha is an interesting, intelligent, and spunky character to spend time with. I also loved the Jägermonsters and the smug cat construct. The world building is original - a lovely gaslight/steampunk, mechanical world with genius (sometimes) mad scientists/engineers that have that engineering "spark", an airship city, and sentient constructs. Loads of fun, so long as you don't take anything too seriously. This novel is apparently an adaptation of the Girl Genius webcomic found here: Girl Genius​

Are these children’s books?

 

[Elentarri]

Are these children’s books?

It's a YA novelisation of portions of the webcomic: Girl Genius

 

[Chris von shannow]

It's a YA novelisation of portions of the webcomic: Girl Genius

Thank you

 

[Elentarri]

The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez [Magical Realism, Literary Fiction]

The majority of this novel is set in the Dominican Republic, and shows something of what it's like living there through the lives of the various characters. This story is a mish-mash historical fiction, literary fiction, and magical realism. The concept is interesting, but the execution was messy, and after a while the whole thing just got tedious. It even turned into something of a soap-opera at one point, and I simply just did not give a fig about the characters or their family dramas. This book is only 240 or so pages long, but it felt much longer and took days to get through. I really liked the idea of a cemetery for untold stories, but this novel just didn't work for me.​

 

[Rodders]

I finished Traitor General, which was really, really good. Tension was high throughout this book and there is a genuine sense of risk. I'm hoping that Dan Abnett returns to Gaunt's time on Gereon in one or two his his dossiers.

Now on to His Last Command.