What are you reading? (January 2016)
- Thread starter Maklershed
- Start date
Only if I'm in a space where I'm not alone and am having trouble concentrating on the book. Then I usually put on some headphones and turn tt the internet, constructing first a soundscape of rain, thunder, and brown noise usually, sometimes adding in a fireplace or wind noises (http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/ and https://rain.simplynoise.com and https://simplynoise.com are frequent visits for me when writing and I turn to them in these instances too) and some instrumental music, yeah.
It sometimes helps focus but often accessing the internet at all makes me get distracted so it's a double-edged sword.
I can only listen classical jazz or smooth jazz while reading. I lose concentration with any other genre.
Almost never. I can read through almost any surrounding noise, though. I just prefer quiet. Plus, music has a really strong influence on my emotional state so I often feel like it is fighting the book.
Frequently. Only music without vocals, and I try to find something vaguely fitting the mood. I buy quite a lot of instrumental/electronic music along with some film scores, so I have a big collection to choose from. I usually have the volume pretty soft however, I just want a little backgrounding. I definitely don't want something that's fighting for my attention, but rather an accompaniment.
I have done the majority of my reading on the train (since I spend two-three hours every weekday on it), so I have used the music, like yourself, to drown out the noise. I usually put whatever music I listen to normally. Just nothing that distracts me too much from the reading.
But that has also created this habit of me wanting something on while I read at home. Where the noise is very minimal. I will check out those playlists out, though. I could use more stuff for when I'm at home. Thank you for the links.
When I'm at home, this is usually what I put on. It isn't something I listen to on a daily basis when I'm not reading.
TwntyOneTwlv
Member
This is a brilliant idea. I'll have to try that sometime!
Mumei, I don't quite get the hype you put out for this book. It was ok, but nothing mindblowing.
Oh, you. I have actually seen this book around and thought about reading it, mostly because I like dogs so much.
I know. I don't even know what you're talking about, exactly, but I know.
Tawney Bomb
Member
Been reading It in earnest now. Didn't realize it was so long, but I'm loving it. A little over halfway done and I think it might be my favorite King book, though I've only read five.
Finished listening to Mr. Mercedes and thought it was alright, going to give Finders Keeprs a go, just cause. Started listening to The Devil in the White City yesterday. No option yet.
Hoping to finish It within the month and start something new.
Also been entertaining the thought of going back to physical books, or maybe just buying hardcovers for books I enjoyed a lot.
Finished listening to Mr. Mercedes and thought it was alright, going to give Finders Keeprs a go, just cause. Started listening to The Devil in the White City yesterday. No option yet.
Hoping to finish It within the month and start something new.
Also been entertaining the thought of going back to physical books, or maybe just buying hardcovers for books I enjoyed a lot.
Cool thread, first time here.
Just finished Bone Clocks.
As usual David Mitchell has beautiful and engaging prose, but boy am I hating his expanding literary universe. Bone Clocks takes what was facilitating background mysticism in Thousand Autumns and turns it into all-out nerd lore, complete with a DBZ fight scene.
I love how he handles different characters like in Cloud Atlas. The ending kind of fell apart for me however.
I finished Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World today:
The book picked up quite a bit in my opinion when the narrative got past the portion of Khan's life when he was uniting Mongolia (which seemed to just be a summary of the information in The Secret History, which is obviously going to be filled with biases).
I thought it was really interesting to hear about the shifting opinions of the Mongols in the centuries after their fall. They were more or less responsible for the transmission of art and technology that lead to the Renaissance in Europe via the Eurasian trade routes they built during their reign. However, by the age of enlightenment, most of Europe had vilified them as dull, blood-thirsty barbarians.
I also had no idea how hard the USSR came down on anything related to Genghis Khan or the Mongol empire in their occupation of Mongolia.
If you like history, give it a read.
The book picked up quite a bit in my opinion when the narrative got past the portion of Khan's life when he was uniting Mongolia (which seemed to just be a summary of the information in The Secret History, which is obviously going to be filled with biases).
I thought it was really interesting to hear about the shifting opinions of the Mongols in the centuries after their fall. They were more or less responsible for the transmission of art and technology that lead to the Renaissance in Europe via the Eurasian trade routes they built during their reign. However, by the age of enlightenment, most of Europe had vilified them as dull, blood-thirsty barbarians.
I also had no idea how hard the USSR came down on anything related to Genghis Khan or the Mongol empire in their occupation of Mongolia.
If you like history, give it a read.
Serious question, how many of you here are slow readers?
I find myself lucky to get a book done in a month, and even then, I have times when I don't read at all.
I'm a constant reader, as I have a long back log and I'm always reading something, but I'm just slow getting through things. Especially if I'm reading a 1000+ page door stop epic fantasy.
I find myself lucky to get a book done in a month, and even then, I have times when I don't read at all.
I'm a constant reader, as I have a long back log and I'm always reading something, but I'm just slow getting through things. Especially if I'm reading a 1000+ page door stop epic fantasy.
I am not super slow, but I am not all that fast either. I probably read 50-60 pages an hour going at the pace I prefer to read fiction at.
Atraveller
Banned
Textbooks mostly, when I'm in the state of "don't want to study, but feel guilty not to because an exam is coming up".
I seriously can't watch people cracking paperback spines.
When I was growing up, my dad used to destroy my paperbacks when he took them to read. The spine looked like Bane got a hold of it. There would always be a page or two with coffee rings. He marked his pages by dog-earring corners. I'm surprised I didn't find boogers stuck to the cover.
It drove me crazy, and pretty much turned me off lending books as I got older.
Adds character
Atraveller
Banned
Yeah, I don't like lending books out as well.
So do dents on a car, but I am sure you wouldn't let me near yours with a ball-peen hammer
So do dents on a car, but I am sure you wouldn't let me near yours with a ball-peen hammer
haha, valid point.
Tawney Bomb
Member
Not slow per se, but with work and school there isn't always a ton of time, so even moderate sized books seem to take me forever.
rocksteady1983
Member
This made me giggle. Then sad cause I suffer from it too.
Ahh same here. My left ear has hyperacusis which adds to the fun!
Finally finished up We, the Drowned by Carsten Jensen tonight and it's marvelous, depressing, witty, and shows just how much people love the sea and the boats they sail on. Next up is Contact by Carl Sagan. Ever since I saw the movie I've wanted to read the book.
I'm a fairly slow reader since I never read literature until a couple years back. Plus my ADHD makes reading a constant struggle. I love to read, but I get so agitated at times! That's why I try to be a consistent reader. My goal for this year is a book a week. I got to 51 last year, so I have made good progress thus far!
Also Cats>Dogs.
I use bookmarks. Well, post-it notes or scraps. Sometimes I'll play some ambient nature sounds in the background, but mostly it's quiet.
Slowly going through Empire Ascendant, by Kameron Hurley. I say slowly, because I've forgotten a lot of what happened in the first book. lol
I'm usually a fast reader, but I can go weeks without touching a novel.
Slowly going through Empire Ascendant, by Kameron Hurley. I say slowly, because I've forgotten a lot of what happened in the first book. lol
I'm usually a fast reader, but I can go weeks without touching a novel.
Finished Half the War by Joe Abercrombie tonight, thus wrapping up his Shattered Sea trilogy. I really liked it, despite some misgivings about the setting. It has that usual nastiness of his where bad things happen to good people, but it's tempered by whatever he learned for Red Country, where, occasionally, good things happen to them too. And because it was written as YA, these are relatively slim volumes that move swiftly, often traversing months of travel in the span of a sentence. I fell in love when one dude in book 2 was like WOW WE GOT A LONG FUCKING WAY TO GO and then the chapter ended and in the start of the next they were like WOW THAT WAS LONG BUT HERE WE ARE.
It's also really violent; I think the only thing that's really 'forbidden' in young adult books is rape, and forbidden mainly in the sense that it shouldn't be used as it usually is in genre where it's employed and tossed away as crutches for character development, most of the time for characters who aren't the ones actually being raped. Where do whores go? Somewhere, just not on page. Anyway, a good number of people have their heads chopped off or their chests blown open, in that jovial boys being boys kind of a way.
Back to the 'misgivings about the setting'--it's one of those fantasy worlds that's actually built atop the ruins of a modern world, and coming off like half of Archivist Wasp I was just really tired of it. It does come to play in a pretty substantial manner so it's not like, wasted, at least.
I also liked the characters too. The duo in Book 2 is more substantially developed than the introductions in Book 3, but they're all, for the most part, compelling young men and women. It's the last that really reminded me of a post Abercrombie made a few years back, responding to criticism of certain scenes in the First Law trilogy:
(the context here is that
)
Typing this out reminds me of how nasty it sounds now, when, back when I read it all those years ago, it was just another bad thing happening to a character in the book, a throwaway event meant mainly to flesh out one of the male leads. And citing this as one of the reasons why I like the author and his works feels awfully reminiscent of how such abuses plays out in text, an irony I'm not all that fond of. But he does acknowledge the problem openly, in these threads where people ran--and will run--defense for what he wrote endlessly. And he has, I think, worked to fix it; not successfully, not at first, and through Best Served Cold and The Heroes you can see him work with it, fiddling with circumstance, with the characters, trying to get it right.
It's not until Red Country that it works, I think--and if pressed for specifics as to just why it worked I don't think I could answer in a satisfactory fashion. It's not strictly that they're no longer being abused, or put into positions ripe for such treatment, because that still happens; but it does feel like they're actors rather than props, entities with agency, etc. That Shy cannot fight as well as Logen isn't something that demeans her; it's what makes her a normal human being, and this is celebrated by the end, even as it gives the latter a proper sendoff.
This is too long already, so like, 3.5 stars out of 5, one and five-eighths of a thumb, etc.
It's also really violent; I think the only thing that's really 'forbidden' in young adult books is rape, and forbidden mainly in the sense that it shouldn't be used as it usually is in genre where it's employed and tossed away as crutches for character development, most of the time for characters who aren't the ones actually being raped. Where do whores go? Somewhere, just not on page. Anyway, a good number of people have their heads chopped off or their chests blown open, in that jovial boys being boys kind of a way.
Back to the 'misgivings about the setting'--it's one of those fantasy worlds that's actually built atop the ruins of a modern world, and coming off like half of Archivist Wasp I was just really tired of it. It does come to play in a pretty substantial manner so it's not like, wasted, at least.
I also liked the characters too. The duo in Book 2 is more substantially developed than the introductions in Book 3, but they're all, for the most part, compelling young men and women. It's the last that really reminded me of a post Abercrombie made a few years back, responding to criticism of certain scenes in the First Law trilogy:
(the context here is that
Terez, the princess, is strongarmed into having sex with her husband by the popular torturer character, Glokta. He does this by threatening to have her lover be raped. So basically she gets raped so the woman she loves isn't raped.
Typing this out reminds me of how nasty it sounds now, when, back when I read it all those years ago, it was just another bad thing happening to a character in the book, a throwaway event meant mainly to flesh out one of the male leads. And citing this as one of the reasons why I like the author and his works feels awfully reminiscent of how such abuses plays out in text, an irony I'm not all that fond of. But he does acknowledge the problem openly, in these threads where people ran--and will run--defense for what he wrote endlessly. And he has, I think, worked to fix it; not successfully, not at first, and through Best Served Cold and The Heroes you can see him work with it, fiddling with circumstance, with the characters, trying to get it right.
It's not until Red Country that it works, I think--and if pressed for specifics as to just why it worked I don't think I could answer in a satisfactory fashion. It's not strictly that they're no longer being abused, or put into positions ripe for such treatment, because that still happens; but it does feel like they're actors rather than props, entities with agency, etc. That Shy cannot fight as well as Logen isn't something that demeans her; it's what makes her a normal human being, and this is celebrated by the end, even as it gives the latter a proper sendoff.
This is too long already, so like, 3.5 stars out of 5, one and five-eighths of a thumb, etc.
I just finished Killing Floor by Lee Child, semi-new to the thriller genre and really looking forward to reading more of the Reacher series and also finding the best in the genre.
Also just finished The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman. I liked it, but didn't love it.
Now I'm reading How Star Wars Conquered the Universe and finally continuing on with Fall of Giants by Ken Follett after taking a major break on it.
Also just finished The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman. I liked it, but didn't love it.
Now I'm reading How Star Wars Conquered the Universe and finally continuing on with Fall of Giants by Ken Follett after taking a major break on it.
Ah, how good it does feel to figure out an author's plan. And how bad it feels when you know it won't ever be completed.
I completed my re-read of Dune series (i read all of them every other year or so, while the original i tend to read every year), and as i finished Chapterhouse: Dune, i figured out what was going on and what Frank Herbert intended.
The clues aren't even that subtle, most are in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse, and one or two things are hidden in God Emperor of Dune as well (in a way, i'm pretty sure Frank Herbert hadn't planned Heretics and Chapterhouse when he wrote God Emperor).
How intriguing!
But unfortunately we'll never see proper Dune 7, we only have the crap Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson wrote. And they threw all the good stuff away.
They claim they based things on Frank's notes, but i doubt that. They changed the antagonists so radically. And they most certainly missed the clues i've seen. Or ignored them, which is a bigger crime really.
Such ego... "Eh, our idea is better, let's replace what the original author intended". Disgusting.
What they produced is like a Saturday morning cartoon villains...
*Sigh*
I completed my re-read of Dune series (i read all of them every other year or so, while the original i tend to read every year), and as i finished Chapterhouse: Dune, i figured out what was going on and what Frank Herbert intended.
The clues aren't even that subtle, most are in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse, and one or two things are hidden in God Emperor of Dune as well (in a way, i'm pretty sure Frank Herbert hadn't planned Heretics and Chapterhouse when he wrote God Emperor).
How intriguing!
But unfortunately we'll never see proper Dune 7, we only have the crap Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson wrote. And they threw all the good stuff away.
They claim they based things on Frank's notes, but i doubt that. They changed the antagonists so radically. And they most certainly missed the clues i've seen. Or ignored them, which is a bigger crime really.
Such ego... "Eh, our idea is better, let's replace what the original author intended". Disgusting.
What they produced is like a Saturday morning cartoon villains...
*Sigh*
sparky2112
Member
God no.
Completely missed this release, Will have to make time to read even though I decided January was to be a scifi month. These are January's books so far.
I think I enjoyed the Starfarer series most out of what I have read so far this month, but there is still time for something else to surpass it yet.
Christoff Yurievich
Member
I finished Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World today:
The book picked up quite a bit in my opinion when the narrative got past the portion of Khan's life when he was uniting Mongolia (which seemed to just be a summary of the information in The Secret History, which is obviously going to be filled with biases).
I thought it was really interesting to hear about the shifting opinions of the Mongols in the centuries after their fall. They were more or less responsible for the transmission of art and technology that lead to the Renaissance in Europe via the Eurasian trade routes they built during their reign. However, by the age of enlightenment, most of Europe had vilified them as dull, blood-thirsty barbarians.
I also had no idea how hard the USSR came down on anything related to Genghis Khan or the Mongol empire in their occupation of Mongolia.
If you like history, give it a read.
You should check out Hardcore History's Mongol series - http://www.dancarlin.com/product-tag/mongols/ - and see how it compares.
RepairmanJack
Member
Only about 15% in right now but so far this is giving me some really creepy damn vibes. I think it's the Ohio/South and religious angles but it's definitely getting to me.
Maklershed
Member
Only about 15% in right now but so far this is giving me some really creepy damn vibes. I think it's the Ohio/South and religious angles but it's definitely getting to me.
BTW I recommend Knockemstiff when you're done. I'm halfway through and all the vignettes seem to revolve around the tertiary characters of The Devil All the Time. They're very good (so far). I see you Mr. Pollock, trying to get on my top 5 favorite authors list!
Christoff Yurievich
Member
Maybe it's a thing but that book store (plus cat) looks just like the one down the road from me.
PassiveObserver
Member
Checked this out from the library and really enjoy it. Feels like Scary Stories. I'm gonna reserve his 3 volume story about spirals.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
(I have no idea how to opera.)
Probably not by reading it. Librettos are mostly super silly fillers for amazing music imho.
Dandy Lyin
Member
I'm reading The Well of Ascension right now. It's taking me a lot longer to get into than The Last Empire... Maybe I should have taken a break between the two books.
The second half is much better than the first.
Dandy Lyin
Member
Good to know -- I'm almost to the halfway point.
The Big Short. My extremely rudimentary understanding of finance is limiting my ability to enjoy it fully, though.
I'm looking for recommendations for fantasy novels. My absolute favorites in the genre are The Book of the New Sun, LotR, ASoIaF, and Kingkiller. I'm looking for something that is well written and complete. Thoughts on Robin Hobb, Daniel Abraham, or Malazan?
I'm looking for recommendations for fantasy novels. My absolute favorites in the genre are The Book of the New Sun, LotR, ASoIaF, and Kingkiller. I'm looking for something that is well written and complete. Thoughts on Robin Hobb, Daniel Abraham, or Malazan?
A thousand times yes to both of them. If you like Kingkiller, you'll like Hobb.
But he should read Bujold first. The Curse of Chalion!
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