Books

The Middleman by Olen Steinhauer. This is a new author to me. It's about a group of left-wing activists who suddenly disappear and go off-grid. A lady FBI agent has been monitoring them for a while, even though there's no evidence they intend violence. Well, things happen, people die, and the surviving members are officially labeled terrorists. Anyway, I have about 100 pages left and some very suspicious characters haven't yet had their involvement adequately explained. If it finishes strong, I'll add Mr. Steinhauer to my list of authors I would read another book by.

I finished a Confederacy of Dunces, and Three Body Problem. Now I'm about ⅓ through The Dark Forest.

I'd recommend all three of these books!

A Confederacy of Dunces is a Pulitzer prize winning comedy. By the end of the book you really like Ignatius, even though you hate him in the beginning.

The other two books are part of the "Remembrance of earths past" trilogy. Easy recommend for sci-fi fans.

I'm reading The Book that Held her Heart (book 3 in Mark Lawrence's The Library trilogy). I really liked how the series started, but am not a huge fan of the ending it's working towards, which is not my usual experience with this author.

Next up, I have 5 bingo squares left so I'm going to try to focus on getting those done.

Started Dungeon Crawler Carl this week. It is a hell of a read so far. Probably going to have to put the rest of the books on my to read list shortly.

Will also start audio book of Disquiet Gods soon? Maybe next week. Looking very forward to that since I also grabbed the last book in the Sun Eater series in print. Last one isnt where i usually do audio books

I'm slowly but surely making my way through 1984. I think I'm not in the right mood for it to grab me better, but it's interesting so far.

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Finished (since last thread):

Days by Moonlight by André Alexis (magically realistic literary fiction) | bingo: minority author, award

A grieving scientist agrees to join his parents' friend on a trip to research a missing poet.

I liked this a lot in the beginning, and found the writing style engaging. However, I could tell a lot of the Canadian references were going over my head, and the last third went off in a direction that killed a lot of my enthusiasm. It's not a bad book, and I might try something else by the author eventually, but I think someone who reads a lot of lit fic would appreciate it more.

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (historical detective noir) | bingo: minority author HM, motion picture, award HM

A recently unemployed WWII vet takes on a shady request to find a missing girl.

It was cool to see noir from a Black perspective, but I didn't like it enough to want to read more of the series. Maybe I don't have the patience for noir tropes I thought I did.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher (historical gothic fantasy horror) | bingo: creature, short, lgbtqia+ (maybe), award, late to the party

A The Fall of the House of Usher retelling. An ex-soldier visits a friend, whose sister is gravely ill. On arrival, it quickly becomes clear that something is very wrong with, well, everything.

I was wary of trying another horror from T. Kingfisher after disliking The Hollow Places, but I really liked the cover, and it was short, so I gave it a shot. Turns out, this was great! Pleasantly disturbing and didn't overstay its welcome.

I'm currently reading Kings 'It' for the first time. The mix of nostalgia and horror is fun

And Shirer's 'Fall of the Third Republic' which is a fascinating bit of history that rhymes with contemporary authoritarian politics.

Just finished Antihero by Gregg Hurwitz. Fav action thriller series. Currently listening to Worst Case Scenario by TJ Newman. Not loving the narrator but the story is great.

Next up - another go 'round with Project Hail Mary in preparation for the movie! Probably my fav book of all time.

Not technically a book but a book length fanfic. It’s called “Saving Grace” It’s basically the book Project Hail Mary (spoiler in case the tag is not showing up in your client)

So far it’s pretty good. Would recommend for fans of the original book

I started off the week with an Outlanders book (I think it was number 5)

Since then I have been binging on Dungeon Crawler Carl. After hearing people constantly mention it and good things being said I thought i would give it a try and I am loving it. I am already half way through the third book.

It reminds me of a mix of Solo Levelling with Buy Mort. It is very similar to Buy Mort in how it is presented, written and the humour behind everything. So to anyone who loves a bit of Dungeon Crawler Carl, I would highly highly recommend giving The Shopocalypse Saga: Buy Mort books a go, I think you'd love them as well!

Path of Daggers! (Wot #8)

I’m officially past the halfway point.

I have thoughts on the series, but my spoiler tags have been known to fail here for whatever reason.

Suffice to say, I have been enjoying the books. The hardest thing about reading these books is that they’re just old enough to not be considered classics like LotR, but not modern enough to be at the forefront of social media, like Cosmere stuff.

So finding people to talk about these books irl has been very difficult! And the huge 14 books is such a daunting task to get someone to consider it.

Still plugging away at Field of Roses by Philip Pullman

It’s been a slow reading week as I prepare for gardening weather, but I’m going to finish this book this week. I want to make sure I reread Project Hail Mary before the movie comes out!

I finished 2 books by Johan van Coenegham:

• Het verhaal van Tom
• Het verhaal van Kaat

Level 1 readers for learning Dutch!

Just finished The Handmaid's Tale after having it in my to-read list for who knows how long. It was pretty bleak. I'll probably take a break and read some other things before coming back for the second book. Margaret Atwood is slowly becoming one of my favorite authors.

The State of Affairs, by Esther Perel; I'm also reading The Reemergence of Liberation Theologies, ed. Thia Cooper.

Literally just finished "The Last Days Of Night" by Graham Moore.

Thomas Edison is suing George Westinghouse for $1 billion. Westinghouse hires a young, untested lawyer. Great historical fiction with enough violence to make it a crime novel

• The Wandering Inn book 17 - Lady of Fire . So far I am enjoying it. Its my soap opera guilty pleasure. Theres some parts I dont care for. The push into government is something I could care less about. But the personal stories keep me coming back.
• The Heart Grows - by Damaged - https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/51893/the-heart-grows I keep up with the series. The characters and writing style keeps me going back. Lots of good world building.
• The Hundred Reigns [Timeloop LitRPG] by Maxime J. Durand (Void Herald) . I basically like everything Void Herald publishes. Hes push into the more grittier side of writing has me wanting to read more and more. I cant wait to see what happens in the story.

I bought a collection of the Slough House thrillers by Mike Herron, the books on which the Apple TV show Slow Horses was based.

I find the way Herron writes, very nice. He usually designs every paragraph from the perspective of one of the Slow Horses, or someone useful to the story. But he also changes the tone, the wording, in the way that character would tell that part.

Plus the story kind of takes a modern twist on the tired old spy stories and it contains a fair amount of humour.

Just started Red Country by Joe Abercrombie this morning and already hooked.

Guncle

Its for a book review podcast I am listening to, "words about books"

Its a story of retired gay Hollywood celebrity, Pat, taking care of his former friends kids after she lost her battle with cancer.

The father fell into addiction and wants Pat to take care of the kids for 90 days while he goes to a near by addiction treatment center.

I am only 90 pages in, but so far, I am not impressed by the story's humor and for the most part, I am tired out by celebrity stories/culture.

I am a book four of my audiobook re-read version of Dungeon Crawler Carl before the eighth book comes out in May. I just wanted to hear the audiobooks because they are done so well.

I also just finished A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher. (All she writes is great) And now I’m moving onto Operation Bounce House by Matt Dinniman, who I will be seeing on Thursday for a signing.

I listen to books on my hour commute. I am currently working through The Iron Druid Chronicles. It’s a fun world where all the gods and monsters are real and the last Druid is being hunted down by his nemesis and all the trials he under goes. Each book takes a stride through a different pantheon and the story is died together nicely, albeit this is clearly young adult fiction, I’m enjoying it.

Since my last check in, I started and finished Yellowface by RF Kuang. Read it in one day; the narrator was so insufferable I just had to know what would happen to her lmao.

Almost done with Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu. I like reading short stories before bed because there's less chance of me staying up all night trying to finish a book haha. I like it so far, some stories more than others, but overall they're pretty solid.

Also around halfway through None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. It's stressing me out a bit, not sure in a good or bad way lol. Pretty decent so far and keeps me on my toes.

I'm reading Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History. If you can't tell, it's about the history of the Gulag system, a collection of Soviet concentration camps. Interesting stuff, though gruesome.

I recently also read through IAEA's INSAG-7 report on the Chernobyl accident. HBO's Chernobyl is a wonderful series, but the last episode bothered me since I knew it gets a lot of things wrong. After digging around YouTube videos for a bit, I found a lot of them confused and contradictory. Eventually I decided to go to the source and read the report in an effort to understand what happened. It's a surprisingly understandable and not terribly long, and pretty much the most authoritative source on the accident. It's amazing how many people make videos about Chernobyl who clearly haven't read it. What really boiled my coolant, however, was how it was clear the Soviet nuclear institutes knew about the design flaws that caused the accident and even knew how to fix them, but they chose to do nothing. They. Fucking. Knew. They just blamed the operators and got away with it.

The HBO series is great, but it is really inaccurate.

does my shampoo bottle count?

Freak Fall by Dave Cheadle. It's Christian fiction that reads like a thriller and isn't preachy. Reminds me of Frank Peretti.