What Books Are You Reading Right Now?

[Comrade]

I just finished Laurie J Marks' Fire Logic (about ten seconds ago). It was oddly enjoyable, especially given I am rarely fond of fantasy, but it pulled it off well, and I'm looking forward to receiving and reading the sequel, Earth Logic.

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A couple of little things bugged me-- the whole thing with Norina at first deciding not to keep her child and then, I dunno, realising her motherly love for the thing or however the trope goes was really tired and contrived, especially from an austere, pragmatic law enforcer who in no uncertain terms stated she didn't want the child to begin with. There's a cliche we've never seen before. I also did actually sympathise a bit with Mabin's perspective despite the book's concerted effort to prove it to be the wrong one: I didn't agree with her methods, but between her desire to retaliate against the ruthless Sainnite invaders and the book's apparent theme of 'we can solve all our problems by just loving the hell out of the people trying to exterminate us!' I was definitely on Team Mabin on that one.

[IthilanorStPete]

Either Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion. Her other four novels are also wonderful, but these two are the most approachable, I believe. Persuasion is much the shorter of the two - a nice read for an afternoon or three. P&P has so much of the sparkling wit Austen is famous for.

Downloaded those two off of Project Gutenberg; I'll give them a try over the next week or so. Thanks!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Jordan Cat
Huh, I'd like to find some books on Native American folklore. It's not something you hear that much about.

You might try The Gift of the Gila Monster: Navajo Ceremonial Tales by Gerald Hausman.

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[Zrak]

Books on American Indian folklore unfortunately tend towards heavily whitewashed collections of childrens' folktales and "interpretations" co-opted by New Agey figures. There exist some pretty solid texts buried underneath both trends, but they're not always easy to find and the ones that exist tend to reflect only the folklore of pretty large tribes. As Palanan suggests, The Gift of the Gila Monster is a great source for Navajo legends, and I think I have a pretty decent collection of folklore collected from various New England tribes. I'm sure there are good sources for Sioux and Cherokee, too, though I'm not really as familiar.

The folklore of smaller tribes like my own is pretty rapidly fading, though. I can try to write out some Báxoje/Otoe stories in my off time, if you're interested. I'm also pretty familiar with a lot of Pawnee stories, since I studied some Caddoan, but I'm a little less comfortable telling them, since they aren't stories that I grew up with.

Also, I thought I had already written this, but I'm going to put in my two cents for Ian McEwan being a trap. He's like the Paul Auster of British literature, only he wrote one kinda okay book (Amsterdam) instead of one great one (The Music of Chance) and his self-regarding ramblings haven't nearly so graceful a prose style.

[Mx.Silver]

Recently finished my current 'token non-genre title': Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. While I didn't love it as much as I did Orlando - although there aren't many books I love as much as Orlando - it is still Virginia Woolf on form. The somewhat unorthodox perspective structure is also quite interesting.

[happyturtle]

Husband and I finished Surface Details last night. I'm still mentally processing it, but will post some final thoughts later. It's my turn to choose our bedtime reading book, but I haven't decided yet. Mr HT is terribly picky, and more than once, has asked to drop a bedtime book that he just couldn't get into. *checks time* Oh crap, I only have 8 hours to pick something.

For my personal reading, I've veered into books about forum disallowed topics, so I won't be discussing those.

[Cristo Meyers]

Books on American Indian folklore unfortunately tend towards heavily whitewashed collections of childrens' folktales and "interpretations" co-opted by New Agey figures. There exist some pretty solid texts buried underneath both trends, but they're not always easy to find and the ones that exist tend to reflect only the folklore of pretty large tribes. As Palanan suggests, The Gift of the Gila Monster is a great source for Navajo legends, and I think I have a pretty decent collection of folklore collected from various New England tribes. I'm sure there are good sources for Sioux and Cherokee, too, though I'm not really as familiar.

The folklore of smaller tribes like my own is pretty rapidly fading, though. I can try to write out some Báxoje/Otoe stories in my off time, if you're interested. I'm also pretty familiar with a lot of Pawnee stories, since I studied some Caddoan, but I'm a little less comfortable telling them, since they aren't stories that I grew up with.

Heck, I'd say write them down anyway. The loss of Native folklore is a tragedy.

I think I saw Gift the last time I was out...I'll have to double-check and pick it up if I did.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Zrak
I can try to write out some Báxoje/Otoe stories in my off time, if you're interested.

By all means, write them down.

And maybe try to find a university press that would be interested in publishing them. I don't know much about this language group, but according to Ethnologue Iowa-Oto is extinct or virtually so. Absolutely worth writing out what you can.

[Coidzor]

I'm considering re-reading the Watch cycle of books from Discworld, but I'd need to get ahold of Guards! Guards! Right now I'm reading Men at Arms and considering going back through Feet of Clay at least, since I read Night Watch just a bit ago and Jingo and the Fifth Elephant a couple of months ago.

Also about halfway through a bunch of memoirs and short fiction called "I Shudder (And other reactions to life, death, and new jersey)" or something similar.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by warty goblin
I find reading in terms of tropes, cliches etc to be tediously and unproductively reductive, so I don't do it.... I don't care about what tropes occur in a story, or if it's built expressly to 'subvert' some of them. I care about whether it makes me feel.

Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely so.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
And really, if it doesn't have fire and spirit, what's the point?

Yes.

Originally Posted by Cristo Meyers
So I started picking up books pretty much at random from the local Half Price Books....

Let me just say how much I envy your having a Half-Price Books near you. Last time I checked, the closest one to my area was two states away.

Originally Posted by Cristo Meyers
I think there were one or two more, but I've only got so much room in my bag...

Apostasy!!!

Originally Posted by veti
My favourite book is currently To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis.

Connie Willis is interesting. Very talented, often rather understated, sometimes very funny. And she does romantic comedy very well indeed.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
Bronze Age Military Equipment arrived today! I'm happy, and would be more happy if I wasn't going to spend the evening doing laundry and programming a parametric bootstrap to do prediction intervals for latent random variables*. But I can confirm it does have some really marvelous color photos of reconstructions of bronze age arms and armor, and a complete illustrated version of Nancy Sander's typology of Aegean bronze swords.

Sounds awesome. All you need is a tower shield.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
*If none of these words mean anything to you, it's a sign you have made wise life choices.

Alas, no wise choices here.

But I can't program that stuff. NTsysPC taught me that much.



(We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!!)

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[warty goblin]

Books on American Indian folklore unfortunately tend towards heavily whitewashed collections of childrens' folktales and "interpretations" co-opted by New Agey figures. There exist some pretty solid texts buried underneath both trends, but they're not always easy to find and the ones that exist tend to reflect only the folklore of pretty large tribes. As Palanan suggests, The Gift of the Gila Monster is a great source for Navajo legends, and I think I have a pretty decent collection of folklore collected from various New England tribes. I'm sure there are good sources for Sioux and Cherokee, too, though I'm not really as familiar.

Do you have a title for that collection by any chance? I'm embarrassingly ignorant of American Indian folklore - mostly because I cannot stand whitewashed or new-agey versions of folklore - but love pretty much all mythology.

The folklore of smaller tribes like my own is pretty rapidly fading, though. I can try to write out some Báxoje/Otoe stories in my off time, if you're interested. I'm also pretty familiar with a lot of Pawnee stories, since I studied some Caddoan, but I'm a little less comfortable telling them, since they aren't stories that I grew up with.

I'd certainly be interested, if you have the time.

Also, I thought I had already written this, but I'm going to put in my two cents for Ian McEwan being a trap. He's like the Paul Auster of British literature, only he wrote one kinda okay book (Amsterdam) instead of one great one (The Music of Chance) and his self-regarding ramblings haven't nearly so graceful a prose style.

All I can say is that I'm enjoying Atonement. Not going to be my favorite book ever, but it's an enjoyable read that requires precisely the right amount of brainpower after a day spent wrestling central limit theorems.

Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely so.

To clarify, I'm not arguing that a person shouldn't critically engage with what they're reading. Merely that dissecting it is not a particularly interesting course of action.

Yes.

There are some things that don't need quite as much fire and blood. A story where men fight gods and route armies just by shouting is not one of them.

Sounds awesome. All you need is a tower shield.

Only if I'm going prior to ~1400 BC, but then I don't get to have the awesome armor.

Alas, no wise choices here.

But I can't program that stuff. NTsysPC taught me that much.

(We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!!)
[/COLOR]

Tonight it's central limit theorems by way of measure theory. Hell hath no pit deeper.

[IthilanorStPete]

Started Persuasion today. Austen's language is interesting to explore. There's a couple of things that surprised me, such as the use of "pretty" as an intensifier, such as "in the course of a pretty long conference" or "Your interest, Sir Walter, is in pretty safe hands". Apparently that's less modern than I thought. It also looks like Austen made a rather dirty joke involving the abbreviation of the name Richard.

Husband and I finished Surface Details last night. I'm still mentally processing it, but will post some final thoughts later.

Definitely interested to hear what you think!

[EmeraldRose]

Made my way up to Guards! Guards! now. I forgot how quickly Pratchett can be read...

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by EmeraldRose
Made my way up to Guards! Guards! now. I forgot how quickly Pratchett can be read...

Ahh, classic Pratchett. Good times, good times indeed.

Originally Posted by IthilanorStPete
There's a couple of things that surprised me, such as the use of "pretty" as an intensifier, such as "in the course of a pretty long conference" or "Your interest, Sir Walter, is in pretty safe hands". Apparently that's less modern than I thought.

Once you start reading material from that period, it really does surprise you how many expressions we think of as "modern" were in circulation long before.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
I'm embarrassingly ignorant of American Indian folklore - mostly because I cannot stand whitewashed or new-agey versions of folklore - but love pretty much all mythology.

For some reason the collective Native American mythos has been especially prone to new-agey-ness. (Mythosi? Mythorum?) Actual Native American literature is decidedly different.



So, I've started some new late-night reading, the first non-nonfiction I've tried in a while: The Silver Ship and the Sea, by Brenda Cooper. Apparently she collaborated with Larry Niven on an earlier book--probably the typical arrangement, in which the established author sketches the framework and the younger author fills in most of the writing--and The Silver Ship and the Sea is her first original novel.

And, while I try to be fair to new writers, so far it really shows. It took me several tries to get into it, and even now there's no real emotional traction; I'm following along without being especially involved with any of the characters, or indeed with the colony world itself. She's prone to describing what she sees in her mind, and while the visions are no doubt spectacular, the text itself is somewhat flat and unevocative.

I'm continuing for now, but without much real enthusiasm. I had high hopes for the silver ship itself, based on the cover artwork--and the cover itself is marvelous--but alas, having met the silver ship already, one is not terribly impressed. But one perseveres.

[dehro]

Ahh, classic Pratchett. Good times, good times indeed.

Surely you mean interesting times?

[Palanan]

Ba-doom-boom.

[Cicciograna]

I've recently finished reading Please, don't tell my parents I'm a supervillain, bought after seeing a banner on this very site advertising it (yay Giant, they work ).

The book is well written and the fluff is nice, with well developed characters and a plethora of intereting superheroes and supervillains, but it left me a bit sour in the end. I spoilered my considerations for the sake of those who mean to read it.

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First of all, even if the characters are nice, it's a bit boring to read the desperate pleas from Penny to have her power manifest, her lamentation at it not having it under control and the fact that she always blacks out when it works.

Moreover, I'd been left completely disappointed by Penny's parents, who seem absolutely oblivious to the mere possibility that her daughter may be involved. Her mom is the Audit, who should be the apotheosis of logic and reasoning, but she completely fails at upholding her reputation.
The team of villains is called The Inscrutable Machine, the leader of the team is called Bad Penny and has candy-related devices, one of the other members is called E-Claire and has a mind-affecting power and zombie ragdolls under her, and the other one always dresses in black with a large hat. Now, Penelope Akk built a Machine (which she calls this way even in the presence of her parents) which is by all means Inscrutable to anyone (even to his father, a conclamate ubergenius), her name is Penny, her best friend is called Claire (which is only missing an E- from her supervillain name) and is the daughter of a former superheroine whose power was mind-affecting too, they play a computer game where she controls candy-themed monsters against the toy-themed armies led by Claire, and finally her other best friend only wears black and a large hat. This ought to make bell rings to ANYBODY, while the Audit is CLUELESS

The way the Inscrutable Machine always gets the upper hand against far more experienced superheroes and supervillains pissed me off: their opponents always seem incompetent and neutralized by simple tactics, without enough countermeasures to pit against Penny's toys. Basically, the only fight they lose is the one against Generic Girl, and this not because she's actually more subtle or tactically clever, or resourceful, but only because she seems practically invulnerable and almost invincible. Even when intruding into Mech's base they seemed pitted not against one of the most resourceful and capable superheroes, supported by the supergenial inventions of Brian Akk, but just against a dilettante who had an expensive armor and some robots around. Disappointing, to say the least.

Finally, the Machine. A Deus ex Machina, indeed, almost indestructable, impervious to all sorts of energy attack (its simply absorbs them!), capable of regenerating anything and understanding any command. It strained my suspension of disbelief a bit too much.

And oh, the finale has been WAY to fast, as if the author had gotten bored to write. What happened between Vera and the Apparition? What is Vera? How will the other superheroes react to TIM actions? Way too many questions left unanswered.

Bear in mind, however, that although there are the many dark spots I underlined, I enjoyed the book a lot.

[warty goblin]

For some reason the collective Native American mythos has been especially prone to new-agey-ness. (Mythosi? Mythorum?) Actual Native American literature is decidedly different.

I grew up amounst some pretty airy-fairy new agey sorts, so I'm well aware of this. Not my family so much, but I certainly knew people who went pretty far down that rabbit hole, and have some unfortunate memories involving very touchy-feely childrens' books and at one point holding hands for a 'traditional Native America energy sharing ritual.' I profoundly wish I was making that up.

My sister, who spent two years running sled dogs in a Gwitch'in village in the Canadian arctic, gets a touch uppity about those people.

[Jordan Cat]

Finishing up The Eye of the World's last chapter and got The Great Hunt today for after I finish it.

I have to say, I am really loving Jordan's writing style, and his world building left me wanting to see more and more.

A friend from Pathfinder Society saw me reading it and said it was a good thing I was starting now, he's been reading The Wheel of Time series since it came out apparently.

[Gnoman]

I would suggest you take copius notes. The number of characters/places/events that are mentioned once and turn out to be viatally important later is staggering, and the in-book glossaries aren't often much help, as (presumably so you can look things up without fear of spoilers), they mostly explain things in terms of the previous book instead of the one you are reading.

[warty goblin]

Finished Atonement last night, which I quite enjoyed. Started James Herriot again. All Creatures Great and Small is one of those books I have read so many times it has become entirely woven into the fibers of my conscious, to the point where I know nearly word for word the events of every single story in the book, but still love reading them. A perfect pre-finals read in other words.

This is actually something I find rather curious. We tend to value stories for their unfamiliarity and newness, but I've always found the greatest pleasure in rereading. Then I understand the book as a whole and can admire how it fits together, and either anticipate the familiar triumph or dread the unavoidable tragedy. Suspense over what will happen is far less powerful than either of those. When I read new books, to a reasonable degree of accuracy I'm really looking for books to reread in a couple of years.

[Sapphire Guard]

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas.

Great cover, good premise (King holds a tournament to find a personal assassin) but a bizarre and disappointing execution.

Celaena is the kingdom's best assassin, recruited for that quality, but isn't treated remotely like an assassin, and gets offended the instant someone doesn't trust or dislikes her. She's allowed mingle with the Crown Prince freely (including alone, in her rooms , at two in the morning),as well as important diplomatic guests, is kept in a room with a billiards table, a piano, and lots of other pointy dangerous things, given access to ranged weapons in a room with royalty present, and when she wants to go to a party, the guards recruited to keep her contained take her and her maid's word that she was invited.

She's also an assassin that is constantly snuck up on even though she rigged her doors to squeak, and her reaction to waking up to find a bag of sweets on her pillow while a participant in an assassin's tournament when someone is murdering other contestants is to immediately eat half the bag.

[EmeraldRose]

Ok, I'm remembering that Eric (by Pratchett) was definitely not one of my favorites.

[Knaight]

I just finished The Knight and The Blast Furnace. It was excellent.

[Palanan]

So, complete change of pace for me. I finally rented Frozen over the weekend. Watched it twice, kicked myself cosmically for not seeing it in the theater, and now I have an omnibus collection of stories by Hans Christian Andersen, in order to read the original "Snow Queen."

Also, I have The Art of Frozen on ILL request. I was tempted to check out a library copy of Frozen, but all their copies are spoken for and there are 198 holds.

Not kidding. 198 holds.

[Duck999]

Not kidding. 198 holds.

Yeah, that happens. One book at the library I used had many holds, around that number. It happens to the big teen books (Divergent, Hunger Games, etc) and also to some books that just had movies come out.

Currently I am reading Stuck on Earth. It's good so far, though some parts are weird.

[veti]

Ok, I'm remembering that Eric (by Pratchett) was definitely not one of my favorites.

Each to their own, personally I think it's the best of the whole series. The scene where our heroes (and more particularly, the Luggage) arrive in not-Troy, for instance, still makes me crack up just thinking about it. There's not many books that can still make me laugh years after I last read them.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Comrade

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A couple of little things bugged me-- the whole thing with Norina at first deciding not to keep her child and then, I dunno, realising her motherly love for the thing or however the trope goes was really tired and contrived, especially from an austere, pragmatic law enforcer who in no uncertain terms stated she didn't want the child to begin with. There's a cliche we've never seen before.

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Not having read the book, I can't comment on the execution of the story arc, but I will say I've seen this more than once with family and friends. Cliches are often rooted in a powerful reality, and I've learned never to underestimate the power of those feelings.

Originally Posted by warty goblin
This is actually something I find rather curious. We tend to value stories for their unfamiliarity and newness, but I've always found the greatest pleasure in rereading. Then I understand the book as a whole and can admire how it fits together, and either anticipate the familiar triumph or dread the unavoidable tragedy.

Very much so. The first reading of a really good book is wonderful, but reading it through again gives you a more comprehensive understanding of both the characters' experiences and how they're presented in words. The new perspective makes it essentially a second kind of experience, with the same material.

In some ways, re-reading a favorite book is like walking down a familiar trail. You know the contours of the hills and pools, but you never really walk the same trail twice--because every time you notice something new, and you've changed between readings as well.

Michael Drout, the linguist and Tolkien scholar I've mentioned before, commented in one of his courses that he's read Lord of the Rings at least forty times, and each time he picks up on something new. That, for me, is one solid test of enduring quality. Your understanding of a powerful story can continue to grow throughout your life.

Originally Posted by Knaight
I just finished The Knight and The Blast Furnace. It was excellent.

So, that took about a month and a half? Not bad for a 954-page book, not bad at all.

[Knaight]

So, that took about a month and a half? Not bad for a 954-page book, not bad at all.

It took about 3 sittings of several hours each, spaced far apart - I may have also been reading other things during the same period.

Fortunately, the next thing on the list is shorter fare, if not particularly lighter. I Don't Wish Nobody To Have A Life Like Mine: Tales of Kids in Adult Lockup isn't going to read itself.

[Eldan]

THought I could re-read Way of Kings over the easter weekend, but only got to 700 something pages. Finished it just now, so on to Words of radiance.