I was wrong. It was bound to happen sooner or later:
I confess to not getting it, but would love to hear from any of you who do. I was astonished to see The Vegetarian placed somewhere around 40 in the NYTBR list. I suppose my tastes are just too sophisticated for the Nobel Committee.
Preordered Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight V The Wind and the Truth, today. So looking forward to it.
Craziest thing is I believe him when he says he has a series end in mind and wants to finish it. But that is at least another 15 years.
the previews are coming out every Monday. I’ve enjoyed some of it, but the legal code stuff made me lose braincells, hopefully it’s a fakeout and not something he was writing earnestly. Would be a regression back to the Elantris writing days
And yes, he’s the anti-Martin. Casually writes 4 extra books in 2 years. He has a schedule and has always been early
Has there been any update at all by Martin in recent month?
Just when he posted then deleted a rant bashing HotD.
The Three-Body Problem
This was HARD to finish. It’s much more about science fiction ideas than story and characters. And the twists are more teases and coy reveals than omg wtf now it all makes sense kind of twists.
I wish it had been more accessible. It made me think of Michael Crichton if he weren’t so easy to read. I am looking forward to seeing the Netflix adaptation and appreciating everything that was done to make it accessible and engaging for wide audiences.
I am also a quarter of the way through a re-read of Sphere by Crichton and am enjoying it very much.
Haven’t read MC in decades. Read a lot.
Should probably weave a few in next year.
How much do you all read? I think I read at a pretty faced pace, but I don’t seem to get through books as quick as everyone else so I feel that my reading volume is far lower than average.
I probably average 4 nights a week, for 30 minutes at a time. Then maybe on the weekend I’ll get an hour session in one time.
So I guess I’m reading a book for about 3 hours a week…
I ride the bus and read while I’m at work, so I average maybe 15 hours a week at a clip of 1-2 books per week. I also listen to audiobooks, but those tend to be books I’ve already read.
I read when I can. 15 minutes here. 20 minutes there.
I’m usually reading 3 books at a time and just chunk my way through them.
When I get to about 75% done with a book I power through it all in one go. Maybe a few hours at that time.
I read a lot at work on my phone and then some at home around bed time. If I’m really into a good series I might read 2+ hours every day, other times when I’m not into anything I might go days without opening the Kindle.
Read Justin Cronin’s The Ferryman. I dug his Passage series, this one fell a little flat for me. Stephen King said it was “Next to impossible to put down . . . exciting, mysterious, and totally satisfying.” so mileage will vary.
The islands of Prospera lie in a vast ocean, in splendid isolation from the rest of humanity—or whatever remains of it.
Citizens of the main island enjoy privileged lives. They are attended to by support staff who live on a cramped neighboring island, where whispers of revolt are brewing—but for the Prosperans, life is perfection. And when the end of life approaches, they’re sent to a mysterious third island, where their bodies are refreshed, their memories are wiped away, and they return to start life anew.
Proctor Bennett is a ferryman, whose job it is to enforce the retirement process when necessary. He never questions his work, until the day he receives a cryptic message:
“The world is not the world.”
These simple words unlock something he has secretly suspected. They seep into strange dreams of the stars and the sea. They give him the unshakable feeling that someone is trying to tell him something important.
I’m around 25ish books a year, give or take. I’m pretty similar every night, 20-30 mins before bed, and then the dog gets me up early on Saturday and Sunday and I usually get an hour+ in each morning, maybe a little more time in the afternoons. On vacations I’ll usually get through 2 books, so that’ll juice my numbers.
I’ll probably be below 25 books this year, but one of them will be The Powerbroker, which, hoo boy is that long.
Can’t wait to retire.
can’t say for sure how much time I spend each day or week reading for fun, but I have noticed over time though is that I’m getting through ~25-30 pages a day of whatever book I’m currently on (Tree of Smoke right now). so I’m definitely not going fast by any stretch but I’ve come to appreciate taking my time with “fun” reading vs the speed reading I do for work stuff.
I hit 60 last year and will be close again this year.
I just know there are so many books I want to read and I’m getting old.
Whenever i see this thread title i think, “duh, twoplustwo, uh i mean unstuck uhhhhhh politics”
“Reading” this on Audible atm.
Listen to The Impending Crisis by David M. Potter, Don E. Fehrenbacher on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd/B06XJRJKDM?source_code=ASSOR150021921000R
It won the 1978 Pulitzer and is regarded as one of the most nuanced and detailed accounts of the lead up to the civil war and all the political maneuvering in Congress, much of it related to admission of new states as slave or free. The author was a prof at Yale (died before release) and has a lifetime of deep learning about the relevant issues. It’s interesting how he discusses disputes over slavery as a practical locus for broader disputes over culture, religion, sectionalism, economics, etc.
Reading it as part of my ongoing 10 year effort to understand Trumpism.
In the last few years, most of my reading has come from audiobooks on twice daily dog walks. So, probably 40-80min with consistency, though I do rotate in podcasts. I just wish I retained more from audiobooks as it’s very easy for my mind to be wandering while walking around.
Had a look and I recently finished my 16th book of the year, only the 2nd actual physical book.
I typically read before I sleep–a nap or bedtime. Or at a cafe. Maybe 30 minutes tops per session. Can’t do audio books. My brain just doesn’t process them the same way, and I enjoy actually reading.
Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton.
New Zealander Catton is the youngest-ever winner of the Man Booker Prize, winning it at 28 for her second novel The Luminaries. This is her third novel.
Set in New Zealand, it is centered around a left-wing activist guerilla gardening collective. When a landslide cuts off access to a property in remote New Zealand, the collective see an opportunity - but so too does billionaire Robert Lemoine, a sort of Peter Thiel/Elon Musk figure. Hijinks ensue.
The book is very interested in the psychology of its characters and engages in a stack of Jane Austen-esque omniscient narrator digressions about their states of mind, histories, foibles, motivations and so on. The Macbeth connection of the title clues the reader in that we might be looking at a tragedy here - with some dark comedy along the way - and Catton said in an interview that she wanted to write the book like any of the characters could be Macbeth. The characters are all varying degrees of unlikable and Catton is careful not to endorse any particular political view. She appears to have succeeded in this, because here is a quote from the Guardian review:
It’s hard not to feel a bit disappointed that such a beautifully built novel just tells us the same old, same old: billionaires bad! Leftwing radicals good, if sometimes misguided and hapless!.. Catton is not wrong; she is certainly showing us the world we know. But our culture is already rife with calls for moral simplicity. Isn’t it the duty of the literary novel to go deeper?
The Atlantic had a somewhat different review. Here is their headline and sub-head:
A Biting Satire About the Idealistic Left
Eleanor Catton’s new novel, Birnam Wood, pokes at the pieties of those who want to change the world.
So there you have it.
I had mixed feelings about this book. The fact that most readers won’t like any of the characters makes it hard to get invested and it has some pacing issues; the middle third drags on a bit. I chose this for my book club, which is me and nine women, six of whom were able to make the meeting. Nobody much liked it and one proclaimed it the worst thing she had read in book club. There was debate over who was the most disagreeable character; I really did not like the founder/leader of the collective (who is the closest thing the book has to a protagonist) but a couple of the others chose the know-it-all mansplainer character, who I thought had some good fucking points at times, frankly, and so what if he sometimes put them a bit forcefully? What? Why are you looking at me like that?
I wouldn’t recommend this to most people but i would recommend it to Unstuckers, as I enjoyed its portrait of various activist psychological archetypes and internecine conflict in a left-wing organization. It’s fun kind of recognising some Unstuckers in there.