RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[quillpunk]

There's a rumor going around this part of the solar system that it might be Wednesday again. What are the odds of that, I humbly ask. But, well, just in case...

What are you reading? 👀

Comments

[cactus_rs]

Still reading Bel Canto

[quillpunk]

I'm also still reading the same stuff as last week.

[ebaths]

How are you liking Bel Canto? I just finished reading Tom Lake, also by Ann Patchett. It was my first book of hers, and I liked it but I feel like it’s possible I’ll like something else from her better, so I’d like to read another one. When I look her up, it seems like Bel Canto is her most “talked about” book.

[cactus_rs]

I'm not super digging it but that might be a combination of petty grievances and momentary circumstances rather than something inherent to he book itself. I want to hold off giving people my unvarnished opinion until I read the whole thing, but I'll post a review here when I'm done!

[ebaths]

I’m excited to read your review!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I'm forcing my offspring to do a Mom's book club for the summer so I am reading Montgomery and the Case of the Golden Key by Tracy Occomy Crowder with the 9-year-old and The Royal Ranger by John Flanagan with the 13-year-old. I'm enjoying the former more than the latter.

For myself I'm reading Undine by Friedrich Heinrich Karl de la Motte (adapted by WL Courtney) and The Burden by Mary Westmacott and Coq au Vin by Charlotte Carter.

[luvbarryfefe]

I love the idea of a Mom's book club lol I remember when I was a kid my mom used to have to force me to read but now it's my most favorite hobby so there's hope! lol

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Thank you! They aren't crazy about it, but I hope it will help to prevent complete summer brain rot.

[luvbarryfefe]

I am reading all-brain candy fiction this summer. Just pure no-deep-thought-required tripe lol And I'm fine with that.

- My Killer Vacation by Tessa Bailey
- Princess in the Spotlight by Meg Cabot
- The Christie Curse by Victoria Abbott

[anehan]

Brain candy is excellent to read! *cheers you on*

[anehan]

I'm trying to get through Plato's Republic, which is a slog. It's been a RIP for a few months already. Maybe this month I'll finally finish it.

Other than that, there's the newest Alexandra Rowland (also not holding my attention), Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint (I tried it once before and DNF'd), and the greatest novel in the history of Finnish literature (intimidating, mostly undeservedly).

... Which is why I've been reading other books and then finishing them right away, so they don't properly belong to this RIP list. I know, I'm procrastinating.

[yhlee]

I skimmed a lot of Republic in HS because I was determined to get to the juicy bits referenced in Margaret Weis's Star of the Guardians space ooera!

[anehan]

Oh, which bits does she reference? I haven't read that one by Weis. (I think I've only read some of the Dragonlance ones by her.)

[yhlee]

It's been a while, but Star of the Guardians explicitly is space opera with the fallen "guardians" (think "Jedi") of an overthrown monarchy after one of them turned on the king, so it's very "who guards the guardians" generally, and then I think something in there about the allegory of the cave.

Star of the Guardians also runs on "evil corrupt democracy (due to a "Sith" puppeting the president) and now we have to restore the Magical Shiny Rightful Royal Line," which would probably not play super well right now, but the books were published in the 1990s, and the story/setting/characters apparently date back to Margaret Weis's, like, drawerfic of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet or similar from when she was a kid. XD

Plato's Republic

[dialecticdreamer]

Would reading it with the intention of rebutting the "mansplaining" and other viewpoint issues? Or picture various characters of "The Simpsons" as the narrator? Which one best represents the narrator's attitude? (Try Star Wars characters, if that's your bag.) It made getting through the philosophy and theology books that I disagreed with much easier.

Re: Plato's Republic

[anehan]

My trick to get through books like this is to imagine writing bitchy DW posts about them (which I then never manage to actually write, alas).

[cactus_rs]

I'm listening to a voice actor read it on YouTube while I work because that's the only way I know I'll get through it.... and I have a BA in philosophy 🙈

[anehan]

XD Whatever makes it work.

[yhlee]

Reading and enjoying Rachel Rosen's ecopunk urban fantasy thriller Cascade - beautiful sharp prose, mordant humor, eclectic characters.

Otherwise, still plugging away at John A. Bain's Chess Rules for Students - I'm in the exercises now! - and Cornell UP's Andrew Byers' The Sexual Economy of War: Discipline and Desire in the U.S. Army (research for work).

[anehan]

How are you finding The Sexual Economy of War? The title is intriguing!

Many of the novels I've enjoyed this year have had characters who are or have been soldiers, so I've found myself with a budding interest in military history (a very casual interest, to be fair, and mostly for pre-modern history). In fact, reading a general introduction to war in the Middle Ages (in the Eurasian continent) was illuminating. It was a bit dry and repetitive, to be sure, but it made sense of a lot of the things I remember from history lessons back in the day.

[yhlee]

I'm only a little way in, but so far so good; it's from Cornell UP, which had a very strong social history focus in the history department when I got my B.A. there a couple decades ago. Ironically, my interest WAS (and is) nuts-and-bolts tactics/strategy/logistics, but there were only a couple professors in the department at the time who had that focus (Prof. Barry S. Strauss, also in Classics; and IIRC Prof. C. Peterson, whose East and West Warfare course I missed because I opted against a 400-level history course as a freshman although I would have been fine, and then it wasn't offered the three following years! he did kindly give me an annotated syllabus for the course when I asked later, though). In any case, I am glad to see more social history books around warfare. Another from the same imprint I picked up that I'm looking forward to is The Stuff of Soldiers: A History of the Red Army in WWII Through Objects by Brandon M. Schechter - literally, as far as I can tell from not having read it yet, "what can we learn about soldiers and their experiences from GOING THROUGH THEIR POCKETS AND BACKPACKS" (or whatever backpack-equivalent).

I read OBSESSIVELY about classical and medieval warfare from middle school onward lol and am now catching up on all things gunpowder-and-after, including some hasty remedial reading on anything to do with dogfighting after getting into the Biggles books and, uh, having to write very nonrealistically about mecha. XD

[anehan]

having to write very nonrealistically about mecha

XD

I've been pondering kind of diametrically opposite situation to your mecha one (not writing, alas, but thought exerices are fun, too). I don't know if you've read Modao Zushi, but it's set in c. 6th century fantasy China, with sword-flying cultivators, and the cultivation society there goes through a war.

So, I'd been wondering just how exactly that war would have worked, when their forces probably only numbered in the thousands, and the medieval warfare book I read actually shed some light to that. Because it occured to me that small bands of people who could fly were rather similar to the nomad warriors who fought on horseback. The cultivators would probably still have to fight earth-bound, but they'd be capable of swift movements between places.

But then, would they be able to move their supplies by air? *ponder ponder*

So yeah, applying real world cases to fantastical settings is fun! I also like characters who are good at tactics etc., whether they use their skills in warfare or, say, in the volleyball court, ahem. XD

[yhlee]

Thought exercises are best! My husband and I love discussing them. (He's a physicist.) I have not read Modao Zushi although I watched S1 of the...animated cartoon?

[anehan]

Yes! The animated series has three seasons, I think, though I haven't seen more than a few episodes of it, nor more than a few episodes of the live action series that was based on the novel. I'm firmly in the camp novel myself. :D

[white_aster]

What I finished reading: Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher, which was good but kind of oddly paced in that the beginning and the end were really nailbiting and interesting, and then there was a lot of leisurely strolling around the countryside in the middle where the tension took a nosedive. Still, enjoyable entry into her Saint of Steel series.

I also finished Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton, which is about an AI named Mal who gets himself stuck in physical space. It had some really interesting points, for instance how he kept having to kind of hop between bodies as he got himself in trouble and/or the bodies were destroyed. Also Mal's voice was interesting in that he was a strange combination of naivety, arrogance, competence, and utter cluelessness about humans and human relations. He would quickly solve a problem and then get himself into three others trying to impersonate a human or something. However, though I've really liked other Ashton books, this one suffered from some really headscratchingly large logic jumps that left me feeling that the author was handwaving way more of his worldbuilding than I really wanted. There were times when I looked at the story a person told about their background and went, "...that sounds shady and borderline illogical given what I've seen of them, so there must be some other reason that they say they are a General Random Person and yet they are approaching this situation like a special operations agent". I kept waiting for that other reason to appear...but no! Just...bad characterization, I guess? Also there were several points where there was a reveal that was supposed to have an emotional impact and just...didn't, because we hadn't seen enough of the people killed to really feel much of anything about them. Also also, there were a few times where people did really dumb things so that the narrative could unfold the way it did. :shrug?: Still, for a free library read, it was a fun enough couple of days.

What I'm reading now: I did, in fact, actively read some of Fool's Run by Patricia McKillip, so it stays on the list. (it's slow going, though...not a lot is happening and what is happening, I'm not sure what it actually means yet.) I also started On Call by Anthony Fauci (memoir), and The Age of Magical Overthinking by Amanda Montell (armchair pop psychology). Not too far into either of them.

Reading

[dialecticdreamer]

The last three days have entirely been taken up by... appointment weirdness, rather than the appointment itself, if that makes sense.

That sucked all the brain energy away from the challenging nonfictions (Moral Disengagement, Antifragile), but didn't keep me from rereading the entire Kin series by LitGal (story 1: 146,922, story 2: 273,592, story 3: 79,593, story 4: 22,882, which has been incomplete for roughly four years). That's a total of 522,989 words in three days. Mental popcorn, but it's well written enough to allow me to deal with the disagreeable bits (Angel/Xander slash, a few other things).

[olivermoss]

My current audiobook is still How To Solve Your Own Murder. I need to put some time aside for that soon.

My kindle book is Death By Silver my Melissa Scott. I'm liking it so far.

I think last week I said I was about to start Dear Mothman? That was a quick DNF for me. It was listed as YA and I don't typically read YA, but this felt more... what is one down from YA age-wise? It also wasn't quite was I expected. It was told in the form of journal entries by a kid and it was a weird mix of kid-like writing but also trying to foster reading and writing skills so no misspellings and trying to walk a fine line with grammar.

[yhlee]

Middle grade is one down (ages 8 to 12), purely as an artificial US traditional publishing marketing category. :) Edit: this is terrible to admit but a lot of modern MG is harder for me because it's simplified down a l

[olivermoss]

It was listed as YA, but it won a middle grade book award so that might be what's going on. It's trying to both teach writing and also 'be written like kid' at the same time and that just doesn't work for anyone outside that age group.

It was the one FTM trans book I saw on multiple LGBT book lists for Pride, so I decided to give it a try. That was just a bad pull for me and it being on the lists was likely a bit weird to begin with.

[greetingsfrommaars]

Haven't started it yet, but I just got Chuck Tingle's Bury Your Gays! Probably going to carry it around without the book jacket to avoid damaging it, so it'll just be a mysterious unadorned black book

Help?

[dialecticdreamer]

Does anyone have recommendations for turning a steady reading rate of 1k-1500 words per minute to something close to 10k words per minute? I'm in deep trouble here; I just wrote down book #257 to find-- and I started the list in the middle of May. (Yes, between seven and eight weeks ago.)

Help. Help! The reading list is growing faster than the American national debt!

Re: Help?

[anehan]

Practise 40 hours a day? :P

Re: Help?

[dialecticdreamer]

Laugh. I could give it my best attempt...

[bluedreaming]

I just finished reading Khemjira's Rescue by Cali which I really enjoyed (the pilot for the forthcoming? series is a really great book trailer). It’s a Thai novel with light m/m romance (slowburn) but more heavily focused on supernatural/religion/magic/karma themes. Really takes me back to the handful of Thai horror filmed I watched in the 2000s in a really good way.

I started Cutie Pie by BamBam (I watched the series when it came out but I’m already really enjoying the differences in the text version). The unofficial tagline/selling point (?) of the series was that it was m/m arranged marriage themes, but the book already feels a bit more nuanced because of the way reading pov works so I’m really interested to read this and the two related/sequel/spin-off books!

[lil_1337]

I just finished Crying in H Mart which was emotionally a lot and am checking out The Christmas Murder Game to see if I want to read it.

[poppyseedheart]

Finishing up Normal People by Sally Rooney! Kind of mad that I've enjoyed it so much, I always expect popular books to be a wash for me but I've really vibed with this one.

[vriddy]

After pausing it to read a couple of book club/deadline books, I'm going to go back to Winter's Orbit. The murder accusations from the back cover are finally popping up in the story and I'm interested to see if this helps me finish it :D

Edit: All right, once the murder accusations begin it flowed a lot better for me and I finished it in one night :D

[azurelunatic]

No further progress into The Curse of Chalion audiobook on account of no substantial car trips. Hoping to fix that this weekend.

Cozy sleep audio mystery re-read: Swan for the Money; they've just discovered The Murder.

Hurtling through the Penric & Desdemona series (re-read) in order to get to the new-to-me ones. Currently on The Assassins of Thasalon.

16,000-some words deep into a brain-dump on a topic near and dear to my ... hip.

[waterfall8484]

I'm trying to speed read Boys Don't Knit so that I can return it to the local library before we leave tomorrow instead of bringing an almost finished book home with me, thankfully it's been entertaining so far.

[sickandgloomy]

making my way through samantha irby's collections of essays! i started "meaty" a good three years ago (embarrassing, and also hard to believe, but that's what my ebook app says!) and i liked it very much, but i put it down for a while after reading one of the essays in it, "my daughter, my mother", which is very beautiful but also incredibly harrowing and it broke my heart into a thousand pieces -- so then i put the book down to process and didn't pick it back up until like a week ago, at which point i promptly devoured the rest of it, and then two more for good measure. now i'm in the middle of reading "wow, no thank you", and then i have "quietly hostile" left, and then i will have read all her books! which is wild, considering how i've been struggling to read for the past [redacted] months, but apparently the conversational tone of her work coupled with the subject range spanning from straight up shit (she has crohn's and writes about it honestly and often) to her difficult childhood was exactly what i needed to get me out of this reading rut. if anyone has any recommendations for similar work -- autobiographical, casual in tone, usually comedic but with optional serious topics every now and then -- i would love to hear them 💖

[skye_writer]

Currently reading Garth Nix's Sabriel for the first time in several years. I forgot how much I loved the characters and the prose; it's such an evocative novel.

[givemeyourhonor]

The atmosphere of it is something else, isn't it?

[skye_writer]

It really is! There's a sort of eeriness that suffuses the whole book, making for a very interesting fantasy world that manages to avoid sliding into straight horror.

[cactus_rs]

Love this book so much, it's so underappreciated!

[skye_writer]

So much! The whole series is so well-written, and it's bizarre to me that it isn't more widely known!

[quillpunk]

it's on my TBR list, i really want to give that a try one of these days :D

[skye_writer]

It's such a good book!! I hope you're able to read it soon!

[givemeyourhonor]

Currently reading "Lord of Silver Ashes" by Kellen Graves and almost half way through. There's been a lot of exciting reveals happening each time I pick it up.

Also started "The Bone Doll's Twin" by Lynn Flewelling yesterday and it's been interesting. Only a few pages in, but the lore has been fascinating.

[ebaths]

I finished Tom Lake by Ann Patchett earlier this week, and I started reading The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan. I enjoyed Tom Lake—it’s not what I usually read, but by halfway through I was really hooked and I enjoyed the parallels between it and the play Our Town, which is a huge influence in the novel both directly and indirectly. I’d like to read another Ann Patchett book.