RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[quillpunk]

Behold! 'Tis a new week and a new Wednesday...

What are you reading? 👀

Comments

[dirty_diana]

That Time I Got Drunk and Saved A Demon. I'm having trouble getting into it, but not sure why so giving it another try.

[starfleetbrat]

Currently reading The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei which is quite good so far. On the surface its about a space heist to save an alien civilisation. But its also about saving earth and friendships between alien cultures etc.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/195791479-the-stardust-grail

[olivermoss]

I completed 3 books. I don't have to post 'still in the middle of these 2' again.

For audio bookness I finished How to Solve Your Own Murder

For e-bookness I finished Death by Silver and A Death at the Dionysus Club.

The murder plot of How To Solve came together really well, but it developed a serious case of sequel-itis at the end. It felt like certain things had been scooped out or added suddenly to make it the start of series. If it had been a stand alone, I'd probably read more by the author. But, suddenly setting it up as a series killed my interest.

For Death and Death, I liked them, but they are m/m mysteries and I can see why people reading either for the m/m romance aspect or a mystery plot would be frustrated by them. I'd classify them more as character studies?

Next on my kindle is Liar City by Allie Therin. Not fully sure what my next audiobook is.

[pauraque]

I haven't started it yet, but next on the library book pile is Ancillary Mercy. I read the first two books months ago and then got distracted by book club plus an idea to read nonbinary authors for pride month, but soon I will have finished the trilogy!

[yhlee]

Recently read and loved Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries despite almost violently bouncing off the first 10% for Me Reasons. Emily is a scholar in dryadology (study of faeries, which are very definitely real) ca. AU Earth 1909, whose superpower is LOGIC, and who has dire suspicions about the real identity of her foppish rival/friend Wendell Bambleby. When they're stranded in icy Ljosland, Emily's scholarship, Bambleby's hidden resources, and the community of villagers are all that stand between Ljosland and the rising of a faerie winter. Also there is a very good doggo.

Bambleby's real motives are interestingly teased/hinted throughout, with some extremely satisfying moments of "grumpy scholar + moments-of-competence fop" partnership. (I did a longer write-up at my DW but it's full of spoilers.)

Right now I'm also continuing Ellen Besen's Animation Unleashed, illus. Bryce Hallett, on the synectics/etc. of animation; Tillie Walden's graphic novel memoir Spinning (about being a competitive figure skater and coming out as a lesbian, I think?), which after five years of hunting I FINALLY chased down in a comic store in Pasadena on a work trip; and Aaron Frias' How to Create Your First Board Game, which does seem pedagogically pretty good! (The Frias has slightly wonky self-pub-nature formatting but it's perfectly readable.)

[gloss]

I'm roughly halfway through CJ Cherryh's The Paladin; as usual, I love her super-close narrative POV and her mastery of pacing. The characters are broken and fierce and the premise is amazing: a peasant girl seeks out an exile from the Emperor's court to teach her the sword so she can murder the corrupt lord who ruined her province (and got her whole family killed). I'm struggling, a lot, with how the master/student relationship has become a sexual one. Not for anti reasons, more for...idk, it just irks me.

But Cherryh's so good at discomfiting her reader, so I'm sticking with it.

[rhi]

Rereading Pratchett's Carpe Jugulem and loving it again. Just finished 240K of 'I meant to write a one shot and yet' MCU/DC crossover, which I enjoyed.

[givemeyourhonor]

I finished Lord of Silver Ashes by Kellen Graves. It went pretty hard in places, though now I'm wondering how they'll resolve things in the next book. I'm also going to focus on The Bone Doll's Twin by Lynn Flewelling and this is intense?

Even though I know some of the spoilers and the gist of what happens, but I'm still interested to see where it goes since I don't think I've ever seen a premise quite like it.

[yhlee]

I loved this in middle school and...completely missed the sexual relationship...

[vriddy]

I enjoyed everything in this series! I hope you have a good time with this book, too!! :D

[vriddy]

I just finished Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and although I was concerned I might not get into it after hearing so much hype for a year, I ended up finding it immediately charming and enjoyed it a lot! It tickled a particular type of nostalgia for growing up with video games in the 90s, reminded myself of the joy games can bring (after playing a couple of duds-for-me recently, I'd forgotten a bit), and all the stuff around the creative process and collaboration also really hit right. Really enjoyed it.

[anehan]

This is the second time in the last few days that I've come across a rec for Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries on DW. Maybe it's a sign that I should finally read it myself. :D

[honigfrosch]

I have read This Civilisation is Finished: Conversations on The End of Empire - And What Lies Beyond (what a mouthful of a title!) by Rupert Read and Samuel Alexander. It's a dialogue between the two academics where they touch upon a variety of topics to do with the climate crisis and the unsustainable growth economy we live in, and rather short (about 80 pages plus an appendix for the footnotes). It was refreshing to see our predicament discussed openly, but it still felt somewhat superficial. If you are already familiar with the themes of climate change, polycrisis/metacrisis, environmental degradation, overshoot/limits of growth and the like, then this won't tell you anything new. Occasionally I found some interesting tidbits showing me an angle I hadn't considered before (like the idea that religion might pivot more strongly towards pantheism or nature-centric animism to reconnect with nature instead of seeing humans as above nature).

Took a break from horror novel Apartment 16, instead I keep reading Walter Moers' new fantasy novel (quite cozy so far) and decided to read a non-fiction book alongside, Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates, which covers incels, pick-up artists, MGTOW, Men's Rights Activists and probably some others not mentioned in the blurb, and will definitely *not* be a cozy read.

[wearing_tearing]

I had so much fun with this one! I hope you keep enjoying it :D

[wearing_tearing]

Yay for enjoying Emily! I'm going over to read your post :D

[wearing_tearing]

I'm currently reading The God and the Gumiho by Sophie Kim because it promised lots of kdrama feels. So far, that's not the experience I'm having? Though I do enjoy the writing.

And I'd like to congratulate myself on finally!!! after two years!!!! being able to sit down and finish Quarter to Midnight by Karen Rose. The writing was great and engaging as always, but the romance was not for me and some of the mystery related twists was very convoluted and dramatic :(

Catching up (somehow missed posting for a few weeks)

[valoise]

I finished Suzanne Palmer's Finder and moved on to the next book in the series, Diving the Deep. I liked them both. I used to really like sf in far-flung worlds, but frankly future human settlement in various places within our solar system makes so much more sense.

The Light Fantastic by Alfred Bester
A collection of his short stories (these date from 1940s-1970s), they were okay, nothing really stood out. A bit disappointing since his book The Stars My Destination is so great.

Food Gifts by Elle Simone Scott
I spotted this in the new book section at the library. The only recipe I'm planning to try is the ginger syrup (combine with club soda for homemade ginger ale!), but the idea of putting together nicely organized food gift trays and baskets at Christmas - I want to do this!

The Bullet that Missed and The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman
Both of these are part of his Thursday Murder Club series, which I enjoy in kind of an escapist kind of way.

What am I reading next: I've started Every Living Thing by James Herriot and The President's Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families by Adrian Miller.

[gloss]

I wish I could read younger you's version!

[rabbit_stew]

I'm overdosing on strange women.

Death In Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh and All's Well by Mona Awad. I seem to be going through Moshfegh's and Awad's catalogs this summer. Both are so good.

Reading

[dialecticdreamer]

A lot of random fanfic, and I actually sorted through the "waiting to update" folder of links and pulled any which haven't been updated in the last eight months.

Basically, I was sticking my head in stories to escape a long run of anxiety, so it's not meant to be stories which demand much mentally or emotionally. Though, if I find one of those I bookmark it in my TBR set of subfolders, which only makes the mountain grow faster than any volcano.

[quillpunk]

I have finished Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey! Aside from that, I have made no progress on anything from last week, lmao. The reading is going so slow at the moment... sigh.

[quillpunk]

Good luck! :D

[quillpunk]

Congrats on completing 3 books! That's awesome :D

Good luck with your new reads!

[quillpunk]

Glad you're having a good time! :D And lol, the 'I meant to write a one shot and yet' strikes again :DDD

Re: Reading

[quillpunk]

Random fanfic is very nice to read :D Having a 'waiting to update' folder sounds very smart, kudos for sorting it.

Yeah sometimes the brain just doesn't want stories that are emotionally or mentally taxing, and that's just the way things are. I hope you've had fun with your reads! And my sympathies for your TBR list(s); it's the monster that just keeps growing. (I've got like 40 pages on my AO3's Marked For Later page, OTL.)

[quillpunk]

I've heard lots of good things about Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries and recently realized my library does, in fact, have it. ...And I now have it on hold.

Definitely excited for it! :D

[rhi]

I love that so many of us recognize that whimper of 'this was gonna be short. I thought.'

Re: Reading

[dialecticdreamer]

Laugh. When I can't sleep, I set a timer for an hour, pick a fandom and general theme, and then sort through the offerings on AO3, excluding the tags that I don't read. That still leaves huge swaths that don't actually apply for reasons mentioned in the summary which aren't IN the tags, but the goal isn't to find something to read TONIGHT.

I bookmark into the sorting folders (by length as well as fandom), and when the timer goes off, mark only the still-open tabs and close the search.

That way, the next time I can't sleep, I pick something from a folder based on how long I want to spend reading.

Of the saved pages, about a third don't get past the second page for reasons like poor grammar, or world-changing things that they didn't tag for. Genderswitching is great, IF I'm going into the story aware of it. It's the lack of appropriate tags that make it a deal-breaker.

So, the folders gradually empty, even with weekly refreshing. At least the insomnia is no worse than once a week, maybe every ten days, so the feast-to-famine cycle is tolerable as well.