RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[quillpunk]

The Calendar Overlord has decreed it to be Wednesday once more. What are you reading? 👀

(P.S. Sign-ups are now open for the October Review-a-Thon!)

Comments

[anehan]

My reading of Alastalon salissa continues apace, for values of "apace" that include "a few dozen pages a week". It's a great novel! Definitely deserving of being the Greatest Novel Ever (Finnish edition). I just need to pace my reading, because there's a limit to how many pages of Härkäniemi choosing a pipe or Pukkila internally bitching about Langholma being the Great Man of the parish rather than Pukkila himself that I can read before I need a break.

Also, I started Remnants of Filth Vol. 3 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. I feel like I'm finally getting into the story properly.

[yhlee]

- I've been reading Julie Dean Smith's Call of Madness, a fantasy from the early 1990s. I picked it up in a used bookstore because I remembered reading and enjoying it in high school, and I'm wondering how much it holds up - I remember enjoying it but not anything substantive about the plot. The premise: in a fantasy medieval-esque kingdom, mages are burned for ~their own good (and everyone else's?) because they all go crazy/destructive. Inconveniently, the heroine is the kingdom's princess, who is manifesting mage powers, is supposed to be married off and deliberately scuppering her father's attempts at marriage alliances for her because she's in love with the captain of the guard, and is coping understandably badly with all of this via drugs and gambling. I was at a Christian high school at the time so I found this unspeakably edgy. XD I have no memory of what happens beyond that, and apparently it's the first in a four-book series except I never got my hands on books #2-4.

- I finished Bain's Chess Rules for Students and am inching into the next one in the series, Chess Tactics for Students! :D

(I've been bouncing around books a lot - no reflection on the books but my sleep continues wrecked and so is my focus.)

[petrea_mitchell]

I'm most of the way through The Yellow Rambutan Tree Mystery, the most recent of the Crown Colony series. It's a mixed bag. On the one hand, a lot of it is about looking back and seeing how much has changed since the first book, especially during the WWII years, and it's neat to see how characters have changed and evolved over 10 years. OTOH, the actual mystery kind of falls by the wayside. It was frustrating to be fairly sure who the villain is early on, and watch the narrator be distracted by other stuff until she's finally the target of a murder attempt.

[honigfrosch]

Still going through the same books:

- Die Insel der Tausend Leuchttürme (The Island of the Thousand Lighthouses). Slow-going and mainly just sight-seeing so far, which felt cozy though so I didn't mind. Over 270 pages in and a mystery starts to evolve: something's just off about this island! It might turn into a cosmic horror direction. Also interesting, on a meta level: one of the side characters is a famous writer who peaked early in his career and laments the difficulty that comes with having everything else you do being measured against your biggest success, and that feels like the author speaking.

- Men Who Hate Women: structured like a manosphere sight-seeing tour, chapter one was incels and i just started on chapter two which deals with pick-up artists. The topic makes this a difficult read by design (there are direct quotes of the hate-filled creeds against all women, denying their sentience and humanity, advocating for raping and murdering women, and quotes from the men who cheer this on.) The content won't be news for most women, especially not for feminists. Nor for people of other genders who have heard of these movements or even used to be entangled in them for a limited time before something caused them to move away from it. However, I do feel that this book is aimed at the kind of people who aren't aware and need not just an overview, but an explanation of how bad it really is and why it's not "harmless outside the internet" or "just some outsiders blowing off steam online". The way I see it, author Laura Barnes tried (past tense because the book is from 2020) to bring an awareness and much-needed discussion into the mainstream. The writing style, apart from a clunky sentence here and there, is very accessible.

Help?

[dialecticdreamer]

I have a question: I am looking for reading materials for an adult student (native English speaker), trying to learn German. A book like "Cafe in Berlin" is about right as a total beginner. Do you have any suggestions for "real" stories-- about second grade reading level, picture books would be great, et cetera. I can't get any help at the library because the librarians haven't found anything.

Re: Help?

[honigfrosch]

I'm shit at determining which reading level something is, but I'll run your question by my journal readers tonight if that's ok with you (some of them are German). If I can find something through googling, I'll let you know, too.

Re: Help?

[dialecticdreamer]

That would be amazing, thank you!

Re: Help?

[mildred_of_midgard]

I'm personally fond of the "Learn X with Beginner Stories: Interlinear X to English" series' approach to pedagogy. They put the literal English word underneath the original word, in fainter font so you can refer to it if you need to, but skip if you don't. This approach allows you to read a story and look up the words you need instantly, without wasting time on a dictionary and grammar. By the time this book came out, I was past the beginner stage with German, so I can't comment on the content other than "fairy tales," but I used the Danish volume last year, and I was pleased at how quickly it got me to reading Hans Christian Andersen without needing the interlinear method any more!

It's $3 on Kindle if you do Kindle.

Re: Help?

[dialecticdreamer]

OH, thank you! I'm looking for many, many languages plus English, LOL.

Re: Help?

[illariy]

Here via honigfrosch

This is not exactly what you asked but I learned English in part with this method so I can recommend the method. The linked book is A1, it has short stories in English and German on the same page with phrases bolded so you can quickly compare the translation.

13 Einfache A1 englische Kurzgeschichten mit Vokabellisten für Anfänger. Zweisprachiges englisch-deutsches Buch - Paralleler text , link is to the German Amazon. Same book on the US Amazon. It is available on Kindle only at US Amazon but in both Kindle and paperback (Taschenbuch) on the German Amazon. The fourth pic on the German Amazon has a sample page where you can see how the print looks and how the method works.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I finished my 2024 book bingo last month. So now I am reading whatever I want to and that's Three Doors to Death by Rex Stout (Nero Wolfe mystery) and Five Decembers hardboiled Hawaii/Tokyo/Hong Kong of the 1940's and re-reading 4:50 from Paddington by Agatha Christe.

[zenigotchas]

I'm on chapter 3 for Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. It's so boring which is surprising considering unlikable protagonists are often very interesting to follow. Still, the dialogue is at least interesting enough to make me wanna see if it gets better.

[muccamukk]

Just started Provenance by Ann Leckie, and so far the protagonist is a delightful dumb fuck. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

[honigfrosch]

Delightful description! This makes me want to read a book with an absolute dumb beefcake protagonist. A himbo epic, if you will.

[muccamukk]

Female dumb fuck in this case. I can see why people didn't like this one as it's very different from Leckie's trilogy, but for me it's so far this delightful buddy comedy about a dumb fuck aristocrat's daughter and the rando non-binary criminal she picked up along the way, attempting to do crime.

[honigfrosch]

*takes notes*

[althea_valara]

I spent ALL DAY last Friday reading books! This is unusual for me these days! But I wanted to reach at least the halfway goal for my library's Summer Reading Program, as that earns you swag (this year, a notebook and pen) and I do loves me some free stuff.

I finished my re-read of John Scalzi's "Lock In", which is a favorite of mine. My library is having a group book discussion about it next week.

I also read Courtney Milan's "The Marquis Who Mustn't", and liked this one better than the first book in that series (and the first book isn't bad! just, this one sparked my interest more.) I'm thinking of reading the third book in series this week, since I went ahead and pre-ordered the ebook (it was only $5!), but I have a pretty busy week, so not sure I will find the time. But I'd like to, because I miss being a frequent reader.

[valoise]

The Blink of the Screen: Collected Shorter Fiction by Terry Pratchett.
Just picked this up at the library this morning. It has both Discworld and non-Discworld stories.

The President's Kitchen Cabinet by Adrian Miller.
I should finish this in the next day or two. Really fascinating history of enslaved and free African-Americans who have worked in the White House kitchen.

Journey Planet Issue 83: Food and Science Fiction Scanning through the table of contents, looks like it will take a look both at sff-themed restaurants and food represented in books and media.

Just finished Star Light, Star Bright an collection of stories by Alfred Bester. He's a contemporary of a lot of the writers of the so-called Golden Age of sf but he feels much more experimental, like the New Age writers who were a generation or more younger.

[starfleetbrat]

finally finished The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei which I liked. Its not cozy sci-fi but it gave me cozy vibes.

currently reading Daniela Vega #2 A Forgotten Kill by Isabella Maldonado. Book 2 in a series, just something easy to read that hopefully won't take me long.

[silversea]

I just started reading The Stardust Grail! I'm hoping I'll like it, since I do love heists. I'm liking Auncle so far, and the Infected and time thing is pretty interesting.

[sleepyquail]

I finally started a new book today after stalling on a short story collection for ages! And it's The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett, which was I believe recced here! I'm on about part 2 and absolutely loving it so far. The writing is really funny and I'm loving the worldbuilding (this isn't a surprise because I LOVED the worldbuilding in the Divine Cities trilogy), and I'm super intrigued about where it's all going.

Thinking of quitting

[dialecticdreamer]

This is an amazingly unusual event in my life: I am thinking of bailing on "Moral Disengagement."

No matter how excellent the topic, the writing, and the ideas sparked by every page, the emotional impact is SO VERY DIFFICULT for me that I'm thinking of writing in my commonplace book below my last notes: "Ended reading on /date/ and will try it again next year."