RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[quillpunk]

The bell is ringing, the flag is waving; the time has come at last. What are you reading? 👀

Comments

[petrea_mitchell]

Folk Saints of the Borderlands, picked up a couple weeks ago on a visit to Tombstone, Arizona.

[asphaltcowgrrl]

I went to Tombstone in like 2008 and it was such a fun trip.

[apachefirecat]

AMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How ARE you??????????????????????????????

[asphaltcowgrrl]

HEYYYY! I'm good, thank you! Hope you are, too.

[apachefirecat]

We are! *HUGE HUGS*

[asphaltcowgrrl]

So happy to hear it!

[apachefirecat]

<3

[silversea]

Currently reading Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett. A pleasant read so far.

I tried reading Hamra and the Jungle of Memories by Hanna Alkaf, but it takes place during the pandemic and I really was not in the mood to reminisce that so I dropped it.

Might read Soul Music by Terry Pratchett or The Apothecary Diaries Vol 12 by Natsu Hyuuga next.

[asphaltcowgrrl]

The Waiting by Michael Connelly. I've been waiting all year for this new Ballard/Bosch book!

[snowynight]

I have just finished Disorders of the Self to learn more about personality disorders.

A female patient was initially diagnosed as BPD because she clung to her family for comfort during panic attack. I wonder how many patients are misdiagnosed, and how much is due to their gender.

[apachefirecat]

FAR too many, I'm sure! And sometimes not even because of their gender, age, or other prejudices, but because of misinformed (or even lazy!) doctors!

[snowynight]

It's so sad.

[pauraque]

I just started The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. So far it's not really grabbing me and I'm already getting impatient with the amount of exposition and some of the "quirky" characters. (Quirky rarely works for me.) But some books just get off to a rough start, so I'll give it a little longer.

[white_aster]

I have finished Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby, which is a near-future thriller/scifiish book about a plane crash of a startup's leadership and the weirdness they encounter on an abandoned island. I liked it, though I wasn't sure when I started, given how many reviews said that they didn't connect well with the main character. I didn't have that issue, though she definitely does hold her cards close to her chest. Still, I felt like we learned more about her at a satisfying pace and that the mystery of what's going on unfolded nicely.

I also just finished The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey. I had to nope out of his Expanse books because the narrative just wasn't focusing on the things I enjoyed, but I figured with a new series I'd give it a shot. It was worthwhile, because I ended up liking this book about a research group scooped up by conquering aliens and their (admittedly kind of Hunger Gamesish) search to prove their worth to the aliens. The book does have some of the same issues that the Expanse books do (I just do not like how this author writes romance - just consistently no explanation or chemistry evident for me, and given how many plot points turn on "but he loves her", it's like building a house on a pillar of sand), but the conquering alien society was neat, some of the characters were likeable (or at least like-to-hate sorts), and as usual Corey sets up a situation where several groups have a good point but have to make hard decisions about how to proceed. Overall I will keep reading this series.

Unsure what I'll read next. I have Bethany Jacobs new book On Vicious Worlds ready for me, which is a sequel to These Burning Stars, which I really liked. But also there is The Fae Lords of Oklahoma, which is a sequel to The Dragon Kings of Oklahoma, which I ALSO really liked for completely different reasons. So. Dilemma.

[apachefirecat]

With those last two titles, I RAN to GoodReads to see about adding them to my list, but couldn't find them. :( They sound like tremendous fun!

[white_aster]

oh no! They are here! https://www.goodreads.com/series/403600-dragon-kings-of-oklahoma I really liked the first one. I mean, they are a bit of a goofy premise, but they had serious sides as well that were handled with tact and real affection for the characters and their backgrounds. So yeah, if they sounded like they appealed, I can say that I thought they carried through well. :D

[apachefirecat]

I don't know why I didn't find them, but thank you so much for the link! Adding now! :) They sound like A LOT of fun! :)

[gloss]

I just finished The Dawnhounds by Sascha Stronach, which is an extraordinary fungal fantasy, heavy on New Zealand, Maori, and Malaysian cultural elements/perspectives and queer as anything.

Next up might be Eco's Baudolino, but I'm still undecided.

[white_aster]

Nnngh, this just makes me want to read The Dawnhounds even more. I need to get a job just reading my TBR pile....

[apachefirecat]

IF ONLY such jobs existed!!!!!!

[sixbeforelunch]

I'm not reading it yet, but I just got the notice that my library hold for We Solve Murders by Richard Osman came in so hopefully I will be reading it soon.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I hope it's good! I am a big fan of the Thursday Murder Club series.

[valoise]

I was near the bottom of my library's hold list for We Solve Murders so I probably won't get to read it until next week. But I'm really hopeful for his new series since I loved the last one.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I finished Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie and BTS: Beyond the Story and finished listening to IT by Stephen King (the last was 45 hours!). I am about two-thirds the way through Three Doors to Death by Rex Stout (three Nero Wolfe detective novellas) and have bought (and saved for a trip at the end of the month the English translation of Seishi Yokomizo's The Little Sparrow Murders. Does anyone else do this, have a 'trip book' they save for a trip? I am listening to a lot of MR James' short stories in audiobook on Youtube and through my library system.

[isis]

I'm about halfway through Cahokia Jazz by Francis Spufford and it is absolutely right up my alley. It is set in 1922 in an alternate US where things went differently during westward expansion; the tribal Kingdom of Cahokia, roughly the area around St. Louis MO, became a US state in the late 19th Century, Dinetah (Navajo country) and Deseret (Mormon country) are still their own polities, and the White Russians are fighting Communist Russia over what became Alaska in our timeline.

[trainerlyra]

What do you mean it's already Wednesday again? Well, I've made it to 2/3 of the way through Long Haul! It continues to be a very interesting write up. I think I'll probably finish it by the end of the week, I only have 3 hours left on it.

I also recently fished out a book I loved in like 10th grade, Heist Society, to send along for my friend group's traveling book project. We've been finding old favorites, writing notes in them as we reread, and then passing along to the next person to read for (usually) the first time. It was my turn to choose, and I don't remember any of them reading it back in high school so figured it was a good one to start with!

[yhlee]

- Still enjoying Susan Coolidge's late 19th century children's book What Katy Did as a reread - it was a childhood favorite, and I'm chuffed to learn there are two sequels that we never had in S Korea! Basically about a rambunctious girl who sustains an injury and becomes, well, saintly during her long recovery. This had a similar appeal to me as Little Women although the latter is, at this point in time anyway, much more famous! I kinda want to reread Little Women too, but I need to get cracking on research reading for school. /o\

- About at the midway point of Elva Birch's Bear in a Birdbath and MY HEART. Shifter threesome romance with three very different people, all delightful. :3 I can't even decide who my favorite is! ♥

- Casey Hardman. Game Programming with Unity and C#: A Complete Beginner's Guide, 2nd ed. Noodling at this on the grounds that it could be fun down the line to make smol games in Unity. I am DYING to find out why we're using quaternions but it's like p. 264. Arguably related to my M.A. (which includes composition for video games).

- Reminded that the reason I didn't finish C. J. Cherryh & Jane Fancher's Alliance Rising yet is that it's leisurely so far. I'm 15% in and we're still in exposition setup. That said, I am intrigued! Just busy and ill. :] Mainly remembered this because Alliance Unbound, the sequel, just dropped and I'd preordered it. I love Alliance-Union, and my recollection is that Cherryh will often do bunches of setup and then BOOM! (Not sure about Fancher - I haven't read her individual books.)

- I picked up GURPS Vorkosigan in hopes of running a not!Vor TTRPG lite one-shot or two-shot one of these days when I'm not sick and my life is not on fire (probably some weekend or evening).

- Also really REALLY want to dig into Monte Cook's Invisible Sun: The Black Cube! It's a chonker.

[white_aster]

...ok, so I went and looked up Bear in a Birdbath book and one thing led to another and it's now your fault that I've got a book about a flamingo shifter seducing a baker on my wishlist. ;P

[yhlee]

I'm not sorry - I'm biased as I know the author, but genuinely I think that's an especially delightful series. :3 FLAMINGOES. The author is also an engineer so she puts a lot of thought into details in a way that's still fun in a light-hearted romance. (One of my other faves of hers, very different, is the charming steampunk f/f All Manner of Hats, which involves a murder mystery and a milliner who makes magical hats!)

[white_aster]

ok, I'll really have to check out her stuff, then. I love me a lighthearted premise for my steamy romance, especially when someone has put thought into it. :D

[apachefirecat]

Getting further into my new Spike book and enjoying it IMMENSELY! I'm about half-way through, and I am VERY pleased to say that the author has MASTERED Spike, has fabulous, in depth original characters throughout, truly paints a second with his words (and has some fun with his vocabulary too!), and has, for the FIRST time since the fandom's premiere, actually given me a (might I add, VERY unexpected) appreciation for Darla!

[cornerofmadness]

just started Who Cries for the Lost by C.S. Harris one of my favorite historical mystery series and also an arc of Lies of the Serpent Tongue

[valoise]

I just finished Suzanne Palmer's The Scavenger Door which was enjoyable, although the situations the main character is involved in seem to be increasingly improbable. Just picked up a copy of Terry Pratchett's A Stroke of the Pen: The Lost Stories. These are short pieces he wrote under a pen name when he worked at small newspapers in the early 1970s. Pre-Discworld they still show the book shows the beginning's of Pratchett's style of humor.

[snobbish_cat]

I'm about halfway through Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and honestly I'm finding it to be a slog. I need to power through it so I can move on to something else.

[asphaltcowgrrl]

From what I've read, that's one of those books you either love or hate. Sorry it's been a slog. :/

[snobbish_cat]

I keep seeing people heaping praise on it and all I can think is "What am I missing here?"