RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[quillpunk]

It's a new year and a new Wednesday! :D What are you reading? 👀

Comments

[skye_writer]

I'm rereading an old favorite: Dragonhaven, by Robin McKinley. My hardcover is so well-loved that the binding is broken in like four different places. Which... oops. It's such a good book, though, I love it so much.

[greetingsfrommaars]

oh wow I remember reading Dragonhaven when I was younger. maybe it's time for a reread... thanks for reminding me about it!

[cactus_rs]

Trying real hard to finish Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye...!

[anehan]

I'm on holiday, so I have a lot of time to read. However, even though I have multiple RIPs, none of them are something I want to spend hours on. So, I'm trying to decide which old favourite to re-read. Have narrowed it down to Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's novels. Probably.

[petrea_mitchell]

I got gift cards for Christmas, and the first thing off my TBR list that I was able to track down in a physical bookstore was Impossible Monsters, so reading that! In the meantime, some obscure books I ordered online are starting to show up, and today I'm going to my nearest branch of Powell's to get some things I ordered for in-store pickup (and probably will be buying a few more while I'm there).

While waiting for a chance to get to a bookstore, I reread The Dechronization of Sam Magruder-- not a brilliant book, but a decent one, with a fascinating backstory.

[wearing_tearing]

I couldn't decide on what my first 2025 read should be so! I started 3 books:

- Kitchen Table Tarot by Melissa Cynova: I need to pull myself together when it comes to reading cards. So far, this has been a really nice read that doesn't worry itself with aesthetic.

- Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson: this is a reread for me and I'm already picking up on soooo much stuff that went over my head the first time because I wasn't aware they were important.

- Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy: started this about 5 minutes ago! I have no thoughts so far aside from the writing style pleasing me.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I have added the tarot one to my wish list. It sounds like my kind of thing.

[wearing_tearing]

I hope you like it! It is written mainly from the perspective of reading for other people, but the author has been great so far about hitting the point that what matters are the cards and their meanings to you and not what kind of deck you have and if you keep it in a bag or box and if you sleep with it under your pillow or charge it with crystals.

[sixbeforelunch]

I started Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari last night, but I'm not sure if I'm going to keep going. It's popular with the tech bros, and even just reading the timeline at the beginning I can see why. (A timeline that predicts a possible future of superhumans and digital super intelligence would fit right in at a Silicon Valley retreat. Pass the ayahuasca and let's talk about the singularity.)

It's also written in a simplified style that reminds me of a 7th grade textbook. I'm not saying books need to be written in complicated, flowerly language. There is absolutely a place for straightforward, easy to understand prose. But it adds to this feeling that Harari is talking down to me, and that his arguments lack nuance, and that he is not open to debating his ideas.

I might ignore all of this if I could trust the information in it, but it seems there's substantial criticism on that front from serious scholars, so I'm leaning toward a DNF.

I'm not actively reading anything else, but I have Technics and Civilization by Lewis Mumford waiting on my side table and will probably pick that up next.

[white_aster]

Interesting, re: Sapiens. I think it's on my to-read list, because I am always up for some serious discussion of where humanity's going. But if it's an oversimplified/unserious treatment, maybe best I borrow before paying any money for it. :P thanks!

[sixbeforelunch]

YMMV, of course, but yeah it may be better to see if you can get it at the library rather than spending money, at least until you know what you think of him. This is the article that's making me wonder if I should spend my time with his ideas, especially since it's echoing some of the feelings that I was getting reading the book. (I am not at all knowledgeable in these fields, though, so I have no way of evaluating any factual claims here. Take my opinions with a large grain of salt.)

[white_aster]

Thanks for the link! Yeah, the stretching-of-truth crap like that article describes just shows that the author's not interested in actual scientific validity of his book, and the only people who do that are there to push an agenda that the facts inconveniently don't support. No thanks, will check out other books that are properly sourced. :P

[yhlee]

My fave funny story about the singularity was the late Vernor Vinge's talk at a Lithuanicon that I missed (I was scheduled opposite him) but a writer I knew who did attend reported that Vinge's talk was plagued by "we can't get PowerPoint running on the project" tech issues, which was just ironic. /o\

I'm reminded that The Hot Book in this vein back in the '90s was Megatrends, which we had to read for school. /o\

[sixbeforelunch]

Hah! That is indeed perfectly ironic. :D

[cactus_rs]

All the people I know who are academics in the fields Harari is drawing from think very, very poorly of the book and the quality of his research/accuracy of his presentation. I would suggest "The Dawn of Everything" as a meatier and much better regarded popular book on a similar topic.

[sixbeforelunch]

Thank you! I will look into that one.

[rekishi]

Happy New Year!!

I finished the year out with some fanfic, and started "I fear you've got dragons" today. Off to a promising start!

[quillpunk]

nice, hope you have a good time! :D

[dianafortyseven]

I'm almost halfway through "Midnight in Chernobyl" now. Started it in early November... I'm a fast reader, but with this book, that's just not possible for me. After every paragraph, sometimes after every sentence, I have to put the book down and stare at the wall for a while.

That being said, I highly recommend this book!

[elizalavelle]

I found The Radium Girls to be similar in that it was a great book to read but not one I could sit and read all at once because the content is so heavy.

[dianafortyseven]

YES! Radium Girls too gave me these full staring-into-the-abyss afternoons!

Important to read and learn, but with each new revelation it feels like your brain is bluescreening.

[elizalavelle]

Staring into the abyss is exactly the right phrase. I'm glad I read the book and will recommend it to others and at the same time it is a lot and does require time to process it and think about what happened to the people in this industry.

[florianschild]

Happy New Year! I’m rereading an all-time fave: The Rifter by Ginn Hale. It’s a portal fantasy about a young ecology grad student and his friends who get sent to a strange world called Basawar. The world building is super unique and really well-written. The romance is m/m slow-burn. There is some time weirdness, mystery elements, plot twists, lots of angst. It’s just a great read, really!

[anehan]

That sounds interesting! I'll have to put in my TBR pile.

[white_aster]

I am currently reading a book called Mort(e) by Robert Repino. I was cruising through Thriftbooks spending gift certificates (dang you Thriftbooks for your rewards program that keeps giving me new free book credits when I'm trying to use up my free book credits! ;_;), and this series came up for some reason in the recs. It's a post-apocalyptic dystopia sort of story, where superintelligent ants have uplifted other mammals and birds, which revolted against their masters and are still in the process of wiping out humanity along with trying to build their own society. I'm kind of meh on it currently - a theme is obviously "do we become just as bad as the deluded and enslaving humans", and as of the middle of the book the answer seems to be "yep". Still, it's an interesting take and I'm hoping the plot picks up. It's one of those books that is aiming to be character-driven but doesn't particularly have many sympathetic characters, if you know what I mean.

I also finished:

The Road to Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith, and Trust by Francis S. Collins - Good! Ex-NIH Director's takes on merging science and faith, and the importance of using critical thinking and trusting the right sources for information. Guaranteed to probably rankle everyone on the political and/or religious spectrum at some point, but probably guaranteed to make them nod along, too. Which, given his point was to try to reach everyone, is only to be expected. That's the thing with compromise: no one should get EVERYTHING they want out of it, if you're doing it right.

The Witchstone by Henry H. Neff - EXCELLENT book about a demon who manages a curse and goes on a bit of a quest/con job with the cursebearers to help (?) them break said curse. I forget where I learned about this book, but if it was here, THANK YOU. I loved this. Funny and snarky and the demonic/magical worldbuilding felt solid. Wonderful characters all around. The book was a bit of a chonker, but it earned it, and I'd not change a thing. One of my fave books this year, honestly.

The Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei - GREAT space opera about a thief and companions who go hunting for an alien artifact to save one species, get caught up in space political shenanigans, and have to decide who to trust and who to help. I really liked this much better than Kitasei's first book, and it's a much lighter and funnier story.

No Cure for Being Human (And Other Truths I Need to Hear) by Kate Bowler - VERY GOOD book about a woman's experience with having Stage 4 colon cancer and how she dealt with that. Surprisingly funny, but also a bit heavy because of the topic. I bought this to give as a gift and read it just to make sure it fit for that person (it did). A very good take that avoids all the manifesting/positive thinking/everything-happens-for-a-reason BS about facing deadly illness.

[starfleetbrat]

The Stardust Grail was really good! I found it very cozy despite the high stakes.

[white_aster]

I know, right? :D It did have its serious/gritty parts, and I appreciated that otherwise sometimes the "cozy" gets too cloying for me, but I did like how it stayed hopeful and funny despite that. I mean, my absolute fave part was Auncle being Aggressively Cheerful And Helpful while playing chicken with that warship. ("I AM TRYING TO LEAVE THE SYSTEM BY THE FASTEST WAY POSSIBLEEEEE! XDDDD")

[snobbish_cat]

I've just started Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai.

[valoise]

I read through all the Highlander fanfic in this year's hlh_shortcuts which was a lot of fun.

Also, I finished digitizing digitizing this hand-written 1970s cookbook from Manitoba, Canada and took the time this week to read through it in detail in preparation for blogging about it later this month.

At the library yesterday I picked up The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley and Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu. Hope to find time to read them this week.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

A re-read of The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie. And The Work of Art by Adam Moss.

[dianafortyseven]

Ohh, I should totally go on an Agatha Christie re-reading spree later this year!

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Go for it!

I'm reading all of hers in publication order. I started in January of 2021 and now I'm in the 1960's.

[yhlee]

Still reading Helen Kestrel's delightful shifter romance Pegasus Summer.

On a completely different note, returning to James S. A. Corey's novella Livesuit, which I learned of IIRC from white_aster! I loved the novel (first in a projected series?) it's a tie-in to, The Mercy of Gods, and I am EXCITE! for ill-advised alienish biotech military sf and, hopefully, cautionary body horror.

I want to finally read Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive but our copy of Way of Kings was a flood casualty (we have the rest of the series in hardcover!) so I put a hold on one of the library copies (all four are checked out :g:) and I'm waiting for that to come in. :3

Otherwise, I'm still taking notes on Ellen Besen's Animation Unleashed, and working through Rimsky-Korsakov's Principles of Orchestration and Henry Brant's Textures and Timbres; the former is a delight and the latter is absolutely terrific in how granular it gets regarding orchestration for, well, texture and timbre. :D

[ravengown]

I actually DNF'd a book today that I had been holding on to from the library (Game of Cones by Abby Collette). Just wasn't jiving with it.

I started Witch Please by Ann Aguirre instead! Seems like a fun romance read so far!

[silversea]

Finished The Dream-Quest of Vellitte Boe by Kij Johnson, such a gorgeously written adventure!

Currently reading The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. I started reading this a few years ago but I was drowning in exams so I paused it and then never got back to it. Hoping I can finish it now.

Happy New Year to everyone!

[starfleetbrat]

I finished Volume 1 of the Fool Night manga on Jan 1st (its Jan 2 here).

Probably going to read The House Witch by Delemhach next since I want to read something longer than I usually read, and its over 600 pages.

[silversea]

Oooh I recently reread Fool Night and I love it so much! Such a creepy atmosphere, and I like the mysteries in it.

[apachefirecat]

My second (actually the fourth) issue of Exceptional X-Men came in Saturday. I read it on Sunday, and it was actually a much better read than the other issue I've received so far. Still uncertain I'll renew the subscription, but definitely giving it more of a try now and have come to like one of the new kids. I still have questions about certain characterizations, and the art could be better, but it's got my two favorite X-Women, Emma and Kitty, so kinda hard to pass up.

I've read about another chapter and a half in my First Ladies book, and I've been reading a good bit of the Bible lately. *shrug* I got a new one in from my hubby for Christmas, a new study Bible after my first one had been destroyed, and I'm really proud of this copy. There's also been something in the last few months, for the first time in my life, that's really opening up the Word for my understanding. *shrug* I find it very calming and encouraging, and I'm really enjoying my time with it lately.

Happy New Year to you all, and here's to the most books we can read in 2025! <3

[olivermoss]

Aaaaaalmost done with Burning Water. I really wonder if Mercedes Lackey wrote this much earlier than books by her published around the same time. It's not just rough, but both Di and narrator have attitudes that characters are taken to task for in other books.

Really, really hoping I remember right and Children of the Night is actually good.

Also, new year and new TBR list. I took out a chunk of my backlog last year and hopefully I keep going.

[white_aster]

Aaaaah, Burning Water.... IIRC, that was The First of the Tregarde books, and very early in general in Lackey's writing career (I think most of what she'd written at that point was the very earliest Valdemar books). So...yeah. I also remember Burning Water being the WORST of the Tregarde books, IIRC. I remember the other two as much better.

[olivermoss]

I have a strong suspicion that the book was actually written way earlier, both due to how much of a mess the book is and also the idea expressed. Early Mercedes Lackey books had a big impact on me so it's good to revisit them.

[white_aster]

Yeah, agreed, it was by far the roughest and most dated of her works that I ever read.

[cornerofmadness]

To Slip the Bonds of Earth by Amanda Flower, a historical mystery using the Wright Brothers' sister as the sleuth

[elizalavelle]

I'm giving Voyage of the Damned by Frances White a try after a friend recommended it to me last year.