April Reads: What, fool, are you reading?!?

[Peadar]

I enjoyed Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari. Up next Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire.

[williamjm]

I finished Ursula Le Guin's The Dispossessed, which I thought was very good. I liked it more than Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, I think perhaps because they both had some fascinating ideas, I thought the characterisation was better in this. I thought Shavek was a compelling protagonist, he had a lot of character development through the book and we learn a lot about the societies of Anarres and Urasti from how Shavek's reaction to them varies over time and from his own struggles to understand how he feels about the two radically different societies. Out of the two worlds, Anarres was probably the more interesting because its anarchist society is very unusual (although I suspect it's inspired some later SF societies such as Banks' Culture or Ken MacLeod's "The Cassini Division") and has an interesting mix of admirable qualities and significant flaws. Urasti feels more like a commentary on America (which sadly works equally well when it was written or in the modern day), but although Le Guin is clearly critical of that society I liked that it wasn't all one-sided and that a lot of the characters there were at least somewhat sympathetic.

[Darth Richard II]

Any of you who haven't read The Bear and the Nightingale, stop and go read it now. Particularly those who liked Uproored.Go!   

[Garett Hornwood]

On Wednesday I finished The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume III (Modern Library edition) and was thoroughly impressed with Edward Gibbon's entire work.  My new primary read is The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

On Fridays-Saturdays, I read some short "tame"/g-rated or strictly religious books.  So if you're not interested then skip the next paragraph...

Last weekend I read National Sunday Law and it was a horrible written book, a part of me is tempted to say it was a fabricated text but that might be going too far.  This weekend I read The New World Order: What's Behind the Headlines? by Russell Burrill, although some sections are out-of-date I did read some things I'd never come across before.

[Peadar]

On to Adam Nevill's horror short-story collection Some will not Sleep. The first tale has filled me with great confidence for the rest of the collection.

[Maester Llama]

I feel like I've said this here already, but just in case I haven't I will take this opportunity to second DR's review of Arden's The Bear and the Nightingale. I endorse this product. So far as lyrically fantastical but grounded historical-ish novels go this one's the good shit.

 

I've had time to do a glorious amount of reading recently and have tackled many recent things:

 

Finally finished Peter S. Beagle's novel from last year, Summerlong, which is about a kind of magic entering the lives of a middle-aged semi-couple in the Seattle area and is Beagle's first long form work in some time. Beagle's writing is one of the reasons I continue to have faith that humanity contains the capacity for finer things, and he is of course great here, the prose evocative but also sly, funny and restrained. I read the first half very slowly, over months, and the second very quickly, in an afternoon; it's not a long book, but parts of it feel more like things to be savored gradually. Beagle often combines wonder and warm-heartedness with melancholy and all those things are here in abundance, but there is perhaps a touch more hard-nosed sadness than I was expecting. Always good to be surprised. I am sure that a reread would / will turn up more to say, but I am a big Beagle fan so at this point I am mostly at the "everything he writes is a gift and this is no exception, and ranks among the stronger things I've read from this always remarkable author" stage. It's a whole new novel from Beagle, albeit a short one, and it's no slouch, and it should've been a bigger deal, but given how quiet and unprepossessing it appears on its surface perhaps slipping into the world softly and without a ton of fanfare is entirely fitting.

 

I'm almost half-way through Guy Gavriel Kay's Children of Earth and Sky. I am enjoying it thoroughly, as I almost always do with his work, but at this point, despite some individual moments that are right up there, it's not reaching the heights of some of his previous stuff for me. It's somewhat less focused than much of his previous work, with new characters occasionally popping up in distant locations and then not returning for quite a while, and while taking longer to bring the plot cannons into alignment when you've got more of them is entirely reasonable it's just feeling a bit more scattered than usual at this point. It is also very, very Kay, doused heavily with his frequent writerly preoccupations -- lots of beautiful people reflecting on the unpredictability of life, and of the capacity for individual moments to irrevocably change things, and boning -- and while all these things are done wonderfully as usual and I have no objection to them per say, at least most of the time, I am glad I am not doing some sort of Kayism drinking game with the book because if I were I would be one drunk-ass motherfucker.

[Starkess]

I finished my re-read of Fool's Assassin. It is as frustrating and depressing and comforting as ever! I found that this time I enjoyed the second POV more than I did on my first read, although I still do not prefer it to the sole-Fitz books and sections. I found Shun and Lant to be even more infuriating than I had remembered. On to Fool's Quest, although I shall have to read more slowly or I will be left dangling for dayyyys waiting for the final book! 

[ljkeane]

I'm just starting my reread of Fool's Assassin in anticipation of Fool's Fate coming out too. I'm planning on waiting to read the final book until my holiday in mid May so no real rush but I can see that not happening if I run out of patience.

[brunhilda]

On 4/13/2017 at 2:32 PM, polishgenius said:

Why did no-one tell me that Claire North has a new book out? The End of the Day. It's about Death's harbringer, Charlie. Seems like fun. Seems like less conspicuously Trying For A Claire North Concept than the previous two novels.

Pre-ordered, was so excited when it showed up, didn't like it at all. Dull dull dull.

Quote

Tried to read The Three Body Problem at has to dnf at like 30percent. Different strokes and all that jazz, but in my humble and always correct opinion, this book just fucking sucks, and the good reviews baffle me to the extreme.

Paper thin characters. Terrible "science". Hated it.

[RedEyedGhost]

43 minutes ago, brunhilda said:

Pre-ordered, was so excited when it showed up, didn't like it at all. Dull dull dull.

 

I'm 30% through, and I'm definitely not loving it either.

[Xray the Enforcer]

I just tried to re-read Three-Body Problem a couple of weeks ago and couldn't do it -- a lot of the flaws I deliberately overlooked the first time around really killed the book for me. The only part of that book I enjoyed was the different scenarios of how the Trisolarians got murked by their bullshit star-system.

[kairparavel]

Books I read/finished this month:

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Kindle

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer, audiobook

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, Kindle

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande, audiobook 

I currently have Six of Crows, Kindle on the go and started The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee on audiobook but I had to stop. There was just something about the writing style and the narrator's voice that wasn't working for me. I switched over to the audiobook version of World War Z, which has a fantastic group of narrators. I may finally finish this book. 

[redeagl]

4 hours ago, Starkess said:

I finished my re-read of Fool's Assassin. It is as frustrating and depressing and comforting as ever! I found that this time I enjoyed the second POV more than I did on my first read, although I still do not prefer it to the sole-Fitz books and sections. I found Shun and Lant to be even more infuriating than I had remembered. On to Fool's Quest, although I shall have to read more slowly or I will be left dangling for dayyyys waiting for the final book! 

Only 5  ( I think) days until Assassin's Fate and Fool's Quest isn't really a small book.Unless your speed is absolutely mad, you will not finish Fool's Quest and wait days for Assassin's Fate.

[Darth Richard II]

Nine days in the US.

[HexMachina]

35 minutes ago, Darth Richard II said:

Nine days in the US.

Hobb is doing a signing here on Wednesday where apparently the book will be on sale. So I might get it sooner than the release date. A whole day early! (well...4 hours, really. The signing is at night) 

[ljkeane]

Damn, there's a signing in Liverpool tomorrow I could have gone to if I'd seen it earlier. 

[HexMachina]

Yeah I hadn't known about her UK tour either. Luckily someone on the board let me know

[Spaßvogel]

Just finished the latest Alex Verus novel by Benedict Jacka.  I don't think any other series I've read has improved from book to book as much as this one.  Great stuff.  Next i've got the latest Pax Arcana novel lined up.  Weeeeee.

[Deedles]

I was strong and held out, so only starting Fitz and the Fool for the first time today. Yay for more glorious Fitz-Ian angst (I assume)

[Astromech]

I thoroughly enjoyed Hampton Sides' Blood and Thunder. Excellent narrative history of 19th C. American Southwest(New Mexico primarily) with Kit Carson and the Navajos as the centerpieces.