What are you reading? Fourth Quarter 2022

[Wilbur]

14 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Just finished my second book this week (the first being On her Majesty's Secret Service) and it was excellent. David Remnick is an incredible writer and King of the World lives up to all the praise it receives. It's a biography about Muhammad Ali during the early years of him become world champion of heavyweight boxing, but it's also about the two previous champs, Floyd Patterson and Sonny Liston*. Patterson is such a sad yet open character and Liston, while a brute, was also never really treated well throughout his entire life. And if I'm being honest, Ali comes across as a complete piece of shit. 

*It's wild to think he was seen as some unbeatable hulk back in the early 60's when by today's standards he'd be considered hilariously small. 

Sonny Liston's story is at once inspiring and sad, because he rose to greatness by will and hard work, and then no one wanted him.

There are two really well-written biographies about him, including Night Train and The Devil and Sonny Liston, both by Nick Tosches.  They inspired the song by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

My grandfather, a Marine who once saw a bare-knuckle match go 30+ rounds, said that Sonny Liston was the scariest boxer he ever saw by a significant margin.

[TormundsWoman]

17 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Ali comes across as a complete piece of shit.

I gotta read this biography. I mean I’ve heard many things but never that about him. Of course we all can come across as many things especially when young and stupid. Doesn’t mean we stay that way for the rest of our lives.

[ljkeane]

33 minutes ago, TormundsWoman said:

I gotta read this biography. I mean I’ve heard many things but never that about him. 

Really? Ali was a witty guy but he could be pretty cruel. I thought it was fairly well known a number of his contemporaries really disliked him. Joe Frazier in particular apparently hated him.

[TormundsWoman]

11 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Really? Ali was a witty guy but he could be pretty cruel. I thought it was fairly well known a number of his contemporaries really disliked him. Joe Frazier in particular apparently hated him.

I did know some disliked him, and with his opponents he clearly didn’t get along, but I always thought it was a competitive thing, shit talking the opponent down. I never realized that these went that deep as to hate. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, TormundsWoman said:

I did know some disliked him, and with his opponents he clearly didn’t get along, but I always thought it was a competitive thing, shit talking the opponent down. I never realized that these went that deep as to hate. 

Ali wasn't liked because of his mouth and then became hated by most when he joined the Nation of Islam, and there's where he went from being a bit of a jerk (albeit kind of a funny one) to being relatively evil. He treated his first wife terribly after they got married, but the real problematic thing were his views on consensual interracial relationships. He strongly stated several times that if a white man slept with a black woman, the former must be killed for violating her purity and the latter also must be killed for consenting to it. Not exactly views that should be handwaved away because he was young and dumb.

[Underfoot]

Finished up the Jade trilogy by Fonda Lee, with Jade Legacy. What an ambitious series. I liked the first one the best, but I was incredibly impressed by the journey we were taken on in the last book, seeing jade and the culture around it change as the world became globalized. It was a really impressive bit of writing - the culture wars and culture shock amidst actual wars (hot and cold) were incredibly well realized. 

I didn't really like most of the characters throughout the trilogy - I guess that's fine given it's a mix of feudal+gangster politics, but as the world got more and more modern it was harder to relate to any of the jade-wearing characters, or root for their continued existence. 

I like the hints of lore and mysticism throughout, and would've liked the books to explore that more beyond the interlude snippets, but I'm not really partial to modern settings, so I was looking for more fantasy elements in general. 

Good series! 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Two down, three up. I'm on to Fleming's last true Bond novel, You Only Live Twice, Andre Agassi's highly regarded autobiography, Open and Mike Schur's book on philosophy, How to be Perfect. Hopefully I can knock out all three by the end of November so I can finally focus on Fire & Blood. 

[TormundsWoman]

Finished The Sympathizer. A very strong anti war manifesto. It had consistently excellent writing and very interesting subject too. It’s good to see the Vietnam conflict through the eyes of the Vietnamese people rather than American counterparts (which is how most of novels I know about the subject are written like). Not a novel for the faint of heart or for people who feel offended when American foreign policy is in question.

Also finished Elena Knows by Claudia Pineiro. Loved the book. Highly recommend especially if you read it in the Spanish. Not sure how you translate some very specific Argentinian idioms but I figure the translator should know. 

It is a very powerful story that touches on suicide, abortion,  how one lives with an incurable degenerative disease and what are the psychological consequences for the ones who care for the sick. It’s a very short book but it is beautifully structured to touch on all these subjects without being superficial about any of them and I think it makes sense it was short listed for the International Booker prize.

 

[shortstark]

On 10/29/2022 at 6:54 PM, Underfoot said:

Finished up the Jade trilogy by Fonda Lee, with Jade Legacy. What an ambitious series. I liked the first one the best, but I was incredibly impressed by the journey we were taken on in the last book, seeing jade and the culture around it change as the world became globalized. It was a really impressive bit of writing - the culture wars and culture shock amidst actual wars (hot and cold) were incredibly well realized. 

I didn't really like most of the characters throughout the trilogy - I guess that's fine given it's a mix of feudal+gangster politics, but as the world got more and more modern it was harder to relate to any of the jade-wearing characters, or root for their continued existence. 

I like the hints of lore and mysticism throughout, and would've liked the books to explore that more beyond the interlude snippets, but I'm not really partial to modern settings, so I was looking for more fantasy elements in general. 

Good series! 

Loved it.. thought it was very cinematic.. expect to see it on Netflix soon...

[Underfoot]

4 hours ago, shortstark said:

Loved it.. thought it was very cinematic.. expect to see it on Netflix soon...

Definitely ripe for adaptation. HBO would do it better though

[TheLastWolf]

Dystopian binge

1984

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

A Little History of the World by E.H. Gombrich, a book I'd recommend to everyone. 

[The Wolves]

Finally picked up Crime and Punishment, tried reading it a few years ago never finished so I figured I’ll give it another try. 
 

Also reading Interview with the Vampire. I’ve always wanted to read this and with the tv adaptation getting so much praise I figured now is the best time as any. 

[Iskaral Pust]

I’ve lost track again of which books I’ve posted here.  I’m probably omitting a couple:

The Final Game and Deccie Must Die by Caoimh McDonnell are two more humorous detective novels set in Dublin, thankfully abandoning the offshoot of the Bunny McGarry character going to America to be a west Cork version of Jack Reacher.  The premise and plot in the first is ridiculously contrived but funny and good to reintroduce the characters.  The latter gets the gang back into normal practice.  Recommended author.

The Coddling Of The American Mind by Jonathan Haidt is a nonfiction that makes a case for the downfall of western civilization via fragile snowflakes as university students.  He makes a good case but to my cynical mind there has always been a large % of people who are functionally useless and are just carried along by society — are there really more of them now or are they just more noticeable as university attendance has expanded and their uselessness has been weaponized by their forerunners?  Regardless, the original article in The Atlantic captured the central theme and the book is hardly worth the additional effort.

Dead Man’s Grave by Neil Lancaster is a pretty good detective novel set in Scotland, and start of a new series.  The protagonist is a bit of a Gary Stu but I’d still try the next in the series.

The Fabric Of Civilization by Virginia Postrel is a nonfiction about the history of fabrics and textiles.  It was OK but too deep into the narrow history of fabrics and not nearly enough broader perspective on the impact on society.  Also, this much discussion of weaving techniques really needs to be narrated over a video rather than just described.  Not recommended unless you’re a deep nerd for obscure fabric weaves.

The Shadow Of The Gods by John Gwynne is a fantasy set in a post-Ragnorak Viking society and world.  It’s pretty well written, and quite atmospheric in a way that suits the change in season.  This is the start of a new series and I plan to read on.

[Starkess]

I finally finished listening to Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Overall I didn't love it. Too long and required probably more understanding of the historical period than I had to make much sense of it.

Got Where the Crawdads Sing as my next audiobook, though it may take me a bit to get through it. Usually I listen when I run and between moving, wedding planning, and my new work schedule, it's been hard to fit much running in.

I also picked up The Golden Enclaves to read since that just came out. Otherwise still working on my leisurely re-read of Lord of the Rings, still on Fellowship and the forest of Lothlórien.

[Fragile Bird]

I was doing a re-listen to a couple of Penric novels, enjoyed by many of you here, and while going through the Lois McMaster Bujold listings I decided on a whim to start a series that I had ignored as I worked through a number of her books, the Sharing Knife.

Book 1 is called Beguilement and introduces you to a world where some disaster took place a thousand years ago or more (could be Earth) and there seems to be two kinds of people left, the Lakewalker soldier-sorcerers and everyone else, referred by them as Farmers whether or not they farm or fish or mine or are townspeople. They have no powers. The people of the past who vanished appear to have been gods and powerful sorcerers, their cities having sunk and been swallowed up by lakes and seas. The Lakewalkers believe they may have been the next tier down from the god/sorcerers, and the Farmers were the third tier, the workers.
 

But there are horrific creatures that seem to be part of the cause of that collapse, which the Lakewalkers call the Malice, that apparently emerge from the earth and start growing by enthralling humans or by turning animals into human-like creatures under their control. They grow by sucking the essence out of living matter, including plants, their “ground”, and they are eternal unless “introduced to death” by way of a Sharing Knife. The Lakewalkers have a mission of destroying the Malice, and they use their magic to create the knives. When Lakewalkers near death they take a special knife, made from bones of deceased Lakewalkers, and end their lives by stabbing themselves in the heart. Their life essence at death (not their souls), their “ground”, enters the knife, and the patrol soldiers of the Lakewalkers use those knives to “introduce death” to the immortal Malice, killing them. The belief is that an out-of-control Malice could suck the life energy out of everything living in the world and destroy all life in the world, including themselves in the end.

Bujold is a multiple Hugo and other award winner, famous for the fact that she writes romantic science fiction and fantasy. The heart of this series is the relationship between Dag, a Lakewalker patrol soldier, and Fawn, a Farmer girl, a forbidden relationship in their world, and the repercussions stemming from that relationship. Bujold’s world building is just so damn impressive, and I found myself deeply drawn into that world very quickly. The books do not seem to be among her most popular, so I assume things might get clunky along the way, but I am going to read the 4 books in the series. There’s also a 5th stand-alone book set in this world.

[dog-days]

I enjoyed The Sharing Knife series when I read it a year or two ago. I think the books might actually get stronger as they go along - the world-building continues to be great, but at least one character apart from Fawn and Dag gets an arc that I remember really enjoying. Plus, there's a boat. Can't go wrong with boats, unless you're James  Cameron. 

[ljkeane]

I didn't like Far from the Light of Heaven in the end. It all felt a bit unfocused for a stand a lone book. Also

Spoiler

the 'aliens' turning out to be the spirits of our ancestors or something like that really didn't work for me.

At the moment I'm reading Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney. So far it seems quite like the other Sally Rooney book I read. Intelligent people around university age in Dublin in not entirely healthy relationships with not much of an idea what they want to do with their lives.

[LongRider]

On 10/7/2022 at 12:43 PM, Fragile Bird said:

The book is called The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline, and I don’t even know how many of you would have access to it. It takes place in the not too distant future, a dystopian YA tale

Hi Birdie!  It took a while to get this book, and I've quickly read through it.  The story is not that different from other YA novels of this type, as it has the usual YA tropes; teenage insecurity, learning how to negotiate relationships and crushes.  What makes it different is who this story if aboout.  The few indigenous people left in this world are being hunted and killed for their bone marrow.  This story take place in Canada, and the histories, customs and myths of the First Nations are explored throughout the book, which gives the story more depth than many similar YA novels might have. 

There is a second book in this series which I have on hold and am looking forward to.   Thanks, Birdie, for the suggestion!

 

[Peadar]

I have started Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution, by R.F. Kuang. Very enjoyable so far.