Books!

[beyondbrainmatter]

1. Every artistic medium does at least one thing better than any other; in film its immediacy, in books its depth, in games its vicariousness. Book's thing is the best one of those. Books are so good now they blow every other medium out the water.

Right. "The medium is the message", as McLuhan stated.

So what are you reading, and why the hell aren't you?!

I'm supposed to be reading "Principles of Gestalt Psychology" by Kurt Koffka. Why don't I do that right now? Because I'm listening to the lecture series "The Neuroscience of Everyday Life" by Sam Wang at the moment.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Most of them bore me. It's much harder for me to find books that interest me than it is to be entertained by other hobbies, so I gave up and chose to focus my little time on those other hobbies. My favorite was 1984, but that's out of a pretty small selection of books I read. I didn't even love it.

And for the record, I do consider Citizen Kane to be an excellent film, albiet mainly for its style of cinematography.

It's great, but I expected more. I saw it once, years ago, and am about to rewatch it. It finally arrived today, after being in my Netflix queue for months.

Edit: Okay, I admit it. It's a masterpiece.

It's a great movie

 

[Zhukov]

Currently reading Kraken by China Mievilla.

It's not very good. Feels like low-rent Neil Gaiman. (Which sums up a lot of Mieville's books.) I'm basically just reading it bit by bit in waiting rooms and such.

Recently read The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi.

Speculative sci-fi kinda deal. Don't know if I'd call it good, it's a bit pulpy, but I enjoyed the hell out of it, I was totally hooked. Great setting, takes place in Thailand after a global energy crisis and several conflicts involving genetically engineered plagues and pests have sent most of the world's nations into isolationist semi-quarantine. Had some really cool characters too.

Main complaint is that two of the main characters aren't so great. The main dude is a boring hardass with no personal stakes in the plot and the eponymous windup girl spends 90% of the story being useless and pathetic. Luckily the story skips between perspectives, most of which are much more engaging.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

As an utter low-brow scrub, I pretty much read Warhammer 40K novels only (and the odd WH Fantasy).

Currently about 1/3 through Battle for the Abyss from the HH series and I'll probably read Skitariius/Tech-Priest novels I just bought. But usually I save books for long train journeys or reading outside in the sun during summer.

 

[Queen Michael]

That's not to say I don't read other stuff now. Mostly light novels, such as 'A Certain Magical Index' and 'Is It Wrong To Try To Pick Up Girls In A Dungeon?', but I do still very much enjoy reading.

Light novel fans, unite! =D I haven't read those particular series, but I plan to get going on IIWTTTPUGIAD once I'm done with the series I'm reading right now.

Here are all the books I'm reading at the moment:

Xenos. It's the first part of the Eisenhorn Warhammer 40K series by Dan Abnett. I don't play the game, but I like the books.

Pinocchio. The original fairy tale by Carlo Collodi. No further introduction necessary.

Supermarket. A Japanese novel about the human interaction between the workers in a department store. Much better than it sounds.

Spice and Wolf volume 2 by Isuna Hasekura. The basis for the manga and the anime. The plot and characters are interesting, but I don't like the style of writing. It's just one level too convoluted for my taste. It's the kind of writing that you usually see when writers of "bad literature" try to write like a Real Writer. (Very common in fanfiction.)

The Tale of Genji by Shibiku Murasaki. Often regarded as the world's first novel. Good stuff.

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky. The Swedish translation is really good, and botht he author's style and the plot are great. The best SF novel I've read in a long time.

Welcome to Nightvale: Full Dark, No Stars by the writers of the podcast. The scripts of the podcast plus commentary by the writers.

Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. YA SF that's good but not great. I've never been too interested in American teens from the 10's, and despite the novel taking place centuries in the future, that's what the characters come off as, to an even higher degree than many YA characters actually meant to be from this decade.

Absolute Midnight by Clive Barker. Third book in the Abarat series. The plot is okay and not more, but the world-building is outstanding.

The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante. I'm only reading one chapter a day, to make it last.

And also there's a whole bunch of comic books and manga that I follow.

 

[maninahat]

I'm thinking of dipping into more Sci-Fi or Fantasy.
But as I'm an evil SJW I'd want a cool sci-fi/fantasy book with a female protagonist. I'll get around to it when I have more money.

I have two recommendations then:

Ancillary Justice is a sci-fi book about a woman who has the brain of a battleship. Specifically she's the last soldier of an army who all shared the same AI hive mind, and they're all gone. It's cool because, apart from her really weird perspective on the world, she also comes from an equally weird culture that doesn't recognise gender, is obsessed with tea, and is terribly offended by the sight of naked hands.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet is sci-fi book that feels a lot like Alien, if the crew never picked up the alien. It's about a bunch of blue collar nobodies trying to build a teleport gate in a really dangerous bit of space. It tells its story in an almost episodic way, with each bit of the voyage punctuated by interesting philosophical questions, much like the best Star Trek episodes do. Plus its good to have a sci-fi story were everyone just tries to be nice for a change.

I'd recently read The Invisible Library, which has an awesome premise; it's about a librarian, who's job it is to steal books from other worlds/dimensions to stock a giant secret library. I actually really didn't like it so I don't recommend it (the writing is really amateurish, exposition heavy, and always telling not showing) but everyone else in my book group did.

 

[maninahat]

Currently reading Kraken by China Mievilla.

It's not very good. Feels like low-rent Neil Gaiman. (Which sums up a lot of Mieville's books.) I'm basically just reading it bit by bit in waiting rooms and such.

Have you read Perdido Street Station and The Scar? I've ashamed to say I've never read a Gaiman book, but I actually sorta liked those two, despite Mieville being ridiculously wordy in them. Is he like that in his others?

Speaking of wordy, I've started on The Wise Man's Folly so I'll probably not get that finished until 2018. I've been warned that it has an eleven chapter long sex scene with the World's biggest Marty Sue, but so far I'm enjoying it.

 

[Saelune]

Ok, I do want to read The Elder Scrolls novels that are set after Oblivion but before Skyrim. I need to do that at some point.

 

[BaronVH]

Well, I am going to have a contrary opinion: books > movies > games. There is almost an infinite number of good books. Not so much with other media. The LOTR movies pale in comparison to the books. The only problem is that it is very hard for me to identify books I will really love. It is much easier to do with movies and games. There just is not a reliable review source for books. I will say this very forum has helped immensely. Joe Abercrombie and Patrick Rothfuss are two authors this forum put me on, and Patrick Rothfuss may now be my favorite author of all time. I am getting really sick of games that require you to do any grinding, crafting, and leveling. Doom was a nice throwback to the mindless run and shoot games, and the campaigns for Battlefield 1 and the new Call of Duty allow me to play for an hour or so without a huge time investment. Meanwhile, I will get back to the Dark Tower book 7.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I haven't read since summer, but that's only because college.

I'm not counting articles that I had to read for classes even though I've read loads and loads of them.

I have, no joke, two large stacks of books that I need to start reading. I love to read and it makes me sad to see the piles grow and me not doing anything about it. Then again I guess it's my fault since I didn't stop buying them.

Anyways, there's a book about sound and politics that I want to start reading soon since I got it about a month or so ago. I have a lot of non-fiction books so I doubt anyone would be interested in what I'm reading.

 

[votemarvel]

Most of the books I've read this year have been free or cheap zombie novels off the Kindle Store.

A big part of that is that these days I don't have time for the investment of time that a lot of the, for want of a better term, the triple A books require.

On a tangent. I do wish I could get across to people putting books together that indents are not an acceptable alternative to actually putting paragraph spacing on the page. There are books, physical and digital, where I've given up reading and gone to look for a 'pirate' version I can quickly edit in Calibre to add spaces between the paragraphs.

Why so many books insist on using a wall-o-text I don't know.

 

[the December King]

I'm thinking of dipping into more Sci-Fi or Fantasy.
But as I'm an evil SJW I'd want a cool sci-fi/fantasy book with a female protagonist. I'll get around to it when I have more money.

I know you were kinda kidding about the SJW thing, but if you would like a recommendation for a series with strong female representation, I'd like to recommend "Something Red", a sort of fantasy/mystery series by Douglas Nicholas. Technically the protagonist is a boy, but his mentor and the thrust of the entire arc seems to be around his muse/mentor, an exiled Queen of Ireland who is a master combatant, sorceror and keen of wit. She wanders about, with a rag-tag band, solving crimes- kinda like a royal, medieval, magical Sherlock Holmes.

I didn't like it because I was getting tired of the characters- I'll admit, I was hoping for something a little different when I picked this up- but the writing is very vivid, and the story itself entertaining.

I know it sounds bad, but I personally am not interested in strong female heroes in my reading. But, I do recognize that others might be, and am happy to pass on my experiences, in the hopes that others may enjoy them.

As for me, I am constantly reading. I devour everything Stephen King writes (at least the horror), I'm a sucker for Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child works, and I finished the last three Bourne books last month (though not usually a fan, I was interested to see where the stories were going). I usually read fiction: mainly horror, sometimes dark fantasy, but occasionally crime/spy stuff too. And once in a blue moon I'll try for a biography.

 

[Pseudonym]

I read 'The Brothers Karamazov' during the summer. That is the most recent piece of fiction I read, I think. I have not been so impressed with any book since I read 'War and Peace'. I ussually take something to read on holidays when I have time. So I have read a few very large books and not too many smaller ones.

1. Every artistic medium does at least one thing better than any other; in film its immediacy, in books its depth, in games its vicariousness. Book's thing is the best one of those. Books are so good now they blow every other medium out the water.
2. No one seems to bloody read anymore, and it feels like a dirty secret everyone is missing.

Well, 1 and 2 are related. Books are the best but to reach that depth they also require a larger investment of time and energy than loading up another game of civ IV or than watching a movie or tv. It's also much harder to make a skinner box book. You'll ussually have to have at least some understanding of what you like about a book to like it (there are no doubt exceptions to this).

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I enjoy books and reading.

I'm currently re-reading Heir to the Empire and I plan on making my way through all of the Thrawn books again by the end of January.
Last month I re-read Crime and Punishment, Thus Spake Zarathustra, and the latest book in the Lost Fleet sci-fi series. I bought three new books back in August but I haven't had the desire to crack them open. Don't know why, just not feeling it.
I also read a lot of short stories on r/HFY, and some manga.

Currently waiting on some more releases of Tomo-chan is a girl and some english translations for KissxSis (don't you judge me! Aw heck, fuck it, judge away!).
Oh, I also read through all of the Oreimo: Kuroneko spin-off manga cuz she is best girl.

 

[bluegate]

I mostly don't read books because I'm a very slow reader and thus would rather spend my time otherwise. Although people have always told me I'd get faster if I'd just read more, with all the things that I have had to read over the past two and somewhat decades, it hasn't happened yet.
I'd be happy to try some books if people have any interesting suggestions though.

 

[Zhukov]

Currently reading Kraken by China Mievilla.

It's not very good. Feels like low-rent Neil Gaiman. (Which sums up a lot of Mieville's books.) I'm basically just reading it bit by bit in waiting rooms and such.

Have you read Perdido Street Station and The Scar? I've ashamed to say I've never read a Gaiman book, but I actually sorta liked those two, despite Mieville being ridiculously wordy in them. Is he like that in his others?

I haven't read either of those, so I can't make a comparison.

Besides, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "wordy". I mean, it's a book. It's going to have a lot of words in it. Kinda like calling a song "noisy".

Anyway, of Mieville's books that I've read I liked Embassytown the best. Sci-fi that revolves around a city of (mostly) humans communicating with a (mostly) friendly alien species. The aliens speak with two mouths simultaneously and don't differentiate between words and the things words represent. Which means that among other things they are unable to make a statement that they don't believe. They can only use similes or metaphors after first physically creating or enacting them. Hearing a human tell a blatant lie is a mindblowing magic trick to them. The humans have to breed twins (two mouths) and bring them up as specialized translators to make themselves understood. Then they try a different approach and everything goes utterly pear shaped.

Yeah... it's a bit odd. Usually I wouldn't suggest it to others on grounds of sheer sci-fi weirdness. Given your other posts in this thread that shouldn't be a problem for you though. Consider this a tentative recommendation.

Only complaint is that the protagonist is a bit of a blank presence. She's not a passive observer, she gets shit done, but you never get a sense of who she is. Or at least I didn't. Although it's not important to the plot.

 

[maninahat]

Currently reading Kraken by China Mievilla.

It's not very good. Feels like low-rent Neil Gaiman. (Which sums up a lot of Mieville's books.) I'm basically just reading it bit by bit in waiting rooms and such.

Have you read Perdido Street Station and The Scar? I've ashamed to say I've never read a Gaiman book, but I actually sorta liked those two, despite Mieville being ridiculously wordy in them. Is he like that in his others?

I haven't read either of those, so I can't make a comparison.

Besides, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "wordy". I mean, it's a book. It's going to have a lot of words in it. Kinda like calling a song "noisy".

I mean Purple prose, Like he was being paid by the word, and he gets a bonus for fitting the word "puissant" in somewhere. There is an entire chapter devoted to how there is a cable being laid through a city, and the cable is really, really long.

Embassytown sounds fun. If there is one thing I like from Mieville, its that he isn't afraid to talk bonkers. Perdido Street Station has a race of scarab headed ladies who make sculptures out of bugshit. And there is a giant pandimensional killer spider who's obsessed with scissors and art.

 

[Queen Michael]

Like he was being paid by the word, and he gets a bonus for fitting the word "puissant" in somewhere.

"Puissant" is one of those words that I always want to look up, but then I always decide that I'm not gonna look it up; it's not gonna turn up again. And then I see it again, and the process repeats itself.

 

[Spacewolf]

I want to buy more books. My library isn't very local and I like to keep books that I've read. Sadly we've been super broke for like the entirety of this year (2016 can suck it).

But still, I suppose the last book I read was The Outsiders a few months ago. I need to read more.
Before that I read Fight Club (and, to be honest, meh) and The Blind Assassin before that. I also read a few video game related books, such as 2 Dragon Age books and I'm still working on the book of the Warcraft movie.

... So I suppose I have read recently, but not as much as I used to.

I'm thinking of dipping into more Sci-Fi or Fantasy.
But as I'm an evil SJW I'd want a cool sci-fi/fantasy book with a female protagonist. I'll get around to it when I have more money.

The 3 original books in the foundation series by Asimov are good and I think at least two of the Pov characters in the second and third are lasses.