Books - What are you reading?

I’ve somehow managed to started Ann Cleaves; The Rising Tide. I think I picked it up after going to Holy Island last year. It’s okay.

Don't forget to add Name of the Wind / Wise Mans fear to the list of must read fantasies!

Reading Band of Brothers again after reminiscing about it on the TV thread.

Dunno why but a fair few folk on my Twitter Mastodon feed have all independently recommended The Steerswomen series and am really enjoying it; have flown through the first two books in a couple of weeks.

Read the (Jeremy Wilson) Beryl Burton biography 'Beryl', that was brilliant and much more captivating than a normal sports book slog.

Currently chugging through Brian Eno's 'A year with swollen appendices' and next up it's 'Dilla Time' by Dan Charnas.

At some point there'll also be Gary Stevenson's 'The Trading Game' amongst other things piled up on the shelf.

The Three Body Problem trilogy is great sci fi that feels blockbuster-y whilst still being interesting conceptually, without being terribly written or cheesy. They're making it in to a series I believe.

I'm currently reading Caliban's War, the second in the Expanse series. It's definitely pretty trashy but ticks the blockbuster, easy to blast through box. I'm about 100 pages in in a couple of days.

Fantasy wise, I read all of the Earthsea series by Ursula K Le Guin last year and absolutely loved them. Not without their problems but I really enjoyed them.

Just finished Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Reminded me in ways of East of Eden, both definitely in my all time favourite books.

Just started London Fields by Martin Amis, feeling very different!

William Gibson "Bridge trilogy " is awesome, I preferred to necromancer.
And also Pattern Recognition is worth a look, probably my favourite of all.

Pattern Recognition

tempted to agree. Cayce Pollard is definitely his best character

Midnight Sun and The Dog Stars are a couple of standalone sci-fi books I really enjoyed in the last few years. They're not space opera blockbusters but fantastic nonetheless.
I'm reading and loving Boys Life after recommendations up thread.

The Dog Stars

This was excellent, one of the better books I've read in recent memory.

Thanks for the recommendations all, some choice hits that I've already read and loved, but plenty of stuff that I haven’t so should keep me going for a while.

The Three Body Problem trilogy is great sci fi that feels blockbuster-y whilst still being interesting conceptually, without being terribly written or cheesy.

I thought I should have liked the Three Body Problem but found it hard work to read and all a bit clunky.

Oh really? I enjoyed it a lot. It's definitely a bit all over the place but I thought that worked quite well.

Terry Pratchett is still a win for me, have read all of his discworld stuff a few times.

Dancers at the end of time just arrived and it is surprisingly chunky for Moorcock (lol), who I normally associate with slender paperbacks.

Moorcock doesn’t get much of a mention these days I find (possibly because of his jokes surname), but he’s one of my favourite fantasy authors. The Elric books and the two Corum trilogies are up there amongst the best of the genre imo.

Started on Sapiens :Yuval Noah Harari
Getting bad vibes from it. It seems pretty bland and Ted talky…got a feeling it’s got some kind of agenda. I expect Rogan has something to say about it

I tried reading it but only made it through a few pages. I found it difficult following who's who with the Chinese character names but maybe I should give it a fair shot

I had very similar experience although made it through half the first book. Didn't get on with it really

I thought I should have liked the Three Body Problem but found it hard work to read and all a bit clunky.

I also thought this. I blamed the translation*

*with absolutely no justification

I also really enjoyed the murderbot series which has a bit of comedy here and there which others in the genre often lack.
It's about a genderless combat robot/human hybrid who has managed to hack its own system to remove the module which forces it to do what it's told.
It's maybe erring on a younger audience but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. The books are very short and the price does not reflect this however. I do have them all on Kindle though if anyone wants sending them. Or other sci-fi books

Yeah the names of the characters can get a bit confusing. The copy I had for each book has a character guide at the front which was handy to refer to when the context of what was happening wasn't enough to go on.

It seems pretty bland and Ted talky…

That's a pretty good summary.

I’ve just started Dann McDorman, West Heart Kill. So far I’m really enjoying it. I like the way this is heading.
I’ve just given up on J.J.Abrams S. Doug Dorst. Because really you should never have to work on anything that hard.

both good