Books - What are you reading?

this was pretty much my reaction also

I read the 2nd one then gave up

There we go, I think I'll leave it at one and done then. Thanks all for chiming in!

I genuinely regret the minutes I wasted reading that shite

Been taking a look at the Shardlake books. They're not bad, but the author signals his plot twists miles ahead, to the point where - each time so far - I'm just waiting for the protagonist to finally notice the huge clue-fish that have been slapping him in the face. There's a clunky reference to "The Name of the Rose" in the first one and that's not a comparison he should have invoked.

Still, they're quite fun.

Bradley Wiggins - My Hour

Just finished Ted Chiang's two collections of stories

• Stories of Your Life and Others
  
• Exhalation
  
  

both excellent, thoughtful science fiction. Not space opera type stuff, just each one an idea made into a short story. disappointed he's not published more.

Getting towards the end of Richard Flanagan's 'The narrow road to the deep north'.
A bit too long maybe, but impressed with the author's ability to enter into the minds of so many different characters. Which Flanagan novels should be next on my list?

I found that so harrowing that bits of descriptions from it still pop into my mind years later. Excellent book but hard work.

I'd be keen to read more by him as well.

That's been on my shelf for a little while. Will get round to reading it one of these days.
I'm currently reading Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton based on recommendations on here. Really enjoying it!

Can someone explain why The Three Body Problem is so lauded? I'm one and a half books in and finding it a chore to be honest; I don't know if the translation is the problem or what, but it feels incredibly schlocky. Not really digging it at all.

I read a lot of SF and I didn't like it either. Yes it has some interesting ideas but the execution was far from great. I couldn't help but think it was all a bit Emperors new clothes "ooh Sci fi fro China!!". Also hated the TV show

I really enjoyed the series, hard to put my finger on why though. I absolutely blasted through all 3 books.
I'm midway through the series at the moment and it's a bit shit. Awful dialogue.

Enjoying a lot of N.K.Jemisin at the moment, as part of an effort to read more female authors.

Also finished Cryptonomicon, which blew very hot and cold.

I started Quicksilver, and have stalled hard. After Cryptonomicon, I'm finding myself far less forgiving of Stephenson's habit of driving plot through super unlikely characterisation and contrivance.

I hadn't read this thread for a long time, and the first post I read coming back to it was from a few months ago, suggesting Rothfuss as a fantasy author.

Imma say no on that.

Don't do it.

The main character is All The Wish Fulfillment Tropes. No problem is too great, because theain character is a genius and prodigy at exactly the thing to solve it, and more.

Great new Percival Everett

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It's been discussed on here a few times. Half the people (myself included) not fans and half are.

For me it a was a decent idea poorly executed.

Isn't that most fantasy though, the prodigy from the unheralded background.

Personally I'd probably have skipped them because they feel like build up to a book that looks like it won't be released.

I have now finished the penultimate year of my english literature degree and fuck me I never want to pick another book up ever again. Smash the printing presses! Burn the trees! Melt all the rare earth elements that would otherwise be used in the manufacture of ebooks! Absolute shite. I usually switch to graphic novels if I can't do text reading and even that is beyond me right now.

I did manage to struggle through What Survives by M. Amelia Eikli recently, which I enoyed. It's very "debut novel", but she's got a fantastic line in grief and bereavement that I've not seen tackled all that well in most post-apoc. A lot of the genre just glosses over the emotional effects, goes straight for the roaming cannibals and whatnot, but Eikli completely avoids all that and just focuses on this one character losing everyone. It's gut-wrenching, gorgeously-written grief.

Well done for making it through Ulysses, @markyp ! What ill-advised doorstop are you tackling next?

Seconding EB's recommendation for WHH's House on the Borderland for this kind of nonsense and also throwing in Arthur Machen - try The Great God Pan. M.R James wrote a lot of great stuff about stuffed-shirt academics digging up scary artifacts and regretting it when eldritch horrors come for them.

It's not quite 'Lovecraft style', but I think you might enjoy Alan Garner's stuff. His most recent book is Treacle Walker - it's short and pacey and I think if you gave it a go, you'd see why I thought of it all the same - it takes the Welsh countryside and defamiliarises it into something frightening. Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley might interest you too.

What does penultimate mean?

'The one before the last.'

If it's a three-year degree, she first did her antepenultimate year and her second year is her penultimate. :)

He knows perfectly well what "penultimate" means, he's just trying to publicly catch me out on wrongsaying big words, so I don't get Ideas Above My Station.

Joke's on him, though! I've had Ideas Above My Station since I was a toddler!

Jokes on you my dear, I graduated with an English degree some 37 summers ago and look at me now. Enjoy the decline.

Studying English literature has clearly made you very suspicious. Are you specialising in whodunnits?