Books - What are you reading?

Got you! Good info, thanks.

What did you think of 'Noise' by Kahneman et al. ?

Didn't get into it at all. Happy to swap it for something if you want to give it a try

Just finished Iain Banks' 'Complicity'. Felt incredibly dated – like a 1990s paint by numbers exercise. Drugs, sex, slacker attitude etc. The more transgressive, the more authentic.

I find Iain Banks to be pretty overrated in general (including most of his sci fi stuff). I enjoyed The Bridge and The Wasp Factory but everything else I've read of his, including Complicity has just been really blokey and dull. Agreed that it feels dated as well.

The Bridge and The Wasp Factory

Yeah, I read those and liked them. I guess I'll stop here then.

I'm a big fan of his sci-fi. I think I've read most of them; there's nothing quite like them (that I've found*). I was so sad to hear of his passing.

* If anyone's got recommendations, let me know

Finishing up the the last book in the wolf hall series. Will really miss Cromwell and his crew.

I'd add The Crow Road to The Wasp Factory and The Bridge

Just read this based on seeing this 6 months ago. I loved it!

Just got this:

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One of the tough things that final book does is force the reader to reconsider everything they've had narrated to them thus far, even if they were aware that a first-person perspective isn't reliable.

Oooohhh

I read a nice short book called 'all my friends are superheroes'.

Very nice read!

I'm a big fan of his sci-fi.

Ditto. I won't vouch for similarity as such, but I quite liked Becky Chambers' Wayfarers series.

Unrelated, right now I'm reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's Eyes of the Void (second book in the series). Entertaining enough, but dunno, a bit short of winning me over completely.

I'm starting to get to this point.
I don't know why I put off reading Wolf Hall, and other two, for so long. Really amazing and totally understand the hype now.

Amazing! Glad you enjoyed it. A bit late for you but my copy is gathering dust on a shelf if anyone fancies reading it.
Fitzcarraldo Editions publish loads of interesting stuff (including Drive The Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead by Olga Tokarczuk which is one of my all time favourite books).Well worth seeing if there's anything else that tickles your fancy.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

Unrelated, right now I'm reading Adrian Tchaikovsky's Eyes of the Void (second book in the series). Entertaining enough, but dunno, a bit short of winning me over completely.

I've just finished the series and decided I enjoyed it.

Hit the sweet spot of reasonable amount of action, fairly light hearted and reasonable amount of thought without disappearing down a rabbit hole of endlessly pondering philosophical conundrums.

I'm a big fan of his sci-fi. I think I've read most of them; there's nothing quite like them (that I've found*). I was so sad to hear of his passing.

• If anyone's got recommendations, let me know
  

I've been re-reading A Crown for Cold Silver, by Alex Marshall. I was going to come here and recommend it anyway, but it struck me that maybe the reason I like it so much is that there is a lot of similarity to Banks. Yes it's 'fantasy' on face value with witches, swords etc etc but there are also dimensional gates and politics and complex characters who are never 100% good or evil, a lot of drugs, a hatred of religion, and loads of subtle jokes. Loved it the first time round and even better on re-reading a bit more slowly

I'm still going to read the third one as well. My few gripes are on a fairly general level, and not enough to keep me from enjoying the books regardless.

I'm definitely more into sci-fi than fantasy, but that sounds great. I'll add it to the list.

A Crown for Cold Silver, by Alex Marshall

Did they use AI to generate the title?

not a regular reader of fantasy, I see

I certainly used to be, hence the joke.