Books - What are you reading?

Any list of great novels with Thomas Pynchon on it can fuck off.

Ha. Care to elaborate? Just about to start reading Gravity's Rainbow

I just find his work tedious in the extreme. One of my oldest friends is a huge fan and we tend to have very similar tastes in novels, and he keeps telling me I need to re-evaluate my opinion but I've stopped trying now. Every book of his I've started, I've failed to finish.

Read 34 and a couple unfinished - to the lighthouse, infinite jest. Can't remember much about many of them though. Some were alright.

he keeps telling me I need to re-evaluate my opinion

I'd make that standard procedure to continue to hold on to my views. I'll feel how I want to feel about a piece of literature. It's not a bloody social movement.
Reckon I'm gonna give it a go as I've recently started enjoying reading again and feel like biting my teeth into something meandering. Will try report once done.

I've spent a good chunk of my day off today reading A Maze Of Death by Philip K Dick. Really enjoying it so far, finding it hard to put down. PKD really can't be beaten for intelligent sci fi.

Thanks for the recommending Annihilation. I just finished it and really liked it. It had a great dream-like feel to it, a bit like some of Haruki Murikami's books, which I love.
I just oredered the second book of the trilogy.

A good recommendation. I just finished this an an Audible audiobook. It worked well as an audiobook seeing as it is read aloud by the writer himself. As a television producer he is pretty clued up about how to use the spoken word to its best effect.
I found his documentaries on youtube which made it easier to visualise the stuff he is writing about. But that also sent me down a wormhole Liberia documentaries and news reports that is some of the grimmest, most depressing stuff you can find online :-(

Finished the book a couple of days ago. Very good. What did you think?

I now have nostalgia for a building I never saw, the Temple of Serapis. Nixey's descriptions of its beauty made the razing of it so poignant.
And the fates of Hypatia of Alexandria and Demascius, so sad.

Now reading "Neurotribes: the legacy of autism and how to think smarter about people who think differently" by Steve Silberman.

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Glad you enjoyed it. Yeh some of the acts commited really plumb the depths of what it is possible to imagine a human can do to another human and the corruption is horrible. It also sent me off looking at other african conflicts as well as private armies and Simon Mann et al.

I found the second book really disappointing! Haven't bothered with the 3rd. Instead I'd recommend Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers. Pre dates Annihilation but has a very similar tone, maybe a bit more unsettling. Also, the film adaptation of Annihilation is really good if you've not seen it already. Quite a different storyline as well so you won't feel like the book contained spoilers for the film.

Cool. I'll definitely check out Roadside Picnic, thanks.
I ordered the second book into the library so no problem if I don't like it.

What did you think?

Great book. Made a big impression on me.
Well written in that it found a sweet spot where it was neither too academic nor entirely pedestrian. In comparison, I am struggling my way through this one at the moment, and I find myself constantly looking things up on Wikipedia. Nixey seems to aim for a wider audience but doesn't dumb it down too much either.
As for the topic discussed; very, very worrying. We didn't slip into the dark ages as I kind of assumed, it was a deliberate policy that had centuries to take hold. Makes the current resurgence of religion all the more unnerving.

Just finished Wise Children by Angela Carter. I really liked it, hadn't read anything of hers before, but I think her characters are excellent and I loved the narrator's style.

I’m just reading Jeff Vandermeer’s Borne because it came up cheap on kindle. I’m way more interested in his Dead Astronaut’s book, which is somehow related to Borne, but that’s £9 on the kindle and €20 in the shops here, so… no. I like the world-building but I find the characters trapped lives much less interesting.

Just finished the first Planetfall book. I really enjoyed it overall although it was a funny mix of quite original characters and plot ideas vs some really well-trodden ones. Not sure how I felt about the ending, but I will be reading the next in the series.

Pretty sure I have that in my collection (that is the massive unread as yet collection not the oh well done you finally finished a book collection).

The Long Ships just appeared at my desk. It's not what I'd usually read so I can only imagine someone said it was good one day and I added it to my to-buy list.

Ha, I'm guilty of buying books which I tell myself I'll read on holiday but most of my holidays are bikepacking tours - no room for heavy books!

Kindle for bikepacking tours?

I don't like e-readers, much prefer a physical book, but if the choice is e-reader or nothing then I'd be swayed to use one.

I do have a very early generation Kindle somewhere - that one with the keyboard. Is certainly a possibility if it'd fit in the side of a framebag.

I make a point of having a book by the bed and read something from it every night. Then I'll take others on holiday and get good chunks done on flights but then struggle when I return to normal life. I don't take the Tube so much, rather I work from home so that cuts out a bunch of reading time too. Oh well.

I really miss the reading time I don’t get due to working from home. I used to get through so many books when I commuted by train. Plus I could actually read proper books whereas now I only have time to read in bed. My wife can’t handle me having a light on so it’s a backlit kindle or nothing :-/

I'm a 'proper book' guy. I only use the Kindle app on my phone when I'm on the Tube going out and have no paper-based reading material. It might've taken me three years to finish Tale of Two Cities this way but I got it done.