What are you reading right now?
- GormanGhaste
- Community Resource
- Posts: 6529
- Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:00 pm
- Realm: Uldaman (and Ravencrest)
Re: What are you reading right now?
the second Expanse book by Corey
the first Witcher novel (have already read the books of short stories)
on impulse, a Dune prequel about Jessica (not impressed so far, but will give it more of a chance)
book club book is Jemisin's The City We Became, in which I am learning more about NYC!
Re: What are you reading right now?
I just finished Piranesi last week. I'd seen a recommendation for it online and decided to take a chance. It wasn't bad. I don't think it was great, but it was good.GormanGhaste wrote: ↑Thu Oct 01, 2020 10:54 am
Just finished Clarke's Piranesi. The novel was an auto-buy, because I loved Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell so much. I don't think it was as good and wouldn't really recommend, but I enjoyed it well enough.
I was thinking about checking out Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell as well ,but after Piranesi, I wasn't sure if I'd like it.
- GormanGhaste
- Community Resource
- Posts: 6529
- Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:00 pm
- Realm: Uldaman (and Ravencrest)
Re: What are you reading right now?
JS & MN takes place during the Regency in Britain (Napoleonic Wars), so liking fiction from that time is probably a prerequisite to enjoying it. It's a very long book with lots of footnotes (they are one of the best parts actually) and a slow plot (but nowhere as glacial as Piranesi!) If all that isn't too off-putting, I would definitely recommend trying it out!
Re: What are you reading right now?
I enjoyed Piranesi too, but it was a very different book. In fact, it felt like it was almost the opposite of Strange and Norell in its aims and certainly wasn’t of the same dramatic scale.
Re: What are you reading right now?
Also, I don’t think I mentioned that I read Tbe Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (author of The Night Circus). I can see how it wouldn’t be for everyone but it’s now one of my favourite books of the last few years. A really charming modern fantasy with an original mythology, a story about stories and how they affect us, and a story with a sweet romance between two young men.
- GormanGhaste
- Community Resource
- Posts: 6529
- Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:00 pm
- Realm: Uldaman (and Ravencrest)
Re: What are you reading right now?
- Ana
- Community Resource
- Posts: 18761
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:19 am
- Realm: Light EU Twintania/ Azol-Nerub EU
- Gender: Female
- Location: Copenhagen- Denmark
Re: What are you reading right now?
HUGE thanks to Makoes, Syleye, FeralClaw, Pingupuff, Karin,Bowno, Varethyn, Ashaine, Kishay, Aki (Täräin13), my friend Marie and some lovely ppl on Fligth Rising for my lovely sig
- GormanGhaste
- Community Resource
- Posts: 6529
- Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:00 pm
- Realm: Uldaman (and Ravencrest)
Re: What are you reading right now?
The Le Guin omnibus is on my wish list--I'm buying it for myself in the new year if I don't get it over the holidays
Recently finished Emrys's Litany of Earth--definitely want to continue with that series. Also the Blood of Elves Witcher novel; I liked the short story collection much better, but I'll probably continue with this as well. Also finished the Lady of Caladan Dune novel--don't recommend, it was an impulse buy
Currently reading and enjoying Cixin Liu's the Wandering Earth novella collection. I loved the Three Body Problem, but wasn't able to get into the second novel--maybe I'll give it another chance!
- Ana
- Community Resource
- Posts: 18761
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:19 am
- Realm: Light EU Twintania/ Azol-Nerub EU
- Gender: Female
- Location: Copenhagen- Denmark
Re: What are you reading right now?
HUGE thanks to Makoes, Syleye, FeralClaw, Pingupuff, Karin,Bowno, Varethyn, Ashaine, Kishay, Aki (Täräin13), my friend Marie and some lovely ppl on Fligth Rising for my lovely sig
Re: What are you reading right now?
It's one of those books that probably only appeals to true fans of Tolkien's work, but I really love it. There's a rich beauty to what he created.GormanGhaste wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 5:27 pm I want to get around to reading the Silmarillion! I have a copy and have read bits and pieces of it, but have never sat down and read it cover to cover.
I finished Le Guin's Earthsea Omnibus last week and was so very glad I did. I'd read the first three when I was a lot younger and it was good to read them again with a mature eye, but the final three do a brilliant job of bringing the story to its conclusion. And the series really is a single story, though it's not that obvious until the final book. She was a talented storyteller and her fantasy novels weren't the usual pop culture "high fantasy" stuff.
After that, I decided to go for something light, so now I'm reading the first novel of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City". It's an iconic series for queer culture for the 70s and 80s, but somehow I never got around to it. So far I'm really enjoying it, it's witty and funny, full of wry humour, but it's also very obviously written for contemporary San Fran natives (the novels were originally serialised in local newspapers) and so I find I'm simply not understanding a bunch of references. It's fun, all the same.
- Ana
- Community Resource
- Posts: 18761
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:19 am
- Realm: Light EU Twintania/ Azol-Nerub EU
- Gender: Female
- Location: Copenhagen- Denmark
Re: What are you reading right now?
HUGE thanks to Makoes, Syleye, FeralClaw, Pingupuff, Karin,Bowno, Varethyn, Ashaine, Kishay, Aki (Täräin13), my friend Marie and some lovely ppl on Fligth Rising for my lovely sig
- GormanGhaste
- Community Resource
- Posts: 6529
- Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2010 2:00 pm
- Realm: Uldaman (and Ravencrest)
Re: What are you reading right now?
Also reading the Sword of Destiny Witcher novel.
- Ana
- Community Resource
- Posts: 18761
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:19 am
- Realm: Light EU Twintania/ Azol-Nerub EU
- Gender: Female
- Location: Copenhagen- Denmark
Re: What are you reading right now?
Finished "The little house on the prairie" 1-3 and just started on the 4th. I love those books .. not sure why. Read all of them several times from when I was a child to now. Just something about them. Same wuth "Anne of Green Gables" which I will read once done with little house on the prairie . Think i was around 10 or 11 when I read them first time. They been forever favorite books of mine
HUGE thanks to Makoes, Syleye, FeralClaw, Pingupuff, Karin,Bowno, Varethyn, Ashaine, Kishay, Aki (Täräin13), my friend Marie and some lovely ppl on Fligth Rising for my lovely sig
Re: What are you reading right now?
I've never read Anne of Green Gables, though I did love the famous tv miniseries in the 1980s Actually, I think that series was responsible for the huge popularity of Prince Edward Island with Japanese tourists
I'm just about finished with Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series (9 books) and will post when I'm done.
- Ana
- Community Resource
- Posts: 18761
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:19 am
- Realm: Light EU Twintania/ Azol-Nerub EU
- Gender: Female
- Location: Copenhagen- Denmark
Re: What are you reading right now?
I cant describe the feeling i get from these. I laugh, cry, feel butterfly in my stomach and read way too many hours a day. Eventhough i know everything in advance, ever book i still get excited when I read them.
HUGE thanks to Makoes, Syleye, FeralClaw, Pingupuff, Karin,Bowno, Varethyn, Ashaine, Kishay, Aki (Täräin13), my friend Marie and some lovely ppl on Fligth Rising for my lovely sig
Re: What are you reading right now?
To give some history: the books are dramatic fiction, often quirky and comic, set around the adventures and exploits of a group of characters who start out living together in a boarding house in San Francisco in the 1970s. The books span the later 70s, 80s and beyond, with the final book being set in the 2010s. They're also iconic works in queer fiction, even though as many key characters are straight as queer.
What's so beautiful, and sometimes sad, about them is that they were written in the times in which they are set, so the changes happening both in SF and in the ageing characters reflected what the author was experiencing as he was writing them. He depicted the sexual liberation of life in SF in the 70s, and what a haven it was for gay, lesbian and trans folk that the rest of the USA had rejected. But as a modern reader, you know that the horror of AIDS is coming in the 80s, and not everyone is going to make it through. Without exploiting the misery, the books still make it very personal how the people of that time, who were rejected by their biological families and had forged new families together, then went through unimaginable tragedy of seeing so many of them die, often before much was even known as to why. It made me think how lucky I was to have been that little bit younger, where HIV was already well known before I came out, and better treatments were around the corner.
Don't let that mislead you: the books aren't somber, they don't dwell on AIDS, and mostly they're fun, quirky and strange. But they don't shy away from the darker sides of the eras in which they're set. You see San Francisco evolve from the free and open 1970s, to the commercial and cynical 1980s under Reagan, and beyond - all events the author (as a gay San Franciscan) was experiencing in real time. And the changes in the characters as they aged must have reflected people the author actually knew, how some became cold and ambitious, while others clung to their hippy roots, and then how mature age can change people all over again.
The series is also groundbreaking in that one of the central characters, the older woman who is not only their landlady, but friend, confidante, matchmaker and counsellor, is also trans - something that would have been extremely rare in fiction of that era.
The series was a wonderful insight into how communities, and people, change over 4-5 decades and it was a privilege to read.
- Ana
- Community Resource
- Posts: 18761
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:19 am
- Realm: Light EU Twintania/ Azol-Nerub EU
- Gender: Female
- Location: Copenhagen- Denmark
Re: What are you reading right now?
HUGE thanks to Makoes, Syleye, FeralClaw, Pingupuff, Karin,Bowno, Varethyn, Ashaine, Kishay, Aki (Täräin13), my friend Marie and some lovely ppl on Fligth Rising for my lovely sig
- Ana
- Community Resource
- Posts: 18761
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:19 am
- Realm: Light EU Twintania/ Azol-Nerub EU
- Gender: Female
- Location: Copenhagen- Denmark
Re: What are you reading right now?
HUGE thanks to Makoes, Syleye, FeralClaw, Pingupuff, Karin,Bowno, Varethyn, Ashaine, Kishay, Aki (Täräin13), my friend Marie and some lovely ppl on Fligth Rising for my lovely sig
- Rawr
- Illustrious Master Hunter
- Posts: 4481
- Joined: Thu Jul 01, 2010 10:21 pm
- Realm: Draka-Wyrmrest Accord
- Gender: Female
Re: What are you reading right now?
- Ana
- Community Resource
- Posts: 18761
- Joined: Mon Jan 11, 2010 2:19 am
- Realm: Light EU Twintania/ Azol-Nerub EU
- Gender: Female
- Location: Copenhagen- Denmark
Re: What are you reading right now?
I have soooooooo many issues with this series...
Evolution aside (which I dont belive in) there are sooo many repetitions of information, EVERY time something comes up which has been in other books or even other chapters its repeated.. not just short but the WHOLE story. WAY too many sexscenes (Which Ive been skipping), and the fact that the most intelligent, most kind ppl are high blond blue eye ppl just bug me.
DEFO not a series I like..... dont get me wrong some of the story is ok but the most is just rubbish... In my eyes..
HUGE thanks to Makoes, Syleye, FeralClaw, Pingupuff, Karin,Bowno, Varethyn, Ashaine, Kishay, Aki (Täräin13), my friend Marie and some lovely ppl on Fligth Rising for my lovely sig