What are you reading right now?

[GormanGhaste]

This is one of those times I'm reading too many books at once!

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!

[Boven]

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 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.

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]

I re-read Piranesi recently because someone gave me a copy as a gift and liked it better the second time. A quiet book about solitude and joy. One thing it has in common with JS & MN is a very Clarkian take on magic--all around us, we just have to see.

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!

[Wain]

I really loved Jonathan Strange! It’s one of those rare fantasy books that are completely untainted by modern “high fantasy” tropes. There was also a miniseries made of the book that I really enjoyed (the main actors were uncannily good!) and might be worth checking out first if you want to get a feel for it

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.

[Wain]

I’m currently reading “The Books of Earthsea” omnibus of Ursula Le Guin’s famous series. I read the first three books as a teen, but I never got around to reading the final three that she published many years later (in the last couple of decades). I’ve been enjoying them a lot, and I think the final three fit well with the originals but are obviously the product of an author with decades more life experience as well as 50 years of social change. For example, one significant change is the more central role of women in her newer works, especially the novel Tehanu, and she discusses these shifts in the author’s notes.

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]

Oh, I love Le Guin! I've read the first four novels, but I'm not sure about that short story collection, and I know I haven't read the last novel. The Other Wind is now in my tbr pile

[Ana]

Rereading the hobbit and then prob rereading lord of the rings

[GormanGhaste]

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.

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]

Havent been able to find Silmarillion in danish yet.. atleast no book store or libary near me has it...

[Wain]

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.

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.

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]

Through the first LOTR book. As much as I love the movie, everytime i read LOTR Im reminded on how much the movie lack or puts in compare to the books

[GormanGhaste]

Got the Earthsea Omnibus! I've read her afterwords for the novels I've already read, and am about to start on the short stories.

Also reading the Sword of Destiny Witcher novel.

[Ana]

Done reading Lord of The Rings.

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

[Wain]

Oh cool! I remember reading the first Little House book in high school, but it was the only one I ever read.

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]

Done with all 9 books of the little house on the prairie. Just started on the first Anne of Green Gables.
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.

[Wain]

I just finished Armistead Maupin''s "Tales of the City" series (9 books) and I couldn't have loved them more.

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]

It´s what I love most about books. The ability to capture onces heart and soul and just live in the moment the book is written.

[Ana]

Read Winnie The Pooh. Amazing book. Noone ever gets to old to read this <3

[Rawr]

First Contact, part of the HFY (Humanity Fuck Yeah) sub-Reddit, it's sci-fi like 8,000 years in the future I think. Its a pretty good read and pretty long, like around chapter 400 is the same word count as the entire LotRs trilogy. As long as it is, the writer is pretty good about not leaving loose ends, it may take 50 chapters to get back to, but they wont leave you hanging. If you are looking for a good long read (for free) I suggest this, I'm currently on chapter 618 and not sure where or if it has ended. https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/f ... _part_one/

[Ana]

My bookclub have been reading "Children of The Earth" series and just done with the final book


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..