Books, graphic novels, longreads, short reads, let’s hear ‘em.
I am reading, finally, the first volume of Knausgaard’s “My Struggle”, which I had been very dubious about, but found myself utterly transfixed by thesetwo long pieces he did for the NYTimes Magazine, and did not want to miss out just because I loathe the Male Genius. I regret to report: it’s very good.
I'm re-reading Station Eleven for my book club and let me tell you reading about how very fragile society is and how easily it could collapse at any moment right now is A LOT. I'm also just starting out on The 10,000 Doors of January which is also very good.
I also feel like the best thing about it, and the most painful thing about it, is watching the heroine come to grips with her inculcated feminine passivity. I spent so much of the book yelling "RUN" at her, because I had to learn to run too.
I read Station Eleven for the first time back in January and I loved it so much more than I thought I would! I finished it just as a lot of news coverage of the coronavirus was intensifying, and it definitely felt very timely.
I bounced off that book SO hard because that flu seemed to kill off ANYONE with ANY like engineering/DIY skills like, I categorically rejected the premise.
I mean, the premise does kill 99.9% of the population. I think the ending also implies that engineers (or at least engineering knowledge) winds up surviving 20 years down the line. I don't think that was the point of Station 11 though. I think emphasizing art and community and how those ties survive was her inherent thesis statement.
for sure and i do love and appreciate art. but it seemed focus on that being the ONLY way for community to survive and my issue was the way humanity seemed to completely devolve off the gate, and the totally lack of any survivors dealing with existing infrastructure. and like if you just look at how people survive catastrophes the oh lets immediately turn on each other rings super false to me, to the point where I had a hard time meeting the book where it was at.
I just finished the audiobook of that, having read the hard copy shortly after it came out! Really, really loved that book. Read Song of Achilles next if you haven't already!
Also, my husband rarely reads fiction (and if he does, he reads it in Spanish or German so it’s Extra Learning) but I told him he would love Wolf Hall and also he is very Cromwell (I didn’t tell him that, but he was utterly engrossed and also asked if he was a LITTLE Cromwell and I was like...yes, honey.)
I have to GET ON THIS, because I already have book three on my library request list, and also, I must live in the wrong city, because how is it there were no requests ahead of mine?!
I just re-read the first three Anne books and weirdly thought of you quite often, Nicole, though we have of course never met! I love LMM's sweet descriptions of woods and flowers. Will need to turn to Emily.
“The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary.” If I’m going to be a Catholic Witch, I’m going to be a damn well read Catholic Witch. Just started though, enjoying it, but still tentative
I saved Jasmine Guillory’s Royal Holiday for midwinter and was so glad I did. It got me through a dreary sick day and made wintry England sound like heaven on earth. I am now re-reading AMarguerite’s Pride & Prejudice fics on AO3. An Ever-Fixed Mark , A Monstrous Regiment, and A Nobler Ambition are all so good; funny, sad, detailed, and delightful.
lol no way, not without curating it first. this is like when my friend was like "what if for a party game we had to tell each other what tabs we have open on our phone browsers" and I was like "the first rule of AO3 is we don't talk about what we're reading"
Oh ALSO I have to recommend the "be the serpent" podcast -- three authors breakdown some typical trope or genre etc. by choosing three "tentpoles" of the thing and then having examples of each one, taken from either published works or fanfiction, and it is alwasy great and there are so many good recs.
I've been actively trying to get into AO3, but the fandoms I want to read stuff in either have almost no selection or an overwhelming selection. So I'd be in favor of unleashing that particular chaos.
I know this is very basic but I recently sorted within a given search by kudos instead of chronologically for the first time and it was great for the overwhelming selection problem.
I am reading Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea. The Night Circus is my favorite book so I was thrilled she wrote another one. This one is just as lush and delicious. Sometimes I want to physically gnaw on the book. I'm only 50 pages in and have to keep restraining myself from going "You know what yeah I have work tomorrow but who even needs sleep" and powering through in one go.
Before that I was reading A People's History of The Civil War, which may be one of the best history texts I've read. Like if you want to understand America, this is a keystone text. I'm pretty well-versed in the ACW and I learned all kinds of things you don't learn in history class or most other books.
I had SUCH a hard time exerting any self-control when I read Starless Sea!! Erin Morgenstern’s books pull you into their worlds and it is so nice to be there.
Honestly I so seldom get that "I WANT TO GO TO THERE" feeling with fictional worlds the way kids do, but her books, god. I want to go to the Night Circus and be a part of it and I don't know exactly what's going on yet but I want to be a part of the Starless Sea too.
I helped inaugurate a "one neighborhood one book" program and our first book was The Night Circus. Our final event was a huge circus on the grounds of a historic house where I was roped into being the Tarot card reader (I got a quick rundown from a friend who was a professional).
My friends. I was NOT prepared for the level of intimacy people are ready to have with a neighbor pretending to be a tarot card reader at a Sunday afternoon book themed circus. More than one woman wanted to know whether to have another baby. Another was torn about moving back to the west coast after her father that she had moved to take care of died. Honestly thank god for the small girl who asked her Dad to leave the tent so she could ask me how to tell him she had lost her library card I thought it was about to get SO much worse.
I had to intentionally slow myself down when I got to the last few chapters--I just didn't want to leave that world. It is so beautifully and gently written.
I just read Hammerhead: The Making of a Carpenter, a memoir about a woman who quits her job as a journalist to become a carpenter’s assistant to this tough, experienced, endearing lesbian carpenter.
I am reading an EXTREMELY esoteric book I found on the New York Public Library website by accident called The Selling Sound: The Rise of the Country Music Industry by Diane Pecknold. It's an extremely thorough look at the ascendance of country music from its nascent form as "hillbilly", derided by music industry executives and general music listeners as primitive and lowbrow, to the Nashville Sound, where the commercialized aspects that began to define the genre in the early 60's and into the 70's not only defined the music, but defined the consumers as well into embracing their identity as enterprising consumers who listen to a enterprising genre of music as well. It's fascinating!
IF you're liking it, it's worth dipping your toes into the Ken Burns Country Music documentary series, if you haven't. There's some discussion by the artists about their feelings about being 'produced' in one way or another, versus their desire to be themselves in their art, and it's really great to hear it from them....
It’s one of the books last year that inspired evangelical fervor in me. I keep telling people the good news about Gideon the Ninth: it exists! You can read it! You can call your friends "midnight hagette!"
I just reread it and then bought the audiobook, which I also loved. And now I’m back to nonstop "throw me a bone here" jokes that no one else thinks are funny.
In an effort to get past Gideon the Ninth, I read Upright Women Wanted (Sarah Gailey) and The Unspoken Name (A.K. Larkwood) and both are really great especially the latter. But in a year or so frothing with Really Great lesbian fantasy and science fiction, Gideon the Ninth has my vote for the best. The narrative voice, the tonal shifts, the feelings, the dirtbag jokes.
Not the person you replied to, but I didn't find it to be particularly scary. It does have some Agatha Christie "manor house murder" vibes though, if you consider that to be scary--for me it leans more suspenseful.
I haaaaaaated Fleischman and felt so left out until one of my colleagues confessed she hated it too. By the end, I felt absolutely suffocated by the author's style. I like her magazine work, but that novel was a huge miss for me
It didn't work for me for the same reason that Fates and Furies didn't work for me, which I feel like it was trying to say something and whatever it was I was completely disconnected. I also really really wanted Fates and Furies (and actually Fleischman) to pull a Gone Girl and I'm actually still shocked it didn't.
I did not like it either! I was just uninterested in this sad man and his struggles. So many people have loved it tho, maybe I am not the target group.
Thank you, I was hoping to find the anti-Fleishman brigade here, and I am so happy to see you all. I found it wildly misogynistic, stuffed full of detail but not at all artful, and extremely unpleasant.
Yes, that is a perfect way to describe it! The novel seemed so DISGUSTED by both Rachel and Libby. It was ugly--maybe that was the point, but it certainly made the reading experience extremely unpleasant (as you say)
I liked it, but I felt like it just...ended. I know that, especially in non-fiction books, things don't get tied up neatly in a bow, but the word I used when describing it to a friend was "bleak".
Catch and Kill is high on my TBR list. It seems intense but good.
But I just read American Fire, another well-reported book. But this one is about arson, not sexual assault and misconduct. I thought “OK, I want to read some good reporting, but I’m not sure I can handle reading about a bunch of sexual predators right now.”
I expected to find Catch and Kill harder to read than it was - I'd put it off for a while because I thought I would feel very heavy and sad and angry while reading it, but it didn't turn out that way for me. I did book then podcast, and have been happy with that choice.
It's a hard one to feel like I'm ready for, emotionally, but I've heard good things. I'll need a palate cleanser between Educated and Catch and Kill, though, I think. I've been interspersing my "heavier" reads with contemporary romance (Jasmine Guillory, Helen Hoang, Alexa Martin, etc) which I LOVE. I think my next one there is going to be The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai
I just finished The Swipe Right. I ended up really liking it, but when I was about 25% in, I wondered when it would pick up. A friend mentioned she stopped reading it around that same point. So, know that it does pick up, but takes a little over 100 pages to get to that point.
So good to know! It usually takes 3-4 tries to get into a book when I struggle through the first part (happened to me with Eleanor Oliphant) but hopefully knowing this will get me to push through!
Ooh- i'll check with out. I listen to lexicon valley on slate & a podcast about the history of english (which makes this among the nerdier sentences I've ever written.)
My review is also mixed! It's been months and I honestly still can't pin down what I think about it. I think it was worth the read just because it was so....different? But I think I really loved it when I started it and really hated it when I finished it and I can't tell if either feeling is fair.
I'm probably no help, as I have mixed thoughts on it! I thought it was good, well written, and I was intrigued by the women and their stories. The other side of this is I found so much of it frustrating, and felt I needed to know more from at least two, if not all three, stories. I know the book needed to end, but I didn't feel any sense of completion.
Probably not, but I definitely got more out of the podcast having already read the book. In the podcast, you meet a lot of people Ronan Farrow describes (in print) or portrays (in the audiobook).
I have both War on Peace and Catch and Kill on my to-be-read bookshelf, and I've followed him for years. But for some reason, the idea of reading these books is really intimidating to me. I feel like I won't understand or it'll go over my head like some kind of academic literature. I'm determined to at least try, though.
Say Nothing by Patrick Keefe which I think you read and recommended, Nicole. I am an IRA history junkie and man, what a read. I wish more Americans knew about that history because I think it's a really compact way at opening eyes to the history of imperialism and colonialism and the treatment of humans that the British were still getting away with in the EIGHTIES. But maybe I am overly optimistic.
Loved Say Nothing! I went to Belfast about five years ago, and the history is so close to the surface. There's so much pain there, and I think Keefe really nailed that aspect of the Troubles.
I'm loving the history in Say Nothing, hoping to finish it soon (it's not at the top of my list for books to read right before you go to sleep, which is when I do most of my reading!) and Milkman is next.
I read this and The Milkman by Anna Burns a few weeks apart; they were absolutely eye-opening to me. I was raised by an Anglophile who wasn’t too interested in the Irish part of her ancestry, so I got way more of the British side of the story when I was a kid. I was glad to have the broader story illuminated by great nonfiction and fiction.
I recently read and LOVED a long way to a small angry planet by Becky chambers. It’s really reignited my interest in sci-fi and I have the second book out from the library which I’m really looking forward to diving into this weekend.
I have flip flop with Becky Chambers. I loved the first one, had weird feelings about the use of gender in that book for a few reasons and FUCKING LOVED a Record of the Spaceborn Few. I also loved her Novella To Be Taught, if Fortunate.
I was super into the world she created in those books. It really felt like such an expansive universe! Every new location was just a pleasure to read about.
I got slightly less excited for book 2 when my friend told me that it was about a different set of characters so that’s good to hear! I’m sure I will love this one as well but I was sad to learn I wouldn’t get more about those characters
I actually liked book 2 more! Not for any real reason other than the story personally resonated for me more- but I felt the same nerves about starting "anew" so I hope you feel the same way.
Oh yeah, I hear that! I didn't know it when I picked up book 2, so I kept being like...where are my friends?? But once I settled into that book for what it was, I really enjoyed it. Same for book 3. I hope you do too!
I loved Angry Planet so much that I didn’t think I could possibly like the second one more but then I did. It’s deeper and darker than Angry Planet in all the best ways!
If that book alone brought you back to sci-fi, I cannot overstate how much you should read her novella, "To Be Taught, If Fortunate" (takes place in a different universe, more similar to our own). I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it again.
I did! It was my first visit (husband and I went to visit his BFF), and it was totally thrilling. And WARM (I'm in Chicago). We also went to City Lights and the Anarchist Bookstore so it was accidentally a real book tourism trip, LOL.
finally reading Left Hand of Darkness now for the first time, enjoying it a lot. i finished Little Fires Everywhere recently - thought it was great, wasn't blown away by it the way i was with Everything I Never Told You, but maybe if i'd read LFE first i'd have been blown away by that one more. i just love love love the way Celeste Ng takes you into and out of character perspective, even minor characters - she takes everyone seriously, makes their version of the story make sense to them, and it's all so distinctive, you can arrive in a scene with one character, leave with another, and know exactly whose mind you're in at any time.
Goodreads goal this year is 40 books; i'm at 6 now. soon i'm going to tackle Stacy Schiff's big Cleopatra bio; i was really impressed by her Salem Witch Trials book.
There's so much to explore! The short stories and graphic novels can help bridge the gap a bit. I enjoyed The October Man much more than I expected to. I'm also torn between wanting the BBC series to happen because MORE, but also not, because it won't be perfect (the eternal adaptation dilemma).
This thread is such a good mix of 'things I've read and have loved' and 'things I've heard of' and 'things I've never heard of' that I'm sure I'll enjoy a lot of the books that fall into the latter two categories. I'm taking notes!!
I am reading two books right now. The Green Rider by Kristen Britain. It's one of my favorite fantasy books and the beginning of a great series.
I'm also listening to Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison. Incredibly narrated, amazingly written, and dark as heck. It needs all of the content warnings.
The Green Rider was everything to me as a teen, and then she took a long time to put out the next book in the series, and it's been out forever now but I forget what happened in the first ones and was embarrassed to admit it to myself lol
Oo I remember The Green Rider! I picked it up as a teenager and loved it, but I never followed up on the rest of the series for some reason. Maybe I should go back to it!
I'm reading Something That May Shock and Discredit You, and it's so so so good. I was going to wait until my library hold came through but I couldn't and I'm so glad I bought it!
I've said before that Daniel has always been the one writer that seemed to have a direct window into my heart. This is too personal for the bird site but reading this after finally acknowledging that I'm grappling with my gender hits in a different way. Right book in the right moment.
Re-reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in prep for The Mirror and the Light and then I will pass on into the next life because nothing more wonderful will happen.
I'm reading The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (delightful, I love puzzle-y books about books) and I'm also about to finish The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali, which is a beautiful (and tear-jerking) love story.
I'm 50 pages into Starless Sea and sometimes I have to put it down and stare into space and think. It's just rich and complex like a really good dessert.
I had to read Starless Sea twice before I felt like I had a good handle on it— i would recommend it for people who enjoyed The Night Circus but wish it was 100x as intellectually rigorous.
I'm reading George Saunders' "Lincoln in the Bardo," which is devastating for anyone with elementary-aged children or younger (like me) and I'm struggling a bit with it. (It's gorgeous and it's good, just warning you!) And I'm reading Lynda Barry's "One! Hundred! Demons!," an illustrated series of shorts about the demons we invent/gather as we grow up, and it's sweet and wistful and hilarious. And I'm reading Aase Berg's poetry collection "With Deer" translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson. It's graphic and violent and weird and I don't understand most of it, but I'm super intrigued by it.
I teach Lincoln in the Bardo at Pitt, and one of my students reached out to Sanders to ask him a question about it. He very kindly wrote her a very long and kind answer, but (to my point here) he was definitely like, "That is a hella hard book I wrote, thanks for giving a try!"
I just finished the audiobook of Lincoln in the Bardo, and it was absolutely incredible. The three main narrators are Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, and the author, who has such a lovely voice himself. Other voice talent includes Bill Hader, Don Cheadle, and Julianne Moore!
Same! The upside-down-play format, even once I saw it and saw how it's kind of a metaphor for the afterlife too, remains jarring even now that I'm only 30ish pages from the end. The sections that are a series of quotes are such a relief.
I've been in a bit of a rut lately- haven't been able to get into stuff that I know I should really like. Honestly it was really starting to worry me. But then I started Charlie Jane Anders "The City in the Middle of the Night." I've owned it for a long time and I don't know why I hadn't started. Anyway, I'm about a third of the way through and it's excellent so far!
Currently making my way through the Lymond Chronicles, on book 3, The Disorderly Knights. I really love these books and Dunnett's writing, but they require such close attention they really slow me down--which is objectively good for me but always makes me impatient, which is why it took me about five tries over three years to finish The Game of Kings.
Will take a hiatus shortly to reread Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies before The Mirror and the Light comes out!
omg following up Dunnett with Mantel is A Lot! I read the Lymond Chronicles all in a row and loved them without really understanding a lot of what was happening? I should give them another shot!
At this point I've read Wolf Hall so many times it's a comfort read, LOL. But it's been awhile since Bring Up the Bodies, and I want it all fresh in my mind!
I've read the whole Lymond series twice now and it's such slow and painful going at first but you're on the book where it really picks up and starts to fly. The little glimpses you keep getting of the actual Lymond are so good and they just carry you through until it's not a slog anymore and suddenly it's heart-pounding and page-turning. SO good.
There is this one line in the fourth book that just destroys me every time and it's the moment that I go, fuck, this isn't just a fun romp!!! And then it all cascades from there. Anyway!! No spoilers. But Dunnett is the best I've ever read at surprising you into emotion; it's so wonderful.
Oh, the Lymond Chronicles and Dunnett's books in general are my obsession! LOVE them. And yes, the attention is important, but so worthwhile. (and I mean - I went back afterwards and both copy of the extra book that translate the poetry and such, and does *some* explaining of it all, but that was extra - I didn't feel compelled to know ALL of it while I was in the story, I just went with context clues a lot.....)
There is a website out there that has some annotations for the first book, but man, I'd love a digital copy with markups for quotes and references. I mean, I studied early modern history in university and I know the era pretty well and some of it still leaves me out of my depth. But I'm resigning myself to letting some of it slide over me in the moment because I know the rereads in the future will be more of a pleasure!
I once did a full readthrough with the Companion book on hand to look up every single quote and reference and while it was interesting it's not the most streamlined or enjoyable way to read. I was just determined to get all the available context.
Oh god LYMOND! One of my absolute favorite fictional characters! I've always wanted to read Dunnett's other books, but I'm just so attached to Lymond that I find myself giving up and just rereading The Game of Kings. I Am Flawed
They're EQUALLY good, which I know seems impossible, but no, really, they are. And I thank providence daily that she lived long enough to finish them! (and for her entire life and works, too, obviously, but I admit I was getting nervous near the end of the book releases).
OOOOOOH, that is EXCELLENT news!! I will make a place for those Niccolo books in my heart!! (someone gave away all their excellent, gorgeous, honestly PRISTINE hardcover copies of the Niccolo books to our local used bookstore, so I HAVE them all, I just need to READ them!)
I just finished Home Fire, a retelling of Antigone set in the modern UK, and it Fucked. Me. Up. I remember reading Antigone in high school and being vaguely annoyed at all these unreasonable people making bad decisions. The novel made me weep, and the sickly inevitability of the tragedy that was unfolding made it impossible to put down. So full of empathy and compassion.
It was SO GOOD. I played Antigone in a duet acting piece at speech tournaments in eighth grade, so I'd spent a LOT of time with the text as a bookish teen, and even then found it sort of far-fetched and esoteric and kind of ... dumb? And, wow, Home Fire snapped all of it into place like clockwork. The inevitability of it, the relentless pace forward. Masterful, gripping, I loved it.
Current read: Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia, which is inspired by The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, which I have never read. So, that will be my next read.
I read The Westing Game several times as a kid and I’ve read Racculia’s other book, which was clearly influenced by TWG, so it’s funny to me Bellweather was as well!
I think they both are? She was just on the Overdue podcast to discuss the Westing Game and talked about how so much of her work is influenced by this book which was very formative to her. (I was a Trixie Belden and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg child.)
I have a really vivid memory of being in summer camp as a kid and making my one camp friend play Trixie Belden with me, even though she had no idea who or what Trixie Belden was
I will say that book is a fucked up read for MS students who were are never taught to read. See Emily Hanford Twitter or her radio doc.s for more. The kids can’t read. Omg. Find me on twitter or look up reading league they are new amazing org. Change never fast enough. Rich man’s game, etc.
That is definitely on my to-read list! She was just on the Overdue podcast to discuss the Westing Game and talked about how so much of her work is influenced by this book which was very formative to her.
I just finished listening to Lindy West’s The Witches are Coming and man I love her. I’m also listening to Liar Temptress Soldier Spy. I just finished reading Upright Women Wanted and I wish it was 500 pages longer and now I’m reading Get a Life Chloe Brown which is delightful.
I just reread an article you posted “The Disbility Gulag” because I gave a public comment to our state house finance committee on the importance of funding community based care and if they were unfamiliar, they should read it! A friend with disabilities asked us to testify and have several talking points which made it much less intimidating.
Other than that, I have been working my way through Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch and just finished The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown.
Oh! And “An Education” was really good. I grew up LDS and found it fascinating and heartbreaking.
I have been on a bit of a historical nonfiction kick and am on Rising Tide by John M. Barry. It’s about the Mississippi River flood of 1927 and utterly fascinating. If anyone has recs along those lines I’d love to hear them!
It’s really good to read alongside William Alexander Percy’s memoirs (The name of it escapes me at the moment, he’s Walker Percy’s uncle, a probably closeted Southern gay man of a certain era, think Lindsey Graham before he went crazy) which talks about that flood from the perspective of a Southern patrician. LANTERNS ON THE LEVEE I JUST REMEMBERED IT IS LANTERNS ON THE LEVEE
I am about... 1/6th of the way into The Body Keeps the Score. What a ride. Usually I can speed through books, but this is requiring a lot of thinking and is slow going for me. It's a good read so far, but very... there's a lot of trauma talked about in the book, and sometimes it is a lot!
This is the third time in the past 24 hours someone has said how good This Is How You Lose the Time War is, and my library has it available so I guess I'm picking it up today.
I'm reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for the first time, because I miss the South and I wanted a "good clean, murder," as my mother puts it
I just finished Juliet Takes a Breath, which is my favorite YA book I've read in maybe years? Before that, This Is How You Lose the Time War, also a fave.
Currently making my way through Trick Mirror, which if you like any of Jia Tolentino's essays, you'll enjoy, and In The Dream House, which is really incredible, but not an easy read by any stretch, and A Natural History of Dragons, which is a nice lighthearted alternative to both of those.
Do you listen to the NYtimes book review podcast? A lot of the editors are obsessed with Knausgaard, and spread the obsession amongst the staff and fans. For a while last year almost every episode someone was reading his books.
Myself, I'm reading Daniel's Something That May Shock and Discredit You and hot damn, is it GOOD! This is Danny at his very best, like wow, what an evolution of a narrative voice.
Reading The Overstory, which took me a while to get into but now I love (I love all Richard Powers, I knew he'd get me eventually) and George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia because I just came back from a vacation in Barcelona for the first time (flex) and wow I was not expecting to come back to the states as a history nerd as a result. It's my first stop because it's a familiar face, but I'm still kind of "jaw to the floor" about how relevant it is right now and how I missed this part of history in school while we were so focused on the WWs.
Also I have a backlog of Poetry magazines to catch up on.
I'm making my way through Parable of the Sower but slowly. It's fantastic but sometimes it really makes me so sad I have to put it down for a bit. The feelings are intense.
I just joined Life's Library! I've already read Parable of the Sower but unfortunately this month was super busy so I haven't had time to hang out on the discord much
I’m listening to the audio book of Becoming and I’m already sad that at some point, many hours from now, I won’t have any more stories from my new friend Michelle
I'm at the point with The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai where I could probably finish it in one sitting, but I've been stalling because I'm not quite ready to bawl my eyes out. It's really fucking good though.
I recently discovered Tana French novels so have been tearing my way through them. I have to wait for some from the library though, so I've also turned to Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling's pseudonym for her detective books).
Rereading Tamora Pierce's Protector of The Small quartet. It's about a feminist heroine making the world a better place and having adventures, with animal friends and decent men at her side. They were some of my favorite books as a teen and still comfort and inspire me now
I only read a couple of that quartet, but I will always support Tamora Pierce rereads! Song of the Lioness was the first book series I read that made sex seem actually, you know, fun.
YUP. Kel was pretty much my formative heroine as a child. And looking back on the books now, I'm so glad that there wasn't a romantic pairing at the end.
I just read these last month for the first time, and couldn’t believe I’d missed out on them!! I’ve bought secondhand copies of the Alanna books now and am excited to fill this gap in my cultural knowledge
I just finished Danny's book last week and now I'm going back and forth from catching up on comics to reading Sister Outsider by Audrey Lorde. I'd read half of the pieces in there in college, but never got around to the full collection. I'm excited to fill in the gaps!
I've just started the latest book in Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London urban fantasy police procedurals, which just came out yesterday - it's called False Value. I won't spoiler anyone, but ... I am enjoying it!
Oooh thanks for the reminder to check if the ebook is at my library yet. I love those books! They are so much fun, although I tend to forget the mythology between books and spend a decent amount of time confused at the beginning.
I’m reading the last book in the Grisha trilogy! It’s less explicitly my shit than the Six of Crows duology, which I read first, but I’m excited for the show which I think will open this up for me a lot.
I forgot that I'm also currently listening to "Say Nothing" which is about the kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, as well as the life of Dolours Price, who was a member of the IRA who was involved the murder.
Currently reading Josh Gondelman's book of personal essays, Nice Try. A fun change of pace after reading Chanel Miller's shattering memoir, Know My Name.
I'm in a Shakespeare obsession mode right now - reading A Year in the Life of Shakespeare (1599) and the Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. Greenblatt writes a lot about Shakespeare which I am also reading (yes I read too many books at once): Hamlet in Purgatory, Shakespeare and the Jews, and Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics (mmm very timely).
There is also a great series of modern interpretations of Shakespeare's plays by some literary giants: Margaret Atwood takes on The Tempest; Edward St Aubyn retells King Lear; and Gillian Flynn will attempt Hamlet next year.
I just finished The Swerve - a great account of the discovery of the lost ancient text of Lucretius which would play an important role in the upcoming Renaissance and even helped shaped the thinking of Einstein, Darwin, Galileo, etc. Fascinating reading up on the philosophy of Lucretius and the book hunters. I'm attempting to read the original Lucretius now - very difficult poem but with powerful ideas.
I downloaded Hag-Seed yesterday and will be devouring it this weekend. When I heard Gillian Flynn + Hamlet, I shrieked with delight. 2021 seems so far off!
I'm re-reading Station Eleven for my book club and let me tell you reading about how very fragile society is and how easily it could collapse at any moment right now is A LOT. I'm also just starting out on The 10,000 Doors of January which is also very good.
so excited for her new book next month!
I didn't know she had a new one coming out! Thank you for mentioning it because I loved Station Eleven.
I saw that 10,000 Doors got nominated for a nebula! That made me think more strongly about reading it.
It’s really lovely, and painful, and cathartic.
I also feel like the best thing about it, and the most painful thing about it, is watching the heroine come to grips with her inculcated feminine passivity. I spent so much of the book yelling "RUN" at her, because I had to learn to run too.
I've been thinking about Station Eleven a lot recently - I lovvvved it as a book but it really does make me so anxious haha
I read Station Eleven for the first time back in January and I loved it so much more than I thought I would! I finished it just as a lot of news coverage of the coronavirus was intensifying, and it definitely felt very timely.
I bounced off that book SO hard because that flu seemed to kill off ANYONE with ANY like engineering/DIY skills like, I categorically rejected the premise.
I mean, the premise does kill 99.9% of the population. I think the ending also implies that engineers (or at least engineering knowledge) winds up surviving 20 years down the line. I don't think that was the point of Station 11 though. I think emphasizing art and community and how those ties survive was her inherent thesis statement.
for sure and i do love and appreciate art. but it seemed focus on that being the ONLY way for community to survive and my issue was the way humanity seemed to completely devolve off the gate, and the totally lack of any survivors dealing with existing infrastructure. and like if you just look at how people survive catastrophes the oh lets immediately turn on each other rings super false to me, to the point where I had a hard time meeting the book where it was at.
Just finished Circe by Madeline Miller, which I loved!
I loved Circe, I read that and then went back and read Song of Achilles, which is such a beautiful book, I'd recommend if you haven't read it already!
I'll put a vote in for her novella (?) Galatea as well.
Oooh, I hadn't heard of that. Excited to have more of her work to read!!
I just finished the audiobook of that, having read the hard copy shortly after it came out! Really, really loved that book. Read Song of Achilles next if you haven't already!
The audio book was wonderful! I hope the reader does more audio books, her voice is so great!
Oo, we're about to read that for one of my book clubs. I'm pretty excited, even though ancient history isn't my bag.
I think it's a good choice for a book club! Lots to talk about. I hope you enjoy it!
Yes! I felt like I was late to the game on that one but I just read it last month and was so glad I finally did.
Oh, Circe is one of my favorites. Her Song of Achilles is also wonderful.
I loved that book.
I loved Circe and a short section in it explained being a new mother better and in a deeper way than anything else I’ve ever read about it
I have just started my Wolf Hall / Bring Up the Bodies reread!!
Yes! I am impatiently awaiting Book 3 these were SO GOOD
I want it so bad but I’m not ready to lose Cromwell.
Also, my husband rarely reads fiction (and if he does, he reads it in Spanish or German so it’s Extra Learning) but I told him he would love Wolf Hall and also he is very Cromwell (I didn’t tell him that, but he was utterly engrossed and also asked if he was a LITTLE Cromwell and I was like...yes, honey.)
One of my favorite scenes in Wolf Hall. Cromwell and his son are looking at the finished Holbein portrait.
Cromwell: I fear Mark was right.
Gregory: Who is Mark?
Cromwell: A silly little boy who runs after George Boleyn. I once heard him say I looked like a murderer.
Gregory: Did you not know?
Same. This is the struggle, it makes me get why some people only read romance.
WE ARE STRANGERS TO EACH OTHER YET I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER FOR YOU.
Great idea. I hear the book is being released in March (10th!) so good idea to re-read. I'm going to miss Crommy!
yess I’ve been trying to time the reread right so that it’s fresh in my head when I begin the new one!
I have to GET ON THIS, because I already have book three on my library request list, and also, I must live in the wrong city, because how is it there were no requests ahead of mine?!
Rereading the Emily of New Moon series, because I need some LMM in my life right now.
The Emily books are exquisite
They are my favourite of her novels. I love Emily the best.
I just re-read the first three Anne books and weirdly thought of you quite often, Nicole, though we have of course never met! I love LMM's sweet descriptions of woods and flowers. Will need to turn to Emily.
My personal fave of her series heroines!
I just finished watching Russian Doll on Netflix, which features this book and I must re-read this series immediately!
Wait, WHAT
I've read a bunch of stuff about the series, but not watched it. Who knew all you had to say was IT HAS YR FAVE LMM IN IT
“The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary.” If I’m going to be a Catholic Witch, I’m going to be a damn well read Catholic Witch. Just started though, enjoying it, but still tentative
OMG I NEED THIS!
Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube by Blair Braverman. I read slooooowly but it's unlike anything I've ever read!
Sounds like she will write one about training and completing the Iditarod! I cant wait!!
I LOVED that book, way more than I expected to. I hope she writes another someday!
I saved Jasmine Guillory’s Royal Holiday for midwinter and was so glad I did. It got me through a dreary sick day and made wintry England sound like heaven on earth. I am now re-reading AMarguerite’s Pride & Prejudice fics on AO3. An Ever-Fixed Mark , A Monstrous Regiment, and A Nobler Ambition are all so good; funny, sad, detailed, and delightful.
........do we need an AO3 rec open thread day or is that unleashing chaos?
My bookmarks list on AO3 is many hundreds long sooooo that's a lot of chaos
Link it, u coward ;)
lol no way, not without curating it first. this is like when my friend was like "what if for a party game we had to tell each other what tabs we have open on our phone browsers" and I was like "the first rule of AO3 is we don't talk about what we're reading"
PLEASE.
(as in, please yes)
Oh ALSO I have to recommend the "be the serpent" podcast -- three authors breakdown some typical trope or genre etc. by choosing three "tentpoles" of the thing and then having examples of each one, taken from either published works or fanfiction, and it is alwasy great and there are so many good recs.
I've been actively trying to get into AO3, but the fandoms I want to read stuff in either have almost no selection or an overwhelming selection. So I'd be in favor of unleashing that particular chaos.
I know this is very basic but I recently sorted within a given search by kudos instead of chronologically for the first time and it was great for the overwhelming selection problem.
pro-tip is to sort by bookmarks. people bookmark the fics they REALLY love.
Also sorting by most bookmarked and then excluding things from the search that you definitely do not want
I’m pro-chaos!
My hold on Royal Holiday just came in and I'm so excited. I finally got to read the third book in January.
I'm reading the Wedding Party by Jasmine Guillory right now! <3
Thank you, kind stranger, for alerting me of the existence of this work on AO3! Pure delight.
You’re welcome! They’re my absolute favorites.
Seconding AMarguerite's P&P fics! I'm a big fan.
Royal Holiday is just so damn charming!
I am reading Erin Morgenstern's The Starless Sea. The Night Circus is my favorite book so I was thrilled she wrote another one. This one is just as lush and delicious. Sometimes I want to physically gnaw on the book. I'm only 50 pages in and have to keep restraining myself from going "You know what yeah I have work tomorrow but who even needs sleep" and powering through in one go.
Before that I was reading A People's History of The Civil War, which may be one of the best history texts I've read. Like if you want to understand America, this is a keystone text. I'm pretty well-versed in the ACW and I learned all kinds of things you don't learn in history class or most other books.
I had SUCH a hard time exerting any self-control when I read Starless Sea!! Erin Morgenstern’s books pull you into their worlds and it is so nice to be there.
Honestly I so seldom get that "I WANT TO GO TO THERE" feeling with fictional worlds the way kids do, but her books, god. I want to go to the Night Circus and be a part of it and I don't know exactly what's going on yet but I want to be a part of the Starless Sea too.
I DEMAND TO GO TO THE NIGHT CIRCUS
I helped inaugurate a "one neighborhood one book" program and our first book was The Night Circus. Our final event was a huge circus on the grounds of a historic house where I was roped into being the Tarot card reader (I got a quick rundown from a friend who was a professional).
My friends. I was NOT prepared for the level of intimacy people are ready to have with a neighbor pretending to be a tarot card reader at a Sunday afternoon book themed circus. More than one woman wanted to know whether to have another baby. Another was torn about moving back to the west coast after her father that she had moved to take care of died. Honestly thank god for the small girl who asked her Dad to leave the tent so she could ask me how to tell him she had lost her library card I thought it was about to get SO much worse.
For two years, a friend of a friend threw Night Circus balls for Halloween, and it was the best.
HOLY SHIT 'The Starless Sea'.
I had to intentionally slow myself down when I got to the last few chapters--I just didn't want to leave that world. It is so beautifully and gently written.
Ohhh I just bought this book, haven't read it but Night Circus was lovely so I'm super excited for it!
It is superb, isn't it? Immersive and enigmatic. I fangirled so much I bought the necklace (bee, key, sword)
I just read Hammerhead: The Making of a Carpenter, a memoir about a woman who quits her job as a journalist to become a carpenter’s assistant to this tough, experienced, endearing lesbian carpenter.
THAT SOUNDS FUCKING AMAZING
I am reading an EXTREMELY esoteric book I found on the New York Public Library website by accident called The Selling Sound: The Rise of the Country Music Industry by Diane Pecknold. It's an extremely thorough look at the ascendance of country music from its nascent form as "hillbilly", derided by music industry executives and general music listeners as primitive and lowbrow, to the Nashville Sound, where the commercialized aspects that began to define the genre in the early 60's and into the 70's not only defined the music, but defined the consumers as well into embracing their identity as enterprising consumers who listen to a enterprising genre of music as well. It's fascinating!
IF you're liking it, it's worth dipping your toes into the Ken Burns Country Music documentary series, if you haven't. There's some discussion by the artists about their feelings about being 'produced' in one way or another, versus their desire to be themselves in their art, and it's really great to hear it from them....
I'm about a quarter of the way through Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and am floored by how much I love it!
YES. I had no idea how much I wanted necromancers in space until I had it. Can’t wait for June and Harrow the Ninth.
It’s one of the books last year that inspired evangelical fervor in me. I keep telling people the good news about Gideon the Ninth: it exists! You can read it! You can call your friends "midnight hagette!"
I kept saying 'I'm so boned' when finding myself in unfortunate situations for a good 3 months after reading GT9
I just reread it and then bought the audiobook, which I also loved. And now I’m back to nonstop "throw me a bone here" jokes that no one else thinks are funny.
In an effort to get past Gideon the Ninth, I read Upright Women Wanted (Sarah Gailey) and The Unspoken Name (A.K. Larkwood) and both are really great especially the latter. But in a year or so frothing with Really Great lesbian fantasy and science fiction, Gideon the Ninth has my vote for the best. The narrative voice, the tonal shifts, the feelings, the dirtbag jokes.
The Unspoken Name is next on my list!
I keep imagining Gideon and Csorwe hanging out and comparing notes on their love interests scenarios.
I love Gideon the Ninth SO MUCH. It was my favourite of all the books I read last year!!!
(It gets even better, pls update me)
I have it on hold at the library, I cannot wait!
That was just picked for a book club I’m in. Can’t wait!
one of the best scifi books i've read in a while; one of those you can just tell, a few chapters in, is going to hit hard. what a jam!! what a book.
I've been really curious about this. Is it scary?
Agreed with joriley; at most it is suspenseful and creepy. So far.
Not the person you replied to, but I didn't find it to be particularly scary. It does have some Agatha Christie "manor house murder" vibes though, if you consider that to be scary--for me it leans more suspenseful.
Thanks!
I know I'm late to the party on all of my reads, but my February books have included:
- Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
- The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang
- Educated by Tara Westover (currently reading)
- Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch (slowly working my way through)
And, as usual, despite having plenty of books on my bookshelves that I haven't read, I am jazzed to get into:
- Catch & Kill by Ronan Farrow (also, his podcast of the same name. Avoiding the podcast until I read the book)
- Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner (my sister just started and I'm so jealous? It's not like I can't also just...start it)
I haaaaaaated Fleischman and felt so left out until one of my colleagues confessed she hated it too. By the end, I felt absolutely suffocated by the author's style. I like her magazine work, but that novel was a huge miss for me
It didn't work for me for the same reason that Fates and Furies didn't work for me, which I feel like it was trying to say something and whatever it was I was completely disconnected. I also really really wanted Fates and Furies (and actually Fleischman) to pull a Gone Girl and I'm actually still shocked it didn't.
Fates and Furies still infuriates me!
I did not like it either! I was just uninterested in this sad man and his struggles. So many people have loved it tho, maybe I am not the target group.
Thank you, I was hoping to find the anti-Fleishman brigade here, and I am so happy to see you all. I found it wildly misogynistic, stuffed full of detail but not at all artful, and extremely unpleasant.
Yes, that is a perfect way to describe it! The novel seemed so DISGUSTED by both Rachel and Libby. It was ugly--maybe that was the point, but it certainly made the reading experience extremely unpleasant (as you say)
I also hated it! Wow, what a relief to say. Big fan of her magazine work, so I'll be sticking to that in the future.
I knew I'd find my people here.
Oh noooo. When I read the description I started off unsure but it sounds like there's a "twist" that made it better...
What did you think of Three Women? I was underwhelmed, personally.
I liked it, but I felt like it just...ended. I know that, especially in non-fiction books, things don't get tied up neatly in a bow, but the word I used when describing it to a friend was "bleak".
Catch and Kill is high on my TBR list. It seems intense but good.
But I just read American Fire, another well-reported book. But this one is about arson, not sexual assault and misconduct. I thought “OK, I want to read some good reporting, but I’m not sure I can handle reading about a bunch of sexual predators right now.”
I expected to find Catch and Kill harder to read than it was - I'd put it off for a while because I thought I would feel very heavy and sad and angry while reading it, but it didn't turn out that way for me. I did book then podcast, and have been happy with that choice.
It's a hard one to feel like I'm ready for, emotionally, but I've heard good things. I'll need a palate cleanser between Educated and Catch and Kill, though, I think. I've been interspersing my "heavier" reads with contemporary romance (Jasmine Guillory, Helen Hoang, Alexa Martin, etc) which I LOVE. I think my next one there is going to be The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai
I just finished The Swipe Right. I ended up really liking it, but when I was about 25% in, I wondered when it would pick up. A friend mentioned she stopped reading it around that same point. So, know that it does pick up, but takes a little over 100 pages to get to that point.
So good to know! It usually takes 3-4 tries to get into a book when I struggle through the first part (happened to me with Eleanor Oliphant) but hopefully knowing this will get me to push through!
because internet is so fun- as is gretchen's twitter feed.
I just started this and it's so fun!
i looooove her podcast, Lingthusiasm, that she does with another linguist.
Yes! I learned about Lingthusiasm from Because Internet, and it's been great to have a monthly dose of enthusiastic linguistics.
Ooh- i'll check with out. I listen to lexicon valley on slate & a podcast about the history of english (which makes this among the nerdier sentences I've ever written.)
you're in for a treat. Gretchen and Lauren, the hosts, have such a great vibe together - earnest and bright and so exited about language.
I've heard mixed reviews on Three Women, thoughts?
My review is also mixed! It's been months and I honestly still can't pin down what I think about it. I think it was worth the read just because it was so....different? But I think I really loved it when I started it and really hated it when I finished it and I can't tell if either feeling is fair.
I'm probably no help, as I have mixed thoughts on it! I thought it was good, well written, and I was intrigued by the women and their stories. The other side of this is I found so much of it frustrating, and felt I needed to know more from at least two, if not all three, stories. I know the book needed to end, but I didn't feel any sense of completion.
I really liked Catch & Kill, due in part to listening to the audiobook. Would recommend that medium over print.
The audiobook is 100% worth it just for Ronan’s accents.
I'm feeling so "book before the movie (ie, podcast)" about this...will listening to the podcast spoil the book, if you know what I mean?
Probably not, but I definitely got more out of the podcast having already read the book. In the podcast, you meet a lot of people Ronan Farrow describes (in print) or portrays (in the audiobook).
I have both War on Peace and Catch and Kill on my to-be-read bookshelf, and I've followed him for years. But for some reason, the idea of reading these books is really intimidating to me. I feel like I won't understand or it'll go over my head like some kind of academic literature. I'm determined to at least try, though.
Say Nothing by Patrick Keefe which I think you read and recommended, Nicole. I am an IRA history junkie and man, what a read. I wish more Americans knew about that history because I think it's a really compact way at opening eyes to the history of imperialism and colonialism and the treatment of humans that the British were still getting away with in the EIGHTIES. But maybe I am overly optimistic.
Loved Say Nothing! I went to Belfast about five years ago, and the history is so close to the surface. There's so much pain there, and I think Keefe really nailed that aspect of the Troubles.
I'm loving the history in Say Nothing, hoping to finish it soon (it's not at the top of my list for books to read right before you go to sleep, which is when I do most of my reading!) and Milkman is next.
I agree, I am not done with it not bc it's so long but so intense. Sigh.
I read this and The Milkman by Anna Burns a few weeks apart; they were absolutely eye-opening to me. I was raised by an Anglophile who wasn’t too interested in the Irish part of her ancestry, so I got way more of the British side of the story when I was a kid. I was glad to have the broader story illuminated by great nonfiction and fiction.
I recently read and LOVED a long way to a small angry planet by Becky chambers. It’s really reignited my interest in sci-fi and I have the second book out from the library which I’m really looking forward to diving into this weekend.
I have flip flop with Becky Chambers. I loved the first one, had weird feelings about the use of gender in that book for a few reasons and FUCKING LOVED a Record of the Spaceborn Few. I also loved her Novella To Be Taught, if Fortunate.
that being the second book. The use of gender in the second book.
Record of a Spaceborn Few is my favorite of the three. I love narratives about people consciously trying to build communities that meet their needs,
IT LITERALLY GAVE US FULLY AUTOMATED GAY SPACE COMMUNSIM. But also they still have issues!
I was super into the world she created in those books. It really felt like such an expansive universe! Every new location was just a pleasure to read about.
I got slightly less excited for book 2 when my friend told me that it was about a different set of characters so that’s good to hear! I’m sure I will love this one as well but I was sad to learn I wouldn’t get more about those characters
I actually liked book 2 more! Not for any real reason other than the story personally resonated for me more- but I felt the same nerves about starting "anew" so I hope you feel the same way.
Thank you! I've been simultaneously looking forward to it, and putting it off so all these comments are the push I needed!
Oh yeah, I hear that! I didn't know it when I picked up book 2, so I kept being like...where are my friends?? But once I settled into that book for what it was, I really enjoyed it. Same for book 3. I hope you do too!
I loved Angry Planet so much that I didn’t think I could possibly like the second one more but then I did. It’s deeper and darker than Angry Planet in all the best ways!
If that book alone brought you back to sci-fi, I cannot overstate how much you should read her novella, "To Be Taught, If Fortunate" (takes place in a different universe, more similar to our own). I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it again.
Just put it on hold-thanks!
This makes me happy because I just bought when I was in SF at Borderlands bookstore and I'm so excited to read it!
Oh small world, that's my local! They (via Seanan McGuire) are the folks who turned me towards Becky Chambers in the first place.
I almost bought it from at least 3 different SF bookstores but managed to wait for the library copy! I hope you enjoyed your time in SF :)
I did! It was my first visit (husband and I went to visit his BFF), and it was totally thrilling. And WARM (I'm in Chicago). We also went to City Lights and the Anarchist Bookstore so it was accidentally a real book tourism trip, LOL.
finally reading Left Hand of Darkness now for the first time, enjoying it a lot. i finished Little Fires Everywhere recently - thought it was great, wasn't blown away by it the way i was with Everything I Never Told You, but maybe if i'd read LFE first i'd have been blown away by that one more. i just love love love the way Celeste Ng takes you into and out of character perspective, even minor characters - she takes everyone seriously, makes their version of the story make sense to them, and it's all so distinctive, you can arrive in a scene with one character, leave with another, and know exactly whose mind you're in at any time.
Goodreads goal this year is 40 books; i'm at 6 now. soon i'm going to tackle Stacy Schiff's big Cleopatra bio; i was really impressed by her Salem Witch Trials book.
I've been working my way through Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London books on my train commute, and they're an absolute delight.
Yesss! :) I have re-read most of them many times...
I'm trying to slow down a little because I don't have many left and I want them to last, but it's SO DIFFICULT. I adore the world he's created.
There's so much to explore! The short stories and graphic novels can help bridge the gap a bit. I enjoyed The October Man much more than I expected to. I'm also torn between wanting the BBC series to happen because MORE, but also not, because it won't be perfect (the eternal adaptation dilemma).
corrected: not BBC https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/18277117-stolen-picture-options-television-rights-to-ben-aaronovitch-s-rivers-of
I'm super torn, too, but at least it's be in the best hands possible.
This thread is such a good mix of 'things I've read and have loved' and 'things I've heard of' and 'things I've never heard of' that I'm sure I'll enjoy a lot of the books that fall into the latter two categories. I'm taking notes!!
Same- I'm furiously updating my goodreads want to read list!
I have a window open to my library requests list and I keep adding to it!
I am reading two books right now. The Green Rider by Kristen Britain. It's one of my favorite fantasy books and the beginning of a great series.
I'm also listening to Bastard out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison. Incredibly narrated, amazingly written, and dark as heck. It needs all of the content warnings.
It fucked me all the way up as a teen but in a good way.
The Green Rider was everything to me as a teen, and then she took a long time to put out the next book in the series, and it's been out forever now but I forget what happened in the first ones and was embarrassed to admit it to myself lol
Oo I remember The Green Rider! I picked it up as a teenager and loved it, but I never followed up on the rest of the series for some reason. Maybe I should go back to it!
There's 6 books in the series now and she's still working on it!
I'm reading Something That May Shock and Discredit You, and it's so so so good. I was going to wait until my library hold came through but I couldn't and I'm so glad I bought it!
I've said before that Daniel has always been the one writer that seemed to have a direct window into my heart. This is too personal for the bird site but reading this after finally acknowledging that I'm grappling with my gender hits in a different way. Right book in the right moment.
Re-reading Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies in prep for The Mirror and the Light and then I will pass on into the next life because nothing more wonderful will happen.
I have both in audio and plan to listen to all three consecutively when TMatL comes out and I can’t wait!
I just love this so much for you.
About to start doing the same! I just hope whatever Mantel writes next arrives quickly.
MARCH! It arrives in MARCH! (The Mirror and the Light, that is.)
OH MY GOD you just made my day! How did I miss this?!
First off, here: https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Light-Hilary-Mantel/dp/0805096604
Second: I have MORE GOOD NEWS. The Mirror and the Light is over 700 pages. IT WILL BE GLORIOUS.
I knew it was arriving soon, but not this soon! You have brought me great joy!
Haha I preordered it IMMEDIATELY upon seeing your first comment
I am going to sob uncontrollably when we get to the <spoiler alert> end, just like I did with A God in Ruins. Ugly, whole-body waves of tears.
yessss i’m doing the same thing!
I'm reading The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (delightful, I love puzzle-y books about books) and I'm also about to finish The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali, which is a beautiful (and tear-jerking) love story.
I'm 50 pages into Starless Sea and sometimes I have to put it down and stare into space and think. It's just rich and complex like a really good dessert.
I LOVED the Starless Sea...reading it felt like a good dream, or being mildly drunk on champagne
The Starless Sea was just gorgeous. I liked her first book, The Night Circus, a lot, too. I need to re-read it.
I had to read Starless Sea twice before I felt like I had a good handle on it— i would recommend it for people who enjoyed The Night Circus but wish it was 100x as intellectually rigorous.
Ooh, I do enjoy Erin Morgenstern, thanks for the rec.
I'm reading George Saunders' "Lincoln in the Bardo," which is devastating for anyone with elementary-aged children or younger (like me) and I'm struggling a bit with it. (It's gorgeous and it's good, just warning you!) And I'm reading Lynda Barry's "One! Hundred! Demons!," an illustrated series of shorts about the demons we invent/gather as we grow up, and it's sweet and wistful and hilarious. And I'm reading Aase Berg's poetry collection "With Deer" translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson. It's graphic and violent and weird and I don't understand most of it, but I'm super intrigued by it.
I teach Lincoln in the Bardo at Pitt, and one of my students reached out to Sanders to ask him a question about it. He very kindly wrote her a very long and kind answer, but (to my point here) he was definitely like, "That is a hella hard book I wrote, thanks for giving a try!"
I just finished the audiobook of Lincoln in the Bardo, and it was absolutely incredible. The three main narrators are Nick Offerman, David Sedaris, and the author, who has such a lovely voice himself. Other voice talent includes Bill Hader, Don Cheadle, and Julianne Moore!
I just read Lincoln in the Bardo and learning this I now must go listen to it. These vocal talents seem perfect!!
I enjoyed that one, but it took me a while to get into it -- I found the writing style irritating at first.
Same! The upside-down-play format, even once I saw it and saw how it's kind of a metaphor for the afterlife too, remains jarring even now that I'm only 30ish pages from the end. The sections that are a series of quotes are such a relief.
I've been in a bit of a rut lately- haven't been able to get into stuff that I know I should really like. Honestly it was really starting to worry me. But then I started Charlie Jane Anders "The City in the Middle of the Night." I've owned it for a long time and I don't know why I hadn't started. Anyway, I'm about a third of the way through and it's excellent so far!
Currently making my way through the Lymond Chronicles, on book 3, The Disorderly Knights. I really love these books and Dunnett's writing, but they require such close attention they really slow me down--which is objectively good for me but always makes me impatient, which is why it took me about five tries over three years to finish The Game of Kings.
Will take a hiatus shortly to reread Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies before The Mirror and the Light comes out!
omg following up Dunnett with Mantel is A Lot! I read the Lymond Chronicles all in a row and loved them without really understanding a lot of what was happening? I should give them another shot!
At this point I've read Wolf Hall so many times it's a comfort read, LOL. But it's been awhile since Bring Up the Bodies, and I want it all fresh in my mind!
exactly!! I just by started my Wolf Hall reread haha, hoping to make it just in time for the new one
I've read the whole Lymond series twice now and it's such slow and painful going at first but you're on the book where it really picks up and starts to fly. The little glimpses you keep getting of the actual Lymond are so good and they just carry you through until it's not a slog anymore and suddenly it's heart-pounding and page-turning. SO good.
I loved the Niccolo Rising books and Game of Kings but haven’t read Lymond yet (which I know are considered her best.)
I need to get on that.
!!!
There is this one line in the fourth book that just destroys me every time and it's the moment that I go, fuck, this isn't just a fun romp!!! And then it all cascades from there. Anyway!! No spoilers. But Dunnett is the best I've ever read at surprising you into emotion; it's so wonderful.
Oh, the Lymond Chronicles and Dunnett's books in general are my obsession! LOVE them. And yes, the attention is important, but so worthwhile. (and I mean - I went back afterwards and both copy of the extra book that translate the poetry and such, and does *some* explaining of it all, but that was extra - I didn't feel compelled to know ALL of it while I was in the story, I just went with context clues a lot.....)
There is a website out there that has some annotations for the first book, but man, I'd love a digital copy with markups for quotes and references. I mean, I studied early modern history in university and I know the era pretty well and some of it still leaves me out of my depth. But I'm resigning myself to letting some of it slide over me in the moment because I know the rereads in the future will be more of a pleasure!
I once did a full readthrough with the Companion book on hand to look up every single quote and reference and while it was interesting it's not the most streamlined or enjoyable way to read. I was just determined to get all the available context.
Oh god LYMOND! One of my absolute favorite fictional characters! I've always wanted to read Dunnett's other books, but I'm just so attached to Lymond that I find myself giving up and just rereading The Game of Kings. I Am Flawed
Oh, no, really - read the Niccolo books!! You will NOT be sorry.
I've been meaning to start the Niccolo books for a while but kept feeling like they could never live up to Lymond, so this is encouraging.
They're EQUALLY good, which I know seems impossible, but no, really, they are. And I thank providence daily that she lived long enough to finish them! (and for her entire life and works, too, obviously, but I admit I was getting nervous near the end of the book releases).
OOOOOOH, that is EXCELLENT news!! I will make a place for those Niccolo books in my heart!! (someone gave away all their excellent, gorgeous, honestly PRISTINE hardcover copies of the Niccolo books to our local used bookstore, so I HAVE them all, I just need to READ them!)
King Hereafter is EXQUISITE. Thorfinn is not Lymond, but Thorfinn/Groa is SO MUCH.
Ahhhhh it's been sitting next to my bed for a FULL CALENDAR YEAR, I need to just dive in! King Hereafter! Niccolo! I'm coming for you!!
I just finished Home Fire, a retelling of Antigone set in the modern UK, and it Fucked. Me. Up. I remember reading Antigone in high school and being vaguely annoyed at all these unreasonable people making bad decisions. The novel made me weep, and the sickly inevitability of the tragedy that was unfolding made it impossible to put down. So full of empathy and compassion.
yessssss
I love that book so much and recommend it left and right!!
It is SO GOOD.
It was SO GOOD. I played Antigone in a duet acting piece at speech tournaments in eighth grade, so I'd spent a LOT of time with the text as a bookish teen, and even then found it sort of far-fetched and esoteric and kind of ... dumb? And, wow, Home Fire snapped all of it into place like clockwork. The inevitability of it, the relentless pace forward. Masterful, gripping, I loved it.
Yes, this was exactly how it felt to me! Without dramatically from the source text, all of a sudden it all made sense.
Current read: Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia, which is inspired by The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, which I have never read. So, that will be my next read.
I read The Westing Game several times as a kid and I’ve read Racculia’s other book, which was clearly influenced by TWG, so it’s funny to me Bellweather was as well!
I think they both are? She was just on the Overdue podcast to discuss the Westing Game and talked about how so much of her work is influenced by this book which was very formative to her. (I was a Trixie Belden and From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg child.)
I have a really vivid memory of being in summer camp as a kid and making my one camp friend play Trixie Belden with me, even though she had no idea who or what Trixie Belden was
THAT SOUNDS AMAZING. I am waiting for the Trixie Belden renaissance.
Trixie Belden!
Always!
I will say that book is a fucked up read for MS students who were are never taught to read. See Emily Hanford Twitter or her radio doc.s for more. The kids can’t read. Omg. Find me on twitter or look up reading league they are new amazing org. Change never fast enough. Rich man’s game, etc.
I use to teach sixth grade reading and we would read The Westing Game and I absolutely love watching kids read that book!
I am so excited for you to read The Westing Game. That book is just so delightful!
It's one of those "how did I miss this as a kid" books, for sure!
I loved this book!!
Her newer book, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts also has Westing Games vibes and I liked it a lot!
That is definitely on my to-read list! She was just on the Overdue podcast to discuss the Westing Game and talked about how so much of her work is influenced by this book which was very formative to her.
obsessed with the westing game so thanks so much for this rec
I haven't read it but another of her books - Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts - apparently also has a lot of Westing Game influence.
I LOVE The Westing Game watching Knives Out reminded me how I reread that book SO many times I am definitely getting Bellweather Rhapsody next!
I just finished listening to Lindy West’s The Witches are Coming and man I love her. I’m also listening to Liar Temptress Soldier Spy. I just finished reading Upright Women Wanted and I wish it was 500 pages longer and now I’m reading Get a Life Chloe Brown which is delightful.
I just reread an article you posted “The Disbility Gulag” because I gave a public comment to our state house finance committee on the importance of funding community based care and if they were unfamiliar, they should read it! A friend with disabilities asked us to testify and have several talking points which made it much less intimidating.
Other than that, I have been working my way through Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch and just finished The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown.
Oh! And “An Education” was really good. I grew up LDS and found it fascinating and heartbreaking.
Education was the most gripping book I’ve read in years. Amazing.
Do you mean "Educated" or is "An Education" a different book?
DITTO (in re growing up LDS AND in re Educated as the most gripping book I've read in a LONG time, oof)
I have been on a bit of a historical nonfiction kick and am on Rising Tide by John M. Barry. It’s about the Mississippi River flood of 1927 and utterly fascinating. If anyone has recs along those lines I’d love to hear them!
I love that book!
It’s really good to read alongside William Alexander Percy’s memoirs (The name of it escapes me at the moment, he’s Walker Percy’s uncle, a probably closeted Southern gay man of a certain era, think Lindsey Graham before he went crazy) which talks about that flood from the perspective of a Southern patrician. LANTERNS ON THE LEVEE I JUST REMEMBERED IT IS LANTERNS ON THE LEVEE
Loved that book!
I’m reading Josh Gondelman’s book and it’s a Deeeelight
The audio of this is a perfect road trip companion
I am about... 1/6th of the way into The Body Keeps the Score. What a ride. Usually I can speed through books, but this is requiring a lot of thinking and is slow going for me. It's a good read so far, but very... there's a lot of trauma talked about in the book, and sometimes it is a lot!
Latest books I've enjoyed:
- The Ninth House, by Leigh Bardugo. Fantasy/mystery novel with great female characters; honestly couldn't stop thinking about it until I'd finished
- Circe, which someone else mentioned. Why didn't I read this when it first came out?
- This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone. OH MY GOD THIS IS BEAUTIFUL. It's a very quick read and so, so gorgeous.
- Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino. Worth the hype if you like the "longread on culture and feminism" type of essay she writes.
Time War is SO FUCKING GREAT. I absolutely devoured my library copy and then immediately went out and bought it so I could read it over and over.
I almost never buy books, but that is on the very short list of books I would buy to reread.
This is the third time in the past 24 hours someone has said how good This Is How You Lose the Time War is, and my library has it available so I guess I'm picking it up today.
LOVED Trick Mirror! Jia Tolentino is the best thing my generation has spit out (she would probably hate hearing that but).
EEEE Trick Mirror and This is How You Lose were my two favorite books from last year! SO EXCELLENT!
I just read Trick Mirror and I'm currently reading Ninth House! #readingtwins
I'm reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil for the first time, because I miss the South and I wanted a "good clean, murder," as my mother puts it
I just finished Juliet Takes a Breath, which is my favorite YA book I've read in maybe years? Before that, This Is How You Lose the Time War, also a fave.
Currently making my way through Trick Mirror, which if you like any of Jia Tolentino's essays, you'll enjoy, and In The Dream House, which is really incredible, but not an easy read by any stretch, and A Natural History of Dragons, which is a nice lighthearted alternative to both of those.
yessss juliet takes a breath fuckin rules
I was thinking about reading A Natural History of Dragons- you're enjoying it?
I am! It kind of takes awhile to get going, I thought, but I'm about halfway through now and fully on board.
I really enjoyed it - far more than I expected to!
Do you listen to the NYtimes book review podcast? A lot of the editors are obsessed with Knausgaard, and spread the obsession amongst the staff and fans. For a while last year almost every episode someone was reading his books.
Myself, I'm reading Daniel's Something That May Shock and Discredit You and hot damn, is it GOOD! This is Danny at his very best, like wow, what an evolution of a narrative voice.
Reading The Overstory, which took me a while to get into but now I love (I love all Richard Powers, I knew he'd get me eventually) and George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia because I just came back from a vacation in Barcelona for the first time (flex) and wow I was not expecting to come back to the states as a history nerd as a result. It's my first stop because it's a familiar face, but I'm still kind of "jaw to the floor" about how relevant it is right now and how I missed this part of history in school while we were so focused on the WWs.
Also I have a backlog of Poetry magazines to catch up on.
Finally reading The Secret History. I had only vague ideas as to what it was about. It's very different in tone from what I expected. I'm enjoying it.
I read The Secret History, The Bell Jar, and Prozac Nation in one week during a dark period in college. It was.... A LOT.
Someone (Nicole?) asked on twitter once what book you wished you could read for the first time again and for me it is 100% the secret history. Enjoy!
So excited for you. I wish I could read it for the first time myself.
i'm about to read it too! Because Nicole is making me.
I've got Parable of the Sower up next for the Life's Library book club! Otherwise, grad school essays are all I read
I'm making my way through Parable of the Sower but slowly. It's fantastic but sometimes it really makes me so sad I have to put it down for a bit. The feelings are intense.
I just joined Life's Library! I've already read Parable of the Sower but unfortunately this month was super busy so I haven't had time to hang out on the discord much
I've been a member since book 2 and I only just connected on the discord a few weeks ago. It is delightful so far though
Same! It’s been slow going a little bit I am making my way through it.
I’m listening to the audio book of Becoming and I’m already sad that at some point, many hours from now, I won’t have any more stories from my new friend Michelle
I'm at the point with The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai where I could probably finish it in one sitting, but I've been stalling because I'm not quite ready to bawl my eyes out. It's really fucking good though.
Reading that book was like walking around in a haze of grief for a few weeks.
I recently discovered Tana French novels so have been tearing my way through them. I have to wait for some from the library though, so I've also turned to Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling's pseudonym for her detective books).
Rereading Tamora Pierce's Protector of The Small quartet. It's about a feminist heroine making the world a better place and having adventures, with animal friends and decent men at her side. They were some of my favorite books as a teen and still comfort and inspire me now
I only read a couple of that quartet, but I will always support Tamora Pierce rereads! Song of the Lioness was the first book series I read that made sex seem actually, you know, fun.
YUP. Kel was pretty much my formative heroine as a child. And looking back on the books now, I'm so glad that there wasn't a romantic pairing at the end.
I just read these last month for the first time, and couldn’t believe I’d missed out on them!! I’ve bought secondhand copies of the Alanna books now and am excited to fill this gap in my cultural knowledge
I’ve been meaning to reread some Tamara Pierce books! Thanks for ge reminder!
I just finished Danny's book last week and now I'm going back and forth from catching up on comics to reading Sister Outsider by Audrey Lorde. I'd read half of the pieces in there in college, but never got around to the full collection. I'm excited to fill in the gaps!
I've just started the latest book in Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London urban fantasy police procedurals, which just came out yesterday - it's called False Value. I won't spoiler anyone, but ... I am enjoying it!
GAH I love this series SO MUCH. the audiobooks are so amazing - Kobna Holdbrook Smith is q
whoops... *quite literally the best narrator I've ever heard.
Oooh thanks for the reminder to check if the ebook is at my library yet. I love those books! They are so much fun, although I tend to forget the mythology between books and spend a decent amount of time confused at the beginning.
Yay! While you're waiting for the ebook, why not do a reread of the series? Enjoy!
I’m reading the last book in the Grisha trilogy! It’s less explicitly my shit than the Six of Crows duology, which I read first, but I’m excited for the show which I think will open this up for me a lot.
I forgot that I'm also currently listening to "Say Nothing" which is about the kidnapping and murder of Jean McConville in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, as well as the life of Dolours Price, who was a member of the IRA who was involved the murder.
Currently reading Josh Gondelman's book of personal essays, Nice Try. A fun change of pace after reading Chanel Miller's shattering memoir, Know My Name.
Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles.
I love Uncle Tony, my favorite verbose paid-by-the-word Victorian male author, suck it Dickens.
I'm in a Shakespeare obsession mode right now - reading A Year in the Life of Shakespeare (1599) and the Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606. Greenblatt writes a lot about Shakespeare which I am also reading (yes I read too many books at once): Hamlet in Purgatory, Shakespeare and the Jews, and Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics (mmm very timely).
There is also a great series of modern interpretations of Shakespeare's plays by some literary giants: Margaret Atwood takes on The Tempest; Edward St Aubyn retells King Lear; and Gillian Flynn will attempt Hamlet next year.
I just finished The Swerve - a great account of the discovery of the lost ancient text of Lucretius which would play an important role in the upcoming Renaissance and even helped shaped the thinking of Einstein, Darwin, Galileo, etc. Fascinating reading up on the philosophy of Lucretius and the book hunters. I'm attempting to read the original Lucretius now - very difficult poem but with powerful ideas.
The same author’s book on the history of the Adam and Eve mythology is tremendous.
Oh, thank you for reminding me about The Swerve! I put it on my library list.
oh hag-seed was SO good and i have been reciting “gillian flynn hamlet 2021” to get me through bad days
I downloaded Hag-Seed yesterday and will be devouring it this weekend. When I heard Gillian Flynn + Hamlet, I shrieked with delight. 2021 seems so far off!
I know this is off topic but it's important! https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/feb/21/its-good-humoured-derry-girls-blackboard-moves-to-ulster-museum