Taking a break from the Manosphere today. Instead, I’m reading the new biography of Joan Didion.
What are you all reading?
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We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
I unfortunately have to go in to work. It is overwhelming lately. They’re trying to hire someone for me but they are not moving fast enough. I’d hate to leave but it may come to that.
I’ve got two books opened at once right now. One is “What If?” by Randall Munroe of xkcd fame and the other is “Tale of the Troika” by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, a satire of Soviet bureaucracy.
I’m listening to Vowell about Lafayette.
I’m reading the Didion bio–in the 1970s now. She believed the world was crumbling then. Such a sad Sunday
Just finished Manners and Mutiny by Gail Carriger, the last book in her Finishing School mysteries – several surprises there I did not expect. Currently reading Donna Andrews’ Lord of the Wings, which I am enjoying. I’m also reading (on my phone), Laura Child’s Parchment and Old Lace, which is not bad.
@hedin, I’m about 3/4 of the way done and I really enjoy it so far. Vowell writes with a light, humorous touch and her books are not exactly Serious History for Deep Thinkers, but I really like them. Assassination Vacation is still my favorite, it’s about the assassinations of Lincoln, McKinley, and Garfield.
“The Book of Bunny Suicides.”
by Andy Riley.
Just finished Margaret Atwood’s newest book, “The Heart Goes Last.” Am about to start Patti Smith’s “M train.”
I’m reading “NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity” by Steve Silberman.
Rosario and Vampire, by Akihisa Ikeda. Volume 1. A friend bought the entire manga series for me for my birthday. I’ve never been much into manga, but really loved the anime.
Am reading the very long but good “Under the Dome” by Stephen King.
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine, and the King James Bible on audio book.
The Witches by Stacy Schiff, non-fiction about the Salem witch trials.
I’m occasionally dipping into Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. It’s a real doorstop book and my left hand is seriously playing up, so holding it is not an option most of the time. (I have to type with just my middle and ring finger which is also bloody annoying.)
@dhag85
Thanks! Let’s just say I found it.
@mildlymagnificent
Piketty is great. Even though I don’t agree with his conclusions, I find the analysis very concise and actually used the book as a good introduction into economic theory and history. Have you thought about getting a book stand or an ebook reader? I don’t have any serious problem with my hands (except my wrists can easily dislocate, so I also avoid holding heavy books for too long), but both help me a lot.
Possible trigger warning for neglect/abandonment. It isn’t nasty, it’s just a mom who was low-IQ and negligent at unawares as a result. Still, don’t want to ruin anyone’s Sunday 🙂
I’m reading mostly stuff about respiratory gating in stereotactic radiation surgery. It’s…dry. But it’s required reading for my program and for the research project I’m currently procrastinating on doing by posting this (tee hee).
For pleasure-reading, I’m picking away at Mary Roach’s “Gulp” which is interesting. My wife is working through a book called “The Boy Raised as a Dog” which is a collection of one counselor’s experiences with various clients who, for one reason or another, were neglected by their parents. Most have a happy outcome because counseling was able to help the parents mobilize resources to become great parents, although one sad case had a low-IQ stay-at-home mom taking care of two kids and a father who was working long hours. Dad had lost his job near family and had to relocate far from his social network, so suddenly mom was not so capable of taking care of the family because she had no help. She would sometimes feel “overwhelmed” by her youngest who was an infant, and so she’d go off on walks for sometimes half a day just leaving the baby alone and abandoned.
The child grew up to become a sociopath in the true, psychiatric definition of the term: no ability to empathize or relate to his fellow human. Kid ended up committing some particularly atrocious murders and was put in jail for the rest of his life by age 16. Tragedy. And not mom’s fault…sounds like she couldn’t help it. Sounds like dad probably couldn’t have done anything either because he didn’t know about it because he was at work all day and mom didn’t seem to know it was a problem. As I said, tragic.
Cheri Priest’s “Clockwork Century” series and lots of Loki fanfiction.
What am I reading? Well, in my current rotation:
“The Looking Glass Wars” by Frank Bedor (First in The Looking Glass Wars series)
“Tantalize” by Cynthia Leitich Smith (re-read) (First in the Tantalize series)
“Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist” by Stephen Batchelor
“The Te of Piglet” by Benjamin Hoff (Sequel to “The Tao of Pooh”)
“Catching Fire” by Suzanne Collins (Second in the Hunger Games series)
“The Vampire Lestat” by Anne Rice
“Game Theory” by Ken Binmore (Part of the A Very Short Introduction series)
I’m going to add in once I finish some of the above:
“The Dante Club” by Matthew Pearl
“Philosophy in the Boudoir” by Marquis de Sade
“Sin Undone” by Larissa Ione
And I’m currently looking to purchase:
“Library of Souls” by Ransom Riggs (The third book in the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series)
“Asylum” by Madeleine Roux (First in its series, and very similar to the Miss Peregrine series. It was recommended to me via searching for “Library of Souls”, and it seems very highly rated.)
I’m also currently looking to purchase some nice, intricate adult coloring books for my Christmas present to myself (my crayons will be here on Thursday).
Leave me to my book fort.
Just finished reading The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. Excellent read and one that I would definitely recommend for people who enjoy fantasy in the GRRM vein; more interested in the details of how people adapt and live in a fantastical world than in romanticizing the world itself.
Trying to figure out what to read next. Probably Saga Vol. 5 next time I find myself in a B&N
I’m currently reading A Clash of Kings. While I was waiting for it to arrive I used WWTH’s wine-induced recap to keep myself interested in the series. If you happen upon this comment, thank you for writing that! 😀
@Paradoxy
*lolz*
Far-Seer by Robert J. Sawyer, it’s the start of a trilogy about the age of enlightenment for a race of beings on a distant exomoon, that were evolved from dinosaurs seeded there millions of years ago by ancient aliens. It’s actually got some really good world-building!
@PI the Just add colour series us pretty good for grownups http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1592539475/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1447612216&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=jenn+ski&dpPl=1&dpID=61D4Ll7LGUL&ref=plSrch, unless you meaning of adult is ADULT and not just someone who had gained a bit of maturity.
I’m reading some blog comments about what people are reading.
Oh, not what you meant?
Embarrassingly, it was just yesterday that I picked up a Star Wars book. It’s Darth Maul: Lockdown. It’s really pretty horrible. It tries way too hard. It uses lots of poly-syllabic (not to say hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian) words that the author clearly doesn’t understand. Some are obvious attempts to be metaphorical, but failing hard. For instance, in one passage the prison lighting is described as “declamatory”.
Yeah…no. Declarative just maybe. Declamatory? No. That’s just the first of the longer words that really clanked in ways that were obvious to me. Twice there were words that didn’t make sense to me, but since they were words I never use and have rarely encountered, I wasn’t sure if there might not be some subsidiary definition that would make the word a reasonable choice – at least metaphorically if not literally. But where other writers would have me heading excitedly to the dictionary to learn something new, my confidence in this author (and the editor!) was low enough I didn’t even bother. When I encountered a single word that was truly new to me I didn’t look it up; I just moved on.
It’s a very fast read, so I’m going through the whole thing the way one might wander through a store that’s supposed to be kitchy but has china plates with a happy Curt Cobain face in the middle and Lorena Bobbit themed nutcrackers and carving knives. It seems like it would be so full of wrong and offense that one would immediately turn away, but no; I feel like I have to index just how much wrong and offense one can put in a single book.
The best I can say about the book is that there are no rape scenes – at least not so far (about 2/3rds of the way through) – or rape jokes.
I’m looking forward to getting back to Lumberjanes and Ms Marvel (which I’ve been reading for a long time, but were also recommended by someone earlier in the thread), but I’ll have to do some school readings first.
I used to read Warriors by Erin Hunter and The Kingdom Keepers but I got distracted and now I don’t remember what volumes I’m on I guess I have to start over which is fine by me. I wish I have the patience to sit through and read and I also mostly forget what I read and the characters so I usually summarize on a sheet of paper.
I have to constantly look up the words in the dictionary. Sadly reading is difficult for me so I don’t read very much except the ones that are meant for children I espesically like books that have pictures it’s easier for me.
David – good for you to take a day off from the hideous but illuminating processing of the worst of the worst.
I’ve been reading things on the interwebular device but I have to stop… augh, online comments calling for genocide, on the sites of national newspapers in the UK!
But I’ve been reading the complete diary of Samuel Pepys – the 1975 edition which was the first ever to be published it as he wrote it, complete with the mention of his wife’s menstruation on the very first page, and with all the details of his very seamy groping and sexual assaulting of women and girls. He was fairly appalling, undoubtedly a rapist, and would have almost certainly ended up in jail nowadays. And nobody else has ever left such an incredible document of his times.
And I’ve read a couple of the Father Brown stories, with quite some pleasure, and an essay on Sappho from the London Review of Books.
@ ej I read the Henrietta Lacks book a few months ago and it freaked me out. It’s one of those true stories which are far more bizarre than fiction. Very unsettling.
I do a lot of audiobooks lately because at my current job I can listen to stuff on headphones while I work. It’s the one and only thing I like about the job. 🙂
I recently finished “The Shining Girls” by Lauren Beukes, a novel about a time-traveling serial killer, which I picked up pretty much on a whim.
On Friday I started listening to “Watership Down” by Richard Adams, which I’ve read in book form before, but not since I was like 13 or something.
I started actually reading, like with my eyes reading, “SuperBetter” by Jane McGonigal and should really get back to it, since it’s something that might actually help me improve my life, but I’ve had trouble “finding time” to read lately, which is bullshit because I have plenty of time, but you probably know what I mean.