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I gotta skip the misogyny/alt-right crap today. So here’s a question for you all: what are you reading?
I’ll start: in addition to reading way too many news stories about Donald Trump, I’ve been reading about meditation. Here are a couple of books I especially like:
Mindfulness in Plain English, by Henepola Gunaratana (An older version is available for free online!)
The Mind Illuminated, by Culadasa (John Yates). Website here.
How about you?
As an added bonus, here are some words of wisdom from my unconscious mind:
"Pickles don't just CAUSE hippies. Pickles ARE hippies." — Someone said this in a dream of mine last night. #PicklesAreHippies #TrumpTail
— David Futrelle (@DavidFutrelle) September 30, 2016
It didn’t make any more sense in the dream than it does in the real world.
And a Pledge Drive capybara reading a goddamn book!
I am currently re-reading The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher
Oh and also Treating Complex Trauma (just some light reading)
Elvis Costello’s autobiography, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink. It’s really interesting to hear how his father’s career in music exposed him to so many great acts in Britain. Still trying to figure out why Bret Easton Ellis named two books after his songs when his music is much more playful than outright dark or nihilistic.
I’m reading The Fifth Season by N.K Jemisin. I admit that it was sort of an impulse buy that was partially motivated by giving the middle finger to the sad and/or rabid puppies. But I’m glad I got it. So far I’m enjoying it.
“Patternmaster” by Octavia Butler, the first two in the series where quite good but Clay’s Ark was a slog for me.
Textbooks, mostly. And a lot of documentation about data searching software and php frameworks. But before the semester started weighing me down I was reading Women’s Work, Men’s Property: The Origins of Gender and Class by Stephanie Coontz and Peta Henderson and it was really good. I probably won’t get a chance to finish it until Christmas. Similarly, I started reading The Expanse in anticipation of the next season, but once again will not get to finish it any time soon.
I’m reading WHTM…
I just recently finished “Armor” by John Steakley. It falls into a category I call “Slit-my-wrists good.” It’s a very good book but man is it bleak.
I am currently reading A Whole New World by Liz Braswell. I’m partial to retellings of familiar stories, whether they’re from another character’s viewpoint or they ask a question which changes a crucial plot point (in this case, “What if Aladdin never found the lamp?”)
I’m supposed to be reading Understanding Digital Signal Processing and みんなの日本語 (Japanese for everybody). Neither is going well…
Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut.
I’m currently re-reading the Acorna series that I loved as a young teen. Space unicorn people ftw.
Hippie Pickle:
Currently reading Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling, having just finished the prequel trilogy.
@Schnookums
I love this category; finally I can accurately describe Infinity Hold by Barry Longyear. The protagonist is a lifelong criminal dumped on a penal planet, where he ends up the world’s first policeman, and helps to build a justice system there. It’s very well written, deeply moving, and comes with basically every fucking trigger warning you can think of.
Great thread idea Dave! We all need a break from the crappiness in the world right now and I’m keen to see what other Mammotheers are reading – will make a good recommendation list!
I’m currently reading Hogfather by Terry Pratchett – and am therefore about halfway through my annual reread of all the Discworld series.
I’m also reading the chorus score for Donizetti’s opera Anna Bolena, since I’ll be performing that in exactly one month. (If you haven’t worked it out, it’s about doomed English Queen Anne Boleyn, the first English queen ever executed – beautiful music and Italian bel canto opera at its finest!)
And I’m browsing any copy of New Scientist magazine that catches my eye at breakfast time ?
@Weirwoodtreehugger
I read the Fifth Season too and just finished the obelisk gate this week. Love the worldbuilding Jemisin does.
Today I finished Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell. Very brain bleach.
My kindly gray-haired mother and I went up to our local Barnes and Noble today, she hoping to find a copy of Trump Revealed; I, to get caught up on my manga collection. We both succeeded. I got the next volumes I needed of BLEACH, Blue Exorcist, and Dance in the Vampire Bund II: Scarlet Order. What that says about me, I may be better off not knowing.
Swan Song by Robert McCammon, which is a Stephen King ripoff of The Stand that’s pretty well written. A bit dated in parts but so far, it’s really solid. And one of Marc Cerasini’s Godzilla books because I can’t get enough kaiju stories these days!
@Schnookums Von Fancypants, Social Justice Wario
I have that book! Really dig it but I feel like the middle part drags for me. And yeah, it’s not a feelgood type of book that’s got some triggering parts in it so I caution others if they want to check it out.
I’m currently reading The Bees by Laline Paull.
I’m currently working my way through:
“Seventeenth Century Europe” By Thomas Munck
“Mercator: The Man who Mapped the Planet” by Nicholas Crane
“The Thirty Years War: 1618 – 1648” by Freidrich Schiller
No, I’m not a history student, I just like to read history books. I’m planning on working my way through modern European history, then looking into African (something I’ve never really looked into).
I just finished “Black Hole Blues”, a wonderfully engaging social history of the search for gravitational waves. All the human drama of advanced astrophysics without the math*.
Right now I’m on “Terror in the City of Champions”, which sounds like a pulp novella by Robert Howard but is also history. Detroit in the mid-1930s, when the Depression-battered city dealt with the historic achievements of local sports heroes and the violent threat of the Black Legion. There are detailed descriptions of baseball and football games that might as well be in Esperanto as far as I’m concerned, but most of it is quite gripping.
I’m trying to make my way through “A Mind for Numbers”, which is apparently about learning how to learn rather than mathematics specifically. The author seems to think that people naturally understand math, which is discordant with my lived experience. She’s got a very popular Coursera course.
On the pure fun side, I also read the TPB comic book. “Johnny Hiro” (Half Asian, All Hero). Remarkable combination of simple art and complex narrative.
Currently reading Code Name Verity by Elizabeth E. Wein on PZ Myer’s recommendation. It’s been a bit slow for me but after the section I read last night I think I might end up not being able to put it down this weekend. I had to make myself put it down last night just so I could sleep.
This is a long form essay delving into the storytelling technique of ‘ring composition’ with the (to that point) 2 Star Wars trilogies as case study. After a longer period of time than I’ll admit, I’m only about halfway thru (it’s pretty dense), but I’m enthralled by it
I’m not reading anything atm but I really want to get my hands on ‘The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones’ by Thomas Asbridge
@Axecalibur: Middle Name Danger
Thanks for the link. Reading it now!
Cathrynne Valente’s Fairyland series, some H.P. Lovecraft, and recently I went on a Patrick McManus binge. Before that, I reread Preacher–the graphic novel being butchered by that TV series–and Anansi Boys.
Oh, and Ursula Vernon has a serial happening–Summer in Orcus.
Look, I ride public transit and it takes an hour to get to work and then I have an hour and a half when I’m off the clock in the middle of my shift.
Sort of reading though the Shadowrun 5th edition rule book and the Rigger 5.0 supplement as I finish up my Character . I should also go back and finish reading The moon is a harsh mistress by Robert A Heinlein and The gods of mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. And I have some comics I need to catch up on,Saga,The walking Dead and Fables.