Jumping between 1984 and Inkspell when 1984 gets to bleak.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2026
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Favorite\
The 120 Days of Sodom /jk
Reading now\
The Silmarillion
The flowers of evil ( akunohana , Japanese) (manga) by Shuzo Oshimi
Picking up after having finished the above\
Les Fleurs du mal
My favorite series is Dungeon Crawler Carl . Its so good. I have ALL of the physical books, the audio books (Jeff Hays is hilarious with his takes on the different characters).
My favorite book soap is The Wandering Inn . Its a free web serial and I find it VERY good. But it can have some lulls. I call it a "book soap" because if its size . I am a prolific reader and it took me YEARS to get though around 50% of the series. I have the ebooks, audio-books, and have enjoyed my forever book. The payoff is SO good. Tears of Liscor broke me. I had to take time off of reading for a while due to what felt like a bit of trauma.
When I was a kid, I loved the ring of fire series ( 1632 and such). I dont enjoy it as much, but the older books in the series I still enjoy re-reading from time to time.
Re-reading the Sundering duology by Jaqueline Carey at the moment. I loved it years ago so I'm checking to see if it really was that good or if I was just young. It has held up fairly well. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes fantasy.
Currently reading Hell Followed with Us. It's YA, but a goddamn phenomenal read.
Right now I'm reading Neocolonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism by Kwame Nkrumah. It's a really good expansion of Lenin's work on Imperialism as a stage in capitalism. Nkrumah was coup'd one year after its publishing with support from the US.
As for favorites, I really love both Piranesi and Roadside Picnic! The former is just a really fun mystery with a good deal of whimsy, the latter is excellent sci-fi.
Among my favorites I remember: Gideon the ninth, slavery by another name, worst journey in the world, anything by Ted Chiang, blindsight/echopraxia
Recent reads: little bosses everywhere (excellent), no more tears (also excellent), get in trouble (I really like parts of it but it's classic Kelly link, super weird and abrupt)
My favorite are the Kushiel trilogy, anything by Ian McDonald, almost anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky or Michael Carey. Though it's difficult to pick.
Currently reading The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers.
Currently reading Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers by Caroline Fraser
The thesis of the book is basically that environmental pollution, particularly lead, might be the thing that caused so many serial killers to pop up during the period of the late '60s to the late '70s. Only half way through it so far, and not quite convinced by the theory yet. Although it's indisputable that such pollution can damage brains to a severe degree, I'm just not sure how you get from "damaged" to "I'd better serial kill some women". Random violence and anger management issues, sure. But the highly specific and MO-driven criminality of serials killers seems like something else entirely. We'll see what evidence comes in later chapters!
I don't read books much anymore. Combo of internet and my close vision getting worse. I like piers anthony a lot as a general story teller and wheel of time although I only read the books jordan wrote and did not finish off the series. Honestly though there are tons of authors with great books.
It's funny that you mention Wheel of Time because I'm on the Sanderson books now and I feel like everyone's personality changed due to his different writing style.
At first I didn't think Robert Jordan was a particularly masterful writer (at least not like Tolkien), but by now I have an appreciation for how each of his characters has a different personality which came through clearly in not only the dialogue and the character's actions but also the narration depending on whose perspective the chapter is told from.
But Sanderson though, it's like whoever the chapter's POV is from, it's all narrated in the same writing style. It loses a lot of depth and just feels kinda flat.
The dialogue is more bland too, and suddenly everyone seems just mildly autistic. It doesn't feel organic. And all their personalities are the same now. Like there's not much distinguishing one person from another anymore.
I'm still gonna finish the series now because I'm emotionally invested in it and want to see how the story concludes. There are a lot of plot arcs that really started to come together in Book 11 to set the stage for Tarmon Gai'don. I can't just put the series down. But my imagination needs to do a lot more work to keep the characters true to themselves.
There are still some chapters that I feel like Robert Jordan wrote before he died. Where suddenly the characters come to life again and the narration is told with more depth. Hopefully that lasts, cause those chapters are still nice.
But also, he left detailed notes of how to finish the story, and Sanderson interviewed his friends and family to better understand his intentions. So at least the plotlines will conclude true to the original author's vision.
And then there's the prequel which I'm looking forward to. That one was written by Jordan.
I do read new stuff, on occasion, but at the moment they are one and the same: the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I just picked it back up and I already noticed something new. At Bilbo's 111th birthday party, Tolkien describes the dragon firework as passing "like an express train", which struck me as an odd turn of phrase that I'd never noticed before.
The Trial - Franz Kafka The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood Fight Club - Chuck Palahnuik Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Fight Club, yes!!
How do you rate Blood Meridian against The Road? The Road is easily in my top 5, but could not get into other McCarthy books. I might give Blood Meridian a try.
The Border Trilogy is fantastic. The first two books are about young men discovering themselves in the west. Book three is a nice coda, bringing them together and closing some threads. Not nearly as violent or bloody as The Road or Blood Meridian.
No Country for Old Men is also fantastic. The movie was very faithful, the book is better but in a different way
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I don't think I have a favourite. I have some that I liked enough as to read them more than once: The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarilion, some of the Culture novels.
Then there are long series that I enjoyed quite a bit: Colleen McCullough's Masters of Rome, JJ Benitez's Caballo de Troya series (if you ignore the author's insistence in that everything in the book is real and you take it as an adventures book or science fiction it is actually enjoyable), I'm liking so far McBride's detective Logan McRae series.
And I'm about to begin Mikel Santiago's La Chica del Lago
I'm currently between books, I think I'm gonna read The Terror next. But my absolute favourite is The count of Monte Cristo. I read it three times over the past 15 years. And I love Simon Singh's popular science bookThe Big Bang.
Favorites in fiction I keep turning back to: old Murakami (anything before 1Q84), and Kafka.
Currently reading Careless People. Not too impressed (yet?)
Too bad you aren't liking carless people, I really like learning how crazy the muckity mucks were at FB.
Not far yet, writing on the wall but not yet full-on. Sheryl is starting to show her ugly side... :)
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Midgley’s Ethical Primate changed my life.
So did Hayes’ A Liberated Mind.
So did Welzel’s Freedom Rising.
Currently reading Archer’s Explicit Instruction and Groshell’s Just Tell Them.
Roger Zelazny is one of my favorite authors. Roadmarks and A Night in the Lonesome October are probaby my favorites from him.
I just finished the most recent Dungeon Crawler Carl, which was fun. And I'm currently working on This Way Up.
Elizabeth Lynn's Chronicles of Tornor trilogy; currently reading a book of Larry Niven novellas and short stories.