I can't compete with any of that. I have just read 'The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association' by Caitlin Rozakis (highly recommended) and am just about to start rereading Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time. I'm also working my way through a book on the siege of York in 1644. Reading about other people surviving horrible situations is surprisingly comforting at the moment...
Might have been me @Boogie, I really liked it a lot.
I’ve just bought The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller on the recommendation of several friends. I need to re/read Persuasion first though for one of my book clubs.
I can't compete with any of that. I have just read 'The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association' by Caitlin Rozakis (highly recommended) and am just about to start rereading Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time. I'm also working my way through a book on the siege of York in 1644. Reading about other people surviving horrible situations is surprisingly comforting at the moment...
OMG I just googled and she’s the daughter-in-law of DC comics person, Bob Rozakis!!! Awesome!!! (I grew up not only reading some comics that he was involved in, but also his “ask the DC answer man” in the back of the comics back in the 1970s!!)
I can't compete with any of that. I have just read 'The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association' by Caitlin Rozakis (highly recommended) and am just about to start rereading Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time. I'm also working my way through a book on the siege of York in 1644. Reading about other people surviving horrible situations is surprisingly comforting at the moment...
OMG I just googled and she’s the daughter-in-law of DC comics person, Bob Rozakis!!! Awesome!!! (I grew up not only reading some comics that he was involved in, but also his “ask the DC answer man” in the back of the comics back in the 1970s!!)
(Yes, I’m that much of a comics geek.)
He also created the character Mr. E at DC, presumably not the same person as our new Shipmate @MrE …
I finally finished reading The Suttanipāta : An Ancient Collection of the Buddha’s Discourses Together with Its Commentaries (Bhikkhu Bodhi, translator). I have been slowly making my way through this. The Discourses themselves are pretty short and easy to read, but the associated Ancient Commentaries are a slog to get through. Often they read like a thesaurus. The discourse will use a word like "desire" then you flip to the commentary to read "desire: yearn for; crave; long for; wish for; hunger for; inclined to; thirst for; hanker for..." My favorite example (way near the end of the book): The discourse used the word "twice" to which the commentary, for some reason, felt compelled to inform me helpfully that twice meant two times.
Fortunately, the discourses were short, so that the book was the sort that you could read a couple pages, then put it down for several days or weeks and then pick it up again. Which is why it has taken me a couple years to get all the way through it. To finish it. To complete it. To read to the end....
Am now reading a biography of Dick Allen, a baseball player from the 1960s-70s. At the time the book was written he had not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame, but he was finally (posthumously) inducted last year.
I have just started Kurt Vonnegurt "Breakfast of Champions". I mean, Kurt is a legendary writer and this is - so far - viciously sarcastic. It is also hilarious, if you like a rather dark humour. Well, very dark in some places.
He has quite definitely taken the shackles off and is writing totally unconstrained. I am loving it. I have a few more of his on my kindle, so will enjoy getting into more if his.
Where do people get ideas for what to read from? I hear of people reading more books in a week than I'd read in a year - but in part it's because I really struggle to find books that engage me.
Is there a (reliable) "if you liked that you might like this" service somewhere?
@KarlLB, almost all my books are electronic, and sometimes the website will suggest something to me. However, I find my most helpful suggestions come from our own book club here on the Ship!
I'm reading one right now that was on a thread quite some time ago. (2024? 2025?)
@KarlLB, almost all my books are electronic, and sometimes the website will suggest something to me. However, I find my most helpful suggestions come from our own book club here on the Ship!
I'm reading one right now that was on a thread quite some time ago. (2024? 2025?)
It's knowing whether I'll like something that's the tricky part for me! I don't have a great hit rate; I finish less than half the books I start. Authors have to be quite obvious with me; I know that the received wisdom is "Show, don't tell", but you often have to explicitly tell me what you're showing me.
I notice with some pleasure that On The Calculation of Volume IV is now on pre-order and I should have my grubby mitts on one in early April.
I take recommendations from friends and the Ship (I've discovered several authors from recommendations on this thread). I sometimes find a new writer from the salesbot on Amazon: algorithms aren't always wrong. If I can, I borrow books by a new (to me) writer from a library or buy them second-hand to see if I like them before buying new books by them. Trying out a new author is an investment of time, but it doesn't have to involve spending money.
I don't think abandoning a book you're not enjoying counts as failure (or if it does, it's not your failure). Life is too short to read books you don't enjoy (unless you have to for work).
My neighbour lent me a book by one of her friends: Out of the Darkness by Lar Dooley. The subtitle is "A sacred journey into the origins of Indigenous Irish Spirituality". He's taking a close look at the group of megalithic tombs and cairns around Loughcrew, which I hadn't heard of before, but seem quite spectacular, with rock art and passages aligned to the sunrise on the equinox, in the case of Cairn T. He's not an academic, so he tends to say things like "This carving is theorized to be...." without saying who made the theory. It's interesting enough that I'd like to go to Loughcrew to see for myself - there's a Megalithic Centre there that the author is involved with.
I am just starting Qiu Xiaolong's tenth Inspector Chen novel, Hold Your Breath, China.
It was first published back in 2020, but I missed it when it came out because Qiu had switched publishers (this is put out by Severn House), who apparently had no deal with my local Barnes & Noble Bookstore to carry it...or any of the subsequent volumes!
Some critics state that Qiu's novels are more about depictions of contemporary life in China, with the mystery aspect just a convenient framing device. That is an overstatement, but there is some truth to it.* This is going to be an environmental pollution themed story. China's water pollution had been addressed in the earlier Don't Cry, Tai Lake, but from the title I assume China's air pollution is the focus of this story.
*All of the Inspector Chen stories have a sub-plot concerning his position within the Party structure. In volume 1, he was an up-and-comer in the Party, but his job is to investigate politically sensitive cases and over time that has brought him a number of enemies within the Party. At the end of the prior volume, Shanghai Redemption, he was clearly on the outs with influential people, such that his career is endangered.
I picked up a couple of random Benjamin January books by Barbara Hambly, and I've just started Good Man Friday, in which he travels from New Orleans to Washington DC in the 1830s, and finds it full of slaves (he is a free man of color). Because Barbara Hambly also wrote some very good Star Trek novels, I tend to imagine Benjamin January being played by Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko in Deep Space 9).
Just to add, I'm really enjoying the Barbara Hambly - side characters include Edgar Allen Poe and John Quincy Adams (who I knew little about apart from his name) so I'm learning quite a bit of American history!
Thanks @Eigon I now have a better visual tag for Benjamin January when re-reading! I have all of those books bar the latest one or two, including the short stories Barbara Hambly released via her website (also available on smashwords and Kobo, possibly elsewhere too), having picked up A Free Man of Color soon after it was published.
I suspect that most of what I know about North American history from that time period comes ftom those books.
I enjoyed Good Man Friday so much I'm going straight on to the other Benjamin January novel I found - Drinking Gourd, where Ben gets involved with the Underground Railway - instead of choosing something else from my TBR shelf.
I just finished A Deadly Education, the first book in Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy. Wow, it's dark, but very enjoyable. Sort of the anti-Harry Potter, about students in a hostile and dangerous magical school.
It's what Harry Potter would have been like if everyone had been in Slytherin and JKR had been a better writer. I love that trilogy, but I really wish I'd discovered it after all three volumes had been published because the cliffhangers at the end of parts 1 and 2 are brutal.
The whole trilogy is awesome. I'm in awe of her ability to invent twist after twist, mostly having to do with El's ah, understanding of the aims and methods of the Scholomance--and each new understanding is so plausible but turns out to be incomplete...
We have a new and rather wonderful fantasy and sci-fi bookshop in town. I've been in twice and it has been so packed I can't get to the shelves to have a browse. I'm going to have another go, it's got a reading nook and I'd love to sit there and decide which of the many books I'd like to buy. The Scholomance trilogy sounds like it might be a good place to start.
I'm doing re-reading. Just read again Sweet Bean Paste (Japanese title An) by Durian Sukagewa. I saw the film years ago on a flight. The book provides more insight into the characters and a philosophy of life for a maker and seller of Dorayaki - pancake sandwich filled with sweet bean paste - who is saved by a confectionary maker whose life was mostly in a leper colony in Tokyo.
I like books where food is a window into a person's life.
I'm doing re-reading. Just read again Sweet Bean Paste (Japanese title An) by Durian Sukagewa. I saw the film years ago on a flight. The book provides more insight into the characters and a philosophy of life for a maker and seller of Dorayaki - pancake sandwich filled with sweet bean paste - who is saved by a confectionary maker whose life was mostly in a leper colony in Tokyo.
I like books where food is a window into a person's life.
I enjoy dorayaki—have you had it? (I’ve also tried durian (the fruit), and did not know that could also be a person’s name. It was, ah, not to my taste.)
I've just come back from EasterCon with some new stuff to read. I was vaguely aware that Juliet McKenna had written a book involving the Green Man and other British mythology, so I found the Wizard's Tower Press table in the dealer's room - and she's written eight so far! I grabbed the first two, and I'm sure I'll be back for more.
There was also a table in the Fan Lounge for book and fanzine swaps - and I picked up Piratica III by Tanith Lee - it's about a single mother who is also a Pirate Queen!
I'm doing re-reading. Just read again Sweet Bean Paste (Japanese title An) by Durian Sukagewa. I saw the film years ago on a flight. The book provides more insight into the characters and a philosophy of life for a maker and seller of Dorayaki - pancake sandwich filled with sweet bean paste - who is saved by a confectionary maker whose life was mostly in a leper colony in Tokyo.
I like books where food is a window into a person's life.
I enjoy dorayaki—have you had it? (I’ve also tried durian (the fruit), and did not know that could also be a person’s name. It was, ah, not to my taste.)
Yes, I like dorayaki. The book has a shop that serves only dorayaki. I've mostly got mine from a Lawson or 7-11. I've been to a number of places in Japan that seat under 10 people. One had room for only 4 and we were lucky that two people were leaving when we entered.
I have just started The Long Divorce by Edmund Crispin. Technically, it is a re-read, but because I last read it about 40 years ago I find that I have zero memories as to the plot. As such, it is like reading a new mystery.
Comments
I’ve just bought The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller on the recommendation of several friends. I need to re/read Persuasion first though for one of my book clubs.
Thank you.
I don't think she has written as any other books?
OMG I just googled and she’s the daughter-in-law of DC comics person, Bob Rozakis!!! Awesome!!! (I grew up not only reading some comics that he was involved in, but also his “ask the DC answer man” in the back of the comics back in the 1970s!!)
(Yes, I’m that much of a comics geek.)
He also created the character Mr. E at DC, presumably not the same person as our new Shipmate @MrE …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Rozakis
Book fountain in Budapest 🙂
https://youtu.be/-ijoqHaVpjQ?si=SgMRPEE4wFiajhCE
Love it!
Fortunately, the discourses were short, so that the book was the sort that you could read a couple pages, then put it down for several days or weeks and then pick it up again. Which is why it has taken me a couple years to get all the way through it. To finish it. To complete it. To read to the end....
Am now reading a biography of Dick Allen, a baseball player from the 1960s-70s. At the time the book was written he had not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame, but he was finally (posthumously) inducted last year.
He has quite definitely taken the shackles off and is writing totally unconstrained. I am loving it. I have a few more of his on my kindle, so will enjoy getting into more if his.
Is there a (reliable) "if you liked that you might like this" service somewhere?
I'm reading one right now that was on a thread quite some time ago. (2024? 2025?)
It's knowing whether I'll like something that's the tricky part for me! I don't have a great hit rate; I finish less than half the books I start. Authors have to be quite obvious with me; I know that the received wisdom is "Show, don't tell", but you often have to explicitly tell me what you're showing me.
I notice with some pleasure that On The Calculation of Volume IV is now on pre-order and I should have my grubby mitts on one in early April.
I don't think abandoning a book you're not enjoying counts as failure (or if it does, it's not your failure). Life is too short to read books you don't enjoy (unless you have to for work).
I also reread my favourites.
It was first published back in 2020, but I missed it when it came out because Qiu had switched publishers (this is put out by Severn House), who apparently had no deal with my local Barnes & Noble Bookstore to carry it...or any of the subsequent volumes!
Some critics state that Qiu's novels are more about depictions of contemporary life in China, with the mystery aspect just a convenient framing device. That is an overstatement, but there is some truth to it.* This is going to be an environmental pollution themed story. China's water pollution had been addressed in the earlier Don't Cry, Tai Lake, but from the title I assume China's air pollution is the focus of this story.
*All of the Inspector Chen stories have a sub-plot concerning his position within the Party structure. In volume 1, he was an up-and-comer in the Party, but his job is to investigate politically sensitive cases and over time that has brought him a number of enemies within the Party. At the end of the prior volume, Shanghai Redemption, he was clearly on the outs with influential people, such that his career is endangered.
I suspect that most of what I know about North American history from that time period comes ftom those books.
I like books where food is a window into a person's life.
I enjoy dorayaki—have you had it? (I’ve also tried durian (the fruit), and did not know that could also be a person’s name. It was, ah, not to my taste.)
There was also a table in the Fan Lounge for book and fanzine swaps - and I picked up Piratica III by Tanith Lee - it's about a single mother who is also a Pirate Queen!
Yes, I like dorayaki. The book has a shop that serves only dorayaki. I've mostly got mine from a Lawson or 7-11. I've been to a number of places in Japan that seat under 10 people. One had room for only 4 and we were lucky that two people were leaving when we entered.
One try at Durian was enough for me.