Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Sprout7175]

Just finished Gideon Falls Vols 1-6, an excellent horror mystery graphic novel series that was nominated for an Eisner and featured some interesting uses of panel design to denote dimensional travel but also synchronicity across different places regarding the same supernatural phenomenon. Highly recommend for people who are fans of twin peaks or the older iterations of the twilight zone.

Currently reading: Ghost in the Shell 2: Man-machine Interface and Supermover 3.

[vrnvctss]

I just finished Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb and am now reading Jingo by Terry Pratchett.

[Loosheesh]

I haven't posted here in ages but I'm currently reading ...

• Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope (ebook)
• Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth (ebook)
• Winston S Churchill: Youth, 1874–1900 by Randolph S Churchill (ebook)
• The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows by Rudyard Kipling (print/Penguin Little Black Classics)
• The Mark of the Christian by Francis Schaeffer (audio)

Mostly old stuff.

[Renate]

"The Chief", David Nasaw
A biography of William Randolph Hearst.

I was mostly amazed by the plethora of residences he had.
Although I'm a bit of a traveler I really prefer to have one at a time.

[Cyclops]

An ILLUSTRATED CHECKLIST of FRESHWATER MICROSCOPIC LIFE by David G. Seamer.

[Uncle Robin]

The Hindavi word humsafar means "companion" (on a journey, fellow traveller). Over the last 20+ years, I've sung the word more often than I could count, in the opening stanza of my favourite qawwali, in a line that says "na to humsafar ki talaash hai" "I am not looking for a humsafar". Which is why my current read's title is very amusing to me. It turns out, I was wrong: I really WAS looking for a humsafar - specifically this one.

I thought it was "just" an anthology of Urdu poetry, but already before even getting to any of the poems, it's proved to be so much more. A spirited defence of Urdu as a language and great explanations of its poetic culture. The attached screenshot shows the clearest breakdown of the structure of a ghazal I have ever seen and it's going to increase my understanding and enjoyment of the art form immeasurably. One of the first books I've started since the Kobo/TSG integration it's also going to be only the second 5-star read at TSG for me so far this year.

[astrangerhere]

Currently:

• Kobo - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by HP Lovecraft (Standard Ebooks edition)
• Paper - Exophony: Voyages Outside the Mother Tongue by Yoko Tawada
• Audio - Radiant Star by Ann Leckie

[Solitaire1]

I'm starting to read Amusement in Mathematics (1917) by Henry Ernest Dodeney, downloaded from Project Gutenberg.

This is a book of math problems divided into several types of math problems, including mathematical, algrebraic, and geometrical. I've looked though it and some of the problems involving money are difficult to figure out because it uses pre-decimalization British Currency (it provides a list of the currencies at the beginning of the book). Still, the book looks like an interesting read.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

Afterward, i started Code Name Helene by Ariel Lawhon. Writing was a breath of fresh air. Plus it returns me to my favorite genre of WWII historical fiction.

I enjoyed the book, but only gave it 4 stars. It has two timelines that alternate by each chapter. I don't mind that but I felt like some of the earlier timeline should have been done at the start of the book at the beginning of the later timeline. That's why I didn't give it 5 stars.

Looking at my recent Amazon purchases I'll be staying in WWII historical fiction a bit. I started The Girl Who Escaped from Auschwitz by Midwood.

[nana77]

I've read only "Don't bite the Sun" and "Day by Night", by Tanith Lee, at the moment.
I don't like when, because been too taken by other jobs, or tired, I prolong too much the reading of a novel, also the feeling that having had read a novel on another time or mood it would have felt different.
Althought I liked them very much, her writing style is just phenomenal; too I felt that "eccentric" part to bring me to the need of something classic, so I'm on "The House That Stood Still", by van Vogt.
The intro says it's the last novel from him before his dianetic period, from his very least "Los Angeles" moment, and the only novel to have a reminiscence from his again previous canadian time.

[poohbear_nc]

Today, whilst scrolling on my phone, I saw an article on the new film The Odyssey that included the poem Telemachus' Detachment. So naturally I had to find and reread Meadowlands - so much humor and anger buried in these short pithy poems.

[Uncle Robin]

I've just paid for 3 months of online Urdu instruction and the transliteration driving me nuts, so getting back into Teach Yourself Beginner's Urdu Script I think it has the distinction of being the ONLY book I've bought that I have both a digital and a paper copy of.

[nana77]

Originally Posted by nana77

"The House That Stood Still", by van Vogt.
The intro says it's the last novel from him before his dianetic period, from his very least "Los Angeles" moment, and the only novel to have a reminiscence from his again previous canadian time.

Fantastic; the editor mentioned that are novels like this, specially if written by those "Big" authors, that, on a time were (between the '60s and the '70s) new authors wasn't to say much, demostrate that either a simple novel can be good, a classic.

I've finished the first volume of "Ghost in the Shell": I recall the anime movies, but wasn't to guess the manga mood, which implies some side humor into the characters, robots like the Fuchikoma included.

Production I.G was unable to use the Fuchikoma design in the 2002 Stand Alone Complex anime television series due to copyright conflicts. However, Masamune Shirow was able to design a legally safe equivalent to the spider-tanks for the new show, which he named the "Tachikoma".

The manga chapters has them first 25 pages coloured, and sometimes the lastest ones too. The kind of feel on those is very pleasant - some parts of the coloured has a peculiar image effect on it - and the b/w are just beatiful too (the art lines have two different drawing styles).
I'll try to read the novels based on, like "Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex Volume 1 The Lost Memory", which seems to be on the Open Library as for to borrow.

Edit 2: there are two differst styles even into the b/w parts, as the strips would switch between them seriousness ones, interlacing within those were the main characters too assume those facial fun and weird expressions seen generally on japanese animes, drifting apart from the clean, sensual or also sexy drawings into the tomfoolery, farcical kind.