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

[Dr. Drib]

Currently reading Last Day of a Prior Life, by Andres Barba.

This is literary ghost story - a ghost story of a different kind.

I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

[Uncle Robin]

My efforts to learn to read Urdu got a HUGE boost yesterday when I started on a book sent to me by a highly regarded translator of Hindi and Urdu - Urdu through Hindi

When sending it to me they said "I struggled to learn the script for the longest time, and that book was what saved me!" - which considering their professional reputation now is VERY high praise for the book.

[PatchyMimo]

I've been working my way through the memoirs of Kaneko Fumiko and have had to swap to books about moss when I need some space from that book.

[Dr. Drib]

I'm almost finished with Last Day of a Prior Life, by Andres Barba - just one-half hour left.

After that, I plan to read I Remain in Darkness, by Annie Ernaux. I've enjoyed her earlier books, so I'm looking forward to this one.

YES!

Give me a book with content
Big, beautiful content
Shining, gleaming, steaming, flaxen waxen
BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS! BOOKS!

(Apologies to Hair)

[astrangerhere]

Currently:

• Kobo: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (buddy read with my wife who has never read it) - Standard Ebooks edition
• Hard Cover: Life of M by Rachel Cusk
• Audio: revisiting Ada Palmer's Inventing the Renaissance. I read the hardcover when it came out and am listening to the audio now in light of it just winning a Hugo.

[kainne]

I have tried to read Frankenstein (2 or 3 times) but have a hard time getting into it. Maybe I need to try an audio version.

[j.p.s]

I had a hard time slogging through the letters at the beginning. Once I got past those, it became a good read.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by kainne

I have tried to read Frankenstein (2 or 3 times) but have a hard time getting into it. Maybe I need to try an audio version.

It's been many a year, but I really enjoyed Frankenstein.

[drofgnal]

Originally Posted by drofgnal

I finished Human Division. It was good, not great. Written in a collection of stories telling a larger story. It was originally done as a serialized series of stories, then bundled as a novel. The next in the series is The End of All Things, similar premise. I'll wait for now.

Started Twice by Mitch Albom as it's our neighborhood book club selection this month. A quick read.

Pulled the plug on twice about half way through. You can't go back and repeat something a second time, but it seemed like he'd go back and repeat something from yesterday and then later go back even further, in effect giving him the opportunity to repeat an non repeatable event again. Went to book club and we were half way finished. I decided that halfway was enough.

I went on to the next book in the Old Man's War universe, The End of All Things. It's a collection of four interrelated stories, the first very intriguing, the back story of the 'brain in the box' character from the previous book.

I'm seriously considering The Count of Monte Cristo after that. We just watched the Masterpiece Theater version of this from PBS and loved it. Even at 8 hours on two DVDs, you know there is a lot of missing content from the book.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by kainne

I have tried to read Frankenstein (2 or 3 times) but have a hard time getting into it. Maybe I need to try an audio version.

I think it depends on the book. I had the audiobook for The Time Traveler's Wife and it was a very confusing listen because of all of the time shifting. I kept losing track of where I was. It was better as a printed book for that reason. However, some books work better as an audiobook because the voices add to the performance.

As an example, I enjoyed the audiobook version of Infinite Crisis (the DC Comics Event) over the printed version because the audio performances added so much to the story. As an example, when the Lois Lane of Earth-Two dies in the arms of the Superman of Earth-Two you can feel his anguish and loss in his voice (he breaks down because Superman always saves Lois Lane...this time he couldn't). Later, you can hear his rage as he attacks the current Superman, blaming him for the loss of his wife.

[Renate]

I'm reading "The Ladies of Lyndon", Margaret Kennedy (1925), Gutenberg.
I find the writing very good and the personalities interesting.

[nana77]

Finally got finished the "Best of SF&F 2024", by John Joseph Adams, Hugh Howey (the latter as guest editor). Very nices shorts, there is one by Amal El-Mohtar (This Is How You Lose the Time War), I'd liked the most of them, if not really all.

Spoiler:

FANTASY

The Ankle-Snatcher by Grady Hendrix
from Creature Feature (Amazon Original Stories)
Bari and the Resurrection Flower by Hana Lee
from Fantasy Magazine
The Blade and Bloodwright by Sloane Leong
from Lightspeed
Bruised-Eye Dusk by Jonathan Louis Duckworth
from Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Disassembling Light by Kel Coleman
from Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Eye & Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse
from Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele & John Joseph Adams
How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub by P. Djeli Clark
from Uncanny
If Someone You Love Has Become a Vurdalak by Sam J. Miller
from The Dark
John Hollowback and the Witch by Amal El-Mohtar
from The Book of Witches edited by Jonathan Strahan
Resurrection Highway by A.R. Capetta
from Sunday Morning Transport

SCIENCE FICTION

Calypso’s Guest by Andrew Sean Greer
from Amazon Original Stories
Emotional Resonance by V.M. Ayala
from Escape Pod
Falling Bodies by Rebecca Roanhorse
from The Far Reaches edited by John Joseph Adams (Amazon Original Stories)
Form 8774-D by Alex Irvine
from Reactor
The Four Last Things by Christopher Rowe
from Asimov’s
How It Unfolds by James S.A. Corey
from The Far Reaches edited by John Joseph Adams (Amazon Original Stories)
The Long Game by Ann Leckie
from The Far Reaches edited by John Joseph Adams (Amazon Original Stories)
Once Upon a Time at the Oakmont by P.A. Cornell
from Fantasy Magazine
Window Boy by Thomas Ha
from Clarkesworld
Zeta-Epsilon by Isabel J. Kim
from Clarkesworld

Starting "Ancillary Sword" by Ann Leckie .
Apart this, I read the shorts by Howard pertinent to "The Cimmerian" volumes by Ablaze, which have each a different illustrator, and at the moment are all just wonderful.

[Fbone]

Just finished The Soulforge by Margaret Weis. The first 2/3rds of the book was slow and boring, but it apparently tells the story of the MC's upbringing and why he acts malevolently as an adult. Writing was competent with some wit. Still boring. Rated C [3 stars].

[Renate]

Originally Posted by nana77

Starting "Ancillary Sword"...

So why is it "ancillary" but "auxiliary"?

From Latin "ancilla" (maidservant) and "auxilium" (assistance).

So the Latin is more differentiated and the English more converged.

(I had to look this all up. English spelling has ruined my mind.)

[nana77]

Originally Posted by Renate

So why is it "ancillary" but "auxiliary"?

From Latin "ancilla" (maidservant) and "auxilium" (assistance).

So the Latin is more differentiated and the English more converged.

(I had to look this all up. English spelling has ruined my mind.)

Great question, too I'd read the first book in italian time ago; and didn't even thought about it, giving "ancillary" (the title is in english also in the translated book) as maid servant, instead the dictionary says "non-essential", "auxiliary". Thought the meanings are both valid, as there are "royal" levels and behaviours throughout the plot, from the ancillaries also.

The empire uses spaceships controlled by artificial intelligences (AIs), who control human bodies ("ancillaries") to use as soldiers. The Radchaai do not distinguish people by gender, which Leckie conveys by using "she" pronouns for everybody

One of the main characters is

Breq, a fragment of the Justice of Toren's consciousness,

Althought I guess "ancillary" here is on a different sense from "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood (which I didn't read, nor watched the TV series at the moment).