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

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Karellen

Just finished the 4 books in the Blade Runner series.

Wow, they are terrible.

Why were they so bad?

[Dr. Drib]

Finished the horror novella, Nana, by Mark Towse.

An excellent writer, but I didn't care that much for the story.

Now back to Horn, by D. Keith Mano.

BUT, I am also one-half way through Franziska, by the great literary writer Ernst Weiss. This is my second read. As one can no doubt surmise, I love his work, along with the writing of Stefan Zweig.

By the way, the film Grand Budapest Hotel [you simply MUST watch this film!] was inspired by Stefan Zweig.

Here's the link for more information on Stefan Zweig:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...budapest-hotel

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: The Magical Maze by Ian Stewart. A book that was the basis for his Royal Society Christmas Lectures on mathematics. Probably nothing knew to me, but it's well written so far and a good read.

And very good it was two. One or two things new to me, and one or two things I thought i knew I now know better after a good description. A most enjoyable mathematical journey.

Next up: Precious and Grace by Alexander McCall Smith. The 17th in his No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which I bought earlier this year for the high (for me!) sum of £2.99.

[Dr. Drib]

Along with Horn, I'm almost finished with Dangling Man, by the great Saul Bellow.

[spacepope]

Oh, I love threads like this!

I finished Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson yesterday, 5th book in Mistborn.

I am currently reading Sherlock Holmes - The Devil's Dust by James Lovegrove, I hope I can finish it today to bring my unread purchased books TBR down one more book before December hits.

I am currently listening to Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. I got some Bluetooth headphones as a gift, seems a waste to not use them for Libby audiobooks

[Uncle Robin]

After discovering India in the Persianate Age thanks to a languagehat piece, it ended up as one of my favorite reads of 2021, so when I saw Shakespeare's Englishes: Against Englishness by Margaret Tudeau-Clayton being discussed there, I checked it out and was struck by two things: (1) it sounds very interesting and right up my alley and (2)This is VERY rare, Kobo is offering it to me for 1/3 the price Amazon is asking. A good omen, I'm thinking.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Precious and Grace by Alexander McCall Smith. The 17th in his No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, which I bought earlier this year for the high (for me!) sum of £2.99.

But it was worth it. A most enjoyable story and characters.

Then I read the book club "romance" pick, The Red Cockade. Not really a romance in the modern sense, more a historical fiction set in the very early days of the French revolution. With a tiny bit of a romance sub-plot.

And now I'm reading Wednesday The Rabbi Got Wet by Harry Kemelman, the sixth in his Rabbi Small series. A re-read really, and it's as good or better than I remembered.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now I'm reading Wednesday The Rabbi Got Wet by Harry Kemelman, the sixth in his Rabbi Small series. A re-read really, and it's as good or better than I remembered.

Delightful. I do like Rabbi Small.

Next up: Bought today, Front Runner by Felix Francis. The fifth of his own novels, set in the world of horse racing.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

My wife and I had always planned to do a re-read of Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series when the final volume was released. We're a little late getting started as Perhaps the Stars was released a few weeks ago, but I've settled in with the first volume, Too Like the Lightning, for my current read.

I'm not likely going to make my goals this year, so I am in no rush and am savoring all the language and philosophy layering this science fiction story. Media around the release of the final book have dubbed it "Hopepunk." I have no idea if I agree as the third volume did not end hopefully at all. Can't wait to see how it all plays out during the holiday reading season.

Now that I am positive I likely won't reach my goals, I have been very slowly savoring these books. There is so much philosophy and I will stop every now and then to go have a look at a referenced person or book.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Bought today, Front Runner by Felix Francis. The fifth of his own novels, set in the world of horse racing.

Which was most enjoyable in the expected way.

Then I read Thursday The Rabbi Walked Out by Harry Kemelman. Delightful, as expected.

Next up: Dirge by Alan Dean Foster. The second in his "Founding of the Commonwealth" series. I read the first back in 2013 and liked it. It's about time I got onto the second one!

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Why were they so bad?

Confused story lines, questionable plots.

The first (original book) I found confusing. It was difficult to understand when the story was in reality, or when the characters were fantasizing.

The second book was meant to bridge the original book and the movie. That never happened, it just picked up straight after the events of the movie. It was slow paced.

The third book must have been written to a word count. It was just endless nattering by the characters. Just words for the sake of words.

The final book was not as bad as the previous book, but thankfully shorter, but still great swathes of useless dialogue.

In the third book characters were introduced. One in particular was of low IQ. The same character in the fourth book became a king-pin of replicant modification. WTF. In one book, he could barely drive and function, in the next book he is redesigning the replicant brain.

Worst of all Book 4 was a book about the making of the movie Blade Runner (1982) . Yes, the actual Blade Runner movie is being made in the book. So great swathes of dialogue from the movie form part of the book. We are actually on set while the movie is being made. Watching the takes, listening to the director.

Blah!!! Its easy to understand why these books were ignored for the sequel movie.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

I think I'll let the self-published go for now and move on to The Furthest Station novella/short by Ben Aaronovitch.

Very enjoyable. Very typical Aaronovitch with his word skill and commentary. Very unhappy with the sudden lightbulb conclusion. Rated C [3 stars].

Next, library loan, Spy School Secret Service by Stuart Gibbs.

[spacepope]

Finished my previous books.

Now reading Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan. I've been "reading" this for months and just got to finish it.

(re)Listening to Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. I wanted to read this instead of listen, but I just don't have the time to read. Plenty of time to listen when working from home though.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by gmw

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. I, too, found it very enjoyable. [...] 4/5 from me.

Having enjoyed the first, I read the two sequels Castle in the Air and House Of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones. They lacked some of the novelty value of the first, and they were both somewhat tidier stories in some respects, but they were both good fun, so I'm giving these both 4/5 as well.


The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce. I wasn't sure about this at first, it seemed rather predictable and trite, but the story kept evolving, surpassing itself again and again. The ending comes with revelations and more evolution with each of the final chapters. The conclusion was perhaps not completely surprising by the time you got there, but I thought it was very well done. 4/5.

Originally Posted by gmw

[...] picking my way through Black Summer, edited by Michael Rowland and compiled for the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). It is a collection of articles written by ABC journalists about the bushfires of summer 2019/2020. It's interesting enough, although it may be describing events that are still too recent and familiar to me, for me to really appreciate the text. And while emergency broadcasts from the ABC undoubtedly played an important part in the events, I must say that some of the articles feel a little too self-serving; some things said that would have been much better left implied. [...]

I finished Black Summer at last. The structure seems a bit haphazard, and some of it starts to feel a bit repetitive - a consequence of the scale of the events, I guess. It doesn't help that the journalists tend to be trying to put a similar sort of slant on the stories: tragic but with the upbeat note of community pulling together and people being resilient. As a result, while most of the articles are well written, it was probably the last, by Josh Szeps, that stood out from the crowd here, offering rather more context to the events then and subsequently. All up, I thought it was worth reading but could have been better, so 3/5.

[Dr. Drib]

I picked up The Eyewitness, by Ernst Weiss from the Archive site. I downloaded both PDF and the epub.

The epub was so clean that I decided to clean it up completely. It took between 3-4 hours of casual work, and now it looks like a retail version - if one existed in epub.

I'm 1/3 of the way through it, and I'm thoroughly engrossed in his writing. But then, I like this type of writing...reflective, thought-provoking, slow-paced (but always interesting to me), engrossing, and thoroughly modernist.

Next read will be Kzradock the Onion Man and the Spring-Fresh Methuselah: From the Notes of Dr. Renard De Montpensier , by Louis Levy, actually available from Amazon or Kobo as an ebook (Partners was still viable yesterday, but only at 20% off). If you like weird and neglected literary fiction, then a visit to Wakefield Press is highly recommended. Unfortunately, most of their books are only available in paper.