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Finally... => General Discussion => Topic started by: Vector on December 26, 2020, 03:49:40 pm

Title: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on December 26, 2020, 03:49:40 pm
Purpose:
- Challenge ourselves or just keep track of our reads here on B12.
- Build a community of readers.
- Share books we liked, pick up new reads.

How to:
---> CHALLENGE MODE: Set a goal for yourself here in the thread and update regularly on your progress.
---> CHILLAX MODE: Just hang out and chill, occasionally talk about books, it's all good man.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on December 26, 2020, 03:58:49 pm
My goal for 2021:
- 12 books of either enjoyable fiction or educational non-fiction. If I read a book and I don't either learn much or enjoy it, it doesn't count. I want to push myself to open my horizons more instead of just mechanically reading through things.
- The Great Chinese Classics I haven't finished yet: Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, the one based on Water Margin, The Scholars.
- 6 books in languages that aren't English. Manga counts as a third of a book.
- 4 math books, cover to cover, that aren't required for class.
- 4 books on education theory.
- 4 books on prison/carcerality.

Personal modification:
Finishing books I started in 2020 or earlier is OK.
I'll keep track of the other things I finish in a separate list.

Currently reading: Dragon Republic, RF Kuang.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on December 27, 2020, 02:18:29 am
Cool :D It's nice to have a buddy!

Yeah, I'm setting an ambitious goal because I'm worried about the possibility of having the summer off while stuck at home (between quarters of grad school) without having any goals already in place. I don't actually expect to succeed but I want to at least push myself a little bit. Aye.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on December 27, 2020, 05:40:43 am
I'd join this if I had the concentration to read books any-- ooh look a shiny thing

Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on December 27, 2020, 12:42:42 pm
Well, you're PTW, so you can always just engage in Book Discourse :) Chillax mode! Whoo!

But reading a couple of articles or Read One Book are also great goals!
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: spblewis on December 27, 2020, 01:40:49 pm
I'll play.  My 2021 goal will be 55 books.  It's 5 more than my 2020 goal, which I should just barely meet (I'm on book 49 right now).

Currently reading: The Brothers K, by James David Duncan
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 27, 2020, 02:42:56 pm
Aw yeah, I got a small library of things I need to read. I'll start with the scramble for Africa, which I'll start and finish reading by 3rd of Jan 2021
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 27, 2020, 06:50:53 pm
I didn't do a whole lotta reading in 2020, mostly because work was closed and that's where I do 99% of my reading.

Highlights this year include a book called The Butchering Art, which was largely a biography of Joseph Lister, and the evolution of Victorian era surgery.  Lister was a Quaker surgeon who pioneered the application of germ theory and sanitation to surgery.  Apparently it was a very interesting time medically; before there was no anesthetic either, so surgery was a speedrunning affair, and more importantly was rather rarely done.  Anesthetic was just invented at that time, which gave doctors a lot more confidence in surgery, but nonetheless it was still very dangerous and survival was unlikely.

There was also the 'Four Londons' (my name for it) trilogy, although I have not finished the final book.  A Darker Shade of Magic was the first book.  It involved four parallel dimensions, each conveniently having some sort of major city where London is geographically, and each having a different level of magic and a different relationship with said magic.  Gray London was the normal Victorian London, where magic was dead and forgotten.  Red London is a high fantasy world with commonplace magic and magic technology, the river Thames being a massive magical leyline.  White London is war torn and nearly barren, magic is seen as a resource which was overly exploted for quick and easy power, its leadership ultimately being whomever is the most mighty.  Much of their desolation was caused by fighting off whatever leaked from Black London, a sealed off apocalyptic hellhole where magic ran rampant and consumed all life as we know it.  The main character is a guy who is one of very very few born with the power of blood magic, allowing him to travel between the worlds.  The idea of there even being other worlds is only really known to people like the main character (there's like four) and the royalty of each world.

I also read a book on the history of Samurai, which basically means the overall military history of Japan from early oral history to the sino-russian war.  Hollywood depictions of samurai really only reflect on the very tail end of samurai history, when Japan was largely peaceful and isolationist, so a warrior caste had not much better to do than duel, wax poetic, and govern.  Most of the time they were just notable warriors who owned land or whatever, the idea of them being honorable wasn't particularly true outside of suiciding the whole family instead of facing defeat.  They also really didn't mind guns at all and spent no time buying them from the Dutch.

One thing to do this year: I borrowed the JSA Omnibus from a friend, its an entire run of JSA, and the book's like two three inches thick.  Need to actually finish it at some point soon to give it back, as I don't really enjoy having a 100$ book that isn't mine lying around.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 28, 2020, 08:11:01 am
So I finished reading the overlord translations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlord_(novel_series)). A guilty pleasure to be sure, I just enjoy series where someone inherits a position of responsibility they have to live up to, like the Young Pope, Romance of the Three Kingdoms or any crime drama ever invented. Unlike the former three; Overlord has a spooky scary skeleton overlord. The running joke of him doing what seems right in the moment and his underlings assuming it's 5D ultimate strip poker underwater backgammon never gets old for me, but it did get old for one of my friends. If you've ever played an online MMORPG where you invested thousands of hours until everything just kinda... Died, and you logged back in years later seeing only a few last messages and lost digital memories... You'll enjoy this series. The main character is an undead lich overlord (in character), but out of character he is the last player to stay behind in his guild, the one left behind. Fits his undead theme perfectly.

I also finished reading Sweet Home (https://manhwatop.com/manga/sweet-home), which the author finally finished. It got some emotional kicks out of me, which is surprising since the only reason I started reading it years ago was the jokes about streaming and e-celeb culture. It also got adapted into a netflix Tv-series which was complete trash but the original source material was genuinely nice, for a horror. Its representation of self-loathing was familiar and realistic to me, not just from the main character but from everyone. It has a running theme of what people regret and what they really want in life, I would recommend it.

I'm up to date now on The Young Lady I served became a young Master (https://mangakakalot.com/manga/fw923501) which is a testament to how shameless my literary tastes are. It's a lazy faux victorian drama isekai with tons of cutesy bait from a protagonist who is aware of what genre they're in but wrongly believes they're just in the supporting cast owing to the gender of the romantic lead being disguised over some courtly intrigue. It's a fun read, would recommend.

Now that I've finished moving my books from one house to another, I can start reading from my physical collection again. Thomas Packenham's Scramble for Africa (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scramble-Africa-Thomas-Pakenham/dp/0349104492) presents a narrative style history detailing the curious sequence of events that resulted in an entire continent being charted, chartered and annexed in a timespan that even seemed to take the conquerors by surprise. Besides that it would be a disservices to generalise the contents of the book, because the author has taken great pains to try and detail in as much as is possible in just 750 pages the stories of so monumental a historic shift. So far I've read the first three chapters and it's already covered the first European/American explorers, the Zanzibari slavers, the African oddysey to return Livingstone's body, the resistance of the White tribes of Boers and Cetswhayo's Zulus, the ambitions of a Belgian King operating under a humanitarian guise, the Anglo-French rivalry in Egypt and the nascent dreams of a Pasha is having of an Empire down the nile.  This is really a book of books, would recommend
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: hector13 on December 30, 2020, 07:04:23 pm
I like to read.

I even ordered 1984 to read that!

And maybe read some Dickens, since NPR was reading A Christmas Carol and it was quite entertaining.

Also Lord of the Rings, though I fear that might be another Moby Dick escapade in which the author can't stick to the narrative, but we'll see how it goes.

I will be doing Chillax Mode because my cognition is horrible these days.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 30, 2020, 07:04:49 pm
Moby Dick is literally a perfect book
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: hector13 on December 30, 2020, 07:06:06 pm
The story was genuinely interesting, I just didn't want to go through all the "Herman Melville is so clever look at what he knows" to get to it :p
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on December 30, 2020, 08:04:50 pm
Quote from: Loud Whispers on December 30, 2020, 07:04:49 pm
Moby Dick is literally a perfect book

Agreed LOL. You might like books by Victor Hugo if you like the ol' Moby.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Yoink on December 30, 2020, 08:12:23 pm
I'm gonna read thirty-six (36) books.   

At first I wanted to throw out some random number such as 100, then I figured 40 would be more reasonable, then I toned that down to 36 which means three books a month, which might actually be doable if I get my act together.   
Do Should books we're already reading count towards the challenge? Not sure if I'll manage to finish High-Rise before midnight.   
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: ToonyMan on December 30, 2020, 08:13:35 pm
Quote from: Vector on December 26, 2020, 03:58:49 pm
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Sangokushi (https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=30690) by Yokoyama Mitsuteru is one of my favorite manga adaptions. It's not completely accurate to the RTK novel, but the classic 1970s and 1980s illustrations are a treat.

Hox has fully translated all 60 volumes on their blog.

EDIT:
Recently, I've been reading Ad Astra (https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=63914) which covers the Second Punic War. It's been pretty good so far.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on December 30, 2020, 08:24:16 pm
Quote from: ToonyMan on December 30, 2020, 08:13:35 pm
Quote from: Vector on December 26, 2020, 03:58:49 pm
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Sangokushi (https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=30690) by Yokoyama Mitsuteru is one of my favorite manga adaptions. It's not completely accurate to the RTK novel, but the classic 1970s and 1980s illustrations are a treat.

Hox has fully translated all 60 volumes on their blog.

EDIT:
Recently, I've been reading Ad Astra (https://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=63914) which covers the Second Punic War. It's been pretty good so far.

Cooooool. I love the 70s/80s manga style. Bookmarked!


Quote from: Yoink on December 30, 2020, 08:12:23 pm
Do Should books we're already reading count towards the challenge?

It's up to you! I decided to set it up like a personal challenge instead of a competition this year. You should do it however makes you feel good about your challenge :D
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Arx on December 31, 2020, 06:27:23 am
>tfw no Dutchling

I'm not going to impose an actual goal on myself because I have no idea where 2021 is going to go (as an opening gambit, my country is back under semi-hard lockdown and my current contract expires in June although it'll likely be renewed). I'd like to read more proper physical books though, I've been reading too much trashy (?) girls' manga and manhwa recently :P It's easy to read, heartwarming, and generally pleasant in a currently-unpleasant world, buuuut it doesn't have much intellectual merit.

Oddly The Scramble for Africa is also next on my hitlist. It's been mouldering on my shelf for some years now, but I figured it was time to bring it out.

I also finally acquired the second book of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, but after reading a hundred pages of it I think I need to re-read the first book to make sense of it. Whoops.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on December 31, 2020, 06:52:33 am
My only goal is to actually read the textbooks I need to instead of just skimming the relevant parts 2 days before an assignment is due >_>

Also I'll try to read more since I've kinda stopped doing that a lot. I'll add whatever books I read to here I guess. Finally finished up one I've had a bookmark in for months (re-read hornet's nest) which is p much 650 pages of grim political setup for a 20 page payoff (good one though) and then weirdly an epilogue that has more action and more interest than the first 600 pages. It's kinda a weirdly-structured book imo. I suppose it'd make more sense if we actually got to see the sequels but I've had them sitting on a shelf for years without reading (kinda put off by it being a different author but apparently some people think they're better, so...) I guess those will be my next reads.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Jimmy on December 31, 2020, 08:11:40 am
Where do serial web-fictions sit in this list?

I regularly read web-fictions such as The Wandering Inn (https://wanderinginn.com/), Metaworld Chronicles (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/14167/metaworld-chronicles), A Practical Guide to Evil (https://practicalguidetoevil.wordpress.com/), and a host of other self-published serial fictions. Since a novel is usually 60,000 to 100,000 words long, and these works typically put out between 4,000 to 40,000 words per week, I honestly have no idea how many "books" that would add up to reading over a year.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on December 31, 2020, 08:28:49 am
When I'm bothering to count anything, I usually count something like than when I catch up to wherever's current. I don't tend to keep up with those, though, just read through and then forget they exist for a few months/a year or so and then re-read from the start. If you're actually keeping up, I'unno. Maybe count it as a finished book every couple months of staying on top of it?

Challenge is interesting, but actually chronicling my reading habits is... intimidating. Both because reading is pretty much always multiple hours a day (50+ whatevers is more like three or four months than a year, basically), and I have a strong tendency to drift off to another story before actually finishing any particular one. There's probably over a hundred tabs open on this tablet of works I'm in the process of (re-)reading, just shifted over to something else before actually ending it.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Cthulhu on December 31, 2020, 08:49:47 am
How many books I read will probably depend on how long work from home lasts, not having to drive back and forth for work has given me more time to take non-working lunches, etc. and given me more time to read.  I read a lot of books in 2020, something in the 15-25 range I think, would have to look at my kindle.

Most recent was Chaos, the Charles Manson book.  Great book if you like being blackpilled.  Kind of a weird hybrid of true crime and memoir, the author was contracted to write a magazine article about Manson for the 20th anniversary, and in his efforts to find a new angle that hadn't been done to death he discovered some old interview transcripts from the trial that proved the prosecution's narrative of the killings was wrong and that they'd suborned perjury to make the narrative stick, badly enough that it would've overturned the conviction if it came up.  This led him down a nightmare rabbit hole that consumed 20 years of his life.  A lot of the conspiracy stuff you hear nowadays about Manson comes from the book, how the Manson Family was basically immune to the law and routinely violated probation and got arrested for all kinds of shit and just walked out after a few days with no charges, numerous very obvious CIA agents getting themselves involved with the investigation, and most disturbingly correspondence between Louis Jolyon West (most famous for killing an elephant with LSD) and Sidney Gottlieb (director of MKULTRA) where West claims to have developed methods for using LSD and stimulants to induce psychosis and alter morals.  West worked at the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic where Manson hung out while he was first forming the Family.

You know, Manson, the guy famous for LSD and stimulants to induce psychosis and alter morals.  Like I said, great book if you like being blackpilled, but worth noting that it doesn't come to any conclusions.  The entire Manson story is such a clusterfuck of coverups and spooks and mysteriously missing documents that it's impossible to pull out a single clear answer to what and why, and basically everyone who would've known the truth is dead now.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on December 31, 2020, 08:54:02 am
Quote from: Cthulhu on December 31, 2020, 08:49:47 am
Great book if you like being blackpilled.

What does this mean?
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Yoink on December 31, 2020, 09:24:22 am
I had a vague idea it was an anti-natalist thing, but I'm probably misremembering. Maybe it's just to do with conspiracy theories and paranoia.   
Lemme google it real quick and see what horrors await.   

Edit: oh, it basically just means the realisation that life ain't fair and the world is mean (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUpH0muyR-I). I mean... duh.   
What do you mean, you needed a pill for that? Wasn't it included in your childhood vaccinations? ???   
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Arx on December 31, 2020, 09:26:29 am
The universe is terrible and nothing can be done to fix it, is the basic idea I think.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on December 31, 2020, 01:44:44 pm
So... misery porn?
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Cthulhu on December 31, 2020, 03:51:59 pm
Oh my god, forget I said the word, Jesus.  I just mean it's the kind of book that makes you look at the world a little differently afterward.  A tiny fragment of the truth about a single event in history, making you wonder what else there is, what you'll never know about.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: scriver on December 31, 2020, 05:01:31 pm
I don't really read any more because of attention-related shit but some weeks (or a couple of months?) ago I ordered a book about Kristina Gyllenstierna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Gyllenstierna) from my local library which I am at least going to try to read.

Writing a script about her and those months before the Bloodbath of Stockholm has been one of my dozens perpetual projects (that I never actually work on of course) for the last couple of years or three, since I first read about her. So reading this book is an attempt to at least fool myself into pretending that I'm actually doing some research or whatever.

She's purty cool, when her husband the leader of the Swedish side in Illegal War of Danish Aggression Over the Refusal of the Swedish Thing to Elect the King of Denmark and Norway, Christian II the Tyrant, to the Throne of Sweden Another Time Which Was Totally Our Right To Do and Made the Danish Completely In the Wrong (name of war pending) died on the battlefield, she took control over the fortifications in Stockholm in the name of the claim of their son, and first held the city as a front figure who inspired and roused the populace against the Danish, then became the de facto leader of the rebellion when the majority of the Swedish nobility agreed to lay down arms (and elect Christian the Tyrant in exchange for retained privileges), which she continued to lead as a popular war throughout Sweden for several months.


Quote from: ToonyMan on December 30, 2020, 08:13:35 pm

Now that is a name I haven't seen in a long time... a long time.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 01, 2021, 06:02:21 pm
Quote from: hector13 on December 30, 2020, 07:06:06 pm
The story was genuinely interesting, I just didn't want to go through all the "Herman Melville is so clever look at what he knows" to get to it :p
I read it less as cleverness than as lived experience. He wrote about it lots, how you live being important - like the difference between the sailors who sailed the ocean in their sailcraft and the phenomenon of leisurely passengers, made ever more prominent in their new steamships. It's one of the reasons why I believe the best way you experience a country is by working in it for a living, not by being a tourist - one's just passing through.

Quote from: Vector on December 30, 2020, 08:04:50 pm
Agreed LOL. You might like books by Victor Hugo if you like the ol' Moby.
I'll give it a look, I'm a sucker for Romantics who flitted between extreme religious devotion and near-atheistic introspection

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is also bloody amazing. Would recommend 100/10 Wei Yan gets no justice, no love

Quote from: Arx on December 31, 2020, 06:27:23 am
I'm not going to impose an actual goal on myself because I have no idea where 2021 is going to go (as an opening gambit, my country is back under semi-hard lockdown and my current contract expires in June although it'll likely be renewed). I'd like to read more proper physical books though, I've been reading too much trashy (?) girls' manga and manhwa recently :P It's easy to read, heartwarming, and generally pleasant in a currently-unpleasant world, buuuut it doesn't have much intellectual merit.
Unironically enjoying trashy heart-warming pulp is intellectually a BIG BRAIN move. You enjoy anything consistently and sincerely enough and it becomes a classic, like how loads of music genres or books had to age a while before people accepted they actually had something worth saying

Quote from: Arx on December 31, 2020, 06:27:23 am
Oddly The Scramble for Africa is also next on my hitlist. It's been mouldering on my shelf for some years now, but I figured it was time to bring it out.
Honestly the juxtaposition between one European explorer quoting (to paraphrase) "This King Leopold II seems like such a good natured fellow without a single ulterior motive" and King Leopold II writing to one of his confidantes "It's Congo Free Real Estate" is something you just wouldn't believe

Quote from: Caz on December 31, 2020, 08:54:02 am
Quote from: Cthulhu on December 31, 2020, 08:49:47 am
Great book if you like being blackpilled.
What does this mean?
"If only you knew how bad things are" mood, defined by a crippling isolation caused by uncomfortable nihilism that you wouldn't wish upon others, that you yourself regret because you cannot return to the state you were before you came to the conclusion. Like when a loved one is lost to you and you wonder why this sort of thing would exist in a world with a benevolent creator; you wonder if there isn't one, or if they're indifferent. Sounds edgy but there's no way around the egde sometimes
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on January 01, 2021, 06:25:31 pm
Quote from: Loud Whispers on January 01, 2021, 06:02:21 pm
"If only you knew how bad things are" mood, defined by a crippling isolation caused by uncomfortable nihilism that you wouldn't wish upon others, that you yourself regret because you cannot return to the state you were before you came to the conclusion. Like when a loved one is lost to you and you wonder why this sort of thing would exist in a world with a benevolent creator; you wonder if there isn't one, or if they're indifferent. Sounds edgy but there's no way around the egde sometimes

<_< why would you want to induce this feeling
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 01, 2021, 06:53:56 pm
Quote from: Caz on January 01, 2021, 06:25:31 pm
<_< why would you want to induce this feeling
Sometimes you don't want it, but are compelled to seek it. Sometimes to understand things more, or ask more questions, or just to relate... Or just because you are compelled to and don't know why.

See also "the call to the void (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appel_du_vide)," when people peer over the edge of some great drop and some startling part of their brain says to jump. It's an intrusive thought that the thinker doesn't want, and can't explain why it exists. Reminds me when I was a school kid always crossing over the river thames, and my books were the only thing I had worth preserving. Occasionally I'd get these intrusive thoughts suggesting I throw my books into the river, and I could never explain why these thoughts existed at all
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Rose on January 01, 2021, 10:54:03 pm
Posting to watch here. And maybe get book recommendations.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on January 01, 2021, 11:39:19 pm
Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress: Finished Dragon Republic. It's pretty good? Basically a Chinese high-fantasy retrace of the WWII/leadup to the PRC period with an unheroic female protagonist based on Mao. I'll definitely read the third one. I don't know that it was satisfying enough to be part of my 12-book quota, but for now, I'm calling it good enough.

Put a bunch of the education + carcerality books on hold. Now reading The City We Became by NK Jemisin. She's great.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on January 02, 2021, 12:23:44 am
I've seen pretty solid reviews for the broken whatever series by that'un. Mentioned fairly often in relation to notable new-ish sci-fi/fantasy.

... reviews also note they're like consistently and crushingly negative on a lot of fronts, though. Fairly brutal, nasty stuff, more or less, which just annihilates any personal interest, heh. Also a bit of a shame our patrons aren't big on sci-fi/fantasy, so we don't tend to bring many in unless someone actively requests them.

But yeah, part of my job these days is collection development (i.e. buying books and stuff for a library), so... review browsing is something I'm literally paid to do, which is nice :P
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on January 02, 2021, 12:26:04 am
Yeah, they certainly aren't cheerful books, but I didn't find them to be grimdark for the sake of being grimdark, which is where I personally have more trouble. I couldn't read more than a couple of the Game of Thrones series, for example, but I've read 6 of Jemisin's books so far.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: A Thing on January 02, 2021, 03:04:11 am
Hold on OP*, you've read the Story of the Stone? Great! Finally someone else that has. I still haven't put my feelings on the novel together even though it's been about a 1-2 years since I finished it.

As for books, I have a couple. War & Peace I've had for several years and am only a couple hundred pages in, I might finish that this year, maybe not. I've also got Orwell's Burmese days, which I haven't started, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Out of Africa by Isek Dinesen. Out of Africa is a book from a university class that we didn't end up reading, I might end up trading it for things fall apart by Chinua Achebe, or read that scramble for africa book that has been mentioned here. Considering reading Cien Aņos de Soledad in Spanish, but not sure if I´m good enough yet.

I think I read about 12 books last year? All of the Narnia books (don't ask,) Germinal, Witcher books 1-3, and then Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi for the previously mentioned university class. I suppose I'll go for 10 books of my own choosing this year, because really I didn't read much at all last year.


*gonna not use your username because of your no quote rule
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on January 02, 2021, 09:17:23 am
Quote from: A Thing on January 02, 2021, 03:04:11 am
Story of the Stone

Yes :) It's one of my favorite books. I highly recommend it for anyone with any interest in classic literary fiction.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Yoink on January 04, 2021, 12:36:22 am
Finished High-Rise early this morning whilst on the can. Since Goodreads counted that as my first book towards my challenge (yes, I made my challenge from here all official by creating it on my Goodreads account too, not that that means anything) I guess I will, too.   

It was a good book, for the most part. I kind of wish Goodreads let you give ratings out of ten so that I didn't feel the need to keep giving so many books five stars, but oh well. Some of it seemed a bit bizarre, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Even if some parts felt a little far-fetched, the fantastic imagery encountered at various points throughout the book more than made up for it in my opinion.   
Yes, I am aware that the whole thing was quite possibly an overwrought metaphor for society at the time. Meh, I just enjoyed it at face value.   
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on January 25, 2021, 12:10:49 am
Bloody hell I finally finished reading through everything currently existent of the legend of randidly ghosthound. Took most of a month, 1,477 chapters, somewhere over 10 thousand royal road pages, a bit short of 2.8 million words. Pretty sure I read some other stuff in the process but I can't remember anymore!

And, like. It's alright litrpg stuff. Not great, but mostly not terrible or anything. Parts are weird (the later MC romance subplot in particular was very left-field/insta-love-ish from what I parsed), but it's pretty consistently readable.

But I am extremely ready to read something else now, ahaha.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: delphonso on January 25, 2021, 05:04:07 am
Oh, well, hello there, this thread.

Goal - read 12 books at least this year.

3 fiction books, since I will certainly do that by the end of February.
3 non-fiction histories, biographies or the like.
3 non-fiction academics, such as that paper on the use of facial expressions in Chinese communication that has been sitting on my desk for 3 months.
2 books in not English (above kids book level, I guess. Maybe depends on the language.)
1 thing I wrote and actually consider finished.

Anything above the number in those categories won't count toward the 12, but I might keep track anyway.

Currently reading: Bandersnatch by Diana Gyler (a book about C.S. Lewis and Tolkien's writing group's impact on each other)
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on January 25, 2021, 02:03:00 pm
I just wanted to pop in and say that I'm really glad people are enjoying the thread. I've been doing some reading myself and hope to updoot tonight :)
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Nordlicht on January 25, 2021, 03:41:12 pm
I like book threads. Currently waiting for Becoming Animal to arrive in the next days.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on January 25, 2021, 05:09:41 pm
Does fanfiction count as a book?

All I read is trash. And textbooks. But after a chapter of them you don't want to read anything in it with multiple syllables. So, to the trash.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Jimmy on January 25, 2021, 07:03:22 pm
Quote from: Frumple on January 25, 2021, 12:10:49 am
Bloody hell I finally finished reading through everything currently existent of the legend of randidly ghosthound.
Yeah, I gave that one a go, and lost interest quickly when the author just kind of goes 'meh, humanity's boring, let's take the MC to alien-world!' There's a ton of potential in watching humanity go through an apocalypse, but instead he just buggers off to go do a tournament arc.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on January 25, 2021, 07:14:46 pm
Eh, he comes back, for what it's worth. I think most of what I've read has been on earth or significantly interacting with it, though the latest bits are gearing up to haul off again. 'Course, Earth's actively less interesting (for MC McOPmutt, anyway) at this point, so it's not even a bad thing, exactly. Spear world is something of a pit stop (twice, ha), yeah.

... thaaaat said, though, if you have something against tournament arcs it is strongly the wrong piece of fiction for you, ahaha. There's been at least, uh. Five? Six? Maybe seven? More? A lot of the bloody things at this point. 2-3 on spear place, like another four or five on earth, maybe another on other-major-planething-that's-not-warplace? Author likes them their tournaments.

E: Though the whole apocalypse thing is handled at least somewhat interestingly (if slowly. Very slowly. Major event one past the actual initialization and whatnot still hasn't happened by chapter 1.4k :P), overall. Definitely in a way I haven't seen very often so far as the MC's relationship to everything going on, so there's points there for originality.

E2: Any case, I guess I'll see how long I can keep remembering to post something when I finish one. Next up is The Runesmith (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33844/the-runesmith), clocking in at a respectable 200-ish thousand words. It's also litrpg (this is going to be a theme, by the by), isekai stuff where some dude gets schlepped into a preteen's body with mage stats and zero class compatibility, and goes crafter with bonus skills from being a tech repair guy or somethin' like that. Fairly slow burn (200k words in and MC still hasn't actually broke through to the starting line for the class they're aiming for), though plenty of the downtime stuff is basically just timeskipped away, which is nice. Decent crafting crunch, okay amounts of merchanty bits and conflict, not much in the way of romance divergence yet, all in all pretty decent. Pointedly, it's about a 14th the size of ghosthound and took a day to read through instead of a month :V

Anyway, what's there so far is pretty readable and it's overall not bad as isekai litrpg goes! Which, I mean. Isn't saying much, considering how isekai litrpg goes? But, y'know. S'alright. Gave me something to read for an afternoon and a bit.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on January 26, 2021, 06:41:20 pm
I read some books:

Dragon Republic - RF Kuang
The Burning God - RF Kuang
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir - Ellen Forney
Are Prisons Obsolete? - Angela Davis
Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms - Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law
Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome - Joy DeGruy


Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 1/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 2/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 3/0 (click to show/hide)

:I This is hard work, actually. Committing to read in order to open my mind up instead of just numbly going through pages of processed tree carcass is . . . challenging . . .

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir was somewhat helpful to understand one of my bipolar friends. I knew about the broad strokes already but seeing things laid out sequentially and pictorially gave some new insight into what it might feel like to be that depressed.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on January 28, 2021, 01:21:10 am
That's Dead Tired (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/37251/dead-tired) down. Slim 98k words, the tl;dr is tweed suited Vecna with a fondness for bad puns runs roughshod over the world, murders the gods, and then decides to take a nice long nap. Cue two thousand years later when rando adventurer wakes them up (and gets grafted with a large, opposite gender, cat, ultimately flipping their expression to "maid") and they find out the world has genre shifted from system enabled D&D expy to system-disconnected xianxia, leading magic bone daddy on a vaguely bemused jaunt to figure out what exactly happened while they were napping.

Pretty fluffy for something with a three plus figure body count in under a hundred thousand words. Writing's overall okay, occasionally amusing enough. Be interesting to see where it goes in the future, ha.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Jimmy on January 28, 2021, 05:36:38 am
Quote from: Frumple on January 28, 2021, 01:21:10 am
That's Dead Tired (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/37251/dead-tired) down.
Have you been following Beware of Chicken (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39408/beware-of-chicken)? It's a beautiful xianxia parody with the MC as a down-to-earth foil to the over-the-top genre tropes that pursue his existence in middle-kingdom-land. I liked Dead Tired for the same reason as this one, that it looks at the xianxia world through a set of outsider's eyes and calls bullshit on all the 'heaven-defying-impossible-existence' tripe that everyone else seems to accept as true. Except, instead of being an OP undead wizard, he's just a Canadian dude that wants to own a farm, build a house, marry a cute girl, and raise a family. Of course, his chicken happens to be a true xianxia protagonist, and the POV shifts are hilarious.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on January 28, 2021, 07:44:56 am
Hadn't even seen it yet, heh. My RR search filter is basically "gimme everything over 200 pages", sometimes with the litrpg tag added... and I've tended to avoid anything on RR with the sexual content warning, ha (there's been exceptions, but I've found there's no better, more consistent, indicator there's going to be something horribly wrong with a work on RR than that). I'll go ahead and toss it into the tab pile, tho'.

e: Anyway, Blacksmith of the Apocalypse. (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/38995/blacksmith-of-the-apocalypse) Casual 105k words. System apocalypse, crafter(-ish; they've arguably had more impact setting things on fire with smithing kit so far) person, writing okay, plot pretty slow/low-impact! MC still hasn't actually met anyone else from their home planet, ha. Made early, fairly immediate from reader perspective (though time-skipped, so for MC a few weeks), decision to promptly bugger off the death world his home planet had become, which is pretty unusual for these types of things.

Any case, feels like it's not even to a particularly interesting point yet and just starting to clear the setup period. Into the RSS feed it goes!
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on January 29, 2021, 07:18:39 pm
Quote from: Caz on January 25, 2021, 05:09:41 pm
Does fanfiction count as a book?

Fic is fine for purposes of the challenge! I guess as a guideline for everyone we shouldn't link to or talk about the lewd stuff (y'all know what I mean). Probably also shouldn't link to anything on AO3 due to its general horniness as an archive. Keep it gen.

Not that I object, heh. It totally counts r.e. word count being ~valid~ etc. but we're not allowed to have a fanfiction thread and I want to respect that.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on January 29, 2021, 07:34:06 pm
...Does the word fanfiction really make the average person's mind go to porn? Man, I've been reading the wrong stories. :P

I'm halfway through an actual paper book in... a month. Getting into new stories is like pulling teeth atm. I have so much writing that I'm ignoring already and reading fiction just reminds me of it. >:l
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on January 29, 2021, 07:39:02 pm
Quote from: Caz on January 29, 2021, 07:34:06 pm
...Does the word fanfiction really make the average person's mind go to porn? Man, I've been reading the wrong stories. :P

Yeah, I just wanna be more safe than sorry. It's no comment on you as a reader, just setting up a general guideline :)
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: delphonso on January 29, 2021, 07:45:43 pm
Quote from: Caz on January 29, 2021, 07:34:06 pm
...Does the word fanfiction really make the average person's mind go to porn? Man, I've been reading the wrong stories. :P


My mind goes to "fan service" which can be lewd, but not necessarily so. Anyway, I suppose it counts it you think it does, right? I read Shadows over Innsmouth again, but since it's so short, I won't count it for my own total.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Doomblade187 on January 29, 2021, 08:32:56 pm
Eh, AO3 does a good job tagging usually. It's typically when other fanfic sites get involved that it gets messy. That said, I"ve been keeping up on some nice long fanfics for miraculous ladybug recently, and EGS is rolling onwards as always. Demon Street is finishing up too, it'll be nice to see that wrap up.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on January 29, 2021, 08:38:10 pm
Quote from: Caz on January 29, 2021, 07:34:06 pm
...Does the word fanfiction really make the average person's mind go to porn? Man, I've been reading the wrong stories. :P
I've been reading the stuff since the 90s; it does because the reputation is deserved :P

Fairness, though AO3 specifically is indeed pretty horny. Plenty of stuff on it that's clean, but... yeah.Though uh, Royal Road* is, too, so... I'unno. Extra fairness, it's kinda' hard to avoid stuff that ain't, really. Even if you're sticking to print or classics or something there's the entire romance/thriller genre pool and stuff like Lady Chatterley's Lover.

I'd at least avoid linking to anything specific that would, y'know, violate forum TOS, ha.

* E: I was curious enough to actually check, since the site makes it easy to half-arse a
check: It's about 22% smut by title. 386 pages of works with the sexual content tag, 1299 pages without. Actually kinda' surprised, I figured the ratio'd be more tilted naughty. Be interesting to see what the word count difference is, but its search doesn't make that easy so eh.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Cthulhu on January 29, 2021, 08:49:29 pm
I'm tripling up: Science Fictions, Programmed to Kill, and about to start Manufacturing Consent.  A book for every mood.

Science Fictions is good, book about the replication crisis.  Lots of fun examples of shenanigans by scientists, as well as honest mistakes, p-hacking, various conscious or unconscious cheats scientists use to get results they can publish even if the results are worthless, and a good discussion on the incentive structure that produces bad studies and how we might change those incentives.

Manufacturing Consent is some Chomsky book about mass media, I don't really know anything about it which is why I decided to read it.

Programmed to Kill is uhhhhhhhhhh.  It's by David McGowan, semi-famous conspiracy guy, one of the pioneers of the 9/11 conspiracy shit.  It's not about 9/11 though, it's about serial killers primarily.  Most of it looks like bullshit, a lot of it is verifiably bullshit, and there's a few more interesting tidbits scattered throughout (https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/617960cfa3101bf2ed6ca9501f63b4c8.jpg)
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on January 30, 2021, 05:23:24 am
I never could find anything worth reading on AO3, the tag system didn't really make sense to me and it had a lot of weird crossovers and people who didn't seem to have the ability to form sentences. Fanfiction.net has pretty good search settings, usually if you filter out anything under 50k words or so you lose most of the crap stories right away. Still got to do a lot of sifting, though it's pretty clear after the first chapter how the quality of the writing is going to be.

Reading hack is to go into a good author's favourite stories and find new things to read from there. Good writers tend to have good taste, I guess.

I used to betaread/edit for folk on there a long time ago but I am far too lazy for that now.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Jimmy on January 30, 2021, 05:45:43 am
I'm personally not bothered by adult content in an otherwise decent story. Of course, I want a story with a strong plot, good grammar, and interesting characters. So long as it has that, I'm fine if the author includes sex, drugs, and rock and roll violence.

That said, I've never gotten into AO3. I agree that navigation is just too difficult. Besides Royal Road, the best other compilation of online fiction I've found is StoriesOnline. Even though they mostly cater to sexual content, they've got a decent archive of low to no sex stories, with some damn good classics hosted from over a decade of creator content. One of my favorite authors is Lazlo Zalezac, and I think it's about time to read The Millionaire Next Door again.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: delphonso on January 30, 2021, 08:42:07 am
Quote from: Cthulhu on January 29, 2021, 08:49:29 pm
Programmed to Kill is uhhhhhhhhhh.  It's by David McGowan, semi-famous conspiracy guy, one of the pioneers of the 9/11 conspiracy shit.  It's not about 9/11 though, it's about serial killers primarily.  Most of it looks like bullshit, a lot of it is verifiably bullshit, and there's a few more interesting tidbits scattered throughout (https://www.meme-arsenal.com/memes/617960cfa3101bf2ed6ca9501f63b4c8.jpg)

I completely understand the appeal of semi-plausible bullshit. This sounds like a fun read.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Cthulhu on January 30, 2021, 11:38:41 am
It is "fun," though some of it is too close to suggestions of actual spooky shit for comfort.  The basic idea of the book is that elite satanic cults (think pizzagate/qanon) use ritual abuse to turn people into hypno assassins, and the concept of the serial killer as a lone manic killing people because he's crazy was created to cover up this activity.  That's a fun idea for a horror movie, or like a Call of Cthulhu adventure, but come on man.  That shit ain't real.

His fixation on satanic cults leads him to miss the much more obvious angles there.  Like, you're telling me satanic ritual abuse didn't really happen, it just turns out that a therapist can implant someone with false memories of horrible crimes and use them to defame innocent people and ruin their lives, and I'm supposed be reassured? 
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on January 30, 2021, 07:58:23 pm
Salvos! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/37438/salvos-a-monster-evolution-litrpg) 121k. Baby demon zerg larva does litrpg baby demon things and grows up to be a person and stuck outside hell and vaguely confused by all the people things! Fairly quick moving so far, also just reaching the point of, like, expanding the scope of things or moving beyond the beginner village type thing or whatever. RSS'd pretty cheerfully.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Cthulhu on January 31, 2021, 02:08:07 am
The idea of elite sex and murder cults goes waaaay back, the first known blood libel is from the 10th century and of course a reference to a rumor means the rumor already existed.  I wonder if there have been similar legends outside Europe.  Probably, but I don't know anything about them.  Anyway, SRA is scary as hell, not for the satanic cults part but for, like I mentioned, the fact that therapists were able to implant false memories and use them to ruin innocent people's lives.  The applications for political shenanigans and counterintelligence are pretty obvious, and thanks to the Church Committee we know the intelligence community was interested in such capabilities.  That's scary, and the alternative (you know, that the kids' memories were real) is way worse.

Starting to lose interest in the book though.  He gets extremely lost in the weeds with his satanic cult shit.  There are still some interesting hints, things he brings up while missing the more plausible implications.  David McGowan is a full-spectrum conspiracy nutbar, he has theories on basically everything and in his need to know everything he misses the fun of conspiracy shit, where you just pick through the little hints and scraps of information and let the holes in the story gape with all their horrible implications.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Jimmy on January 31, 2021, 03:09:39 am
I know that type of author. For awhile, I was really into post-apocalyptic and survival fiction. I read a lot of the classics of the genre, and in my search for more, eventually started going down the rabbit-hole of far right American prepper fiction. Y'know, the kind of story where war breaks out conveniently slowly enough to allow time for our characters to escape to their LMOE cache, load up their guns, and rid the world of evil by shooting the hell out of it when it trespasses on their land.

I think literally half the wordcount in the novels I read were descriptions of survival gear brands, with most of that being firearms. It's basically just the author's self-insert wet dream fantasy.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: delphonso on January 31, 2021, 06:43:11 am
Quote from: Cthulhu on January 30, 2021, 11:38:41 am
His fixation on satanic cults leads him to miss the much more obvious angles there. 

This is my reaction to QAnon shit - like you guys are very close to understanding the real issue (namely, a wealthy class play by entirely different rules than everyone else) but have taken child-sacrifice as a given and then lose the plot.

Anyway, here's a progress report, I guess.


Goal - read 12 books at least this year.

3 fiction books, since I will certainly do that by the end of February.   0/3
- The Shadow over Innsmouth
3 non-fiction histories, biographies or the like. 1/3
- Bandersnatch
3 non-fiction academics.
2 books in not English (above kids book level, I guess. Maybe depends on the language.)
1 thing I wrote and actually consider finished.

Anything above the number in those categories won't count toward the 12, but I might keep track anyway.

Finished Bandersnatch by Diana Gyler. (https://www.amazon.com/Bandersnatch-Tolkien-Creative-Collaboration-Inklings/dp/1606352768) This book is great. I grew up reading C.S. Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien and it was great to get some insight into their relationship and writing method. The book ultimately concludes with the argument that the "lone genius" concept of invention is faulty, while still making room for - in Gyler's words - the relationship between 'author' and 'authority'. It's a cool book and very inspiring as a hobbyist author; not to mention the book pointed out some glaring faults in my own attempts to make a community project.

Currently reading:
Waiting for Godot - Beckett
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary - Tolkien
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on January 31, 2021, 07:37:22 pm
Kernstalion! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/37264/kernstalion) 117k. Probably the most solid writing of what I've posted so far, I think? VR isekai setting, the kind where it's actually a ~portal to another world~, with a handful of interesting things going on I haven't seen very often in the isekai genre (which I guess are spoliers so I'll not directly mention 'em). Pretty nice romp so far and definitely starting to hit a good stride, RSS'd with disappointment 'cause I ran out of it to read :P

E: Heaven of the Dream Fantasy! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36062/heaven-of-the-dream-fantasy-going-for-a-zero-damage) 159k. Fluffy VRMMORPG thing, where mostly clueless balance breaker rolls around breaking things and attempting to woo the governing AI in what amounts to an early release VR game. Even with significant characters being breast obsessed and similar nonsense it's a fairly pleasing read, almost a palate cleanser of a bit of fiction. RSS' cheerfully.

E2: Legendary Farmer! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/38423/legendary-farmer) Meager 56k, but pretty nice so far. Slice of life... ish? So far. Dude wanting the slow life out in the boonies, recovering from a ~mysterious past~ with buddy cops giant goat, giant spider, and smolbat. Other stuff happens and smolgoats and goblin and stabbyteen and ostrich shows up and now there's just waiting to see if more updates happen.

E3: Oasis Core! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/39793/oasis-core) Slightly less meager 70k. Baby desert oasis dungeon core vs mad god, both infected by universe destroying/reincarnating superbeing, in a race to reverse or finish an apocalypse. Biomancy dungeon defense to save a broken world! It's neat. Easily RSS'd.

E4: What litrpg there is only needlework! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/38740/what-litrpg-there-is-only-needlework) 58k tiny like MC. Shortstack probably-spectrum sewing obsessive meets system apocalypse! Has no shits to give about system nonsense, just wants to thread. Readble enough but also not much has really, like... happened. So far. Anyway, RSS'd easily enough.

E5: Nah, this is Exp Stealer now! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/38344/the-summoned-heroes-school-the-exp-stealer) Somewhat less speedbumpy 92k. Title also too bloody long so Iz shortened it. Anyway, post isekai isekai thing, cheat hero with ~cursed power~ (sometime during writing this edit I realized their cursed power is... basically Rogue's, from X-men, except always permanent and systemified) defeats the demon king and their hordes and goes home, losing most of his powers in the process!

... to find out thousands of other people have also been isekai'd while he was away, with magic kidnappings continuing to happen, leading to the tentative start to a multi-dimensional empire/trade network basically powered by summoned heroes and a bunch of other stuff. Anyway, since most of these superpowered critters are teenagers with varying degrees of PTSD (the MC's gives him superpowers! Also it's extra bad 'cause he basically won a mostly one-man war of genocide in order to get home and has an explicit seven or eight digit sophont body count before he turns 18.), the world governments mostly made an international hero school, so that's where MC ends up, recovering powers, running rescue missions, and so on. The school part is pretty low key so far, basically functioning as a barely there networking thing and excuse to have superpower granting VR machines.

... anyway, it does some decently interesting stuff, the MC isn't too bad for someone with genuinely serious issues and barely any time to decompress after waging impressively brutal war for months on end, so on, so forth. Worst bits are probably some grammar hiccups and general lack of physical challenge for MC McOPFace, but overall it's pretty alright and I don't mind the RSS.

E6: Returning to no applause, only more of the same! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/38312/returning-to-no-applause-only-more-of-the-same) A light 86k. This one... is actually pretty legitimately well written, I think. Technically isekai litrpg, more character stuff and issues with reintegrating an end-boss with mondo PTSD into society.

Dude gets hero-napped with some other kids (they eventually don't make it, ahaha), time-dilations through a century+ of trauma related to that, ultimately manages to make it back home ten years objective, 130 years subjective later.

Then stuff happens, and unlike very very many isekai MC, he's actually remarkably cooperative and the powers that be only somewhat idiot ball dealing with the two-legged WMD, so! Things go pretty smoothly, guy picks up a hobby, eventually reunited with family-wot-hadn't-been-eaten-by-magic-alligators, starts reintegrating with society... it's just steadily about-as-noce-as-can-be when dealing with someone that's spent the last three decades murdering people en masse literally non-stop. Guy's just happy to be back home and no longer dealing with entire nations failing to kill him.

Anyway, RSS'd quite cheerfully. The litrpg aspect isn't enough for me to exactly be looking forward to it, but it'll be refreshing to reread through at some point!

E7: Project You Have Died. (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/20107/project-you-have-died) 194k. This one is... honestly kinda' poo. Probably the worst thing I've read this year. Isekai nonsense with OP vampire elf MC and various junk themes ("hung like an elephant", prominent male gaze writing -- no, being told the cup size of half the female cast doesn't actually improve things -- casual slavery, etc.), some of the systems were kinda' okay and the thing regularly skirted having almost interesting ideas, but overall it's just kinda'... puerile, and not in a vaguely good way. Didn't RSS, wouldn't recommend.

Not-an-edit8:The Wielder of Chains! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/19123/the-wielder-of-chains-chronicles-of-a-patchwork) 275k, apparently, and claims to be completed. Felt shorter, though, and it's very definitely a "book 1" sort of story. Fairly neat setting, post system apocalypse sort of deal, pokemon as an inventory system, yadda yadda yadda. Biggest downside's probably the writing itself being occasionally shoddy, editing errors and such, and it's not that bad. Overall alright, in any case, and RSS'd in case a book 2 ever shows up.

E9: Doom Guy Isekai! (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/34854/doom-guy-isekai) 70 something k. Doom's MC gets isekai'd into ~generic system fantasy~... 's Hell. Proceeds to enact mindless, increasingly morally questionable mostly genocide on whatever local hellspawn they can get their hands on. It's okay for what it is (mindless doom-roadkills-demons silliness)! Probably given up on so far as writing goes? Eh. Was occasionally amusing, mostly just an even-more-idle-than-usual idle romp of a read. RSS'd just in case.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on February 20, 2021, 05:58:49 pm
Read some more books:

We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom - Bettina Love
Empire of Wild - Cherie Dimaline
Permutation City - Greg Egan

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 3/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 1/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 2/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 3/0 (click to show/hide)

The book by Cherie Dimaline was especially interesting. It was in the category of genre fiction written by Indigenous authors: in this case, a detective novel. I was disappointed by the climax and then surprised since the ending turned out to be much, much sadder than I had expected. The author certainly seemed new to novel-writing, but I enjoyed her style and humor; I have another one a bit like it out of the library and will try to read it sooner than later.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on February 21, 2021, 08:24:47 pm
... thank you for posting before I hit the character limit. I was starting to worry :P

Anyway~ Junk Emporium! (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/junk-emporium-my-hero-academia-the-celestial-forge.82039/reader/) 150k. My Hero Academia crossed with one of those... I forget what they're called, CYOA writing prompt things? Anyway, it supposedly uses basically an encounter table for powers the MC collects as the story goes along, with the writey person rolling with it, from what I understand. In this particular case with a focus on buildy stuff. There's at least one more fairly lengthy celestial forge thing I'm aware of, just set in Worm instead of MHA. Any case, it's... okay? It's okay. Decent romp, no major stylistic issues I can recall, read pretty smooth. Just now hitting the point really major things are starting to happen, though, so... yeah. Not RSS'd ('cause if you can do that on SV I'unno how), but watched with some cheerfulness, heh.

Also sometime in the next month or so, I'm (probably) going to be getting my hands on the cyber samurai TMNT mini-series, so... sorta' looking forward to reading that. Gonna' see Raph punch Hitler!

E: Dragonspawn! (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dragonspawn-my-hero-academia-si.53343/reader/) 280k. Dude gets blown up by a mine, reincarnates into my hero academia land as baby dragon shapeshifter chick. Lives life! Experiences significant trauma and loses the shapeshifter for just-be-a-dragon-all-the-time! Does hero in training-y stuff, has ~family drama~, grows as a person dragon. It's pretty nice. Watched with cheer!

E2: Scientia Weaponizes the Future! (https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/scientia-weaponizes-the-future.82203/reader/) Nibbly 74k. Adult lawyer gets isekai mind-melded into Wormverse Taylor, with super knowledge powers. Does things! Solves the P = NP thing! Other stuff! It's alright. Pretty fast moving, but also that perennial ~just getting to the good bit~ thing that always seems to be happening when you hit the end of the current work of an incomplete bit of fiction. Anyway, watched without reserve. Next!

e3: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/snapping-turtle-naruto-si.83751/reader/ snapping Turtle, see title, 120k good nuff to read in one day, no type more due to hurt hand

e4: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/mandalore-the-administrator.74563/reader/ title in url, star wars tinker taylor throwing wrenches around wormverse, 100k, totes dead due to writer life interrupt, wrist still fairly fucked so no typeformat junk, decent enough up to the point of kaput! Kinda' half-assed yuri plot, but one of the better half-assed yuri plots I've seen! anyway it's alright

e5: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/the-skittering-chaos-worm-hazbin-hotel-helluva-boss.86712/reader/ tiny 60-something k, somewhat nsfw, I guess? Nothing super explicit, but some pretty rough language and gore. Worm/Hazbin Hotel crossover, so, y'know. Anyway, it's fairly decent, seems to be trying a redemption(?) arc on some of the Merchants. Worm characters dealing with the whole hell-actually-exists dealio and what that means for, well, Worm characters. Post golden morning worm characters.

If nothing else it made me realize I'd never really considered the implications of afterlife + crapsack/post-apoc settings, where billions or trillions of people that led pretty shitty lives full of questionable decisions suddenly end up super dead en masse. It's a thought!
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on March 04, 2021, 11:16:49 am
Read some more books... sort of ... :

In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
[GAVE UP]x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 2/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 1/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 2/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 5/0 (click to show/hide)

I rearranged some things based on impressions in retrospect. Mind you, everything in the Other Books category was good, but it wasn't, like, ... ~amazing~.

I am also making a new category, "I read most of it and I'm not finishing."

Spoiler: I Didn't and Won't Finish Because Reasons (click to show/hide)

So, the Vicky Osterweil book was interesting, much more interesting than I had expected -- I picked it up as "a manifesto on a topic I don't agree with." It drags a little in maybe the fourth sixth of the book but in a pair with Debt: The First 5,000 Years, which I read last year, it became relevant to my interests. I won't say anything more in order to avoid turning this into the Ameripol thread, but if either of those topics sound interesting to you, I recommend giving them a read.

x+y is a book by an author I respect. Her first two books were excellent popularizations; her third book was at least an interesting reframing of arguments in 2016-ish America; however, in this book the mathematics she brings to bear and discusses is less sophisticated and interesting than in the previous books, and her plan to solve gender politics seems to be "what if we thought about gendered features like they were yin and yang (abstracted and decoupled both from sex assignment and gender identity) and then talked about whether we need more yin or more yang in our culture, rather than using words like 'feminism' that are considered divisive."

To be clear, I'm not saying it's a bad book. I have no idea. If this sounds like a fresh take to you, more power to you -- Eugenia Chang is a very strong expositor and a gentle author, and often has a lot of insight. However, it wasn't bringing anything new to my particular table -- so I stopped.


To wash that out of my mouth a little, I'm watching the movie Beanpole, based on a story by Svetlana Alexievich (author of Voices from Chernobyl). As soon as I've gotten past the borrowing block at my local library I'll put some effort to borrow another one of her books, I read the one and somehow forgot to read others. I'm really looking forward to it!
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on March 04, 2021, 12:23:55 pm
<_< are comics a book?

Tbh I've been reading 'a lot' but it's all just short stories and education materials crap. I just can't seem to get into novels anymore. Anything you can dive into when you have a free 10 minutes, basically.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on March 04, 2021, 12:38:53 pm
Ya! That stuff's great. What have you been reading?
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on March 04, 2021, 01:51:39 pm
Well one I do want to recommend others to read is The Antimemetics Division  (http://www.scpwiki.com/antimemetics-division-hub) ('There Is No Antimemetics Division' and 'Five Five Five Five Five') which're in the SCP Foundation universe, centring around a division dealing with antimemetic threats (no spoilers t_t). It's in easy to read parts and actually is one of the best stories I've read in awhile... both conceptually and emotionally. Lara Croft has literally nothing on Marion Wheeler. -.- It's kinda horror tho. Is it redundant to put that story on the "dark" side of horror? 'Cause it's that.

Uh.. the textbooks are Ian Loveland's Constitutional Law, Administrative Law and Human Rights (makes me want to get into political rants, but also yawn) and Clarkson & Keating: Criminal Law (less yawn, more ugh) for the modules I'm doing this year.

Also Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score which is about the science of traumatic stress (interesting, though a lot of it is kinda 'no duh'). It does manage to avoid being pop-science crap though, which a lot of books on the subject seem to have trouble with.

Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Yellow Pixel on March 04, 2021, 05:38:07 pm
I began reading 'There Is No Antimemetics Division'. I guess I can't stop now...

Except if I forget...
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: hector13 on March 04, 2021, 08:07:55 pm
I’ve only read 1984.

Was going to start LOTR but I haven’t got round to it yet.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on March 04, 2021, 09:40:20 pm
... makes me wonder if I'll ever get around to actually finishing the trilogy, that. Idly wonder with a side of "probably not", though. I remember the third bit being staggeringly boring; I dropped it part way through and never finished. Hobbit was pretty good stuff, at least :P
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Arx on March 05, 2021, 12:50:12 am
I've finished most of the Silmarillion and about a third of The Scramble for Africa, along with an immense quantity of assorted mixed-quality manga/comics. Probably going to reread Gardens of the Moon as my next fiction, so I can finally read Deadhouse Gates and make sense of the plot.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Arx on March 20, 2021, 02:11:04 pm
Double post! Finished the rest of the Silmarillion a while back. Cherry picked some parts from Unfinished Tales, too, and now about 400 pages into LOTR. It's possible I'll finish it over tomorrow and Monday, but a bit unlikely.

Gardens of the Moon had to be postponed as it wasn't on my shelf in the fifteen minutes I had to look for it before leaving the house for a trip, so that'll be later again. I also have my eye on Heart of Redness by Zakes Mda, and another of his books I spotted I haven't read, and I think I saw a Solzhenitsyn (whose name I can never quite spell, I think) that I also want to check out.

And on top of all that it's just possible my local library will be open or partially open, so I may browse there a bit soon too.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: delphonso on March 21, 2021, 05:10:21 am
Got hung up on Tolkien's Beowulf scholarship...
Speaking of dry, I've reignited my interest in coding so have been spending most of my reading time reading documentation on languages and various tutorials.

A bit less dry, but still dry: I read all the books from Morrowind (honestly after "the last days of the 1st era", it's much more enjoyable.)

Gonna try to read something a bit more enjoyable just to make progress on my goals. I'm still doing alright, overall.

Re: Solzhenitsyn (sp?), I read one of his books in university, perhaps it was Gulag Archipelago? I have also been meaning to revisit his work.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Arx on March 26, 2021, 11:10:17 am
Finished LOTR on Tuesday evening. Solid stuff.

Dropped by the bookshop while on an errand today and found a great sale on a bunch of SF/F, so I have two Alistair Reynolds novels, one by Gemmell, and another book in a series I need to restart from the beginning to add to the pile.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Travis Bickle on March 29, 2021, 03:14:12 am
Just finished The Reign of Christ the King: In Both Public and Private Life by Michael Davies.

(https://g.christianbook.com/dg/product/cbd/f400/84967EB.jpg)

It was a short but good read explaining how Christ’s kingship extends beyond being a private matter for individuals and into the affairs of states. Governments have the responsibility to uphold God’s moral law and to assist the Church in her work. Draws heavily on various Papal Encyclicals from Leo XIII, Pius X, and Pius XI which I’ll have to read at some point.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Jimmy on March 29, 2021, 06:06:05 am
Anybody else a fan of rational fiction?

Perhaps it's just a fad from a few years ago, but I enjoyed the trip down that particular rabbit hole. I enjoyed Eliezer Yudkowsky's take on Harry Potter and the community it generated.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Arx on March 29, 2021, 06:15:31 am
I've heard very few good things about Yudkowsky himself, I must confess. My stance on rationalist fiction would be that as long as it's fiction that's rational it's fine, but if the rationality gets in the way of the story then it's bad. I actually think some of the grandest stories are those where the reader can't figure everything out, because it draws from a rich fictional history that isn't info dumped at the reader. And also people aren't rational in reality.

So I guess I'd have to say I don't really care? A good story is a good story, and that's about as far as I go a lot of the time these days.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on March 29, 2021, 06:45:49 am
Yeah, MoR and the lesswrong stuff is/was kind of a raging tire fire from what I noticed. Community definitely didn't live up to the conceit, at least, and got stuck in with some pretty rancid shit, though I forget details at the moment. Been years since I registered that mess as anything other than "avoid" in my mind.

I think I read most of the fic at some point, at least, but never actually finished... interesting enough concept but the execution just got progressively worse, iirc. It's been a while and I don't expect to reread it, heh.

Occasionally run into "rational" fics of one sort or another, but I honestly can't recall any really standing out as particularly notable, right now. Folks certainly try and it's not an outright deal killer of a proposition, in any case. I'll give the stuff a shot, if not actively seek it out.

E: ... anyway, TMNT thing has been read. Was neat... ish? Weird in places, like the part raph just straight up shot a dude in the head, or the part where donnie turned around and revived said dude while, uh, reprogramming their brain to be a good cyborg catboy instead of an evil one so they could collaborate to nuke an oncoming world killer asteroid. It, um. Was a thing.

Definite upside, though, raph totally did punch hitler right in the face, so hey. also hitler's brain (just the brain, in a jar, with robot limbs) was running around trying to kill people but. look, it was odd, alright. Just take your mutant turtles punching nazis and be happy with that.

Also raph's girlfriend or whatever apparently wasn't the major TMNT fox chick, but a... different one? Really similar character design, but not the same one, it seems. Eh.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on April 02, 2021, 01:18:00 pm
If I remember correctly, Less Wrong ended up completely exploding over trans-related issues (and possibly also racism?). When I was young(er), I thought Methods of Rationality was neat because of the wild conversations some of the protagonists had, and the elevation of Hermione to a protagonist. I laughed regularly while reading it, which was basically all I wanted.

At this point, as the youth say, it's pretty cringe. I like hard sci-fi as much as the next person, but Greg Egan is a lot better at it.

Update in next post.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on April 02, 2021, 01:32:13 pm
It's actually been quite a while between my updates! I'm surprised. Books I finished since the last conversation:

The Only Good Indians - Stephen Graham Jones
x+y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender - Eugenia Chang
American Prison - Shane Bauer
The Warrior's Apprentice - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water - Zen Cho

EDIT: Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America - Ijeoma Oluo also read as of April 15.

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 2/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 1/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 3/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 9/0 (click to show/hide)

Of this batch, the most interesting book I read by far was American Prison, which featured an undercover reporter working as a guard in a US prison. He had also been imprisoned for two years in Iran, along with his wife, beforehand. Chapters alternate between describing the history of US prisons and the author's day-to-day experiences. I liked this book because I felt he generally did a good job of keeping his conclusions out of the story: the writing was compelling, and he traces a clear line between economic systems that turned slavery into convict leasing. I would definitely recommend this book for anyone who has some interest in learning more about US prisons.

Both The Warrior's Apprentice and The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water were what they used to call "romps." Although the former is a space opera and the latter is wuxia fiction originally written in English, they are both fundamentally of the same genre -- heist novels. I recommend both to people who generally like pulp.

Note that Warrior's Apprentice refers to trans characters using the pronoun "it" in both narration and dialogue, which I didn't like at all, but, well, it's an old book and I don't think that the author meant ill.

I went ahead and finished x+y and The Only Good Indians, kind of on principle, since I was interested in the authors' perspectives even if I didn't fully understand them. I neither recommend nor don't recommend them.

EDIT: similar for Mediocre: the dangerous legacy of white male America. Very clickbaity title, but it clarified some historical pieces for me.

Next up ... borrowed a bunch of books by Svetlana Alexievich ... and a bunch more pulp novels.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on April 02, 2021, 01:43:07 pm
That is many books. Well done

I haven't read anything, more than 3 lines on a book and I can't concentrate. Keep skipping the lines when I read. Or reading them over. Meh.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Arx on April 02, 2021, 01:49:38 pm
Solid stuff!

I read through Dark Prince by Gemmell. Didn't realise it was the sequel to a prior book, but IMO that probably made it a better read because it meant the characters had richer more developed history! (you might be able to tell from this and my last post that this is something I really like in books) On the whole though I'd rate it as a solid meh. I don't regret reading it or anything but it's very... genre-y blood and guts action fiction, with an unusually thick veneer of Greek history. I picked it up partly because it had a recommendation from Brent Weeks and I adore the Lightbringer series, but to be honest big parts of it felt to me like Weeks but worse (Gemmell is of course an older author so it's possibly an odd comparison, but there it is). It's left me craving a fantasy story with more grounding in personal reality and less glorying in... well, general glory.

I think I shall make an effort to finish the other half of The Scramble for Africa now. If after that I'm in the mood for sci-fi I'll crack open one of the Reynolds, if I'm looking for fantasy maybe The Hobbit, and if I feel like Literary I think I'll go for Mda.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: chaotic skies on April 02, 2021, 02:17:16 pm
Gonna try and finally read that Electronics for Dummies book I've had sitting around since I moved. That's it, anything else I'll either way over or undershoot.

As for just general discourse, anyone have some longer books or book series they can recommend? Personal preference is for science fiction/fantasy but I'll read almost anything :)
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on April 02, 2021, 02:44:44 pm
The Witcher series is somewhat long, not too long, and I absolutely loved it (fantasy). I also like the detective novel series by Jussi Adler-Olsen, Department Q.

And the Vorkosigan series, of which The Warrior's Apprentice is the first "true" entry, is very long and very well-loved science fiction.


Thank you for the appreciation, all. I have some other, more interesting education theory books on hold now too, and no longer owe the public library hundreds of dollars >_> So I am looking forward to more pleasant reading soon.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on April 02, 2021, 02:46:34 pm
How can you owe a public library money?
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on April 02, 2021, 02:57:57 pm
late fines,

or if they think you lost like 10 books,
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on April 02, 2021, 03:03:54 pm
>_> that is many books
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on April 02, 2021, 03:49:44 pm
Yeah, at that point you can still come in and read but we're not letting you check out any more books until you bring the others back (or pay us) :P

... though for hundreds of dollars, it also depends on the book. My joint has one that's like... five hundred bucks to replace, ferex. Not because it's particularly rare, but because it's a binder full of hundreds of color pictures of local wildflowers and it turns out that's really friggin' expensive to print >_<
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on May 01, 2021, 11:18:46 pm
Okie-dokie, updoot. Other than the books in my last edit, I also read:

How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson

I have read parts of:

rubik - Elizabeth Tan
Whipping Girl - Julia Serano
Moscow to the end of the line - Venedikt Erofeev
Mathematics for Human Flourishing - Francis Su
Black, Brown, Bruised - Emily Omotola McGee
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua

And some math books it will take a while to work through ...

Geometry of Schemes - Eisenbud + Harris
The Shape of Space - Weeks
Geometry of Surfaces - Stillwell
Mathematical Understanding of Nature - VI Arnold


Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 4/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 1/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 3/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 9/0 (click to show/hide)

Both of the books that I finished were pretty good, but especially How to Hide an Empire. I learned things about America's imperial influence that I'd never really understood, even if the bare bones were expressed to me in high school. More importantly, I learned some things about colonization, the "how the sausage is made" of it, that helped me to understand present geopolitics and the cold war more than I ever had. I very highly recommend this book.

Caste was interesting specifically because of the work it does to expose the underlying logic of race and reproduction of racism, partially by giving us the alienating viewpoint of comparing/contrasting with India's caste system. The book is especially beautifully written and again, helped me understand some of what was at stake in recent US politics in a way that I never had before. The author also relates personal anecdotes of her travels through different places' politics and caste systems that showed that what might seem "obvious" in one situation seems ridiculous in another situation.


Note to self for next post update, I read and need to file away:

Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: martinuzz on May 04, 2021, 08:41:33 am
I can heartily recommend Fredrik Backman's 'A man called Ove' ('En man som heter Ove').

A heartwarming good read about life.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: delphonso on May 06, 2021, 06:40:45 am
Progress report for to also reflect on what I read in the last couple months.

Goal - read 12 books at least this year.

3 fiction books, since I will certainly do that by the end of February.   1/3
- The Shadow over Innsmouth, Waiting for Godot, Morrowind Collected Books, Leaf by Niggle
3 non-fiction histories, biographies or the like. 1/3
- Bandersnatch
3 non-fiction academics. 2/3
- The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide, Raspberry Pi User Guide
2 books in not English (above kids book level, I guess. Maybe depends on the language.) 0/2
1 thing I wrote and actually consider finished.  0/1

Those Raspberry Pi books should also include...just mountains of documentation on Python libraries as I've been doing a bit of engineering as a hobby. Haven't read any good fiction lately, abandoned a lot of novels about 40 pages in...Maybe I should finish the Three Body Problem series.

Currently reading:
Make: Mechanical Engineering for Makers (Brian Bunnell and Samer Najia)
How to Be Anti-Racist (Ibram X. Kendi)
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on May 15, 2021, 06:49:01 pm
Finished this stuff:

Halfway Home - Reuben Jonathan Miller
Lost Voices - Svetlana Alexievich
"The Mountains of Mourning" - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Vor Game - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Shape of Space - Weeks
Grading for Equity: What it is, Why it Matters, and How it can Transform Schools and Classrooms - Feldman

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 5/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 1/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 2/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 11/0 (click to show/hide)


So hey, I completed one of my categories. Halfway Home was very interesting in terms of both content and style. The author managed to present the same issues from many sides and perspectives, avoiding easy answers but drawing small conclusions here and there. I would, again, recommend it to anyone here. The Prison section of my reading list is the MVP so far this year.

I also recommend Lost Voices by Svetlana Alexievich, which compiles an oral history taken from people who were children in the Soviet Union during WWII. Almost every important event or situation you could imagine is covered, tracing all kinds of people and all kinds of outcomes. I felt Voices from Chernobyl was a little stronger, but its presence doesn't make her other work any less valuable.

Quote from: martinuzz on May 04, 2021, 08:41:33 am
I can heartily recommend Fredrik Backman's 'A man called Ove' ('En man som heter Ove').

Added it to my list ...
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on June 01, 2021, 11:23:21 pm
Finished more stuff:

Stamped from the Beginning - Ibram X Kendi
Black, Brown, Bruised: How Racialized STEM Education Stifles Innovation - Ebony Omotola McGee
The City We Became - NK Jemisin
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 6/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 1/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 3/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 13/0 (click to show/hide)

I don't really feel like going into detail on everything, but I did find every book I read interesting. I'm super close to moving some of my books from the "awesome" list to the "generic stuff I read" list but we shall see what actually happens. There are only so many fantastic books out there, and I am pretty damn depressed.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Arx on June 05, 2021, 04:28:55 pm
I've been rambling around reading some of the most eclectic selections of literature. Three web fictions: A Practical Guide to Evil, which I cannot recommend highly enough, The Good Student which was thoroughly mediocre without being offensively bad and I don't recall if I dropped it halfway or simply decided not to wait for updates,and Metaworld Chronicles which is a curious melange of things I hate but nonetheless holds my interest for reasons unclear.

Now cutting across from things unknown because they're very modern self-published affairs to things obscured by age, I quite enjoyed Eminent Victorians, a 1918 set of biographies by Lytton Strachey, covering Cardinal Henry Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr Thomas Arnold, and General Charles Gordon.

Also aged, but less unknown (although I would say rather possessed of an unfair reputation), I gave Machiavelli's The Prince a read. Some of the political theory still holds today, some doesn't, but on the whole the notion of it being a manual of tortured deceit and political evil seems a bit overwrought.

The less controversial leadership manual I also picked up over the weekend was How to Win Friends and Influence People, which I fear is now a victim of its own old success as most of what's in it seems to me to be common sense. Common sense worth having written down and reading, and I have no way of knowing if it were common sense in the 30s, but there wasn't anything in it that was a great upset to me.

My family is now questioning my taste, but really if you don't know why the Papal succession of John XXII was potentially controversial can you really be considered a scholar?
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on July 01, 2021, 01:09:07 pm
I didn't read a whole lot this month. Here it is:

The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard
Ping Pong Omnibus, Vol. 1 - Taiyo Matsumoto

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, 7/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 1/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 3/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 4/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 15/0 (click to show/hide)

I still feel good about my current progress, since I have only one more education theory book to go and it's summer, a good time to read Chinese Classics and math textbooks.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on July 30, 2021, 02:23:27 pm
I read a whole fuckton this month. I'm updating a little early but I'll edit the post on August 1. I've decided to go through the books I read at the end of the year and decide which best match the "12 awesome fiction/nonfiction books" category.

This month I finished:

Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of our Time - James Kilgore
The Echo Wife - Sarah Gailey
Cetaganda - Lois McMaster Bujold
Magic for Liars - Sarah Gailey
How to kill a city - Peter Moskowitz
Tokyo Ueno Station - Yu Miri
Leviathan - Boris Akunin
The Psychology of Learning Mathematics - Skemp
Ninefox Gambit - Yoon Ha Lee
An Indigenous People's History of the United States - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

I am also most of the way through:
Persuasion - Jane Austen
Hexarchate Stories - Yoon Ha Lee


Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 1/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 30/0 (click to show/hide)

It's a little bit shocking to me that I've already finished 40 books this year, especially given how much I have been struggling to concentrate on anything at all.

I'm pretty sure now that I'll stick the landing on the "12 awesome books" challenge, so this month I want to phase in daily mathematics and non-English language reading, and plan for sessions reading Chinese classics on Saturdays. I have been reading some of Romance of the Three Kingdoms but I think I would enjoy it more if I tried a little harder to be consistent, and to read in big chunks.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Frumple on July 30, 2021, 02:34:34 pm
Oh hey, I cataloged Magic for Liars at... some point. Going by the publish date probably sometime in 2019 or early 2020. Pretty sure I stuffed a new (well, for our collection, book itself was an older donation, iirc) copy of persuasion somewhere this year, too.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on August 28, 2021, 05:05:04 pm
Updates for the month of August.

Raven Strategem - Yoon Ha Lee
Ethan of Athos - Lois McMaster Bujold
Double Take - Kevin Michael Connolly
Revenant Gun - Yoon Ha Lee
The Rise of Kyoshi - FC Yee
Beartown - Fredrik Backman
Girls' Last Tour vol. 3
The Factory - Hiroko Oyamada
Functions and Graphs - Gelfand, Glagoleva, Schnol
Invincible, Ultimate collection vol. 1-8
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - Oliver Sacks

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0.33/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 2/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 48/0 (click to show/hide)

Feeling pretty good about my reading this month, especially having finished a Japanese book and a math book. I'm also partway through a number of other books and am working on getting through The Scholars.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on October 01, 2021, 11:50:26 pm
Update for the month of September.

Komi Can't Communicate Vol. 1
Girls' Last Tour Vol. 4
"Borders of Infinity" - Lois McMaster Bujold
Brothers in Arms - Lois McMaster Bujold
Mirror Dance - Lois McMaster Bujold
Shards of Honor - Lois McMaster Bujold
Barrayar - Lois McMaster Bujold
Hunt, Gather, Parent - Michaeleen Doucleff
Bowling Alone - Robert Putnam

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0.66/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 2/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 56/0 (click to show/hide)

whoo.

I'm definitely not going to make my yearly goals, and I guess that has to be ok.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on October 30, 2021, 02:47:45 pm
Update for the month of October.

The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo
Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold
Komarr, Lois McMaster Bujold
Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony, Mira Ong Chua
A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0.66/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 2/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 61/0 (click to show/hide)

74 books read so far this year ...

I don't know how I'm going to rejigger my reading goals for next year, but it's clear to me that this didn't exactly work. That's OK. I learned enough about prison to put my knowledge into practice, and I'm definitely doing better at reading books I like instead of just. Plowing through books because they're ~around~.

Next year, I want to do regular Japanese reading as part of preparation for the JLPT, but it's clear to me that I need to master more kanji and vocab first to make that a reasonable habit; getting through the rest of Wanikani first would really help. I also think it needs to be more about the regular habit and less about the absolute number of books.

I want to read more challenging texts -- not meaning hard, but ones that I will have to change my perspective in order to accommodate. And I want to engage with them more. Write about them maybe, think about what they have to say.

I want to keep reading down my paper TBR list and read more books that I really enjoy, not just MFA program detritus.

I want to read another batch of educational texts next year. Four texts seemed reasonable to me for a year's goal.

I think I might wait on the Great Chinese Classics. They're very long and unwieldy. I might try to just read one next year. On the other hand, this year was very hard on a lot of levels and January through August were basically a wash. I'm not sure what's possible.

It would be neat to translate some poetry ...
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Caz on October 30, 2021, 03:54:26 pm
i dont think i read a book in 3 months except for bits of journey to ixtlan
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Cthulhu on November 10, 2021, 11:10:40 am
Been reading mostly non-fiction lately, important to note I rarely finish nonfiction books.

Finished:
The first two earthsea books and Lathe of Heaven, all good.

The F-Word, a book arguing the US is fascist.  Good.  This one's weird cause it seems like a common line of argument nowadays but it's by David McGowan the conspiracy guy and it goes in that direction.  A lot of strange or verifiably wrong shit but some interesting thoughts.  His thoughts on WW2 are especially interesting, he basically argues that the war was Germany vs the USSR with western europe as an afterthought, and that America entered the war entirely to contain the USSR and preserve as much of Nazi Germany as possible, which mostly tracks.  Generally a lot of false things, and a lot of speculation and extrapolation of true things, until it's hard to tell what's real and what's not.  Fun book though, also interesting because it's a book on the American police state and global imperialism published like three months before 9/11.  The author was one of the first, maybe the first person to publish inside job theories online. 

Death Wish by some guy.  The book the movie is based on.  Weird.  Looking at the author apparently he intended a celebration of vigilantism and lots of racially-coded stuff about "thugs" and "gangs" etc. but it seemed critical to me.  A book about a guy whose feelings of helplessness and emasculation boil over until he lashes out and becomes the same kind of psycho criminal his family was victimized by.  Notably early on he's enraged when someone implies it was his wife's fault for trusting her attackers when they knocked on the door.  Later he sees some teens walking by and thinks to himself they shouldn't dress like hoodlums because he might shoot them.  The way his viewpoint inverts like this made me feel like the book was more nuanced than "it's good to go out and murder criminals" but with the author it's hard to say.

Currently Reading:  Hyperion by Dan Simmons.  This one's kind of impossible to briefly summarize, but I think most people have heard of it.  A group of seven people journey to the backwater colony world of Hyperion on a pilgrimage to its mysterious "time tombs."  These pilgrimages happen periodically but this will probably be the last one because of Circumstances.  Along the way each one tells a story about their connections to Hyperion.  It's the Decameron but in space, and this description doesn't really do it justice, it's a Dune-tier weird sci-fi epic.

Books I partly read but didn't finish:

A shitload of them, can't remember all of them and don't feel like summarizing.  Most recently Hannah Arendt's book on antisemitism, Seeing Like a State, a book on Afghanistan, a bunch of stuff.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Cthulhu on November 16, 2021, 10:38:23 pm
More books, I'm moving fast right now.

Finished Hyperion book 1 and came up with a good non-spoiler synopsis:  Every single person in the galaxy has this huge conspiratorial plan and the story is the clusterfuck that ensues when everyone puts their plans into action simultaneously and realizes everyone else had one too.

Finished Hyperion book 2 as well, I slammed this one back in one day.  I don't want to say it's better than book 1 but it had me reading compulsively all the way through.  This is the one where the above clusterfuck really kicks off. 

There are two more Hyperion books but I haven't started on them yet, taking a break to read another Dan Simmons book, Carrion Comfort.  This one's pretty weird but also engaging, a horror novel with pretty grand scope, something I usually don't like but it works well here.  Some small portion of humans are psychic vampires.  They're like a cross between vampires, cronenberg scanners, and conspiracy theory adrenochrome addicts.  They can connect to people and share their thoughts as well as physically control their bodies, and they feed on the emotional turmoil of their victims as they're forced to do horrible things, and as long as they do it regularly they don't age.  A small group of more casual vampires end up killing each other and the messy fallout threatens to expose a much bigger, deeper conspiracy.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Yoink on November 17, 2021, 04:25:58 pm
I was doing well for a while, but then Dracula took me ages to get through (mostly due to distraction, especially with the world and my social life finally starting to open up somewhat - the book itself actually made for a surprisingly gripping read, considering what I'd heard about it over the years) to the point that I ended up with Goodreads telling me to read a book a week at one point. I may have read a cheeky graphic novel to catch up a bit, heh.   
Now I'm re-reading 100 Years of Solitude, an old favourite I'd been wanting to read again for years, and I really need to knuckle down and get stuck into it. Might be time to turn the ol' smartphone off for a while, methinks.   

I'm at 31 of 36.   


Edit: oh, two things I forgot to mention.   
Firstly, I picked up a copy of Hyperion (along with many other amazingly cheap books) at a surprisingly well-stocked op shop in a little country town earlier in the year. I've been meaning to read that for some time, it looks fantastic.   

Secondly, "a book a week" wouldn't have been far-fetched for me as a kid, when I was a speed reader who split the bulk of his free time pretty evenly between reading and videogames, but now (although I can achieve some pretty decent read-rates on the odd occasion that I'm in the zone and focused) it seemer almost absurdly unlikely.   
Anyway, that's it, gonna turn my phone off and do some reading now.   
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on December 03, 2021, 08:15:39 pm
Update for the month of November.

"Winterfair Gifts", Lois McMaster Bujold
Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold
Interior Chinatown, Charles Yu
This is How you Lose the Time War
The Flowers of Vashnoi, Lois McMaster Bujold
Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, Lois McMaster Bujold
A Burst of Light and other Essays, Audre Lorde
The Shadow of Kyoshi, FC Yee
The Samurai's Garden, Gail Tsukiyama

Spoiler: Goal (click to show/hide)

Progress:

Spoiler: 12 Awesome Fiction/Nonfiction Books, PENDING/12 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Great Chinese Classics, 0/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Non-English Language, 0.66/6 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Unrequired Math Books, 2/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Books on Education Theory, 4/4 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: All About Prison, 5/4 (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Other books, 71/0 (click to show/hide)

84 books read so far this year ...

So much was thrown off by my severe depression in the first part of the year that it's been hard to attempt the majority of my goals for 2021. I hope that next year can be more stable.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on December 31, 2021, 02:43:17 pm
Month of December: *surprised pikachu face*

Yeah, I literally didn't finish a single book this month. I'm not even sure I cracked a book open. So the November post is where the year ends.

Choosing only the books from the unlisted category, here are the best that I read this year:

Permutation City - Greg Egan
In Defense of Looting - Vicky Osterweil
How to Hide an Empire - Daniel Immerwahr
The Unwomanly Face of War - Svetlana Alexievich
The Seventh Day - Yu Hua
Caste - Isabel Wilkerson
Hexarchate Trilogy - Yoon Ha Lee

A number of the other books were pretty good, but these seven were definitely the best. I learned a lot from this year's efforts.

1. Most importantly, I developed a much better sense of my own taste and how it differs from the standard books that tend to be recommended in certain venues. I am becoming more skilled at determining whether a book is going to contribute substantially to my knowledge or not.

2. I am reading a much more diverse list of authors than I was say, two years ago. I was surprised that, selecting solely on quality and with the intention of selecting up to twelve authors, my top seven authors for this year included two trans people, three women, and three authors of a different racial background than me.

2.' This was very much helped by actively pushing myself to listen to people whose points sounded disagreeable, and joining yearly reading challenges focusing on breadth over on Habitica.

3. One of my goals for the next year needs to be getting my hoard of owned or to-be-read books under control. I signed up for Storygraph at some point and might try to import my paper list over there.
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Yoink on January 03, 2022, 08:17:58 am
Oh right, I finished my goal just in time, on the 28th! I could have hit 36 books a lot sooner if I wasn't so easily distracted, but alas.   
Might aim for 40 this time. We'll see.   
Title: Re: 2021 Hot Fresh Reading Challenge Thread
Post by: Vector on January 03, 2022, 01:52:50 pm
OK! Come post in the 2022 thread!