I can't compete with any of that. I have just read 'The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association' by Caitlin Rozakis (highly recommended) and am just about to start rereading Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time. I'm also working my way through a book on the siege of York in 1644. Reading about other people surviving horrible situations is surprisingly comforting at the moment...
Might have been me @Boogie, I really liked it a lot.
I’ve just bought The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller on the recommendation of several friends. I need to re/read Persuasion first though for one of my book clubs.
I can't compete with any of that. I have just read 'The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association' by Caitlin Rozakis (highly recommended) and am just about to start rereading Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time. I'm also working my way through a book on the siege of York in 1644. Reading about other people surviving horrible situations is surprisingly comforting at the moment...
OMG I just googled and she’s the daughter-in-law of DC comics person, Bob Rozakis!!! Awesome!!! (I grew up not only reading some comics that he was involved in, but also his “ask the DC answer man” in the back of the comics back in the 1970s!!)
I can't compete with any of that. I have just read 'The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association' by Caitlin Rozakis (highly recommended) and am just about to start rereading Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time. I'm also working my way through a book on the siege of York in 1644. Reading about other people surviving horrible situations is surprisingly comforting at the moment...
OMG I just googled and she’s the daughter-in-law of DC comics person, Bob Rozakis!!! Awesome!!! (I grew up not only reading some comics that he was involved in, but also his “ask the DC answer man” in the back of the comics back in the 1970s!!)
(Yes, I’m that much of a comics geek.)
He also created the character Mr. E at DC, presumably not the same person as our new Shipmate @MrE …
I finally finished reading The Suttanipāta : An Ancient Collection of the Buddha’s Discourses Together with Its Commentaries (Bhikkhu Bodhi, translator). I have been slowly making my way through this. The Discourses themselves are pretty short and easy to read, but the associated Ancient Commentaries are a slog to get through. Often they read like a thesaurus. The discourse will use a word like "desire" then you flip to the commentary to read "desire: yearn for; crave; long for; wish for; hunger for; inclined to; thirst for; hanker for..." My favorite example (way near the end of the book): The discourse used the word "twice" to which the commentary, for some reason, felt compelled to inform me helpfully that twice meant two times.
Fortunately, the discourses were short, so that the book was the sort that you could read a couple pages, then put it down for several days or weeks and then pick it up again. Which is why it has taken me a couple years to get all the way through it. To finish it. To complete it. To read to the end....
Am now reading a biography of Dick Allen, a baseball player from the 1960s-70s. At the time the book was written he had not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame, but he was finally (posthumously) inducted last year.
I have just started Kurt Vonnegurt "Breakfast of Champions". I mean, Kurt is a legendary writer and this is - so far - viciously sarcastic. It is also hilarious, if you like a rather dark humour. Well, very dark in some places.
He has quite definitely taken the shackles off and is writing totally unconstrained. I am loving it. I have a few more of his on my kindle, so will enjoy getting into more if his.
Where do people get ideas for what to read from? I hear of people reading more books in a week than I'd read in a year - but in part it's because I really struggle to find books that engage me.
Is there a (reliable) "if you liked that you might like this" service somewhere?
@KarlLB, almost all my books are electronic, and sometimes the website will suggest something to me. However, I find my most helpful suggestions come from our own book club here on the Ship!
I'm reading one right now that was on a thread quite some time ago. (2024? 2025?)
@KarlLB, almost all my books are electronic, and sometimes the website will suggest something to me. However, I find my most helpful suggestions come from our own book club here on the Ship!
I'm reading one right now that was on a thread quite some time ago. (2024? 2025?)
It's knowing whether I'll like something that's the tricky part for me! I don't have a great hit rate; I finish less than half the books I start. Authors have to be quite obvious with me; I know that the received wisdom is "Show, don't tell", but you often have to explicitly tell me what you're showing me.
I notice with some pleasure that On The Calculation of Volume IV is now on pre-order and I should have my grubby mitts on one in early April.
I take recommendations from friends and the Ship (I've discovered several authors from recommendations on this thread). I sometimes find a new writer from the salesbot on Amazon: algorithms aren't always wrong. If I can, I borrow books by a new (to me) writer from a library or buy them second-hand to see if I like them before buying new books by them. Trying out a new author is an investment of time, but it doesn't have to involve spending money.
I don't think abandoning a book you're not enjoying counts as failure (or if it does, it's not your failure). Life is too short to read books you don't enjoy (unless you have to for work).
My neighbour lent me a book by one of her friends: Out of the Darkness by Lar Dooley. The subtitle is "A sacred journey into the origins of Indigenous Irish Spirituality". He's taking a close look at the group of megalithic tombs and cairns around Loughcrew, which I hadn't heard of before, but seem quite spectacular, with rock art and passages aligned to the sunrise on the equinox, in the case of Cairn T. He's not an academic, so he tends to say things like "This carving is theorized to be...." without saying who made the theory. It's interesting enough that I'd like to go to Loughcrew to see for myself - there's a Megalithic Centre there that the author is involved with.
I am just starting Qiu Xiaolong's tenth Inspector Chen novel, Hold Your Breath, China.
It was first published back in 2020, but I missed it when it came out because Qiu had switched publishers (this is put out by Severn House), who apparently had no deal with my local Barnes & Noble Bookstore to carry it...or any of the subsequent volumes!
Some critics state that Qiu's novels are more about depictions of contemporary life in China, with the mystery aspect just a convenient framing device. That is an overstatement, but there is some truth to it.* This is going to be an environmental pollution themed story. China's water pollution had been addressed in the earlier Don't Cry, Tai Lake, but from the title I assume China's air pollution is the focus of this story.
*All of the Inspector Chen stories have a sub-plot concerning his position within the Party structure. In volume 1, he was an up-and-comer in the Party, but his job is to investigate politically sensitive cases and over time that has brought him a number of enemies within the Party. At the end of the prior volume, Shanghai Redemption, he was clearly on the outs with influential people, such that his career is endangered.
I picked up a couple of random Benjamin January books by Barbara Hambly, and I've just started Good Man Friday, in which he travels from New Orleans to Washington DC in the 1830s, and finds it full of slaves (he is a free man of color). Because Barbara Hambly also wrote some very good Star Trek novels, I tend to imagine Benjamin January being played by Avery Brooks (Captain Benjamin Sisko in Deep Space 9).
Just to add, I'm really enjoying the Barbara Hambly - side characters include Edgar Allen Poe and John Quincy Adams (who I knew little about apart from his name) so I'm learning quite a bit of American history!
Thanks @Eigon I now have a better visual tag for Benjamin January when re-reading! I have all of those books bar the latest one or two, including the short stories Barbara Hambly released via her website (also available on smashwords and Kobo, possibly elsewhere too), having picked up A Free Man of Color soon after it was published.
I suspect that most of what I know about North American history from that time period comes ftom those books.
I enjoyed Good Man Friday so much I'm going straight on to the other Benjamin January novel I found - Drinking Gourd, where Ben gets involved with the Underground Railway - instead of choosing something else from my TBR shelf.
I just finished A Deadly Education, the first book in Naomi Novik's Scholomance trilogy. Wow, it's dark, but very enjoyable. Sort of the anti-Harry Potter, about students in a hostile and dangerous magical school.
It's what Harry Potter would have been like if everyone had been in Slytherin and JKR had been a better writer. I love that trilogy, but I really wish I'd discovered it after all three volumes had been published because the cliffhangers at the end of parts 1 and 2 are brutal.
The whole trilogy is awesome. I'm in awe of her ability to invent twist after twist, mostly having to do with El's ah, understanding of the aims and methods of the Scholomance--and each new understanding is so plausible but turns out to be incomplete...
We have a new and rather wonderful fantasy and sci-fi bookshop in town. I've been in twice and it has been so packed I can't get to the shelves to have a browse. I'm going to have another go, it's got a reading nook and I'd love to sit there and decide which of the many books I'd like to buy. The Scholomance trilogy sounds like it might be a good place to start.
I'm doing re-reading. Just read again Sweet Bean Paste (Japanese title An) by Durian Sukagewa. I saw the film years ago on a flight. The book provides more insight into the characters and a philosophy of life for a maker and seller of Dorayaki - pancake sandwich filled with sweet bean paste - who is saved by a confectionary maker whose life was mostly in a leper colony in Tokyo.
I like books where food is a window into a person's life.
I'm doing re-reading. Just read again Sweet Bean Paste (Japanese title An) by Durian Sukagewa. I saw the film years ago on a flight. The book provides more insight into the characters and a philosophy of life for a maker and seller of Dorayaki - pancake sandwich filled with sweet bean paste - who is saved by a confectionary maker whose life was mostly in a leper colony in Tokyo.
I like books where food is a window into a person's life.
I enjoy dorayaki—have you had it? (I’ve also tried durian (the fruit), and did not know that could also be a person’s name. It was, ah, not to my taste.)
I've just come back from EasterCon with some new stuff to read. I was vaguely aware that Juliet McKenna had written a book involving the Green Man and other British mythology, so I found the Wizard's Tower Press table in the dealer's room - and she's written eight so far! I grabbed the first two, and I'm sure I'll be back for more.
There was also a table in the Fan Lounge for book and fanzine swaps - and I picked up Piratica III by Tanith Lee - it's about a single mother who is also a Pirate Queen!
I'm doing re-reading. Just read again Sweet Bean Paste (Japanese title An) by Durian Sukagewa. I saw the film years ago on a flight. The book provides more insight into the characters and a philosophy of life for a maker and seller of Dorayaki - pancake sandwich filled with sweet bean paste - who is saved by a confectionary maker whose life was mostly in a leper colony in Tokyo.
I like books where food is a window into a person's life.
I enjoy dorayaki—have you had it? (I’ve also tried durian (the fruit), and did not know that could also be a person’s name. It was, ah, not to my taste.)
Yes, I like dorayaki. The book has a shop that serves only dorayaki. I've mostly got mine from a Lawson or 7-11. I've been to a number of places in Japan that seat under 10 people. One had room for only 4 and we were lucky that two people were leaving when we entered.
I have just started The Long Divorce by Edmund Crispin. Technically, it is a re-read, but because I last read it about 40 years ago I find that I have zero memories as to the plot. As such, it is like reading a new mystery.
I am now moving on to the eleventh Inspector Chen novel, published in 2020. Becoming Inspector Chen. When the series started with Death of a Red Heroine. Chen Cao was just being appoint Chief Inspector of the Shanghai Police Bureau. At that time, he was an up-and-coming Party member with expectations that he would rise in the Party. However, as the books go along, he gets more and more on the bad side of the Party officials in Beijing. At the end of the previous book (see my March 23 post, above), he stops a serial killer, but in a way that the top Party authority considered to be "not in the interests of the Party."
As a result, we start this novel with Chen Cao fully expecting to be relieved of his position as Chief Inspector at any moment. Despite his familiarity with poetry, he is being deliberately kept out of investigating a case of an anti-Party poem being posted on social media because the higher-ups deem him politically unreliable. All of this is the hook for Chen to review the events of his life leading to this moment. In short, I expect this to be his "origin story" although possibly leading to setting the series off on a new direction independent of the Shanghai Police Bureau.
I'm taking a short break from my backlog of Classic Crime Novels from the British Library and reading Mudlarking by Lara Maiklem, about her finds and experiences as a mudlark, exploring the tidal banks of the Thames. An interesting insight into the small bits of history she finds and why it means so much to her.
That does sound interesting. On Bluesky, I follow Germander Speedwell who regularly posts photos and videos of her discoveries on the Thames shores. Fascinating stuff!
I've just come out of spending a couple of weeks reading all of Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci novels. I wasn't feeling well and wanted some comfort reading. Some I know well, others less so, but I've thoroughly enjoyed diving into the world the books are set in.
I've just come out of spending a couple of weeks reading all of Diana Wynne Jones' Chrestomanci novels. I wasn't feeling well and wanted some comfort reading. Some I know well, others less so, but I've thoroughly enjoyed diving into the world the books are set in.
I just read (in one sitting) the new Lois McMaster Bujold Penric and Desdemona novella, Darksight Dare. It's a wonderful addition to the series. The author is in her 70s now, and I keep worrying that each installment will be the last, but with this one she's still going strong.
(I don't know if I should interrupt this thread, that I don't usually read, with what feels like a public service announcement. But I just finished 'Magisteria' by Nicholas Spencer, which is a thick book in small type about the history of the relationship between science and religion. It took me about 6 months on and off; that's a reflection on me, because the book is deft and funny, as well as ridiculously comprehensive (IM limited V). How the author distilled that much history and made so many connections when constructing it (my memory is increasingly poor, so I had a job just reading it and even half-remembering what was going on) amazes me. If you are bright, religious or at least sympathetic, scientific, and still have a working memory, you might enjoy it. And you'll find out what Michael Faraday had in common with our own @Sandemaniac).
I have 550 books on my to-read list on Goodreads. Partly this is because GR makes it so easy to click "Want to Read" on anything that sounds even remotely interesting, but this list is just out of control. My reading project for the rest of this year and into next is to try (as much as possible) to read ONLY books that are on that TBR list while trying not to add (too much) to it. Also, as I go through the list, I will take a look at books I marked as "Want to Read" four or five years ago and ask honestly, "Do I still want to read this book? Or was it a passing fancy that no longer interests me?" If the latter, I will remove it from the list.
I usually read about 100-120 books a year, so in theory I could accomplish this in under 5 years, but probably less because of culling books from the list. However, I'm not willing to commit to that long-term of a project: I'm saying this is my goal for the rest of 2026 and then for 2027. After that, we'll see where the list is.
I will try NOT to be led astray by interesting books that catch my eye as I wander through bookstores or roam around the internet. I will not be led into buying $1.99 ebooks that sound "kind of interesting" on the premise that even if it's not, I've only lost $1.99. I will ruthlessly make my way through this list -- obviously not expecting to read 550 books in a year and a half or so, but trying to cull this list down into something more manageable. It should be an interesting journey through my own past taste and interests, if nothing else!
Anyone else have a to-read list (or physical pile of books) that is out of control?
I've had some books on my TBR list for about ten years! And I still keep finding new things to add that look interesting. To be fair, several of them are not easily available in the UK, and one of them (Dark Matter: Poems of Space) is insanely expensive secondhand.
I was also sad to see that CJ Cherryh has announced her retirement from writing - she's 83 now, and has been ill. I always enjoy re-reading her Pride of Chanur series, and Downbelow Station Alliance-Union books.
I have a physical TBR pile next to the sofa which is currently about 12 books - including LoTR which is a reread. I need to reduce it a bit because it's getting to the point where a careless elbow when drinking my tea is liable to knock them over.
I tend to read ebooks as soon as I get them, or at least within a few days. Ebooks are easier to carry around.
@NicoleMR I too have just read the latest Penric and Desdemona novella and also loved it. I do sometimes wonder how Penric's books about sorcery were lost over the years between his life and the events in the Chalion duology. Or maybe they never got to Chalion?
I currently have about 20 classic crime books waiting to be read. This is in addition to approx 25 other books. None of these will be read in the next two months, whilst I am in Canada, so they'll be waiting for me when I get home.
(I'm not taking any physical books with me, but have over a dozen lined up on my Kindle Fire.)
Lining up a bunch of books on my iPad is one of my great pleasures in getting ready for a trip -- such an improvement over trying to jam physical books into my luggage and hoping I don't run out, back in the good old days! I have vivid memories of our 2006 trip to the UK when after a week in London we were spending another week on a narrowboat and I was afraid my stash of paperbacks would run out while we were on the canal and unable to find a bookstore! (We hit up a bookstore for emergency supplies before leaving London). E-books definitely make travel easier for avid readers.
@Jane R I wonder the same thing. And the general knowledge among the population about sorcery seems to be much less in the Chalion books as well. Realistically it's because Bujold is inventing as she goes along but I wonder at an in-universe explanation as well.
Enough Said, Alan Bennett’s latest (perhaps last, as he will be 92 in May) collection of diary entries and essays. He is a great favorite of mine. I have his previous collections of diary entries and essays, along with some of his fiction and plays.
Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm. It’s a layperson’s introduction to psychoanalytical theory, and how analysis is carried out by practitioners. Malcolm wrote another book about a major kerfuffle in the psychoanalytic world, called In the Freud Archives, which I also liked. She wrote a lot of essays for The New Yorker, from which many if her books were adapted. I like her writing style and intelligence a lot, and there is a chilliness in her writing that reminds me a bit of Joan Didion (whose essays I like but whose fiction I do not like.)
Right now I’m slogging through Albert Speer: His Battle With Ttuth by Gita Sereny. It’s well-written, but she seemed quite determined to wrest some melodramatic mea culpa out of Speer that he had no intention of providing. It would appear he could not or would not admit that he knew much more than he confessed to at Nuremberg. This not a fun read for sure, but I wanted to know more about what could have made an intelligent and cultured person like Speer choose not see what was right in front of him.
Comments
I’ve just bought The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller on the recommendation of several friends. I need to re/read Persuasion first though for one of my book clubs.
Thank you.
I don't think she has written as any other books?
OMG I just googled and she’s the daughter-in-law of DC comics person, Bob Rozakis!!! Awesome!!! (I grew up not only reading some comics that he was involved in, but also his “ask the DC answer man” in the back of the comics back in the 1970s!!)
(Yes, I’m that much of a comics geek.)
He also created the character Mr. E at DC, presumably not the same person as our new Shipmate @MrE …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Rozakis
Book fountain in Budapest 🙂
https://youtu.be/-ijoqHaVpjQ?si=SgMRPEE4wFiajhCE
Love it!
Fortunately, the discourses were short, so that the book was the sort that you could read a couple pages, then put it down for several days or weeks and then pick it up again. Which is why it has taken me a couple years to get all the way through it. To finish it. To complete it. To read to the end....
Am now reading a biography of Dick Allen, a baseball player from the 1960s-70s. At the time the book was written he had not yet been elected to the Hall of Fame, but he was finally (posthumously) inducted last year.
He has quite definitely taken the shackles off and is writing totally unconstrained. I am loving it. I have a few more of his on my kindle, so will enjoy getting into more if his.
Is there a (reliable) "if you liked that you might like this" service somewhere?
I'm reading one right now that was on a thread quite some time ago. (2024? 2025?)
It's knowing whether I'll like something that's the tricky part for me! I don't have a great hit rate; I finish less than half the books I start. Authors have to be quite obvious with me; I know that the received wisdom is "Show, don't tell", but you often have to explicitly tell me what you're showing me.
I notice with some pleasure that On The Calculation of Volume IV is now on pre-order and I should have my grubby mitts on one in early April.
I don't think abandoning a book you're not enjoying counts as failure (or if it does, it's not your failure). Life is too short to read books you don't enjoy (unless you have to for work).
I also reread my favourites.
It was first published back in 2020, but I missed it when it came out because Qiu had switched publishers (this is put out by Severn House), who apparently had no deal with my local Barnes & Noble Bookstore to carry it...or any of the subsequent volumes!
Some critics state that Qiu's novels are more about depictions of contemporary life in China, with the mystery aspect just a convenient framing device. That is an overstatement, but there is some truth to it.* This is going to be an environmental pollution themed story. China's water pollution had been addressed in the earlier Don't Cry, Tai Lake, but from the title I assume China's air pollution is the focus of this story.
*All of the Inspector Chen stories have a sub-plot concerning his position within the Party structure. In volume 1, he was an up-and-comer in the Party, but his job is to investigate politically sensitive cases and over time that has brought him a number of enemies within the Party. At the end of the prior volume, Shanghai Redemption, he was clearly on the outs with influential people, such that his career is endangered.
I suspect that most of what I know about North American history from that time period comes ftom those books.
I like books where food is a window into a person's life.
I enjoy dorayaki—have you had it? (I’ve also tried durian (the fruit), and did not know that could also be a person’s name. It was, ah, not to my taste.)
There was also a table in the Fan Lounge for book and fanzine swaps - and I picked up Piratica III by Tanith Lee - it's about a single mother who is also a Pirate Queen!
Yes, I like dorayaki. The book has a shop that serves only dorayaki. I've mostly got mine from a Lawson or 7-11. I've been to a number of places in Japan that seat under 10 people. One had room for only 4 and we were lucky that two people were leaving when we entered.
One try at Durian was enough for me.
As a result, we start this novel with Chen Cao fully expecting to be relieved of his position as Chief Inspector at any moment. Despite his familiarity with poetry, he is being deliberately kept out of investigating a case of an anti-Party poem being posted on social media because the higher-ups deem him politically unreliable. All of this is the hook for Chen to review the events of his life leading to this moment. In short, I expect this to be his "origin story" although possibly leading to setting the series off on a new direction independent of the Shanghai Police Bureau.
I really need to check those out.
I wish she'd written more about the Related Worlds...
I have 550 books on my to-read list on Goodreads. Partly this is because GR makes it so easy to click "Want to Read" on anything that sounds even remotely interesting, but this list is just out of control. My reading project for the rest of this year and into next is to try (as much as possible) to read ONLY books that are on that TBR list while trying not to add (too much) to it. Also, as I go through the list, I will take a look at books I marked as "Want to Read" four or five years ago and ask honestly, "Do I still want to read this book? Or was it a passing fancy that no longer interests me?" If the latter, I will remove it from the list.
I usually read about 100-120 books a year, so in theory I could accomplish this in under 5 years, but probably less because of culling books from the list. However, I'm not willing to commit to that long-term of a project: I'm saying this is my goal for the rest of 2026 and then for 2027. After that, we'll see where the list is.
I will try NOT to be led astray by interesting books that catch my eye as I wander through bookstores or roam around the internet. I will not be led into buying $1.99 ebooks that sound "kind of interesting" on the premise that even if it's not, I've only lost $1.99. I will ruthlessly make my way through this list -- obviously not expecting to read 550 books in a year and a half or so, but trying to cull this list down into something more manageable. It should be an interesting journey through my own past taste and interests, if nothing else!
Anyone else have a to-read list (or physical pile of books) that is out of control?
I was also sad to see that CJ Cherryh has announced her retirement from writing - she's 83 now, and has been ill. I always enjoy re-reading her Pride of Chanur series, and Downbelow Station Alliance-Union books.
Clearly I have an incurable problem. But I am trying.
I tend to read ebooks as soon as I get them, or at least within a few days. Ebooks are easier to carry around.
@NicoleMR I too have just read the latest Penric and Desdemona novella and also loved it. I do sometimes wonder how Penric's books about sorcery were lost over the years between his life and the events in the Chalion duology. Or maybe they never got to Chalion?
(I'm not taking any physical books with me, but have over a dozen lined up on my Kindle Fire.)
Enough Said, Alan Bennett’s latest (perhaps last, as he will be 92 in May) collection of diary entries and essays. He is a great favorite of mine. I have his previous collections of diary entries and essays, along with some of his fiction and plays.
Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm. It’s a layperson’s introduction to psychoanalytical theory, and how analysis is carried out by practitioners. Malcolm wrote another book about a major kerfuffle in the psychoanalytic world, called In the Freud Archives, which I also liked. She wrote a lot of essays for The New Yorker, from which many if her books were adapted. I like her writing style and intelligence a lot, and there is a chilliness in her writing that reminds me a bit of Joan Didion (whose essays I like but whose fiction I do not like.)
Right now I’m slogging through Albert Speer: His Battle With Ttuth by Gita Sereny. It’s well-written, but she seemed quite determined to wrest some melodramatic mea culpa out of Speer that he had no intention of providing. It would appear he could not or would not admit that he knew much more than he confessed to at Nuremberg. This not a fun read for sure, but I wanted to know more about what could have made an intelligent and cultured person like Speer choose not see what was right in front of him.