The Books/Reading Thread

[Blurry_Dreams]

@TageRyche

do you (or anyone else) read funny books
i love reading books that make me laugh
(to me reading a funny book is the same i guess as watching a comedy movie, or watching Red Dwarf)

so
here, in no particular order
some comical books that i thought were fun to read

Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby (a collection of hilarious essays)

Mennonite In A Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen (a memoir of Rhoda having to move back in with her hilariously-Mennonite parents after her gay husband leaves her for a guy he met on www.Gay.com)

Emperor Of The Universe by David Lubar (male human going on a space adventure similar to the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy except the earth remains intact)

Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham (if you skip over the 2 sections where she's talking about starring on Gilmore girls, this book is hilarious even for those specific people that hated the Gilmore girls show)

RedShirts by John Scalzi (making fun of the badly-written episodes of Star Trek)

The Diplomatic Touch by David Bischoff (in this space adventure the diplomats are hyper-sexual with all the sex-scenes laugh-out-loud funny)

 

[TageRyche]

Generally, I stick to mysteries and thrillers. I occasionally read a science fiction series book from Firefly, Farscape or Star Trek. Once in a great while I might pick up a biography of a sports personality or musician. That's it for me though.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

@TageRyche

@TageRyche

i love Connolly's Harry Bosch novels

i love reading those open-ended-book-series where a single person ends up being the principal-protagonist in 20-30 individual books


i love Harry Bosch, Lincoln Rhyme, Anita Blake, Drizzt Do'Urden, Rachel Morgan, Stephanie Plumb, Richard Rahl

i learned to read before i learned how to talk, reading the words in Spiderman comics
so for me, reading the open-ended-book-series where the same principal protagonist ends up in 20-30 books is, i guess kinda like reading a hundred issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, but you know, without the pictures

also
love reading novelizations of visual media
like the Star-Trek books, or novelizations of theatrically released movies
i like the books with Marvel Comics characters in them (loved Fantastic Four War Zone by Greg Cox, and and also loved The Spider-Man book where Peter learns that the plane crash that killed his parents wasn't an accident, his parents were murdered, and the plane's crashing was used to cover up the fact that the deaths of Richard and Mary Parker were homicide)

i also like SOME of the Star Wars novels
i like the ones with "The Solo Twins" Jaina and Jacen and their younger brother Anakin Solo
and i really loved reading The Darth Bane Trilogy

 

[Vegard Pompey]

This was a bit of a slog. Felt like the first 600 pages were nothing but character introductions and setup. I've never struggled with keeping track of characters in this series before, but all these new names like "Rautos Hivanar", "Tanal Yathvanar", "Venitt Sathad" etc. kinda bled together. It did pick up in the last quarter (the Q'uson Tapi chapter was incredible, probably top 3 in the series) but the finale was pretty rough. So many PoVs ended in abrupt death that it started to feel like a punchline. Low point of the series so far.

 

[no country for old wainds]

it’s in my bottom 3, although you seem more negative about it than i am. i really struggle with the edur/lether politics stuff and the early parts of the redmask stuff, bores/confuses the shit out of me, but i like the udinaas/fear/kettle/seren/silchas stuff (probably moreso on reread tbf), the trull/onrack stuff, all things karsa/icarium related, and it becomes a much easier read in general once the malazans (+toc) turn up. the beak arc is legendary ofc. a lot of people seem to love the finale but yeah i’m not really among them.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

The Redmask stuff was actually the only plotline that had me hooked early in the book, thought he got some of the coolest action scenes in the series.

Spoiler

I was not prepared for the twist that actually, Redmask fucking sucks.

 

[no country for old wainds]

you should’ve been. i mean, it’s erikson

that’s true. i think he got a lot better at writing action in general compared to the first couple of books where even when it was cool conceptually it could be a bit muddled and hard to visualise.

hope this doesn’t put you off continuing anyway, the next book is a very different experience. not saying you’ll like it, but it’s certainly its own very distinct thing.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

I'm too far deep to stop now. Plus, I need to know if my Traveller prediction is right! I see he appears in the dramatis personae for the next book, so maybe this is the one...

 

[TageRyche]

I finished reading the Emilya Naymark thrillers Hide In Place and Behind The Lie.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

.

am i the only one wondering why Drizzt Do'urden is on the front cover of this book??

 

[Einherjar86]

Recently finished this beast of a book. For horror fans out there who don't mind a little tongue-in-cheek metanarrative, this one checks all the boxes. Lots of bodies, lots of blood, and a horror-nerd protagonist who frames the entire plot as though a horror movie is unreeling before her eyes. The main chapters are interspersed with little "horror 101" essays that she submits to her high school history teacher. On top of that, there's the brutally sincere acknowledgement of Indigenous displacement and histories of settler colonialism (the author is Blackfoot Native American). It's a deliciously fun read that is, at times, heartbreaking.

 

[TageRyche]

My review of the new Leonard Goldberg mystery The Blue Diamond was printed in the latest issue of Mystery Scene magazine. You can check out the online version of the review HERE!

 

[TageRyche]

My review of the new John Sandford thriller The Investigator was printed in the latest issue of Mystery Scene magazine. You can check out the online version of the review HERE!

 

[Einherjar86]

Just finished this excellent book on the dynamics and history of white Christian nationalism. For those concerned with current political tides in the U.S. and the disturbing extent to which religion has infiltrated American popular thought, I think these authors give a pretty lucid and succinct account.

 

[Einherjar86]

Read(ing) two disaster-themed novels recently, both very good, written in very different styles.

Really wonderful eco-catastrophe narrative, set in a near-future police state U.S. but without the typical hallmarks of dystopian fiction. I wouldn't call it dystopian at all, just a minorly altered reflection of the world we already inhabit. The story is a pretty bald-faced indictment of environmental exploitation and the shameless accumulation of capitalism. I'm here for it.

The second book I'm still reading but enjoying immensely. A story of strangers brought together under the premise of a vague disaster/blackout that seems to have befallen the Northeast, but the remoteness of the setting prevents the characters from understanding what's happening. Told in an omniscient narrative style that you don't see often, and the author uses it to supremely unsettling degrees:

 

[TageRyche]

I finished an advance copy of the James Berretto debut thriller Mystic Wind. I loved it. I'll be writing a review of it for Mystery Scene magazine.

 

[TageRyche]

You can check out my Mystery Scene magazine review of the Jack Carr thriller In The Blood HERE!.

 

[TageRyche]

You can check out my Mystery Scene magazine review of the Christopher Reich thriller Once A Thief HERE!

 

[Einherjar86]

Holy shit, this was a glorious, hilarious, science-fictional mindfuck. Recommended for those who enjoy genre fiction; in the first part, each chapter mimics various genres (thriller, romance, psychological drama, etc), and the entire narrative is basically speculative/sci-fi. But the writing and tone are very non-SF. It’s more like a philosophical novel with a sci-fi premise. Really good page-turner.

 

[dvzk-cece]

I recently got the first volume of Claymore and really digging the Witcher vibe it has. Read up to the first scene so far and for how minimalist it is, its got a lot of impact. Not quite like Berserk, but it still has a lot of cool movements.