daveb Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 3 hours ago, aliciagold said: Read Misery and The Long Walk! His best that does not include supernatural stuff. Déjà vu Spoiler On 11/28/2019 at 7:11 AM, aliciagold said: Read Misery and The Long Walk! King's best that does not include supernatural stuff. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Limpet Posted December 5, 2019 Share Posted December 5, 2019 I’m currently reading two books, a fun one and a difficult one- for fun I’m reading “good omens”, and the more difficult one is “Emma” by Jane Austen. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted December 12, 2019 Share Posted December 12, 2019 A Beginner's Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations, by Pico Iyer Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Visenya Posted December 12, 2019 Share Posted December 12, 2019 100 Dogs Who Changed Civilization: History's Most Influential Canines. So far I like it less than 100 Cats (which was kind of expected, since cats are more interesting than dogs ), but it's been a fun read. I'm also re-reading Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy (David Burns), but this time I'm trying to do the exercises and see if it actually helps. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TeddyMiller Posted December 13, 2019 Share Posted December 13, 2019 Dinner With Darwin, about the evolutionary aspects of food and diet Gideon the Ninth, a science fiction/fantasy about necromancers in space 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ldlelee Posted December 14, 2019 Share Posted December 14, 2019 Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
the great acescape Posted December 14, 2019 Share Posted December 14, 2019 6 hours ago, Leedle-Lee said: Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Based on some cursory research this book looks like it would be extremely up my alley, would love to know what you think after you finish it Currently finishing up The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll, and now am reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ldlelee Posted December 14, 2019 Share Posted December 14, 2019 1 hour ago, the great acescape said: Based on some cursory research this book looks like it would be extremely up my alley, would love to know what you think after you finish it Currently finishing up The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll, and now am reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes It's extremely good. Adichie is one of my biggest inspirations as a writer, scholar, and a woman. I will read anything she writes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ColeHW34 Posted December 15, 2019 Share Posted December 15, 2019 Magazines on railroads. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere Posted December 25, 2019 Share Posted December 25, 2019 Katarzyna Minczykowska - "Silent Unseen. General Elżbieta Zawacka 'Zo'". It's a biography of the titular character. The SIlent Unseen (Polish: Cichociemni) were Polish soldiers who, after having received training in Great Britain, were parachuted back into occupied Poland on special missions and Zawacka was the only woman among them. By the way... she and Maria Wittek, who began as prewar commander of Women's Military Training Organisation, were the only female generals in Poland. And, unfortunately, it was just symbolic, a way of appreciating their extraordinary wartime achievements. So far, Poland has had no female general in active service... 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LaReine Posted December 25, 2019 Share Posted December 25, 2019 Great Goddesses by Nikita Gill and the fourth Harry Potter book Quote Link to post Share on other sites
HikaruBG Posted December 25, 2019 Share Posted December 25, 2019 I normally don't read books but I did find a book that caught my interest the last time I went to the library. The name is "The Final Empire" by Brandon Sanderson. It is from the Fantasy genre. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Forest Spirit Posted December 27, 2019 Share Posted December 27, 2019 After having finished 30 books in 2019 ^whup^ I'm going to start dragon rider by Cornelia Funke (in German for a change) in order to either make it to 31 or start the new year with rereading one of my favourite books as a child. Don't remember the whole story anymore but it'll be fun! 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Alawyn-Aebt Posted December 27, 2019 Share Posted December 27, 2019 Tacitus's (translated) Histories, Caesar's (translated) Gallic War, and just starting Kim by Kipling 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AssassinBabs Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 Hero of Ages (Mistborn novel, third book) by Brandon Sanderson 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AssassinBabs Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 On 12/25/2019 at 10:36 PM, HikaruBG said: I normally don't read books but I did find a book that caught my interest the last time I went to the library. The name is "The Final Empire" by Brandon Sanderson. It is from the Fantasy genre. Jeay, another Final Empire reader... I am currently reading the last of that triology. I love it, took some time to get used to the pulling and pushing stuff, but it's nicely done. Have fun! 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Atheno Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 Well, finally about finished reading Essays in Idleness, largely pointless, very short, kind of enjoyed it, has mostly good reviews on goodreads.... still about 2 or 3 pages to go. Rereading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, perhaps. Great book, that. Wonderful dry wit throughout an epic story. Etc., etc. Mostly reading subtitles to anime, really.... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
argar Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 A Certain Middle-Aged Man's VRMMO by Shiina Howahowa Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Celyn: The Lutening Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 5 hours ago, AssassinBabs said: Hero of Ages (Mistborn novel, third book) by Brandon Sanderson I'm on Calamity, the third Reckoners book. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Taival Posted January 2, 2020 Share Posted January 2, 2020 Currently I'm reading Heir of Novron by Michael J Sullivan, the third book in Riyria Revelations trilogy. I absolutely love these books, they are so much fun! Fast-paced with great characters. On the side I'm reading a book about PRC's history. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WobblyWallaby Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Soledad Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 I'm reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 Almost finishing, and a book I greatly recommend to people interested in cultural gender studies and para-transgender phenomena: Jenny Nordberg - "The Underground Girls of Kabul. In Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan". It's about the practice known as bacha push, or dressing young girls in boys' clothes and presenting them as sons. Usually due to lack of a male child, which is considered shameful for the family, often also because of magic beliefs that making a boy out of a girl supposedly brings luck in this respect and ensures that the next child will be a real boy. At times she gets close to the issue of asexuality, but doesn't analyse it in depth. Still for me, as an intensely sex-averse, childbirth-repulsed, gynecology-repulsed woman, celibacy is an important part of personal freedom. I don't perceive it as a price to pay for the possibility to live a free life which women can't have in such countries. Almost on the contrary. I don't identify as a man in the slightest, but I would gladly live as a man if that was the price to pay for being able to avoid sex. I would do everything to avoid sex and other invasions of my intimacy. I could sacrifice my gender. I could sacrifice my life. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
LeChat Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 I'm reading "Trans Mission." I think several people here might find it helpful, particularly trans men and those who are questioning their gender. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Mirosław Wlekły - "Gareth Jones. The man who knew too much" It's a biography of Gareth Jones, the Welsh journalist who was one of the first - and few - to report about the Great Famine in Ukraine under Stalin as the horror was unfolding. Now also protagonist of the film "Mr. Jones" by Agnieszka Holland, but actually - I still haven't seen it, but I have already read about Gareth Jones several years earlier. Last summer I have been to the promotion of Wlekły's previous book, "Riot! On a Church not from this earth", about grassroots rebellions in the Catholic church (for example, people fighting for the acceptance of homosexuality) and as I asked him to write a dedication for me (by the way, as a Literature junkie, I also love collecting personal dedications in books. Only now and then I feel sad when I realise than some author who had written a dedication for me some 10 years ago or so is now dead...), I had an opportunity to talk to him about what will he be writing next and I surprised him by telling him that I had already known about Jones. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Karst Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 On 10/4/2019 at 10:01 AM, Nowhere Girl said: Currently: Boris Reitschuster - "Russki ekstrem. How I learned to love Moscow". A funny book about the quirks of Russian life such as superstitions, mobile phone use, ways of addressing other people (a highly stratified system is Tsarist times, "comrade" and "citizen" in Soviet times, and the resulting confusion nowadays...). Is there an English or French translation of it? (Those are the languages I can actually read.) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Karst Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 I'm re-reading Provenance, by Ann Leckie. It's an excellent space opera with multiple non-binary characters. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
everywhere and nowhere Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 54 minutes ago, Iridium said: Is there an English or French translation of it? (Those are the languages I can actually read.) I don't know. I was reading it in Polish. By the way, I didn't mention it here, but there is also a second part: "Russki ekstrem squared. What remained of my love for Moscow" (I discovered it quite accidentally). Funny too, but also a little more serious, because his way of writing could be criticised as "embellishing Russia's image" - particularly towards the end of the book he writes more about Putin's regime, about protests, about repressions against the opposition... No, really, that's the problem: to find a good way of writing about Russia, one which doesn't fall into the traps of writing about Russia as some kind of "exotics of decay" or into becoming Putin's "useful idiot". The first means... just exposing everything which seems weird in Russia, all examples of technical, social or bureaucratic backwardness, which in turn can create a vision of Russia as a hopeless case... The second... either the type of Russlandversteher, or Westerners who have come to love Russia exactly for it being so weird and "exotic", can create an image which is, effectively, a fig leaf for Putin's regime - and this regime is absolutely authoritarian. Queer users may find it particularly striking that, even if gay sex is no longer illegal after the downfall of Soviet Union (yes, it was criminalised in Soviet Union... so much for the vision of "socially progressive communism"...), homosexuality has become effectively illegal through the law criminalising "gay propaganda". Basically, no positive or even just neutral messages about homosexuality - for example, "homosexuality is a normal variant of human sexuality" - can be legally published wherever minors could access them. And in the semi-autonomous Islamic republic of Chechnya - which is still trying to fight for independence from Russia with methods including terrorism, but the president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is Putin's ally - the situation is just horrifying, gay men are put in prison camps or even killed. Poland has had a lot of bad history with Russia, and so there is traditionally a lot of distrust towards this country. This, in turn, makes it easy for honest opponents and simple Russian trolls to accuse others of "russophobia". I always answer: I'm not russophobic, I'm "putinophobic". In fact, I feel a lot of sympathy for Russians, who have - over and over, due to how the country's history shaped itself (or rather - has been shaped by tsars, genseks and dictators) - been denied a chance at real democracy. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Atheno Posted January 7, 2020 Share Posted January 7, 2020 Finally finished Essays in idleness. Didn't read the editor's footnotes that might be of some use. Guy's scattered thoughts on Buddhism and life and whatever with entries like "Foxes will bite people." He then goes on to give a few instances of foxes biting people. Am I missing something? Seemed kind of pointless. There was some good probably rehashed "wisdom", some of which really may have been good enough though I think a lot of it would depend on context, which was largely missing here. For all that, I kind of enjoyed it and there was some humor to the thing, not exactly laugh out loud but whatever. Short read, maybe over a hundred pages, is all, and took me a long long time. Still slowly reading Leviathan, not a fun read. And the usual fiction, some of which is fun. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Forest Spirit Posted January 7, 2020 Share Posted January 7, 2020 After watching a film some years ago and the BBC series this fall, and listening to parts of the audiobook over Christmas due to being sick I'm now reading 'Jane Eyre' and believe this is going to become one of my favourite books and favourite main characters❤️ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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