Bibliophile Thread

[eddy]

Picked up The Name of the Wind at the library Saturday. It's supposed to be one of the best fantasy novels of the last 25 years, enjoying it so far. Anyone familiar?

Yep, I read it and the sequel once a year. Love them both.

[shafnutz05]

Picked up The Name of the Wind at the library Saturday. It's supposed to be one of the best fantasy novels of the last 25 years, enjoying it so far. Anyone familiar?

Yep, I read it and the sequel once a year. Love them both.

Awesome. Can't wait.

[Shyster]

Eleven years since Rothfuss published the second book? Who does he think he is, GRRM?

[dodint]

Hey, I know that book.

[LeopardLetang]

Heyyyyooo!

Cormac's new book(s!!!)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/book ... ovels.html

Much of McCarthy’s earlier work is set in the American South and Southwest, and hinges on his fascination with good and evil and humanity’s bottomless capacity for violence and vengeance. In “The Passenger” and “Stella Maris,” he tackles more cerebral subjects: the history of math and physics, the nature of reality and consciousness, whether religion and science can coexist, and the relationship between genius and madness.

...

“Stella Maris,” which will be released on Nov. 22 and serves as a coda to “The Passenger,” tells Alicia’s story, over roughly 200 pages. The narrative unfolds entirely in dialogue, as a transcript between Alicia and her doctor at a psychiatric institution in Wisconsin in 1972, where Alicia, a 20-year-old doctoral candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago, receives a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

“It’s a format for Cormac to allow Alicia to explore her obsessions, which from what I can tell happen to be Cormac’s obsessions,”

...

McCarthy has long been fascinated with esoteric scientific disciplines, and has surrounded himself with experts in theoretical physics and mathematics at the Santa Fe Institute, a research institute where he is a trustee and has been a fixture for decades. But until now, those subjects have rarely been a prominent feature of his fiction. With “The Passenger” and “Stella Maris,” McCarthy is more directly investigating questions about the intersection of science and morality and the limits of human knowledge.

[Gaucho]

[DigitalGypsy66]

Really enjoying the audiobook of Fellowship of the Ring with Andy Serkis. He obviously sings all of the Tom Bombadill parts, which was entertaining for a while...then annoying. I do remember skimming over the song texts when reading the books, not quite as easy to do with an audiobook in traffic lol.

[Kane]

I finished Leviathan Falls and now I don't know what to do with myself. Thankfully, there are still the novellas.

[DigitalGypsy66]

I listen to Ty Franck and Wes Chatham's podcast on The Expanse. It's like 10% Expanse (show) talk, and 90% movie and pop culture discussion, but they mentioned Ty was working on a super secret TV project that he wasn't getting paid for (yet). My guess is that he is prepping a sequel series for the last three books, and then shop it to a different streaming platform (hence why he's not getting paid yet). Nothing official, obviously, but hopefully we'll get the story finished on the TV side of things.

[Kane]

Memory's Legion is here, boys. LFG.

[robbiestoupe]

Still 4 weeks away from having Leviathan Falls available. Stupid digital library

[Gaucho]

[DigitalGypsy66]

[eddy]

The Kaiju Preservation Society was a fun read, definitely recommend if you are a fan of John Scalzi other books.

Mad max fury road book up next, but should probably watch the movie again.

Also read Keanus BRZRKR comic , that was pretty cool

[DigitalGypsy66]

Finished Leviathan Falls. Sad to see the story end.

I found the science-y stuff explaining the alien stuff to be a bit much, and skimmed over a lot of it. But the core story was good, and I'll miss this story and the characters. Interesting epilogue with Amos, but not sure that is setting up a new series or not.

I'd read most of Memory's Legion before, but Sins of our Father takes place after Leviathan Falls and serves as an epilogue to the entire series.

I really like the potential of what they did here, explore the Expanse universe post-gates closing. Nice to see Filip Inaros-Nagata again, too. Could a post-Gates series work? Maybe? The Leviathan Falls epilogue shows that they do end up making it back to Earth at some point.

[Gaucho]

[obhave]

@eddy - I haven't read anything particularly good recently, any new recs to send my way?

[shafnutz05]

@eddy - I haven't read anything particularly good recently, any new recs to send my way?

I'm not eddy, but I'm reading Name of the Wind and I know he likes it, and I do too

[obhave]

@eddy - I haven't read anything particularly good recently, any new recs to send my way?

I'm not eddy, but I'm reading Name of the Wind and I know he likes it, and I do too

Still waiting for book 3... I'm resigned to the fact that I will probably never get the end to that series, 11 years on.

The audiobook is great, I will listen to it from time to time.

[eddy]

@eddy - I haven't read anything particularly good recently, any new recs to send my way?

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Novel by Gail Honeyman

French Exit
Novel by Patrick deWitt

These Violent Delights
Book by Chloe Gong

Red Rising
Novel by Pierce Brown

That's all I got off the top of my head, I'll take a deeper look and see what else I'm forgetting

[LeopardLetang]

anyone read any (or have opinions on) knausgaard or ferrante? started gathering up their works when i can find them used

[Gaucho]

anyone read any (or have opinions on) knausgaard or ferrante? started gathering up their works when i can find them used

I read all six volumes of My Struggle, which I enjoyed very much, some more than others. Not all of his thoughts are interesting, which is why a lot of his essay-ish stuff is pretty hit or miss imo. By Ferrante I read the Brilliant Friend tetralogy. Loved it, but for some reason I never bothered with her other works. I guess I figured it could only go downhill from there.

IIRC, @Troy Loney also liked both authors.

[Troy Loney]

I couldn't get through book 3. 1 and 2 were great. So I eventually skipped ahead and bought book 4. It's entertaining.

[LeopardLetang]

Of Ferrante Troy?



awesome thanks Gaucho. i thought you may be the most likely to respond. i've heard good things especially about ferrante. i got knausgaard's book on Edvard Munch too which seemed interesting in addition to the first two of my struggle.

got those all at used stores. but turns out i had almost $200 in gift cards to barnes/noble which i never used since i figured i should buy them on their website which is cheaper but never did. so recently bogged myself down with some history books.

The Anarchy (I may know less about India than anything and I've been wanting more knowledge about East India Company)
The Club (more 1700s stuff i'm ignorant of - johnson, boswell, gibbon, burke, adam smith - and we started a group that emulates this club in the minorest way so had to get it)
Mao's Great Famine (and 2 corresponding books)
Embracing Defeat (so far the best of them all - US occupation of Japan)
Mao: The Unknown Story
Origins of Political Order

hoping to finish these by 2025

[robbiestoupe]

Just finished Code Name Nimrod and have started The War of the Rats. Two WW2 books, which typically isn't my genre. Nimrod was interesting and Rats appears to be a good one as well.