Finished

DNF'd this series back in the day half way through book 3. Determined to finish it this time

Finished

^ The Dark Tower II is as far as I’ve made it so far as well. I finished it a few months ago. I’ll eventually get to part III but haven’t had the mood strike me yet.

I just discovered this forum! Do you guys talk about anything other than books? That's so awesome!
Currently reading:

Lake of Heaven by Ishimure Michiko - It's a woozy novel about people gathering at the lake that covers their hometown, which was flooded by a dam.

And:

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance - A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power

I encourage you guys to read as much as you can about the civil rights movement. It's very informative.

Also, note to Bronkster. I love Les Mis, but if it hasn't grabbed you by the halfway point it probably never will. Cool that you are reading it!

Just finished: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones.


A lot of the story felt redundant but it really picks up in the last 100 pages or so. Definitely worth a read, if Ou can handle some decently gory descriptions.

Finished

I'm still struggling with it! About 200 pages to go! Parts of it can be very entertaining, but I zone out on the history parts.

You'll learn a lot about the history of the Paris sewer system, but there's a point to all of it. (I think that 19th century authors were trying to sneak a little education into their readers.)

My book club just picked a nonfiction book called Otherlands by Thomas Halliday. The premise sounds interesting, anyone ever read it before?

Finished

Gory descriptions don't bother me. It's just that I've tried three SGJ novels (It Came from Del Rio, The Only Good Indians, My Heart is a Chainsaw) and in all of them the writing style frustrated (if not outright annoyed) me. I hear raves about BHH, but is the general style the same way? At a certain point you have to accept that some writers just aren't for you, even if they check all the boxes of things you should enjoy.

Man, I remember waiting for 6 years to get that Blaine the Mono cliffhanger resolved. Particular frustrating was that King was writing a ton in those years ... just not the Dark Tower. Must be nice to pick up the next book the next week.

I finished a couple:


Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I don't know how this guy manages to write faster than I can read. There's a lot of similar themes to his Children series (of which I've read the first two). I like thoughtful explorations of human-alien contact when the aliens are truly alien.


Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson. I'm not sure what new can be said about vampires (although Rosson's vampires are the most silver-phobic I've seen). But this is a tightly paced, emotional, atmospheric story. A quibble is the ending was a bit anti-climactic (massive spoilers):

sounds quite interesting! I may just put it on my goodreads list

I must say that I never expected to read anything so eloquently written about shit.

😂

I recently finished "Ground State" which is the 19th book in the Craig Alanson's Expeditionary Force series.

After failing miserably at reading last year (I only read five books the entire year), I'm back this year with a renewed focus to read approximately a book every two weeks.

So let me catch you up as to what I've been reading so far this year:

Finished:

Strange Pictures by Uketsu



This was decidedly different. The writing is perfunctory at best, but then again, it's a translation from Japanese, so I wasn't expecting the second coming of Shakespeare. It definitely pulled the rug out from under me several times--it's broken into four sections, and at the end of the second and third sections, there are revelations that flip the narrative on its head, casting everything up to that point in a new light. It's fun.

Finished:

Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters by Jean Shepherd



I love love love Jean Shepherd's stuff--the movie A Christmas Story was (mostly) based on his book In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash. I'd been wanting to read this since I read the title story in an anthology years ago, when it promptly became one of my favorite short stories and, quite possibly, the funniest piece that I've ever read (although David Sedaris's "Me Talk Pretty One Day" [the story, not the collection...but the collection is great, too] and "My Vagina" and "Halloween Rampage" by John Hughes are in the running as well). The book as a whole is entertaining, but the title piece and "The Grandstand Passion Play of Delbert and the Bumpus Hounds" are the standouts.

Currently reading:

Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum




This book, as one might surmise from the title, details the history of the genre known as "reality TV," which actually goes back to radio and shows such as Candid Microphone. Nussbaum traces the genre's development on television from Queen for a Day through Candid Camera, The Gong Show, Cops, Survivor, and beyond. It's well-written and certainly well-researched, but it tends to get bogged down by spending a lot of its length detailing the careers of the people who created these shows. Still, it's compulsively readable, even when Nussbaum is devoting chapters to shows in which I have no interest, like The Bachelor and The Real Housewives of Orange County.

Good on ya for bumping up the reading! I'm in school currently so I've lowered my expectations for how much I can read, but we'll see how it goes.

That said, I've read two Japanese novels so far this year, and it certainly raises questions about the nature of translating Japanese to English, and any cultural differences with how Japanese novelists write in general - it's like there are at least two levels of translating being done.