What are you reading?

[coldbrightsunlight]

I have been meaning to read some of his stuff also.

[TraceItalian]

I've read a bunch of stuff lately, but A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay was really interesting; so I thought I'd mention that here. It's touted by some as the best book of the 20th century or so, and it is admired by C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Philip Pullman, and many others—as if Lindsay were "your favourite author's favourite author". It is one of the most extraordinarily *strange* works I've read. It truly manages to make me feel *foreign*. I can't recall any other book (or work of art in general, come to think of it) that has succeeded so much in this regard. Thoroughly unique book.

Picked up a copy at the store, gonna read it once I'm done rereading Dalva, will let you know my personal opinion, thanks for the recommendation

[jirodreamsofdank]

I'm the only lifelong Trekkie who's never read much sci fi, so I bought THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Jeff Vandermeer (of Annihilation and Borne), sci-fi short fiction from HG Wells onward.

[coldbrightsunlight]

Sounds good, there are a lot of great classic SF short stories.

[TraceItalian]

I'm the only lifelong Trekkie who's never read much sci fi, so I bought THE BIG BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION edited by Jeff Vandermeer (of Annihilation and Borne), sci-fi short fiction from HG Wells onward.

If you ever get the chance, pick up a book by Sheckley (Journey Beyond Tomorrow and Minotaur's Maze are personal favs, he also wrote a Star Trek book) and City by Simak (how could you not love a history/folk tale book written by hyperintelligent dogs on the myth of man?) They're weird and great scifi books that I feel are definitely underappreciated

[Dapper Bandit]

Jeff Vandermeer is a good-ass editor (along with his wife). I borrowed his anthology of time travel fiction from the library and it was a great collection. Very carefully laid out and curated, you can tell that they have a lot of passion for the subject matter.

Just finished Fury by Jeff Kuttner and it was a right satisfying bit of golden-age sci fi.

[Seance]

I've read a bunch of stuff lately, but A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay was really interesting.... It is one of the most extraordinarily *strange* works I've read. It truly manages to make me feel *foreign*. I can't recall any other book (or work of art in general, come to think of it) that has succeeded so much in this regard. Thoroughly unique book.

Yes. Loved it. A great read. Weighty perceptual/philosophical matters addressed through
very concise and fluid prose.

Have you read Devil's Tor by David Lindsay?

As for thoroughly unique books, Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel is one of my all-time favorites.
It has a lucid quality to the writing that overlays the strangeness of it, which came to be through
Roussel's "procedure", where euphony and "word rhymes" were embedded in paired punning sentences
that were then treated and linked in a logical and straightforward manner (Roussel was a big fan of Jules
Verne) through the prose.


Roussel is also the subject of Michel Foucault's first (and to my mind best) book: Death and the Labyrinth.

[sears]

I just read House of Leaves which has a lot of hurt. It's a horror book, and more, and less, and it's still really good but I don't want to spoil it.

[fcknoise]

just started this today, and I really enjoy the style of writing so far. def good if you have someone close to you who tries doing the whole scientific racism thing

[coldbrightsunlight]

I've heard good things about that, and I do find that sort of thing very frustrating haha

[coldbrightsunlight]

Been reading Elantris by Brandon Sanderson for a few days. I'm enjoying it.

Other recent reads from my new lockdown bookclub:

The Magicians - Lev Grossman

OK 'grown-up Harry Potter', some decent bits but didn't really wow me


The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms series - N K Jemisin

First book is like, really quite bad - trope heavy YA fantasy, not especially well written - decent 'holiday read' but not impressive. Wouldn't have read more of them if it wasn't book club But the second book is great! And the third is pretty good, so overall no regrets reading them.

And before the bookclub:

Matter - Iain M Banks

Continuing my deliberately extremely slow reading through his books (because there won't be any more and so far I love them so much I'm pacing myself). Enjoyed this one a lot.

[MrNovember]

I am currently reading and absolutely loving 1Q84 by Murakami. I'm probably about 3/4 of the way through it right now and I still have very little idea what is going on

[coldbrightsunlight]

Cool! That's on my list, I have enjoyed several of his other books.

[eyobeez]

I keep hearing about him--i should check him out.

I finished Stony the Road by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Good research and info about Reconstruction and how Black people fought for their rights during that time.

After that I read a book of short stories by Russell Banks. Enjoyed it!

I just started a book called Strong Towns--about re-engineering communities. The first five pages are interesting!

[backwardsvoyager]

Bump because I've been interspersing recommendations from this thread with other reading for a few months now (bugger all to do so I'm smashing 3~4 books a week) and there is so much fantastic stuff here that I probably wouldn't have come across otherwise.. very grateful..

Currently on:



Recent favourites:



Also just passed the halfway mark towards reading every published Murakami book (in Japanese - there are 70+ volumes, most of the nonfiction/short stories/miscellanea are untranslated)