What are you reading right now?

Ok, Finished the Fred Harvey biography, going to read a nice thick history about modern Japan from Sekigahara to about the 80s.
 
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Ozymandius12 said:
Ok, Finished the Fred Harvey biography, going to read a nice thick history about modern Japan from Sekigahara to about the 80s.
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What's the name of it?

Working on Dostoevsky's "the idiot" I keep getting sidetracked
 
Friends who have read Pride and Prejudice? I see this book very often on many lists of the best books, but I am afraid that it will be very lyrical for me.
 
I'm on a Sherlock Holmes binge and just finished Hounds of Baskerville. Actually managed to guess the culprit by the stolen boot + where can you hide a huge dog.
In general the stories aged pretty well and only occasionally there are bullshit answers, though the short stories suffer from having too little cast and setup to really think deeply about whodunit.
 
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Battleship Commander: The Life of Vice Admiral Willis A. Lee Jr. by Paul Stillwell. Ching Lee was a hell of a man.

I also read a few pages of The Rise and Fall of Communism by Archie Brown every now and then, but it's slow reading. hopefully it will pick up as Brown gets to WW2 and the cold war
 
Ronin Sanchez said:
Friends who have read Pride and Prejudice? I see this book very often on many lists of the best books, but I am afraid that it will be very lyrical for me.
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I got an annotated version and enjoyed it because it explained a lot of the meaning behind mild phrases. Basically how insults were hidden in what to a current time reader wouldn't get, due to not living in that era. But then I watched the miniseries with Colin Firth first, and then reading the book made it more understandable. The actors made the 1800's style speech sound more relatable, so when I read it, it was more for details and I didn't get tripped up by vocabulary.
 
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Yesterday consisted of me listening through the audibook form of Joe Marler's 'Loose Head'.
As with any rugby related autobiography, filled with many funny tour stories, intiations, fines nights, always funny social memories within the game. He also goes into his mental health, and it becomes very impactful in the contrast between all these fun and extravagant tales, Marler being known as a right wind-up merchant; and then the reality that he wasn't doing well, and was struggling to cope with things.
Good listen/read. Listen is better because he does good piss-take impersonations of anyone who he is quoting/voicing.
 
mikaylatoads said:
Can anyone recommend me psychological horror/philosophy books?
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Dont know if I'd call it psychological horror, but I really liked Peter Straub's Ghost Story. If you like the "weird" horror of Lovecraft & Co, I would go for John Langan's The Fisherman or Matt Cardin's To Rouse Leviathan. Ligotti is also a solid choice, although he can be a bit on the nose with his political and social allegories. He is the most philosophical of the bunch, though. Or did you mean philosophy books as a separate category?
 
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HullDown said:
Dont know if I'd call it psychological horror, but I really liked Peter Straub's Ghost Story. If you like the "weird" horror of Lovecraft & Co, I would go for John Langan's The Fisherman or Matt Cardin's To Rouse Leviathan. Ligotti is also a solid choice, although he can be a bit on the nose with his political and social allegories. He is the most philosophical of the bunch, though. Or did you mean philosophy books as a separate category?
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I meant as a separate genre, but you have piqued my interest with these suggestions and I will be taking a look at them for sure.
 
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Just started reading the song of fire and ice books. I've never been big into fantasy but I'm really liking these. I'm on Clash of Kings right now. I like my books miserable so it's been fun so far. I like the crow that asks for corn too. If anyone has good fantasy recommendations (basically not too hokey, i have trouble getting invested if it's super silly) that would be cool.
 
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I'm listening to book 4 of the Commune series at the moment and it's rather good so far.

I've got a few books on my I'll give that a shot list at the moment but I'm not set in stone yet but I've got a hankering for some sci-fi and there is a book series called Daemon I liked a few years back and if there is a audio book version of that available I will give it a go.

Edit - Yep there there on Audible, Daemon and Freedom TM very interesting books about AI and decentralised society / culture.
 
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cowboytakeshi said:
Just started reading the song of fire and ice books. I've never been big into fantasy but I'm really liking these. I'm on Clash of Kings right now. I like my books miserable so it's been fun so far. I like the crow that asks for corn too. If anyone has good fantasy recommendations (basically not too hokey, i have trouble getting invested if it's super silly) that would be cool.
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I enjoy the pre-HBO A Song of Ice and Fire covers. They really have that "for nerds only" look.

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Andrew Neiman said:
I enjoy the pre-HBO A Song of Ice and Fire covers. They really have that "for nerds only" look.

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They're super comfy. I love the way old sci fi and fantasy covers look especially on paperback when they look well worn. The painted motifs add to the aesthetic of these genres; I feel like a lot of books have a paint splatter/minimalist approach or just real pictures with a filter over them. It's not all bad but it makes me miss old book covers
 
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cowboytakeshi said:
They're super comfy. I love the way old sci fi and fantasy covers look especially on paperback when they look well worn. The painted motifs add to the aesthetic of these genres; I feel like a lot of books have a paint splatter/minimalist approach or just real pictures with a filter over them. It's not all bad but it makes me miss old book covers
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May I ask if you watched the show, and how you'd rate the books alongside it?
 
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mikaylatoads said:
May I ask if you watched the show, and how you'd rate the books alongside it?
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I've watched the first 5 seasons and just started watching it again while reading the books actually. I'd say the show was pretty solid until season 5 but still watchable. I'm enjoying the books more because they go more in depth about the characters, what's going on, etc. Plus seeing the POV of different characters in each chapter is nice. Reading is more of a hobby for me than watching shows so it does make me biased in that direction. I just started the third book and I feel like it's a beat for beat adaptation most of the time, at least thus far. I'm probably not going to watch after the 5th season but the books slightly win for me.
 
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