I’m reading The Player of Games by Iain M Banks. It’s the second book of the Culture series about a post scarcity anarchist collective of aliens and artificial intelligences evangelist. I really enjoyed the first and snapped at the second.

It’s good action and a neat space opera setting.

I’m currently devouring The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and it’s every bit as good as my friends said it’d be. If you’re into fantasy/Witcher kind of stuff, it’s brilliant. Heck, it’s probably great even if you’re not.

I recently finished the 3rd and 4th books of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, which have been fun. I’m not sure if I’ll continue them anytime soon though. So many other books to read.

I’m procrastinating reading the last book in the murderbot diaries because I don’t want the series to end. Read all the others in the past month or so since most are short novellas.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Murderbot_Diaries

I’ve done another couple of the deathlands books since finishing solo levelling at the end of last week and still enjoying it a lot.

Just started Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and I’m struggling a bit to get into it. I know I’ll probably like the story as I love Sanderson but the readers of this are pretty dire, the woman in particular who is reading the Yumi point of view makes me want to stop listening each time. A good reader can really make or break an audiobook and I think I’ve been spoilt for a long while in not coming across someone this drab and dull.

I’m reading The Garden of Departed Cats by Bilge Karasu. It’s a collection of very strange and seemingly unrelated short stories, interspersed with chapters about a traveler in a Mediterranean city who ends up taking part in a human chess game. The publisher’s description says, “With many strata to mine, The Garden of the Departed Cats is a work of peculiar beauty and strangeness, the whole layered and shiny like a piece of mica.” If you like Kafka, or Italo Calvino, this might be up your alley. Me, I’m not too sure yet.

I’m also listening to the audiobook of The Sentence by Louise Erdrich. It’s told from the point of view of Tookie, an ex con who works at a bookstore in Minnesota owned by an author named Louise. Tookie is now married to the tribal cop who arrested her, she has a fraught relationship with her step daughter and with the ghost of a former bookstore customer who died while reading a book that is now in Tookie’s possession that she thinks may be cursed. It takes place in 2020, and COVID-19 has just struck. I love Louise Erdrich, and this is much more engaging than the Karasu.

Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

I love metamorphosis. Dresden Files are fun. I found Side Jobs interesting. Haven’t read moon over soho but it looks interesting

Contemplating Oblivion by Keith Wiley. This is a self-published book, but I understand that the author has previously had nonfiction work published elsewhere, including peer-reviewed publication.

This is a far-far-future scifi novel in which all human minds have been “fortified” aka uploaded for around a million years and are not associated with biological bodies. It’s an interesting setting that the author uses to explore the nature of consciousness and humanity’s eternal struggles against fear of the unknown and religious zealotry. I’m really enjoying the exploration of such a distant reality and the notion that we may never get away from some of our most primitive social dysfunctions.

I just finished The Push by Ashley Audrain. It has me torn so I’m not sure what to make of it. I find myself repulsed but I also can’t stop thinking about it. It’s about motherhood but with a twisted, psychotic twist.

I just started In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune. I enjoyed their first book, but since then I’ve found their work a little formulaic. Hopefully this one is refreshing. The title and subject make it seem like YA but I find the jokes lewd enough for grown-ups so I guess I am enjoying it so far.

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain by John O’Farrell. I wanted to read a non-fiction but has that sort of personal touch. I was in a charity book store, read a page and got it. Bloody funny and great read

Just finished the Divine Cities series by Robert Jackson Bennett. The first two were great, the last one still good. Now I just started The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. It’s interesting so far.

I blasted through Tom Lake by Ann Patchett this weekend. It was exactly what I wanted out of a “summer read”. Cozy, but with a strong plot and characters.

I’m still working on The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence. Only have about 100 pages left to go, but for some reason it’s just been hard to stick with it. Every time I pick it up, my mind tries to wander.

I’m about halfway through Malice by Keigo Higashino. It’s unusual in that it’s not a who dunnit, it’s a why dunnit, and that half of the book (this is not a spoiler) is the murderer’s unreliable written account, interspersed with chapters of the detective’s report. The prose is a little dry (not sure if that’s a translation issue, or if it’s that way in the original Japanese), but it’s short and engaging.

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Finished Weak Heart by Ban Gilmartin. Sort of an urban fantasy on a remote Scottish island, dealing with Scottish folklore and a missing friend/ex. There are some monsters and apparitions, but I wouldn’t call it horror (although you might want to check content warnings, as there is some reliving of past traumas). Very much a peek into the two main characters’ heads as they investigate, learn to tolerate each other, and grow over the course of the story. Kind of a YA vibe, but not. Recommended if that sounds like your jam.

Bingo squares: Independent Author, LGBTQIA+ Lead (hard). (Maybe also Family Drama, if you count unrelated-but-raised-together.)

The Metamorphosis made me think of people dealing with chronic illnesses in real life and how they must feel, which made me sad.

I’m reading Good For A Girl by Lauren Fleshman and Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

Currently reading “Technofeudalism, what killed capitalism” by Yanis Varoufakis.