Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?

@FuriousMachine I finished 'The Left Hand of Darkness' last night and I can't stop thinking about it. After a quick search I discovered there is a cycle of books called The Hanish Cycle. The book started off a little slow, but by the midpoint I was hooked with what was happening.

Next up I have 'The King in Yellow' and 'WE'.

@MightyDemon82 Nice, sounds very much like something I will enjoy also, so happy that you can "vouch" for it. Thanks for the update

@FuriousMachine it's a book that you can't really talk about without spoiling. But a great book for discussion.

@MightyDemon82 Interesting! I did a quick check and turns out I didn't have it on my reading list, I had the "Earthsea Cycle" series on there instead. Saw that the this one was listed as book 4 of the "Hainish Cycle" series, but Le Guin herself has said that there is no set order to them and they are all standalone, so I think I'll start with that one myself.

@FuriousMachine Yes, when I read that I thought Oh No I've skipped some books, but after reading that you can read them in any order it's all good.

Reminds me of Banks Culture series. Loosely connected.

Just bought Stephen King's "The Long Walk". Stoked to see the Movie as well!

@MightyDemon82 I have the Culture novels on my schedule, though I don't think I'll get to them until late next year. They look very intriguing, I think.

@Mikeg1965 I just recently finished it and I thought it was very, very good. Bleak, but good! Hope you like it

@FuriousMachine Well that's good to hear you liked it, thanks!

an hour ago i bought the Kindle format version of the new Nightmare on Elm Street book Autopsis for my Kindle Fire.

mostly just started reading the first couple of pages which were of the introduction of the author growing up watching the first two Elm Street movies with his dad.

I finished the INDIA v ENGLAND in 2023-2024 article in the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack 2025 this morning, and thought it was a fair summary of events. Just reading it in order to pass the time until The Warden by Trollope arrives.

Edit: I am now about to start reading The Warden ,will be posting my thoughts, in due course.

Edit II: i've read about a tenth of it now, very promising so far.

Edit III: I've read about half of it now, really enjoying the way the plot and characters develop as it goes along. It appears to be a quaint Old English tale, about the troubles of a warden torn between loyalty to the church and the pressures of the secular world of the time, and the characters in it are very realistically and humanely depicted by the author. In short, the humanity of the characters shines through in the text.

I finished 'The King in Yellow' a great little book. four short stories connected by the book in the title 'The King in Yellow'.

I'm about halfway through 'WE' a precursor to 1984. I would have finished it by now but Silksong and Shinobi are stealing all my free time. My wife is away this weekend though, I will mostly be reading and gaming then.

I just finished reading The Warden by Anthony Trollope. Truly a Classic of English Literature, and thoroughly deserving to be known to all and sundry as a Penguin Classic. So I'm glad I got that edition of the book. It is the first in Trollope's six book-series ,which are collectively known as the Chronicles of Barsetshire to the initiated.

Next up; Barchester Towers. I intend to read all six books in the series.

Edit: I started 'Barchester' today and it's been very good so far.

Due to some health issues and hospital visits (nothing serious) the last few weeks, my reading schedule has been quite off, so it's taken a while, but now I'm more or less back on track.

So I finished Joe Abercrombie's latest, The Devils, the first novel I've read of his that is not part of the "First Law" universe. Almost immediately upon starting this book, it seemed like it would be an extraordinary good novel; a five-star read rivalling the other five-star novels. The writing was incredibly entertaining and the characters introduced were phenomenally interesting, but as the novel progressed, it became apparent that the story itself was a bit on the uninspired side and some of the glow subsided. That being said, the quality of the writing and the characters subsisted throughout and a particularly strong finish kept it comfortably in four star territory, only narrowly missing out on the top honours. Great stuff and I'm really looking forward to what comes next with this gang of misfits! Four stars

I was contacted on Goodreads by Izzy Bond, a fledgling author, asking me to read and rate/review their short story The Silence Dividend and while I most certainly weren't the only one, my ego was sufficiently tickled to check it out and the premise seemed interesting enough, so I decided to buy a copy and give it a shot.

And I was glad I did. This was very well written and in a genre that seems to have done it all before, this story felt quite fresh nonetheless. Short stories are best served with a limited set of characters and this may have had a few too many, leaving a couple a bit underserved, but it's only a minor quibble. All in all a promising debut and I will be checking out the other works from the author as well.

Now it's time for the second half of N.K. Jemisin's "Great Cities" series, The World We Make. If it is half as good as the first one, I'm in for a treat!

@FuriousMachine Sorry to hear about your health issues, glad to hear it's nothing serious, though, and wish you all the best with life and your reading adventures.

As for me, I'm still reading Barchester Towers ,it's good, so far, I quite like the occasional whimsical deviations from the plot that the author makes, although there was more of that in the first book in the series.

Edit: the sub-plots and subterfuges, plots within the plot, intrigues, conspirations and double-meanings of conversations in Barchester Towers are something I find positively rapturous, it's a book that's practically Shakespearean in it's scope. Enjoying it a lot!

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Thank you for the kind words Think things are returning to normal here now, both with the reading and with everything else.

I finished Barchester Towers and found it a great read, here's hoping the rest of the series lives up to it.

Next up: Doctor Thorne ,the third book in Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire series, as I say, I intend to complete the entire six-volume series.

@FuriousMachine Glad to hear it. How are you doing otherwise, at work and so forth? I would highly recommend both The Warden , which is good, and Barchester Towers, which is outstanding, by Anthony Trollope, for your classics project. They are part of Trollope's six part series the Chronicles of Barset, I have just started the third volume, which is promising so far, but can only recommend what I have read. The second volume has a satisfying conclusion so I wouldn't say you need to read beyond that if you choose not to, but you may end up like me and feel like you have to read the whole thing!

I would say you need to read 'Warden' before 'Towers' though as many of the characters and plot points for the latter are introduced in the former.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN All is well, thanks. Back at work and enjoying the return to normalcy. Hope all is well with you, too.
Added The Warden and will take it from there if I enjoy it The classics project is growing, with 28 titles currently added, though only one (The Great Gatsby) has made it on to my priority list for now. Should get to that some time next year, I expect, as it currently sits at #23. The list is somewhat fluid, though I very rarely change the top 30 apart from adding in exciting new releases I simply must read ASAP.

I finished 'WE' by Yevgeny Zamyatin. I really liked this one. A precursor to Orwells 1984. The book was banned by the Soviet Union and Zamyatin spent his remaining years living in Paris in exile.

Next up 'Red Dragon' by Thomas Harris. I'm sure someone mentioned it on here a wee while ago, so I decided to give it a go. I've never seen either adaptation or the t.v. show 'Hannibal' but watched 'Silence of the Lambs' many a time.

@MightyDemon82 I'd recommend checking out Michael Mann's "Manhunter, his adaptation of "Red Dragon", with Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecter. I didn't like the newer adaptation with Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins, but, in my opinion, none of the Harris adaptations after "Silence..." has lived up to that one. The exception: The "Hannibal" TV series, which I really liked (Mads Mikkelsen is fantastic in the title role).
Note that all of this comes from a guy who's yet to read a single Harris novel, so I have no idea how faithful they are to the source material.