Still reading Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson. Book 2 of second era of Mistborn.
Just a few pages remaining now, would’ve finished it, but kid got a book from his school library, and wanted me to read it too, so reading Gangsta Granny by David Williams.
What about all of you? What have you been reading or listening to lately?
There’s a Midyear Bingo check-in post, do take a look. Even if you haven’t started this year’s Book Bingo, you can still join, as there are still 6 months remaining only 5 4 3 months to go!
For details, you can checkout the initial Book Bingo, and it’s Recommendation Post . Links are also present in our community sidebar.
Just finished Money: Master the Game by Tony Robbins. A friend asked me to read it knowing I can’t stand the author. The advice isn’t anything revelatory, if you haven’t read a good bit about retirement this isn’t a bad book. But he uses 25 words when 3 would do, and doesn’t really talk about the people who failed so it’s very much survivor or outcome biased.
I’m about to re-read First Break All the Rules and will start Half Share by Nathan Lowell. I really loved quarter share and am excited to get to book 2 in the series.
Looked up the series just to see where it goes after Half Share. Three Quarter Share didn’t sound like a good name, but no, he went to Full Share and then Double Share.
Then captains share and owners share I’ve just learned. My brother in law recommended em.
Would love to see how you like the whole series.
I’ll probably read them all but it’ll take a long while. I only read one or two fiction books a month and I like to mix it up so I don’t stay with the same author or genre.
Just finished up Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes and am starting up The Stranger by Albert Camus.
The Concise Laws of Human Nature
Busy week. Only managed to finish up Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism: Labour and the Restoration of the Stalinist System after World War II, which I started a bit ago.
What’s next?
FINALLY finished the TJ Klune sequel to House on the Cerulean Sea, whatever it was called. I’ve really enjoyed their other books, but this one was such pappy crap. Every single sentence was designed to tell you how special and wonderful being different is, to the point that the story was boring as shit.
A week later and I’m 500 pages into Wind and Truth by Sanderson.
Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu.
The Xeelee Sequence by Steven Baxter.
Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons.
Three Body Problem is so good. I would highly recommend reading the 2 sequels when you finish. It only gets better after the first book!
Honestly, I’m 85% of the way through it, and the whole thing has been an absolute slog.
I’m really not getting what people see in it. For me it feels a lot like old Isaac Asimov scifi; great ideas, really cool big concept stuff, but absolutely flat characters and uninteresting prose. The main character is just a whiteboard for other characters to explain things on. Every other character is utterly forgettable apart from Ye Wenjie, who gets the bulk of the development but is, backstory aside, largely ancillary to the plot.
And the structure and plotting just kind of fall apart once you get the main reveal. Like, there’s some degree of interesting mystery at first, but then it just builds to a big meeting where a bunch of random people explain the plot to each other for the benefit of the main character and the audience. And then we’re very hurriedly introduced to a another antagonist so the book can have an ending.
Actually, many of the comments here mention that it’s a slog to get through. Apparently it does get better.
Good to know I’m not going crazy.
Well, can’t guarantee that. But at least you are not the only one going crazy. 😀
Honestly I agree with a lot of your criticisms. The first book is mostly just setting up the story for the next two. I always forget the first book is mostly a murder mystery because the other two books lean in such a different direction.
The main character doesn’t really do anything for the story. It feels like the plot happens around the main character and nothing would’ve changed without them. Fortunately every book has a new main character and the one from the first book is never mentioned again. Personally I think the characters are much better written as the series goes on.
I am big fan of the series so I’m pretty biased when I recommend to try the second book, but if you have to force yourself to read a book then it’s probably just not for you.
I’m literally still reading the first book, and I also also forgot it was a murder mystery, because the book forgot too. Like, the entire premise of the plot just withers on the vine. I know that at this point I have the answer, but characters don’t even really react to this in any way. Like, you’d think the whole “scientists committing suicide” thing could have been used as a ticking clock to give more urgency to the plot, but it really just gets forgotten about by everyone involved.
D&D Players Handbook
Planning to join some campaign?
Finished the fifth and sixth books in the “old mans war” series. I am now starting “dungeon crawler Carl” by Matt Dinniman. I had it on my ereader, I don’t know why or when I put it there. So I’m going in blind, will give an update how it went next week!