What is everybody reading?

[Stromboli Bones]

I read the entire Expanse series since the show ended. I think the show was better than the book, the actors performances really adds a lot that you can't get on the page.

I also read Project Hail Mary, another great entry from Andy Weir, he's on my way to being my new favorite author.

Was planning on hitting the Audiobooks, but I'll do the show first/instead if you think it's truly better!


I myself just finished the First Law books by Joe Abercrombie

 

[Unseen61]

Reading/Listening to H.P. Lovecraft Necronomicon eBook and audiobook . Nice dark stories !

 

[mnkykungfu]

The Great Influenza: The story of the deadliest pandemic in history
Sorto topical.
In 1918, a plague swept across the world virtually without warning, killing healthy young adults as well as vulnerable infants and the elderly. Hospitals and morgues were quickly overwhelmed; in Philadelphia, 4,597 people died in one week alone and bodies piled up on the streets to be carted off to mass graves. But this was not the dreaded Black Death-it was "only influenza." In this sweeping history, Barry (Rising Tide) explores how the deadly confluence of biology (a swiftly mutating flu virus that can pass between animals and humans) and politics (President Wilson's all-out war effort in WWI) created conditions in which the virus thrived, killing more than 50 million worldwide and perhaps as many as 100 million in just a year. Overcrowded military camps and wide-ranging troop deployments allowed the highly contagious flu to spread quickly; transport ships became "floating caskets." Yet the U.S. government refused to shift priorities away from the war and, in effect, ignored the crisis. Shortages of doctors and nurses hurt military and civilian populations alike, and the ineptitude of public health officials exacerbated the death toll. In Philadelphia, the hardest-hit municipality in the U.S., "the entire city government had done nothing" to either contain the disease or assist afflicted families. Instead, official lies and misinformation, Barry argues, created a climate of "fear... [that] threatened to break the society apart." Barry captures the sense of panic and despair that overwhelmed stricken communities and hits hard at those who failed to use their power to protect the public good. He also describes the work of the dedicated researchers who rushed to find the cause of the disease and create vaccines. Flu shots are widely available today because of their heroic efforts, yet we remain vulnerable to a virus that can mutate to a deadly strain without warning. Society's ability to survive another

Well this post has aged interestingly....or barely at all...

 

[mnkykungfu]

So if you're looking for other worlds of that type, have you heard of/read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson?

the hero, as the title implies, is beyond reluctant... I've never read a book where I at times, hated the protagonist as much as I did Covenant, yet at the same time could not put the book down because all the characters around him had such life breathed into them.

I tried to read this series when I was in elementary school (! I was precocious) right after reading LOTR. I quit after the 2nd or maybe 3rd book because I just hated the protagonist so much. I wonder if as an adult I would have a greater appreciation for it....

 

[mnkykungfu]

All the artists here, Jurgens, Bogdanove, et. al. are great, but could no one at DC think of anything more interesting than Doomsday to be the thing to kill Superman? Come to think of it, maybe it was a joke. Maybe they were saying Superman didn’t have a mean bone in his body, and he and Mean Bone Man just cancel each other out.

The Death and Return of Superman is something I kind of make a hobby of deconstructing. There had been mass crossover comic events before, but most of them seemed fairly frivolous....besides Crisis, this was one of the few that revealed a grand plan, and something that the arc as a whole was trying to say about the state of comics as a whole.
My read on it has always been that Superman already had much more interesting nemesis. Luthor, Braniac, Metallo, Darkseid, Mtzyptlk, etc....Doomsday was exactly what it sounded like. (And note that it was just a nickname by fans because the narration kept saying "Doomsday is coming"....but that was referring to the event. The character itself was always referred to as "the creature" in dialogue.) The point is that Doomsday was just meat and bone and fury; pure, simple, visceral. Superman was always stronger and more powerful than anyone else, so a threat like this had never appeared as a real threat to him. The idea of someone just beating Superman to death in a straight street fight was supposed to be shocking.
I think it's all the defining of the character that's happened since then that's unfortunate. Doomsday was meant to be a one-off, done after he served his purpose. But like anything successful in comics, they have to go back to the well and cannibalize it and add more layers until it's a watered down clone of what originally worked. (See all the Crisis and Infinity events....)

 

[mnkykungfu]

I am pretty much a looney toon when it comes to Ancient Astronauts, Bigfoot, UFOs, Forbidden Archeology, conspiracies....I blame Leonard Nimoy and In Search Of... lol

So I have pretty much read all of Graham Hancock's books.... I read them more fun than fact...lol.

@bionicbob you may enjoy a podcast called "Our Fake History". To borrow the host's tagline, "it's the podcast that looks at all our best historical myths and determines what's fact, what's fiction, and what is simply such a good story that it must be told!" Hancock makes several appearances (his work, not as a guest.)

 

[mnkykungfu]

Looking for advice. We’re just finishing up the first book in the Wheel of Time series with my 8 year old twins. It’s too much for them and need something a little quicker. Asking them about recent books we’ve read—Harry Potter through book 3, The Hobbit, Martian Chronicles, A Wrinkle in Time, A Lighthouse Between Worlds—it was the last two that they want more of. So I’m looking for good reads like A Wrinkle in Time and A Lighthouse Between Worlds. Both have sequels but I’ve heard they pale in comparison. The book I had picked for next, Pullman’s Northern Lights from the His Dark Materials series, I think I should hold off on.

I haven't read those last two you mention (wrinkle in time's on my list), but if you're looking for easy reading fantasy that would be appealing to both you and children... The original Earthsea trilogy by Ursula LeGuin is very good. Fantastic world building, but each book is also very short, with simple, digestible plots (to my memory). Might be worth looking at and seeing if it ticks your boxes.

There are other books that follow the first three, but they were written years later and are MUCH heavier. Definitely not for 8 year olds.

@Moe_Syzlak it's been two years so not sure if you're still up this alley, but I can confirm that the sequels to A Wrinkle in Time never really approach the magic of that first book. The His Dark Materials series does seem like a good recommendation, if not at 8 years old, certainly by now. I can also confirm what @The Scribbling Man said, that the original Earthsea trilogy is a good bet. I tore up Fantasy novels when I was young and had already read by 12 years old probably more than I've read since. If you can find any of those old series that had choose-your-own-adventure elements, like Zork, The Wizard & The Warrior, or Lone Wolf, I'd also recommend them. And maybe take a look at The Belgariad (though that might be for a few years older).

 

[asterixsmeagol]

I would suggest reading "A Wind in the Door" after "A Wrinkle in Time", and "A Swiftly Tilting Planet", "Many Waters", and "An Acceptable Time" are all ok but not great. I did not enjoy any of the other semi-related Polly O'Keefe or Austin family novels.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Just finished the Audiobook of John Dies at the End, have now started Reading This Book is Full of Spiders. Took a break from the new Buckaroo Banzai book because it's so dense. Also picked up a couple books from the bookstore the other day, no idea if I'm going to read them anytime soon or if they'll just end up on my shelf forever.
I'm a really bad reader.

I LOVED John Dies at the End. Wish I could have read it in its original form, that would've been exciting to have weekly updates. Is the audio delivery good?
This Book is Full of Spiders is a great follow-up. Not quite as good, but very fun.

 

[Jrzag42]

I LOVED John Dies at the End. Wish I could have read it in its original form, that would've been exciting to have weekly updates. Is the audio delivery good?
This Book is Full of Spiders is a great follow-up. Not quite as good, but very fun.

Ha, no, the audio delivery is not very good. I enjoyed the story nonetheless but the audiobook didn't do it any favors.
I've really enjoyed what I've read so far of This Book is Full of Spiders, of which I've opted to not bother with the audiobook. I'm not super far into it, only reading a little bit here and there.

 

[Wraith]

If you REALLY want to know aboy the Making of Middle Earth, hands down the best read is

Amazon.com: Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth: 9780008296650: Nathan, Ian, Serkis, Andy: Books

Amazon.com: Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth: 9780008296650: Nathan, Ian, Serkis, Andy: Books

www.amazon.com

Better than any of the numerous PICTURE BOOKS out there...the best part about it is the whole rights and landing the money AND the true fly on the wall nature since the author tracked the production for MANY years on site.

MUST READ!

 

[TM2YC]

After many years, I finally got finished reading the 1970-1976 Manga series 'Lone Wolf and Cub', across 142 stories. I don't know if the final duel could ever have quite lived up the enormous expectation that one cannot help accrue across so many life-and-death adventures but it was very emotional. So poetic.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Have you watched The Mandalorian? I keep telling everyone it's a clear homage to this series, but it's shocking how few people have heard of LWaC at this point. Also, did you watch the film series? I wonder how they compare to the manga...especially the final film which was made in the '90s with different actors...

 

[TM2YC]

^Have you watched The Mandalorian? I keep telling everyone it's a clear homage to this series, but it's shocking how few people have heard of LWaC at this point. Also, did you watch the film series? I wonder how they compare to the manga...especially the final film which was made in the '90s with different actors...

I've not seen The Mandalorian but I was aware of it's influence, which makes me want to see it. Apparently Book of Boba Fett (also not seen) did a shot for shot homage to the Lone Wolf movies:

I've some of the LW films but not all, despite owning the Criterion blu-ray boxset. I'm going to correct that soon.

LW is like Judge Dredd/2000AD, in that it's influenced everything for decades, including multiple super famous pop-culture franchises and critically acclaimed movies but many people don't realise it.

 

[mnkykungfu]

^Yeah, I caught that in Book of BFett, too. It's the most obvious one, as it's such an iconic scene from the LWaC films and has been homaged innumerable times. But BoBF strikes a bit more of its own tone than the rest of The Mandalorian...it almost becomes more of a Spaghetti Western than the Eastern-Western that Mando is. In particular, the first season of Mandalorian becomes almost just a lost LWaC film, though it does also work in other homages like Yojimbo and Rio Bravo.

Anyway, back to reading...if you really enjoyed the LWaC manga, maybe you'd appreciate Blade of the Immortal?

 

[TM2YC]

the first season of Mandalorian becomes almost just a lost LWaC film

I really should watch it then.

Anyway, back to reading...if you really enjoyed the LWaC manga, maybe you'd appreciate Blade of the Immortal?

I liked the film a lot but read the books.

I tried reading the first volumes of Koike's 'Samurai Executioner' and 'Lady Snowblood' (I've seen the films of that) but neither held the same fascination as LW.

 

[Hendo69]

Just finished Richard Osman's "The Man Who Died Twice" and now starting a re-read of the Harry Potter series.

 

[Moe_Syzlak]

I picked up the Song of Ice and Fire again with the start of House of the Dragon. I’m about halfway though A Feast for Crows. I think I’ll put it back down again when I finish this book and save A Dance With Dragons for when the next book has a firm release date.

 

[asterixsmeagol]

FYI Feast for Crows and Dance with Dragons overlap in time.

A FEAST WITH DRAGONS

This combined reading order of George R.R. Martin's A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons will serve as your stalwart guide on an adventure North, South, East, and Westeros.

afeastwithdragons.com

 

[Siliconmaster]

I forgot about the time overlap and character split, dang. Very Lord of the Ringsy of ol' GRRM