What are you reading?

[dubiousbystander]

I am braving the 1980 movie. An hour 21 minutes in. It's not quite as painful as I thought it would be. They skipped out on the second landing and went straight to the third. Spender is played by a black man. Sigh.

[dubiousbystander]

I was wrong. I am almost at the end of the book now. Have actually listened to There Will Come Soft Rains.

I realized that I'd mixed this up with Stranger in a Strange Land! I have never read this book before. It's something, and something terribly sad.

[dubiousbystander]

It might be the film adaptation I'm remembering. I swear I must never have read this book before. Got to the rains! Now in the part where the sisters, getting ready to go to Mars, one with her fear of the dark, the other who just said she didn't want to go. That's where I am now.

[Ceridwen]

Read this a long, long time ago. There Will Come Soft Rains and the planting of trees on Mars are the clearest memories. I recommend you never bother with the film adaptation it's fairly awful.

[dubiousbystander]

... ... Now I've gone on to listening to the audiobook for Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles.

I thought I'd read it before, but I'm only in the first part and don't remember any of it at all. Either this means I never read it, or it means I read it and at the time, nothing in there bothered me. The reason being that none of it felt out of the ordinary. I don't mean as in lacking imagination. In my youth, I surely thought it was very imaginative.

But now... Oh now.
The first part is all about a Martian husband and wife. It is so completely human normal. Only set against an exotic backdrop. It is also human toxic. The woman dreams and speaks of her emotions. Her husband is sarcastic and dismissive at her. When he knows that she's dreaming about the future, he gaslights her and bullies her into staying at home. He goes out and murders what she'd dreamed of in jealousy. She knows what he's done, but goes into a sort of madness where she forgets the wrong and continues in this dead marriage. And all of that is so very poisonous and normal. Then of course the second mission, where the men from Earth are like children, and end up slaughtered by a well-meaning psychiatrist who then goes mad because he can't believe the evidence that didn't die with them. Then the third mission, where the men from Earth are suckered into peace, but are then slaughtered, with just enough question: Were they slaughtered because in the night, when they thought too much about it, they feared being slaughtered? Or were they slaughtered because that was the plan all along?

I suppose that might be answered later in the book, but right at this time, the book has not aged well for me.

Now I'm at the last mission, where there seems to be no Martians around to do any slaughtering, only the men from Earth themselves. And only one of them, One who ignores his own monstrosity in order to build up all other humans as the monsters. Or does he? What was Bradbury's intention there? I'm not going to check and spoil myself. I'm going to continue to read the book. Right now, though, it's disconcertingly poisonous.

[dubiousbystander]

I just read the first of three books. It's The Last Policeman, by Ben H. Winters.
It's well-written, and easy to follow. This teaser video for it is a little too quick-changing, but reasonable. I like it.

[MidnightBlue]

Pratchett is always fun.

Okay, I gave up on Outlander about half way through. It was after the forced marriage.

I am now on The Tower of the Swallow, the 2nd to last book in the Witcher series. I probably would have finished the whole series by now if I wasn't waiting to check it out of the library and I would still be waiting for another 7 weeks so I just gave in and bought the last two books.

[dubiousbystander]

Yesterday I finished reading The Slynx, by Tatyana Tolstaya. Pretty strange story, good and weird, but in a few cases a long list of names and titles. Still, good.

Before that, I enjoyed the audio for Akata Witch, by Nnedi Okorafor. It was a good story, YA, set in Nigeria, and has a sequel, Akata Warrior. Someday I shall borrow that from the library, too.

[Ceridwen]

Dodger
by Terry Pratchett
Quite fun, but then it's Pratchett, so why wouldn't it be.

[Colleengael]

Have you seen the Stephanie Plum movie with Katherine Heigl? I only found out about it because the reprint version of the book showed up at the Dollar Store. I am not sure if I want to see it. While I always pictured her playing Stephanie and Monique as her friend I always picture Elizabeth Gracen as the Bond Office Manager. Her boyfriends have been harder to cast in my mind as I read the books. But I always picture Betty White as Gramma.

[dubiousbystander]

Continuing my whole I must read the books before I watch the series, I started reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and I'm bored. It's a massive book at 850 pages and I'm about 100 pages in and it's not really keeping my attention. I am mystified by its popularity. I've met the main protagonists and I don't find either one particularly appealing.

As far as similarities to Highlander is concerned, Outlander is set in Scotland and that's about it. I would say the Witcher book series would be a much better fit than the Outlander books (based on just 100 pages) for Highlander fans. I am debating on whether or not to keep going with Outlander ...

Has anyone else read it?

I have read them all. Yes, there is no relation between Highlander and Outlander. Well, unless you count the "This happened to her for no particular reason that anyone really knows." Although the author definitely knows and has peppered hints here and there. In a way it's the reverse of Highlander. Mr. Widen's thought was a person from hundreds of years ago living in the present and dealing with how the world has changed, and his life is misunderstood history. Well, my version.

This is a person suddenly hundreds of years in the past, having to deal with how different the world is, and how everything she knows could potentially get her burned at the stake.

You are only 100 pages in, at least as of this post you wrote. In some ways this connects with Lord of the Rings, an author with a tendency to extremely detailed story-telling. Realism despite the plot, being the mysterious sudden time-travel.

[MidnightBlue]

Continuing my whole I must read the books before I watch the series, I started reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and I'm bored. It's a massive book at 850 pages and I'm about 100 pages in and it's not really keeping my attention. I am mystified by its popularity. I've met the main protagonists and I don't find either one particularly appealing.

As far as similarities to Highlander is concerned, Outlander is set in Scotland and that's about it. I would say the Witcher book series would be a much better fit than the Outlander books (based on just 100 pages) for Highlander fans. I am debating on whether or not to keep going with Outlander ...

Has anyone else read it?

[dubiousbystander]

I've been enjoying the time-travel books by Connie Willis. Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Fire Watch (and the short stories also in that book).

[Ceridwen]

Blackout by Candace Owens.
Worth reading.

[MidnightBlue]

Ibram X. Kendi is on my list of authors to read. Given everything that has happened in the United States I am actually avoiding reading books on racism because it's just too upsetting. I've stopped speaking to certain people due to their stance on racism. The fact that some people still don't get it is astonishing to me.

So I finished The Last Wish, I give it 4 out of 5 stars. It's definitely one of the better books I've read this year. I also finished Sword of Destiny and The Road With No Return. I'm currently on Blood of Elves. Oh the one thing that keeps running through my mind is why didn't Geralt give her a code name? She just keeps going around saying her name is Ciri, she might as well say, "Kill me now!"

[dubiousbystander]

I'm now reading "Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America" by Ibram X. Kendi.

Heckuva book. Devastating, too. Incredibly informative just how sickening racism is, and all of the gymnastics people went through in an effort to justify slavery and racism.

https://www.ibramxkendi.com/stamped-from-the-beginning

[MidnightBlue]

I am about less than half way through The Last Wish. I am liking it better than I expected but I also didn't go into this with high expectations. I do have to check words up on Google for every other page; so many creatures, how does anyone keep track of them all?

Les Misérables is my favorite work of literature. If you like Victor Hugo, you may also like Honoré de Balzac. I recently finished reading Balzac's Père Goriot.

I read A Tale of Two Cities years ago, Dickens is such a master of the written word. He has the ability to craft sentences which rhythmically and audibly evoke feeling. It's quite lush.

As a counterpoint to Dickens, I would recommend Graham Greene. His economy with words is like wizardry. With just a few choice words, he evokes an atmosphere which I have never felt with any other writer.

Hmm, didn't mean to write so much. Bibliophile am I.

[dubiousbystander]

Do you like it?

I have finally succumbed and started checking out The Witcher. Since I found out it is based on a Polish book series, I just started reading The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. It opens with a sex scene, yay! So far, so good : )

I belong to the group of people, if I know a visual medium is based on a written medium, will insist on reading first and watching later.

The three stories were okay. Not in my general area of interest, but okay.

I haven't checked out The Witcher books. I did read Leviathan Wakes, which both helped and caused some jarring when watching Season 1 of The Expanse.

I've read Les Mis, which shone light on some bits of the movie (I've never been in a position to see it live), and made other bits of the movie so annoying. It was really great to read the background for the priest. Also, I read A Tale of Two Cities, leading me to regard that as a prequel to Les Mis.

[Ceridwen]

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

[MidnightBlue]

I'm reading Night's Edge: Dancers in the Dark\Her Best Enemy\Someone Else's Shadow. Three short stories, one of them by a Barbara Hambly, who had been prone to writing Highlander fanfic in ages past.

Do you like it?

I have finally succumbed and started checking out The Witcher. Since I found out it is based on a Polish book series, I just started reading The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. It opens with a sex scene, yay! So far, so good : )

I belong to the group of people, if I know a visual medium is based on a written medium, will insist on reading first and watching later.

[dubiousbystander]

I'm reading Night's Edge: Dancers in the Dark\Her Best Enemy\Someone Else's Shadow. Three short stories, one of them by a Barbara Hambly, who had been prone to writing Highlander fanfic in ages past.

[MidnightBlue]

I liked Michelle Obama's book better, I thought she was the better storyteller. I enjoyed them both. I just started reading War & Peace.

[dubiousbystander]

I read that! They're good books!

[dubiousbystander]

I just finished President Obama's Dreams From My Father. It's a very good work, and he sounds so good reading it! A nice kind of bookend, for I'd read Michelle Obama's Becoming (or listened to, as it was the audiobook) only a few months before. Both books are excellent.

[~mj~]

I will be reading E is for Evidence by Sue Grafton if I can find it. Some books are still in boxes...we need bookshelves...