What book(s) are you currently reading or listening to? October 28

I just started Enshittification by Cory Doctorow. I'm not very far and this is the first nonfiction piece of his that I'm reading but I love his writing so much I'd read his grocery list lol

I’m almost done the novelization of the movie Star Wars Episode 5, it’s always interesting to see the differences since the books come out before the movies are out or done filming in a lot of cases.

So in this case, Vader killed a lot more Generals, and not in person, Yoda is blue, Han doesn’t say “I know” back to Leia.

I finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I found it beautiful and heart breaking.

Now I am reading The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. This book has gotten a lot of buzz and now I see why. The world building is rich and intricate, the characters are flawed but likeable, and the mystery is intensely gripping. I am absolutely hooked.

I'm starting Winter's Heart, the ninth book of The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I'm actually looking forward to this, since I liked the previous book. It felt like things were finally happening and moving along, characters even got some character development! Let's see if that keeps up.

About half way through "service model" by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I like it, but it will take some time to finish this one since I'm kind of busy doing other stuff than reading.

Gate of Ivrel, an old sci-fi/fantasy mash-up by CJ Cherryh, whose work I've been really getting into lately. This is the first of the Morgaine Cycle sub-series in the Alliance-Universe series.

I'm about 75% through and loving it so far. There's very little action, its more of a character-drive story focusing on an agent from a futurist society (Morgaine) sent to a planet to close a series of gates used for intergalactic and time travel. She, along with 100 others she was sent with, were ambushed with her the only survivor. She goes through one of the gates herself in a desperate attempt to survive, and exits in what is to her only a few minutes, but in reality over 100 years have passed. She meets with Vanye, an outcast who killed his brother (in self-defense) who is terrified of Morgaine and the stories of old about her. She employs his help thanks to an ancient, honor-bound tradition, and the two set off to close the last gate at Ivrel.

Finally made it to the tenth story arc of The Wandering Inn webserial. I'm hooked and will definitely keep reading as new segments are published once I finish, but I've spent nearly all of my free time reading this for what feels like at least a month...I have no idea what to do with myself once I'm fully caught up (probably this week).

I'm trying to read the Black Company by Glen Cook, but I have so many hobbies and only so much time while the kids are asleep.

Also I feel like it's worth mentioning for anyone scrolling by that Randall Munroe is the writer of the very popular webcomic xkcd and you've probably seen it before.

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy

A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, can they trust each other enough to protect one another—and the precious seeds in their care? And can they finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together?

I'm almost halfway in and really intrigued by the characters and the mystery.

Started listening to Howling Dark by Christopher Ruocchio. Its the second book in the Sun Eater series. Friend who read it said it was really good so I am gonna give it a go. I was meh after the first one but hope it gets better.

Also just started Heart of Midnight by J Robert King. It part of an old D&D series of books set in Ravenloft, which is probably my second favourite setting in D&D. Its probably not gonna be great but should be at least fun.

The Myth and Propaganda of Black Buying Power by Jared Ball

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-3-030-42355-1.pdf

It's thesis is that "buying power" as a proxy for political power is incoherent because the methodology is bad, the conclusions don't follow, and the institutions that propagate the myth have conflicts of interests.

I'm interested in how capitalism has captured revolutionary and ethical action with "consumer choice". That how we choose to shop is civic action to replace community and political organization.

I have been reading both Henri de Lubac’s «Augustinianism and Modern Theology», a historical overview of the evolution of the idea of nature and grace in Catholic theology from Augustine to modern times, and Georges Bernanos’s «La liberté, pour quoi faire?» (Liberty, for What?), a book that serves as a sort of sequel to his France Against the Robots. It continues his critique of the dissipation of liberties in favor of the centralization of power in the hands of the state and capital, achieved by undermining the value of culture and substituting it with mass propaganda. It’s funny to see how a book written in the 1940s is more relevant today than ever.

“But what do you have to lose? How important is it to you to be instantly recognized, thanks to the simplest and most infallible means? Only the criminal gains an advantage by hiding….” He did not fail to acknowledge the value of reasoning, but he was not convinced. At that time, indeed, Mr. Bertillon’s procedure only threatened the criminal, and it still does today. It was the meaning of the word criminal that expanded prodigiously, eventually coming to designate any citizen who was unfavorable to the Regime, the System, the Party, or to the man who embodies them. […]

The idea that a citizen who had never before been involved with his country’s justice system should remain perfectly free to disguise his identity if he so wished—whether because he was the sole judge or simply out of pleasure, and that any indiscretion by a police officer in this realm could not be tolerated without very serious reasons—is an idea that no longer surfaces in anyone’s mind. It may not be far off the day when it will seem as natural to leave the key in the lock—so that the police can enter our homes day and night—as it is to open our wallets at any request. And when the State deems it more practical, in order to save the time of its countless inspectors, to impose an external mark upon us, why should we hesitate to let ourselves be branded with iron, on the cheek or the buttocks, like the herd? The purge of dissenters, so dear to totalitarian regimes, would then be immensely facilitated. Georges Bernanos - France Against the Robots

The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly

First time in a while reading a physical book. I usually read on a kindle, but hardcover was cheaper than ebook and i though itd be nice to read from a book for once, and i will probably sell it afterwards or donate to my local library.

"Die Tiefe der Zeit" by Andreas Brandhorst.

Title translates to "the depths of time." I don't believe it's been translated to English.

I'm only about 10% in, but I absolutely love it. Futuristic setting about 10k years in the future. Humanity won a fight against an alien species only to later go into war with another, which has lasted thousands of years.

We've engineered ourselves to survive on various worlds, but something is going wrong. We seem to be getting less fertile.

"Great Mothers" lead space ships. They live for hundreds of years and have thousands of children (grown artificially).

But now the enemy, The Crul, seems to be coming out of wormholes (on journeys that took thousands of years) just in order to fight humanity.

lol, it’s been so long since I last checked into one of these that I think I last was on deadhouse gates, now I’m starting the bonehunters. Really enjoying malazan. I’m listening to the complete Malazan audiobook, and it says I’m 44% of the way through!

I'm about 80% of the way through The Works of Vermin by Hiron Ennes. I'm enjoying it, but I'm also ready to be finished with it; unlike Leech (their first book), which picked up in the latter half, this has been a bit slow for me the whole way through.

"Shinto: The Ancient Religion Of Japan" by W. G. Aston. It's short and concise, but might be dated since it was released in 1907. Liking it so far.