Just finished The Terror, by Dan Simmons. Although it took me a while to finish it, I really found it very good. I learned so many things on the Nord pole and on ships, royal navy of 19th century, great discovery, Inuit culture and religion... This book is really great from a documentation point of view, it's very rare for such a fictional piece of work. I think this is what give its special taste to this novel and adds a lot of realism.
Now, following one of the comments of this post, I just started reading There Is No Antimemetics Division, by qntm. And by the way I discovered all this universe of web serials which may be of interest to me too.
If I understand correctly the project, which I didn't knew, I think the main difference with obtainium is that this one is portable and work on multiple platforms, not only Android. Linux, Windows and MacOS are listed.
Well, personally I'm at 30% of the third and I enjoy it. In my opinion, for what I already read, the second one is a bit behind the first and last (at least the beginning) where I really find back what I loved in the first (basically the author take time to give the context about characters in full details).
Now, if you don't enjoy, well everyone his own tastes, don't feel ashamed to not finish the series (or even a book), there are so many other books you may love, why wasting time just "to finish"...
I'm almost at the end of The Twelves, by Justin Cronin. It's a bit more fast paced than The Passage which is the previous volume of the series that I read just before but a bit less "deep" also. Anyway, this is a very good trilogy so far, really gripping.
Of course, once I finish, I will continue with The City of Mirrors.
Otherwise there is also litube. It's not the same concept and thus less privacy friendly but it might be useful too. This is a webview customized for YouTube with an ad blocker, player to play in background and many other functionalities.
Personally, I found Kavita and Grimmory far too complex for my use and also very resources hungry.
At the end CWA is just perfect for me. Still have to configure my kobo e-reader to use it directly and this will for sure be a game changer from my current solution which consist in converting epub to kepub with kepubify and then put it on a local webserver that I open through kobo web browser.
Update: Kobo sync configured and it's just awesome, just adding book to a shelf and sync the reader as usual and hop, everything downloads and progress updated in cwa.
I finished The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump, by William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina. So, this is my first non-fiction of 2026 and I found it very interesting but also a bit frightening (especially in regards to recent events, this book is from 2020). I think this is a must read to understand many of the geopolitical stakes of today.
After that, I started (and still reading) The Passage, by Justin Cronin. So far very very good and I'm just at chapter 3.
I finished What lies between us, by John Marrs. It was a great psychological thriller with some unexpected twists. I enjoyed it very much, a great reading.
For now I read a book in French, Le manuscrit inachevé, by Franck Thilliez. It's also a great thriller (with a totally different kind), I'm halfway into it.
Still reading Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaïkovski. I'm almost halfway in it. For the moment I enjoy it very much. Half being a great sci-fi story, the world is inhabitable, human search for a new planet (not the only book with this plot) but it's brilliantly developed and written. And there is what happens on the terraformed planet, which is interesting as a dive into the development of a civilization. This also, of course, portray the flaws of our current civilizations. If the remaining is as good, in my opinion, it's a great piece of literature on the sci-fi genre.
I just finished my first ever audio book. Always thought this was not for me because I like reading, you know. Then I gave a try, and that's indeed better than I thought. With audio book I can enjoy literacy while doing activities that never would allowed me to do so, like working (for stuff which do not require 100% concentration) or driving (especially in traffic jams). And I really enjoyed having a story told to me, you know a bit like a madeleine de Proust, something bringing you back to childhood.
So for the first one I choose one in my native language, French. À retardement, by Franck Thilliez. This is a great thriller around topics on psychiatry, psychotic criminals and so on. I thought it was very well written and, knowing a bit of the topic through the stories of my psychologist partner, I think it's very well documented about the illness and management of it in asylums (although there are parts that are pure fictional without any scientific veracity).
I'm also reading to another French novel, Le signal, by Maxime Chattam. This is an horror story, maybe inspired by what Stephen King could have written (but as far as I'm in not as good as King - but ok it's very difficult to reach). One interesting suggestion, in the introduction of the novel, the author suggests some music to listen while reading (horror movies soundtracks), never done that before and this is a very good idea (I don't have the ability at each reading session but when I did it, indeed I enjoyed more the book).
I just (30' ago) finished Le tueur intime, by Claire Favan. Since I'm French native speaker (Belgian), read it in French although I mostly read in English (but when the author is French, better to read the original version). My opinion is mixed, on the story itself, I never considered giving up, I wanted to learn what happens next so a good page turner. I, however, had more difficulties with the writing style which I do not enjoyed that much. I also found that there was a bit too much repeated details on the crimes. After finishing it, I thought that the hero found too easily the solution and that some stuff were poorly studied by the author and thus there was a lack of realism.
What's next, I don't know, maybe I will (as often) find it in this community ;)
Just finished Trust, by Hernan Diaz. I read it without looking up at summaries or so before and at first I was a bit disappointed by the first part (and even asked myself if it would not be a dnf). But when I discovered there was 4 parts in this book, progressively revealing the facts, I told myself "what a great piece of literature it is". This is just a real performance for the author to write in 4 different style as if the part were written by different people with the key markers of each type of writing.
Just finished Trust based on this comment advice. I read it without looking up at summaries or so before and at first I was a bit disappointed by the first part (and even asked myself if it would not be a dnf). But when I discovered there was 4 parts in this book, progressively revealing the facts, I told myself "what a great piece of literature it is". This is just a real performance for the author to write in 4 different style as if the part were written by different people with the key markers of each type of writing.
Thanks for this advice, my first reading during my vacation and it was a real piece of artwork.
Just finished The midwife of Auschwitz, by Anna Stuart. Very good, very emotional, just loved this book.
For now, I search for something lighter for the vacation (and not too complex to follow because during vacations, I'm frequently interrupted in the reading). I don't see something in my to read pile, so I'll look in this post or older. But if someone have an advice...
Just finished The Terror, by Dan Simmons. Although it took me a while to finish it, I really found it very good. I learned so many things on the Nord pole and on ships, royal navy of 19th century, great discovery, Inuit culture and religion... This book is really great from a documentation point of view, it's very rare for such a fictional piece of work. I think this is what give its special taste to this novel and adds a lot of realism.
Now, following one of the comments of this post, I just started reading There Is No Antimemetics Division, by qntm. And by the way I discovered all this universe of web serials which may be of interest to me too.
If I understand correctly the project, which I didn't knew, I think the main difference with obtainium is that this one is portable and work on multiple platforms, not only Android. Linux, Windows and MacOS are listed.
This seems promising project, I was not aware of it.
Contrats, a very nice server, my 3rd on the Lemmyverse but this one seems to be the right one who will not shutdown like the two others.
Well, personally I'm at 30% of the third and I enjoy it. In my opinion, for what I already read, the second one is a bit behind the first and last (at least the beginning) where I really find back what I loved in the first (basically the author take time to give the context about characters in full details).
Now, if you don't enjoy, well everyone his own tastes, don't feel ashamed to not finish the series (or even a book), there are so many other books you may love, why wasting time just "to finish"...
I'm almost at the end of The Twelves, by Justin Cronin. It's a bit more fast paced than The Passage which is the previous volume of the series that I read just before but a bit less "deep" also. Anyway, this is a very good trilogy so far, really gripping. Of course, once I finish, I will continue with The City of Mirrors.
Otherwise there is also litube. It's not the same concept and thus less privacy friendly but it might be useful too. This is a webview customized for YouTube with an ad blocker, player to play in background and many other functionalities.
Personally, I found Kavita and Grimmory far too complex for my use and also very resources hungry. At the end CWA is just perfect for me. Still have to configure my kobo e-reader to use it directly and this will for sure be a game changer from my current solution which consist in converting epub to kepub with kepubify and then put it on a local webserver that I open through kobo web browser.
Update: Kobo sync configured and it's just awesome, just adding book to a shelf and sync the reader as usual and hop, everything downloads and progress updated in cwa.
Yeah very good book indeed, read it last year. It's really fascinating throughout the whole story.
For others that read it, are the sequels worthy reading?
I finished The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump, by William J. Perry and Tom Z. Collina. So, this is my first non-fiction of 2026 and I found it very interesting but also a bit frightening (especially in regards to recent events, this book is from 2020). I think this is a must read to understand many of the geopolitical stakes of today.
After that, I started (and still reading) The Passage, by Justin Cronin. So far very very good and I'm just at chapter 3.
Returned to Voyager that I prefer but it's just a matter of taste...
I finished What lies between us, by John Marrs. It was a great psychological thriller with some unexpected twists. I enjoyed it very much, a great reading.
For now I read a book in French, Le manuscrit inachevé, by Franck Thilliez. It's also a great thriller (with a totally different kind), I'm halfway into it.
Still reading Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaïkovski. I'm almost halfway in it. For the moment I enjoy it very much. Half being a great sci-fi story, the world is inhabitable, human search for a new planet (not the only book with this plot) but it's brilliantly developed and written. And there is what happens on the terraformed planet, which is interesting as a dive into the development of a civilization. This also, of course, portray the flaws of our current civilizations. If the remaining is as good, in my opinion, it's a great piece of literature on the sci-fi genre.
Oh yeah one of my first teenage CD.
I just finished my first ever audio book. Always thought this was not for me because I like reading, you know. Then I gave a try, and that's indeed better than I thought. With audio book I can enjoy literacy while doing activities that never would allowed me to do so, like working (for stuff which do not require 100% concentration) or driving (especially in traffic jams). And I really enjoyed having a story told to me, you know a bit like a madeleine de Proust, something bringing you back to childhood.
So for the first one I choose one in my native language, French. À retardement, by Franck Thilliez. This is a great thriller around topics on psychiatry, psychotic criminals and so on. I thought it was very well written and, knowing a bit of the topic through the stories of my psychologist partner, I think it's very well documented about the illness and management of it in asylums (although there are parts that are pure fictional without any scientific veracity).
I'm also reading to another French novel, Le signal, by Maxime Chattam. This is an horror story, maybe inspired by what Stephen King could have written (but as far as I'm in not as good as King - but ok it's very difficult to reach). One interesting suggestion, in the introduction of the novel, the author suggests some music to listen while reading (horror movies soundtracks), never done that before and this is a very good idea (I don't have the ability at each reading session but when I did it, indeed I enjoyed more the book).
What a good idea, a classic I never read yet. Will get it next.
I just (30' ago) finished Le tueur intime, by Claire Favan. Since I'm French native speaker (Belgian), read it in French although I mostly read in English (but when the author is French, better to read the original version). My opinion is mixed, on the story itself, I never considered giving up, I wanted to learn what happens next so a good page turner. I, however, had more difficulties with the writing style which I do not enjoyed that much. I also found that there was a bit too much repeated details on the crimes. After finishing it, I thought that the hero found too easily the solution and that some stuff were poorly studied by the author and thus there was a lack of realism.
What's next, I don't know, maybe I will (as often) find it in this community ;)
Just finished Trust, by Hernan Diaz. I read it without looking up at summaries or so before and at first I was a bit disappointed by the first part (and even asked myself if it would not be a dnf). But when I discovered there was 4 parts in this book, progressively revealing the facts, I told myself "what a great piece of literature it is". This is just a real performance for the author to write in 4 different style as if the part were written by different people with the key markers of each type of writing.
Just started The Whisperer, by Donato Carrisi.
Just finished Trust based on this comment advice. I read it without looking up at summaries or so before and at first I was a bit disappointed by the first part (and even asked myself if it would not be a dnf). But when I discovered there was 4 parts in this book, progressively revealing the facts, I told myself "what a great piece of literature it is". This is just a real performance for the author to write in 4 different style as if the part were written by different people with the key markers of each type of writing. Thanks for this advice, my first reading during my vacation and it was a real piece of artwork.
Just finished The midwife of Auschwitz, by Anna Stuart. Very good, very emotional, just loved this book.
For now, I search for something lighter for the vacation (and not too complex to follow because during vacations, I'm frequently interrupted in the reading). I don't see something in my to read pile, so I'll look in this post or older. But if someone have an advice...