Books

What are everyone's opinions on HP Lovecraft? I'm trying to read at the mountains of madness but I'll read a few pages and realise I have no idea what I have just read and have to read it again. Really enjoyed The Tomb but cant seem to take in any of his other works!

I appreciate fiction, but I almost always read nonfiction. It's probably because I typically choose the books on topics I'm interested in, and I want to learn about them. But I also love the way a great nonfiction writer can weave a narrative so strong that it's just as much literature as it is journalism.

Some of my favorite examples of nonfiction that do this well: Soul Full of Coal Dust, Toms River, Desert Solitaire (Abbey can be problematic, though, so be warned), The Pine Barrens, This Land, and on and on.

I guess I'm kinda stuck in the environment/nature section these days!

I'm thinking we should have a central post for all the book sublemmys so we can easily find them. The ones I'm aware of are:

• !Literature@beehaw.org (defederated so only Beehaw users will work here)
• !ScienceFiction@lemmy.ml
• !Socialistbooks@lemmygrad.ml
• !Fantasy@lemmy.ml
• !GayFiction@lemmy.world
• !SapphicFiction@lemmy.world
• !Nonfiction@lemmy.world
• !StephenKing@mander.xyz (cr. mizu6079)
• !Manga@lemmy.ml (cr. AWanderingsorcerer)
• !Comics@lemmy.ml (cr. AWanderingsorcerer)
• !Comicbooks@lemmy.world (cr. AWanderingsorcerer)
• !Books@oceanbreeze.earth
• !literatur@feddit.de (cr. Communist)
• !horrorlit@lemmy.ml (cr. Lazycog)
• !Books@lemmy.world
• !Audiobooks@lemmy.ml
• !Books@group.it
• !Books@kbin.social
• !Audiobooks@lemmy.fmhy.ml
• !Books@chirp.social
• !Freebooks@lemmy.world
• !LitRPG@lemmy.ml
• !comicbooks@lemmy.world
• !horrorlit@lemmy.ml
• !cosmere@lemmy.ml
• !Reads@lemmy.world

Fediverse:

• !comics@a.gup.pe (cr. Yuki)
• !comics@chirp.social (cr. Yuki)
• !webcomics@a.gup.pe (cr. Yuki)
• !webtoons@a.gup.pe (cr. Yuki)
• !books@a.gup.pe (cr. Yuki)
• !books@chirp.social (cr. Yuki)
• !bookstodon@a.gup.pe (cr. Yuki)
• !writers@a.gup.pe (cr. Yuki)
• !SFFBookClub@a.gup.pe
• !books@kbin.social

Sublemmys in other languages would be great to add here too! I'll keep adding more as I find them.

About 6 chapters in and wow, I have no idea what is going. I've heard people say it eventually all clicks but man is it a confusing ride to get there!

I really enjoyed Anathem and I'd like to read another like it or another good book from Neal Stephenson. Does anyone have a few recommendations?

Given that it's June, my suggested book to read is "Monstrous Regiment" by Terry Pratchett. Yet another wonderful work by one of the best authors in the history of humanity.

I, 35M, have never been much into reading. I just never found that one book that I thought was fantastic. Everything felt OK at best.

How can I ask you for advice when I don't even know what I like myself? I don't know. I think a fantasy or mythological theme would work best. Something fast paced and with a non sad ending. I'm open to pretty much everything, though.

Maybe by listing what books I have read and what I found displeasing about them you can suggest me a book or two to try? Give me some feedback!

Books I remember reading:

• Circe - I like the mythological theme, I think this was the book I enjoyed the most. I found it a bit bland, like the story pretty much lead to nothing of interest.

• The Hobbit - I love the lord of the rings movies (never tried the books), I thought maybe I'd enjoy this book. I didn't enjoy the plot, don't really wanna spoil why.

• Da Vinci Code - I thought it was fine, I guess I enjoy plots with some mystery.

• Angels and Demons - honestly felt like the same book, I don't know if I even finished it

• Digital Fortress - as a software developer, i thought the theme would pull me in but it didn't. It actually felt like the same book again and I have tried reading it three times without success.

• 100 years of solitude - I read this a long time ago so I don't really remember why I didn't enjoy it. I remember it being a slog with long and very detailed descriptions of situations that didn't feel to matter at all.

Thanks!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1212709

I recently finished Moon Witch, Spider King, the second novel of James' fantasy trilogy after reading the first novel, Black Leopard, Red Wolf earlier this year. I'd love to hear if anyone else has any thoughts on these two books.

I was drawn into Jame's world building. The epic fantasy world he creates draws primarily from African folklore and culture. From the perspective of someone used to the ideology of Western fantasy, I was engrossed in the lore. The prose can be meandering--I had to go back and re-read paragraphs regularly ("wait, what did I just miss?"), but it's masterfully written.

The book is vulgar and incredibly violent. There are numerous scenes of graphic sexual violence, some of which was bad enough my immersion and had me questioning "does this really need to be in the book?". If you're sensitive about that, I would definitely avoid this one. I still feel uncomfortable about some of the scenes I read.

The plot of the books is centered around the same series of events (more or less), from different characters' perspectives. The first novel is narrated by Tracker--a mercenary with a supernatural 'scent', and the second by Sogolon, a misandrist with her own mysterious abilities. Both are unreliable narrators, and sometimes recount their stories in non-chronological order. By the end of the second book I was re-evaluating what I thought had happened from reading Tracker's tale in the first. I am sure the upcoming third novel will continue that trend.

Both books were fairly long, and dense reading, but they felt like only a short glimpse into the world of the North and South Kingdoms. I really want to learn more about that world, so I will probably pick up the third book when it arrives, even if I'm also still a little apprehensive about some of the more extreme scenes.

Had a bit of a showerthought this morning. c/books could do a monthly book club pick but with the additional feature of inviting a related community to participate. For example, if the book pick was "Two Wheels Good" by Jody Rosen, !bicycles@lemmy.ca could be invited to participate. Seems to be a great way to encourage more people to read and more people to subscribe to the sub.

I'm about 70% through the second Jurassic Park book and it's ok. People on /r/books seemed to think it was even better than the first, but it feels like a slog compared to the first. I'm looking forward to moving on to Stephen King's The Stand.

Unlike many other large subreddits r/books has not made any statements about the API changes. I did try and post something about it but it ended up getting deleted. At 22.1 million users this would be a pretty significant addition to the protest.

Does anyone know why there hasn't been anything official?

I recently discovered Bookwyrm and am really liking it. It's not quite as full-featured as The Storygraph or Goodreads but it covers all of the most important functionalities and it's federated which I appreciate. Something that it is missing Vs either The Storygraph or Goodreads at the moment is volume of reviews (ie. Volume of users.) However, your review won't get lost in the sea so much and I've found that it's been quite easy to find readers with similar interests.

Anyway, who here is using Bookwyrm? What's your account so we can all follow each other? (Mine is Unfreeze4257@books.theunseen)

Just finished The Long Earth series by Sir Terry Pratchett and Steven Baxter. I'm a huge Pratchett fan and these were my first Baxter novels. It pains me to say it, but it was kind of awful..

The whole series can be summed up by "amazing premises that go entirely to waste". The pacing and plot of the books are just terrible, to be frank - each book feels like 9/10 exposition 1/10 plot & character development.

So many fascinating plot points are just abandoned without ever being revisited.

Where did the rectangle buildings with the ray guns come from?

What became of the Beagles after humanities intervention?

Who built the martian beanstalk, and what became of them?

What happened to the fragment of Lobsong/Abraham that was left in the satellite on the Silver Beetle world?

Who sent "The Invitation", and why?

And then even more plot points are kept going, but it feels clear that Baxter really had no idea what to do with them.

The Next show up (out of nowhere) and then proceed to just spend all their time naval gazing until the Deus Ex Machina that is "The Thinker"

Valhalla's quiet revolution was the subject of the whole second book - but then at the point of the third book, basically nothing has changed.

The Traversers went from being an existential threat to the whole long Earth to just being a cool tourist destination, seemingly overnight.

Lobsang's avatar which he sent to 1st person singular was supposed to become absorbed into it, but it turns out he was just having a beach vacation the whole time.

Ultimately I wound up severely dissapointed given how excited I was in the first half of the first book. It's an amazing premise and has so much potential. But ultimately it feels squandered.

I had to really force myself to finish the final book, without much enjoyment

Curated lists of diverse, queer-focused books available for sale in the USA. We believe these are among the many books worth reading and/or sharing no matter how many times they are banned.

Note: I might receive a small commission from book purchases made from following the link.

Underline quotes, write something, doodle etc.

Chirp Books has Robin Hobb's Farseer audiobooks on sale for $2.99 - $3.99 each

https://www.chirpbooks.com/series/farseer-audiobooks

What do you recommend?

(The following review contains NO SPOILERS)

This is the story of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, stuck in a perpetual conflict between their individual hopes and the expectations of their community. The son of Ezra, a wealthy merchant from Kaifeng, falls in love with a Chinese lady and has to conciliate between this love and the pride of his people.

“do not break your mother’s heart. No, wait, I do not ask you to think of me, David. Think of our people!” (Ch. I)

“now—hear me—I am not your earthly father while I speak these words. I am your rabbi. I command you!” (Ch. III)

The Jewish individual, at his core, exerts the whole pressure of his people, blood and history upon himself, voluntarily or forcefully. He spends his earthly life in sorrow over the long gone past and reminisces about the lost homeland.

I find this picture of Judaism and the Jews to be common in the literature. I am reminded of Youssef Ziedan's The Nabatean, where an Arab Jewish proselyte is seen to be always grieving and his close ones didn't know why exactly.

On another note, Pearl S. Buck excelled at presenting historically accurate depictions of the Chinese Jews in the 19th century by blending historical events with fictional characters.

Personally, this book doesn't hold up to her well-acclaimed House of Earth trilogy, yet it's good enough.