What are you reading at the moment?

Needful Things by Stephen King

Up next is The Egg by Andy Weir

Now : History Decoded : the 10 Greatest Conspiracies by Brad Meltzer

On deck next : Ballplayer by Chipper Jones

Picked up a collection by Laird Barron for my Halloween reading. He's a Canadian author who has written some wonderful cosmic horror, but has been turning his hand to thrillers recently. This collection is titled The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and collects several of his horror stories.

Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian

Next, Liane Moriarity (Big Little Lies) latest, Apples Never Fall

Termination Shock, by Neal Stevenson. Climate change sci-fi. He’s one of my absolute faves.

On deck: Megan Abbot’s The Turnout. She’s one of my absolute faves too.

Motorcycle Therapy - A Canadian Adventure in Central America. Actually, I was gifted the audio book so I’m listening.

The Soul Killer by Ross Greenwood. It's the second book in a series. They've been really good so far. The first one, The Snow Killer, kept me in the dark to the very end. I love when that happens.

Reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

My Africa Twin operator manual.

What She Saw by Diane Saxon

For some reason I always read several books at the same time. I usually read fantasy and science fiction for fun and other books because they are supposed to be good for me.

Canterbury Tales translated to prose: This is pretty good and inspirational. It was fun seeing a slice of life from Chaucer's time. I was surprised by how worldly they were at this time. Obviously Chaucer travelled extensively and was aware of many other books and stories. At the back of the book is some of the original verse in Middle English which I seem to be able to understand better if I just ignore the spelling and read it out loud.

To the Lighthouse: Reading this book is somewhat more difficult to follow than reading Middle English.

The Annotated Arabian Nights: Working my way through the Seale translation of the Arabian Nights. This series of stories certainly had more adult themes including sex and horror than the watered down versions most people are familiar with.

The Two Towers: Audible Andy Serkis version: Of course I have read this before but my nephew recommended the Andy Serkis version on Audible. He does a good job although I can tell he is influenced by the movies imitating Orlando Bloom and John Rhies-Davies.

Fortress of the Pearl: Elric of Melnibone: There is too much time spent in the dreamscape making this book hard to follow and boring. Sort of disappointed so far.

History, actually. I am reading The Perdiccas Years by Tristan Hughes, which deals with the aftermath of the death of Alexander the Great. It's a period that even my classics degree kind of glossed over. Alexander dies (mumble mumble) presto, Hellenistic kingdoms! But there's actually tons of great stories in the period from 323BCE (his death) and 275BCE when the familiar Hellenistic kingdoms were finally established. This only deals with first 3 years post-Alexander, when the focus was his general Perdiccas trying to hold the empire together. I hope he plans to do this as a series eventually.

And how did I find it? Hughes hosts the History Hit podcast The Ancients and he, not surprisingly, did an episode on the last days of Alexander and the first days after his death in conjunction with the book's launch.

Quote by Mendalla

History, actually. I am reading The Perdiccas Years by Tristan Hughes, which deals with the aftermath of the death of Alexander the Great. It's a period that even my classics degree kind of glossed over. Alexander dies (mumble mumble) presto, Hellenistic kingdoms! But there's actually tons of great stories in the period from 323BCE (his death) and 275BCE when the familiar Hellenistic kingdoms were finally established. This only deals with first 3 years post-Alexander, when the focus was his general Perdiccas trying to hold the empire together. I hope he plans to do this as a series eventually.

And how did I find it? Hughes hosts the History Hit podcast The Ancients and he, not surprisingly, did an episode on the last days of Alexander and the first days after his death in conjunction with the book's launch.

Finished this and it really is an excellent piece of history writing. Keeps the academic discussion and debate to the end notes and focusses on telling the story of our current understanding of how events unfolded after Alexander's death. Worth a read if you're into ancient history.

Currently, I am reading a classic webcomic series called Questionable Content. Does a great job of being all about sex and relationships while keeping things to a PG-13 (soft R at worst) level. No onscreen sex, minimal nudity, some profanity. And the dialogue is hilarious. Not necessarily "realistic" but hilarious. My full review is in the "what are you reading" thread on Wondercafe2.ca:

https://www.wondercafe2.ca/threads/what-are-you-reading.583/post-436309

Not sure if I will make it all way through QC or not. It's long (started in 2003 and still producing new strips).

For those of you who know me, you will not be surprised that I am reading a book called Blackpool by Tram. Originally printed in 1981, it is the concise history of the oldest electric street tramway in the world. All the more interesting to me because my other half grew up in Blackpool, which is where we met.

Last summer I had to move all of the books in my downstairs library. I noticed several books by famous authors whose works I had never read so I decided to read some of them.

The first book I decided to read was To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. For the first fifty pages or so I struggled with her style of multiple focalization, jumping from character to character, and stream of consciousness. I finally figured out I needed to slow down and pay attention to whose pov it currently was. That helped greatly, and I have now finished the book. The writing reminded me of impressionist painting, in some ways, with little dabs of thought dispersed across the pages. Knowing her ultimate fate some of the passages were rather haunting.

I have just started reading Islands in the Stream by Ernest Hemingway. I had not read any Hemingway before. It is not his most famous novel, but I happened to have it in my library so I thought I would try it. Hemingway’s style of writing is quite different from Woolf’s.

Quote by Mendalla
Not sure if I will make it all way through QC or not. It's long (started in 2003 and still producing new strips).

Ugh, he's starting to get into a glut of characters. Some of the new ones I like, but it's getting hard to keep track of who is involved with whom. I mean, I guess that's closer to real life where people come and go but wow. And now it is becoming clear this is a post-Singularity version of twenty-first century society, with the AI characters becoming more and more integrated with the human ones. Which is cool, but expands the pool of characters even faster. Human-AI dating and sex seems likely to happen at some point now. We already had an AI space station wine and dine a main character (yes, there was a series of strips that take place in orbit).

Rereading this ol' comics book I randomly picked in addition to a stack I picked years ago from a book fair.

Just finished The Hero of Ages Brandon Sanderson's conclusion to his debut trilogy Mistborn. Wow! What a great conclusion! I listened to this series on Audible and I really liked the narrator especially because he was easy to understand while driving.

Secret of the Rosary - St. Louis de Montfort

In Sinu Jesu - A Benedictine Monk

I finished reading Steven King’s The Gunslinger, the first book in his Dark Tower series which is supposed to be his foray into the fantasy genre. I started reading this book back in the 1980s but quit reading it because it was too bizarre and violent. I also wasn’t into the old west setting back then. I finally completed it. My conclusion: It is bizarre and violent, and I’m not sure I like the old west setting that much. It seemed like there was not enough to the story, the characters seem to come and go at random. It did not inspire me to go out and read any more of the series. This is the only Steven King novel I have ever read. I imagine he does better in the horror genre. I had seen advertisements for this new novel Fairy Tale, but now I am not as interested in reading it.

I am currently listening to The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie on Audible. This is a fun fast-paced story with layered, interesting, and quirky characters. It does not take itself too seriously, but there are some violent scenes. I love this book and am looking forward to the rest of the series. The reader does excellent voices and is easy to understand, even in traffic.

Quote by MikeHanson

I finished reading Steven King’s The Gunslinger, the first book in his Dark Tower series which is supposed to be his foray into the fantasy genre. I started reading this book back in the 1980s but quit reading it because it was too bizarre and violent. I also wasn’t into the old west setting back then. I finally completed it. My conclusion: It is bizarre and violent, and I’m not sure I like the old west setting that much. It seemed like there was not enough to the story, the characters seem to come and go at random. It did not inspire me to go out and read any more of the series. This is the only Steven King novel I have ever read. I imagine he does better in the horror genre. I had seen advertisements for this new novel Fairy Tale, but now I am not as interested in reading it.

The Gunslinger is, in retrospect, the weakest book in The Dark Tower. I quite enjoyed it, though. Later books are still weird but the Western element fades into the background a bit. And if you know King's post-apoc fantasy epic The Stand at all, its Satan-analogue Randall Flagg is the villain later in the series (he's actually a recurring villain in King's fiction, even if he is best known from The Stand).

But, yes, in general King is much better at horror than fantasy. While I kind of drifted away from him due to over-saturation in the eighties and nineties, I would still put some of his work (The Mist, Christine, Salem's Lot, The Shining) pretty high on my horror reading list. And he's done some excellent shorter works, like the four novellas in Different Seasons, not all of which are even horror (e.g. The Body, the basis for Rob Reiner's film Stand By Me, is from that collection, as is Rita Hayworth And the Shawshank Redemption, basis for The Shawshank Redemption film).

Quote by Mendalla

And if you know King's post-apoc fantasy epic The Stand at all, its Satan-analogue Randall Flagg is the villain later in the series (he's actually a recurring villain in King's fiction, even if he is best known from The Stand).

But, yes, in general King is much better at horror than fantasy. While I kind of drifted away from him due to over-saturation in the eighties and nineties, I would still put some of his work (The Mist, Christine, Salem's Lot, The Shining) pretty high on my horror reading list. And he's done some excellent shorter works, like the four novellas in Different Seasons, not all of which are even horror (e.g. The Body, the basis for Rob Reiner's film Stand By Me, is from that collection, as is Rita Hayworth And the Shawshank Redemption, basis for The Shawshank Redemption film).

The Stand came out when I was in high school and my friends were really into it. I never got around to reading it, but I did like the mini series that came out a couple years ago. I had read about the Man in Black being the same guy from The Stand. Talisman is supposed to be good. Maybe I will try that someday.

There have been two adaptations of The Stand. A miniseries starring Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, and Rob Lowe, to name a few, in 1994. I enjoyed that one. Another series came out in 2020, starring Alexander Skarsgard and Amber Heard. It was a bit over the top but a good adaption. Stephen King wrote the last episode offering a new ending.

His book Salems' Lot had two miniseries made as well. The first in 1979 and another in 2004. They have since made a theatrical movie, but the release date has been postponed, and now there is no date currently scheduled.

Is it just me or are there more King adaptions than ever before? I'm not complaining.

I am rereading some of King's short story anthologies.

Quote by gillianleeza
Is it just me or are there more King adaptions than ever before? I'm not complaining.

It feels like it, eh. And Joe Hill (pseudonym for King's eldest son) is getting a lot out,.too. Horns, NOS4A2, and Locke & Key have all been adapted over the past decade or so. Busy family.

Jane Eyre

The Lighthouse Witches by C. J. Cook. I love ghosts, witches, lighthouses, mysteries, and Scotland, so I am enjoying this book.

My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones. A final-girl-in-a-slasher survival tale. It’s great.

Dark Night of the Soul - St. John of the Cross

Fairy Tale by Stephen King, I just started it. I'm not a great fan of fantasy, but I will give it a try since it is King.

I loved his last book. Billy Summers. Noting supernatural about it, it's the story of a hitman who wants to get out of the business. It does have a few nods to other King novels. One is a reference to the Overlook hotel from The Shining.