What are you reading/listening to this week? (October 18th, 2023)

I have kidney stones and was in the hospital all last week. No books have been read, my bed and Zofran as well as my urologist are my best friends right now. Also knitting and cuddles with my cats.

I've listened to a little bit more of Spinning Silver though, but... yeah...

I've been reading Noise: A flaw in human judgement. Except I got sick, slept lots, and it seems the book will be returned (on libby) only 2/3rds completed.

Jesus and John Wayne. How white evangelicals corrupted a faith and fractured a nation. By Kristen Kobes Du Mez

I wouldn't say I finished House of Leaves in its entirety but I'm finished with it, haha. Now I'm reading Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim. It's an American's recounting of her time spent teaching English in North Korea in 2011.

'The Devil's Playground by Craig Russell. Perfect for spooky season. The search for the lost final print of the scariest horror movie ever made leads to murder, blackmail, cults, voodoo, and sabotage in 1920s Hollywood.

I finished Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods. Looking for next read.

Doing a reread of Small Gods and occasionally listening to The Light Fantastic. Both by Terry Pratchett.

Brandon Sanderson : stormlight archive. It's such a well written series, I'm almost done with the second of 4, so far that has your typical trial and tribulations of your main character. Followed by political intrigue and epic nail biting scenes of heroism. Just wonderful.

I'm really enjoying an unusual LitRPG called The Daily Grind by Argus (book 1 on Kindle Unlimited, not Royal Road).

Most LitRPGs are set in fantasy or science fiction worlds, or a post-apocalyptic world, but The Daily Grind is about a guy who works a dead end phone support job finding a door to an endless dungeon in his office, but the dungeon is mostly endless cubicles, and most of the drops are skill orbs for mundane skills like gardening or musical history.

Really different take on the genre, which is refreshing!

Accelerando by Charles Stross and Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz.

I'm gonna start Dracula by Bram Stoker, I think it fits the season and I'm not an avid reader at all, so I'm kinda starting with the classics.

Finished The Broken Earth trilogy - it was very good, but I was a bit meh on some worldbuilding choices in the 2nd one (which by neccessity carried over into the 3rd book). 1st one was the best.

Then I took a dive into fantasy YA: Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson (trainee nun uses an evil spirit to protect her convent, gets possessed and they go on a journey together to uncover a conspiracy) and The Scarlet Alchemist by Kylie Lee Baker (dark historical fantasy set in China, very hard to give a good one sentence summary). Scarlet was probably objectively better/more interesting but I liked Vespertine more, it was just pure fun (extra points for no romance and having a neurodivergent protagonist).

Then I reread one of my old favourites: Empress of Salt and Fortune. I gotta finally get started on the next one in the series. Good week for reading overall!

Ploughed through the latest John Smith: Mediator urban fantasy, which is good enough that it would have been a solid midlist title in the 90s but since midlist doesn't exist anymore, has been banished to self-publishing.

The African Samurai by Craig Shreve.

It's a brisk read and is (disappointingly) more of an insight into 16th-century Japan than East Africa, but it's good.

I finally finished “the judge and his executioner”, my first book in German since I re-started studying it! I’m really proud, and even through my limited language skills, then ending was incredible. The author succeeds in making you “feel” you know the solution of the mystery without you really knowing the logica behind.

And I immediately started Fistletooth, following an old suggestion of @gabe It immediately sucked me in, so I’m really looking forward to the rest of it!