Books

I've re-read the first Harry Potter. It's been so long since I last read it. I felt that it really wasn't poorly written. Sure it's a children's book but i looked reading it. And I've started reading flatland

A few Animorphs and the Well of Ascension. I have a few active challenges on Storygraph.

I finished:

• The Harlem Renaissance by Cary D. Wintz
• L'Âge des low-tech by Philippe Bihouix
• High Rise by J.G. Ballard
• Elle et son chat by Makoto Shinkai
• Judaism: A Very Short Introduction
• Berlin Stories by Robert Walser

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub - loved it

When We Were Young by Richard Roper - liked it mostly

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart - excellent

Family of Liars by E. Lockhart - good, but not as good as We Were Liars

• Always Coming Home - Ursula K. LeGuin - I absolutely loved this book. I'm still keep thinking about the Kesh people that this book explores. Very strange read, absolutely recommended.

• The Fifth Season - N K Jemisin - Really enjoyed this book. The way it uses perspective was really great. The ending felt okay. I'm definitely going to be picking up the next one sometime soon.

Currently reading Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer, which has been a fascinating read thus far, but I'm only halfway through.

After that I'm planning on reading Among Others by Jo Walton (I loved her Thessaly series)

The city and the city - China Miéville.

Swan Light by Phoebe Rowe - I really enjoyed this book telling two connected stories that occurred 100 years apart in parallel, centering around a lighthouse in Newfoundland that collapsed into the ocean and the search to find it.

The Weight of Air by David Poses - Autobiographical book advocating for harm reduction approaches in treating addiction. I was sad to see that the author passed away last year, it's clear that his book has helped a lot of people.

Manna - Marshall Brain

I have read Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders.

I can recommend it to anyone who are interested in the politics of US. Bernie talked about the main problems in the US. He talked about discrimination, the corruption, populism, wealth distribution and the negative effect of far capitalism overall.

The best bit of the book in my opinion, that you will understand why's the society so against socialism's ideas, even if it would significantly improve their life in many cases.

I just finished No Longer Human last night. Haven't breezed through a book like that in quite awhile!

• Gardens of the moon by Steven Erickson - a reread. Finished the original 10 books a few years ago. Decides to poke around again. This time around has been such a different experience. I'm now thinking I'm gonna do the rest of the other 9 books again.

• Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. A really good movie. Decided to try the book. An interesting read for sure. Psychological thriller, with far realm adjacent imagery. About 70% done. Don't think I'll be reading the whole trilogy, though.

• Periodo Street Station by China Mieville. I don't know what I think of this one. It seems to be sort of self masterbatory about how unique and wacky the world is. The actual story is scattered and completely lacks focus. The characterization is C+ at best. Full chapters of just wandering though the streets of the city showing small vignettes of peoplea lives from an omniscient pov, that seems to hint at a connection to the main story but is just tiresome to read. The main characters are a poor knock off of Doc Brown, and his girlfriend, a scarab beetle with a human body. I mean the head is the whole beetle legs and all. They are sort of mad scientist beetniks in socially forbidden love. This book just isn't for me I think.

• God's Demon by Wayne Barlow. Barlow is a concept artist who often works with Guillermo del Toro. It's a sorry about a demon lord in hell. Aka ex-angel who fell with Lucifer. And has decided to find his way back to heaven and is leading an army to get there. It's okay. The imagery is great. I don't love the characters so it's hard to get invested.

Demon Magic and a Martini, by Annette Marie

Book 4, first book is Three Mages and a Margarita. After some heavier reads I'd been looking for a lighter story to listen to on my work commute, and the premise of a woman stumbling into a bartending gig for a guild of mythics (people with magic, hidden from the rest of society) by accident and handling it all through sheer force of personality and no small amount of sass sounded fun. It was all that, but it also became an engaging world with interesting and thoughtful characters, individual and mutual character growth, and well, now I'm four books in and trying out some of her other series.

Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang

Kuang's Poppy War trilogy in fact is among those heavier books I mentioned having read above, so I knew her works were good. With all the recent talk of AI plagiarism plus the ongoing topic of who can tell what stories and so on, I thought this would be an interesting read. Kuang does a good job of painting what exactly the world is like - the publishing world, but also the online world, society in general, the people out of the loop... this book doesn't answer the questions so much as it makes you think about them from all the different angles. It's really well written and thought out.

The City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty

This kept getting recommended to me when I'd look for steampunk stuff, which is weird, because it's decidedly not that at all. Still, it seemed interesting enough, and once I picked it up, it was incredibly engaging. Main character Nahri has been hiding a magical talent, accidentally uses a bit too much and summons a djinni, and this lands her smack in the middle of a political mess in the titular city between the various elemental beings of middle eastern mythology. Each time I thought I figured out what this book was going to be, it seemed to veer in another direction, yet always a predictable one if you really thought about the characters and their backgrounds and motivations. Looking forward to book 2. For a more adventurous, sea-faring romp by the same author, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is an incredible story, and the audiobook's first person narration could not be better (City of Brass I read in epub form, not audio, so I can't speak to it).

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna

It seems like the subgenre of cozy slice-of-life fantasy has been really popular post-pandemic, and this contemporary fantasy is a pretty great example of one. Finding family, finding acceptance, being a small, positive change in the world, and being able to be yourself around the people you love and who love you. A super cozy read.

Elantris, Warbreaker and started The Way of Kings, all by Brandon Sanderson. Read Mistborn Era 1 a couple years ago and loved it, finally decided to jump head in into the Cosmere.

Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell. They both describe, in a very creative way, the totalitarian regimes of the '40s, especially the soviet one. They give you an insight of what freedom should be, and what are the systems used by dictators to control the popultation: poverty, ignorance, fear, etc.

Worth reading!

Hopped around a few different genres but really enjoyed all the books I read in June:

• The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent
• The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

Words of Radiance by the BrandoSando

-Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

-Normal People by Sally Rooney

-How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (personal favorite for this month)!

-Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

-I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

-Happy Place by Emily Henry

-Notes on a Silencing: A Memoir by Lacy Crawford

-The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

-The Girl in the Mirror by Rose Carlyle

-Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

-Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

-Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose

-Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

-Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

-Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

-Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

-Shoulder Season by Christina Clancy

I read Factfullness by hans rosling, would recommend if you want a different outlook in these seemingly dark times

• A House with Good Bones by T. Kingfisher. The audiobook was narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, the author of the Lady Astronaut books. She did a great job voicing the plucky heroine.
• Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism--and What Comes Next by Bradley Onishi. Pretty much what it says on the tin. A history of white Christian nationalism from the civil rights era to today and why the heck did 80% of evangelicals support a president who was the embodiment of everything they oppose?
• Looking Glass Sound by Catriona Ward. A good psychological thriller with lots of plot twists.
• In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. This was a re-read and Bryson never disappoints.
• The Cat's Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa by Jonathan B. Losos. Interesting read.
• The Blighted Stars by Megan E O'Keefe. A lot of different plot lines in this character driven survival story. A solid 3.5 out of 5.
• Under Alien Skies: A Sightseer's Guide to the Universe by Philip Plait. The author paints beautiful pictures of what it would be like to observe the wonders of our solar system and the universe close-up.

I "read" a lot of audiobooks, so I go through titles pretty quickly.

Witches Abroad, Small God's, Lords and Ladies and Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett

Working on three body problem. I dont know if anyone else have a hard time with translated works, but I always feel like some part of the book is missing when translated. Like iboixk up on a few context clues that something should be known.

Anyways I'm enjoying it, just lots of extra lookin things up, makes it a bit tedious.

Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher - Edward J. Watts

As the title says. The author tries to stress the fact that the book is primarily about her life and work, which always gets overshadowed by her death. It was pretty good as both a book about her, and general Alexandrian life in her age, but quite short (around 150 pages)

Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology - Ian Michael Plant

Contains fragments from ancient women writers about various topics. It was good, but sadly not much was preserved through time, the fragments were often very short.

I read The City & The City by China Mieville and some bits of Psychogeography by Will Self.

I would recommend the first one, especially if you like detective stories (and games like Disco Elysium).

I'm not sure about the second, it's a collection of columns and the throughline isn't as good as I'd hoped.

I just finished Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.

Last year was particularly hard on me due to some personal failures, and this made me adopt an increasingly pessimistic view of the world and people in general. I decided to pick up Humankind since a friend had recommended it previously. It was intriguing because at the time I was convinced that the world could never get better because human nature is hopeless.

This book was a much-needed antidote to my cynicism. Bregman deconstructs the assumptions that people hold about human nature, clearing the way for a much more optimistic outlook, one where people can be trusted to be good. It's such a refreshing take that I wish more people read this. This book significantly changed how I view people and interact with them, and I'm super grateful to have read it when I needed it the most.

I read the Cradle series by Will Wight. Lots of fun! Interesting magic system, fun progression as the main characters get more and more powerful through the books.

It's not like I don't have a huge TBR list, but even so I keep getting seduced back into reading the Aubrey/Maturin series. They're just too good and every re-read reveals a little nugget of something wonderful you missed before.

So I read Desolation Island, The Fortune Of War, The Surgeons Mate and The Ionian Mission.

Went to a classic - Brave new world And now continuing reading The men in the high castle

Annihilation and it's sequel Authority(50%) by Jeff VanderMeer – Really liked the tone and vibes of Annihilation. Halfway through Authority and it's different, but really interesting too. Many people feel the series dropped in quality after the first one, and I think one factor is that the sequel doesn't fit the expectation of an "Annihilation sequel" as it has a very different setting and approaches the world from a different perspective. As someone who was already warned about that, I was prepared and am liking it, finding it really intriguing .

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco – A great historical murder mystery filled to the brim with a myriad of themes from biblical analysis to semiotics. Doesn't conform to the traditional tropes of the genre, I would even call it postmodern in a sense. Has a lot of intellectual topics, layered meanings and debates that makes the reader think.

Introducing Sartre and Introducing Marxism – Part of the Introducing series of informative and engaging introduction guides to various topics. Great choice for a digestible and brief overview of various topics, enough to whet your appetite.

I finished Sharp Ends by Joe Abercrombie. It was a collection of short stories from The First Law series, and the last book in that series I had to read. I loved it. Javre especially is an amazing character, I hope we haven’t seen the last of her. Like most of The First Law, Sharp Ends was brutal and grim, and yet regularly laugh out loud funny with the blackest humour.

Why We Sleep - Matthew Walker