Books

The Reactionary Mind by Cory Robin.

Robin's core argument is that conservatism's animating value is not freedom, small government, religion, or even an attachment to the past. Instead it's the belief in, and defense of hierarchy. He goes further to argue that Government and civic hierarchy is secondary to private and social systems. And the reason conservatives are so quick to defend hierarchy in institutions is the fear that liberation will leak into the private affairs of industry, society, and ultimately the home.

I'm suspicious of the thesis, but I have to admit, some of his ideas have worked like decoder rings for why MAGA acts the way it does.

The Word For World is Forest by Ursula LeGuin. I hated most of the first chapter but it's improved since then.

Barack Obama biography A Promised Land. Not being American, it's very interesting to learn how American politics work from a very charismatic guy.

I'm about halfway through The Martian by Andy Weir.

Nearing the end of Blood Meridian, it's so matter of fact in its telling of brutality and how nonchalant most of the characters are with death and destruction that it's still shocking near the end. The descriptions of the geography are excellent, and I knew enough Spanish to get through the couple places it's used, but I had to look up a bunch of the plants and animals I didn't recognize. Once I'm done with that I'm going back to Memories of a Lyrical Man I'm about 1/3 in and looking forward to getting back into it, sci-fi character drama time traveling adventure.

Still working my way through Dungeon Crawler Carl. Haven't had to go to the office recently so haven't listened much.

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (Bryan Herbert and Kevin J Anderson)

I've long been a fan of the original Dune series, but only found out about the prequel books about half a year ago. So with the new movies, the new series that centers around the origins of the Sisterhood, and Denis Villeneuve doing a treatment of the events following Paul's ascension to the throne, I figured there's no better time to dive into the prehistory of the setting!

Finished The Triumph of Empire and The Antonines. Unfortunately, didn't glean much from either that I didn't already know, other than a theory that Aurelian's monetary reforms triggered the hyperinflation of the late 3rd century AD, which I found an interesting suggestion.

Currently working on Roman And Local Citizenship In The Long 2nd Century CE. Much more enlightening.

I'm interested in those Dresden books. I've read all of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, and the premise sounds similar, albeit with an American setting rather than a British one. I did a quick search and saw a description which mentioned 'hard boiled' detective fiction - I'm not a fan of Raymond Chandler-style prose, so I wonder if that's a feature of the Dresden series.

As for me, I just finished Bleak House by Charles Dickens. I'm reading all of his novels chronologically, but for a bit light relief I'm now reading Hamlet by Wm. Shakespeare.

Finished Perdido Street Station by China Miéville last night. I enjoyed it a lot, but it was one of the most relentlessly miserable books I've read in a long time. Bad things happen, continue to happen, segue into more bad things, and then the book ends. Looking forward to the sequel...after a sufficiently long break to recover.

Just started Ancillary Sword by Anne Leckie. I enjoyed the first in the series (Ancillary Justice) and am hoping this one will manage to meet the same standards.

Also picked up False Value by Ben Aaronovitch, to start when I finish Ancillary Sword. The Peter Grant series is something that I'd hesitate to say is good, as such, but they're enjoyable and a much needed palate cleanser before tackling something punchier again.

Finished the second novel of The Housemaid series: The Housemaid's secret, by Freida McFadden. While it's written with the same literary structure as the first one, it is also a gripping and surprising novel. I found it to be even better than the first book in the series, as it's much more difficult to predict what will happen next. The biggest issue with the first novel was the ending, which seemed more reliant on luck and wasn't very realistic in my opinion. However, the ending in this one is much better and more satisfying.

I'm currently reading the third, The Housemaid is watching and it's also gripping and fast paced.

I finished Exo Hunter which was my next book in the Infinite series by Jeremy Robinson. It was another pretty good book in the series, so far I have to say that the worst book for me was the series namesake, from then on it has been a good variety of stories all within this one "world". Is nice!

Other than that it has been still on Deathlands. I'm still a little bit torn over how I feel about it. The main character voice actor I have got used to the change but a couple of other, and very specifically one character the voice acting has not only changed dramatically but the voice acting is now of a considerably lower quality for her. It is still very jarring even 20 or more hours on.

On the plus side however it seems after a lull or around 10 books of noticeably poorer writing the standard has jumped up again for the last three books which now seem a lot better thought out in general and have been a lot more interesting to listen to again.

I just hope they change that one voice actor out again soon and I can be happy xD (now on book 49)

The Stone Sky, book 3 of the Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin.

Tentatively started A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney.

Finally finished Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman; I found it enjoyable and well-paced. Knight-turned-brigand and divinely-touched orphan tween go on a quest across France during the height of the Black Plague. Medieval fantasy religious horror; very heavily features Christian mythology, so if that's not your thing, skip. Do check content warnings.

Just finished ”Day of the Jackal” and started reading ”Born to run”.

Started reading Rayuela (Hopscotch) by Julio Cortázar. I had underestimated it (or overestimated my Spanish). A large part seems to be a stream of consciousness that is pretty hard to focus on but moving between chapters in different parts of the book actually helps a bit.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie. I'm a fairly new reader and never been much into fantasy. I read the Harry Potter series and the first mistborn novel (The 2nd mistborn novels was really boring.) and assumed that all fantasy novels are the same with the chosen one trope and all. Didn't read anything fantasy for over a year and then I was recommended this banger by one of my friends. I love this book so much. I've never read anything close to this.

Finished up Morningstar, so now I'm on to Iron Gold

Edit: I’m now about a third of the way through iron gold. God damnit it Darrow what are you doing? I’ve been disappointed before, but now I’m mad at him

Dresden is a bit like a roller coaster where the 1st 3 books are the hill you ratchet up, about midway of book 3 is where you start to crest the 1st hill and see what's coming up. And while there's some good twists and turns and thrills up to Turn Coat, it's pretty tame with some surprising drops and twists.

Turn Coat is kind of the crest of the roller coaster before the bottom drops out headed into the underground tunnel you didn't know was coming, it really starts to accelerate and spin out quickly after this.

I'm currently re-reading Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five". I love it! Also, Sync for Lemmy doesn't have a way of underlining apparently, so I put the title of the book in quotes.

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