[slab_happy]

Perdido Street Station - yes was great when I read it whilst travelling in New Zealand in 2002, so much so it actually distracted me from climbing at Payne's Ford!

Quantum Thief - yup read that and the sequels, good stuff.

Becky Chambers - I've read and enjoyed her Wayfarer series. Not really into novellas but might check out Rose/House

Beyond The Burn Line - will check that out.

Ninefox Gambit - yup read that and the sequels, good stuff.

The lesbian space vampires thing.....jeeez.....the synopsis still makes me itchy with distaste for the style BUT maybe I will try it 

Lesbian space NECROMANCERS, get it right -- honestly! 

I do think it pulls a bait and switch, with the set-up looking like gimmicky YA -- oh, these antagonistic teenagers are forced to work together as a team to compete against members of other Houses (all colour-coded and themed) in a series of magic trials to be selected for a mysterious honour -- before it turns out to have much stranger and twistier things going on.

And in contrast to some series, the sequels have been getting progressively more and more interesting, especially as more of the worldbuilding is revealed; the second manages a narrative headfuck which is truly beautiful.

[Wellsy]

I have to say I bounced off it pretty hard, but I think that's just personal taste

[Fultonius]

Just finished The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Kind of intrigued to hear what others thought of it. I am glad I have read it. Enjoyed reading a lot of it, some bits less so. Very important book I think?

[Davo]

I read this a long time ago (over 25yrs!). I remember enjoying it and I found it a compelling read. I liked hearing about the journey that he went through and how he fully changed his mind. I haven’t read much else about him, so can’t be sure how much is a fair representation of what he was actually like and about .

[slab_happy]

Side note: it's not a novel (technically), but Fiend, you do really need to play Disco Elysium -- given your liking for Mieville, I think it could be very much to your literary tastes.

(And yes, it's sf/fantasy/slipstream, even though it may not initially be obvous that's what it is.)

[slab_happy]

Also, how do you feel about audio fiction podcasts?

The Silt Verses is some excellent secondary-world horror/fantasy, set in a late-stage-capitalist world with industrialized gods.

[Fiend]

Disco Elysium - I'll add it to my list of games behind Horizon Zero Dawn, Necromunda Underhive Wars, Pascal's Wager, Plague Tale 2, Shadows Of Requiem, The Surge 2, ummm the Wo Long Dynasty demo, The Invincible demo, The Lies Of P demo, and Jedi 2, Diablo 4, Nioh 2, Atomic Heart, Scorn, Dead Space remake and everything else on my Steam wishlist 

I don't do audio books (nor podcasts, it just gets in the way of all the gabber). I have, however, started Becky Chamber's The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, and it's as annoyingly tame and cutesy as the rest of the series so far but will see how it goes.

[slab_happy]

Yeah, I read the Kobo preview of a Chambers book and bounced off it hard, so that's my literary Marmite.

[Duma]

The galaxy.... Is the weakest of the series imo, tbh after the first 2 you wouldn't miss out by sacking it off.

[Duma]

I'm also part way through Nova Swing by M John Harrison, really like the writing, but not hugely grabbed by the story so far. Will persevere given the awards, and report back.

[andy popp]

I've meant for ages to read some William Dalrymple, but only very recently got round it, picking The Anarchy about the rise of the East India Company - met all my expectations in terms of very high quality popular history writing. I suspect it will appeal to quite a few posters and comes strongly recommended.

I'm also finally - finally! - getting round to reading Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, obviously a must for anyone suffering a prolonged, doomed passion for Peak gritstone.

[Davo]

I'm also finally - finally! - getting round to reading Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, obviously a must for anyone suffering a prolonged, doomed passion for Peak gritstone.

I read this a long time ago but thought it was brilliant and very emotional.

[andy popp]

I'm also finally - finally! - getting round to reading Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, obviously a must for anyone suffering a prolonged, doomed passion for Peak gritstone.

I read this a long time ago but thought it was brilliant and very emotional.

Claustrophobically so.

[seankenny]

I've meant for ages to read some William Dalrymple, but only very recently got round it, picking The Anarchy about the rise of the East India Company - met all my expectations in terms of very high quality popular history writing. I suspect it will appeal to quite a few posters and comes strongly recommended.

I'm also finally - finally! - getting round to reading Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, obviously a must for anyone suffering a prolonged, doomed passion for Peak gritstone.

Dalrymple’s “From the Holy Mountain” is an excellent book about Christianity in the Middle East, good enough to inspire a trip to Syria which, pre-war, I would have rated as one of my favourite places to visit.

I must admit to struggling to really get Graham Greene. Made it through Brighton Rock but not EOTA, just one of those basic incompatibilities.

[Yossarian]

I've meant for ages to read some William Dalrymple, but only very recently got round it, picking The Anarchy about the rise of the East India Company - met all my expectations in terms of very high quality popular history writing. I suspect it will appeal to quite a few posters and comes strongly recommended.

I've not read The Anarchy, but I have read a couple of others. City of Djinns: A Year in Delhi is very good and persuaded me to spend a bit more time in Delhi vs rushing away asap on a couple of trips I did back in the 2000s. Then I brought The Age of Kali on the cycling trip I did around Ladakh / Himachal Pradesh, and in various way wish I hadn't. Not because the writing wasn't amazing (it was) but because the subject matter was quite full-on and contributed a degree of background paranoia to some of the scrapes / sub-optimal decisions we made along the journey. I.e. best not read when you're stuck in traffic because of a dead body in the road and two warring villages armed with big sticks and metal bars are looking like they want to get stuck into each other.

[seankenny]

I think many western male visitors totally underestimate just how violent and lawless South Asian countries actually are (and the corollary, which is how arbitrarily state power is wielded). It tends not to be directed at us, but also they are really really into mob violence and that’s fairly easy to avoid. Obviously it’s different for women as there’s a lot of sexual assault and rape too. But there is a ton of mental stuff happening all the time and people are living under a great deal of stress and uncertainty.

I was due to fly out of Sri Lanka on an election day and my in laws were adamant that I had to leave the night before and stay at the airport hotel in case the entire country was locked down. I spoke to some other western tourists and they simply could not believe this would happen. As it was the roads stayed open, but there was nearly a coup and across the island about 30 people were killed, so I figure it was probably worth it.

[Yossarian]

I've been listening to James Salter / A Sport and a Pastime on Audible. I need to get the paperback, because the writing is so glorious that I keep having to stop it and note passages down on my phone.

"This blue, indolent town. Its cats. Its pale sky. The empty sky of morning, drained and pure. Its deep cloven streets. Its narrow courts, the faint rotten odour within, orange peels lying in the corners."

Honestly, if you fancy basking in the sun reading / listening to some mid-century literary eroticism, this is absolutely the thing. Though re Audible - the American narrator seems excellent in all respects save his efforts at replicating a French accent.

I've also been reading Ben Lerner / 10:04 which is excellent, though I have been lingering over it / getting through it very slowly.

I've also been "enjoying" Serhii Plokhy / Chernobyl which I started after watching the tv series for about the third time. And I finally finished Richard Rhodes' fairly mammoth Dark Sun: The Making Of The Hydrogen Bomb. Anyone excited by the upcoming Oppenheimer film really ought to read this and the first book The Making of the Atomic Bomb, though you'll have your work cut out to finish them before the film is released...

[owensum]

Rhodes's books are bloated and unfocused IMO. Making of the atomic bomb had about 400% too much material in it. He also isn't very good at stringing together a narrative. Much better to read a biography of Oppenheimer.

[andy popp]

Rhodes's books are bloated and unfocused IMO. Making of the atomic bomb had about 400% too much material in it. He also isn't very good at stringing together a narrative. Much better to read a biography of Oppenheimer.

I haven't read Rhodes, so have no comment on that, but in terms of biographies of Oppenheimer I've read American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. I thought it was excellent but have no idea about competing books (and read very little biography in general).

[Falling Down]

I loved the Rhodes book when I read it in the 00’s. So much history and geopolitics in it, but I didn’t consider it to be padding as it really set the context and backdrop for not just the bomb but so much more.

Edit: this was the Making of the Atomic Bomb not the other one.

[Yossarian]

Yeah, I enjoyed The Making of the Atomic Bomb, and the length of it felt quite appropriate alongside the scale of the story.

Have also recently taken delivery of Harry Sword* / Monolithic Undertow and Electric Wizards / JR Moores, both of which I am looking forward to. I’m sure FD will have finished both years ago!

Harry Sword’s Twitter (@HarrySword) is excellent fun and packed with amusing observations along the lines of, “ The Radio 4 'book of the week' books are often called things like e.g 'The Blind Cobbler of Constantinople' by Philomena Forster”

[Fiend]

Yeah, I read the Kobo preview of a Chambers book and bounced off it hard, so that's my literary Marmite.

The galaxy.... Is the weakest of the series imo, tbh after the first 2 you wouldn't miss out by sacking it off.

Christ you're not kidding, I think I've got halfway through and the pointless saccharine blandness has annoyed me so much I've had to read some reviews to see if there is actually a plot at any point, and it's with some relief I've found that there isn't, so I can sack it off right now.

[Will Hunt]

I finished Blood Meridian last night and now I am haunted by The Judge. For the first third of it I couldn't get on with the book and wondered whether McCarthy just wasn't for me. All the Pretty Horses left no impression on me and I was wishing that someone would show McCarthy where the comma was on his keyboard. The violence was just senseless and disgusting - why, I thought?

As the character of The Judge develops I was pulled in, and in the end there's so much going on. I need to reread it at some point.

On the contrary, I think Chigurh and the Judge are expressions of the worst of human nature, but that ultimately, they are human like the rest of us.

Naaah, The Judge is something supernatural, isn't he? The simplest explanation is that he is the/a devil, or is he god?

NSFW  spoilers:

He even tempts the kid in the desert. "I know too that you’ve not the heart of a common assassin. I’ve passed before your gunsights twice this hour and will pass a third time. Why not show yourself? No assassin, called the judge. And no partisan either. There’s a flawed place in the fabric of your heart. Do you think I could not know? You alone were mutinous. You alone reserved in your soul some corner of clemency for the heathen."

He wants the kid to take the shot, the priest begs him to, and when he refers to the Indians he labels them "the heathen", not savages/n-words etc as they are called at other times.

Another memorable line. "Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent." Surely use of the word creation is purposeful there?

[andy popp]

I just finished a great book that I think many people would enjoy Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis by Fredrik Albritton Jonsson and Carl Wennerlind. The book is essentially an intellectual history of the idea of scarcity and it's influence in Western philosophy, politics, and - above all else - economics, tracing how ideas of growth and plenty have come to dominate. Excellent and thought provoking.

Harvard and in hardback only so far but not too bad at 25 quid.

[seankenny]

I just read the blurb about the book on the publisher’s website and the description of modern economics is not really correct. I’d be interested to read a review of the book by someone with a technical background who knows their way around standard modern economic theory.