I’ll start first: (bear in mind I usually listen to audiobooks)
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir |A guy finds himself stranded in space aboard an international space vessel where he has to remember who he is.
- The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater |A true story about how hanging with the wrong crowd can have life-altering consequences
- The Animorphs series by KJ Applegate |Young adult series in which a group of kids find an alien, get the powers to morph shape into animals, as well as uncover an alien takeover conspiracy (Plus, detailed depictions of how grotesque those transformations are!)
- Saga by Brian K. Vaughn & Fiona Staples (Comic, ongoing) |Following the story of Hazel, a baby born from an ex-soldier and an enemy combatant, Saga shows how gowing up and raising a kid in a wartorn universe can have highs and lows.
Edit: added pipes for better separation
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
Orbital, by Samantha Harvey. It’s just won the Booker prize so I thought I’d check it out. It’s set on the space station, and is basically the astronauts on board thinking. I can’t believe how beautiful it is, how gripping.
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. So fascinating. https://www.merlinsheldrake.com/entangled-life
Project Hail Mary was much more of an emotional ride than I was expecting.
🎶 Jazzhands 🎶
Algorithms To Live By, applying computer science and mathematic principles to real life. Helping make better decisions that are provably more efficient. Really interesting and anyone who has any interest in computing can get a lot from the book.
“Parable of the Sower” by Octavia Butler. Published in 1993 but set in 2024. Definitely resonates with the state of things today.
Just read that for the first time and couldn’t put it down.
Mistborn: The Final Empire, by Brandon Sanderson. An epic fantasy.
I loved it and just started the second book.
Oh you are in for a treat. I love that trilogy. Such good books.
- The Mercy of Gods: The first book in a new trilogy from the guys behind The Expanse.
- How to ADHD: Because I wasn’t diagnosed until 40 and now I have to rethink everything about me.
- My War Gone By, I Miss It So: The memoir of a British war zone journalist who covered the Bosnian War and other Balkans conflicts. I originally read it decades ago but was reminded of it after watching Civil War earlier this year. I heard lots of criticism about the main characters in that movie not being relatable or very likable so I picked this back up to confirm that yes, that’s accurate, and I think part of the point of the movie…
How is the ADHD book? Actually helpful?
Yeah, I would recommend it. My biggest takeaways from it so far have been understanding how many of my habits and personality quirks are actually coping strategies that I just didn’t realize. Like, I always thought I just happened to like chewing gum all the time because I enjoyed the minty flavor. Turns out the repetitive chewing motion can actually stimulate the dopamine I crave. I thought everyone has a collection of rhyming phrases or little songs that they only say in private and we all collectively pretend like we don’t because it’s embarrassing. Turns out that’s verbal or auditory stimming. It’s been great in that regard, helping me understand why I am the way I am.
Can’t really speak to how effective any of the ADHD management techniques in the book are since I’m still working through it and trying to take things onboard, but the author also has a very popular and successful Youtube channel where you can probably find all the same information and more if you’re interested.
I read the Martian. It was at least as good as the very good movie.
You will most likely love Project Hail Mary, then, if you haven’t already read it.
I haven’t, so thank you for the recommendation. Both were available at the library as a reward for finishing the summer reading challenge, so I almost got it.
🎶 Jazzhands 🎶
Learned on Lemmy a couple of weeks ago that Neal Stephenson has a new book out, and I’m still a sucker for them. Polostan is (so far) historical fiction and very readable. The Stephenson-esque infodumps seem to mostly concern the game of Polo and interwar Communism, with healthy dashes of 1930s physics and ranching.
Fellow sucker here. Will be sure to check it out.
Watership Down. Way better than I thought 🙂.
I’ll take “Books that made me sob like a baby” for $500, Alex.
The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fagles. My first time reading an ancient classic, and it’s much less scary than I thought. In fact I’m quite enjoying it, and might read The Iliad (Homer’s other epic poem) next. The humanness of the characters (well, the human ones!) is very relatable, even though it’s 2700 years old. I don’t know why I expected it to be crusty and boring. Maybe I assumed it’d be like the Bible.
The intro explains a lot of stuff about the original Greek poem and how it was written in dactylic hexameterwhich bards back then used to be able to improvise in, which is amazing to me. Reminds me of 8 Mile or something. 😅
Mount Chicago by Adam Levin
Not as good as his first book, The Instructions, but I’m enjoying it. Try the forward, it’s a good indication for whether you’ll like the rest of the book. If you don’t, still try The Instructions; it’s very good.
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“Children of God” by Mary Doria Russell: Second and final part of a sci-fi series about a Jesuit mission to an alien culture that goes wrong. Like the first part, it’s an emotional rollercoaster with a great cast of characters that you really grow attached to (and who often meet tragic ends). The author also created a really interesting alien society made up of two separate species. Oh, and the title might sound like it’s a preachy religious book, but it’s very much not. Would never have expected it, but this is now one of my favorite sci-fi series.
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“Memories of Ice” by Steven Erikson: Third book of the “Malazan Book of the Fallen” fantasy series. All three books I’ve read so far were enjoyable stories, but also very complex and not easy to read for sure. I love how the author creates a fantasy world where stone-age cultures play a pretty big role and where pre-history in many ways shapes the current world of the book. Also, quite a good cast of characters, which I didn’t necessarily expect given that it’s “epic fantasy”.
I’m just finishing the Crippled God now! Definitely a difficult series but so infinitely rewarding (and heart breaking.)
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The First Law series.
