Didn’t spot a book thread for 2019, and fancied sharing the fact that (accompanying my re-read of Gravity’s Rainbow), I found this cool video series by Thebookchemist, who is a wicked lit YouTuber (no ukulele bollocks YouTube stock music or owt like that)
WHAT READETH YOU? Get any good books for Christmas? (I’ve got a buncha Philip K. Dick, and also the Scarfolk book, to get into after GR)
Halfway through The Finance Curse by Nicholas Shaxson, it’s very good. Capitalists eh, wrong ‘uns, all of them.
Bought myself Nothing Is Real by David Hepworth and Michael Calvin’s No Hunger In Paradise and State of Play with some Christmas money. Really want to resolve to read more this year.
Sticking to a thing I started last year where I’m not allowed to read books by white male authors back to back. Hopefully this will also keep me away from books with misunderstood white male author protagonists and their seduction of younger women.
So currently on Children of Time (@ericVI) by Adrian Tchaikovsky and might also start on some Ursula Leguin or Octavia Butler. Last book was The Idiot by Elif Bautman, which I kind of hated, but not as much as I hated Less by Andrew Sean Greer, which won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize over it.
I got a few for Christmas
Murakami: killing commendatore
The art of spirited away (quick read 
but oh so pretty)
Still got the beastie boys on the go, about 50% left
Then a big heft of a book, Robert fisk, the Great War for civilisation.
Oh! I also got Men Without Women by Murakami. Looking forward to that one: I particularly really liked the story ‘Yesterday’
That’s a lovely little book, I really enjoyed reading it last year.
Began Middlesex earlier this week, only 70 odd pages in but loving it already.
This is my to read pile.
I tend to really like his short stories (I feel like the structure of many of his novels often kind of feels more ‘episodic’, too) and I’m sure that, whenever I get to it, I’ll still be pretty comfortable with reading about loneliness, alienation, and spaghetti
got back into reading regularly last year, it was great. but then for some reason i decided to start middlemarch and it took me MONTHS to get through it. god knows why i stuck with it. can’t handle two books at once so i couldn’t wait to get to the end and start reading something i actually enjoyed again.
…and now jook’s got me reading war and peace 
fuck
Gotta finish my making a murderer book before I start it. Any good yet?
Beyond A Boundary is fucking incredible.
I didn’t do much reading last year - spent what feels like the majority of it battling with Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. A great read for the most part, and very interesting to read in the era when mad eyed conspiracy theorising is all the rage, but fucking hell some of the speculative templar history bits were dense.
Ploughing through the Tom Waits biography now and I’ve got a to read pile set up. I expect to engage with it (and this thread) until about March and then give up again.
That was my DiS Secret Santa present. Heard so much good about it.
So much more than just a sports book. You’ll love it I think.
It’s ok so far. I doubt it’s going to make me weep at the sheer holistic beauty of it or anything but it’s a decent enough read.
Le Guuuuuuuuuin!!! YEEEESSSS
I need to resolve to read more this year, so I’m going to say it here for some accountability (not that I’m expecting anyone to hold me to it, I just do better if I say I’m going to do so). I need to finish reading Seibo There Below by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, that’s first on the list.
I have just read The Disposessed, which was excellent. Then read something else and am now reading The Lathe of Heaven, which is also excellent - so uncomfortable, but it is great how it creates that atmosphere and controls it so well.
Going to get a whole load more of her stuff as there are some convenient collections available and I have book tokens and a birthday coming up.
May I suggest a mirror?
sorry this doesn’t really work and is very crass. I’ve had a wine.
