What are you reading?

[tiffanistarr]

Just finished Worlds Worst Assistant by Sona Movsesian. I absolutely loved it. I’m really into memoirs lately, and I think my next one will be one of Tiffany Haddish’s books. I usually do audiobooks, since i’m really busy with work lately it’s easy to just listen to them on the way to and from work.

 

[Milleram]

This summer I finally started reading the Classroom of the Elite light novels. I had watched the anime two summers ago and really enjoyed it, so I wanted to see what the novels were like. I've read the first two so far, and I'm planning on starting the third this afternoon. They're all around 400 pages, but they're a really easy read. I'm really enjoying them, so far.

 

[Neb]

I am reading "When My Heart Joins The Thousand." It's a romance novel about a neuroatypical girl finding her first partner. I am amazed at how accurately the author recreated the ableism and treatment people on the spectrum get on a daily basis. This can make the novel hard to read at times, but it makes the story more believable. The prose is excellent too. If the novel ends as well as it's started this might be the best book I've read in years.

 

[Psydye]

I'm juggling 3 books at the moment: The Fires of Heaven, 5th book in The Wheel of Time series...The Lies of Lock Lamora, 1st book in the Gentleman ******* series...and Gardens of the Moon, 1st book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

 

[princess.looking.for.frog]

I'm (trying) to read wuthering heights - one of my mum's favourite books. though, it is slow and really hard to read!! also, have so so much on at school, and the tbt fair, I don't much time to read. I will finish it one day!!

 

[Psydye]

So, aside from the 3 series I'm currently reading I like to take small breaks every now and then and read some short stories. For those I have:

H.P. Lovecraft - The Complete Fiction
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
A Treasury of Irish Fairy and Folk Tales
Chinese Myths & Folk Tales

Very entertaining so far, all of them!

 

[Soigne]

I read an article the other day about Ling Ma releasing a new book this month, so I decided to pick up her first novel, Severance. It's pretty great so far!

I'm also re-reading Howl's Moving Castle because I'm stressed about school, and it's my favorite book.

 

[teebeans]

All About Love by Bell Hooks

 

[Gem of Paradise]

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury.

 

[Neb]

The main book I’m reading right now is Berlin Alexanderplatz. It’s pretty good, but it’s one of those novels that doesn’t hold your hand. If you don’t read carefully you’ll miss many of the details.

 

[xandraxian]

Just finished Dirty Heads. On my scale of rating, I'd give it a 3/6.
awful | bad | eh | good | great | love

It was an interesting read. A not bad book that I think might be an allegory, that none of the monster that we read actually happened, and instead it is an injured brain trying to fill in the whys and blanks of what happened to and around him before the injury—his understanding of his sexuality, what happened to his family, what happened to his friend, and what happened to him. It could be a coping mechanism, with his conjuration clinging to the comfort of the monsters of horror films that he spent a large portion of his childhood obsessing with. The book has the feeling of a literary, which gives it a boring edge...but, the strange on goings is enough intrigue to keep turning.

Reading Horrorstör next.

 

[xandraxian]

Alright, finished Horrorstör and rate it a 3.5 plus presentation points, so 4/6.
awful | bad | eh | good | great | love

Reading Survive the Dome next.

 

[Lady Timpani]

I'm reading Nona the Ninth, the newest book in the Locked Tomb series. I kind of wish I had reread the first two-- I feel like I'm missing some context, but at the same time, it's such a detour from the main story that I think it's fine. It's pretty cute, though (weirdly enough for the series) and it's nice to see some familiar faces I had missed during Harrow the Ninth and get some worldbuilding at the same time.

 

[Alienfish]

Behan - The Complete Plays

Been curious about his plays ever since I heard "To yelasto pedi"(The laughing boy, from "The Hostage" in Theodorakis' composition and Vasillios Rota's translation of the lyrics) and I didn't get disappointed so far.

 

[DaisyFan]

I’m currently reading Crave by Tracy Wolff.

 

[Neb]

I'm reading Kokoro by Souseki Natsume. Even in the translation his signature style still shines. I'm a sucker for anything about the Meiji era of Japan, so I knew this would be interesting.

 

[Chris]

The Bewitchments of Love and Hate by Storm Constantine. (Bk 2 of the Wraeththu Chronicles)

In this powerful and elegant story set in a future Earth very different from our own, a new kind of human has evolved to challenge the dominion of Homo sapiens. This new breed is stronger, smarter, and far more beautiful than their parent race, and are endowed with psychic as well as physical gifts. They are destined to supplant humanity as we know it, but humanity won't die without a struggle.

I decided to revisit Constantine's Wraeththu trilogy following the news that she had passed away in 2021. I almost regret this trip down memory lane. I first read these books in my teens and I thought they were ground-breaking and incredible (and, arguably, that first point still stands given they were released in the 1980s). However, I doubt they would be published today - and it's not because of its controversial content—this new race of humans are all intersex and polyamorous—but the fact that they just aren't well-written. It reads like fan fiction. I also somehow managed to completely gloss over the misogyny, the blurred lines on consent, and some questionable pairings the first time I read them. Some aspects also haven't aged well and might come off upsetting to transgender individuals. Sometimes, old media we enjoyed are better left in the past rather than revisiting them - and this is one of those times.

My issues with the text aside, I still have a massive crush on Cal and he's the reason I'm still reading. Nostalgia can do funny things.

 

[Imbri]

I have been struck by a strange mood to read Les Liasons Dangereuses (in the English translation) again. I think the last time I read it was after seeing the movie, so 1988-89?

 

[Quinnquinn]

Just recently for the spooky season of All Hallows Eve; I recently picked up two books for the time. And I’m generally not into horror books, or scary books unless you give me Dean Koontz or Steven King; but usually no.

first is our classic The Shining
Which I’m sure just about everyone has read, seen something about, or watched the movie. If you haven’t, the quick synopsis is as such; this family gets the opportunity to be the caretakers of this hotel in Colorado through the winter when the hotel is closed. The family is isolated and takes effect mostly on the husband Jack Torrence. Through his months of living away from people, he starts to become angry, and the son Danny has a special gift, but has been subject to witness the many ghostly horrors and disturbances that still haunt the hotel.

and the second book! Is the Night Stalker. I had never heard of it before until my friend just gave it to me while we were at work; I’m not too far in as I just started it but so far it’s pretty interesting. Reading the back of the book I’ll give a quick summary and paraphrase it as well.
a detective stumbles upon 3 victims at a crime scene and found all in the same bounded fashion, he later finds another victim in the exact same way as well.
They learn the killer has calculated motives and only seems to kill single men with very private lives.
So, our detective must set out to stop the killer before the body count rises, but it seems she is in just as much danger.
is it going to be that good? Not quite sure, I’m a sucker for romance novels, science fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, historical period pieces, the dictionary; so sometimes horror doesn’t do it for me, here’s hoping this one’s good!

 

[Belle T]

My spooky season reading has started fashionably late, but I'm currently reading The Vampyre by John William Polidori.

It's a short story, but it does a lot with the length it has. Being the first novel ever written specifically under the genre umbrella of vampire-themed literature (predating Dracula by nearly eighty years), it's truly fascinating how much of the groundwork laid out in this book has remained relatively consistent across multiple centuries of cultural evolution; not to mention how much lore which is often attributed to Bram Stoker actually either originated from this story or is cobbled together from miscellaneous literature published the previous century. It's worth a read if you're interested in the history of horror literature.