What are you currently reading?

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine.

[Jerjo]

For the Joe Lansdale fans in this thread.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/03/...oe-r-lansdale/

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Now up, How to Read Literature like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster.

The Martine was absolutely fabulous, ending very satisfactory but with plenty of space for the sequel (which is already out). Amazing worldbuilding, characters, and plotting.

[Sunlight Caller]

I think the trilogy works very impressively, taken as a whole. There's a kind of "wow" moment, somewehere around the middle, which is one of this conceptual penny-drops, when your take on reality shifts, & you never quite see things in the same way again.

It’s great to read a couple of recommendations for this work because my interest was piqued, but then a good friend just couldn’t get on with the writing and his negative comments and ultimate abandonment really turned me off. I’ll push them back into the coming soon pile.

[Sunlight Caller]

Finally got (around to getting) a copy of Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, and, boy is it different from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell -- I mean, to the point where it's like two different writers here. Good stuff!

Great that you are enjoying the new one, yes it’s very different in style, but I really loved the story.

[Lopez]

For the Joe Lansdale fans in this thread.

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2022/03/...oe-r-lansdale/

Auto-buy for me. Love Joe hisownself. The book cover says, "Author of Moon Lake". Not heard of that one. Crap, now there's another I've got to buy. I can't keep up with him.

[SteveSly]

Currently reading "Truth Worth Telling" from 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley. Interesting read from a journalist who has been in the middle of many historical events in his lifetime.

[interbellum]

Started reading in Longlist Man Booker Prize-novel Normal People by Sally Rooney. I first saw the tv-series and read somewhere that it was even better than the book. Well, let's see.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Terry's Universe, edited by Beth Meacham. After the death of Terry Carr, one of science fiction's best editors and a pretty darn good writer himself, died at the godawful young age of 50, Meacham gathered some of the best talents in the field at the time to put together this tribute anthology. It features some of the really SF major talents of the day: Ursula K. Le Guin, R.A. Lafferty, Kim Stanley Robinson, Gene Wolfe, Roger Zelazny, Robert Silverberg ... in fact, it's pretty depressing to realize how many people on this list -- a couple of whom I knew moderately well -- are now dead: better than half. Plus, a story by Carr that I am really looking forward to; "The Dance of the Changer and the Three," often cited as the ultimate "weird alien" story, and a final appreciation by Harlan Ellison. (Also dead.)

[SteveSly]

Currently reading Myer Lanskey's daughter's autobiography "Daughter Of The King - Growing Up In Gangland". So far it is a very interesting book for anyone into mafia related stuff.

[Lopez]

Currently reading Myer Lanskey's daughter's autobiography "Daughter Of The King - Growing Up In Gangland". So far it is a very interesting book for anyone into mafia related stuff.

I definitely want to read this. Thanks for the notice, Steve.

[Lopez]

Moon Lake by Joe R. Lansdale. Joe at his best. Human bones show up in trunks of cars hauled out of a dried-up lake that once was a reservoir covering a segregated town in East Texas.

[Scott Bails]

I just finished Hank Green's two-parter, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing and A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor. From GoodReads:

"The Carls just appeared.

Roaming through New York City at three AM, twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship—like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor—April and her best friend, Andy, make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day, April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world—from Beijing to Buenos Aires—and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight.

Seizing the opportunity to make her mark on the world, April now has to deal with the consequences her new particular brand of fame has on her relationships, her safety, and her own identity. And all eyes are on April to figure out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us."

Some sci-fi, a lot of social commentary, especially regarding social media and fame, and just a fun ride. Haven't heard anything about it, but I'd be surprised if Hollywood doesn't try to take a stab at these.

[Scott Bails]

Now I'm about halfway through Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary and I can't put it down. So far, easily on-par with The Martian, after the less-than-stellar Artemis.

[SteveSly]

I definitely want to read this. Thanks for the notice, Steve.

It tells the Meyer Lansky story from a completely different perspective. His fellow mafia associates were referred to as her “uncles” when she was growing up, such as Uncle Bugsy Seigel and Uncle Joe Aiello. Her mother had severe mental illness problems that got worse after she and Meyer divorced. I am currently up to the 1950’s in the book, and the daughter is still a teenager. She is currently talking about the Kefauver hearings on TV where she first started to understand what her father actually did for a living. Meyer lived until 1982, so still have quite a way to go. Anyway, I am finding it to be a very interesting book.

[Lopez]

It tells the Meyer Lansky story from a completely different perspective. His fellow mafia associates were referred to as her “uncles” when she was growing up, such as Uncle Bugsy Seigel and Uncle Joe Aiello. Her mother had severe mental illness problems that got worse after she and Meyer divorced. I am currently up to the 1950’s in the book, and the daughter is still a teenager. She is currently talking about the Kefauver hearings on TV where she first started to understand what her father actually did for a living. Meyer lived until 1982, so still have quite a way to go. Anyway, I am finding it to be a very interesting book.

Sounds real good, Steve. Years ago, I read the Lansky biography, Little Man, by Robert Lacey. I enjoyed that very much. It mentions that for a while, Meyer and family lived at 100 Beacon Street in Boston. It's several stories high and sits on a corner lot diagonally across from the Boston Public Garden. It's an Emerson College dormitory now, and my sister lived there when she attended Emerson in the 1980s.

[Sturgeon's Lawyer]

Now I'm about halfway through Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary and I can't put it down. So far, easily on-par with The Martian, after the less-than-stellar Artemis.

Yep, I think it's better than The Martian, which is very high praise. It's up for this year's Hugo for Best Novel.

[Piskie]

The Strawberry Bricks Guide to Progressive Rock...not sure this stuff will catch on...

[Rarebird]

Started reading in Longlist Man Booker Prize-novel Normal People by Sally Rooney. I first saw the tv-series and read somewhere that it was even better than the book. Well, let's see.

Read it in Dutch. Don't know the tv-series. Liked the book and had some argument about it on a Dutch book-forum.

[SteveSly]

Sounds real good, Steve. Years ago, I read the Lansky biography, Little Man, by Robert Lacey. I enjoyed that very much. It mentions that for a while, Meyer and family lived at 100 Beacon Street in Boston. It's several stories high and sits on a corner lot diagonally across from the Boston Public Garden. It's an Emerson College dormitory now, and my sister lived there when she attended Emerson in the 1980s.

I have not gotten to that part yet. They have a place in New York and a place in Florida at this point in the book. I am pretty sure I read "Little Man" at some point a long time ago.

[interbellum]

Read it in Dutch. Don't know the tv-series. Liked the book and had some argument about it on a Dutch book-forum.

Read Normal People in Dutch too. It read almost like the script for the series, so I don't know why someone had negative feelings on the book.

[Rarebird]

Read Normal People in Dutch too. It read almost like the script for the series, so I don't know why someone had negative feelings on the book.

The argument I had was not about the book verses the series, but more about the people in the book.

[per anporth]

Braking Day by Adam Oyebanji. It's space opera, where the concept & world building detail are fun & fine; but where the narrative & characterisation has all the depth & sophistication of a cardboard cereal packet. It's the literary equivalent of gorging on high concept, high additive, ice cream.

It doesn't help that I'm reading it in the slipstream of Philippe Sands' Ratline, & Javier Cercas's Lord of all the Dead, two powerful meditations on history, memory (& forgetting), & the aftermath of fascism, of which Cercas's book is, in particular, brilliantly written.

[SteveSly]

Just started Steven Wilson's book. Very interesting so far.

[headcrash]

Patti Smith's memoir of her time with Robert Mapplethorpe, Just Kids. I'm a big Patti fan, of her music and other art and activism. She writes so honestly and expressively about that influential time in NYC and her encounters with Warhol, Shepard, Hendrix etc. Both entertaining and revealing. I just loved it.