Books

I just finished Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.

Last year was particularly hard on me due to some personal failures, and this made me adopt an increasingly pessimistic view of the world and people in general. I decided to pick up Humankind since a friend had recommended it previously. It was intriguing because at the time I was convinced that the world could never get better because human nature is hopeless.

This book was a much-needed antidote to my cynicism. Bregman deconstructs the assumptions that people hold about human nature, clearing the way for a much more optimistic outlook, one where people can be trusted to be good. It's such a refreshing take that I wish more people read this. This book significantly changed how I view people and interact with them, and I'm super grateful to have read it when I needed it the most.

Elantris, Warbreaker and started The Way of Kings, all by Brandon Sanderson. Read Mistborn Era 1 a couple years ago and loved it, finally decided to jump head in into the Cosmere.

I've re-read the first Harry Potter. It's been so long since I last read it. I felt that it really wasn't poorly written. Sure it's a children's book but i looked reading it. And I've started reading flatland

I just finished No Longer Human last night. Haven't breezed through a book like that in quite awhile!

The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch - I really enjoyed this storytelling and plot about multiple dimensions and timelines and murder. Thrilling and exciting.

• Gardens of the moon by Steven Erickson - a reread. Finished the original 10 books a few years ago. Decides to poke around again. This time around has been such a different experience. I'm now thinking I'm gonna do the rest of the other 9 books again.

• Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. A really good movie. Decided to try the book. An interesting read for sure. Psychological thriller, with far realm adjacent imagery. About 70% done. Don't think I'll be reading the whole trilogy, though.

• Periodo Street Station by China Mieville. I don't know what I think of this one. It seems to be sort of self masterbatory about how unique and wacky the world is. The actual story is scattered and completely lacks focus. The characterization is C+ at best. Full chapters of just wandering though the streets of the city showing small vignettes of peoplea lives from an omniscient pov, that seems to hint at a connection to the main story but is just tiresome to read. The main characters are a poor knock off of Doc Brown, and his girlfriend, a scarab beetle with a human body. I mean the head is the whole beetle legs and all. They are sort of mad scientist beetniks in socially forbidden love. This book just isn't for me I think.

• God's Demon by Wayne Barlow. Barlow is a concept artist who often works with Guillermo del Toro. It's a sorry about a demon lord in hell. Aka ex-angel who fell with Lucifer. And has decided to find his way back to heaven and is leading an army to get there. It's okay. The imagery is great. I don't love the characters so it's hard to get invested.

Demon Magic and a Martini, by Annette Marie

Book 4, first book is Three Mages and a Margarita. After some heavier reads I'd been looking for a lighter story to listen to on my work commute, and the premise of a woman stumbling into a bartending gig for a guild of mythics (people with magic, hidden from the rest of society) by accident and handling it all through sheer force of personality and no small amount of sass sounded fun. It was all that, but it also became an engaging world with interesting and thoughtful characters, individual and mutual character growth, and well, now I'm four books in and trying out some of her other series.

Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang

Kuang's Poppy War trilogy in fact is among those heavier books I mentioned having read above, so I knew her works were good. With all the recent talk of AI plagiarism plus the ongoing topic of who can tell what stories and so on, I thought this would be an interesting read. Kuang does a good job of painting what exactly the world is like - the publishing world, but also the online world, society in general, the people out of the loop... this book doesn't answer the questions so much as it makes you think about them from all the different angles. It's really well written and thought out.

The City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty

This kept getting recommended to me when I'd look for steampunk stuff, which is weird, because it's decidedly not that at all. Still, it seemed interesting enough, and once I picked it up, it was incredibly engaging. Main character Nahri has been hiding a magical talent, accidentally uses a bit too much and summons a djinni, and this lands her smack in the middle of a political mess in the titular city between the various elemental beings of middle eastern mythology. Each time I thought I figured out what this book was going to be, it seemed to veer in another direction, yet always a predictable one if you really thought about the characters and their backgrounds and motivations. Looking forward to book 2. For a more adventurous, sea-faring romp by the same author, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is an incredible story, and the audiobook's first person narration could not be better (City of Brass I read in epub form, not audio, so I can't speak to it).

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna

It seems like the subgenre of cozy slice-of-life fantasy has been really popular post-pandemic, and this contemporary fantasy is a pretty great example of one. Finding family, finding acceptance, being a small, positive change in the world, and being able to be yourself around the people you love and who love you. A super cozy read.

A few Animorphs and the Well of Ascension. I have a few active challenges on Storygraph.

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
• The Boys from Biloxi

Michael Connelly:

• The black box
• The concrete blonde
• The last Coyote

I am open for recommendations

Hopped around a few different genres but really enjoyed all the books I read in June:

• The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent
• The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud
• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
• Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

I read The City & The City by China Mieville and some bits of Psychogeography by Will Self.

I would recommend the first one, especially if you like detective stories (and games like Disco Elysium).

I'm not sure about the second, it's a collection of columns and the throughline isn't as good as I'd hoped.

I read Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery cos I liked the tv series and wanted to see where it went. By the third book I was bored af so I totally changed to The First Law by Abercrombie. So far it’s really good,

I have read Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders.

I can recommend it to anyone who are interested in the politics of US. Bernie talked about the main problems in the US. He talked about discrimination, the corruption, populism, wealth distribution and the negative effect of far capitalism overall.

The best bit of the book in my opinion, that you will understand why's the society so against socialism's ideas, even if it would significantly improve their life in many cases.

Technically I finished the last few pages of this yesterday but whatever - Spell Bound by F.T. Lukens was an adorable rivals-to-lovers story with some excellent magical worldbuilding. It also has so much in common with The Owl House I refuse to believe the author isn't a fan.

• Always Coming Home - Ursula K. LeGuin - I absolutely loved this book. I'm still keep thinking about the Kesh people that this book explores. Very strange read, absolutely recommended.

• The Fifth Season - N K Jemisin - Really enjoyed this book. The way it uses perspective was really great. The ending felt okay. I'm definitely going to be picking up the next one sometime soon.

Currently reading Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer, which has been a fascinating read thus far, but I'm only halfway through.

After that I'm planning on reading Among Others by Jo Walton (I loved her Thessaly series)

-Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

-Normal People by Sally Rooney

-How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu (personal favorite for this month)!

-Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

-I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

-Happy Place by Emily Henry

-Notes on a Silencing: A Memoir by Lacy Crawford

-The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

-The Girl in the Mirror by Rose Carlyle

-Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

-Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

-Dirty Laundry by Disha Bose

-Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey

-Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

-Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

-Motherthing by Ainslie Hogarth

-Shoulder Season by Christina Clancy

Kept it pretty lowkey in June, read only two books: Loop by Koji Suzuki (3rd book in the Ring series) and Osamu Dazai's recently translated The Flowers of Buffoonery.

I got sucked back into One Piece, the anime I sorta dropped, put on eternal hold

So I figured I’d start the manga and give it a go, it’s much more enjoyable ^^

I read the Cradle series by Will Wight. Lots of fun! Interesting magic system, fun progression as the main characters get more and more powerful through the books.

Swan Light by Phoebe Rowe - I really enjoyed this book telling two connected stories that occurred 100 years apart in parallel, centering around a lighthouse in Newfoundland that collapsed into the ocean and the search to find it.

The Weight of Air by David Poses - Autobiographical book advocating for harm reduction approaches in treating addiction. I was sad to see that the author passed away last year, it's clear that his book has helped a lot of people.

Working on three body problem. I dont know if anyone else have a hard time with translated works, but I always feel like some part of the book is missing when translated. Like iboixk up on a few context clues that something should be known.

Anyways I'm enjoying it, just lots of extra lookin things up, makes it a bit tedious.

Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher - Edward J. Watts

As the title says. The author tries to stress the fact that the book is primarily about her life and work, which always gets overshadowed by her death. It was pretty good as both a book about her, and general Alexandrian life in her age, but quite short (around 150 pages)

Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology - Ian Michael Plant

Contains fragments from ancient women writers about various topics. It was good, but sadly not much was preserved through time, the fragments were often very short.

Animal Farm and 1984 by George Orwell. They both describe, in a very creative way, the totalitarian regimes of the '40s, especially the soviet one. They give you an insight of what freedom should be, and what are the systems used by dictators to control the popultation: poverty, ignorance, fear, etc.

Worth reading!