Yeah! They’re reading The Hobbit, LotR and the Silmarillion throughout 2026. The first ep should drop in January.
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Just finished reading Roseanna, the first Martin Beck novel. It’s definitely not as polished as the later entries in the series, but I really liked the novel’s focus on slow, methodical police work over genius sleuthing. It establishes both Beck’s determination and his unhappy home life, poor digestion and odd colleagues, and there are hints of the social concerns that will become increasingly important in the later books (to the extent that the final book, ‘The Terrorists’, winds up being much more about the state’s failure to care for vulnerable women than it is about stopping the titular antagonists).
Both my previous Becks (The Terrorists and The Laughing Policeman) were library reads and I read this one on my phone. I do want to buy the series eventually, but I think the covers for the most recent reissue are really uninspired, so my aim is to try and find copies of the much better designed 2008 editions (where the spines of each book spell out Beck’s name) through secondhand buying.
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Shiki, by Ono Fuyumi and Spiral by Suzuki Koji
Right now I’m reading the Manhua Please Bully me Miss Villainess, oh, yeah it’s Isekai for all weebs that know what that is, but basically this girl gets reincarnated into a fantasy world as Yvonne the villainess of an Otome game which are romance fantasy visual novels for women full of charming princes and stuff like that, but she doesn’t like being bad, however whatever runs the game does force her to fulfil her role of villainess and bully the main character Elsa, because she feels bad about it she tries to minimize the damage caused by the bullying and outside of the system mandated bullying she’s just really nice to her, which causes Elsa to fall in love with Yvonne instead of any of the love interests from the game, but even though Yvonne does reciprocate her feelings she does not want to be together with her because she’s doomed by the narrative both to die and to bully her if she remains close to her.
It’s pretty cute, wouldn’t be the first GL/Yuri I’d recommend, but it is what I was reading at the time I clicked this thread.
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In theory, The Quran. A series of coincidences ended in me receiving a copy.
In practice, nothing lol I am a pathetically slow reader of anything that isn’t [[Hyperlink Blocked]]
My best friend got me all of the S.D. Perry Resident Evil novels for my birthday, so I’ve been making my way through those!
- Zero Hour - based on Resident Evil 0
- The Umbrella Conspiracy - based on Resident Evil 1
- Caliban Cove - an original novel taking place between RE1 and RE2. Would have made for a cracking game, and Rebecca gets to be the star!
- Underworld - based on Resident Evil 2, over halfway through and it makes me want to play RE2R again
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The two books I’ve is The Devil’s Chessboard about the early years of the CIA and how much of an evil bastard Allen Dulles and his brother were, and a random biography I found on Kindle Unlimited of George Lincoln Rockwell, the founder of the American Nazi Party and hugely influential person in the world of white supremacy.
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I really enjoyed reading “The Doctor Who Fooled the World” recently. It was an interesting perspective seeing how people got so up in arms about vaccines about what was essentially a scam, but reading from the perspective of someone who lives in a country where people just take vaccines without issue was a bit more wild. I’m also slowly getting through “Cien años de soledad”, seeing Netflix actually adapt a Colombian book into a series made me want to read it.
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I finished Hyde’s Trickster and I moved on to Jane Jacobs’s The Economy of Cities and man, I haven’t had a first chapter of a nonfiction book suck me in this hard in a long time. It opens with Jacobs making an argument that the development of cities predated the development of agriculture and animal husbandry in prehistory. I really like her prose in the book. She’s methodical, detailed, and in general just feels really good at presenting an argument. Only halfway through, and I definitely don’t know enough about economics or history to feel like I could have any kind of critique of the ideas presented, but it’s a really great read so far.
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Shinsengumi, by Romulus Hillsborough. It’s a book about the founding, history, and actions of the Shogun’s last samurai corps (The Shinsengumi) during the storm of blood that was the Bakumatsu. It’s a fascinating read and I am aiming to read more of what Romulus wrote about the Bakumatsu.
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‘High - A Journey Across The Himalayas Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal And China’ by Erika Fatland
Engrossing, well written and translated travelogue by this Norwegian author. She writes with sympathy for her subjects.
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One of my new year’s resolutions is to try to read some books this year. I used to read books all the time but fell off for a few different reasons.
It hasn’t been going great so far but I blame the state of the world and my job.
I’m trying to read Neuromancer, it’s been at the top of my list for a while now. It’s kinda funny how much of Cyberpunk (both the game and wider genre) is directly lifted from this book. For example, it’s set in “Night City”. If you’ve played Shadowrun, you probably know the currency is “Nuyen”, here, it’s “New Yen”.
Anyway I’m only like a chapter in and I’m mostly writing this to motivate myself to read more.
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1q84. I read it once, didn’t get it, so I am re-reading it after a good while of time.
But I’m also listening to this channel, Bowl of Lentils. This guy took to assessing varied video game topics, such as Hirameki International. It’s fun listening to things like podcasts sometimes!
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Realised I never did a proper answer this thread!
In terms of fiction I’m currently about 3/4 the way through The Two Towers, never read The Lord of the Rings before. Which means I’m thrilled that the Shelved By Genre podcast has started Tolkien this year, which also means I’ve started listening to The Hobbit to to keep up with their podcast.
In terms of non-fiction I started reading The Second Sex by Simone de Beavoir at the beginning of the year, The goal is to slowly work my way through it at a slow pace to make sure I grasp everything. I’m reading it largely because I want a better understanding of Judith Butlers work and feminist philosophy in general with the rise of terfs and everything…
I’m also reading Sex and Punishment by Eric Berkowitz, which is a 4,000 year history of sex and law, it’s all pretty fascinating, and quite light reading (light in terms of style not necessarily content…)
In general I have too many books I want to read, but this will all keep me busy for a while. :D
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I have had 1Q84 on my shelf for a while now, will give it a try someday. Have you read any other Murakami?
Quite a few. I liked Wild Sheep Chase and Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the world was my first introduction to his work, so it felt near learning an author in an anime magazine. :)
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I’ve read Norwegian Wood and Sputnik Sweetheart, I also own Kafka on the Shore and 1Q84 that I haven’t read yet. Think I will read Kafka on the shore sometime this year. :)
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I’ve been reading some more queer stuff lately and actually remembering I have an e-reader and keeping it next to my bed has been very useful to read. (And not just scroll on my phone having my laptop play stuff before bed)
So recently I read through the Moonshadow duology (first book here) and I really enjoyed it, a funky mix of mythologies and concepts that made for a fun read.
Currently I’m reading Bloody Spade, part of another duology. I’ve been struggling to put it down every night and not pull another all-nighter to finish a book.
And since I’m horribly at summarizing things and make them sound interesting I just linked to some store pages where the author has a sensible sales pitch for their book written.
Decided to re-read This is How You Lose the Time War again.
I liked it a lot the first time, why wouldn’t i like it more a second time?
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Continuing to read the Earth Sea Saga and I’m just continuously impressed by how well it reads, it’s a breeze to read and the text flows so insanely well.
Genuinely terrifies me to continue my own writing because it’ll be ages before I’d ever get to such a level of well-written text. But there’s only one way to learn, so alas 
Did get spoiled a little on a returning character in a later book, but now that’s part of the reason for me to continue it so I do not mind at all.