What'cha reading?

I am currently reading the Iliad in translation (for University/general education/interest) the Children of Hurin (for "fun") and, with two fellow students, reading/translating the Aeneid. But that last one is a long term project.
 
Jim Deutch said:
https://www.amazon.com/Knife-Children-Sharing-McMaster-Bujold-ebook/dp/B07N4854NX/ref=sr_1_2
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Replying to my own post -- I liked it a lot! It sparked a new theory based on the concept of the"Mary Sue". I call it "Mary Sue III" *.

As authors age, according to this theory, their wish-fulfillment self-insert characters get younger.

Bujold's first novel's heroine, Cordelia, was in her mid-thirties. Fawn, the heroine of the original Lakewalker series, was 20. And in this new novella, Lily is only fourteen, and she totally kicks butt!

[*] "Mary Sue Jr." gets a few hits on google, but all the hits for "Mary Sue III" appear to be actual people of that name.
 
I just finished Toni Morrison's Beloved for AP Literature and Composition class, which is heart-breaking and amazing, and I highly reccomend if you haven't read it yet.

And I'm also trying to read Letters of JRR Tolkien and Gateway to Sindarin whenever I get the free time.
 
NotACat said:
P&P is fun, which I discovered when I decided I wanted to see what inspired "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries" which I heartily recommend to anyone and everyone 😀
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I love "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries", and I've been a huge Jane Austen fan since I first saw the BBC miniseries at age 6 (my mother is a huge Jane Austen, in particular, and period costume dramas, in general, fan). I think I've read P&P and Emma every year since I was 10? On that note, the follow-up project, "Emma Approved", is deeply dissatisfying from an Austen fan perspective -- the structural conceits include fundamental misunderstandings of the novel's situation, in my opinion.

As to what I'm reading right now... I try to have a fictional and non-fictional work I'm working through at any time, to allow for mood adaptation. For non-fiction, I've started John Carreyrou's Bad Blood on Theranos for (having just finished The Smartest Guys in the Room about Enron).

For fiction, I wonder if I can't get a recommendation. I've been musing reading Georgette Heyer for a while, but I'm not sure which book to start with, or even if I should start with one of her mysteries or regency romances. Any fans/readers of her here to give me any advice?
 
Wow.
Just finished the Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin.
Returning to library and getting sequel today!!
Wow.
 
Jim Deutch said:
Bujold's first novel's heroine, Cordelia, was in her mid-thirties. Fawn, the heroine of the original Lakewalker series, was 20. And in this new novella, Lily is only fourteen, and she totally kicks butt!
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It seems I am a fan of novels with competent young female heroes. Connecting with the Austin novels upthread, I suppose I am now a "gentleman of a certain age". 😉 I read "Wee Free Men" by Terry Pratchet and I just can't get enough of Tiffany Aching! Now finishing the third volume of Tiffany stories and planning to go directly to the last one.
 
I'm just finishing up another reread of the Dangerverse series, a long-form Harry Potter fanfiction which explores what might have happened if Harry hadn't grown up alone with the Dursleys. Originally intended to be ten chapters of fluff (Harry gets saved by his babysitter, Hermione's older sister, who marries Remus Lupin who then helps her rescue Sirius Black who reconciles with his fiancée…they all defeat Voldemort, whoosh, bosh, the end 😛) it took just a smidgeon over ten years to complete and ran to five volumes which we calculated contain more words than the original 😎

There's so much to explore which would be massive spoilers—the podcast interview with the author hiding under a desk saying over and over "I have been lying to you all this time" lives in blessed memory—and when we found out just how extensive her lies had been, we were blown away. It all stems from one throwaway scene in Prisoner of Azkaban which hardly anybody bothers to remember 😵

Notable is the number of alternate-alternate universes which this one spawned: there's an excellent spin-off called Be Careful which picks up right at the start of Deathly Hallows and postulates the effect of giving Draco Malfoy a chance at a very late redemption…I could go on, and will at the slightest provocation 😱

I don't know of any other HP fanfiction which is as long or as complicated (or complete, for that matter) but if anyone has any recommendations I would like to hear them.
 
NotACat said:
I don't know of any other HP fanfiction which is as long or as complicated (or complete, for that matter) but if anyone has any recommendations I would like to hear them.
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Of course there is Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, another long-form fanfic. It starts out with Petunia marrying a Professor instead of Dursley, and Harry grows up a prodigy in science and muggle philosophy. I love the first ten chapters or so, then find it bogs down with too much combat: most readers find it only gets really going at the point where it starts losing me! http://www.hpmor.com/

But my favorite of all is Lust Over Pendle, written while when JKR had only published half the series (and so, quite far from canon!). Draco changed sides before the end, and he and Neville are lovers now that Voldemort is vanquished. Neville's grandma is awesome. Harry is a cipher.
All of A.J. Hall's fanfic is great, but this one takes the cake. https://ajhall.shoesforindustry.net/ebooks/8/ajhall_lust_over_pendle/
 
My Elder Child loves "and the Methods of Rationality"...
I enjoyed "and the Year of Darkness", but not the sequel.
 
I enjoyed Ann Leckie's Ancillary series. I enjoy books that airdrop me into a very different world, where I have to learn what is going on. I'm reading Jemison's Fifth Season now, and finishing Name of the Wind
 
N. Trevor Brierly said:
I enjoyed Ann Leckie's Ancillary series.
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Me too. The POV character's inability to tell men from women is just so interesting -- though even our facial recognition software today can do it correctly most of the time. . .
You might like her latest, Provenance, despite its poor reviews. You learn more about the alien Geck that everyone's afraid of in the Ancillary books. I liked it (read it twice so far).
 
N. Trevor Brierly said:
I enjoyed Ann Leckie's Ancillary series. I enjoy books that airdrop me into a very different world, where I have to learn what is going on. I'm reading Jemison's Fifth Season now, and finishing Name of the Wind
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No WAY!
Grace is in the middle of reading me The Obelisk Gate and Wise Man's Fear is right next to my bed.... (As if I were ever going to stay awake once I'm near a pillow???)
 
Jim Deutch said:
Me too. The POV character's inability to tell men from women is just so interesting -- though even our facial recognition software today can do it correctly most of the time. . .
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For what it's worth, Leckie has said that Breq's defaulting to she isn't meant to suggest an inability to distinguish men and women, so much as a broader cultural apathy. As in: What if a culture just didn't care about gender? And what if that culture had defaulted to "she" as the neutral-ish pronoun?
 
Jim Deutch said:
Me too. The POV character's inability to tell men from women is just so interesting -- though even our facial recognition software today can do it correctly most of the time. . .
You might like her latest, Provenance, despite its poor reviews. You learn more about the alien Geck that everyone's afraid of in the Ancillary books. I liked it (read it twice so far).
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Actually, according to someone I know, facial recognition can tell the genders apart better than humans, when only a face is shown.
 
I just finished The Marvelous Land of Snergs (which has the best moral of any tale I have yet read), and am now working on Lewis' The Four Loves.
 
Apparently many of Lewis' books are rather short. I've finished The Four Loves and A Grief Observed, and am now working on the C. S. Lewis Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces (which should take a little longer, clocking in at nearly 40 hours on Audible).
 
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