So what are you reading this year 2021?

[KahlessNestor]

Still reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow.

Still reading Night of the Hunter by R. A. Salvatore.

Still reading The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor.

Still reading Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson.

Still reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Still reading Changes by Jim Butcher.

Finished reading A Lone Habitation by Seanan McGuire. - A good series, but tends to be...dark. Even when she solves a case, Toby is usually pretty beat up, and lots of people die. Was a sad ending. Bittersweet. But I guess that’s what the Fae will do to you.

Still reading The Battle for Skandia by John Flanagan.

Still reading Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson.

Still reading Critical Role: Tal’dorei Campaign Setting by Matthew Mercer.

Sill reading Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell.

Still reading The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. - Going to drop this for now. I’ve read it twice, I’m reading it on Kindle, and I have lots of new books on Kindle I need to read, two of which I need to get done before Brandon Sanderson’s book comes out next month.

Still reading Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire.

Still reading The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones.

Still reading The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon.

Still reading Black Widow: Red Vengeance by Margaret Stohl.

Still reading Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb.

Still reading Sly Flourish’s The Lazy Dungeon Master by Michael E. Shea.

Still reading The Black Echo by Michael Connelly.

Started reading Matchlock and the Embassy: A Thirty Years’ War Story by Zachary Twamley.

Started listening to Skyward by Brandon Sanderson. - I want to reread the two Skyward novels before the next one comes out next month, so I decided to do it via audiobook.

Started reading Sunreach by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson. - Preparation for Cytonic out next month.

 

[Richards]

I'm now onto the third book in Ruth Downie's series of novels about a Roman military doctor (medicus) who keeps getting involved in solving murders. This one's called Persona Non Grata and has the protagonist returning to his family home in Gaul where he'll have to deal with the many people his family owes money to, and he'll naturally get involved in another murder along the way. It's a good series and I'm enjoying it, but after this one I only have the fourth book next in my lineup.

Johnathan

 

[Sacrosanct]

I finished reading Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea. CAS has become one of my favorite pulp/Appendix N-ish authors. Hyperborea is weird and beautiful and horrific all at once.

Now I'm reading P. Djeli Clark's Ring Shout.

I'll have to add that to my list. I'm finally getting around to reading Jack Vance's Dying earth. Everyone should read this. Not because of the tie ins with DnD and how heavily this book influenced the game (beyond the vancian magic), bit period books like this are a treasure trove of vocabulary that has died out and you don't see in modern books any more. That to me is the best treat.

 

[Richards]

Jack Vance is one of my all-time favorite authors, for that very reason.

Johnathan

 

[Blue Orange]

I'll have to add that to my list. I'm finally getting around to reading Jack Vance's Dying earth. Everyone should read this. Not because of the tie ins with DnD and how heavily this book influenced the game (beyond the vancian magic), bit period books like this are a treasure trove of vocabulary that has died out and you don't see in modern books any more. That to me is the best treat.

Vance wasn't just taking words from his period, though. The guy actively sought out obscure and obsolete words in his vocabulary to give the feeling of something that sounded like English but he could give a new meaning to. A deodand was a pre-20th century legal term for a thing that was given up because it had caused a person's death; Vance turned it into a monster.

 

[Richards]

Gene Wolfe did that a lot too, especially in his "Torturer" series.

Johnathan

 

[dragoner]

I'll third a vote on Dying Earth, it is so good:

"I am more inclined to punish Hurtiancz for his crassness, said Ildefonse. But now he simulates a swinish stupidity to escape my anger. Absolute falsity! roared Hurtiancz. I simulate nothing! Ildefonse shrugged. For all his deficiencies as polemicist and magician, Hurtiancz at least is candid."

 

[Zaukrie]

I really did not like dying Earth at all

 

[KahlessNestor]

Still reading Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow.

Still reading Night of the Hunter by R. A. Salvatore.

Still reading The Battle for Spain by Antony Beevor.

Still reading Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson.

Still reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Still reading Changes by Jim Butcher.

Started reading An Artificial Night by Seanan McGuire. - Next October Daye novel.

Still reading The Battle for Skandia by John Flanagan.

Still reading Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson.

Still reading Critical Role: Tal’dorei Campaign Setting by Matthew Mercer.

Sill reading Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell.

Still reading Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire.

Still reading The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors by Dan Jones.

Still reading The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon.

Still reading Black Widow: Red Vengeance by Margaret Stohl.

Still reading Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb.

Still reading Sly Flourish’s The Lazy Dungeon Master by Michael E. Shea.

Finished reading The Black Echo by Michael Connelly. - First Harry Bosch book.

Still reading Matchlock and the Embassy: A Thirty Years’ War Story by Zachary Twamley.

Still listening to Skyward by Brandon Sanderson.

Still reading Sunreach by Brandon Sanderson and Janci Patterson.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

By far, Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, and CAS are the three authors I find myself most having to look up the meaning of words. But the one thing I find with them is that it's not so much using obscure terminology, but obscure terminology that evokes a certain feeling.

For those interested in archaic and unused words, according to Luke Gygax, Poplollies & Bellibones was a volume Gary Gygax frequently had on hand.

I'll have to add that to my list. I'm finally getting around to reading Jack Vance's Dying earth. Everyone should read this. Not because of the tie ins with DnD and how heavily this book influenced the game (beyond the vancian magic), bit period books like this are a treasure trove of vocabulary that has died out and you don't see in modern books any more. That to me is the best treat.

Gene Wolfe did that a lot too, especially in his "Torturer" series.

Johnathan