[August] What are you reading?

[Mark CMG]

Taking a look at Six Medieval Women by Andrea Hopkins which look at the lives of three women with which I was familiar, Hildegard, Eleanor, and Joan, and three I didn't know, Margaret Paston, Christine de Pisan, and Margery Kempe.

How bout you?

 

[jonesy]

Commentarii de Bello Gallico by Gaius Julius Caesar.

Caesar goes over his wars in Gaul, speaking in third person the whole time. I'd heard a lot about this, but never read it before. He is so no-nonsense you almost forget it's a soldier writing about his campaign (As in, is he even trying to be objective? No idea).

 

[Bagpuss]

Broken Homes (the fourth in the Rivers of London series) by Ben Aaronovitch, think Harry Potter joins The Sweeny, or Dresden Files with a British twist if you don't get the Sweeny reference.

 

[Dioltach]

The Last Englishman, Keith Foskett's account of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Next up is Broken Homes for me too, and depending on when it's released Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence.

 

[Jhaelen]

I've finished reading about the first quarter of H.P. Lovecraft stories, which isn't as much as it sounds, since his early stories tend to be rather short. So, I've still got a lot of reading to do...

 

[Zaukrie]

River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay. He writes so well....

 

[EricNoah]

I'm in a state of waffling with books this summer, finding it hard to land on something. I'm trying to get through Monster (A. Lee Martinez I think is the author) - it's good at quirky but not so good at likeable. I have two recent purchases in a stack to attack next: The Affinity Bridge, and A Talent for War.

Having the same waffling problem with audiobooks recently. I'm currently flipping between The Long Earth and The Rook. I listened to Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? as a change of pace - not as good as Tina Fey's Bossypants but fairly entertaining.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Kid on the Comstock. Reporter's short stories reminiscing about growing up in a mining town in the late 1800s. Then back to Amethyst RPG books by DEM.

 

[delericho]

"Called to Darkness", by Richard Lee Byers. This is one of the Pathfinder Tales, and I was rather enjoying it. That said, I haven't bothered to pick it up in about a week (for several reasons, mostly time-related). Actually, that whole line has been rather better than I expected, with relatively few 'misses' and a few that have actually been very enjoyable. Well, for game-fiction, anyway...

Also, the latest Pathfinder, "The Witch Queen's Revenge" by Greg A. Vaughan. I really wanted to like the "Reign of Winter" path, because I really appreciate Paizo's willingness to take risks with their line. But... eh. The six adventures have pretty much all been "go find these MacGuffins so you can move on to the next railroad". Part Five, which

Spoiler

was set in Earth's history

, was cool enough, but it really didn't have enough of interest to hang a whole AP on. A real shame.

I'm currently visiting the US on business, so I'd expected to read quite a lot of books while I'm here. That hasn't quite panned out, as there's been so much to do. But the other books I have with me, which I might or might not get to, are: "Liar's Blade" by Tim Pratt (another Pathfinder Tale), "The Thirteen-Gun Salute" by Patrick O'Brian, "The Wasp Factory" by the late Iain Banks, "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins, and "Heart of Darkness & other stories" by Joseph Conrad.

 

[Tharian]

I'm finally getting back into reading for pleasure. I didn't realize how much I had missed it. I'm currently reading my way through Humble Bundle 2 having just finished "Just a Geek" by Wil Wheaton and have moved on to "Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. Wheaton's book was a fun read and I remember having read quite a few of the original blog posts that led to what was told in his book that I even had flashbacks to having read them and what was going on in my life at the time of those events affecting him. Very surreal, I think. Doctorow's book has really grabbed my attention hard and it has been difficult to get to bed before 2 AM given how I will start reading a passage and not come back up for air until a chapter or two later. It's a very intense read. I'm not sure what I'll read after that, but I'll figure it out later.

For gaming material, I'm flipping through 13th Age and FATE Reloaded primarily and having a look at the DungeonWorld rules as I try to decide what would be a good system to use for my much smaller group of two people. I really need to go back and check out the hardcover versions of the WFRP3e rules as I'm currently running that for a sporadic group that has done enough harm to themselves that I need to start pulling in the corruption rules.