What are you reading in 2023?

[Eyes of Nine]

I then read C.S. Lewis Prince Caspian. I was lukewarm on the Chronicles of Narnia as a kid, but as an adult my fondness for the series only grows.

I can only read that series in full. And boy I do love the first 6 books!

I finished reading Strixhaven and the thread here on ENWorld was right - it's a pretty watery adventure (that's not a compliment). However! I think I'm going to be able to spice it up. As noted in that other thread, I'll be using some of the adventures in Radiant Citadel, Candlekeep, and Golden Vault as capstone adventures for each trimester... Off to skim those books now - not a deep dive read - but just going to figure out which adventure will fit for which trimester...

 

[Parmandur]

Finished The Book of Lost Tales Vol. 1 on the plane this afternoon. Not sure what there is to say about it. I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to reading the next volume later this month.

It is a major head trip comparing it to the final Silmirilllion.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

It is a major head trip comparing it to the final Silmirilllion.

I was thinking about doing a reread of the Silmarillion after I finished the two volumes. It's been a few years since I read it, and I admit that my memory of it is fuzzy, so I probably didn't get as much out of this as I could have.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Finished The Book of Lost Tales Vol. 1 on the plane this afternoon. Not sure what there is to say about it. I enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to reading the next volume later this month.

The History of Middle-Earth is a fascinating series, seeing how Tolkien wrestled with and refined his ideas.

I can only read that series in full. And boy I do love the first 6 books!

I've never read the entire series back-to-back. I tend to take my time and savor series, whether books or TV shows. Still, I bet reading the Chronicles of Narnia all at once is a fascinating evolution.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

The History of Middle-Earth is a fascinating series, seeing how Tolkien wrestled with and refined his ideas.

It is! The volumes about LotR are great reads, and I enjoyed the snippet of the possible sequel in the last volume when I read it. I just hadn't gone back to the earlier volumes until now.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

Just finished Behind the Curtain by Jonathan Wilson. The book generally follows a course through Eastern Europe from west to east, starting in Ukraine and ending in Russia, by way of the Balkans and the Caucasus (it also goes to Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania -- Moldova, the Baltics, and Belarus are skipped). If you like football, it's worth reading, though as it moves east, it gets slightly repetitive. I suspect that it'll shock no one that Georgian and Azerbaijani football at the turn of the millennium are ludicrously rife with corruption, in ways that are utterly lacking the insouciance of the corruption in Hungary or parts of the Balkans -- with the corruption in Russia itself cold and calculating. It's less polished than Inverting the Pyramid but still a charming read.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

• Jim Butcher's Olympian Affair, the 2nd book in the Aeronaut's Windlass series

I'm kind of bored of this so far sadly. I forgot all the characters from v1 (which was published 6-7 years ago iirc (Wikipedia says 8!! years ago)); and man I've read so much good fantasy and interesting characters (hello Gideon the Ninth!) in the intervening years that the standard pseudo-European (but on floating spire-cities!) Napoleonic naval battles (but with floating ships!) isn't as interesting to me as it was back in 2015

I think I'll push through, Butcher's got an easy to read style, so maybe that'll carry it to the end

 

[Cadence]

On the last of Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn books (the posthumous one that had help being finished). The short story collection is up next.

Read the latest Lucas and Virgil book by Sandford. I like the later ones a lot better than the early ones. (Lucas and Letty coming out in the spring).

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I started The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Man last night before bed (figured The Book of Lost Tales Vol. 2 would hold a little while longer). So far, it's a total hoot. It reminds me of Herbert Asbury's Gangs of New York and Barbary Coast a little, with less of a sense of historiography. I'm looking forward to watching The Sting again after I wrap it up.

 

[Alzrius]

I've been in a bit of a reading rut lately, with almost a half-dozen books that I've made some progress on but can't seem to get through, along with several other reading projects in various stages short of completion. To that end, I did what seemed like the most logical thing, and started reading a different book altogether: James Michie's translation of Ovid's Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love"), managing to finish it last night.

I have to compliment the translator here, as he keeps the playful, self-aware tone of the original (the original Latin is opposite each page), while still keeping it readable. The one change he makes is that he tweaks the text so that the couplets rhyme, which is impressive that he made that change without altering the substance of Ovid's original lines, even if some of the specifics (i.e. how things are phrased, even if the point is the same) are altered. It helps that English has so many synonyms.

Having said that, while I know that this was written in a different time and place, a lot of what's here is...yowza. I know that Ovid was being ironic at points, and so you can't take this as being entirely straightforward, but even so, there are things in here that would make Barney Stinson hold up his hands and say "that's going too far." (Also, unless you're a connoisseur of Greek and Roman mythology, be prepared to look up a lot of old stories, as Ovid likes to drop references.)