What are you reading in 2024?

[Parmandur]

I recently got my hands on the full set of Tolkien's History of Middle Earth, in the new matching 4 box set.

Read The Lost Road, his abortive mystical time travel story where he first developed a lot of the Numebor stuff...very good stuff, kind of wish he had finished it, but it would have limited appeal with it's wood esoteric cosmic horror angle.

Reading The Return of the Shadow right now, and riding all of Tolkien's early drafts if Fellowship of the Eing is hyaterical: Bingo Bolger-Baggins was a very different character than Frodo.

 

[overgeeked]

Read John Cleese’s short pamphlet titled Creativity. It’s short and vaguely informative. It’s a short recommendation to read Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind by Guy Claxton along with a few pointers on exercising your creativity.

Also read Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, the most famous play from the theater if the absurd, the theatrical movement associated with Absurdism, the philosophical movement created by Albert Camus, the French-Algerian philosopher who wrote The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus, the philosophical essay in which Camus details Absurdism…well, enough of that.

 

[Alzrius]

Also read Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

I had an English teacher in high school who made us read that play out loud. At one point I started cracking up, and being the only one, the entire class (who, like most high school kids, didn't appreciate the assignment at all) looked at me like I was insane. But I'm pretty sure the teacher was pleased to see someone actually enjoying the material.

 

[Autumnal]

You can find various productions of Godot on YouTube and some streaming channels (like Kanopy). I highly recommend seeing it, with a particular recommendation for the version with Zero Mostel. Some plays really take on multiple extra dimensions, and Beckett’s are among them.

 

[Queer Venger]

Currently halfway through volume 8 of Berserk (the hardcover). RIP Kentaro Miura <3

 

[Autumnal]

Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell, by Paul Kane. Holmes and Watson versus Cenobites. Yes, Clive Barker’s BDSM angels/demons. Yes, really. And it works, doing justice to both sides of the mix. Kane has written a great book about the Hellraiser films and is a friend of Barker’s, and nails the Watsonian voice and characterizations. It’s great fun.

 

[Retros_x]

Keep in mind that so far you have only read early Sanderson...he leveled up with Way of Kings, Emperor's Soul, and Alloy of Law.

Tress of the Emwrald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter are also phenomenal cozy fantasy.

That makes me hopeful, because Emperor's Soul was definitely better than these earlier works. Interesting that you name "Alloy of Law" because I read that a lot of fans liked it much less than the first mistborn books. On the other hand a lot of fans loved Mistborn Era 1 which was a fun, but not a great read for me.

 

[AK_Ambrian]

Currently reading William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties. So far I'm enjoying it more than the previous two books in the trilogy.

 

[Parmandur]

That makes me hopeful, because Emperor's Soul was definitely better than these earlier works. Interesting that you name "Alloy of Law" because I read that a lot of fans liked it much less than the first mistborn books. On the other hand a lot of fans loved Mistborn Era 1 which was a fun, but not a great read for me.

It is a major, major tonal shift. Mistborn Era 1 is Epic, sweeping, apocalyptic...Era 2 has guns and choo-choo trains, and the main characters like to solve mysteries!

Though I really love the pay-off for Era 1 more, Era 2 is very fun adventure stories.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I recently got my hands on the full set of Tolkien's History of Middle Earth, in the new matching 4 box set.

Read The Lost Road, his abortive mystical time travel story where he first developed a lot of the Numebor stuff...very good stuff, kind of wish he had finished it, but it would have limited appeal with it's wood esoteric cosmic horror angle.

Reading The Return of the Shadow right now, and riding all of Tolkien's early drafts if Fellowship of the Eing is hyaterical: Bingo Bolger-Baggins was a very different character than Frodo.

The different drafts of Tolkien's works are fascinating. His earliest drafts of what would become the Silmarillion feel very Ballantine Adult Fantasy - slightly pastoral, slightly fairytale, slightly weird.