What are you reading in 2025?

[overgeeked]

Finished Soon I Will Be Invincible tonight. The second half wasn't quite as good as the first half. The constant flashbacks began to grate and gave the narrative a choppy quality. It was good. I'm glad I read it. I guessed about half of the twists. It was nice to be right but it was better to be surprised.

Two things really bugged me about the book, both dealing with the character of Regina.

Regina is a kind of fairy tale fantasy queen in regalia with a magic scepter so potent it can beat any mortal. Think the Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe kids coming back with magic items to a world with superheroes. Then like a week later she's in her secret identity and the scepter is shown to be effectively costume jewelry. It's also hinted that the magic hammer used by the villain at the end is the same hammer brought back by one of Regina's friends but it still works...until it's broken. The whole "it's fantasy and works as long as you believe" or whatever always rubs me the wrong way.

 

[Retros_x]

Read "The Looking Glass War" by John Le Carre.

Ooph, this was a tough read. I think this is a bit underrated because it is more difficult to read than "The Spy from the Cold" and has less dramatic and theatralic story beats. Its probably one of the most realistic books of Le Carre according to reviewers and I can see why - an special operations office in decline, dreaming for the impact they had in WW2, pushing a bonkers and ill-prepared mission and leaving their humanity behind just in a illusive dream to be relevant again. But when confronted with reality, they just drop their asset and try to save them selves. The characters, especially the leaders, come off as really ugly and inhuman here while being full of banality and blandness. The monstrosity of bureacracy, its full on display in this really bleak novel.

 

[Mad_Jack]

I liked Soon I Will Be Invincible.

Just finished one of the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. Think I'm only about two books behind at this point.

Also picked up new copies of stuff I read ages ago - First Flight by comic book writer Chris Claremont and one of the Casca the Mercenary books by Barry Sadler (yeah, that Barry Saddler)... Not sure if I'm actually going to reread First Flight or not, mainly just bought it because my original copy got perma-borrowed by someone (and I hate not owning the first book if I have others in the series), but I might reread Casca just to see if it's as cheesy as I remember it being in junior high when I read it.

 

[Mannahnin]

Finally finished Bowling Alone, and had our second book club meeting on it yesterday.

Overall it's very good, though the original final chapter of proposed agenda items and suggestions for a renewal of social capital and civic participation "by 2010 let us" now evokes a mix of laughter and tears.

The 20 year anniversary afterword looking at what the 2000-2020 rise of social media has some decent insights. The point about how the internet can be a multiplier for social capital, but how online relationships need to be "alloyed" with face to face interaction to be accountable and productive for actually getting things done, is well made.

The book club has a shared agenda of us all being interested in improving our social networking and problem-solving to try to help (in our own small ways) offset some of the bad societal trends the book documents from the late 60s up to today, so it was very much germane.

Today I think I'm going to crack Asimov's Foundation and Empire, as I read Foundation earlier this year and it was a nice quick one, so will be a palate cleanser before I dig into Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord, our next book club selection.

 

[jian]

Also read The Raven Scholar this week. It’s beautifully written, with some lovely character detail and worldbuilding, especially in the Trials, but ultimately disappointing - I found the common character thread of convenient (for the Big Bad) selfishness annoying. There’s an essentially cynical theme there that left a bad taste in my mouth. I’m not saying that isn’t realistic (especially for a very competitive imperial city) but I didn’t get on with it. I don’t think I’ll seek out the sequel.

(Also, random BookTok detail - in a mostly ancient/medieval/Renaissance world with relatively few signs of industrial development or indeed clockwork, it’s a bit weird that people are looking at their watches all the time.)

 

[Reynard]

I recently started the audiobook of Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I have noticed a trend where I am engaged with and enjoy nonfiction much more than fiction in audio format lately. I am not sure what the issue is, but it is kind of bumming me out.

 

[jian]

I recently started the audiobook of Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky and I have noticed a trend where I am engaged with and enjoy nonfiction much more than fiction in audio format lately. I am not sure what the issue is, but it is kind of bumming me out.

I haven’t listened to audiobooks for a while (basically because I don’t have an hour long commute to work every day now) but I tended to find fiction less satisfying that way as a reading experience, because I’d miss bits and have to go back, but found it pretty great as a background/mood experience if I loved the book and the reader (Jonathan Cecil reading P G Wodehouse, for instance). Nonfiction was better for that because it’s more like a podcast and doesn’t seem to need as much concentration.

 

[Autumnal]

Just finished Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter H. Wilson. It’s amazing! At 934 pages/34:03 in audio, it’s a genuine ox-stunner, but it makes good use of its space for well-structured, interesting and useful details. He starts with the lords of the Franks before Charlemagne and follows threads through the 1806 dissolution of the Empire and even beyond to different sorts of lessons and insights modern observers are drawing from the Empire for the European Union. (Fascinating stuff, that.)

Among other benefits, I now really get the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy as I never have before. Everything falls into place, including the possibilities for weird grimdark futures that don’t all head toward anything like the End Times.

Obviously a thousand pages or full day and then some’s listening is not something you’d likely undertake lightly. But if you’re curious about the Empire or what was up with the center of medieval and early modern Europe, this is a fantastic resource that’s enjoyable to read.

This is book 33/100 on my current read-what-you-own challenge. In past attempts, I kept gravitating toward short books and thereby some of my usual reading pleasure. Well. Sure not doing that this time.

 

[overgeeked]

Just finished Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter H. Wilson. It’s amazing! At 934 pages/34:03 in audio, it’s a genuine ox-stunner, but it makes good use of its space for well-structured, interesting and useful details. He starts with the lords of the Franks before Charlemagne and follows threads through the 1806 dissolution of the Empire and even beyond to different sorts of lessons and insights modern observers are drawing from the Empire for the European Union. (Fascinating stuff, that.)

Among other benefits, I now really get the Old World of Warhammer Fantasy as I never have before. Everything falls into place, including the possibilities for weird grimdark futures that don’t all head toward anything like the End Times.

Obviously a thousand pages or full day and then some’s listening is not something you’d likely undertake lightly. But if you’re curious about the Empire or what was up with the center of medieval and early modern Europe, this is a fantastic resource that’s enjoyable to read.

This is book 33/100 on my current read-what-you-own challenge. In past attempts, I kept gravitating toward short books and thereby some of my usual reading pleasure. Well. Sure not doing that this time.

I have two of his. Europe's Tragedy about the 30-Years War along with Blood and Iron about the German-speaking world. I've only partially read the first. Still haven't managed to get around to the second.

 

[Autumnal]

I’ve got Europe’s Tragedy here and am rolling into it now. All this because I wanted some historical context before rereading The Warhound And The World’s Pain. I am an object lesson of some sort.