What are you reading in 2025?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just finished my re-read of Thud!, which is another Pratchett-at-his-peak Discworld novel. And sadly, the subject of don't-bother-trying-to-make-peace-they've-been-at-this-for-centuries ethnic strife discourse always feels timely. But this is a lovely book and is full of yoinkable dwarf stuff for D&D games.

 

[Pale Violet Light]

I am eagerly awaiting the final volume of Christopher Ruocchio’s Sun Eater Saga and am probably going to reread the Book of the Nee Sun soon..

The Conciliator demands that you bring him… a shrubbery (So you can stab each other with the leaves, presumably)!

 

[Autumnal]

Always up for some good wholesome urtication.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Undercover Cat by Gordon and Mildred Gordon,

Gordon Gordon? Some people's parents, I tell you...

 

[Cadence]

Finished "The Hammersmith Murders" from 1930 by David Frome (pen-name of Zenith Jones Brown, with Leslie Ford and Brenda Conrad being others). It's a cozy, middle class, Scotland Yard mystery.The writing itself was well done, I liked the main character, and it had a great use of tetanus as a murder weapon, but it didn't knock my socks off and one thing that threaded through it was too glib. In part since Rex Stout really liked the series I have the next one, "Two Against Scotland Yard", queued up on my Kindle.

I got the one just finished via interlibrary loan... and have now learned that I am a bit nervous about reading old books in good condition that aren't mine. So I didn't bring it camping, or out with me if the weather threatened, or to read while eating.

To read in those other times I had Nicola Upson's "Two for Sorrow" (her 3rd Josephine Tey mystery) on my Kindle. I thought it was the best of them so far (it builds on the first, the second really isn't needed to get to it) - I like her writing itself and she did a good job with the plot and characters The background on the real life Cowdray Club and Baby Farming were interesting.too. I could have done without the brief sex scene. Will keep reading the series.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Just started reading The Olympian Affair - Bok 2 of the Cinder Spires by Jim Butcher.
Also started reading a book about Tai-Chi. Something I probably should start practicing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Reading two very autumnal books:

1. Lucy Undying - A feminist sequel to Dracula that's especially rewarding for folks who know the original novel well. So far it's very good, fleshing out a character who was basically just treated like a bimbo in the original novel and in most movies.
2. Tehanu - The first "new" Earthsea book I've read since childhood, after I re-read the original three books over the past year. It's interesting that a series that start off considered a YA series seems to be increasingly a series about aging and death.

 

[jian]

Just finished the Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi, a fast-paced novel about the adventures of a Persian Gulf pirate coming out of retirement during the Crusades. (The Crusades don't reach the region, but a crusader does.)

This is the kind of energy most of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have been missing. It moves fast, has a good cast of characters you believe care about each other, despite being various flavors of scoundrels and outcasts, has prominent and interesting supernatural elements (including the obligatory crew of mutated pirates battling more human ones) without them completely dominating the story and it sets up a natural path to sequels that we don't need to see, but would welcome.

On top of that, it's full of Indian, African and Middle Eastern mythology, and features well-rounded Islamic characters, which is still a rarity nowadays.

A very fun book and it's going to make me look up the author's previous series as well.

Just finished this and really enjoyed it. I don’t know if she pins down a date - maybe 11th century since it sounds as if the Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded a decade or so earlier, and it’s interesting to wonder whether someone French would call themselves a Frank at that point (rather than people from Yemen calling all Northern Europeans Franks or something similar such as Farang, which they might). Also, would a Yemeni call their curved sword a scimitar (rather than saif or shamshir) since that’s a French/Italian word probably derived from shamshir? That stuck out to me since she’s quite careful about terminology otherwise.

It made me do a lot of side reading (what was called Iraq in the 11th century? Who were the Banu Sasan? What is a nakhudha? What is a marid anyway (not a D&D djinn)? The caves and microbiome of Socotra, etc.). I don’t need any sequels but would be happy to see them.

 

[jian]

Also read The Summer War by Naomi Novik, a short (77 page) novella which nonetheless has enough plot and worldbuilding for a whole film or short series. It’s set in a human medieval kingdom which has the misfortune to be invaded every summer by the Summerlands, whose people are immortal and elf-like but very, very narrative, bound by bargains and stories. The tension comes from the clash of cultures between the Game of Thrones humans and the fairytale summerlings. It definitely had enough story for a longer novel and maybe she’ll expand it as she did with Spinning Silver.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Just finished this and really enjoyed it. I don’t know if she pins down a date - maybe 11th century since it sounds as if the Kingdom of Jerusalem was founded a decade or so earlier, and it’s interesting to wonder whether someone French would call themselves a Frank at that point (rather than people from Yemen calling all Northern Europeans Franks or something similar such as Farang, which they might).

In the author's note in my version, she said she was reflecting what the Yemenis would be calling Europeans.