What are you reading in 2025?

[Retros_x]

That's the charm: it is always delightful when books are both thick and dense.

delightful its not the term I would use haha. I just hate thick books that don't have much too say, its a waste of time. Delightful is for me when a book is a dense snack. Deep in content, shallow in page number. A rare sight to see, but whenever I got one I feel I have found a white whale.

 

[Parmandur]

delightful its not the term I would use haha. I just hate thick books that don't have much too say, its a waste of time. Delightful is for me when a book is a dense snack. Deep in content, shallow in page number. A rare sight to see, but whenever I got one I feel I have found a white whale.

Both is best, that's what I said. Anathem is both. Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrrell is both.

But big and fluffy is also fun. Small books have to be very good indeed to stand out in my mind, they go by too fast. So I will take a fluffy pulp read that is nice and thick that will stick around more than an hour. I am an extremely fast reader, so thick books are more impactfup than bite size ones.

 

[SkidAce]

delightful its not the term I would use haha. I just hate thick books that don't have much too say, its a waste of time. Delightful is for me when a book is a dense snack. Deep in content, shallow in page number. A rare sight to see, but whenever I got one I feel I have found a white whale.

"I like...big books and I cannot lie,
little bitty books just make me cry.
Reading short stories just makes no sense,
gimme that tome that's thick and dense..."

-apologies to Sir Mixalot.

 

[Retros_x]

Both is best, that's what I said.

I know that is what you said, I was disagreeing with it my ranking is
Short/Deep (Elegant in quality, Elevating/Inspiring as effect on me) - typical 4.5-5 star book for me>>
Long/Deep (Richness in quality, Immersive as effect on me) - typical 4-5 star book for me >>
Short/Shallow (Simplicity in quality, Entertaining/Diverting as effect on me) - typical 3.5-4.5 star book for me >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Long/Shallow (Emptiness as quality, Boring/Draining as effects on me) - typical DNF to 3.5 star book to me.

I think I just appreciate the art of saying much with less words. Its IMO one of the toughest skills, so many writer and people in general are not able to communicate clearly and brief and still have something to say. So when I encounter this, I just appreciate the art.

I am also a fast reader, but I don't see length of engagement as a qualifier. This thinking led to bloated videogame openworlds, bloated books like Stormlight Archive, more 3 hour movies etc. If some sort of media can actually deliver something over the long course of time, I appreciate it, but if not, please edit your work, trim it down, respect the consumers time. I don't need the 4th dialogue where the themes of the novel gets repeated once again.

 

[Parmandur]

I know that is what you said, I was disagreeing with it my ranking is
Short/Deep (Elegant in quality, Elevating/Inspiring as effect on me) - typical 4.5-5 star book for me>>
Long/Deep (Richness in quality, Immersive as effect on me) - typical 4-5 star book for me >>
Short/Shallow (Simplicity in quality, Entertaining/Diverting as effect on me) - typical 3.5-4.5 star book for me >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Long/Shallow (Emptiness as quality, Boring/Draining as effects on me) - typical DNF to 3.5 star book to me.

I think I just appreciate the art of saying much with less words. Its IMO one of the toughest skills, so many writer and people in general are not able to communicate clearly and brief and still have something to say. So when I encounter this, I just appreciate the art.

I am also a fast reader, but I don't see length of engagement as a qualifier. This thinking led to bloated videogame openworlds, bloated books like Stormlight Archive, more 3 hour movies etc. If some sort of media can actually deliver something over the long course of time, I appreciate it, but if not, please edit your work, trim it down, respect the consumers time. I don't need the 4th dialogue where the themes of the novel gets repeated once again.

For me, length is a virtue and brevity somewhat of a vice. A short book has to be very good to justify it's shortness for me.

Now, Stormlight Archive is not the best series of books, bit they are excellent and fun, so thst is a good example of what I mean. I can't get that sort of enjoyment out of something brief.

 

[Alzrius]

I know that is what you said, I was disagreeing with it my ranking is
Short/Deep (Elegant in quality, Elevating/Inspiring as effect on me) - typical 4.5-5 star book for me>>
Long/Deep (Richness in quality, Immersive as effect on me) - typical 4-5 star book for me >>
Short/Shallow (Simplicity in quality, Entertaining/Diverting as effect on me) - typical 3.5-4.5 star book for me >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Long/Shallow (Emptiness as quality, Boring/Draining as effects on me) - typical DNF to 3.5 star book to me.

I think I just appreciate the art of saying much with less words. Its IMO one of the toughest skills, so many writer and people in general are not able to communicate clearly and brief and still have something to say. So when I encounter this, I just appreciate the art.

I am also a fast reader, but I don't see length of engagement as a qualifier. This thinking led to bloated videogame openworlds, bloated books like Stormlight Archive, more 3 hour movies etc. If some sort of media can actually deliver something over the long course of time, I appreciate it, but if not, please edit your work, trim it down, respect the consumers time. I don't need the 4th dialogue where the themes of the novel gets repeated once again.

This is similar to why I stopped counting how many books I read in a year. Different books are of different sizes, have different numbers of pages, etc., so counting the number read quickly became meaningless to me. And that's not even taking into account the quality of the books.

 

[SkidAce]

For me, length is a virtue and brevity somewhat of a vice. A short book has to be very good to justify it's shortness for me
Now, Stormlight Archive is not the best series of boosk, bit tjeybare excellent and fun, so thst is a good example of what I mean. I can get thst sort of enjoyment out of something brief.

The Emperor's Soul by Sanderson is the one of the best short stories ever, it covers all the narratives, introduction, main points, character development, twist, conclusion, etc, in so few pages that its amazing.

 

[Parmandur]

The Emperor's Soul by Sanderson is the one of the best short stories ever, it covers all the narratives, introduction, main points, character development, twist, conclusion, etc, in so few pages that its amazing.

This is true, that is an amazing short book.

Piranesi is perhaps one of the best novels of the 21st century.

But in general, I do not have much time for pleasure reading right now so I prefer to read large books as a rule, I don't have the time to read shorts.

 

[jian]

The Emperor's Soul by Sanderson is the one of the best short stories ever, it covers all the narratives, introduction, main points, character development, twist, conclusion, etc, in so few pages that its amazing.

Similarly, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan is an incredibly compact yet emotive piece of storytelling - there’s a whole journey in 60 pages that’s very satisfying without being overly dense.

On the fantasy side, Naomi Novik excels at these in her short stories and novellas - Spinning Silver and The Summer War are good examples. She expanded the former into a full novel and I hope she’ll do so with the latter.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I’m starting my current 100-book challenge with Children of the Atom by Wilmar Shiras. This is a 1953 fixup novel collecting a series of stories about super-intelligent children born to the survivors of a 1938 atomic power test disaster. Shiras’ work is repeatedly cited as a likely but not confirmed inspiration for the X-Men: the first part, the novella “In Hiding”, was published in Astounding in 1948, and Lee and Kirby were both reading it then. We can and therefore should see Claremontesque foreshadowing of Claremont’s run in Shiras being a woman. (Likely, Stan and Jack no more suspected someone named Wilmar was a woman than I did until reading an article about her and other female authors of the era, a few years ago.)

One of my favorite books in my younger days. Last time I reread it, I noticed quite how much her personal religious assumptions colored the book in some spots.

These are good stories. Very much of their time - the odds of heroic psychiatrists in a modern version are low. But they’re not just declared heroes. They’re good people, astute, sympathetic observers who recognize the super-intelligent teenagers for what they are and see it as their duty to help them find a safe place in which to mature and flourish, using their talents for the good of others and fulfilling their potential. This is, to put it mildly, not a bad dream to be reminded of. And there genuinely well-written passages and interesting characters. The youths aren’t carbon copies of each other, with wide-ranging interests but without any omni-competence. They have very different views of the world, and not all are altogether sane.

In fact, they pull one right back from the edge of sociopathy.

This is a very enjoyable read, and as much about the triumph of humane good will as, say, The Goblin Emperor. I’m deeply pessimistic in many ways, but I like to revisit lodestones of optimism from time. We can be marvelous together, even though we often aren’t.

Its at least a probably healthier way to go through life as a worldview.

Oh, also, a cover that’s been a favorite of mine since my own teens. This is the era:

View attachment 421291

(Cat breeding for unique combinations of traits is a significant plotline through all theee points.)

Probably because of it doing a call back to the Children being the consequence of mutation and genetics (though it was, in the rear view mirror, interesting that she assumed all those mutation opportunities would lead to hyperintelligence).