Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
Yeah, I tried the wvook thing, just not the same without the physical element.
What are you reading in 2025?
- Thread starter Elodan
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Wolfram stout
Hero
I had no idea there was a new Black Company book. It has kind of thrown me. I read the first 3 and silver spike multiple times in the 90s. And the books of the south once each as they came out. I’m not much into grimdark anymore, do I jump back in? Do I reread the Books of the South? Do I pretend that the saga closed with the last one?
Glen Cook was a regular guest at Chattacon in the 90s. He was always a hoot to listen too.
On topic. I have been rereading some Dresden in prepp for new book in 2026. No way I’m rereading all of them but the first two were good rereads.
I found the tone and hmmm, thickness of the books after the 1st three and Silver Spike to change. These are the best.
Read all the books, and did enjoy them, just not the same glorious impact as the original trilogy. Did lie that we finally figured out Khatovar and such. Somewhat melancholy about Croaker's plot finale.
The new book is back in time before they joined up with the lady, and the first couple of chapters feels fresh with gritty humor like the first book. We will see.
Did you like the Dark Empire books?
Old Fezziwig
hell yes bro
Finished Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself by David Lipsky early this morning. It's a five-day interview with David Foster Wallace at the end of his book tour for Infinite Jest. I loved the book, which didn't surprise me, as I quite enjoyed James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour when it came out, too. But although I found myself disliking both DFW and Lipsky when I watched the movie, I found myself feeling mostly affection towards them reading the interview here. They're just so vulnerable and insecure and young.
Two things that jumped out at me that are somewhat tangential to the main thrust of the interview:
(1) There's an interesting conversation a little over half-way through where DFW predicts the current political moment in the US with startling accuracy. His ability to observe the world around him and extrapolate possibilities from there is pretty remarkable. This was, of course, part of the project in Infinite Jest given its depiction of a near-future North America and seems to have been a general concern of his to begin with.
(2) The "mostly" in the penultimate sentence of the first paragraph is tempered by what we know now about DFW's relationships with women. It's not entirely overt, and the interview doesn't get too far into his romantic life. But there's some ugliness in his thinking that peeks through here and there that's distasteful and disconcerting -- for instance, the way DFW uses the word "females" in the last long conversation (he and Lipsky are back at DFW's house in Bloomington, IL playing with his dogs) was gross, especially given how much less guarded he is in this conversation while still being very careful in his diction. There's other stuff, too, that felt off -- he says he moved from Boston to Syracuse in part because of a woman, and he's strangely cagey about the situation.
Two things that jumped out at me that are somewhat tangential to the main thrust of the interview:
(1) There's an interesting conversation a little over half-way through where DFW predicts the current political moment in the US with startling accuracy. His ability to observe the world around him and extrapolate possibilities from there is pretty remarkable. This was, of course, part of the project in Infinite Jest given its depiction of a near-future North America and seems to have been a general concern of his to begin with.
(2) The "mostly" in the penultimate sentence of the first paragraph is tempered by what we know now about DFW's relationships with women. It's not entirely overt, and the interview doesn't get too far into his romantic life. But there's some ugliness in his thinking that peeks through here and there that's distasteful and disconcerting -- for instance, the way DFW uses the word "females" in the last long conversation (he and Lipsky are back at DFW's house in Bloomington, IL playing with his dogs) was gross, especially given how much less guarded he is in this conversation while still being very careful in his diction. There's other stuff, too, that felt off -- he says he moved from Boston to Syracuse in part because of a woman, and he's strangely cagey about the situation.
People said it about the written word, centuries before Gutenberg. For whatever that's worth (and I don't think it's worth a lot).
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I recall an anecdote when, upon written poetry becoming a thing in Ancient Greece, one storyteller denounced it as marking the death of human memory.
Unfortunately, I can't recall precisely who said that, so maybe he was right.
Parmandur
Book-Friend, he/him
I think a more apt comparison is between recorded music and live music. Has recorded music changed the way people interact with live music? Yes. Will it ever fully replace it? No.
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Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Reading Wintersmith, which is even better than I remembered. There are people who skip the Tiffany Aching book, because they're YA, but they're among the best Discworld novels, as they were written by Pratchett at his peak (although obviously, the final one, which is the final book Pratchett published, shows he was in definite decline at the end).
Also listening to the audiobook of the Fifth Season. I was not prepared for just how dark this is, but it's very, very good. I haven't yet really gotten into the society of wizards (?) in the book yet, but what I've seen of it so far is a lot more grounded and less Spirit Halloween than most takes on it. The child murder at the beginning isn't done glibly or played off so far as "and now my character will be defined by Righteous Vengeance!"
Also listening to the audiobook of the Fifth Season. I was not prepared for just how dark this is, but it's very, very good. I haven't yet really gotten into the society of wizards (?) in the book yet, but what I've seen of it so far is a lot more grounded and less Spirit Halloween than most takes on it. The child murder at the beginning isn't done glibly or played off so far as "and now my character will be defined by Righteous Vengeance!"
When it became possible to record music, there were professional musicians strongly opposed to it, because they guessed (more or less correctly) that the ability to play back recordings would reduce the number of jobs for musicians performing in public. The record business has always been morally filthy, as far as how it treats the musicians, and the switch to streaming hasn't changed that, though--for most acts, at least--the business model has changed from "play shows to get people to buy records" to "make records to get people to come to your shows."
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