What are you reading in 2026?

[Parmandur]

Started If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvin, which is a major trip. An extended exercise in writing a second person narrative, and very funny.

 

[gban007]

Read Leviathan Wakes, first book of the Expanse. Really good and kept me turning the page- quite good hard sci fi with a bit of a twist, but is good at emphasizing the vast distances within our solar system.
Interesting protagonists with differing flaws, one i empathize with more than the other, and some arcs i didnt really expect.

All round a strong recommend, and now working out how to get hands on the rest.

In meantime going back to one of my humble bundle purchases and reading Magic of Recluce.

 

[jian]

Have read Easy Money by Ben McKenzie and Jacob Silverman, which is basically the longer, better detailed, book version of the story told in their recent film, Everyone is Lying to You for Money. It's a good and readable discussion of cryptocurrency, including an interview with Sam Bankman-Fried and meetings with various other folk such as Alex Mashinsky of Celsius. If you're interested in the subject, I'd recommend it.

Random factoid from the book: Jean Chalopin (the French animation producer behind such classics as Inspector Gadget, Ulysses 31, and The Mysterious Cities of Gold), now works in the Bahamas as a crypto banker.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

This past weekend I knocked out:

Guy DeLisle's biography graphic novel, Muybridge, about, well, Eadweard Muybridge (the guy who figured out rigging 12 cameras together to capture a horse's legs in motion, and whose tech ultimately contributed to the motion picture camera--that's the short-SHORT version, I know.)

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, 2014 post-apocalyptic novel 20 years after a superflu takes out 99% of the human population.

Back at Dragons of Fate: hoping to finish that one by the end of the week. It's been a long time, but were Chronicles and Legends this clunky?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Back at Dragons of Fate: hoping to finish that one by the end of the week. It's been a long time, but were Chronicles and Legends this clunky?

I would say so. It's just, I know personally, I have a ton of nostalgia for those two trilogies. Legends does benefit from having a tighter cast of characters than Chronicles.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

I would say so. It's just, I know personally, I have a ton of nostalgia for those two trilogies. Legends does benefit from having a tighter cast of characters than Chronicles.

I was tired and a bit negative last night, but thanks for the assurance. I've always wondered how much of a nostalgia filter I have with Chronicles, since it's basically the first "fantasy" I read.

I'm really not liking Destina, but I hope that's the point. But I was engaged in the characterization of Magius and Raistlin in what I read yesterday, though.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I was tired and a bit negative last night, but thanks for the assurance. I've always wondered how much of a nostalgia filter I have with Chronicles, since it's basically the first "fantasy" I read.

I'm really not liking Destina, but I hope that's the point. But I was engaged in the characterization of Magius and Raistlin in what I read yesterday, though.

I liked Destina as a character - she is, in a sense, the antagonist of the first book, yet she becomes that through ostensibly good and noble aspirations, trying to save her father.

 

[Arnie_Wan_Kenobi]

I liked Destina as a character - she is, in a sense, the antagonist of the first book, yet she becomes that through ostensibly good and noble aspirations, trying to save her father.

I have read a review of the series that points out her arc shows a lot of development, so I'm willing to remain optimistic. And I can appreciate a good "Villian Protagonist".

 

[billd91]

I've done a lot of reading over the years about World War II, but my focus has usually been more on the European Theater than Pacific. Time to rectify that some.

I've recently started the second volume of Ian Toll's Pacific War Trilogy - The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944. The first volume, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942, was an excellent read.

 

[jian]

I've done a lot of reading over the years about World War II, but my focus has usually been more on the European Theater than Pacific. Time to rectify that some.

I've recently started the second volume of Ian Toll's Pacific War Trilogy - The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942–1944. The first volume, Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941–1942, was an excellent read.

I can't remember if you've mentioned reading Prit Buttar's work about WW2? I'm just mentioning him because I know the guy.