What book(s) are you reading right now?

[zj]

I'm currently reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins!!
Prior to that I re-read the original Hunger Games triology, needed a refresh from when I read them at 12 when they came out. Before reading, I thought I wouldn't like this book due to how horrible of a person Coriolanus Snow, the main character of this book (age 18) and the main antagonist (as an old man) in the original triology is. But it's been interesting to see not only how he differs from his peers in the Capitol yet blends in, but also the general society at the time, as this book is set 64 years before the original triology.

The technology available is much more limited, the capitol citizens' views of the games as a concept only 10 years into it is interesting and several characters show their dislike. In the original trio, most of the living population has had the games as a part of their entire lives, while in this one, it's fairly new of a concept. And Even Coriolanus finds the cheery demeanour of the host seconds after a dead body is shown, to be ghoulish. But then he reminds himself that "he is no Sejanus", that being a classmate who publicly opposed the games. It's very interesting to see how everyone interacts with each other and society at large! can't wait to see the movie afterwards and compare to my reading experience.

After this one I'll read the next book about the 50th games, where the mentor in the original trio won. I know just a little about it, and it will be interesting to see how much things have changed in 40 years. With the games, tech, public opinion, the regime.. Maybe when I'm done that movie will be out or close to out :D kind of sad to run out of books after that, but I am still glad I got these!! I love Suzanne's social commentary on real life fascism through her books.

[Winternet]

That is awesome! If you enjoy Douglas Adams' writing, you will probably love Terry Pratchett. :) The Discworld novels are incredibly funny and smart.

As for me, I'm currently on a bit of a non-fiction kick. Reading More Everything Forever by Adam Becker, which is all about the utter insanity of Silicon Valley and AI tech bros.

Ooooh that book sounds really interesting! I'm gonna have to read that. Have you seen the show Silicon Valley? It's pretty good.

[IndigoGolem]

Currently i'm reading A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, Journey to the West translated by Anthony C. Yu, the archives of 4 webcomics, another hundred webcomics as they update, and i'm rereading the Lord of the Rings in between borrowing other books from the library. Or i was, until i got an ereader and now i have a comfortable way to read everything on Project Gutenberg.

I recently finished Gambler and Vagabond (Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfiction), How to Take Over the World by Ryan North, Ringworld by Larry Niven, and The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett.

I also started reading The Count of Monte Cristo, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu, The Prince by Machiavelli, and How to Be a God by Richard Bartle, but i wasn't much enjoying those so i stopped.

[juette]

im trying to read more this year (after a couple of years of never reading anything for fun....) but im pretty slow cause i keep picking books that are really hard to read due to their subject matters. my 2 current ones are lolita by vladimir nabokov and whipping girl by julia serano and i try to read a few pages everyday

[st3phvee]

Ooooh that book sounds really interesting! I'm gonna have to read that. Have you seen the show Silicon Valley? It's pretty good.

Yes, I love Silicon Valley! I've watched it twice. Gilfoyle is my spirit animal.

[Eunice]

I'm reading "Excellent Women" by Barbara Pym and I've just finished "Some Tame Gazelle", also by Barbara Pym. They're quite similar in they are both about single women who grew up in the church, and are not really interested in marrying. They're "social comedies", in which she uses a lot of aspects of her own life. Such as her living with her sister, working for the censorship department during WWII, and eventually working in Naples. Much as people in her novels do, certainly the first two. She tended to write about "excellent women", who performed small but meaningful duties for the church or voluntary organisations, but are taken for granted and overlooked.

[torrent-empress]

Just want to say I love this thread and everyone's super thoughtful answers. Right now I'm reading The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel and then a bunch of shojo/josei manga in the rotation (xxxHolic, Princess Jellyfish, Magic Knight Rayearth). Either my reading is about depressed women going insane, political/philosophical, or like, super light-hearted manga. IF ANYONE HAS A STORYGRAPH I'D LOVE TO BE FRIENDS. I need more people on that site!!!

- David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard
- Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent

I love manufacturing consent and Chomsky in general despite some criticisms I have of him! Requiem for the american dream is also great in documentary or book form if you haven't read it!

I'm currently reading "Hell is a Very Small Place", which is a series of essays by people who have suffered through solitary confinement.

This sounds absolutely terrifying but riveting and I absolutely added it to my to read list, I'm pretty passionate about prison abolition and the horrors of the criminal justice system so I think it'll be right up my alley.

[torrent-empress]

my 2 current ones are lolita by vladimir nabokov and whipping girl by julia serano and i try to read a few pages everyday

I just bought Lolita, I love Vladimir Nabokov, I know a lot about the book, how it was written and the case that might've inspired it, but I'm hoping to actually read it.

I can actually read! And I love to read. 

Hello fellow ADHD haver!!!! Congrats and welcome to the lovely world of Ebooks!!!

I study digital design and I plan to write my thesis on ritual in the interaction with technology/the internet.

Are you an HCI major/candidate?? I'm considering trying to my thesis on decolonial design and using art communities as a basis with a big inspiration from Franz Fanon's Wretched of the Earth in explaining how users in marginalized communities

[cinnamuff]

Right now I'm neck deep (maybe even forehead deep..) into reading the entire Fullmetal Alchemist series. It's a series I know is beloved and I've caught it a few times when it'd air on Adult Swim, but I didn't check it out in full until early last month! Mannnnnnn it's so good! I've been missing out and I'm glad I chose to read it!! 

In terms of prose and novels, I've been reading the Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers. As a space enthusiast and especially alien enthusiast, I loooveeeeee this series and how expansive the universe is!! I've finished the first and second books, started the third, and I'm taking a break to read through all of FMA before I finish the third and pick up the final fourth book!! After, I'm thinking of picking up The Locked Tomb series again, hopefully my brain will allow me to read through the series...! :9

[fablefound]

YAYYYY books! i LOVE books. currently, i'm reading/semi-rereading two of my favourite series: moomins and discworld. alongside that i occasionally pick up something from my miles-long tbr--in the past few weeks, that's included watership down, and then she fell, and a collection of illustrations of buildings in the local chinatown. i owe my falling back into love with reading to libby and also storygraph.

[renyoi]

i'm a bookseller, yet also an incredibly slow reader, so i try not to read more than two or three books at a time currently i'm reading sympathy tower tokyo by rie qudan, which i found out about by perusing the weekly catalog my store gets of new releases many months ago. my store has a pretty large "new in translation" section, so i was going to bring the book in to sell, but realized that it had some controversy surrounding it because parts of it used AI or something? it was definitely in a way that was supposed to make a point, but so far all i've seen is that the main character looks something up using AI and then quotes its answer, which isn't quite the same as an AI-written story. i was wary enough about this potential problem that i decided to just place a hold at the library for the book and see for myself if it was justified/made sense. i'm only on page 40, but so far it seems normal enough as a meditation on language, but i don't think i'll be bringing it into the store regardless.

the other book i'm reading is the mysterious case of the dog in the night-time by mark haddon, which is about an autistic teenager trying to solve the murder of his neighhbor's dog. it was written in 2003, so its portrayal of an autistic person is a bit...of the era, but very empathetic so far. it's been collecting dust on my shelf since 2017 lol so i finally decided to just make it a book club book for me & my boyfriend since it was my turn.

i love threads like this! it gives me ideas of titles to bring into the bookstore :]

[_ghost_]

Emma by Jane Austen is my current read. It's a reread for me, but it's been a few years, and Austen's work absolutely should be looked at more than once. I find that her books get funnier and more complex the more I read them, and Emmais a favorite.

[GhostGrrl]

I'm currently reading "Mistborn." I'm having a lot of fun with it so far. the magic system is fun, and I feel like I'm doing a good job noticing little details, and theorizing. Lord Ruler is a terrible name though. He could have gone with anything else for his evil, dictator title.