Listened to the audiobook version of Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. I’d read it long ago and was surprised how differently I experienced listening to it. Recommended.

Currently finishing a read of the (British) Rough Guide to Cult Pop (2004) … a book about pop/rock music and its makers from the 50s forward to to 20 years ago. Broken up into many sections, put together by a crew of Brit-wits, many interesting facts and stories about a half-century of chart hits. Strong recommend IF you’re into that sort of thing, appreciate a bit-o-snark, and know most of the names already (or want to).

I just finished Jonathan Maberry’s Kagen the Damned trilogy. If you’re into epic fantasy it’s a good read.l, even if feels a little rushed in places and the short chapters irked me slightly.

Now I’m starting How to Survive in Ancient Rome by Robert Garland.

Last Book: Is Math Real? - Eugenia Chang

Reading: The Greeks, A Global history - Roderick Beaton

I would recommend both if either subject interests you.

“Is Math Real?” is a really fun book, and gives the brain a lot to chew on. It asks the “stupid questions” of math and explains why they aren’t so stupid.

“The Greeks” is incredibly well written and researched, and goes into many details that aren’t well known about Greek history. This is a subject that has always interested me because of my heritage, and I have learned a lot.

Last book was “The Catcher in the Rye” (yes i’m late…) Can’t really recommend but i’ll definitely never forget that one. Currently: Looking for Alaska. So many memories of my youth overwhelmed me. (banned in the US!?!?) 🤦

Last book I finished was Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. Good read.

The books I’m currently reading -

Mainly ‘The Three Body Problem’ by Liu Cixin. Thoroughly engrossing.

Also a chapter or two a night of ‘Finding Your Comic Genius’ by Adam Bloom, dipping in and out of ‘Before and Laughter’ by Jimmy Carr, because I’m interested in the art of stand up comedy, and ‘A Stroke of the Pen - The Lost Stories’ by Terry Pratchett. Also working my way through my old Asterix comics that I dug out of storage recently.

Edited to correct titles.

Last book: Perfume: The story of a murderer by Patrick Süskind. I ravaged through it quite fast and enjoyed the descriptive writing style immensely. It’s supposedly a book with many intresting layers, but I loved as a novel about world of smell.

Currently: Though I tend to read several at the time depending on my mood, my main book is Breaking together: A freedom-loving response to collapse by Jem Bendell. I work with environmental stuff and I feel like we are past the point where ecological modernisation is a answer to all of our woes. It is well-written book and you can download it for free.

Last book: This is How You Lose the Time War - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Is_How_You_Lose_the_Time_War
It was good. I don’t normally like love-stories, but this was poetically written. A lot of fun sci-fi and beautiful imagery.

Current book: Little Brother - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Brother_(Doctorow_novel)
Lots of fun hacking and rebellion against an increasingly authoritarian government, very much inspired by 9-11. It’s a fun Young Adult Novel so far.

Currently working my way through the He Who Fights With Monsters audiobook series. It’s a LitRPG, so it comes with all of the trappings that entails. The main character can be a little insufferable at times, but it’s at least self-aware enough to recognize that and call it out. There have been several laugh-out-loud moments from references that I wasn’t expecting. It’s clear the writer is a big nerd with a fetish for bad 80’s films and philosophy. The narrator (Heath Miller) is fantastic.

My biggest complaint is more about the audiobook format; The series frequently rehashes character abilities. In a regular book, this wouldn’t be a problem. You could just turn the page and skip reading it. But for an audiobook, you can try skipping ahead but you’ll still inevitably end up listening to the same ability description that you have heard twenty times before. It also frequently rehashes things that just happened. That’s more a symptom of it gradually being released on the writer’s Patreon, before it is compiled into a full book. Rehash at the start of a chapter makes sense when you’re only reading a chapter per week. But when you’re listening to the entire book, the rehashes can get redundant.

Overall, I’d suggest it if you enjoy the genre. Even with the complaints, those are relatively minor and I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far.