#WhatchaReading ? #JustFinished Tramps and Vagabonds by Aster Glenn Gray & am so happy to be loving her books again. Like The Sleeping Soldier, this explores attitudes about male affection/same-sex activity in the past--this time the 1930s Depression. As always, it's very immersive and touching, sweet despite very tense situations. The happy ending is a bit abrupt; I'd have like to see more thought process for the characters. But generally I loved it.

@romancebooks
@romancelandia
@bookstodon

#JustFinished Salvation, by Peter F. Hamilton

Wow. I spent most of this book confused, but in a good way! Hamilton wove a complex, interesting story through time and various perspectives. He handled the varied genres well, too... gritty crime novel, spy mission, action-packed rescue, and military YA. Definitely kept me thinking about the book between the times I could read it. John Lee does a phenomenal job narrating, as always.

4.5/5
#scifi #books #bookstodon

#JustFinished listening to The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and am disappointed I didn't enjoy it more. Some of it was funny and her background is interesting, but I couldn't relate to a lot of it or even like her very much.

CN for fatphobia and slut-shaming.

#JustFinished Fractal Noise by Christopher Paolini.

I read this after reading To Sleep in a Sea of Stars. About halfway through, I looked Fractal Noise back up to be sure I was reading the book I thought I was. Indeed, I was. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was a prequel. My library doesn't label things well.

Anyway! The two books could not have a more different feel and still be the same author in the same universe.

🧵

#sff #scifi #books #bookstodon @bookstodon

#JustFinished Normal Sucks, by Jonathan Mooney.

I loved this book! Not least because he doesn't give small deviations from the norm as his examples. He dives into acceptance of all forms of difference, not saying "difference is normal," but rather that difference is what makes us interesting and successful in what we do. Then he challenges us to consider that being useful and successful is not the goal of life.

#books #bookstodon #nonFiction #memoir

#JustFinished Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates.

A brutal takedown of society's blinders around misogyny.

The author is from the UK, but I can only speak to the US. Our society is so inured to violence against women that we don't even see it as avoidable, much less as terroristic. Women are literally afraid to say no to men they don't know because we don't know what shit they'll pull on us after that. We do live with that terror every day.

#books #bookstodon #NonFiction #misogyny

#JustFinished The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu.

I found this book disappointing. In addition to my notes above in this thread, it was a very slow book, which I'm usually good with, but this was... more rambly. In the end, I was pretty much skimming to finish the story.

The world was imaginative and interesting to me, just not the way the story was written. His mechanic for not having to predict the future of human discovery was a cleverish one (from the first book).

#books #bookstodon #scifi

#JustFinished Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Set across thousands of years, it nevertheless reads through without feeling stretched. It follows two threads. The first is the story of uplifting a species. The second is the far-off descendants of those who started the uplift. Themes of the nature of humanity and the drive for survival.

As a life-long arachnophobe, Tchaikovsy did something I honestly never thought could happen.

1/3

#books #bookstodon #SciFi

#JustFinished Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

A wild look into the nature of consciousness and sapience. It's a slow-moving book, and the middle gets confusing. But don't worry, you didn't miss anything. It'll sort itself out.

There are long stretches of narrative that were sometimes a bit much for me, but the story was truly compelling.

Annnnnd, I just realized I started with book 3. Boy, I'm on a roll!

#SciFi #books #bookstodon

#JustFinished (not really, but that's my hashtag) Self Compassion by Kristin Neff. This was one of the few books I have ever marked up.

When I started the book, I thought I was basically nice to myself. You know, supportive, kind, understanding... Ohhelllno. I was so much nicer and more understanding to other people than I was to myself. It's still hard, in some ways, given my upbringing, to be compassionate at all. But I learned so much from the book.

#books #bookstodon #compassion

#JustFinished The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu.

Kinda dry, but quite enjoyable. I felt there were some plot holes that weren't adequately explained.

Other than those two things, I really enjoyed it. Aliens, scientists, intrigue, and, of course, the swearing cop/everyman. The prose certainly painted pictures in my mind.

AFAIK, it's hard SciFi.

#books #bookstodon #SciFi

#JustFinished The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. I was not impressed. While it was definitely creative, it was also impenetrable with too much going on. I read the first half. Put it down and read a different book. Then I started it all over and got about 3/4 of the way through it before just quitting. The idea that people are just data is... unsatisfactory to me.

#books #bookstodon #SciFi

#JustFinished Shards of Earth by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Wow. Tchaikovsy spun up another great one! I love his conception of FTL (unspace), with its creeping horror and existential dread. I do have the impression this comes after other books, which of course, I didn't realize. I will say that it stood well in its own though.

#books #bookstodon #scifi #reading

#JustFinished Camp Zero, by Michelle Min Sterling. Global climate change has ravaged even what we now think of as fairly far north. Humanity's hope lies in Canada. A group heads north to build an American enclave and intrigue ensues.

I wanted to like this book more than I did. The main characters were not well fleshed out though, and even though I understood their motivations, I just never felt the inner turmoil that should have come from their situations.

#books #bookstodon #scifi

#JustFinished The Thick and the Lean, by Chana Porter. I picked this one up on a whim, and it was certainly worth the time I invested in it.

An unhurried book with beautifully lush and descriptive passages. I very much enjoyed this one.

In a world where (essentially) anorexia is a part of the religion, what do those who want to eat do? How does one move in a rigidly stratified society, with extremes of wealth and poverty?

#books #bookstodon

#JustFinished To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini. Amazing! The world-building is deep and detailed. The characters distinct and interesting. Growth and change took place in the story. Gorgeous and engaging. The only drawback I noticed: the denouement was a little drawn out.

#sff #SciFi #ScienceFiction #books #BooksofMastodon

#JustFinished The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson #Science #RedFez #EssentialRead via Kathe Mazur on @audible_com, I missed quite something since I left #CellBiology 25 years ago 😮

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56336199

#JustFinished Blood, Iron, and Gold. How the Railways Transformed the World by Christian Wolmar #TechnologicalHistory #RedFez #EssentialRead #StillRelevant on #Audible

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25540770

#JustFinished Fire & Steam. A New History of the Railways in Britain by Christian Wolmar #TechnologicalHistory #RedFez #EssentialRead #StillRelevant on #Audible

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9938564

#JustFinished The Cult of We: WeWork, Adam Neumann, and the Great Startup Delusion by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell #DigitalHistory #ESG #Leadership #RedFez #EssentialRead #StillRelevant on #Audible https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54998264