Book Recs and Reviews

[cotton]

I'm always looking for book recommendations, so I wanted to create a thread for people to talk about what they're reading!

Personally, I recently enjoyed Kikuko Tsumura's There's No Such Thing As An Easy Job. It's a fun, surreal book about the increasingly bizarre jobs the protagonist's takes on and the unique ways each one tires her out.

I also just finished James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk, and I had to lie down after. I'd mostly read his essays before, and now I'm trying to read more of his fiction. I don't think anyone's written more beautifully about love than him. (That last sentence could also be revised to read, "I don't think anyone's written more beautifully than him.")

 

[Tsushi]

I recently listened to Howl's Moving Castle! It was a lot of fun! I think the movie was a good adaptation but if you love the movie it's definitely worth getting some of the extra characters and characterization. Howl is even more whiny in the book, it's a hoot!

 

[The_Walking_Pie]

For detective/crime novels, I just finished reading Lavender House by Lev A.C. Rosen and it was a pretty good read (also the first book I've finished this year. XD) I'd also recommend The Human Flies by Hans Olav Lahlum. I finished it last summer and I'm buying the second book to read over my summer vacation this year.

As for just in general, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (it's hard to descripe, but it's my favorite book and it made me cry), A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman (a book about an old curmudgeon and how he eventually endears himself to the neighborhood after his wife's death, also made me cry but less so), Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (fun fantasy with mechs but also randomly a bit that feels like the hunger games with propaganda and stuff), and On the Edge of Gone by Corinne Duyvis (a book about the apocalypse as its happening. Loads of fun, and it also has autism rep in it).

Also The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, a book about a man who sells his soul so that he stays beautiful. Good classical literature.

 

[cotton]

Last year, I read It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections On Horror (edited by Joe Vallese), which is a collection essays by queer writers about their relationships with horror movies and monsters, and I'm still thinking about it. A really neat collection of queer readings of horror, and working through the tension of seeing a part of yourself reflected in fiction and the uneasy relationship the horror genre has historically had with queerness. Man.

Currently, I'm reading Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James Scott, and it's so good. Scott writes very clearly about the mechanisms of state power that are easy to overlook. I'm reading about maps, taxes, scientific forestry, and modernist city planning like !

 

[Tsushi]

I finally got around to We Do This Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba about the ideology towards prison abolition and political struggle towards that goal. It was really good! If you have any interest in that subject, she has incredibly thoughtful insights.

I'm midway through Braiding Sweetgrass now, which is about plant science from an Indigenous perspective with some autobiographical aspects in terms of her relationship to motherhood etc. It's something that has positively impacted my thinking a lot in terms of relationships to plants and ecosystems. I assume it will continue to be a really impactful text for me so I have to read it slowly to really take it in.

 

[lupingavemebrainrot]

book recs please note outside of lupin III I am a dark romance/edgy content enthuist so my recs might have problematic content:
1. bastian by solche

Spoiler: triggers:bastian

theres a rape arc, like a whole ass rape arc

2. cry even better if you beg By Solche

Spoiler: triggers

lots of dub-con, really up to reader interuptation, make sure your reading offiicial yonder translation and not the ftl as the ftl makes the male lead alot worse

3. The vampire lestat By Anne Rice

Spoiler: triggers

some parts get bloody also lestat has an unhealthy fixation on both akasha louis

4. The claiming of sleeping beauty, all three volumes, by anne rice, might be found under neath the pen name Anne Rampling

Spoiler: Triggers

beginning dub con, but its pratically grimms fairy tales meets 50 shades of grey the universe pratically subjects all princesses and princes to slave treament for a few years before being returned home

5. Belinda by anne rice underneaht the pen name anne rampling

Spoiler: triggers

the plot focuses on a 44 year old man and childrens book illustrator's fixation on a sixteen year old girl, hardest book I've read so far right next to solches work

6. Sun god by nan ryan

Spoiler: triggers

racism, one of the key plot points is that the male lead gets whipped, for being half native half mexican and fucking a white woman in 1840s texas, this spurs a revenge plot on the female lead with lots of dub con and just borderline abuse, there is no happy ending, no redemption, just pain and more pain, that will have you bawling el capitan

I've only listed the triggers because while I can handle most plot lines and stories, not everybody can.

Honorable mentions:
Bury my heart at wounded knee

one of my favorite books not really fiction it documents some of the suffering the native americans went through during americas expansionist days.

Daughter of fortune by isabel allende
focuses on a journey about a girl who goes chasing after her lover during the wild west gold rush, has a happy unconvential ending. really tugs at your heart strings at times.

The other boleyn girl
much better then the movie
The king maker
like game of thrones, but it actually happened in history, infact I encourage anyone who is a fan of game of thrones to research and consume media related to 100 years war of england, or the war of roses, as that is the main inspo to the game of thrones, and hell of alot more interesting as it actually happened.
the concubine by norah lofts
this one probably a bit more historically accurate then the other boleyn girl, you get a better sense of the time period. and the literal title is how the spanish ambassdor referenced anne during the time period as "the concubine" given they didn't see englands move to protestanism as legit.

 

[Tsushi]

I recently finished The Left Hand of Darkness a classic from 1969 by Ursula K LeGuin! It's a Science Fiction book about a man landing on another planet trying to be a means of first contact to the people who live there. If you know Star Trek, think like Star Fleet contacting a new alien planet to try to make an alliance, but a lot different from Star Fleet in terms of organization and how they operate. I don't want to spoil more since the details of the mission and of the planet are some of the most interesting aspects that slowly emerge as you read.

 

[Hooder]

Would anyone be willing to recommend me some stuff?

I'm looking for something that itches a bit of Shin Megami Tensei setting?
the closest I hear about is Neverwhere

I'm up for anything really, romance is even fine as long as it isn't the main focus.

 

[lupingavemebrainrot]

Would anyone be willing to recommend me some stuff?

I'm looking for something that itches a bit of Shin Megami Tensei setting?
the closest I hear about is Neverwhere

I'm up for anything really, romance is even fine as long as it isn't the main focus.

only close reccomendation I have is:
I have no mouth and I must scream, by Harlan Ellison, its a light read, pratically a novella.

Actual "hate" monlogue read by the author for the video game yes you should play it it really expands on the lore and character back stories harlan ellison really brings the crazy out of AM: