Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?

Finished Telephone by Everett this morning. It had some corny moments but also some more emotionally disturbing moments, and moments which hit the right narrative beats for fiction. I'd describe it as a minor American classic.

Just started African American Art and Artists by Samella Lewis this morning after finishing the last one, quite interesting so far.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN I'll add both Telephone and James to the reading list! I Love a great art book, that one looks great. Enjoy!

@MightyDemon82 Excellent. Hope you enjoy.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN @MightyDemon82 I’d be curious to see if you end up reading the same version or not.

@Jimmer-jammer Yeah, it's definitely cool how there are three different endings to it. How are you anyway, my friend? Read any good books lately yourself?

@MightyDemon82 Sorry to hear that; that's a rough deal. The book is added to my to-read list...

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN ... as is Telephone (James was already on there)

I’ve has a digital copy of the Disaster Artist that I lost access to due to region lock which is pretty goofy. But luckily I have other means to get back to it.

And Angie finds herself facing a jewelled head, a thing wrought from platinum and pearl and fine blue stone, eyes of carved synthetic ruby. She knows this thing from the dreams that were never dreams: this is the gateway to the data cores of Tessier-Ashpool, where the two halves of something warred with each other, waiting to be born as one.

Angie, one of the world's biggest simstim stars, finishes a bout of detox in her Malibu home and decides to return to work, while Kumiko is sent by her powerful father to stay with an associate in London as pressing business concerns in Tokyo may prove dangerous for her. Slick Henry needs to care for a rather special package as an owed favour comes due and Mona's boyfriend Eddy may have finally closed the deal that will take them out of a life of squalor and prostitution, thanks to Mona's close resemblance to one of the world's biggest simstim stars.

Much like the previous novel in William Gibson's "The Sprawl" trilogy, Mona Lisa Overdrive (Goodreads page) consists of a handful of separate stories with tangentially related characters that slowly move towards a shared climax. Unfortunately, the keyword here is "slowly". While the novel was never boring, it took quite a while before things started to really happen. The characters are interesting and well fleshed out and the book is definitely compelling, so it's still a good read. I gave it three and a half stars.

Now would be the time to check back in with my favourite teenage sociopath, John Cleaver, but a couple of new releases have inserted themselves in my schedule. The first one is Peter May's return to the Isle of Lewis and Fin Macleod with the fourth book in the "Lewis Trilogy" (soon to be renamed?) The Black Loch (Goodreads page). The Lewis books, though bleak, are easily my favourite Peter May novels, so this one has some high expectations to meet.

@BlAcK_Sw0rDsMaN Doing well, thanks. As far as books go, I most recently made another run through The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Stories but I’m currently reading through the hardcover collection of Gideon Falls. Gearing up for our shoot here and I was looking for something visually inspiring 😄 Hope you enjoy your current read. Sounds fascinating.

@Jimmer-jammer Actually, thank you, but I recently discovered that my latest read was more of a reference book. So now I'm onto my current current read, The Cornel West Reader by Dr. Cornel West, a black intellectual from the States, I'm particularly looking forward to the chapter where he philosophizes on hip hop!

I should be finished The God is Not Willing later today. Fantastic book so far.

I am reserving horror books, at my local library. Any recommendations here would be appreciated.

So far I have added The Troop, Slewfoot, Interview with the Vampire and Empire of the Vampire (not sure it's horror, but heard good things!)

@MightyDemon82 I don't know if you've read anything by Stephen King Jr, Joe Hill, but I've read all of his books and can pretty much recommend them all. Heart-Shaped Box is my favourite, though (NOS4A2 is another corker of his).

As for daddy King, I'm sure you're quite familiar I don't remember much from the ones I read back in the day, but of my recent reads, The Outsider, Bag of Bones, Salem's Lot and The Regulators (as Richard Bachman) are standouts..

Also, Justin Cronin's The Passage is simply epic, both in scope and in quality IMHO. Post-apocalyptic vampires. Fair warning, though, it's a big trilogy, so if it grabs you like it did me, it may be a time-sink (in all the best ways). In the same vein, The Girl with all the Gifts by M.R. Carey is just fantastic. I haven't read the follow-up, as I just now discovered there was a follow-up, but the first one is sublime.

Matt Ruff's Lovecraft Country and it's sequel, Destroyer of Worlds are brilliant Lovecraftian tales where, thankfully, it's the antagonists that are racists and not the author
Keeping with Lovecraftian themes, albeit with a bit more sci-fi slant, I highly recommend Peter Clines' 14 and The Fold. I absolutely adore these books and while they are part of a series, they are completely stand-alone and can be read in any order (though, characters from the first book have a small cameo in the second).

If you're in the mood for short-stories and novellas, you can't really go wrong with Clive Barker's Books of Blood. Here I would also once again champion the works of Joe Hill, particularly Strange Weather. Full Throttle is not as good, but still a fantastic read.

I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the brilliant Robert R. McCammon, so I'll conclude this wall of text with him. He's written what I consider one of my all-time favourite novels, Boy's Life, which some consider horror, while I do not. It is nonetheless a spectacularly good book IMHO and absolutely a worthwhile read that fits well with a dark and rainy fall night. Swan Song is considered McCammon's "The Stand" and I think I actually prefer it to King's epic. Gone South is a good southern gothic horror story that I really liked, and The Five is an incredibly tense thriller that put its claws into me and refused to let go.

(and that reminds me of Dean Koontz' The Servants of Twilight, written as Leigh Nichols, which is also an exceptionally tense thriller)

So, reading this post might qualify as having read an entire novel in itself, so I'll stop here so you'll have time to read other things as well

@FuriousMachine I am a huge Joe Hill fan, eagerly awaiting his next novel. It's been 8 years since The Fireman!

I should read more King, I have read The Dark Tower series and it remains a favourite.

Thanks for those suggestions. I haven't used the library all year as I'm trying to read everything I own, but as you know, that list gets bigger all the time. Now on top of what I own, I've reserved 7 books from the library.

@MightyDemon82 Wow, has it really been that long?! High time he got around to another one, then.
Also, looking at his Goodreads page, I realised that I lied when I said I'd read all his books: 20th Century Ghosts has slipped through unnoticed, so that will be the next short-story collection once I'm done with Ramsey Campbell's "Alone with the Horrors" (which I've been struggling with for two and a half years, but I recently soldiered on and the latest stories have been a huge improvement, so I'm hopeful that I'll get through it)

Just finished The Black Loch (Goodreads page), another fantastic entry in the Lewis series (feels wrong to call it a trilogy now) by Peter May. The sense of place he imparts is phenomenal and as this is the first of the series I've read after having visited Lewis/Harris myself, it was even more vivid this time around.

Once again, the central murder mystery is steeped in the tragedies of the past and familial regrets, and while pretty much every character seems worn down with life, May also manages to inject a sliver of hope and light into the proceedings. An analogy of the Hebridean weather, perhaps? Jesting aside, this is a solid crime novel and if you're a fan of the genre and haven't read the series, you absolutely should. I see a lot of people started with this one, but I would strongly recommend reading the books in order, as the fallout of the others are referenced heavily in this one.

Next up is Exodus: The Archimedes Engine (Goodreads page), a novel by Peter F. Hamilton that I'm simultaneously excited and trepidatious about.
Excited, because it is a tie-in to the upcoming space epic RPG "Exodus" by Archetype Entertainment, which consists of devs of the Mass Effect games... naturally I'm looking forward to that game like no other, so I've been devouring as much info about it as I can.
The trepidation comes from having read Peter F. Hamilton before ("Night's Dawn" trilogy) and that was not a good fit for me. Way too many characters in a dense and meandering plot that stretched over thousands of pages and keeping track of characters and storylines that disappear for hundreds of pages at a time was more frustrating than fun. I gave up after the second book.
I'm hoping this will suit me better, but a lot of the reviews seem to indicate that this novel more of the same.
Anyway, I'm hopeful that knowing what I'm getting into will make the experience easier and I guess we'll find out in about 900 pages

The complete set of Broken Binding Greenbone saga books. I read the series at the beginning of the year, but when I signed up for the subscription and received my invite, this was the first series, which I couldn't opt out of. Beautiful books though and I will read again in these editions. I'm excited about the next one Memory, Sorrow & Thorn. I haven't read those and heard great things!

@MightyDemon82 Those are some fine looking books

About a sixth of the way through The Cornel West Reader by Dr. Cornel West at the moment. It's quite the weighty tome, so it's taking me a while to work my way through it, but I'm thoroughly engaged with it and I find it highly educational and enlightening.

Planning to alternate my reading of The Cornel West Reader with Melville's Moby-Dick at some point soon - can't have too much of the same good thing - so vary it with another good thing!

Edit: I think I've read enough of The Cornel West Reader now, a lot of it seems to be reiterations of West's particular message, but the sections on philosophy and art are worth further examination, I feel. A very intelligent man, doubtless.