Tell us what you are currently reading, or what’s on your reading list!
Project Hail Mary. It’s fun, nerdy adventure that I’m enjoying immensely. Definitely a page turner!
Although I do wonder about the plot, specifically whether mirrors could be used to increase heat where it’s needed… (no spoilers!)
Reflective heat concentration is absolutely a thing, I believe I know the scene you’re talking about, and the scale is intense but I think it could be done.
Goodness that was such a good book. I said the audio book version, and I’ve yet to find an answer on the Internet, but I have a question regarding something in the text that I might ask if you’re decently far in.
No spoilers! Everybody should pick up this book immediately,
I’ve heard it described as “the book Andy weir wanted to write first, but he had to write the Martian to prove to publishers that he knew how to write an engaging story” and I completely agree, if you enjoyed the Martian this is the next step, if you haven’t read the Martian I’d probably start with project hail Mary.
“Solutions and other problems” by Allie brosh. I didn’t know she’d written a second book, I was so excited for it. I’m about halfway through and I understand why she’s fallen off the blog scene, if there is a blog scene any more?
She definitely controls the medium, and meditates the pace of chaos introduced, I remember something along the lines of there will be no chapter 4 to test your ability to handle chaos, then we will have chapters 5-8 as normal to show that order is still a possibility, but we’re skipping number 9, and from there on it’ll be a surprise (very very lose paraphrasing).
She warned that it would be heavy, but I wasn’t prepared for anything. I knew it had been a long time since her previous publication, and ever since I discovered hyperbole and a half I tried to read everything she’d written, but it had been so long since she published anything. Well halfway through the book I entirely understand why.
I wouldn’t recommend starting with “solutions and other problems”, check out her first book, or even start at the beginning of the blog, it doesn’t taken too long to consume, but I’m very much enjoying the rollercoaster that is solutions and other problems, even when it’s causing me to tear up.
Just started Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, it delves into the cultural and personal upheavals faced by the Igbo people during British colonialism in Nigeria.
I’m halfway through the Satanic Verses. Literally starts with a bang by having two characters falling off an exploding plane, assuming 69 position mid-air, and then one of the characters grabbed the balls of the other and forced him to flap his arms like wings and the two miraculously survived (while transforming into… things). It only gets better from there.
The infamous parts are just minor subplots but I can see why they are very incendiary under specific social contexts, though IMO it shouldn’t be. Reminds me a lot of The Master and Margarita, which also contains a subplot about Jesus, and which Rushdie confirmed as his inspiration. The main theme has nothing to do with religion at all however, and mostly about the immigrant experience, racism, changing (and non-changing) identities and so on.
