I guess tomorrow is independent bookstore day and a bunch in our city set up a “book crawl” where if you check in at 10 or 15 of them tomorrow you get that % off at all of the participating stores for a year.
I don’t know if I have a “hike to 10 stores” adventure in me but - well I don’t know that I don’t have it in me either.
The closest one has cookies though so we’re at least getting one!
I had a number of books today where they advertised a price, I clicked to go to the book page, it said "This title is unavailable for purchase" but if I then clicked on Kindle under "Format and editions" (where you can also choose the audiobook, etc), it then showed up available with that price.
This is the sort of silly shit where because i'm NZ, various books just... arent available for whatever assasine reason on kindle. Which is super frustrating - for various reasons i mostly buy my books digitally these days (Ease, accessiblity, avoids damage to them becuase i'm rough with books). Similar to why i havent gone to a libary in forever - i just dont enjoy carrying physical books anymore for reading. (with the exception for stuff that's illustrated/coffee table book style, that's fine)
It drives me nuts because it's such an own goal and i can guarantee you it's a driver of ebook piracy. See: Gabe Newell's piracy is a service issue.
Shit like this is why someone like me, who loves books and is very comfortable with reading a screen, has not bought a Kindle.
Also because until pretty recently ebooks were either barely cheaper than a digital copy with zero marginal cost of production, or actually more expensive. It seems to be better now, but only recently and not that much better.
Also because of that deleting 1984 from people's Kindles thing. That was kind of a shot across the bows. They can unsell you any book whenever they feel like it if they want to, and there's shit all you can do about it. I'm old and when I buy things I like to actually own them.
Time has no meaning any more so I don't know without looking it up? Some years ago, anyway, maybe 6 or 8? And I never saw anything that indicated that they were legally disbarred from doing it again.
Why did they do that? I’m pretty sure 1984 is public domain now
Not too concerned with whatever they claim the reason to be so much as concerned by them demonstrating they not only have the ability to take a book from you, but can do so at any time they want for any reason.
1984 won't enter public domain in the US until the 2040s, and Amazon removed versions of it that had been sold by a distributor that didn't actually have the rights. Just for context
I won't spoil anything, because you kinda can't, but read that wikipedia page and then find yourself a copy, preferably analog, for effect.
I inherited my copy from my dad who inherited it from his dad. there's three generations of tape and book glue and one part came off the binding and is sewn back in with very neat stitches, which means my grandma, a nurse, was the one who fixed that part.
So we went to our local shop for indie bookstore day and then walked a bit to a used bookstore I was aware of but had never been into and one of the owners let us into their rare book room in a secret door bookcase and just chatted with us about it for a while. Secret rare book rooms always amazing.
I was fascinated because I just recently bought an old hardcover of the dispossessed and I didn’t go deep, but even just making sure I got a nice condition copy and not a crumbling mass produced commodity from the 70s was like peering into the infinite depths.
Also we bought more books. But in our defense it was book holiday!
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
God damn Shepard's Crown starts right off with a giant punch to the gut.
Also I spent most of last night thinking about Discworld characters instead of sleeping. I wish we could have gotten more Moist and Vimes or ideally a whole book of Moist and Carrot. Like maybe Vetinari requires Moist to perform a Ocean's 11 style heist for something politically sensitive but requires a member of the Watch to be part of the team and there would be a whole segment that requires Moist to train Carrot in performing a con.
"We need you to bring Mr. Spuddy Face out of retirement. For one more job."
I'm imagining Moist needing to recruit people from all across the discworld books. Obviously the Librarian would be the greaseman. They'd need a witch and wizard to deactivate magical security and an undead to get past the heat sensors. A troll for the brute force, a dwarf and golem for digging the tunnel. Goblins for communications. A Werewolf for operational security. A talking rat for wetworks. At least one Nobby.
So we went to our local shop for indie bookstore day and then walked a bit to a used bookstore I was aware of but had never been into and one of the owners let us into their rare book room on a secret door bookcase and just chatted with us about it for a while. Secret rare book rooms always amazing.
I was fascinated because I just recently bought an old hardcover of the dispossessed and I didn’t go deep, but even just making sure I got a nice condition copy and not a crumbling mass produced commodity from the 70s was like peering into the infinite depths.
Also we bought more books. But in our defense it was book holiday!
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
I have just finished reading the book The Shepard's Crown by Sir Terry Pratchett. Yes, I just started reading it last night. I thought I'd hold it together but then there was an afterward and I had to quickly leave the front of the library and retreat into my office and close the door.
I have now read all of the Discworld fiction stories, long, short, and in-between and it has been a wonderful journey. And while I started the journey for real last June, I have one final stop. I read Small Gods several years ago and intent to end by re-reading it to see if, 1, some parts of it make more sense, and 2, because then I can say that I've read all of the Discworld books in less than 11 months.
This is assuming I can recover from this emotional wreck that a few pages has turned me into.
God damn Shepard's Crown starts right off with a giant punch to the gut.
Also I spent most of last night thinking about Discworld characters instead of sleeping. I wish we could have gotten more Moist and Vimes or ideally a whole book of Moist and Carrot. Like maybe Vetinari requires Moist to perform a Ocean's 11 style heist for something politically sensitive but requires a member of the Watch to be part of the team and there would be a whole segment that requires Moist to train Carrot in performing a con.
I mean the signalling is pretty clear here. The book with Moist and Carrot is Vetinari revealing to Moist that (1) he's been grooming Moist to be the next Patrician and (2) Carrot is the Grey King.
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
I am 3/4 of the way through a book that I am fully hatereading, to the point where I am considering making a youtube video just to fully express my thoughts on it. Woof.
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
I have just finished reading the book The Shepard's Crown by Sir Terry Pratchett. Yes, I just started reading it last night. I thought I'd hold it together but then there was an afterward and I had to quickly leave the front of the library and retreat into my office and close the door.
I have now read all of the Discworld fiction stories, long, short, and in-between and it has been a wonderful journey. And while I started the journey for real last June, I have one final stop. I read Small Gods several years ago and intent to end by re-reading it to see if, 1, some parts of it make more sense, and 2, because then I can say that I've read all of the Discworld books in less than 11 months.
This is assuming I can recover from this emotional wreck that a few pages has turned me into.
Shit, I reread small gods every year.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I am 3/4 of the way through a book that I am fully hatereading, to the point where I am considering making a youtube video just to fully express my thoughts on it. Woof.
Can't just say that without giving us the title of the book.
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JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
I am 3/4 of the way through a book that I am fully hatereading, to the point where I am considering making a youtube video just to fully express my thoughts on it. Woof.
I'd like to say that you're entering the home stretch, but if you've already gotten through one of the Gospels all the fun miracles have already happened. I'd go ahead and skim very lightly over Paul's endless bloviating and revisionist letter-writing, check back in for the mushroom trip in the last chapter, and slap it up on Goodreads as finished. You made it through Numbers and Judges, you deserve to give yourself a break.
+12
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
I am 3/4 of the way through a book that I am fully hatereading, to the point where I am considering making a youtube video just to fully express my thoughts on it. Woof.
Can't just say that without giving us the title of the book.
Last Exit by Max Gladstone. A large part of my issues with the book are because he has 8 other published works that I think range from good to excellent.
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Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
I never say this, but I feel that reading those 41 books have honestly made me a better person.
Also I started Small Gods again and holy shit Lu-Tze is in it. Like that Lu-Tze that shows up in other books. I completely missed that the first time through, mainly since I had no idea who he was and forgot by the time he showed up again. Guess I just be to reread all the books now. Maybe in chronological order this time.
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
A chronological read is a good time, I think the references come together more fluidly that way.
Plus, once you've read it through twice you can get all the audiobooks and be able to identify and enjoy the footnotes just by the way the narrator changes their tone of voice.
My (partial re)read is chronological (currently up to Fifth Elephant) and I definitely think it's a good way to go. I'm not getting through them super quickly because I mostly just read for half an hour or so before sleep but each book from the last series is still fresh enough next time the same characters come around.
Night's Watch is probably my most read Discworld book because I got given a signed copy - jebus, nearly 20 years ago now - and I can already tell I'm going to get so much more out of it when I get back to it having read all the stuff that came before.
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After enjoying the Paksenarrion books I realized that I should really try some more Elizabeth Moon, so I picked up Trading in Danger, which is the first of five in the series, but it really functions perfectly well as a stand-alone book.
It feels a lot like Moon read Bujold's Warriors Apprentice and was like, "That's a cool story hook, but lets try mixing up a few things." So Ky Vatta is the heir of her wealthy space opera family, but she's a bit of a black sheep cuz she went for the military instead of the family interstellar shipping business. Her military aspirations are nixed when she gets kicked out of the academy and her family immediately grabs her and throws her on the first available freighter to get her out of the public eye. As these things go her freighter wanders into a system right as a war is breaking out, and now she's stuck in-system how to deal with a shooting war while she's stuck in a rinky-dink freighter that's halfway to coming apart at the seams.
So she's got a lot of elements of young Miles Vorkosigan. Dangerously ambitious, militarily talented, a desire to prove herself to her family, and a poor relationship with authority. Miles is able to con his way into command of a military ship, but Ky's already got a ship she's responsible for, and they're more truckers in space than the space opera bridge crew that Ky wanted. So it's kind of a fun little twist on the genre - it's more the vibe of like, the crew of the Nostromo, bitchin' about their shares and up to their elbows in grease, all while Big Space Opera Stuff is happening just over there.
The other part I liked is that Ky's pretty surprising in how quickly she starts to subvert her typical heroic protagonist role. She's willing to make deals with any side if it'll get her and her ship through the war, in a downright amoral sorta way, and you start to suspect that she's maybe not destined to be fully on the side of the angels in the long run.
Anyway it's not perfect, but if you also grew up reading those space opera books with those very 90s Baen all-italics, all caps covers, there's a lot to like here. I'm onto book 3 of the series and I dunno, there's definitely some nagging problems and sloppy plotting, it's not a strong recommendation after book 1, but I quite enjoyed book 1.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
A chronological read is a good time, I think the references come together more fluidly that way.
Plus, once you've read it through twice you can get all the audiobooks and be able to identify and enjoy the footnotes just by the way the narrator changes their tone of voice.
I really wanted to read them in chronological order, but after The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic I...wasn't super into it, so opted to do them by focus instead. Finished the City Watch and Death books so far. 2/3 through the last Moist von Lipwig one. Despite the fact that most of the progression was covered through Vimes' adventures, it still feels like I somehow missed a lot of city progression somewhere coming into all the trains and such, even if I know better.
I think maybe it's more how much it seems to be telling rather than showing Moist do his thing, and flitting through a lot of time throughout the book, that's throwing me off.
I never say this, but I feel that reading those 41 books have honestly made me a better person.
Also I started Small Gods again and holy shit Lu-Tze is in it. Like that Lu-Tze that shows up in other books. I completely missed that the first time through, mainly since I had no idea who he was and forgot by the time he showed up again. Guess I just be to reread all the books now. Maybe in chronological order this time.
The Diskworld series started out as a little known author looking for ideas and putting out a niche book that was basically a novelisation of the D&D campaign he ran for a few friends and ended up as the Humanist mythos of our time. If anyone ever tries to assert in my presence that fantasy writing isn't "serious" or never has anything important to say, and anyway can't say it well, then I will challenge them to read Night Watch or Thud or I Shall Wear Midnight or the gateway Diskworld drug Small Gods and come back to me to admit they were wrong.
I will be making sure that all 3 of my nephews have the Diskworld books placed in their path. I can hardly think of a better starting point for their moral philosophy.
I never say this, but I feel that reading those 41 books have honestly made me a better person.
Also I started Small Gods again and holy shit Lu-Tze is in it. Like that Lu-Tze that shows up in other books. I completely missed that the first time through, mainly since I had no idea who he was and forgot by the time he showed up again. Guess I just be to reread all the books now. Maybe in chronological order this time.
The Diskworld series started out as a little known author looking for ideas and putting out a niche book that was basically a novelisation of the D&D campaign he ran for a few friends and ended up as the Humanist mythos of our time. If anyone ever tries to assert in my presence that fantasy writing isn't "serious" or never has anything important to say, and anyway can't say it well, then I will challenge them to read Night Watch or Thud or I Shall Wear Midnight or the gateway Diskworld drug Small Gods and come back to me to admit they were wrong.
I will be making sure that all 3 of my nephews have the Diskworld books placed in their path. I can hardly think of a better starting point for their moral philosophy.
tl;dr: me too.
Oh dang that actually made a good book once? Even his early stuff is so far removed from removed from D&D I never would have noticed.
Other people's attempts to do the same thing, have really not met that bar.
@3cl1ps3 can you give me the deets on what your issues with Last Exit were? I love his work on the Craft Sequence, felt his work on This is How You Lose The Time War was also excellent (though he wasn't the only author) and felt very mixed in Empress of Forever
So after all this discworld talk, especially by Librarian's Ghost, I decided to finally check the series out. It's been on my to do list for years, but I just never got around to it. Did some quick googling on a recommend reading order and, after seeing about a dozen recommendations with no consensus, decided to just go in publication order.
Finished the first book and am about a quarter into the second. So like this entire series is just one giant shitpost huh? I will say that "It is embarrassing to know that one is a god of a world that only exists because every improbability curve must have its far end;" is one of my favorite things I've read in a while.
Favorite character so far is easily the Luggage. Just one really irritated chest vs the entire world.
I never say this, but I feel that reading those 41 books have honestly made me a better person.
Also I started Small Gods again and holy shit Lu-Tze is in it. Like that Lu-Tze that shows up in other books. I completely missed that the first time through, mainly since I had no idea who he was and forgot by the time he showed up again. Guess I just be to reread all the books now. Maybe in chronological order this time.
The Diskworld series started out as a little known author looking for ideas and putting out a niche book that was basically a novelisation of the D&D campaign he ran for a few friends and ended up as the Humanist mythos of our time. If anyone ever tries to assert in my presence that fantasy writing isn't "serious" or never has anything important to say, and anyway can't say it well, then I will challenge them to read Night Watch or Thud or I Shall Wear Midnight or the gateway Diskworld drug Small Gods and come back to me to admit they were wrong.
I will be making sure that all 3 of my nephews have the Diskworld books placed in their path. I can hardly think of a better starting point for their moral philosophy.
tl;dr: me too.
Oh dang that actually made a good book once? Even his early stuff is so far removed from removed from D&D I never would have noticed.
Other people's attempts to do the same thing, have really not met that bar.
A lot of people are kind of sniffy about Colour Of Magic / Light Fantastic and I'll be the first to admit that they don't have the benefit of the experience that Pratchett clearly gained as he got really invested into the Diskworld. But I have huge nostalgia for them and if you've read a bunch of golden age low fantasy like Conan and Lankhmar and so on, then there are some pretty good set pieces in there.
So after all this discworld talk, especially by Librarian's Ghost, I decided to finally check the series out. It's been on my to do list for years, but I just never got around to it. Did some quick googling on a recommend reading order and, after seeing about a dozen recommendations with no consensus, decided to just go in publication order.
Finished the first book and am about a quarter into the second. So like this entire series is just one giant shitpost huh? I will say that "It is embarrassing to know that one is a god of a world that only exists because every improbability curve must have its far end;" is one of my favorite things I've read in a while.
Favorite character so far is easily the Luggage. Just one really irritated chest vs the entire world.
Yeah the first 2 books are basically Pratchett sassing low fantasy and D&D tropes. If you're familiar with these genres, there's some decent satire in them for you. For those who aren't, they won't get a lot of the jokes.
Someone told me here that the Colour of Magic was also written as a serial which is why characters, locations, and events just seem to slide into focus and then fall away without any consistency.
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I don’t know if I have a “hike to 10 stores” adventure in me but - well I don’t know that I don’t have it in me either.
The closest one has cookies though so we’re at least getting one!
Shit like this is why someone like me, who loves books and is very comfortable with reading a screen, has not bought a Kindle.
Also because until pretty recently ebooks were either barely cheaper than a digital copy with zero marginal cost of production, or actually more expensive. It seems to be better now, but only recently and not that much better.
Also because of that deleting 1984 from people's Kindles thing. That was kind of a shot across the bows. They can unsell you any book whenever they feel like it if they want to, and there's shit all you can do about it. I'm old and when I buy things I like to actually own them.
Not too concerned with whatever they claim the reason to be so much as concerned by them demonstrating they not only have the ability to take a book from you, but can do so at any time they want for any reason.
There is now one final book that I shall read. I am actually getting teary-eyed as I typed that.
Next and lastly is The Shepard's Crown...
homie, this is an occasion! do you have a fancy liquor you save for special events? got any Scumble?
'cause you should get you a little bit of that.
I won't spoil anything, because you kinda can't, but read that wikipedia page and then find yourself a copy, preferably analog, for effect.
I inherited my copy from my dad who inherited it from his dad. there's three generations of tape and book glue and one part came off the binding and is sewn back in with very neat stitches, which means my grandma, a nurse, was the one who fixed that part.
I was fascinated because I just recently bought an old hardcover of the dispossessed and I didn’t go deep, but even just making sure I got a nice condition copy and not a crumbling mass produced commodity from the 70s was like peering into the infinite depths.
Also we bought more books. But in our defense it was book holiday!
Also I spent most of last night thinking about Discworld characters instead of sleeping. I wish we could have gotten more Moist and Vimes or ideally a whole book of Moist and Carrot. Like maybe Vetinari requires Moist to perform a Ocean's 11 style heist for something politically sensitive but requires a member of the Watch to be part of the team and there would be a whole segment that requires Moist to train Carrot in performing a con.
I'm imagining Moist needing to recruit people from all across the discworld books. Obviously the Librarian would be the greaseman. They'd need a witch and wizard to deactivate magical security and an undead to get past the heat sensors. A troll for the brute force, a dwarf and golem for digging the tunnel. Goblins for communications. A Werewolf for operational security. A talking rat for wetworks. At least one Nobby.
rare book room?
I have now read all of the Discworld fiction stories, long, short, and in-between and it has been a wonderful journey. And while I started the journey for real last June, I have one final stop. I read Small Gods several years ago and intent to end by re-reading it to see if, 1, some parts of it make more sense, and 2, because then I can say that I've read all of the Discworld books in less than 11 months.
This is assuming I can recover from this emotional wreck that a few pages has turned me into.
I mean the signalling is pretty clear here. The book with Moist and Carrot is Vetinari revealing to Moist that (1) he's been grooming Moist to be the next Patrician and (2) Carrot is the Grey King.
Shit, I reread small gods every year.
Can't just say that without giving us the title of the book.
I'd like to say that you're entering the home stretch, but if you've already gotten through one of the Gospels all the fun miracles have already happened. I'd go ahead and skim very lightly over Paul's endless bloviating and revisionist letter-writing, check back in for the mushroom trip in the last chapter, and slap it up on Goodreads as finished. You made it through Numbers and Judges, you deserve to give yourself a break.
Last Exit by Max Gladstone. A large part of my issues with the book are because he has 8 other published works that I think range from good to excellent.
Also I started Small Gods again and holy shit Lu-Tze is in it. Like that Lu-Tze that shows up in other books. I completely missed that the first time through, mainly since I had no idea who he was and forgot by the time he showed up again. Guess I just be to reread all the books now. Maybe in chronological order this time.
Plus, once you've read it through twice you can get all the audiobooks and be able to identify and enjoy the footnotes just by the way the narrator changes their tone of voice.
Night's Watch is probably my most read Discworld book because I got given a signed copy - jebus, nearly 20 years ago now - and I can already tell I'm going to get so much more out of it when I get back to it having read all the stuff that came before.
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It feels a lot like Moon read Bujold's Warriors Apprentice and was like, "That's a cool story hook, but lets try mixing up a few things." So Ky Vatta is the heir of her wealthy space opera family, but she's a bit of a black sheep cuz she went for the military instead of the family interstellar shipping business. Her military aspirations are nixed when she gets kicked out of the academy and her family immediately grabs her and throws her on the first available freighter to get her out of the public eye. As these things go her freighter wanders into a system right as a war is breaking out, and now she's stuck in-system how to deal with a shooting war while she's stuck in a rinky-dink freighter that's halfway to coming apart at the seams.
So she's got a lot of elements of young Miles Vorkosigan. Dangerously ambitious, militarily talented, a desire to prove herself to her family, and a poor relationship with authority. Miles is able to con his way into command of a military ship, but Ky's already got a ship she's responsible for, and they're more truckers in space than the space opera bridge crew that Ky wanted. So it's kind of a fun little twist on the genre - it's more the vibe of like, the crew of the Nostromo, bitchin' about their shares and up to their elbows in grease, all while Big Space Opera Stuff is happening just over there.
The other part I liked is that Ky's pretty surprising in how quickly she starts to subvert her typical heroic protagonist role. She's willing to make deals with any side if it'll get her and her ship through the war, in a downright amoral sorta way, and you start to suspect that she's maybe not destined to be fully on the side of the angels in the long run.
Anyway it's not perfect, but if you also grew up reading those space opera books with those very 90s Baen all-italics, all caps covers, there's a lot to like here. I'm onto book 3 of the series and I dunno, there's definitely some nagging problems and sloppy plotting, it's not a strong recommendation after book 1, but I quite enjoyed book 1.
I really wanted to read them in chronological order, but after The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic I...wasn't super into it, so opted to do them by focus instead. Finished the City Watch and Death books so far. 2/3 through the last Moist von Lipwig one. Despite the fact that most of the progression was covered through Vimes' adventures, it still feels like I somehow missed a lot of city progression somewhere coming into all the trains and such, even if I know better.
I think maybe it's more how much it seems to be telling rather than showing Moist do his thing, and flitting through a lot of time throughout the book, that's throwing me off.
The Diskworld series started out as a little known author looking for ideas and putting out a niche book that was basically a novelisation of the D&D campaign he ran for a few friends and ended up as the Humanist mythos of our time. If anyone ever tries to assert in my presence that fantasy writing isn't "serious" or never has anything important to say, and anyway can't say it well, then I will challenge them to read Night Watch or Thud or I Shall Wear Midnight or the gateway Diskworld drug Small Gods and come back to me to admit they were wrong.
I will be making sure that all 3 of my nephews have the Diskworld books placed in their path. I can hardly think of a better starting point for their moral philosophy.
tl;dr: me too.
Other people's attempts to do the same thing, have really not met that bar.
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Finished the first book and am about a quarter into the second. So like this entire series is just one giant shitpost huh? I will say that "It is embarrassing to know that one is a god of a world that only exists because every improbability curve must have its far end;" is one of my favorite things I've read in a while.
Favorite character so far is easily the Luggage. Just one really irritated chest vs the entire world.
A lot of people are kind of sniffy about Colour Of Magic / Light Fantastic and I'll be the first to admit that they don't have the benefit of the experience that Pratchett clearly gained as he got really invested into the Diskworld. But I have huge nostalgia for them and if you've read a bunch of golden age low fantasy like Conan and Lankhmar and so on, then there are some pretty good set pieces in there.
Yeah the first 2 books are basically Pratchett sassing low fantasy and D&D tropes. If you're familiar with these genres, there's some decent satire in them for you. For those who aren't, they won't get a lot of the jokes.
That made it a lot more relatable to me.
https://ebookclub.tor.com/
A Psalm For The Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden’s Syndrome by John Scalzi
An Unnatural Life by Erin K. Wagner
I haven't read the latter two, but I've definitely read the first one and highly recommend it. It's a short and cozy read.