What book(s) are you reading?

[Madrun Badrun]

Read the first 2/3rds of His Majesty's Dragon today - enjoying it a lot.  Basically a more (young) adult version of How to Train Your Dragon so far but during the Napoleonic Wars.  It's really formulaic but that's fine. 

[Bebpo]

Finished Sanderson's novella Dawnshard that is Stormlight Archives 3.5 like the Edgedancer novella was 2.5 between books 2->3. Was alright. Probably the least interesting story of the Stormlight stuff, but still a good read.

Will start Book #4 Rhythm of War pretty soon.

[Potato]

Finished up Cibola Burn. It was ok. Probably my least favourite in the series so far.

Started up on Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent. Been looking forward to this one because it is a satirical look at Australia.

[Bebpo]

I've been trying to read Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It popped up for January's book for one of the online book clubs I'm in and I've had the book sitting around for a decade and in the meantime they've made a tv show and everything.

Thought it would a nice break book from Sanderon's Cosmere stuff. But then it's eight hundred pages long, and it's dense af. I haven't been enjoying it and it's been taking some time because the pages/paragraphs are really, really dense and it's dry, slow & boring like an old boring period piece. But I figure I'd give it 50 pages and I'm 41 pages in now after the intro stuff finally finished. Pretty sure I'm gonna drop it and move to something else. Might cheat for the book club and watch the tv adaptation if I read that it's good & pretty close.

Found this on google which sounds like the book is pretty slow and doesn't pick up until about 300 pages in -_-
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/9srque/jonathan_strange_mr_norrell_im_bored_out_of_my/

Also read up on the BBC adaptation which and the reviews say it's very good and accurate and almost flawless adaptation in 7 parts.

I think I'm gonna bail and watch the show.

[Potato]

I listened to the audio book of Jonathan Strange. It was great, but I can see how reading might be a different prospect. I would say stick with it for a little longer, but if you're not feeling it, watch the show.

[Bebpo]

I love the concept of audiobooks, but the only time I ever got into them was when I had a commute to listen to in the car. Otherwise I don't see when I'd have time to listen. I can't imagine listening in bed at night when I would normally read, just staring at the ceiling.

Probably doesn't help I can't multi-task with audio. So like I can't be working at the computer or playing a game that I'm paying attention to while also paying attention to an audiobook being read. Driving is pretty brainless so it's the one place I can pay attention to audio and multi-task.

[Potato]

I'm the same. Audio books for me were great when I was commuting by bus or car and just wanted to zone out.

I must say though that the Jonathan Strange one is exceptional and worth the effort.

[Tasty]

I let books be (e)books, and keep the audio fare to podcasts (when I'm smoking up, 'nache.)

[Bebpo]

So I tried to find out which streaming service even has the BBC show and someone linked me to goodreel and it said it was on Netflix, so I re-subbed to Netflix after a half year away

...and it's not on Netflix 

Well I was gonna resub in a couple weeks for the Euphoria guy's movie anyhow, so I guess that's fine. Ended up just buying the show digitally on Amazon. Gonna try watching a couple eps and if it gets me more invested I might go back to the book.

[Bebpo]

Watched ep1, thought it was going to cover the intro chapters I read that took me 3 nights of reading maybe 2-3 hours.

...it covered that in the first 15 mins 

Now that I actually see where the show is going, I'm more interested. But I feel like it'd probably take me like a week of reading to cover this one ep. Book club is in about two weeks. Think I'll watch the show and then skim the book.

[Bebpo]

Well I haven't watched any more eps past ep1 of Strange & Norrell and instead went back to the book and have been reading for a few nights and just past where ep1 ended. A bit over a 100 pages in now. The main difference between the show adaptation is just the show interweaving Strange's story.

The book's grown on me and I am enjoying it, but I'm not a big fan of the huge blocky paragraphs of description prose with sometimes dialogue imbedded. Just reads slow and feels a bit like work.

I also started Sanderson's Stormlight Archives 4 - Rhythm of War and reading both at the same time it's just night and day difference in style. Sanderson writes short sentences that are pages mostly filled with dialogue, between dialogues are short descriptions or action, but the pages tend to be a bunch of single sentence or few sentence paragraphs and it just moves fast. Sanderson reminds me of a Stephen King, very straight-forward layman easy reading to focus on dialogue & plot.

Whereas in Strange/Norrell an entire big page may be one giant block paragraph and a giant block footnote below it. Fair enough for people that enjoy that type of writing. It's always given me School English class PTSD flashbacks, so never been into books written like that.

[chronovore]

Finally getting around to Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. Pretty good, but reading time has been minimal lately. Audiobook is a good reading, so I may make it the whole way.

Also reading a paperback of Elmore Leonard’s Mr. Majestyk. Easy to parse, and the act of reading text is transportative in a way that audio is not. I’ve missed it. COVID has lessened my focus and attention, so this is my rehabilitation.

[archnemesis]

There are a few short parts on coding and cryptography in Cryptonomicon that probably won't translate well to audio. On the other hand, if that's the way you can find the time to enjoy the book then listening to the audio book is a lot better then skipping the book entirely.

I've read three novels by Stephenson and he is quickly becoming my favorite author.

I started reading Count Zero by William Gibson this week. I've barely read physical books since the pandemic started and it's nice getting back to my old reading habit.

[chronovore]

Count Zero was seriously good.