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franksting

@[email protected]

You might remember me from the early days on twitter

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franksting , to bookstodon
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“Living peacefully in society means understanding that the things others care about might mean nothing to you and vice versa” Book 23 of 2024 is Zadie Smith’s eclectic collection of essays - Grand Union @bookstodon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43608928

franksting , to bookstodon
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Book 22 of 2024 is Slow Horses by Mick Herron. A fun caper, well adapted for the screen recently. @bookstodon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61369533

kimlockhartga , to bookstodon
@kimlockhartga@beige.party avatar

Book Challenge: Choose 20 books that greatly influenced you. One book per day, for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. Book One: @bookstodon

franksting ,
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@Gorfram @kimlockhartga @bookstodon among the greatest books I’ve ever read

franksting , to bookstodon
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Book 21 of 2024 was Neil Stephenson’s Seveneves. As always for the author long and detailed, but What a fun read! But i feel part three was almost a second book. Even the style was subtly different. Far too many lengthy descriptions of the technology distracting from the narrative. As if Skylark had returned, but instead of Seaton dazzlingly making everything happen just because, Stephenson had to prove to us that these things were quite possibly not some wild shit he had made up such as Smith did a century ago

Still though, who needs a moon, and why would we think capsules in the ocean might be any different from capsules in space.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

@bookstodon

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25428585

franksting OP ,
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@Mollarom @bookstodon it was quite jarring to turn the page after the seven eve’s congress only to find that we’d moved 5000 years ahead!!

franksting , to bookstodon
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Neal Stephenson makes the gradual disintegration of the moon into a fun read. @bookstodon

franksting , to bookstodon
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Book 18 of 2024 was this very short, yet highly original and tremendously powerful novel/(novella?) by Natasha Brown. A must read
@bookstodon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58600914

franksting , to bookstodon
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

Natasha Brown’s Assembly is quite the Novella. “I've watched with dispassionate curiosity as this continent hacks away at itself: confused, lost, sick with nostalgia for those imperialist glory days - when the them had been so clearly defined! It's evident now, obvious in retrospect as the proof of root-two's irrationality, that these world superpowers are neither infallible, nor superior. They're nothing, not without a brutally enforced relativity. An organized, systematic brutality that their soft and sagging children can scarcely stomach - won't even acknowledge. Yet cling to as truth. There was never any absolute, no decree from God. Just viscous, random chance. And then, compounding.” @bookstodon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58600914

franksting OP ,
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@lunalein @bookstodon as a middle aged white man i learned lots from it. while, being Irish, I also empathised with large tracts

franksting , to bookstodon
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I’m watching and reading EE Doc Smith’s Skylark at the same time. And the similarities are striking, even if the timescales are a less realistic in the century old books. @bookstodon

franksting , to bookstodon
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

“Switzerland…just as its banks were open to the opulent, its borders were closed to those in need” @bookstodon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56897459

austern , to bookstodon
@austern@sfba.social avatar

10 authors, of whose books I've read at least five:
Jane Austen
Iain Banks
Iain M. Banks
Anton Chekhov
C. J. Cherryh
Samuel R. Delany
Ursula Le Guin
Vladimir Nabokov
Thomas Pynchon
Gene Wolfe


@bookstodon

franksting ,
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@austern @bookstodon that’s only 9 authors

franksting , to bookstodon
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Book 15 of 2024 was “How to Slay a Dragon” by Mikhail Khodorovsky.
A huge disappointment ⭐️ ⭐️

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6366563395
@bookstodon

SallyStrange , to bookstodon
@SallyStrange@eldritch.cafe avatar

10 authors, of whose books I've read at least five:

Ursula Le Guin
Kim Stanley Robinson
Octavia Butler
N. K. Jemisin
Becky Chambers
Iain M. Banks
Martha Wells
M. R. Carey
Lois McMaster Bujold
Vonda McIntyre


@bookstodon

franksting ,
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@n0madz @SallyStrange @bookstodon 10 authors, of whose books I've read at least five:

SF/Fantasy:
Tolkien
Ursula LeGuin
Iain M Banks
James Corey
William Gibson
Neil Gaiman
Raymond feist
Isaac Asimov
Neal Stephenson
Terry Pratchett

Everything else:
Murakami
Iain Banks
Ian Rankin
Elmore Leonard
Martin Amis
Ian McEwan
Colm Tóibín
Umberto Eco
Margaret Atwood
Arthur Conan Doyle

franksting , to bookstodon
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Book 14 of 2024 is David Olusoga’s Civilisations: First Contact and The Cult of Progress. @bookstodon https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6426864924

franksting , to bookstodon
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

Newest Book Ive started is Colm Tóibín’s Fictionalised Biography of Thomas Mann – an intriguing genre which he appears to have taken a great liking to https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56897459 @bookstodon

franksting , to bookstodon
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Book 13 of 2024, Maya Angelou’s And Still I Rise. A compendium of two early books, you can clearly tell the divide in time between them. Some great poems among them, but also some which didn’t work for me. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58260584 @bookstodon

franksting , to bookstodon
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Finished Book 12 of 2024. Kate Beaton has assembled a hell of an ensemble in northern Alberta for this witty and humble take on the impact the oil sands industry has on people - local & imported - and the environment. Four Stars @bookstodon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59069071

franksting , to bookstodon
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“Your eyes have not yet seen life steal from limbs outstretched and trembling like the arms of dancers and dying swans” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58260584 @bookstodon

Da_Gut , to bookstodon
@Da_Gut@dice.camp avatar

The Many Colored Land by Julian May.... from back in 1982.

How is it?

@bookstodon

franksting ,
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

@Da_Gut @bookstodon 1982‽

franksting ,
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

@Da_Gut @bookstodon I remember reading as a teenager. It would've been pretty new then!!

franksting , to bookstodon
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

How’s your ? @bookstodon

franksting OP ,
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@robparsons @bookstodon i shall read the rest where Nell is Edina and Tig is Patsy

franksting OP ,
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@madjo @bookstodon correct. It’s the only way to have some semblance of control

franksting OP ,
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

@arratoon @bookstodon better get reading!

ChrisMayLA6 , to bookstodon
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

I have now completed the nine volume books series The Expanse by James A Corey, and what a ride it has been.

Its quite an extraordinary feat of sustained (coherent) imagination & I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone who likes world-building SF.

With its multi-viewpoint narrative strategy but also with it central core of crucial characters, this is space opera of the highest quality.

And the finale is wonderfully pleasing in plotting terms!

Its been a joy!


@bookstodon

franksting ,
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

@marcroberts @Jennifer @ChrisMayLA6 @Henrysbridge @bookstodon Amos is the most empathetic of all the characters for me. Book or TV show. He and Drummer (TV) are just wonderful and challenging all at once - like so many humans.

franksting , to bookstodon
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Book 11 of 2024 is Atwood’s collection “Old Babes in the Wood” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61489616 @bookstodon

franksting , to bookstodon
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Book 10 of 2024 is Mark Lanegan’s Sing Backwards and Weep. A ragged tale of a life – and associated lives –wrecked by Drug Addiction. It suffers from being a patchwork set of stories and encounters with characters, but lacking any depth in either. I am however shattered from reading the summary of the final addicted years. @bookstodon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51284863

franksting , to bookstodon
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

book 9 of 2024 was The Trees by Percival Everett. A frankly astonishing satire on white fear in 21st Century USA https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56269278 @bookstodon

hawksquill , to bookstodon
@hawksquill@writing.exchange avatar

My 2024 reading thread is below!

Book 1: On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

5 stars

Stunning art, lovely found family, and a fun sci fi setting, all while managing to strike the perfect balance between cozy and yearning.

@bookstodon

franksting ,
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

@hawksquill @bookstodon I wasn't quite so generous with my rating, but I agree with most of your review. The last few chapters felt a bit drawn out and don’t feel the same as the rest of the book.

franksting ,
@franksting@theblower.au avatar

@educaremom @hawksquill @bookstodon there are chapters in the middle where the pure banality of existence in such a situation are among the most compelling things I've read in a while. As an Irish person, I really got how people just looked out for each other…up to a point

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