It’s funny how I seem to read books faster than I can easily keep track of them here, but even while reading them seems to take longer than it should.
Lau Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way by Ursula Le Guin: Not so much a translation as a transliteration, I guess. Le Guin read several translations of the Tao Te Ching and used that to her craft her own version. Very poetic and worthwhile. Her forward (or afterward) to The Lathe of Heaven inspired me to read this.
Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, *Exit Strategy, Network Effect and Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells: Books 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the Murderbot series. Sometimes it’s lovely to finish a book in one sitting. I read all of these on individual weekend afternoons. The plots blur together a little bit in my mind, but, in general, a satisfying SF series that noodles around with questions of what it means to be human.
Shady Characters: the Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols & Other Typographical Marks by Keith Huston: A lot of fun historical tidbits in this book about the history of writing and printing. Granted, I’m the target audience for this book, but I think pretty much anyone would find something enjoyable in it. One of those books where I imagine you could read any chapter on its own.
All of the Marvels: a Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told by Douglas Wolk: This guy read all of Marvel’s comics (so you don’t have to) and wrote a book about the experience. Amazing! He has a lot of great insights about Marvel from reading decades of their comics as well as some useful thoughts on how to tackle incredibly large projects.
The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata: Journalism as novel. I don’t know much about the game of go, but I was entranced by the writing in this book and the story of a man who was playing his last go tournament after devoting his entire life to the game. A bit heart-breaking too.
The Last Emperor by John Scalzi: The last in the trilogy. This series is sort of epic, imperial science fiction-lite. I could easily imagine a version of this story that spans seven 700-page books. A good reminder that you can tell a pretty complex and interesting story with far fewer words.
Nocilla Experience by Agustín Fernández Mallo: An experimental novel. I don’t remember much about it. I may have lost some of the patience I had when I was younger for this type of book. Still, pretty short and I read it in an afternoon, which I always enjoy.
Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz: Stories of terrible people in 1980s NYC. Sort of funny, in a mean way.
King Bullet by Richard Kadrey: The last in the Sandman Slim series. I enjoyed this supernatural noir series, but I think Kadrey was definitely getting tired of writing books in this series. It’s short and there’s not much to it, but if you’ve gone on the whole ride, it’s a worthwhile wrap up. Funny, for a series that I think you can read piecemeal.