According to my Goodreads tracker, I've read 69 books this year, and I could probably finish another couple in the remaining days. But, also, part of me wants to leave it at 69 😁
#2024 #bookNerd #reading2024
Ende 2022 find ich an, meine Lektüre auf Bookwyrm einzutragen. Mir macht das Spaß und es erhöht lustigerweise meine Motivation, weil ich selbst bewusster wahrnehme, womit ich meine Zeit verbringe. Gelesene Zeit ist keine vergeudete Zeit.
Für 2024 hatte ich mir ein Leseziel von 24 Büchern gesetzt. Aktuell bin ich bei 92 - davon sind viele kurze Titel, z.B. Fanzines, es ist also nicht so krass, wie es sich zunächst anhört.
Hier der Rückblick: http://buecher.pnpde.social/user/JonasJRichter/2024-in-the-books?key=cd2e2c78e61c46098a825e06ea6d1ce8
My year in books, as posted by BookWyrm. The number of books read is inflated, as some books are actually individual short stories or novellas, usually ones found on-line.
https://bookwyrm.social/user/sohkamyung/2024-in-the-books?key=b0514463140f43b5ba622d8667a8d17e
My BookWyrm ID is @[email protected]
There is a new novel out by Lev Grossman and I'm so happy. In The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman starts w/ TH White's The Once and Future King, in the same way he started w/ CS Lewis' Narnia stories in The Magicians.
Since Arthur's story is already a tragedy, the story is less dismal than in The Magicians. We start with a naive and idealistic young knight who has to figure out how to do good when the magic kingdom of justice and chivalry is over. http://tiny.cc/JBPL-BrightSword #Bookstodon #reading2024
"Collum, a brilliantly gifted young knight from the provinces, arrives at Camelot two weeks after the Battle of Camlann, hoping to compete for a spot on the Round Table. But he finds the city empty, King Arthur dead, and the Table destroyed. The remaining six knights aren't the mighty heroes, the legends, like Lancelot and Gawain and Tristram and Galahad. These are the survivors, a grab-bag of minor oddball knights from the margins--Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight; Sir Bedivere, Arthur's one-handed longtime companion; Sir Dagonet, Arthur's fool, knighted as a joke; Sir Dinadan, a cutting wit who's hiding a deep secret. Arthur's death has exposed the splinters of his kingdom, and a void has opened in the heart of Britain. As power-hungry lords from the north descend on Camelot to seize control of the land, Collum is thrust into the front lines. Here lies the battlefield between pagans and Christians, fantasy and empire, power and destiny. Monsters and fairies are reawakening, the moral center is gone, and the fragile alliances that held Britain together are breaking. It is up to the surviving knights, the rebellious sorceress Nimue, and young Collum to avenge Arthur's murder and save Camelot. Can they re-build the Table and bring back the glory that was Camelot? Should they even try? The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, full of duels and quests, battles and tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings, The Bright Sword is a story about power and hope, and the struggle for the soul of England between the new Christian God and the old gods of fairy. But most of all it's a story about flawed men and women full of strength and pain who are looking for a way to reforge a broken land, in spite of being broken themselves"--
WAYNE'S 2024 BOOKS: BOOK 15
The Lost Cause
by Cory Doctorow
Continuing "The Year I Read Mostly Books From Cory Doctorow" (@pluralistic), with a solarpunk novel in a near future that's lapping at our shores like climate-change-inducing rising waters: The Lost Cause.
What if things didn't quite work out, but weren't as bad as they could have been? Coastal cities are swamped, extreme weather events are frequent occurrences instead of 100-year events, and times are bleak. But what if instead of gnawing at each other like starving rats in a cage, we came together to work collectively to solve our problems and care for one another? Well, mostly what if we did that, because this book also features the pathetic remnants of today's most extant threat: The Magas.
The main character Brooks starts out being threatened by a Maga with an acid gun who is trying to smash up solar panels because... reasons. When his grandfather dies, leaving behind a house in Burbank - and an unexpected hidden cache - the Magas take note, making Brooks' efforts to help improve the city and assist climate refugees much more perilous than he expected. Throw in some musky tech-will-fix-it bros, and you've got a spicy tale.
One thing I found jarring was how nice Brooks' comrades are. Are we so jaded and messed up that a group of people that just want to help each other seem unrealistic? Probably. I guess if your biggest problem is that the characters care about each other and their world, then you don't really have a problem at all!
(Secure a copy at https://craphound.com/shop/)
#books #bookreview #solarpunk #reading #reading2024 #sciencefiction #SF #dystopia
WAYNE'S 2024 BOOKS: BOOK 14
Attack Surface
by Cory Doctorow
Another book by the amazing Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic), and one I enjoyed 1000% more than the pirate book that preceded it. I wasn't aware at the time of reading that this is the third in his Little Brother series, but I didn't find that this affected my enjoyment in any way. I suspect the series is a set of thematically-linked standalone novels, and will confirm this when I read numbers 1 and 2!
The book starts with Masha Maximow working in a not-real but very realistic former Eastern Bloc country for a cybersecurity firm with a back-of-the-alphabet-consonant-heavy name. She's dumped because her morals aren't aligning well with their interests, and she's spending too much time schooling activists in operational security, so she returns to her hometown of San Francisco... where she finds herself schooling activists in op-sec.
The book is very well and tightly plotted, flipping between the now and then, showing us present-day Masha threading the needle between duelling MIC juggernauts and the little people trying not to be squished by them, and past-tense Masha's rise from precocious hacker to cyber-warrior for the powers-that-be. There's the typical passages of Doctorow edutainment, where we learn all about cyberwar and self-defence as vastly knowledgeable people agree and disagree and counter-disagree on a wide variety of techy subjects.
I really enjoyed it, which isn't surprising, as 2024 is shaping up to be "The Year I Read Mostly Books From Cory Doctorow". It's a theme that will continue in Book 15 of my list!
(Oh, and you can get a copy at https://craphound.com/shop/)
#reading #reading2024 #books #bookreview #sciencefiction #cybersecurity #cyberpunk #technology #thriller
Dr. Sarah Pohl
Wildeng
Wulf Krueger
Kim Ilbery
Jonas R. (er/ihm)
Soh Kam Yung
Nicholas Schiller
Cartotastic