What books are you reading for pleasure these days?

[bastibe]

Recently, I read "Pines", by Blake Crouch. It felt eerily like Twin Peaks fan fiction, in terms of setting and tone (not in terms of being amateur writing. It's well-written). Which was a pleasant surprise, since I'd recently watched that show for the first time, and loved it dearly. The atmosphere and plot of the book sucked me in right away, and it was short and pointed enough to remain thrilling throughout. A short, enjoyable, book about simple, grounded, small-town life, juxtaposed with a protagonist who is faced with having to questioning that facade, and reality itself. Entertaining, if not particularly deep. Nice twist, though.

And wouldn't you know, in the epiloge, the author confessed that it was indeed meant as Twin Peaks fan fiction! Book two is now high on my to-read pile.

 

[MiguelATF]

Just finished reading Francis Spufford's rather brilliant (and somewhat dense, in good ways) historical drama, "Golden Hill", set in the New York of the mid-18th century... a truly different world. Spufford has a remarkable command of the English language and his characters talk, think and express themselves in ways which feel both recognizable, realistic, and strange. I won't say more about it (there are one or two interesting plot twists that surprised me) - except, simply, that I'm glad I read it.

 

[agentlossing]

Recently, I read "Pines", by Blake Crouch. It felt eerily like Twin Peaks fan fiction, in terms of setting and tone (not in terms of being amateur writing. It's well-written). Which was a pleasant surprise, since I'd recently watched that show for the first time, and loved it dearly. The atmosphere and plot of the book sucked me in right away, and it was short and pointed enough to remain thrilling throughout. A short, enjoyable, book about simple, grounded, small-town life, juxtaposed with a protagonist who is faced with having to questioning that facade, and reality itself. Entertaining, if not particularly deep. Nice twist, though.

And wouldn't you know, in the epiloge, the author confessed that it was indeed meant as Twin Peaks fan fiction! Book two is now high on my to-read pile.

Sounds very interesting! I love that genre of Pacific Northwest Weird.

 

[drd1135]

For any Iain Banks / Culture fans out there - collected drawings/sketches.
Bezos' Amazon was almost going to do a 'Consider Phlebas' tv-series and Space-X named some sea-based landing platforms after his space-ships. Sadly neither billionaire seems to have grasped the anarchist/humanist/liberal message in his novels.

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I don’t know. I could see either of them being amused by making money off of this material.

 

[bastibe]

I'm currently reading After Life by Simon Funk. A brain scan is taken with the intent of uploading that brain into a computer. It accidentally kills the scannee, and sparks a global controversy. The book begins with the protagonist waking up in a simulation. Part science fiction about mind uploading, part existential philosophy of the nature of reality, part mystery novel about what the heck is going on.

And it's free to download from the author's website, and pretty short. Recommended!

 

[John King]

"A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian".

An interesting tale of family dynamics.