Gosh. I was off work for a day last week with a new Peter Cawdron. This week I get yet another day off and there's a new Scalzi! I haven't had a day off this quarter, then 2 books come along at once. #Bookstodon
Another cracking book, thanks @FreakyFwoof for both the find of the book, the recommendation of the book, and of course as usual the music bed to go beneath the description of the book.
It's the wonderful in any lifetime by Marc Guggenheim. #Bookstodon
Hey hey #AUDIOBOOKS folks, do you have a favorite free iOS app? Or one where you pay once and then you own it?
I'm looking for an app that will read my files, and do bookmarks. There is BookPlayer, which is lovely and I am paying for that currently, but I'm just curious if a free option exists?
(I'm happy paying the BookPlayer fellow I'm just wondering about other options for folks I'm trying to get off Audible, so you don't need to remind me to support people)
Buy Shroud: A gripping first contact story from Arthur C. Clarke Award winner Adrian Tchaikovsky Main Market by Tchaikovsky, Adrian (ISBN: 9781035013791) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
If you haven't switched from #Goodreads to #TheStoryGraph yet, don't hesitate. I've been using it for a few weeks now, and it's Goodreads before it was enshittified by Amazon (and much more): you can add missing books, if you see problems you can't fix yourself, you report them and a volunteer librarian fixes them within a few days...
Amazon will remove the ability to download the ebooks for Kindle at the end of the month. So if you ever close your amazon account, you'll no longer be able to access the books you had bought.
Designed for downloading your Kindle eBooks in a more automated fashion than is typically permitted, this tool allows you to create backup copies of the books you've already purchased. - treetr...
This week's reading highlight was probably the second of the Brian Pinkerton novels: The Gemini Experiment follows attempts to transfer Human brains into cyborg bodies. Part of me thinks it's meant to be read entirely seriously, but then you get the whole Russian subplot and an utterly stupid action in chapter 15 which makes one think the author's partly playing it for laughs. Either way, a quick thriller which I enjoyed.
I'm giving up on the idea of running my reading updates on the web. So for now if you care to get regular updates on my reading, feel free to subscribe at buttondown.com/SeansShelf If it works for the majority, we'll keep it. if people want a different system, we'll talk about it. Updates come weekly on a Wednesday. #Bookstodon
More "enshittification". This time from Amazon. Amazon is pulling a Google, killing off popular services. Evidently, I have until 25th February to download my 708 books that I have purchased from them. After the 25th you can no longer download YOUR books for backup or transfer via USB
Good job I did this 2 years ago eh? Buy the books from elsewhere.
This is fine for those of us who don't buy from Amazon anymore, but if you have a standing library with them, make sure you get it all downloaded so you can break it. It's frustrating because you can't bulk download - I keep finding titles I own but missed grabbing somehow - but you have until Feb 26th to get them all.
Amazon is removing the ability to download purchased Kindle content, which is the only way to read it on my Kobo or elsewhere. What this means is I will no longer be purchasing (“a license to”–ick) any books by the mostly independent authors who exclusively publish there; just cancelled preorders.
6 books this week, although one was a very short fanfiction prequel and its successor, called Rise of the Wizards was rather venal.
Outstanding read this week has to go to Dan Frey's Dreambound, which I've already mentioned. I also reread the Heinlein classic Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, and an interesting twist on the murder mystery front with Memory Blank by John Stith.
Meta staff torrented nearly 82TB of pirated books for AI training — court records reveal copyright violations
"...court records reveal that the social media company used pirated torrents to download 81.7TB of data from shadow libraries including Anna’s Archive, Z-Library, and LibGen. It then used this information to train its AI models."
#bookstodon "what is magic if not a way to transform the world through the power of our thoughts? What are books if not spells? What are stories if not the most powerful and mysterious force known to man?" Not since King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDonald and Angelica by Arthur Phillips has a fantastic mystery had this sort of impact. I was very pleased to see that Dan's managed to do it again, in terms of writing a book without any actual narration, and I was even happier that the table of contents didn't give it away. Whoops? I've spoilered that for you now. I love this chalkboard-style of writing, the idea that this whole work is a huge tapestry of interconnectedness. I enjoyed every page, and I think the ending just clicks so well that, even if it's predictable, it's so hard not to cheer along and want things to fall out.
5/5: "what is magic if not a way to transform the world through the power of our thoughts? What are books if not spells? What are stories if not the most powerful and mysterious force known to man?" Not since King of Morning, Queen of Day by Ian McDo…
only 3 books this week. The Rift was as good as I'd hoped, but I've already mentioned that here. This week's unexpected enjoyment was called Web of Secrets. it calls itself progressive fantasy, but it felt more like a young adult mage fantasy thing to me. Be interesting to see where the second book goes! #Bookstodon
22 hours of reading this week and another 5 books swalloed up.
3 Pretty humdrum fanfics, although the 4th was a nugget: the way the Triwizard Tournament is handled in "The Lie I've Lived"by JBern was pretty cool. Shame the sequel isn't finished, the idea was quite well handled.
I started what seems to be a bit of a Star Trek knockoff series, too, which was ... Different. #bookstodon
In the wake of SPD shutting down, I started doing roundups on Metafilter of #SmallPress books to support a less corporate reading ecosystem. Time to start posting those here too, dailyish! 💙📚 Or you can go to my Bookshop list (affiliate link): bookshop.org/lists/small-press… #bookstodon #books
I have lost momentum in this week of reading and only managed to swallow 3 books, 3,750 pages.
the shoutout this week has to go to *The Boys*, a compelling work of literary fiction that pulls a childhood insecurity, grief and trauma into the light in an interesting way. I read it in a single sitting and it hung around my head for days afterward. The other 2 were Harry Potter fanfiction, one of which was rather amateur and immature both, and the other of which seems to have sadly had its sequel abandoned. #bookstodon
My second week of the year in books was largely taken up with the I, Starship series. One of those Human mind put into a spaceship ideas. Been done before, but it was diverting enough. I also read the second of the Jo Callaghan detective novels this week and the newest of Peter Cawdron's First Contact novels.
I'm rereading Aeronaut's Windlass, the first book in the Cinder Spires series by Jim Butcher, in preparation to read the short novella that comes after it and the second book that was released last year. I'd forgotten how funny it is, especially when the cat comes into play.
5 Books down in the first week of the year. I actually spent more time reading than working this week, given I didn't go back for the first 2 days of the working week. If I had to pick a weekly winner, it'd be the cool techno-crime story "in the blink of an eye", which is a typical British police procedural but with an AI twist. seanrandall.me/recommends/B09Y… #Bookstodon
In the tradition of the #PolymathReadingChallenge I made a list of anniversaries happening in 2025, then did a random draw of them to determine the categories.
1. history of music 2. famous African-American people 3. medicine 4. Vietnam war 5. European Union 6. marine biology 7. public transport 8. architecture 9. 17th-18th century 10. civil rights 11. endangered animals +12. individual category by WikiRoulette (respond to get yours)
Rules: - you can read them in any order - (auto)biographies count - write a review of each (here or on Bookwyrm) - use the # when posting about the challenge
Categories: See next toot in this thread.
Everyone gets their 12th category randomly through WikiRoulette. If you want to take part, respond to this thread and I'll give you one.
Author of sci-fi without the pew-pewSi (she/her) is a Canadian misanthrope who lives in London. She shares her home with her partner and an assortment of waifs and strays.
I’m a similar age to the author, so as I read it I absolutely recognised that feeling of repulsion I’d have as a kid at the very notion of accessing any ‘girl’ content. Wonder-Woman, She-Ra, Supergirl, ‘girly’ pop music, books about girl things; I’d actively have nothing to do with them.
I don’t think I’m unusual in that. Perhaps these days, but not then.
Looks like my next read. THe attached audiobook sample contains ... a lot of swearing.
"What would happen if you crossed the high fantasy of Wheel of Time with the irreverent comedy of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?"
Meet Your Maker is a comedic, epic fantasy series that asks the questions: What is fiction? What is reality? And does it make a difference, when everyone and everything is trying to kill you? Bruce created this world. Now he has to survive it.
Buy Meet Your Maker: An Epic Fantasy LitRPG: 1 by McClain, Johnathan, McDuffee, Seth (ISBN: 9781039455405) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
#TIL that in 1929, JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, gifted his work's copyright to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
"Through this gift, Peter Pan’s magic made an unprecedented leap from the realm of fiction into reality and the hospital began to receive royalties every time a production of the play was on, as well as from the sale of Peter Pan books and other products."
#reading tip for #tolkien fans: The enhanced 75th anniversary edition of The Hobbit (with audio & video), The complete #LordoftheRings AND The Silmarillion are all on sale at the US #Kindle store for only $1.99 (affiliate link): amzn.to/4blmzaL
Plus: if you buy the Hobbit, you can get the audiobook by Andy Serkis for only $4.58. I loved his narration, it's amazing.
#Solarpunk Podcasts:
The Fire These Times
https://thefirethesetimes.com/
@firethesetimes@bird.makeup
Solarpunk Presents
https://www.solarpunkpresents.com/
@solarpunkpresents@climatejustice.rocks
Solarpunk Futures
https://solarpunkmagazine.
I've read 51 books so far in 2023. That's fewer than last year, but still about a book a week: reading.chatterjee.net/
Some of my favorite reading memories this year include book festivals in Kolkata and Berkeley, exploring new-to-me indie bookstores (Champaca, Borderlands, and Perelandra), writing gushing reader fan mail, and so many long walks powered by audiobooks.
Of of the books I read this year, here are the ones that will stick with me…
