Good question. I think you can reasonably start with Broken Empire or Red Queen's War, keeping in mind I've only read (most of) the first book in the latter series. There are a number of callbacks, references and character cameos you'll miss, though, and you'll probably get a better introduction to the setting. So, starting with Broken Empire might be the way to go, even if the stories are not directly connected (as I understand it). They're all really good books. As for Lawrence's other books (which aren't connected to these two twin series) I'm clueless. ETA: minor corrections, typing on a phone is and ever will be a bitch.
Few things are up this week. I'll be finishing up my second read-through of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Definitely lives up to what I remember, I think actually better now that I understand a lot more of the history involved in respect to the Congo. The rest of the week I'll be sampling some Latin American literature. "The United Fruit Company" and "Poet's Obligation" by Pablo Neruda, "The Garden of Forking Paths" by Jorge Luis Borges, "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and The Prisoner of Las Lomas which is a novella by Carlos Fuentes. This is an area of literature I have almost no knowledge in, so I'm excited to get started as soon as I've finished up with Conrad.
I love Conrad. I've read all of those Latin American authors except for Fuentes. Let me add a recommendation to your list: Roberto Bolaño.
Finally got around to starting the His Dark Materials trilogy. Gonna rampage through the books then dissect the TV adaptation like a true book snob.
If I remember this story correctly, you're in for a bit of a weird one, that's oddly satisfying in its weirdness. I finally finished The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan, the second in his Wheel of Time series. I like to read the big fantasy ones slowly to enjoy them more. My only problem is I read them too quickly so I make myself slow down so it takes me longer to read them than it should. Up next is Literary Theory, A complete introduction by Sara Upstone, and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat. I know Ms. Nosrat has a show on Netflix based off of her book, but .... I find her voice very annoying so I want to read the book instead.
I've had that before with voices, sometimes they just don't work for me. Regarding your reading slowly for fantasy, I had the same problem with Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga, too much information sometimes to take in on a speed read. Or like Ancillary Justice, bordering on confusing so you have to slow down to understand.
This week I'm taking on some literature from Africa and the Middle East, both of which I have little to no experience in. First I'm going through a few essays on modern perspectives of African literature written by Africans: "An Image of Africa" by Chinua Achebe, part of Decolonizing the African Mind by Chinweizu, and part of "Creating a Space for a Hundred Flowers to Bloom" by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o. Later in the week I'll get to a poem, a story, and a play, respectively: the poem "Identity Card/Victim Number" by Mohmoud Darwish, the short story "My World of the Unknown" by Alifa Rifaat, and finish up with a play title The Fate of the Cockroach by Tawfiq Al-Hakim. Started on the essays, and they really make some incredible points about skewed perspectives on African literature. Excited to dive farther in.
Still going strong with Discworld. Last couple of weeks I added Thud!, Lords and Ladies, and Hogfather to the tally. All excellent books, Hogfather especially so. Because I need a bit of a palate cleanser, and because it'll be a sad day indeed when there's no more Discworld for me to read, and because I'm making a point of checking out more recently published stuff, I've picked up A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay. People have a lot of good things to say about it. And it's my first time with this author, which is always interesting. I'll get started on it tomorrow, I think.
Making myself finish Time on My Hands by Giorgio Vasta, translated from the Italian by Jonathan Hunt. I've had it checked out from the library for the past nine weeks, and I'm only about a fifth of the way in. The POV character is a sociopathical little git of 11 who tortures cats, insects, and himself in a very distant, detached, meaningless way. Pretty soon he'll get together with a couple of friends and form his own little terrorist cell, when it will only get worse. I'm reading this only because it might give me an insight into the psychology of my villain in my WIP. It's due tomorrow for the third time. I guess I'd better get to it. EDIT: Finished it a little after four this morning, eyeballs swimming, nearly blind. It gave me a few hints for my WIP, but nothing specific. I've ordered a relevant historical study off Amazon this afternoon and that should help me more.
Pausanias' "Guide to Greece" is done in regards to Boiotia and now I am reading "Boiotia in Antiquity" by Albert Schachter and Hans Beck.
Still reading what I posted about last time, but I also tossed in The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee. It's a ridiculously indulgent book. Indulgent for me, really, since it's not the typical thing I choose to read these days. But I'm a HUGE fan of Phantom of the Opera and this book had serious Phantom vibes, so I grabbed it for less than 7 bucks and I'm as giddy as a squid over it.
I need images of this, please! I'm picturing one of those little guys darting around in the dark waters happily zooming up and down after some food fell his way. It's fun. As for my reading this week, I'm off the Asia to finish off my month of traveling around the world in literature. I don't have a lot of stuff this week, so the list is a bit shorter than usual. Hanging out still in the middle East still to start, with the short story "Sultana's Dream" by Rokeya Hossain. Then I head far East with a poem, two short stories, a two-act play, and a novella: "The Vertical Coffin" by Tamura Ryuichi, "The Moon on the Water" and "Snow" by Kawabata Yasunari, Dialogue and Rebuttal by Gao Xingjian, and The Rite by Takenishi Hiroko, respectively. I have read some Chinese and Japanese literature before, but it's always great to add more for a more well-rounded perspective.
Catching up on this thread makes me understand the concept of Impostor Syndrome. I have it, in spades. You guys read such challenging material. I need to get off my butt, don't I?
I'm taking a little pause with Boiotia and reading "Tactics vol. 1 - Introduction and formal tactics of infantry" by Colonel William Balck, 4th edition, published in 1908, and translated from German into English in 1911. This is for a side project that's currently behind the one about Boiotia but I felt I wanted to read something else and so took this on. I am pretty sure that few or none other people are reading this kind of stuff on this forum. So here's something different in terms of reading.
Finally getting around to reading No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. The man writes some fantastic prose.
I finished off Writers of the Future Volume 35 last week, so I've moved on to Writers of the Future Volume 25 (which I got for free thanks to Volume 35), Sword and Sorceress 34, and The Bands of Mourning. Also, I started rereading The Lord of the Rings and Robert E Howard's Conan stories, but they're on the back burner for now. This current reading binge is meant to help me regain a feel for modern, pro-level prose before I start the first draft of a short story for an anthology.
"Astronomy Today: 9th edition." Badass! And it better be for $150, though that ain't bad for a science textbook. It's been my sci-fi bible for almost 15 years. I started with the 5th edition back in college and have been upgrading every other edition or so since. It's fairly intense, but accessible enough for non astrophysics majors to understand. A must read for anyone who writes anything involving space.
I`ve tried and tried to get through the Alchemist but something just isn`t hooking me. Shelving it for now, with the bookmark still in so I know to return one day. Changing gears to "Reading like a writer A guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them." by Francine Prose. Who knows maybe I can use what I learn from this book to dig into the Alchemist more.
Children of Ruin, by Alexander Tchaikovsky. A really good sequel to Children of Time. Quite a talent for SF, considering that these are his first two SF books (haven't read any of his non-SF stuff). He manages to take what could easily be a sort of space opera and put enough plausible tech (and accepted pseudoscientific tropes such as "cold sleep") to keep it from being silly, and the amount of thought and research he's put into (teensy spoilers) non-human communication and "language" is just stunning. Highly recommended.
Molokai by Alan Brennert. I basically started it today and am already on Part 3. I never knew about the leper colonies in Hawaii. Or how they were treated.
Decided to spend the entire morning in a deep study of poetry, especially imagery and poems which evoke strong images. List is as follows (notables to me discussed later): "Snapping Beans" by Lisa Parker "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden "Dog's Death" by John Updike "Oh, Oh" by William Hathaway "Catch" by Robert Francis "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop "A Study of Writing Habits" by Philip Larkin "Mountain Graveyard" by Robert Morgan "l(a" by E. E. Cummings "Nighttime Fires" by Regina Barreca "Introduction to Poetry" by Billy Collins "Magic of Love" by Helen Farries "Love Poem" by John Frederick Nims "It's the Law: A Rap Poem" by S. Pearl Sharp "The Poet with his Face in his Hands" by Mary Oliver "Big Questions" by Jim Tilley "Seniors" by Alberto Rios "Crossing the Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson "A Beautiful Girl Combs Her Hair" by Li Ho "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe "The Supremes" by Cornelius "Poem" by William Carlos William's "Calvary Crossing a Ford" by Walt Whitman "Windsurfing" by David Solway "Root Cellar" by Theodore Roethke "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold "Poetry Should Ride the Bus" by Ruth Foreman "The Pond" by Amy Lowell "Heat" by Hilda Doolittle "Crocuses" by Ruth Fainlight "London Summer Morning" by Mary Robinson "London" by William Blake "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen "In General" by Pattiann Rogers "What it's like to be a Black Girl (For Those of You Who Arent)" by Patricia Smith "The Panther" by Rainer Maria Rilke "The Blue Bowl" by Jane Kenyon "Home-Baked Bread" by Sally Croft "To Autumn" by John Keats "Fall" by Edward Hirsch "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound "The White Porch" by Cathy Song and finally..."Paperboy" by Melanie McCabe It was a long morning, but certainly a good one. Out of that list, I took special note of a few: 1). "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden Hit me personally. Depicted a cold, but loving tone of a father hardened by burden of making the others comfortable early in the morning, and bearing the cold himself. Simple, yet stern. Very honest depiction of the silent struggles of a father for his family. 2). "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop Again, a personal strike as the elderly fish is caught and reflected upon by its victories in surviving all the years. Beautiful imagery, mixed with an easily gliding flow of words to an ending that was very desired. 3). "Nighttime Fires" by Regina Barreca This was quite the striking narrative poem of a father's soul who had turned to darkness after losing his job. His rage and excitement to see a wealthy person's home burn down and lose everything is a testament to how far a person can fall after their livelihood has been sucked out of them forcibly. Very dark, and well written. 4). "Seniors" by Alberto Rios Rios does an excellent job depicting the characters around the speaker of the poem, and connecting them by the end. It's tone is a bit off-key, just like the seniors in high school that it's talking about, and it maintains a sort of unnerving honesty to it. Worth the time to check out. 5). "A Beautiful Girl Combs Her Hair" by Li Ho This ancient poem brings out a strangely erotic tone through its imagery. The reader is drawn in closely to the girl being observed, taking note of he subtle details in her movements and style through a rather trivial affair. The diction is short, and soft, engaging the reader with a tone matching the character it describes, an entrances the reader with it. Interestingly done. 6). "Windsurfing" by David Solway The meter is smooth and fluid with its liquid diction as the windsurfer graces the readers imagination in this solidly constructed imagery. Th reader can no only see the windsurfer, but also feel his movements cutting expertly across the water. 7). "Root Cellar" by Theodore Roethke This was my favorite bit of imagery I reviewed this morning. The cellar literally comes alive in this short poem with all the colorful description of a rotting cellar. The reader can feel the damp air, and brush the moss and fungus covered wood residing in the cellar as if they were there. The tone is a funny thing that requires some more study to really understand I think. The imagery speaks of rot and detritus, but the writing makes it come alive. So what is the reader to make of it. I'll ponder on it more later. 8). "London Summer Morning" by Mary Robinson The streets of London come alive in this poem. It's light-hearted, which is welcome from so many previous dark descriptions of late 20th century London. The reader can actually listen to and experience the bustle of a morning in old London as the whole world seems to come alive on a new day. Great use of imagery. 9). "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen A classic war poem, that captures the very essence of the cruel nature of war. It mocks old adages and fills the reader with stark, brutal imagery of the battlefield and grisly death of a soldier to gas during WWI. Powerful poem in both content and imagery. Short narrative that bites the reader immediately, and lets the sting linger long afterward. I found it hard to focus on the poems after reading this one because of its strength.
@EFMingo are you familiar with Howard Nemerov's The War in the Air? I had the privilege of hearing him read it live, when I was far too young to really grasp all of it. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47698/the-war-in-the-air
Excellent! Thanks definitely worth the read. It must have been quite something to actually be present to hear it live though.
