Any good books you’ve read lately? Like, anything with even the veil of being politically agnostic

Slowly chipping away at Brothers Karamazov. Despite all his wordiness and digressions, it contains some of the craziest drama unfolding within the space of hours I've ever read. Reality TV doesn't hold a candle to these passionate, often drunk, Russians. And of course a drip feed of theological dialogues plus extensive detailing of contemporary Russian culture rounds it out.

The man does really have a way woth identifying all the little ways that people behave and navigate an interaction, putting on faces, jockeying for position, getting right up to the threshold of something before their pride stops them.

Sometimes it feels a little slow, but then something just fucking gobsmacking will happen and you'll put up with a little more talking about an ancillary monk's ascetic practice so you can find out what cruel trick Grushenka will do next.

I came here to jokingly suggest math books, but then you said

but unless I specify you mfs will recommend theory

Read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho recently. I don't read a ton of fiction, I don't have visual imagination (unless I do DMT or a lot of dabs) so over the top visual descriptions don't do anything for me.

Oh and Hiroyuki Nishigaki's "How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?" which is pretty funny.

This week I'm working through China Meiville's Bas Lag trilogy. Just started the Third Book. First time reading him, I'm in love.

I recently read Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin, which was really good.

Oh, also read Octavia Butler's Kindred. Awesome stuff.

Kinda' wanna' start Blood Meridian soon, but I don't think that's politically agnostic is it?

Oh so the Communist Manifesto is political now? Fucking commies turning everything into politics.

Excession by Iain M. Banks

very gay story about what would have been an iraq war allegory had it been released a decade later.

I just finished another Discworld book, Moving Pictures. Once again Pratchett is my perfect comfort read.

If you like sci-fi read House of Suns.

A confederacy of dunces. Outside of catch-22, it's maybe the best satire book ever written. Highly recommend the barrett whitener audiobook.

Working my way through The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan right now. Pretty standard high fantasy, Tolkien inspired.

If you're looking for something more light-hearted, maybe some Discworld?

I read the Three Body series last year, very engrossing hard sci-fi imo.

I recently read Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. If you’re looking for something you can shut your brain off with It’s a pretty good page turner.

Let's see

The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton - Very good, Edith Wharton is the GOAT, but unfinished at the time of her death. The edition that I had was finished (badly) by some hack in the 90's, so watch out for that

Education of a Felon by Eddie Bunker - A fascinating memoir by a career criminal turned novelist. Well worth it for a look at the seedy underbelly of midcentury LA and prison culture. Danny Trejo, William Randolph Hearst, and George Jackson are minor characters

Blood and Guts in High School by Cathy Acker - I don't even know what to say about this one. Visceral, weird and raw. Highly recommend

Some Desperate Glory by Edwin Campion Vaughan - Posthumously published memoir of an English officer during WWI. Great if you're at all interested in this period of history

The Rifles by William T. Vollmann - If you're not already Vollmannpilled you need to be. This one mingles the history of the doomed Franklin expedition with the systematic destruction of the indigenous arctic peoples through the present day (well of the 90's when he wrote it)

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker Martin - I really liked Manhunt last year and this one is also great. Queer horror in a wilderness conversion therapy camp. I actually saw her on her tour for this one's release

Translation State! It's about identity; prominently, gender.

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Read Gideon the Ninth, it is a great sci-fi book and it is incredibly funny.

I read 'the last unicorn' by Peter Beagle but I got hints of Libertarian Objectivism and I got some weird vibes of Trumpist Marxist thought with some unhealthy dollop of Leninist Bidenist leanings.

I tried reading mother goose the other day but had to put it down after getting the impression they were trying to cram Miltonian economics down my throat.

I recently read For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. In my opinion a very very good book. It's about a young American man, Robert Jordan, who is fighting as a dynamiter in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republic. In particular, the book is mostly about him briefly working with a Republican guerilla group, with him carrying orders that they're to blow up a bridge.

I've owned a copy of the book for a while, but what spurred me to finally read it was a scene from Cyberpunk 2077. The player character, V, will pick up a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls and then recite an apt and haunting quote at a funeral, if the player makes the correct choices. The only problem is, as I discovered upon finishing the book, the quote isn't actually from For Whom the Bell Tolls it's from a book of short stories that Hemingway complied, including some of his own, titled Men at War. I'm not sure if the quoted short story is even one that Hemingway wrote. That said the quote feels like something that could've come from Tolls, so I'm not too upset about it.

I can't say if it's a good book because I've only read a tiny bit of it but I am currently reading Ancient Persia by Josef Wiesehöfer. I'm only reading this book because I saw a recommendation to read the book From Cyrus to Alexander by Pierre Briant for people looking for a good work on ancient history that's still approachable for laypeople. And not even in the introduction to that work but in the fucking Translator's Preface it says, paraphrasing: "readers not already familiar with the entire history of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, and the entire corpus of Ancient Greek literature on those subjects will not find this volume useful. I recommend any reader not so familiar to read Josef Wiesehofer's work on the subject." So now I'm reading this.

What's wrong with theory lol

The theory books I'm reading rn are great but...I guess I can hold back from sharing those if it's really important to you.

Right now the fiction I'm reading is Moby Dick and the collected short stories of Roald Dahl. Moby Dick is an awesome ride. Roald Dahl shorts is just OK. Probably about what you'd expect.

Best fiction books I've read in the last year are Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov and Watership Down by Richard Adams. Pale Fire is one of the craziest books I've ever read.

i actually liked go set a watchman

currently debating whether or not i should read a coho book for the memes

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Haven't read crime and punishment before so I'm currently enjoying that

I don't usually read fiction, but i've been slowly thumbing my way through Pubs, Pulpits, & Prairie Fires, which is about the On To Ottawa Trek.

I read little blue encyclopedia by Hazel Jane Plante

It's a touching story about a queer trans woman's unrequited love for her friend Vivian.

The story is interspersed with encyclopedia entries about a fictional TV show set on an isolated island (Think Twin Peaks)

The Locked Tomb series (starts with Gideon the Ninth). Lesbian necromancers in space! It's really fun and really well written. Very neuroqueer too imo

I've been working my way through the Isaac Asimov Robots series. Quite enjoyable. Can drag on at times, but overall I like them a lot. Any political themes present in the stories are pretty far removed from reality.

i have begun reading à la recherche du temps perdu by proust as a way to practice my french. nothing really happens but it still goes pretty hard, dude just had a way with words like that

Death to America

I just finished The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and now I'm reading The Mystery of Marie Rogêt. I don't know if you can call stories about crime "politically agnostic", but they're short and not theory at least. I've been getting more in to mystery fiction lately, I've always liked mysteries in other mediums but never really branched out towards them in books before.

By the way, does anyone here use BookWyrm?

Tyll - Daniel Kehlmann

its about a Jester in the 30 years war .. ,

will recomend it forever..

Buddy got me a compilation of Murakami short stories (Men w/out Women), after we both very much liked the film adaptation of Drive my Car. Never read him (other than another short, Barn Burning); he's good!

Darcy Coates is my current comfy author, nothing fancy just good slop. She has some haunted house books, haunted space ship books, haunted underwater sub books. Very nice stuff.

I read Children of Time recently, really liked it. I don't dislike sci-fi but there's so much of it out there that it has to be really interesting and unique to catch my attention; usually I just read the plot synopsis of books that I'm vaguely curious about but don't want to put in the effort to read (I did that with the Three Body Problem for example). So Children of Time's storyline of gradual yet rapid evolution of jumping spiders and how their civilization would be influenced by their anatomies and the species around them was something I hadn't even heard of before and I was very curious. Unfortunately I found the sequel to go in directions that I dislike (namely, horror elements) so I stopped reading halfway through the second book, and the third book wouldn't have done much for me either based on the summary I found. I understand why the author didn't want to extensively detail the evolution of another species (this time, octopi) but I'm still disappointed that he didn't because it was my favourite part of the first book.

I also liked the Foundation series for that same theme of development and evolution over a very long period of time. Now that I think about it actually, it might have been a factor in turning me into an ML, "psychohistory" is remarkably similar to historical materialism with a lot of the more difficult philosophy trimmed away. It probably also helped turn me into a fatalist. Hitchhiker's Guide is also a classic that I enjoyed but the sci-fi in there feels more of a device to help the comedy (which I have no complaints about!). I also liked Ringworld but I feel no compulsion to read the sequels.

On the fantasy side of things, I like The Inheritance Cycle a lot; the author has recently returned to the series as of 2023, with more books planned. It's not even an amazingly creative world or anything, it's just a series I read during my childhood and so I have fond memories of it. It does have my all-time favourite magic system too.

The Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny. The premise according to NATOpedia:

The Amber stories take place in two contrasting "true" worlds, Amber and Chaos, and in shadow worlds (Shadows) that lie between the two. These shadows, including Earth, are parallel worlds that exist in — and were created from — the tension between the opposing magical forces of Amber and Chaos. The Courts of Chaos are situated at the very edge of an abyss. Members of the royal family of Amber, after walking in a Pattern that is central to Amber, can travel freely through the Shadows. While traveling (shifting) between Shadows, they can alter reality or create a new reality by choosing which elements of which Shadows to keep or add, and which to subtract. Nobles of the Courts of Chaos who have traversed the Logrus are similarly able to travel through Shadows.

The Name of the Wind is an incredibly well-written fantasy book!

I wouldn't call it "apolitical," but it's not theory- Chaos by Tom O'Neill

I enjoyed Trust by Hernan Diaz. It's kind of hard to describe, but it's a novel set in the gilded age. It's told in a really neat way through letters and a book within the book.

I also liked The 7 and 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. It's a weird murder mystery with time travel elements.

Reading what I just wrote makes me think I'm bad at describing books because I probably wouldn't read them based on that.

I'm reading old science fantasy book series "the book of the new sun", by Gene Wolf. It is quite good, wildly random in the way plot progresses. I'd say it's a series of things that prevent the main character from ever getting anywhere. Currently on book 2 claw of the conciliator.

K J Parker is someone I discovered a few years ago. He writes this sort of non-magical fantasy, all set in various time periods throughout his made up world.

The first trilogy of his I listened to is the siege series, starting with 16 Ways To Defend A Walled City. I'm currently listening to the Saveus Corax series. The books all tend to place the main character in some sort of political quandary that they have to navigate themselves out of using their guile and wit. And they are usually not the best suited people for the leadership roles they end up fulfilling, yet they always find success.

The series has a sort of dry humour to it, and while everything has almost a one-to-one parallel with our world's history, the biggest difference is that the races are reversed, with the major Roman/European empires being comprised of black people and white people being referred to as milk faces in one book.

I really enjoy them and I think K J Parker is alright.

Also his pen name, K J Parker, was chosen because it is the name of a pen.

I just burned through the preview for The Quiet Damage, the new book about qanon, but it’s not on libgen and I don’t want to pay for it

It had annoying lib takes but I still couldn’t put it down.

I'm reading Jaynes Bicameral Mind which is interesting, before that I read Beloved beasts about the history of conservationism. I want to read the Cyberiad and Paradise Lost when I get around to it.