The Reader’s Nook - The N&G Book Thread

nyti.ms

In the ‘Cozy Catastrophe’ Novel, the End of the World Is Not So Bad

Originally published in 1939, “The Hopkins Manuscript,” by the British writer R.C. Sherriff, inaugurated a genre of post-apocalyptic fiction in which a resourceful hero survives unthinkable cataclysm.
nyti.ms nyti.ms

Really interesting article. Anyone read this book, The Hopkins Manuscript? It's about to be reissued. Sounds right up my alley.
 
BjorgenFjorgen said:
nyti.ms

In the ‘Cozy Catastrophe’ Novel, the End of the World Is Not So Bad

Originally published in 1939, “The Hopkins Manuscript,” by the British writer R.C. Sherriff, inaugurated a genre of post-apocalyptic fiction in which a resourceful hero survives unthinkable cataclysm.
nyti.ms nyti.ms

Really interesting article. Anyone read this book, The Hopkins Manuscript? It's about to be reissued. Sounds right up my alley.
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Never heard of this but I'm very intrigued!
 
I’m probably gonna read this concurrently with at least one other book (kindle challenge is dictating some of my reading right now):
3D0A5BFA-83F7-44D5-9686-BC10643E7BD5.jpeg

So my oldest found out about a program from Penguin Books where you fill out some information about some one you want to gift a book and they send you a letter with recommendations based on what you entered. She did this for myself and my wife. We each got the letter and I got an Amazon gift card because she knows I like to read on my kindle and she got my wife the book that she thought my wife would like the best. I went ahead and bought all three books (well i preordered the book about Sister Rosetta Tharp as it is getting ready to be republished). The other is this:
A29213B3-0432-4552-9FC0-1D922E52A41A.jpeg
Which I got a hard copy of because comics are not as fun on a reader/app.
 
Lee Newman said:
I’m probably gonna read this concurrently with at least one other book (kindle challenge is dictating some of my reading right now):
View attachment 163274

So my oldest found out about a program from Penguin Books where you fill out some information about some one you want to gift a book and they send you a letter with recommendations based on what you entered. She did this for myself and my wife. We each got the letter and I got an Amazon gift card because she knows I like to read on my kindle and she got my wife the book that she thought my wife would like the best. I went ahead and bought all three books (well i preordered the book about Sister Rosetta Tharp as it is getting ready to be republished). The other is this:
View attachment 163276
Which I got a hard copy of because comics are not as fun on a reader/app.
Click to expand...
Well the first story in the LaRocca was fucked up. Kind of like if Stephen King and Chuck Palahniuk collaborated on something. Glad I was planning on reading something else while reading it cause I need a break.
 
Finished my first book of the year. Stella Rimmington / At Risk
Amazon product ASIN 0099461390Started at breakfast on Jan 1 and finished in the afternoon on Jan 4. Been a while since I read through a book so quickly. That was my normal pace years ago.

I love John Le Carre and have read his books several times over. But in the spy book world there is Le Carre and then there is everyone else. I find the biggest issue for too many spy books is that the fate of the world hanging is in the balance or the protagonist is a Bond/Bourne killing machine. What I enjoy about Le Carre is the often the stakes are quite small. I need to go back to read more 70s writers when the Cold War was raging.

Now on to a book about Stalingrad, that should be nice and light.
 
jamieanderson1968 said:
Finished my first book of the year. Stella Rimmington / At Risk
Amazon product ASIN 0099461390Started at breakfast on Jan 1 and finished in the afternoon on Jan 4. Been a while since I read through a book so quickly. That was my normal pace years ago.

I love John Le Carre and have read his books several times over. But in the spy book world there is Le Carre and then there is everyone else. I find the biggest issue for too many spy books is that the fate of the world hanging is in the balance or the protagonist is a Bond/Bourne killing machine. What I enjoy about Le Carre is the often the stakes are quite small. I need to go back to read more 70s writers when the Cold War was raging.

Now on to a book about Stalingrad, that should be nice and light.
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that is one of the things i like about the computer hacking/spy book that led me into infosec, Cliff Stoll's "Cuckoo's Egg" - he gets into tracking this hack down because of a 10 cent difference in the billing.
 
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Lee Newman said:
I’m probably gonna read this concurrently with at least one other book (kindle challenge is dictating some of my reading right now):
View attachment 163274

So my oldest found out about a program from Penguin Books where you fill out some information about some one you want to gift a book and they send you a letter with recommendations based on what you entered. She did this for myself and my wife. We each got the letter and I got an Amazon gift card because she knows I like to read on my kindle and she got my wife the book that she thought my wife would like the best. I went ahead and bought all three books (well i preordered the book about Sister Rosetta Tharp as it is getting ready to be republished). The other is this:
View attachment 163276
Which I got a hard copy of because comics are not as fun on a reader/app.
Click to expand...
Lee Newman said:
Well the first story in the LaRocca was fucked up. Kind of like if Stephen King and Chuck Palahniuk collaborated on something. Glad I was planning on reading something else while reading it cause I need a break.
Click to expand...
Lol.

I stop reading the dark horror book to read this:

834EAF50-89AB-4B5A-91D6-B6DB1B643A2B.jpeg

Which is a memoir written by a women who in the late seventies as a 3 year old moves with her parents into a cult facility. Years later, she remembers some fragments and confronts her mother. Several years after that, she is a journalist asked to cover the incarceration of the gentleman who ran the cult.

The author is African American and the facility was, at least ostensibly, a Muslim commune of sorts. It is interesting to read about how her parents found their way to the cult.

It’s not the best written thing I’ve ever read. It is in need of a bit of technical editing and is very much written like a young adult novel, however it is a very compelling story.

Reading it from a place of privilege, I have a million questions that I hope she answers. I’m a little over a third through the book.

Edit: it’s also interesting to note that it makes me wonder about privilege and its effect. What makes me lucky enough to be a white male in America with a relative amount of success?

It’s causing a bit of an existential crisis for me.
 
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I picked up The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, the first book in Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series. It's lighter sci-fi than my usual, but a friend recommended it and I'm enjoying it well enough. It is, dare I say it, Whedonesque. Or, perhaps, has anime energy, with Capital-C Characters who often talk and behave in ways that are crafted to be Amusing.
 
kvetcha said:
I picked up The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, the first book in Becky Chambers' Wayfarer series. It's lighter sci-fi than my usual, but a friend recommended it and I'm enjoying it well enough. It is, dare I say it, Whedonesque. Or, perhaps, has anime energy, with Capital-C Characters who often talk and behave in ways that are crafted to be Amusing.
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I liked this one; it’s def the flag bearer for the cozy sci-fi genre. I agree, the characters are all a bit much, at least vividly drawn in the sense that a few remind me of people who would say “squee!” aloud and unironically. I have yet to return to that series.

I’d recommend Chambers’ Monk and Robot books; they’re equally charming, more pastoral, and carry a heavy allegorical bent.
 
Bull Shannon said:
I liked this one; it’s def the flag bearer for the cozy sci-fi genre. I agree, the characters are all a bit much, at least vividly drawn in the sense that a few remind me of people who would say “squee!” aloud and unironically. I have yet to return to that series.

I’d recommend Chambers’ Monk and Robot books; they’re equally charming, more pastoral, and carry a heavy allegorical bent.
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I saw the Monk and Robot books on a Best of 2022 list when I was searching for something else to read! I'll add 'em to my long list. And I think your characterization of the tone is pretty spot on. I'm having fun with it, but occasionally it sets my teeth on edge, just a little.

Unrelated, I've just discovered that Arkady Martine has two new books coming out this year, so that's exciting.

edit: Just realized that I haven't actually posted here in some time, but I've gone on a sci-fi tear of late. Read (and loved) Martine's Teixcalaan series, then circled around and finished up Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy. Squeezed Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go in the Dark somewhere in there. That one was a bit too grim to love, in the end, but had its moments.
 
kvetcha said:
I saw the Monk and Robot books on a Best of 2022 list when I was searching for something else to read! I'll add 'em to my long list. And I think your characterization of the tone is pretty spot on. I'm having fun with it, but occasionally it sets my teeth on edge, just a little.

Unrelated, I've just discovered that Arkady Martine has two new books coming out this year, so that's exciting.

edit: Just realized that I haven't actually posted here in some time, but I've gone on a sci-fi tear of late. Read (and loved) Martine's Teixcalaan series, then circled around and finished up Ann Leckie's Ancillary trilogy. Squeezed Sequoia Nagamatsu's How High We Go in the Dark somewhere in there. That one was a bit too grim to love, in the end, but had its moments.
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I still need to read Desolation Called Peace! I don’t know if anyone else has this experience, but often with series if I don’t read the next book within 2-6 months I’m never getting to it, as I’ll have forgotten all the plot and characters of the previous entry.
 
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