lolomg

You would probably enjoy them Zwack. The anti-religious stuff is overblown. It’s more about how people can abuse the power given to them by religion.

And if you don’t wanna read it anyways.

Oh I have read it that's what I meant. I still really liked Rothfuss' writing style, and get that he was doing a road trip novel, but I dunno it just didn't work as well for me.

Name of the Wind is excellent though.

His Dark Materials is a good series. I haven't watch the HBO series yet, but I've heard it's good and has been following the book(s) more closely. So, if anyone here has been enjoying the HBO series, I'd certainly recommend reading the books.

I bought the omnibus edition back when it was released before the film adaptation of the first novel, and it was up there as one of my favorite book series for a long time. I haven't read it in 10 or 11-years though, so I'll probably re-read it sometime next year.

I did enjoy it but I also think it's getting overpraised. Just one of the books that really caught on but doesn't fully manage to justify the hype.

I went ahead and bought it. I still prefer to buy my books from actual book retailers, but Amazon's price on this one was still 40% less than the cheapest option I could find (40% off retail at BAM!). I'm actually curious to know where and how people buy their books these days, so I'm going to start a thread on it in a few.

The Bible
Watchmen

I removed non productivity apps from my phone, so hopefully I'll read a lot more this year. I used to read a ton and I barley have in the last few years.

Those two books are both eerily similar.

Aiming for at least 12 this year.

1. Based On A True Story by Norm MacDonald - B+
2. Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick - B+
3. Dune by Frank Herbert - A

Dune was freakin awesome. The movie turned me off from it for so long, but it was definitely worth the wait. It's very Thronesy for anyone who is looking for that fix. I watched the movie the day after finishing the book and it still sucks though.

I'm reading Burt Reynolds biography now and will go with a plague themed thriller in either Doomsday Book or Station Eleven afterwards.

Well Rona has made my original goal of 12 seem kinda small now. Let's go for 20!

1. Based On A True Story by Norm MacDonald - B+
2. Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick - B+
3. Dune by Frank Herbert - A
4. But Enough About Me by Burt Reynolds - B-
5. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - B

Graphic Novels:

1. Saga Vol. 7, Vol. 8 and Vol. 9 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples - A
2. The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller - A-

Anyone wanna recommend another DC book while I still have the app? Only looking for limited series and I've already read all the Jeph Loeb ones like The Long Halloween.

I'm about halway through with Dune now and I like it a lot so far. Excited to see where the story goes.

The movie is going to be SPECTACULAR.

1. Based On A True Story by Norm MacDonald - B+
2. Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick - B+
3. Dune by Frank Herbert - A+
4. But Enough About Me by Burt Reynolds - B-
5. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - B
6. The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre - A
7. The Passage by Justin Cronin - A
8. Talking To Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell - A-
9. Artemis by Andy Weir - B+
10. Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCartner - B

Graphic Novels:

1. Saga Vol. 7, Vol. 8 and Vol. 9 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples - A
2. The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller - A-

The Passage is very cool, making a zombie/plague book with vampires. Highly recommend especially in these times. Will read the sequel before year’s end but there’s so much else to read too!

The second book is the best one, imo. Also one of the best reading experiences I've had. The third one was good, but left me more disapointed than satisfied.

1. Based On A True Story by Norm MacDonald - B+
2. Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick - B+
3. Dune by Frank Herbert - A+
4. But Enough About Me by Burt Reynolds - B-
5. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel - B
6. The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre - A
7. The Passage by Justin Cronin - A
8. Talking To Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell - A-
9. Artemis by Andy Weir - B+
10. Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCartner - B
11. Less by Andrew Sean Greer - B-
12. Genghis Khan and the Makings of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford - B

Graphic Novels:

1. Saga Vol. 7, Vol. 8 and Vol. 9 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples - A
2. The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller - A-
3. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris - B-

These three were good enough to finish, but were very slow reads. I'm definitely not gonna hit 20 now.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Little Women
Where the Crawdads Sing
When People Are Big and God is Small
Watchmen
The Bible

Currently reading Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith

This was the closest I could find to a book thread here but what books / audiobooks have you been reading this year that you'd recommend?

Big no on Spare, was really a tough read.

Really enjoyed Dave Grohl's biography though!

This thread ( viewtopic.php?f=10&t=87084&p=2325312#p2325312 ) ended up becoming the general book thread.

Spare was massive out of the gate but floundered pretty quick. Memoirs can often fade quickly (relative to their sizable debuts), as they're best to pick up and read early before spoilers are everywhere, but I get the impression WOM among readers was fairly poor for Spare looking at how it dropped off. Somewhat "disappointing" ongoing total sales given its first week sales. Think most outside of the first few weeks of release were fine just asking for or looking up what was in the book versus reading it themselves.

The Britney Spears memoir was released this week. This will be another interesting one to see the sales of (publisher reported 400,000 preorders/first day sales, unclear if US/CA or WW) and how readers respond to it. Notably, she didn't do a book tour or interviews for it, which could drive more sales earlier than normal since not too much has been revealed about it.

I can share the best selling books of the year (like top 25/30) so far if you're interested. Not every top selling book is "good", but it's a good place to start looking for something to check out.

That would be great! It seems there are a flood of biographies that have come out but lots of noise and would love to see which ones are resonating more.

There have been a many in the past couple years. Makes me wonder if the pandemic created an interest among celebs and the like to get into them. Trump's White House also spawned a huge amount of books, even this year is still seeing them.

And romance has always been a popular genre, but it's far and away the top genre in fiction now and has been for a few years. TikTok has had a huge positive impact on the genre (books in general, but primarily romance). If a book gains traction on #BookTok, it's going to see impressive sales of some degree. Bookstores have #BookTok dedicated sections now.

I've tracked book sales for a while now (work in hiring for B&N) and have access to the Publishers Weekly sales chart and historical archives. I'll post the top 20/25 or so books from the past few years tomorrow.

Appreciate that. Feel free to take your time I have about a book backlog now but looking for others.