Reading Wednesday on a Thursday

[auroracloud]

I never remember to do a Reading Wednesday when it's actually Wednesday, but whatever, I'll do it now because I feel like talking about my recently read things. I'm on +2 GMT, so there are still time zones when it's Wednesday. Questions swiped off umadoshi's recent Reading Wednesday post.

What did you recently finish reading?

Ann Leckie's Ancillary Mercy, the third and final book of the Imperial Radch trilogy that started with Ancillary Justice. And oh, was it brilliant! I'm a latecomer to these books, but I love them and the whole strange misfit crew of characters blasting their way through an epic space empire adventure with lots of heart and meaning, and this was a very satisfying conclusion. I may want to ramble about that series at some point because I love it.

I also recently finished Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, which I hadn't read before. I'm on a roll! I originally had a hard time getting into that one, probably because my brain early this year couldn't quite handle the level of concentration required by Le Guin's elaborate prose, and it also takes some time to learn how the world works and how to read through the main character's narration. But I'm glad I picked it up again, because eventually I loved it. After several decades, it's still a deep, moving and thought-provoking book.

What are you currently reading?

Hahahaha. A shitload of books!

Well, you see, I'm basically the bookish Jack Harkness. I'm reading all the books mostly at the same time. Well, not quite, but I'm still in a constant state of book orgy, which sounds a lot fancier than just plain "I've easily got 10 unfinished books going on at the same time, and then I start another anyway". There are some actual reasons for this, such as the fact that I read a lot of nonfiction as well, and not all of it is suited for gulping down in the sort of quick intense read that many fiction books get from me. But I also read multiple fiction books at the same time, because I'm totally dependent on having the right mood to read a particular book. Also there are many books I haven't quite managed to consign to the "did not finish" pile, but also am taking time to actually get through them, for whatever reason.

So anyway, if I just look at the ones I've been reading the most recently, there's a bunch of nonfiction books, especially about history and about environmental and climate change things, such as Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction. And there's a Finnish fantasy YA book which I'm trying to get through because I generally like it, but it's not sucking me in enough to get it finished very quickly.

What do you think you'll read next?

Nnedi Okorafor's Binti: The Night Masquarade; I've got the e-book from my e-library, and need to read it before the loan period is up! I loved the previous two and had to wait quite a while for this one, but I had some issues with my e-reader when the loan period started. After that, I'd like to dive into one of the historical novels I've been carrying home from the library recently. And I'll keep going on with the other unfinished books, hopefully dwindling down their numbers a bit...

Comments

[luzula]

I'm so glad you liked The Left Hand of Darkness! It's one of my favorite books ever, and I see new things in it every time I reread.

[auroracloud]

I definitely feel like it would benefit from a reread or a few! It's clearly one of those books where there's so much to discover. The worldbuilding in itself is endlessly fascinating. I'll need to buy my own copy, certainly (now I was just renewing a library copy for ages).