o, books

[jazzfish]

So I finished rereading the Hitchhiker's trilogy, for the first time in, oh, probably fifteen years. (Side note: holy cow is Mostly Harmless ever a depressing book. It's really good-- it may be the best novel of the lot-- but, yow.) And now I find myself with an embarrassment of riches.

In Vancouver I picked up a copy of Anathem, which I am told is a Neal Stephenson book with an ending. Thing is, it's Big, and bulky, and kind of annoying to carry around. It's much easier to carry Heat of Fusion, and I've been meaning to get back to that for awhile, prompted by a reread of "Chromatic Aberration" for a sadly moribund discussion forum. But I've also been meaning to reread Wolfe's Long Sun and Short Sun series, so I can pick up on some of what I missed the first time through. (devouring The Sorcerer's House last week did not help matters here.)

Or I could go with my original plan and reread the Dirk Gently books. I worry that that'll be too much DNA all at once. I did pick up a copy of King Rat at Stone Ridge last weekend, I could always finally read some of Mieville's stuff. And of course there's Ratio, a book about cooking, which I got from uilos last year and have been slowly wending my way through.

And then I remembered, I have a paid account for just such an eventuality!

[Poll #1554467]

Comments

[jazzfish]

Audio books are sadly no good for me. They're so much slower than I can read, plus it takes effort to keep paying attention. I get distracted and suddenly it's three minutes later and I have no idea what the heck just happened. (This doesn't seem to happen with radio shows. I guess the different actors and the pacing is sufficient to keep my brain engaged. That or I've mostly listened to comedy shows.)

People have been telling me to read Miles for, um, almost two decades now. At the time it seemed like the availability of Bujold's backlist was pretty spotty so I never got into them. I /do/ have the Device, but it's slightly too small for convenient reading. As in, I have to turn the pages too often to easily get into the flow of things. This is one of those problems that will solve itself if I just use the thing more. . . on the other hand, I have all these dead-tree editions I've not read yet, which have a much lower barrier to entry at this point.

[marcmagus]

That happens to me when reading sometimes. Suddenly it's a page or so later and I have no idea what the heck just happened. I'm pretty sure I'd be just like you with audio books.

Not that you need another, but I also recommend Miles as worth reading sometime. I found them to be quite available on friends' bookshelves.

[jazzfish]

If I'm reading something fairly dense (Wolfe, Delany), or if I'm in the middle of an especially frenetic sequence, I'll turn a page, blink a couple of times, turn back, and reread the last paragraph or so of the previous page, because I've somehow lost the thread of what was going on.

So, just so I know, what's a good starting place for Miles? I note that the Baen Free Library has "Mountains of Mourning" available; how's that?

I find audio books perfect for long trips.

[stormking.livejournal.com]

because they help mind from falling asleep during boring tree populated countryside.. otherwise.. I totally agree with you.