- What book is currently on your nightstand?
- Who is the author?
- What genre?
- How do you like it?
- Would you recommend it to others?
I’m currently reading Dune by Frank Herbert. I tried to read it once when I was in my early teens and didn’t finish, but I figured I’d give it another go with all the hype over the recent TV adaptation. I’ve just passed the point where I gave up before (~150 pages) and I’m kicking myself, because it turns out I stopped just short of where all the action seems to really get going. The book is front-loaded with a lot of worldbuilding by way of sci-fi/fantasy terms presented without much context, so I can understand why my younger self got bored and gave up. I’m really enjoying it this time around though, I think I’m a lot more patient as a reader now than I used to be.
I am also reading through dune right now, I’m enjoying it so far. I was fine with the world building, partly because I really liked the sets in the movie and also because I found it novel compared to the very generic space faring stuff or Tolkien rip-off you get as a backdrop in sci-fi and fantasy respectively.
I’m also really enjoying a lot of the environmental musings in the book, after I finish it I will look up more about Frank Herbert’s relation to these topics, I get the feeling there’s something about it.
This is a pretty interesting article that talks about a story that Herbert worked on as a journalist that ties in directly to some of the ecological concepts covered in Dune: https://niche-canada.org/2020/04/24/frank-herberts-ecology-and-the-science-of-soil-conservation/
Thanks for the recommendation, it was just the sort of thing I was looking for!
- The Book That Wouldn’t Burn is on my nightstand right now.
- Author is Mark Lawrence
- Genre is Fantasy
- So far I love it, but I’m only about 100 pages in.
- I’d definitely recommend it to others. Beautiful, fantastical imagry.
Personal reading: Models of the Mind by Grace Lindsay
Good take on the history and current state of modern neuroscience and its interconnectedness with modern machine learning and data science.
Reading to kiddo: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
I have a sore throat already from doing all the voices, what with all the shouting from Uncle Vernon and Hagrid in the first few chapters.
How old is your kid? I want to read Harry Potter but I don’t know if my son is quite ready yet.
Close enough to Harry’s age in the first book. Old enough that we can successfully contextualize the bad behavior depicted in the book.
Models of the Mind by Grace Lindsay
Thanks for this. I read everything I can find in those areas that looks reasonably coherent and it’s hard to find more without a bunch of fake nonsense drowning it out a lot of the time.
I just finished the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I can absolutely recommend it if you love fantasy, mystery and horror. I didn’t not make up my mind what to read next, but the Witcher books are already on my Kindle.
I know King is popular, and I liked a lot of the ride, but he always seems to go out of his way to write the darkest “there’s no point to anything” anticlimactic endings. It was definitely an interesting premise and world, but the conclusion was super unsatisfying.
I loved the ending. I think it perfectly symbolizes, how the journey is more important than the ending in stories.
