What are you reading right now?
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Zac Thompson
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For the most part I just pass the time waiting for the next book in George R.R. Martin’s "A Song of Ice and Fire" series. (Hey, George, what the hell? It’s been almost SEVEN years since "A Dance With Dragons" was published!)
But actually, at the moment I’m reading a book by a fellow Inkshares author, "Sync City" by Peter Ryan. "Never Let Me Go" has been on my To-Read list for about three years now. I keep hoping to find a copy in a used book store. Other authors whose works I plan to read in the near future include Joe Abercrombie (First Law trilogy), Hugh Howey (Wool omnibus), and Mark Lawrence (Prince of Thorns).
Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker. It is a highly underrated book.
I’m part way through Rawblood by Catriona Ward, which is due out in the US next spring. It’s very good! Reminds me a lot of Poe. Here’s the blurb:
"For generations the Villarcas have died mysteriously, and young. Now Iris and her father will finally understand why. . .
At the turn of England’s century, as the wind whistles in the lonely halls of Rawblood, young Iris Villarca is the last of her family’s line. They are haunted, through the generations, by "her," a curse passed down through ancient blood that marks each Villarca for certain heartbreak, and death.
Iris forsakes her promise to her father, to remain alone, safe from the world. She dares to fall in love, and the consequences of her choice are immediate and terrifying. As the world falls apart around her, she must take a final journey back to Rawblood where it all began and where it must all end...
From the sun dappled hills of Italy to the biting chill of Victorian dissection halls, The Girl from Rawblood is a lyrical and haunting historical novel of darkness, love, and the ghosts of the past."
I just got done re-reading "Kokoro", by Natsume Sōseki. This is something like the third or fourth time in my life (separated by years in between) that I’ve read the book, and each time I come back to it, it means a little more. It already meant a lot to begin with, so that makes the experience all the more impressive. Ford Madox Ford began his novel "The Good Soldier" with the sentence "This is the saddest story I have ever heard," and you could apply that without hesitation to this book as well.
I’ve also been reading "The Places That Scare You", by Pema Chödrön, a good guide to using Buddhist thought as a way to work through difficult situations. I’m not in an especially difficult situation right now, but it never hurts to be ready to know how to deal with them. (A lot of my work has been influenced by Buddhism, especially Zen; the influence it exerts is not a fixed thing but changes over time, for the better I hope.)
I also picked up Peter Wahlöö’s "The 31st Floor". Wahlöö was nominally an author of detective fiction -- the Walter Matthau movie "The Laughing Policeman" was based on one of his novels -- but this is closer to dystopian SF than anything else. It was in fact made into a movie as well, the riotous "Kamikaze 1989," the last film Rainer Werner Fassbinder starred in before his too-early death of a drug overdose.
Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
My average reading speed has really decreased this year. I’ve read and completed five novels this year, when normally by this point I’d be at fifteen or more. I attribute it to the birth of my second daughter. It’s hard to dive deep into a book with children demanding your attention every thirty seconds.
I just read Beowulf in English class, I hope that counts.
I’m always interested to see what other Inkshares authors are reading outside of this site. I’m currently immersed in Joe Hill’s The Fireman. I can’t put it down.
Reads like his take on Stephen King’s The Stand. There’s something beautifully haunting about the horror in this book. For those of you who’ve never read Hill’s work, it’s the closest we’ll ever get to classic Stephen King.