I read all three of these in the last 12 months, great choices. Have you read Blindsight? I felt it was almost a sci fi/horror mix. Great read
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I read all three of these in the last 12 months, great choices. Have you read Blindsight? I felt it was almost a sci fi/horror mix. Great read
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Piranesi has been on my shelf for a while, guess it's time I give it a go
I enjoyed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke the most this year. It has wonderful world building that was reminiscent of The Library of Babel. I'm currently really enjoying We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor. So far it's a very fun spacefaring adventure.
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For some reason I've been really enjoying stories with endless and well described repeating rooms. Borges' Library of Babel got me started, I have just finished Susanna Clarke's Piranesi - which was so wonderfully described, I don't know if I'll find anything to beat it. I'm now on A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck, which outright mentions Borges' novel. If anyone has any similar recommendations I'd love to hear them.
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Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. (Though I kind of wish I'd read it during, not after, lock-down.)
Hm, the one I enjoyed the most this year was Susanna Clarke's Piranesi – engrossing, awesome and beautiful.
My reads this read, which I enjoyed: - Dead Mountain by Donnie Eichar (an examination of the Dyatlov Expedition). - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (fantasy). - Be Useful by Arnold Schwarzenegger. - Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. Hopefully the other responses here give me something good to read for Christmas break. :-)
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This was the year I got my attention under enough control to be able to read voraciously again like I used to in my childhood :) * I'll always bring up The Three-body problem because I re-read it every year * Piranesi because of it's fantastical story-telling * The Covenant of Water - because it's a fantastic medical drama and a sweeping story spanning generations * Victory City - Salamn Rushdie's latest novel which is surprisingly readable * The Enchanted Forest/Kaikeyi/Palace of Illusions - because they cover the major Indian epics from the lens of the women characters (think Circe with an Indian background) * Trust - The same story told from different viewpoints with a setting in the early NY financial world, which makes it extra interesting I notice that I do tend to favour books with an Indian background because of my nostalgia for it as I live in a foreign land. Maybe I'll branch out more next year!
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Vita Nostra because it has an interesting magic system. Piranesi because it also has a weird magic system. I didn't read it this past year, but the first one that came to mind was Tigana. That book was rather weird for me, because the process of reading it wasn't very enjoyable, but after finishing I loved it. If anyone has suggestions for fantasy or sci-fi books with weird or non-standard magic systems I'd love to hear em. I've already read most of the big names like Sanderson.
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My non-fiction pile is very peculiar to me (maths, probability, gambling, Rust and Elixir books, a backlog of a load of recent Humble Bundle deals), but I have some solid fiction recommendations: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin is the sort of novel where you start to get sad as the weight of unread pages in your right starts to lighten. A novel about some friends who build some games (set in the 1990s and 2000s, with references to games of that era), it's really about friendship, social awkwardness and creativity. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke can't really take a review. When I first of it in Literary Review, the reviewer refused to disclose any plot for fear of providing spoilers, and I'm the same. I can just tell you, it's lovely. Her writing has got even better since she wrote Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and it's a really, really solid novel. Yesterday, my Dad messaged me about a current read I'll share here as a warning, and because his style is just hilarious:…
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I really enjoyed Piranesi as well. Easy to read and a lot of fun.