Back to the bookshelf

Typographic jacket · original cover not fetched

FROM THE SHARED SHELF · 2006–2026 SAMPLE

The Strange Bird

Jeff VanderMeer

2 readers recommend it across 2 discussions

Topics are model-inferred labels.

Keep it on your reading list

THE WORD OF MOUTH

What made it worth passing on?

Original Hacker News comments, in the readers’ own words.

unaindz
Last year Annihilation and the rest of the trilogy rekindled my passion for reading after almost a decade. Vandemeer really has a way with words but specifically in this novel he manages to describe what I though was indescribable. It was only fair that I tried another one of his trilogies, Borne, The Strange Bird and Dead Astronauts. With Borne being pretty normal (for Vandermeer standards) and the other two reading like pretty ramblings at times if you lack the context. I still loved them but they may not be for everyone. You should read them in the order above so that you have as many pieces of the prose puzzle when you reach Dead Astronauts. But even if you end up not liking the writing of the last two books, Borne can still be enjoyed independently. As for this year. "Blood music" by Greg Bear. Biology scify with a pretty weird concept. "Firefall" trilogy by Peter Watts Usually a scify story revolvs around one core idea, this one does too, but it kept surprising me with new secondary but interesting ones until the end. Read The Colonel between the two main books. "Rifters" trilogy by Peter Watts Exploring sexual abuse, empathy "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang…
PostPost
Sorry for the wall of text. 1. Bourne (The language and world of this novel are extraordinary - everything is falling apart yet brimming with life. Strangely moving) 2. The Design of Everyday things (Essential for anyone in UI/UX) 3. All Systems Red: The Murderbot Diaries (Highly engaging, entertaining sci-fi novella series, from an author that can write a very decent robot protagonist) 4. The Power (Interesting story with sci-fi elements on the dynamics of power, sex, and gender roles. I didn't care for the book, but the first 3/4 of the book are amazing) 5. Side Hustle: From Idea to Income in 27 Days 6. 7 brief Lessons on Physics 7. The Last Lecture (The energy and positivity coming from a man knowing he's about to die is infectious. Great read) 8. A wizard of Earthsea (Move over Harry Potter, this is the essential children's story about wizards) 9. Exploring diabetes with owls (Funny, irreverent) 10. Miss Peregrines home for peculiar children (Made an effort to read more YA this year - this was the best in this series, but I still hated it. There's a host of better YA series out there.) 11. A Wizard of Earthsea: The Tombs of Atuan (See 8.)…