books

<p>Sorry for the formatting, I had to cobble this together myself from the Libby app.</p><p>More:</p><p></p><p>I’ll include a brief note for some…</p><p>Record of a Spaceborn Few — I love her style and characters<br>Down Among the Sticks and Bones — a fun fantasy romp, would be great to read aloud with someone<br>The Red — I read something like 7 books by Linda Nagata this year! Great suggestion from a friend. This one was action-packed and techy, with plenty of dilemmas along the way.<br>The Gutenberg Parenthesis — such an interesting non-fiction read. I learned a lot and it gave me much to consider regarding books, culture, and power. Recommended for the history enjoyers.<br>Polostan — Neal Stephenson always makes me learn something in his books. This time I learned about the Wobblies and Communism in America. Also a bit of fun historical fiction.<br>The Bohr Maker — This series is futuristic and deals with concepts similar to those in Snow Crash, namely, religions as neurotransmitters and molecules. Interesting somewhat-biopunk read.<br>Kindred — I was not expecting this! Octavia Butler’s writing really slapped me across the face with history by exploring what it would be like to be a black person sent back in time.<br>Oath of Fealty — A friend of a friend recommended this as an example of an “Arcology” book, essentially, dealing with living in megastructures. A bit fantastic for me (in a bad way) in that I couldn’t fully buy in.<br>Aurora — What if the spaceship itself was a character in an interstellar generational-ship story? KSR does a nice job exploring humanity here, I enjoyed it.<br>Zodiac — Yeah, I’m a Neal Stephenson enjoyer, and I enjoyed this one too! The story made me appreciate Boston (abstractly) and want to ride on a boat.<br>Edges — I read the 4 books in this series and enjoyed them all. Some more spacefaring sci-fi with plenty of interesting challenges to surmount. Worth a look if that sounds good to you!<br>Swamp Story — I read a couple books by Dave Barry on a whim this year, and I prefer his fiction to his humor/travel writing. A story of some lowlives in the Florida everglades, a bit slapstick at times, but overall enjoyable.<br>Party Discipline — I’m a simple person: I see a new Cory Doctorow book, I read it! Good lessons about OPSEC for radicals and a nice tie-in to the Walkaway universe. Recommended.<br>The Stainless Steel Rat — Read this short one after reading about it on Discord, I think? Writing style felt a bit dated, but it was a short read full of English humor in a sci-fi, mystery, cops and robbers type of plot.<br>The Difference Engine — Fairly interesting read, especially as I’ve become more interested in Victorian culture. “What if Lord Byron built the Difference Engine?” I’m looking forward to reading more William Gibson this year.<br>Rocannon’s World — Not sure if I finished this whole trilogy, but the first book was a good read. Sort of a fantasy take on sci-fi. I find Ursula K Le Guin to be a very interesting author usually and this was no disappointment.<br>Fashion Climbing — I learned about Bill Cunningham aka William J from a fashion blog this year so decided to read his memoir on a whim. It was unexpectedly great! If you like fashion or want to read about being a young person in 1950s-1960s New York City, you could do a lot worse. He’s an icon and the book was quite a romp!</p><p>Phew! What a year! I’m missing some but my pinkies are getting tired of typing so this will have to do for now. If you made it this far, what book would you recommend I read next? I’m interested in a lot, as you can see, so try me!</p>

<p>I’ve been reading the Stormlight Archive, which is a massive epic fantasy series.</p><p>I take extensive notes on it. There are so many characters, places, events, plotlines, lore, etc. It’s proven to be incredibly useful. It’s the type of series where once you learn some lore, it’s fun to go back and re-read certain chapters with that new understanding. I’ll frequently pick up the previous books and rifle through them. The notes make it much quicker to find the sections I want to find.</p><p>At the same time, I think taking extensive notes can sometimes make it a little less fun. Like I’m consistently pulling myself out of the moment to jot stuff down.</p><p>Do you take notes on the books you read? If so, how do you take notes?</p>