KattyB

Reading is revolutionary and words hold power She/Her

4816 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Monstrous Regiment (Discworld, #31; Industrial Revolution, #3)

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)

The Fall of Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #2)

Reading...

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

45%

KattyB made progress on...

Of Monsters and Mainframes

Barbara Truelove

KattyB commented on a post

readwkylie

the binary code…? 😭

got this audiobook gifted and why am i listening to BINARY read aloud to me 😭 i am absolutely cackling

KattyB started reading...

Of Monsters and Mainframes

Barbara Truelove

Spaceships aren’t programmed to seek revenge—but for Dracula, Demeter will make an exception. Demeter just wants to do her shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans. To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team of A werewolf. An engineer built from the dead. A pharaoh with otherworldly powers. A vampire with a grudge. A fleet of cheerful spider drones. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula. The queer love child of pulp horror and classic sci-fi, Of Monsters and Mainframes is a dazzling, heartfelt odyssey that probes what it means to be one of society’s monsters—and explores the many types of friendship that make us human.

KattyB commented on a post

17h

KattyB

Thoughts from 21% (page 82)

Deeeeply concerned with how sexually and physically aggressive the males are in this book and everyone in the story is just okay with it and/or excited by it. Is it necessary? It doesn't feel like it's creating any tension, just a bunch of weird scenes bordering on abuse.

This was a bookclub pick so I'm gonna keep reading but the vibes are definitely off. Does it get better?

KattyB commented on a post

17h

KattyB

Edited

Thoughts from 56% (page 314)

spoilers

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KattyB commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

19h

SkywardStrange

Deep Cuts: Books You Love That You Feel Like Nobody Else Has Read

Howdy boundlings! Here's a fun question:

What books do you love that you feel like no one else has read?

You know the one. You recommend it all the time and the forum never gets any new posts. Maybe it's an old favorite, maybe it's out of print or in a polarizing genre. Tell me about your underappreciated faves - maybe we can get some yoink trains going!

I'll go first - I adore Nightwatch on the Hinterlands by K. Eason. The worldbuilding is great, its like D&D in space, the MC is a strong lady orc paladin and her alien ambassador lizardfolk wizard bestie, plus the cyborgs that are exploring their new autonomy. They investigate weird murders, uncover conspiracies, and fight space Cthulhu monsters in fight scenes I would give my precious limbs to see played out on film or as a video game. It's a series, it has a sequel and seems to be ongoing, please read it I love it so much. And I love all of you ❤️ 💕 happy reading!

KattyB commented on KattyB's update

KattyB started reading...

Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #3)

Dan Simmons

The multiple-award-winning SF master returns to the universe that is his greatest success--the world of Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion--to tell a story of love and memory, triumph and terror in a novel even more magnificent than its predecessors. Two hundred and seventy-four years after the fall of the WorldWeb in Fall of Hyperion, Raoul Endymion is sent on a quest. Retrieving Aenea from the Sphinx before the Church troops reach her is only the beginning. With help from a blue-skinned android named A. Bettik, Raoul and Aenea travel the river Tethys, pursued by Father Captain Frederico DeSoya, an influential warrior-priest and his troops. The shrike continues to make enigmatic appearances, and while many questions were raised in Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion, still more are raised here. Raoul's quest will continue.

KattyB commented on KattyB's update

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Calls May Be Recorded for Training and Monitoring Purposes

Katharina Volckmer

Should we really ever bring our whole selves to work? In a London call centre, Jimmie helps holiday makers with myriad problems, but he is hardly a model employee. He doesn’t simply provide customer service to his clients and advice to his colleagues, he gets involved in their fantasies and frustrations, and now he’s about to be hauled up in front of the boss. From perfecting his roles as an undertaker and as a clown to performing duties above and beyond his employment contract, he debates the importance of the optimum shade for lipstick and bathroom walls, the pros and cons of nudist versus textile, as well as the psychological impacts of an Italian mother and an emotional support animal. This is the second, ribald, scatological novel from the brilliant author of The Appointment. Jimmie’s sly, sharp, melancholy insights into the indignities of a world which aims to eliminate the human will make you laugh, weep and never look the same way at an electric carving knife again.

KattyB started reading...

Endymion (Hyperion Cantos, #3)

Dan Simmons

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Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto

Kōhei Saitō

"[A] well-reasoned and eye-opening treatise . . . [Kohei Saito makes] a provocative and visionary proposal." —Publishers Weekly, (starred review)"Saito’s clarity of thought, plethora of evidence, and conversational, gentle, yet urgent tone . . . are sure to win over open-minded readers who understand the dire nature of our global. . . . A cogently structured anti-capitalist approach to the climate crisis." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Why, in our affluent society, do so many people live in poverty, without access to health care, working multiple jobs and are nevertheless unable to make ends meet, with no future prospects, while the planet is burning?In his international bestseller, Kohei Saito argues that while unfettered capitalism is often blamed for inequality and climate change, subsequent calls for “sustainable growth” and a “Green New Deal” are a dangerous compromise. Capitalism creates artificial scarcity by pursuing profit based on the value of products rather than their usefulness and by putting perpetual growth above all else. It is therefore impossible to reverse climate change in a capitalist society— the system that caused the problem in the first place cannot be an integral part of the solution. Instead, Saito advocates for degrowth and deceleration, which he conceives as the slowing of economic activity through the democratic reform of labor and production. In practical terms, he argues the end of mass production and mass consumptiondecarbonization through shorter working hours the prioritization of essential labor over corporate profitsBy returning to a system of social ownership, he argues, we can restore abundance and focus on those activities that are essential for human life, effectively reversing climate change and saving the planet.

KattyB paused reading...

Calls May Be Recorded for Training and Monitoring Purposes

Katharina Volckmer

KattyB paused reading...

Plastic Budgie

Olivia De Zilva

Olivia De Zilva's Plastic Budgie is a brutally funny and inventive debut about family and identity, full of itchy Y2K nostalgia, curses and glimpses of birds. Olivia was named after a lycra-clad singer her parents saw on Rage. As a child, she lost the ability to speak and spent a year barking like a dog. Her Gong Gong bought her a yellow bird in a shoebox from the Adelaide Central Markets. Her heart was broken by a guitar teacher at a school disco. She started university and learnt to swim and travelled to Guangzhou for her cousin’s wedding. And in between all that, she tried to form an adult person, while feeling more like a person-shaped hole. In her semi-autobiographical, genre-defying and wonderfully crafted debut, De Zilva collects stories in a cabinet: neat coming-of-age anecdotes and sitcom characters trapped on shelves. Then she breaks it all apart. Plastic Budgie questions how our memories form us, in a way that is somehow both unapologetically sentimental and eternally surprising.

KattyB commented on a post

Megbomb

Thoughts from 80% (page 108)

spoilers

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KattyB made progress on...

10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

Elif Shafak

45%

KattyB commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

byumblebee

Edited

contributing to the great tomato war

i have just seen an episode of starfleet academy when one of the characters literally ate a big tomato like an apple. 🤢 🤮

i am firmly in the tomatoes are really lovely, but i can’t understand people eating it like an apple. but… pizza? pasta? bruschetta? papaya salad? salsa? YES.

then i realised… how can one judge another if i have never tried it? so i gave it a try today.

and….

IT IS NOT RIGHT YOU PEOPLE ARE MAD FOR EATING TOMATOES LIKE APPLES YOU MONSTERS

edited to add: after 8 years of marriage i have just found out my husband likes to eat tomatoes like apples, what should i do? 😭😭😭

ETA2: eating a whole cherry tomato is FINE NOT BIG TOMATOES LIKE APPLES GODDAMNIT

ETA3: SOMEONE JUST STATED THEY EAD RED ONIONS LIKE APPLES THIS INSANITY CANNOT GO ON ANY LONGER

193

KattyB commented on a post

underthebooktree

Edited

Thoughts from 2% (page 5)

“The possibility of an immediate and wholesale decimation of civilization was not half as frightening as the simple realization that our individual passing had no impact on the order of things, and life would go on just the same with or without us. Now that, she had always thought, was terrifying.”

The prose is so beautiful so far, I can already tell this book is going to wreck me.

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KattyB

From 100% (final thoughts)

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DooBeeDoo

Thoughts from 38% (page 194, End of Chapter 24)

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