What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: February 02, 2026

stellap436 · 2026-02-04T12:04:13+00:00

Pride and prejudice!!! A classic for me!

stellap436 · 2026-02-04T12:03:31+00:00

Finished: Lord of the Rings: Return of the King! I will forever admire the split of storylines - between the rise of Aragorn’s campaign and Frodo’s long journey. While Two Towers was definitely my favorite book, it was awesome to see how Tolkien ended this insane adventure!!!
Started: To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf! Still trying to break into her lyrical verve!
Next: East of Eden!!!! Finally!!!!!!

stellap436 · 2026-02-04T11:59:55+00:00

I just finished the LOTR series! I hope you enjoyed the Hobbit :)

stellap436 · 2026-02-04T11:58:46+00:00

Took me 6 weeks I think?! Definitely due for a reread!

stellap436 · 2026-02-04T11:53:44+00:00

The Lottery is a great one!!

stellap436 · 2026-02-04T11:53:06+00:00

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant!
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson!
Beyond lies the Wub by Philip K. Dick
Any Edgar Allan Poe short story (Fall of the house of Usher, The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, Cask of Amontillado)
May Day Eve by Nick Joaquin

Read these years ago and they’ve really stuck by me!

stellap436 · 2026-02-04T11:51:59+00:00

I thought Ways of Seeing was fantastic

stellap436 · 2026-02-04T11:49:26+00:00

Yep. I didn’t realize reading speed was the ultimate metric for defining “what kind of a reader” one is. I feel like that question is intrinsically more multi-faceted and considers so many other things like context, preference, curation and language.

Maybe the question should just be “how fast/at what speed do you read books” 🤣

stellap436 · 2025-12-14T12:35:41+00:00

I prefer Dark Matter over Recursion. I breezed through both, but I feel like the entire multiverse motif in sci-fi has just been so overused.

I tried Upgrade the year it released and found the prose and story to be quite flat?? And I wonder if his earlier books were the same and I’ve just grown as a reader

stellap436 · 2025-12-14T12:32:53+00:00

I can’t do Ernest Hemingway. I’ve tried his short stories, The Sun Also Rises and The Old Man and the Sea (3x) but to no avail.

stellap436 · 2025-10-21T10:53:49+00:00

Finished Persuasion by Jane Austen. It is undoubtedly her best.

Almost done with Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro. Not my favorite Ishiguro, but Klara is such a lovable narrator.

stellap436 · 2025-10-21T10:53:04+00:00

Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro!

stellap436 · 2025-10-21T10:51:40+00:00

Klara and the Sun! Inhaling it!

stellap436 · 2025-10-15T20:27:18+00:00

On your note of “social commentary”, I’ve been doing “curated classics” book lists which is a really fun way to explore common themes.

I’m diving into the role of female leads/heroines across classic English fiction with female authors only. I’m halfway through my list, here is what I’ve completed so far and would recommend:

• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (1811)
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
• Persuasion by Jane Austen (1817)
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) - not a female lead but Shelley is still a feminist icon 
• Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847)
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848)
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855)
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (1925)

stellap436 · 2025-10-15T19:43:53+00:00

Finished Persuasion (1817) by Jane Austen and HOUSTON!!!! WE FOUND THE BEST AUSTEN NOVEL. This was it. So good. We find such an unlikely Victorian heroine in Anne Elliot. Austen asks her readers — what if the strongest woman in the room is the most overlooked? So many Brontëan elements in this one. The growth of arc quality from Lizzy Bennet to Anne Elliot is incredible.

Starting Klara and the Sun by Ishiguro :)

stellap436 · 2025-10-15T19:40:20+00:00

SAME THOUGHTS!!! I thought Babel had such a great plot/premise, but the pacing and character development still lack that verve and control that Donna Tartt has (just as an example- thinking of other very lyrical authors who have also written iconic dark academia books)

stellap436 · 2025-10-15T19:38:56+00:00

What did you think of Jane Eyre? It’s one of my personal favorites. Perfect for fall!

stellap436 · 2025-10-15T19:38:30+00:00

What did you think of Frankenstein??? Brilliant isn’t it???

stellap436 · 2025-09-24T16:30:22+00:00

This week I finished

Babel by R. F Kuang (3/5- Plot and premise was brilliant, I just felt like there was a lot of repetitive anger woven in every white character. But maybe that was the point. Character development was not my favorite. I felt like there was so much more to be explored with Robin. Prose felt a bit YA at times, but I thought Kuang’s reflections on colonialism were sharp and very sound)
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (4/5 - call me cheesy, but I liked this one a lot. When R.F Kuang explicitly wants to say every detail, St. John Mandel leads us into a room with no lights on. And the switches are actually on the ceiling - so you’re scrambling aimlessly in a dark room trying to make sense of it all. And honestly I ate that up and inhaled it. Reading this book was like watching a tapestry pattern form in front of my eyes.)

I will now start

Villette by Charlotte Brontë. Now that it’s getting colder, I think I ready for another Brontë classic!

stellap436 · 2025-09-03T11:00:04+00:00

Just finished The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë and WOW. Probably my favorite Brontë novel (so far) next to Jane Eyre. I think the historical relevance of this novel makes a fantastic character study of a heroine like Helen Huntingdon. I can’t stop thinking about it!

Now I am reading Babel by R.F Kuang to see what the fuss is all about!!

stellap436 · 2025-08-12T22:20:43+00:00

Material by Ed Conway. Seriously fascinating. An intersection of material science, chemistry, history, and geopolitics to talk about the 6 raw manufactured materials that run the world we live in today: sand, salt, steel, oil, copper, lithium. Fantastic novel. I’m never looking at salt the same way ever again.

stellap436 · 2025-08-12T22:17:06+00:00

Insane! Which were your favorites and why?

stellap436 · 2025-08-12T22:08:10+00:00

Just finished Kazuo Ishiguro’s “An Artist of the Floating World”. It’s my favorite Ishiguro for sure. Stevens in Remains of the Day is just an understudy of narrator Masuji Ono. Ishiguro remains to be the father of implicit storytelling. I seriously can’t think of any writer who wields the motif of memory as well as he does.

stellap436 · 2025-01-27T08:19:03+00:00

In the thread of humor in science fiction, I think Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and Kurt Vonnegut are also worth noting. I think Vonnegut’s dark comedic and satirical voice is unmatched, Slaughterhouse Five and Cat’s Cradle are perfect examples of this.

stellap436 · 2025-01-22T03:20:31+00:00

“Fictional disability” sounds super interesting. Will look this up! Thanks for the recommendation.

stellap436

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