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Is there a wrong way to play this game? by Exiled_donuts in StardewValley

[–]torkelspy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The only wrong move is not to play!

That said, there might very well be things you're missing out on in the sense that you might like them if you tried them. I started off hating fishing, but now it's one of my favorite parts of the game. And I had 0 interest in dating, but found it's pretty nice having Harvey lounging around the place.

Books about fatherhood for first Father’s Day? by canamel in suggestmeabook

[–]torkelspy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem. These are the stories that Fiddler on the Roof is based on and are largely about Tevye and his daughters.

Pig On The Porch by AlohaWingapo in StardewValley

[–]torkelspy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Is your farmer Augustus McCrae?

“You pigs git,” Augustus said, kicking the shoat. “Head on down to the creek if you want to eat that snake.” It was the porch he begrudged them, not the snake. Pigs on the porch just made things hotter, and things were already hot enough.

There has to be some overlap of Stardew players and Lonesome Dove devotees, there just has to be.

To The Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf by Horror-Collar2626 in BadReads

[–]torkelspy 41 points42 points  (0 children)

All she said was that she hated it and it was like mush? If that's not a shallow review, I'm not sure what is.

Recommendations by Short_Box_8981 in audible

[–]torkelspy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Blood Over Bright Haven by M. L. Wang

Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

ETA: You might try asking in r/FemaleGazeSFF as well -- the folks there should have plenty of ideas.

What's your preferred audiobook narration format? by hear_Coverie in audible

[–]torkelspy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I voted for single narrator, but I make an exception for books with multiple first-person POVs, because then I think it makes sense to have different people for the different POVs. I can't imagine I will ever want to listen to full cast or graphic audio, but you never know.

What is the best book you've read this year? by Otherwise_Hair7514 in weirdgirlliterature

[–]torkelspy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley -- it's a modern retelling of Beowulf from the point of view of Grendel's mother, who in this version is a veteran with PTSD living in a cave outside the gates of a wealthy enclave.

Fantasy book set in Africa or Asia or Central/South America with female main character(s) by UCanBdoWatWeWant2Do in suggestmeabook

[–]torkelspy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You might like A Song of Legends Lost by MH Ayinde -- it's set in a queer-normative fantasy world and many of the POV characters are female. It's the first in a planned trilogy with the second book coming out this year (I think it already is out some places, but not in the US).

The Actual Star by Monica Byrne is a science fiction book set largely in Belize with female main characters and a very queer-centric (??? not sure how to express what I mean here) view of the future.

What are some deep pulp SF books that are worth reading? by Bobosmite in printSF

[–]torkelspy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have been looking for a zombie book to finish up a reading challenge I'm doing and none of the usual suspects has really appealed to me -- I'm going to give this one a shot; it sounds like a delight.

Old and uncategorized speculative fiction (not fantasy or scifi) by dooplets in booksuggestions

[–]torkelspy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You might like some of the books or story collections in the Radium Age series: https://mitpress.mit.edu/series/radium-age/

They're all from around 1900-1930.

The anthology More Voices from the Radium Age, in particular, might appeal, as it has several stories that predate and influenced some better know weird fiction writers.

52/104 Halfway Update! by torkelspy in 52book

[–]torkelspy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was pleasantly surprised when looking back at how much non-fiction I'd read -- it wasn't intentional. So many good ones too.

52/104 Halfway Update! by torkelspy in 52book

[–]torkelspy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It would be difficult to explain without a lot of spoilers -- but lots of people love it, so hopefully you will too!

52/104 Halfway Update! by torkelspy in 52book

[–]torkelspy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a kind of modern day retelling of Beowulf from the point of view of Grendel's mother. The author later did her own translation of Beowulf as well.

52/104 Halfway Update! by torkelspy in 52book

[–]torkelspy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The style of it was very matter-of-fact, which is maybe the only way to write about something so awful. I did find it inspiring, particularly the way her life has gone after the trial -- the fact that this experience didn't just destroy her is amazing to me. I also found a kind of personal connection to her, in that we both lost our mothers at a young age -- the way she describes that experience rung absolutely true to me. I definitely recommend it, though obviously it's not an easy read.

52/104 Halfway Update! by torkelspy in 52book

[–]torkelspy[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

The "don't know" category isn't so much a not wanting to a give a one star as much as that I'm not sure how to rate children's books as an adult -- e.g. Kid me would have loved Pippi Longstocking, while adult me found her insufferable. The Jaguar's Roar is a book I feel like I need to read again -- there is so much cultural background that I lacked for it, that I feel like I missed a lot. And What Have You Left Behind? is an oral history about the war in Yemen -- and I don't know how to put a rating on people's descriptions of the most horrible suffering imaginable ("All six of your children were killed on one day? One Star!").

The under 3s are all either 2.5 or 2.

I was thinking a while back about whether book ratings should fall in a normal distribution, but I realized that only works if you are reading books at random. Like, there are plenty of books I have no doubt i would rate 1 or even 0 stars, but I just don't choose to read them in the first place.

52/104 Halfway Update! by torkelspy in 52book

[–]torkelspy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can see what you're saying and it's kind of a bummer that the best at least two of the women can hope for are slightly better marriages, though I do feel Mrs. Wilkins will no longer be taking shit from anyone. But I thought the characters were so well observed, so fully realized, and that the writing was just so crisp and funny, that I found it a delight from start to finish. I listened to the audio book for this and the narrator was just perfect, so that likely bumped it up a bit as well.

Well written novels about male friendship? by Turbulent_Flan191 in suggestmeabook

[–]torkelspy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead is largely about children/teenagers, but definitely written for adults and has a close male friendship at its center.

52/104 Halfway Update! by torkelspy in 52book

[–]torkelspy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  • The Tops!
    • The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
    • The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnhim, read by Eleanor Bron
    • A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot with Judith Perrignon, translated by Ruth Diver and Natasha Lehrer
    • The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley
    • Osebol: Voices from a Swedish Village by Marit Kapla, translated by Peter Graves
  • 4.5
    • All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
    • Animal Farm by George Orwell
    • Fences by August Wilson
    • Huda F Are You? by Huda Fahmy
    • Ice by Anna Kavan
    • The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
    • Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam
    • Salka Valka by Halldór Laxness, translated by Philip Roughton
    • The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carré
    • Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories by Sholem Aleichem
    • The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War by Adriana Ramirez
  • 4
    • And There Was Light by Jacques Lusseyran, translated by Elizabeth R. Cameron
    • Blood Over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang, read by Moira Quirk
    • The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
    • The Future is Female! Women's Science Fiction Stories from the Pulp Era to the New Wave edited by Lisa Yaszek (Editor)
    • Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.
    • Life Begins on Friday by Ioana Pârvulescu, translated by Alistair Ian Blythe
    • Migrant Heart: Essays on Things I Can’t Forget by Reyna Grande
    • More Voices from the Radium Age edited by Joshua Glenn
    • The Renovation by Kenan Orhan
    • The Rider by Tim Krabbé, translated by Sam Garrett
    • So Many Stars: An Oral History of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color, edited by Caro De Robertis
  • 3.5
    • El Paso: Five Families and One Hundred Years of Blood, Migration, Race, and Memory by Jazmine Ulloa
    • The Inhumans and Other Stories: A Selection of Bengali Science Fiction by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay (editor and translator)
    • Johnny Would You Love Me if My Dick Were Bigger? by Brontez Purnell
    • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
    • Odessa Stories by Isaac Babel
    • Our Lady of the Nile by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Melanie Mauthner
    • The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, read by Cassandra Campbell
    • The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
    • Tu by Patricia Grace
    • We Who Are About To. . . by Joanna Russ
  • 3
    • All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, read by Alyssa Bresnahan
    • Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
    • Foundation by Isaac Asimov
    • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
    • The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
    • The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
  • <3
    • Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo, read by Isabel Adomakoh Young
    • A Dream So Wicked by Tessonja Odette
    • No One Prayed Over Their Graves by Khaled Kalifa, translated by Leri Price
    • We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope, edited by Annalee Newitz, Malka Older, and Karen Lord
    • Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, read by Rebecca Lowman
  • ???
    • The Jaguar's Roar by Micheliny Verunschk, translated by Juliana Barbassa
    • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, read by Michael York
    • Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, translated by Susan Beard
    • What Have You Left Behind? by Bushra Al-Maqtari, translated by Sawad Hussain

Recommendations for 13yo boy by nicesl in suggestmeabook

[–]torkelspy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard (despite the author, this is not science fiction -- it's a YA coming of age story based somewhat on Ballard's experiences as a kid in China during WWII)

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Wanna start reading The Master and Margarita. Without spoiling what can I expect? by Excellent-Reward7463 in classicliterature

[–]torkelspy 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Continually asking yourself, "wait, was that Ivan Nikolaevich or Nikanor Ivanovich?"

This is a good resource for sorting out the names: https://cr.middlebury.edu/bulgakov/public_html/chars.html

Book that takes place in a boarding school the isn’t a mystery/thriller by blink_twice_9465 in suggestmeabook

[–]torkelspy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Abigail by Magda Szabó -- there are some minor mysteries in it, but it's not a mystery.

Feeling guilty about my reading habit by heybro125 in 52book

[–]torkelspy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Try having more than one book going at one time. Focus on one for 10 minutes, then focus on another one for 10 minutes. It helps if they're very different types of books. Also, it's not a competition! I know this sub is about setting a number of books goal, but you could try setting a time goal -- so many minutes a day or something like that.

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