Friday Reads 01/10/25

Books mentioned:
1. “Crónicas de la Torre: El Valle de los Lobos”, Laura Gallego García
2. “Rejection”, Tony Thulathimutte
3. “El Ruletista”, Mircea Cartarescu
4. “The House of Silk”, Anthony Horowitz
5. “Los peligros de fumar en la cama”, Mariana Enríquez (The dangers of smoking in bed)

[realkingofantarctica]

Good to see you're still doing well.

[professoraugust]

I’m just gonna add to your - what I’m sure is already too long a tbr - list of books to check out: Martin Pousson’s Black Sheep Boy and Kimberly King Parsons’s Black Light. They’re two of my absolute fav collections

[elenagreads]

Entiendo totalmente lo que pasó con Cartarescu! En mi caso lo abordé como: tan hypeado no será para tanto...y funcionó 😂
Tengo muchísimas ganas de leer las historias cortas de George Saunders, su novela "Lincoln in the Bardo" me encantó!

[jackwalter]

Solenoid is an absolute 21st century classic. Also, a beautiful translation into English. For short stories, try A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin. Really great.

[Paromita_M]

Happy New Year!
If you don't like overly flowery, stay away from Solenoid (at least based on the English translation) 😄

I will look up Rejection.

[epistollaire]

I’ll jump in with another recommendation — have you ever read any Stefan Zweig? I finished The Post Office Girl a couple of weeks ago and I’m still thinking about it. I recommend Abigail by Magda Szabo too, which I just finished. Both were absolutely incredible 5-star reads.

[ericx-]

If you're interested in foreign fantasy, you should try bridge of birds. It's a fantasy novel that's based on ancient China.

[EatWithBadlands]

I was always someone who liked the idea of self-publication. I always respect someone who is willing to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and venture into the unknown. However…

I have read two self-published booktube darlings this year (Sword of Kaigen & Artificial Wisdom). Both of these books had the absolute worst writing I’ve ever read and they are the only two books I have DNF’d in like the past 3 years. Constant info dumping, terrible dialogue, and just felt extremely amateurish.

I love the idea of self-publishing but I’ve just read too many great books at this point so that when I see terrible writing, it really grinds my gears. I think I’ll stick to traditional publishers from now on unfortunately.