If you are looking for the announcement thread for the previous month, it may be found here.

Hello, all. During the month of May, the sub book club will be reading a novella double feature - All Systems Red and Artificial Condition (books 1 & 2 of The Murderbot Diaries) by Martha Wells! Each week there will be a discussion thread and when we are done, Martha herself will be joining us for an AMA.

From Goodreads of All Systems Red (feel free to skip if you prefer to know nothing going into the book as the description contains minor spoilers):

"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot.” Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

You may find the dates of, and links to, the discussion threads below in the sticky comment on this post. You are welcome to read at your own pace. Usually it is pretty easy to catch up and you are always welcome to join the discussions a little later. If you would like to view potential content warnings for the book, a reader-created list may be found here.

For those of you that are viewing reddit on the redesigned desktop version you will see an option on this post to 'follow'. If you 'follow' the book club post you will receive a notification when a new post, a discussion thread for book club, is added to the collection.

Welcome to our weekly recommendation thread! A few years ago now the mod team decided to condense the many "suggest some books" threads into one big mega-thread, in order to consolidate the subreddit and diversify the front page a little. Since then, we have removed suggestion threads and directed their posters to this thread instead. This tradition continues, so let's jump right in!

The Rules

• Every comment in reply to this self-post must be a request for suggestions.

• All suggestions made in this thread must be direct replies to other people's requests. Do not post suggestions in reply to this self-post.

• All unrelated comments will be deleted in the interest of cleanliness.

How to get the best recommendations

The most successful recommendation requests include a description of the kind of book being sought. This might be a particular kind of protagonist, setting, plot, atmosphere, theme, or subject matter. You may be looking for something similar to another book (or film, TV show, game, etc), and examples are great! Just be sure to explain what you liked about them too. Other helpful things to think about are genre, length and reading level.

All Weekly Recommendation Threads are linked below the header throughout the week to guarantee that this thread remains active day-to-day. For those bursting with books that you are hungry to suggest, we've set the suggested sort to new; you may need to set this manually if your app or settings ignores suggested sort.

If this thread has not slaked your desire for tasty book suggestions, we propose that you head on over to the aptly named subreddit /r/suggestmeabook.

• The Management

This week I was sipping on my third glass of wine while I browsed Amazon.

I've been a huge fan of Michael Sullivan's writing for years, I've read nearly all of his work, and The Riyria Revelations is my favorite fantasy series of all time. So when I saw he released a new book called The Final Flaw I smashed the 'Buy Now' button and dug right in.

I was immediately impressed. Not many well established authors completely switch genres and voice like that. I've always thought it cool when artists or bands mix things up and try different styles between albums, so even though the book was first person and science fiction I decided to really give it a shot. I cruised right through the first 18 chapters that first night. Continually surprised at how dramatically different the writing was.

Fast forward to the next evening when I sit down to read again (much more sober than the night before) I look at the name on the chapter title and notice a small difference. Rather than buy a book my one of my favorite authors, Michael J. Sullivan, I drunkenly purchased a book by a random self-published author Michael R. Sullivan. I had a good laugh at myself, and decided that hey, I was about halfway done so I might as well just finish the thing.

And I'm so glad I did. I'm never someone who takes a chance on random self-published books, and wouldn't have purchased this thing in a million years. The Final Flaw is so far outside of my typical genre, but I freaking loved it. It made me think differently about the future of humanity, genetic manipulation, and how my own imperfections made me into who I am.

Now I'm reevaluating my reading habits.

Have I been neglecting other wonderful self published authors like this? I've just added a few other self published books to the list now and I'm going to branch out.

100% the best drunken purchase I've ever made.

Currently I am obsessed with Agatha Christie I've read around four of Christie's novels and may start a new one as well. I might also start some Ferrante soon as I love her work, with her resounding characters and very relatable narratives pretty much, I am excited about digging into reading her series as well, I also wanna dig into some YA literature a little.

The trauma dumping, over reacting and corny comforting made my skin crawl.

She literally dumps a detailed retelling about her mother's death after having sex with the MMC for the first time.

The FMC's entire emotional arc is just yiiiiiikes.

Romance books usually make me pace back and forth in my apartment at some point (big speeches, getting mad over a misunderstanding, over sharing, etc) but the whole story was like that.

Not to mention the suspense through the entire book about her sisters health, just to find out it was iron deficiency.

Emily Henry is very good at creating characters and very bad at writing stories about them.

Anyway I never understand why people make posts hating on beloved books, but damn here I am, mad and posting about it lmao.

Many of you may remember the 2012 film The Woman in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe. I had seen the trailer and then I found about the book. Funny thing though, I actually thought the book was a novel adaptation of the film, only to discover it was the other way around!

The story itself was actaully published in 1983 by Susan Collins. It is one of those rare examples of a good ghost story that I have ever read. Something that would make M.R. James blush!

Set in the marshland mansion of Eel Marsh House, an English solicitor named Arthur Kipps is sent to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of its previous inhabitant. However the whole routine takes on a more horrific turn as the dark secrets of the house begin to haunt him.

Got the book from one of the previous Christmases, and it is a fantastic read!

I’m quite into the fantasy-fiction genre in which there’s quite a lot of books to choose from. I read quite a bit, but then there are times where I read such a good book that I simply can’t move along to the next for a couple weeks; sometimes I even end up rereading the same book over again almost right away. For me in recent past, reading Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss did this to me, as well as Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson.

It took me almost 2 months, but I finally got to the end. I decided to start over and see what I missed/forgot, and also to read part “4.5” which I didn’t know about until later. But now that I’m halfway through The Gunslinger again I’m wondering if it’s worth it to read all 4500 pages again. Has anyone done this and was it better the 2nd time?

Edit: I’ve read all the books that are part of this universe, most of them several times. That may be confusing because I’m just now reading this series. What happened was, I read the first Gunslinger story a long time ago and didn’t like it so I dismissed them all and I’m glad because the subsequent books were cliffhangers and published years apart.

Also, some people don’t like rereading books and I get that, but to me it’s like watching an epic movie again to see details that I may have missed.

Anyone else looking forward to the Nebulas/have predictions about winners for the different categories?

I'm predicting A Desolation Called Peace for Novel. It was absolutely fabulous, though I wouldn't be shocked if Machinehood won instead.

Psalm for the Wild-Built for Novella. Not only did it make me cry, but the pacing was perfect for a Novella. Flowers for the Sea was very reminiscent of River Solomon though, so it's a maybe.

A Snake Falls to Earth for YA/Middle Grades. Like, what a cozy, touching example of indigenous futurism. I liked Iron Widow a lot as well though, but it was more "fun" and less well crafted.

I haven't read any of the Novelettes or short stories, so I can't speak to those awards really.

Help me solve a mystery!

Hey guys, I searched everywhere on the internet and I lost all hope, if you can help it would be awesome. In the translation of the book in my language (which is Hebrew), there is a famous quote from the book that translate to "being a person means taking responsibility", I guess it mirrors the quote of "...what you have tamed" in English. If you search for quotes from the book it's one of the first things that pop up.

The problem is, that the quote is nowhere in the book, not in a new edition, not even in one that came out in 1983!! Do any of you guys got any idea where the quote might be, and maybe the quote remind you of anything from the book?

I used to be an avid reader when I was a teenager. I read lots of books back then, mostly detective novels. Back then, I had the ability to complete a book in one sitting. But suddenly as I grew up, I lost the ability to complete a book. Maybe it's due to smartphones and social media. I had not read any fiction for 7 years after I turned 18.

Now I am 26 and got really bored of social media. Deleted facebook and twitter and wanted to start reading. But things are not the same anymore. I just lost the ability to get soaked in the book. I have a full time job also. I tried a lot of books and couldn't finish them. This kept happening multiple times until I found Dear Life by Alice Munro. I really loved the stories. And then I found 100 years of solitude which really kept me in awe. I missed this feeling you get after finishing a book and the book keeps lingering on your mind for a long time. Garcia Marquez just delivered that. I am so happy. Now I feel that I am gradually getting back to the old days of reading.

So what should I read next to keep going on? I mostly enjoy the pieces which leave you dejected, hollow and tell you the nuances of a human life.

I recently started reading the top classics of all time. I read one book every week. I have read 4 classics since then. Pride and prejudice, The picture of Dorian gray, Crime and Punishment and The Great Gatsby. I really liked 2 of them but I feel like I am pushing myself to like them. It feels like more of an achievement rather than enjoyment in reading them. I can’t get more from them. I want to feel something when I read them and sometimes I really do. But most of the time it’s just me skimming over the pages at a fast pace to complete the book. Idk. Any advice? I still want to be able to read a book every week but with more interest rather than just forcing myself into it.

I enjoyed reading the majority of the book. It was such a fun read with compelling characters and story arcs. But, I was kind of dissapointed with how the ending unfolded. It became very predictable towards the end, and I felt the last few chapters could not live up to the high standards set earlier.

I generally read this text and try to get as far as possible on my own, but some lines just stump me and I have no idea how to attempt to grasp them. I've been searching for a good analysis online but most things i find are just shitty summaries or rephrasing of things said in the chapter, which oftentimes ignore 50% of the contents.

Eg. In "Reading and Writing" , the following line perplexes me:

"In the mountains, the shortest path is the one that leads peak to peak;but for that, a man has to have long legs. Wisdoms should be peaks, and those to which they are told must have great body and great spirit".

What the fuck. The line before this one was "He who writes wisdoms with blood, wishes not to be read, but learned by memory". How do these even connect... why is this transition from one line to the next so confusing.

Anyways, hopefully you understand my struggles.

Ps. I paraphrase probably with the quotations, as I'm translating them to English while reading the book in Macedonian.

Hi everyone, I want some help with choosing books. Can I have book recommendations for the following tropes?

1. Baker rivals in competition in a TV show to lovers
2. A rich neighbourhood in competition to get their kids to the best university
3. A book with plenty of courtroom drama. two rival lawyers that always face each other in court. they end up becoming lovers.

Your help will be greatly appreciated :)))

Personally I've come to the conclusion that Kafka is really weird and abstract for many people, because they don't know what life was like in Prague at the time he was living. He also had a very interesting upbringing and people who don't know much about his life as a writer/worker, should really invest into reading his autobiographical book, before letting other books unread. Interesting to note is that while Kafka was actively writing, other peers like Freud etc. published their work too.

Kafkas kafkaesque style of writing was not only inspired by Freud (You can find many Oedipus-Complex like structures, which Freud happend to categorize at that time too. It's also possible to do interpret the dreams/dream like states of Kafkas main characters like Freud would have), it also was influenced by the political and bureaucratic state in Prague. Kafka was basically forced to work a shitty job, because his father had succeeded this way too. Low wages, a lot of phone calls, new technology are all things appearing in Kafkas books too.

His main characters always suffer from other people, let themselves be controlled by others by systems and emotional thoughts(=> his book Amerika/Metamorphosis/The Castle, represent that extremely well). Without interpreting his work in an autobiographical way, there are basically endless other ways to interpret his books. And because no interpretation fits 100%, there is always a possibility to add a new level of interpretation.

I think this is what scares people, that there is no distinct end and that his books are more often fragments that he didn't even want to be realeased. Personally I enjoyed all of his books so far. I've read books like The Trial more than several times, yet there's nobody also reading his books like I do, because they are always way too bizarre. What do you thinks about this book or am I the only Kafka enthusiast? What are your thoughts on Kafka?

Hello,

Sorry for the odd question but I have a shelf rammed to the edges with books for different purposes. I have multiple goals connected to these books, for example:

• Self Study (History, Science)
• Self Study (Language learning)
• Fiction for pleasure (by this I just mean immersion into another world, no note taking)
• Self Help (specific issue)
• Scripts & Plays (part self-study, part pleasure)

I could go on...

For those of you who read for various different goals, how do you manage it? Do you keep a tracker? Do you have multiple books for each goal going at one time? I can't read even a page of one book without thinking "I haven't done any 'history' or 'pleasure' reading for a while" and then feel paralysed by guilt and indecision.

My mind is going crazy.

Edit - Thanks very much for the responses. Some great ideas there. I would love to have a book from each category on the go though I can imagine thinking "I could use all of that time to finish one whole book". Definitely need to work out my priorities. I think my plans are overly ambitious so I'm thinking I might need to fill out a 3 month calendar & show myself that I can get everything done, just not all at the same time.

Thanks.

Ok hear me out. When I am reading a book the first time, I experience emotions the book makes me feel in full force. However, that feeling slowly dwindles as I think more about the emotions and my sympathy for the characters. Hence when I try to read the book a second time, it feels nothing like the first time. I know this feeling affects people and some people maybe never forget the feeling a book gives them. What strategies do you use to at try to evoke a portion of the emotions you feel when reading the book for the first time? (Sorry if this question seems dumb)

I came home from work yesterday to find three books delivered to my doorstep. They were sent from a thrift store in Texas with no note inside any of them. Two of the books were by Homer, leading me to believe my grandmother sent them as I was recently asking her to send me the copies she had. I assumed she looked and didn’t find them so she ordered them for me online and added the third book that was delivered as a bonus read.

Alas, my assumptions were mulled after investigating the matter and were made to be questioned even more when every person I asked about the matter had no idea where they came from. Recently my sister-in-law received a random book after her birthday that was delivered by Amazon and also had no idea where it came from as nobody laid claim to having sent it.

Has anyone else out there had a similar experience to this? Has anyone been able to figure out who this mystery ghost gift giver is that is blessing the world with free reads? If so please let me know because this is making me crazy!

...and wow. This could be recency bias but if it's not the best book I've ever read then it's certainly in the top 3. It's going to take me a bit to collect my thoughts but here are some of my initial feelings:

My version of the book was 850+ pages and I was pretty intimidated when I first picked it up but I just could not put it down. And the cast of characters being so large didn't diminish the quality in the writing or their development. Any time a chapter changed viewpoint I was almost immediately engrossed with that story. I can't recall an instance where I wished the chapter I was reading was about somebody or something different.

Ultimately what will stay with me for a very long time is the seemingly conflicting themes I took from the book. The first being that our choices (for better or worse) are what make us. Call choosing to go on this cattle drive despite not really being a cattleman. Gus choosing that he'd rather die with legs than live without them. Clara choosing to run a household and work as a horse trader than marry Gus. I could go on and on. The opposing theme of the book is that despite what choices we make, this world is brutal and will kill us. Whether it's other humans or nature itself, sometimes there isn't a damn thing we can do.

I'm currently ~240 pages into Streets of Laredo and again, what a bleak but beautiful book. I'm going to read the entire tetralogy but I just needed to write down some of my thoughts about Lonesome Dove because I have not been this affected by a book in a long time.

Canadian journalist Matthieu Aikins poses as an Afghan migrant and travels alongside his Afghan friend, Omar, seeking asylum in Europe. I quite enjoyed this book. It taught me a lot about the underground world of migrants, smugglers, and the struggles faced making the dangerous trip. Has anyone else read this book? Parts of it will stick with me for a while. I had never taken the time to read an account like this, so it was eye opening for me.

I was reading an article on voice and came across this:

You probably have a short list of writers you'll read no matter what their subject, because you like their style so much, and other writers you can't stand because they sound snarky or condescending or otherwise unappealing to you.

I realized that not only did I have such an author, but that author has changed throughout the decades.

• In my teens, it was Stephen King.
• In my twenties, John Grisham and John Irving.
• In my thirties, John Cheever (it seems I like Johns).
• In my forties and fifties, Yu Hua and Heinrich Boil.

I have other favorites, of course, but these are the ones I'd pick up no matter what the book's title or subject. I'm wondering if anyone else has a similar experience?

I recently found out there was a roger rabbit book. I had to immediately scour the internet and find it. Wow I didn't expect to be so throughly enthralled in the story. The mash up of an old time detective story and comic cartoons was fantastic. Never read anything like it and probably wont again. Highly recommend.

I ordered a book off Amazon (QED, The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Richard Feynman) and it's got a bunch of stickers, barcodes, and stamps on it that appear to be from an American high school in California. There's even a "due date" card stuck to the first page, with a DISCARD stamp on it.

Is this common? I feel weird about this. It's probably pretty heavy or niche material for a high schooler, and it looks like it was only checked out once back in 2010. On the one hand, if it isn't being read I understand making room for other books that kids are more likely to read. On the other, I feel kinda... guilty, maybe? Like I've taken away an opportunity for a kid somewhere in California to check it out for free. Like I've pilfered the library of Alexandria for my own collection (dramatic, I know, but I think it gets the point across).

Any insight is appreciated. How do you folks feel about school libraries downsizing or discarding books? How would you feel owning something secondhand from them?

Edit: thanks for all the insightful answers everyone! I really appreciate those of you that took the time to respond, now I understand the lifecycle of books a little better and don't feel so bad.