Categories
Books Podcasts

The end of an era?

Without long drives, the era of listening to podcasts could be coming to an end. The recent ones have been pretty good… so maybe I’ll see if I can keep them in the rotation, somehow.

Dice tower news 186 – 189; steady good updates.

Radio Free Burrito 034 — Another weird, solid episode, though I was hoping for more Poe.

Feat the Boot 320 & 321 — Conclusion of unique snowflakes; fine, though much less “concrete” than they seem to think.

Ken and Robin 67 — The gaming hut about character design options was a good exploration of point buy versus package improvement. Ask Ken and Robin was a good segment about buying into the premise of the game to enjoy the game.

This American Life 512 — House Rules. A great examination of zoning, home ownership, redlining’s historical roots (and after effects). Good detailed reporting.

TJ Hour 1051 and 1052 — an exception to the generally good nature of the podcasts this week. They teased the episode as a press conference, and said they had an hour and a half of material–but for some reason only included one non-staged question in 1051, then repeated the boilerplate discussion of Jefferson and architecture (the same questions but differently phrased answers; like we’d heard a rough and final draft in the two weeks). We got a few more “press conference” questions, but very few. A real missed opportunity.

Books

The Path of Daggers (Wheel of Time 8) — Continued strong and ended well.

Winter’s Heart (Wheel of Time 9) — The first part is good, but when we turn our attention to Mat we realize how much he’s been absent. It’s an interesting chunk of book; slow without being stagnant. The return to Rand at the end is slow, then frantic.

Book 10, Crossroads of Twilight is with Dad… I need to borrow it before I lose momentum.

I began R. A. MacAvoy’s “The Grey Horse”, which I almost set aside before the early reveal. It’s still not compelling, but I have higher hopes.

Categories
Books Memes

Meme: 10 books

What’s old is new again… the 10 books meme struck me on Facebook. I thought I’d toss the answers here, so I can be amused at how much they change next time it rolls around.

10 Books that changed my life upon first reading them and have stayed with me: (via Will Johnson and Tony Ridgway)

10. Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion
9. Several Piers Anthony series: Xanth, Bio of a Space Tyrant, and Incarnations of Immortality
8. Ender’s Game
7. The Time of the Dark
6. The Chronicles of Amber
5. The Eye of the Heron. A great prompt to examine pacifism, the difficulty in adhering to it… and to think about success and failure of non-violence as a movement. All of her Hainish/Ekumen novels prompt thought about cultural influences and nature/nurture in worlds with very different nurture.
4. The Chronicles of Narnia. I read the covers off of them. Then I heard how it had all been a trick to proselytize, which led me to carefully reread and notice the parallels. Soon I appreciated how well drawn they were and how appealing Narnia’s story is. Streamlined for kids; rough in important ways. The stone table scene delivers what feels overwrought or like torture porn in telling Jesus’ life.
3. Red Box D&D/AD&D: I read, and mused, and studied, and researched—and built worlds for myself and my friends to inhabit. In many ways THE most influential book in terms of guiding how I spend my days and what I think about.
2. The Last Herald Mage: Magic’s Pawn. Lackey’s hurting, misunderstood young hero made homosexuality painfully normal, by experiencing the confusion and longing for myself.
1. A Wizard of Earthsea. Precise, beautiful writing, a story with a moral; difficult relationships, and acceptance that we all die. The third book, The Furthest Shore, was similarly powerful–though it taught a sense of balance, restraint, and provided a vision of life as an old person that seemed pretty cool all the same.