Re: What are the best books you've read in 2024?

On 03 Jan 2025, Mark Carroll wrote:

On 26 Dec 2024, Sam Whited wrote:
>

On 2024-12-24 11:52, Mark Carroll wrote:
 > On 14 Dec 2024, Sam Whited wrote:

(snip)

 >> - "Record of a Spaceborn Few" by Becky Chambers"
 >
 > Hmmm, I've got the first of the series on my library reserve list, the
 > only copies are either missing or overdue so goodness knows if any will
 > ever turn up.
>
If you can get a copy of these, I definitely recommend it! All four
books were absolutely fantastic.

(snip)

opera" style of grand sci-fi narrative. If you want something a little
more cozy and self-contained, try "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" which is
also on my list (and is by the same author as "Spaceborn", Becky
Chambers).

(snip)

Haha, it looks as if Glasgow's library system will fail me there too but
I'll give it a chance.

(snip)

It turned out that I was too pessimistic, perhaps unfairly: they
delivered on both counts and now I have the sequels to each reserved.

The latter's indeed rather cozy, a warm, quiet, gentle kind of story,
and short enough to fit a lazy day. There certainly appears to be rather
more meat in Chambers' "Wayfarers" series. Both have plenty of
worldbuilding, imagination, and kinds of characters; I appreciate the
efforts toward showing very different perspectives. The stories don't
much challenge us on the science side but they make for good
entertainment. In a sense, they're very human: it's the people who
matter.

A couple of things I appreciate based on what I'm personally enjoying
right now: what sex there is fits the story and has the right amount
described: we get enough of an idea without needing graphic detail.
And, overall, there isn't much unpleasantness, a nice contrast to, say,
Russell's "The Sparrow". At the moment, I could do with agreeable
reading and there's even some light humor that doesn't fall flat.

So, thank you indeed for the recommendation, my reading list had been
running somewhat short.

-- Mark