Last Month We Read... Cyberpunk, 100-Year Old Noir & and an Irish Bestseller

[@SheWasOnlyEvie]

That Steinbeck guy is gonna be going places, I’m sure of it! My rage at Private Rites has abated to abject disappointment. Thanks for the buddy reads, you two! 💜

[@storytoob]

Awh thanks so much friend! ❤️💚🖤💜

[@kaizacorp]

I definitely want to check out The Grapes of Wrath, Emma Newman, and Terminal Boredom! Looking forward to the reviews and happy to hear the kitties will be getting maximum Carlos cuddles! ❤

[@storytoob]

Yay! Thanks man ❤️

[@esmayrosalyne]

Sorry to hear about the job loss, Carlos! At least you got some great reads in to escape real life for a while... silver linings! I haven't dared read The Book that Broke the World yet for exactly this reason... I might just wait and see how the finale is received, and then make a judgement call on the series lol. And oooh I really need to get into some Winslow already! 🤩

[@storytoob]

Thanks Esmay! Yeah I'll wait for the final book to make judgement on the series, and I don't think the second book is bad at all, just confusing and treading the same ground. I'm hopeful for the last one though. Cheers!

[@verosnotebook]

Sorry to hear about your job, Carlos. Hope you find another soon. We’re having a hard time too but fighting. About Keegan, I was also puzzled by all the hype. Read Foster and I liked it, the prose sparse yet lyrical. Haven’t read anything else of hers. As for Grapes of Wrath, I read it at school and I was way too young. Really want to read Beast in the Shadows.

[@storytoob]

Thanks Vero! Hope things get easier for you too! ❤️ Yeah, Grapes hit me at the right time.. I can imagine if I had read it in school I'd have found it boring

[@joshyaks]

I'm sitting here listening to you talk about Steinbeck after my bank has informed me that my disability income is no longer enough to carry my mortgage, so I'll be losing the house I've been living in for the past 15 years with no idea where I'll end up. Steinbeck is already on my TBR, but now I've also added Don Winslow to the list.

[@storytoob]

@@joshyaks really sorry to hear that Josh! That's awful! I hope you find a solution soon.

[@JosephReadsBooks]

Earthsea on audio is really damn good. I listened to Firewatch in the middle of June. The audio was good. I'm looking forward to Doomsday Book. That is an awesome copy of The Grapes of Wrath. I will read The Grapes of Wrath eventually. I love Of Mice and Men and Tortilla Flats. Terminal Boredom was a very interesting read. The Thin Man was great. I'm glad we buddy read it. I'm sorry you had a rough month of reading Yolanda. I know I will end up reading everything Don Winslow has written so I'm looking forward to City of Dreams. I think June was my secret Storytoob month. I read The Thin Man with Carlos, I also read Terminal Boredom and Firewatch. Oh and I binged the Red Rising trilogy 😂. It was a good month. I'm also reading Lonesome Dove in July. Great wrap up!

[@storytoob]

We appreciate ya Broseph ❤️ We're both reading Pop 1280 by Jim Thompson for a book club if you want to join! I've started (Carlos) already and it's verrrrry good

[@JosephReadsBooks]

@@storytoob damn that book sounds really interesting! I will try to make time for it. (I'm glad it is is short book 😂).

[@storytoob]

No stress man! If you have time, if you're so inclined... We've been wanting to read it for ages so Yolanda orchestrated its selection for the bookclub she runs 😂

[@Coleton2573]

I was only able to read two books in June. 😆 Tigana by GGK and The King of Shadows by Robert McCammon. Worst reading month I can remember having, even though both were great reads. First half of the month I was hiking in the Rocky Mountains instead of reading. Second half I spontaneously binge rewatched three and a half seasons of Lost in about two weeks. 🙃 It happens every few years, can't stop once I start. I actually stopped watching Lost to watch this video. That's how cool y'all are.

[@storytoob]

Coleton, there is no higher praise than pausing a Lost marathon to watch one of our videos! We have the same affliction 😂 this is the second time someone mentions Lost to me in the last couple of week, I wonder if that’s a sign that it’s time for a rewatch…

[@someokiedude9549]

A lot of people have said it already, but sorry to hear about the job loss Carlos. But hey, at least you get some extra reading time while you're at it. I recently got out of a summer class recently, so I've also been freed up to read some more stuff. I got some books and comics I hope to get to soon. Keep it up guys!

[@storytoob]

Exactly, cheers Britton!

[@BookishChas]

Whoa Carlos, sorry about the job loss man. The entire Earthsea series is excellent! I’ve been meaning to read Dashiell Hammett. I’ll need to add some Don Winslow books to my list.

[@storytoob]

Cheers man!

[@BooksWithBenghisKahn]

Oy sorry Carlos about the job situation, but at least extra reading time is a nice upside. It sounds like I might’ve run out of steam on Snow Crash a couple hundred pages before you did - this would’ve been a banger of a novella but there was just not enough there to justify the page count. Hope the next reading month goes better for you Yolanda!

[@storytoob]

Hahaha you ever tried any other Stephenson?

[@thatsci-firogue]

Oh man, I need to get back to LeGuin and Lawrence. In June I read: *Historical-Fantasy* Children of Earth & Sky / Guy Gavriel Kay - Carried over from May. Loved it. A Brightness Long Ago / Guy Gavriel Kay - My new favourite Kay I've read so far, and a new favourite book of all-time! Book of the Month!!! All the Seas of the World / Guy Gavriel Kay - Pretty good. Glad I read this loose trilogy in publication order. I understand the lukewarm reviews and I seem to have liked it more than most, though my favourite parts were the tie-ins to ABLA, CoE&S and Lions of Al-Rassan. *Sci-Fi* Vorkosigan Saga 1: Shards of Honor - Definitely be continuing this series. *Southern Gothic* Child of God / Cormac McCarthy - It was fine, but really creepy at times. For now I NFNed Jonathan Maberry's Patient Zero and Christopher Ruocchio's Howling Dark. They're good, just not what I'm looking for right now. As for what I'm currently reading: *Historical-Fantasy* The Last Light of the Sun / Guy Gavriel Kay - Kay's re-imagining of the Viking invasions of King Alfred's England, its really good so far. *Historical-Fiction* Red Sky in Morning / Paul Lynch - Wanted to read more modern Irish authors, and its set in my home county of Donegal. Still early days yet. *Sci-Fi* Cloud Atlas / David Mitchell - Still early days yet but I haven't a clue wtf is going on. *Thriller* Winter of Frankie Machine / Don Winslow - Really good so far.

[@storytoob]

Glad you’re enjoying Frankie Machine! I’m curious what you’ll make of Cloud Atlas, I don’t think I ever got to a point where I understood what was going on 😂 I need to get to GGK! Been meaning to try him for a while.

[@thatsci-firogue]

@@storytoob Do it, Carlos! Read him! Yeah I don't think it's helping it's short stories, which I'm not the biggest fan of in SFF.

[@storytoob]

That one was Yolanda, but I do also want to read him 😂

[@thatsci-firogue]

@@storytoob 😅

[@thatsci-firogue]

@@storytoob NGL I'm struggling with Cloud Atlas right now, that first story was such a struggle for me I'm hesitant to continue.

[@nazimelmardi]

Sorry to hear about the job situation. Hope you get a new one fast. As for Earthsea, the story will be more serious later and the characters too. From YA it’s more adult. For cyberpunk I would recommend Altered Carbon. While the tv series is a fail, the trilogy is not. It’s a very good example and it’s not pushing the tech more the cool characters and story.

[@storytoob]

Thanks Nazim! Something will turn up. Cheers yeah I have Altered Carbon on the radar ever since I watched the show

[@nazimelmardi]

@@storytoob the TV show is really not following the book story. The s1 has about 50% similar parts but the s2 is basically nothing. The terrorist bullsh… is not a thing in the book. And that modified the end of the tv show too and brought in the new character plus the 2nd season is built on it. The interesting is that I never understood why. The book had a way more complex story and female characters and such.

[@thatsci-firogue]

I enjoyed Altered Carbon but A Land Fit for Heroes would be my favourite series by Morgan.

[@eavanodonoghue]

I haven’t read any Claire Keegan exactly because of the size/price situation. Every time I see them in the shops, I pick them up and then put them down again. Also partly because I’m not sure I want to read more depressing Irish literature. I’d love to find more uplifting Irish books. If you ever want to do a video on happy Irish book recommendations, that would be really cool. I just read Grapes of Wrath last month too. Steinbeck is amazing.

[@storytoob]

@@eavanodonoghue Roddy Doyle is one of my favourite Irish writers! So hilarious and great Dublin dialect. - The Commitments - The Snapper - Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha The Searcher by Tana French is also brilliant!

[@eavanodonoghue]

@@storytoob I’ve never read any Roddy Doyle, although I’ve seen a lot of the films. You can’t grow up in Ireland in the 90s without having seen them on TV!! I’ll have to check out Tana French, thanks!!

[@storytoob]

Yeeep I used to watch The Snapper and The Commitments a good bit 😂 even in school