Seeing that illustration again after many, many years was a real blast. Greatly appreciated!
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Very few books/stories by Vernor Vinge left to read … I’m through almost all of them. Just ordered “True Names … and Other Dangers” and “Threats … and Other Promises” (used, ofc), and then, I think, I have all of Vinge’s SF novels and stories that have been printed in books.
Currently I’m halfway through his book “Rainbows End” …
… and it feels like “Five Stars” already … but then again, for me, ALL books and stories by Vinge gave me that feeling after the usual five to ten pages I need to get into his worlds, and after these initial pages I’m totally immersed in them, I have yet to read anything by Vinge that would disappoint me.
After this, if the two story collections mentioned above won’t arrive earlier, it will be Adrian Tchaikovsky again, I still have quite big “To Read” stack of his books.
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Trying to speed through this new release:
I heard one of the authors present his ideas almost 20 years ago; tomorrow I get to go hear the other!
At the halfway point, it seems like a thorough survey of hypotheses about the origin of life. Extreme detail on the biochemistry, far less on geology and astrophysics. I find it interesting but I’m not sure that it’s more useful than just browsing these topics on Wikipedia.
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One of my all time favourites:
Alexandre Dumas - The count of Monte Cristo
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The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite novel of all time. And the last line is one of my favorite epigrams: “…has not the count just told us that all human wisdom is summed up in two words?—Wait and hope.”
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Interesting …
(I’m still reading the last of Vernor Vinge’s SF stories (“True Names”) that I could find that I haven’t yet read … I think I have read all his novels now … the last one, just as mind-blowing as his others, was “Rainbows End” (see above).)
But the reason I clicked “reply” to your post, @Feijoa, is this book, which is the next in my “to read” stack:
Julie Nováková, Lucas K. Law & Susan Forest (eds.): “Life Beyond Us – An Original Anthology of SF Stories And Science Essays”
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I’m currently reading the second book of the Tsitsi Dangarembga’s trilogy, The Book of Not (but I read it in German, where it’s called “Verleugnen”).
And I’m also reading “Mythos Bildung” by Aladin El-Mafaalani, which is a truly mindblowing sociological analysis of the German education system and its segregation by class. Many seemingly paradox mechanisms are explained logically. If you are German, I can highly recommend reading it (also to people with no children/grandchildren).
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Gives me memory of Durkheim “la reproduction”
Very recognisable, reading multiple books in the same time period.
Hope it doesn’t cause you any reading stress.
I always feel a bit guilty if I start a new book before the one(s) I am reading stil have das Lesezeichen somewhere in the middle of the book. Always a risk that they stay there permanently 
Having said this; just started Giovanni Guareschi’s Don Camillo series.
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I don’t feel guilty about that. 
It’s just a part of living with ADHD.
But sometimes it does stress me a bit, because I borrow most books from the library. Physical books are not a problem, as they are borrowed for 4 weeks and that time can be prolonged. Quite many good books, however, are only available as ebooks, and can only be borrowed for 21 days max. If a book is popular, and other people are waiting for it, it might take a while until I can borrow it again. 
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Strictly a bit off topic …
Isaac Asimov sitting on a throne of books he authored (500+ books, don’t know the exact number).
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Nine Nasty Words by John McWhorter is a guided tour through the history of profanity in the English language. The story is told with an abundance of good humour, although the book also explores the darker side of language with the tone becoming appropriately sober. In any case, McWhorter, who teaches linguistics at Columbia University in New York, displays a firm command of the subject, a wealth of factoids and anecdotal material that stretches from the time of the Viking invasions to the contemporary pop culture scene. It’s ideal for readers attracted to both language studies and trivia.
I don’t know to what extent I can review the book without violating this website’s terms of service. There are certainly some oblique ways of going about it, but I’ve concluded that this would likely be a bit wearisome for me and possibly exasperating for anyone reading it. “Oh for crying out loud, will you stop mincing about and just say the damn word!” That kind of thing.
What I can tell you is that the book thoroughly details how these words evolved, the amazing versatility some of them acquired over time, and, perhaps most impressively, how language just keeps on bobbing and weaving and resisting attempts to control it. It really is a force of nature, relentless and often capricious. Words originally intended to demean and disparage can sometimes become terms of fellowship and solidarity; or a word that once indicated minimal worth suddenly expresses authenticity. People of bygone eras seem predictably puritanical about religious terminology, yet they can surprise us with their liberal use of gutter words that we would hesitate over. There’s a great deal to discover here.
I’ll leave you with a couple of language nuggets. The original English word for rabbit is coney—rhymes with money. This seems innocuous enough. But the root of the word bears a troubling resemblance to a distasteful four letter word the nature of which I won’t specify here. And thanks to some mischief makers ( among them the famous seventeenth century diarist Samuel Pepys ) coney eventually fell out of favour and was replaced by rabbit, which originally referred to a juvenile coney.
Furthermore, according to a now discredited theory, another of those nasty words was inspired by an instruction that sometimes appeared on merchant vessels. Ship high in transit. Because you wouldn’t want all that sheep manure to get wet belowdecks. That stuff is gold, man. Got to care for it properly.
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This calls to mind Gershon Legman’s No Laughing Matter: The Rationale of the Dirty Joke. I have a copy of that from my dad’s library, but I have never read it because it is a huge book. I did read my father’s 2-volume edition of Legman’s limerick study: The Limerick and More Limericks. Limericks, of course, originated as a lewd literary form, and the ingenuity of the lewd mind is extraordinary to behold, but ultimately it is boring. I traded them away some years ago and got very good value on them, as they are somewhat rare.
Coney is another name for the rock hyrax in the Near and Middle East, still commonly used today among the English speakers in those areas. It also appears in translations of the Old Testament. I didn’t know about it as an early alternative for rabbit, but it suggests an interesting explanation for its present survival. Translators often use familiar terms for things unknown to them. In this case the early Bible translators probably didn’t know the hyrax and so they used the familiar term for a similar creature the rabbit, known to them at that time as a coney. Thanks for the info.
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Thanks, ordered a used copy … sounds like something that I MUST have, as I have always had a liking for the vulgar and obscene
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About to start this one (but forst finishing another book 
It is about Western Europe after the Roman empire collapsed and the early middle ages started.
Translated into Dutch of his early book (1999) Krigarnas och helgonens tid: Västeuropas historia 400–800 e.Kr. ( The Era of Warriors and Saints: Western European History 400-800 A.D.)
Not sure if it is translated into English.
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