r/books • u/AutoModerator • 7d ago

WeeklyThread What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: September 28, 2026

Hi everyone!

What are you reading? What have you recently finished reading? What do you think of it? We want to know!

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The Bogus Title, by Stephen King

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u/iwasjusttwittering 7d ago

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

Started. I got a taste, and it's unsurprisingly very good. I'm not sure if I'll continue now though.

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, by Bill McKibben

Revisited after a long break. In this 2009 book, Bill McKibben summarized the state of climate change at the time. Basically everything has gotten more extreme. I'm finishing the last chapter with proposed solutions, and it's more timely than ever, especially the parts on reforming agriculture. Small farms with diversified crops can be much more resilient, need less diesel and synthetic fertilizer, ...

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, by Eliezer Yudkowsky

Continued (90%). The science-fiction Harry's experiments in using physics to advance wizardry, utiliitarian philosophy, and unhinged alternative Hogwarts' culture are finally coming together with a twist. I found only about 5% of this >600k-word behemoth of a fanfic tedious; including the fact that some of Yudkowsky's views are, eh, controversial.

The Long March, by William Styron

Finished. A short, serious anti-military classic from the 1950s. Apparently, it came to be as a response to writers that glorified the US military. It could be argued that the story is underdeveloped: it simply follows two reservists at a military exercise; a gruesome accident happens and then they march overnight, hurt, march some more and it's over. That's kind of the Styron's point though. It sucks, they should be with their families instead, and perhaps most interestingly, military service fundamentally breaks people to make them perversely obedient. However, it rings hollow to me, because while Americans have been maintaining the US hegemony overseas, the circumstances tend to be quite different in most other countries.