I started re-reading the Shannara books & stories just prior to the start of last year ... after about a 19 year absence.

Or more truly, some I actually have been reading for the first time.

Good stuff, and I am a few sub series from the end now ... though still waiting for the last book to be published.

Yes, except for e-lending. Which is a poor facsimile to paper and always has huge wait times.

E-book loans... so heavily loaded down with DRM. I cannot do that. Thankfully there are places like https://www.gutenberg.org/ but you will find (almost?) only old books there. Old books can be excellent reads too.

The Midwich Cuckoos (1957) by John Wyndham :3/5

Like The Chrysalids by the same author, this novel seems quite inspired by Olaf Stapledon's Odd John, but where The Chrysalids was a well told, albeit rather derivative bildungsroman told in a more modern style, Cuckoos sadly reverts back to a more old fashioned, remote style, and the first part moves very slowly, and large parts of it reads like a transcript from an English tea party where everyone is oh so polite, calm and soft spoken even when the whole fertile female population of their village has been knocked up, to use a more impolite expression.

The novel is told in a first person style, but the narrator is essentially just an NPC, and most of the novel is in practice told in third person anyway. So I found the style rather jarring, and prose wise a big step back from The Chrysalids (especially the first part is probably the best prose Wyndham ever wrote), but the plot is more original.

Instead of a mutant with superior intelligence finding other kids like himself and banding together, this time it's aliens using human females to carry and nurture their very human like (in appearance, at least) offspring, hence the title.

The second part is the most interesting one when The Children grow older and show their power to exert complete control over human beings, and conflict arises. The discussions of the English tea party also grows more interesting, and like Stapledon's novels it becomes a vehicle to discuss Man's place in "the jungle" or the universe.
But the ending comes rather suddenly and feels rather like a Deus Ex Machina.

The Wyvern's Spur - Jeff Grub & Kate Novak

Second volume of the trilogy. Some characters are the same than in the previous book, including one who had a minor role and becomes one of the main characters, in exchange of most of the previous book's main characters not being used in that book at all.

As the title says, it deals with the heir of an old family whose family treasure is an enchanted wyvern spur, which has mysteriously disappeared.

Not too bad, in the sense that a quite ridiculous and laughing stock character takes some more depth and is not so ridiculous anymore. But apart from that, very average reading, maybe even if you're a fan of Dungeons&Dragons...

Tanks : The History of Armoured Warfare - Robin Cross & David Willey

A non-fiction book and tanks in history. This edition has been realized with the Bovington Tank Museum (UK), which might be the largest tank museum in the world for the moment, with more than 300 tanks in display. I'm a big fan of tanks, playing World of Tanks, War Thunder and Armored Warfare, so that book was high on my list. Not disappointed at all! Lots of interesting facts, interesting photos and documents, from the first world war until the post-Cold War era.

So far in 2020: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2020/post9

Not one of his better stories, but perhaps a product of the times.

The Day Of The Triffids is by far the better story, and Chrysalids is pretty good too.
I've read the majority of his stories, including some rarities, and count myself a fan.

The Chrysalids was one of the better books I had to read for English, back in the day, and it introduced me to the author, who I then lapped up and keep lapping up to this day. Last acquisition was the rarity released several years ago - Plan For Chaos, which I quite enjoyed.

My main beef with Wyndham was that he was too often derivative, often just making his own variant of, or polishing ideas other writers came up with (like for example Triffids vs Earth Abides). Midwich Cuckoos is quite original, though, but I found the actual presentation rather disappointing. The prose is weaker than that of Chrysalids, and the POV is the most boring one he could have come up with: a very passive male NPC. It would have been much more interesting from the POV of one of the pregnant women or even of The Children. Or just center it around Zellaby who was the real "hero".

Plan for Chaos looks like a rarity indeed; only two editions, and not Wikipedia entry.

This might not be a popular choice, but I'm re-reading "Love In The Time Of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

It is a brilliant and challenging novel on it's own, and now more appropriate than ever.

Also, Mark Twain's "The Gilded Age". One of the best American novels ever written, sadly under rated and ignored, it skewers American capitalism and class conciousness boundries with a scapel.

I an trying to be grateful that suddenly I can read (or re-read) great books, and play (or re-play) great games.

Well, I can't say I found him all that derivative, and I think you need to be careful when you make that assumption ... especially back in that period of time, where it was a lot more work to produce a book.

Earth Abides (1949)
The Day Of The Triffids (1951)

Not much time in that age of snail mail, with authors living on two different continents.

And each is a very different approach to the other. Especially as one is about a virus and the other about a somewhat sentient plant going rampant due to biological manipulation and a global blindness event.

Each is a classic in their very own right.

Many books back in that period, had a certain sameness in some aspects, and a brave person attributes that to being derivative. That was not long after the end of the second world war, and many people would be thinking somewhat similar things.

And in any case, everyone borrows from everyone else, even if they don't know it. Wyndham was certainly unique where it really counted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_of_the_Triffids

By the way, have you ever read the sequel? The Night Of The Triffids by Simon Clark.
I quite enjoyed it. It gives a later American perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_of_the_Triffids

Strong anti-DRM crusader I am, I'm actually generally OK with DRM on rentals/loans/borrowings. These situations, by design, need a revocation method, otherwise, they would be purchases. Yes, it has significant issues with limiting devices you can use (one of the reasons I don't participate while others do), but, in the abstract, it's fine.

I'm also freely admitting: much of my reading time is my commute to/from work, and lunch break at work. Working from home makes that time get filled with video games instead, for shame.

I have full understanding why. I just find it such a hassle. I have helped my mum borrow e-books from the library and you needed to change settings in the OS, have one of three very specific OSs (no Linux), download and install two programs, lock in your pc and the reading tablet. I would rather buy the book myself, if I can afford it.

Well, I can`t list all the books I read this year so far, that would be a too big list.
But here`s a selection of them:

A. Lee Martinez: In the company of Ogres
R. A. Salvatore: Companions codex 1 Night of the Hunter
R. A. Salvatore: Companions codex 2 Rise of the King
James Dashner: The Eye of Minds
Andreas Brandhorst: Kinder der Ewigkeit (no english title)
Andreas Eschbach: NSA - Nationales Sicherheits-Amt (a novel about how it would have been if computers, mobile phones and such have existed in the Third Reich)
Peter F. Hamilton: The Great North Road
Karl May: Der Schatz im Silbersee (The treasure in the Silver Lake) This edition is a reprint that stays true to the original and uses the same old spelling rules that were used at the end of the 19th century. Really nice to read.

Dang! I had no idea that Benford, Bear, and Brin (the Killer B's) had written Foundation sequels. Fingers crossed that my Library has them on e-books

Welcome on board! :)