WWW Wednesday – February 4, 2026

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Nothing! I’m currently between books. Work got unexpectedly busier during the latter half of January, so I found myself not having time to post one of these for the past couple of weeks.

Recently Finished

Firstly, last week I finished reading Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel, a graphic memoir about the author’s life and relationship with her mother. I enjoyed this book well, particularly how organically it represented the nuances of Bechdel’s relationship with her mother, which is fraught with issues but by no means completely volatile. It fascinatingly delves into a lot of psychology as well, through therapy sessions and examinations of specific literature, which I actually had mixed feelings about. On the one hand, it was indeed interesting and insightful, but I found it made the overall reading experience loftier than I was expecting, especially as I often felt I couldn’t fully appreciate/undestand the theory I was being presented with.

I also read through Ice by Anna Kavan, an apocalyptic novel about a man continually searching for a beautiful young woman with whom he is obsessed, the world slowly crumbling around them due to persistent conflict while the aftereffects of a weapon of mass destruction slowly cover the globe in ice. I’m plagued by ambivalence with this book, as I can appreciate a lot about it as a literary work but found its hallucinatory stream of consciousness and indistinct narrative a little difficult to get into. It especially had a tendency to have certain events unfold, only to pull back and vaguely indicate that what you just read for a page or so was (at least partially) fabricated by the narrator. If I wasn’t on my toes while reading, it was easy to get lost in what was going on, especially as no people or places are named. I can see how this approach might work for others, and it does deal with some themes in an interesting way, but I found it more laborious than I was hoping.

Reading Next

My next read is Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung, a library book I specifically requested they purchase that I’ve since had borrowed for a while. As such, I only have about a week to read it before it’s overdue, but I’m hoping I can get through it in a reasonable amount of time. The book follows a night shift employee who works at a mysterious research centre that houses cursed objects, each item carrying with them their own dark history. I originally came across this book in a horror bookstore in Toronto, and while I showed some restraint in not picking it up, I’m glad I was able to get the library to do so, though if I like it enough I may end up buying myself a copy anyway.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

New Books & Novel Discoveries (January 2026)

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I may have gotten a smidge carried away over the past month. Only one of these is a Christmas gift that didn’t show up until later. The rest are indulgences that I seemingly couldn’t resist. I don’t regret a single one, but I do bemoan my ever-shrinking shelf space. On an unrelated note, does anybody else feel like January was unusually long? Lately months have blow by like dust in the wind, but it feels like it’s been January for two months.

Enough ruminating on time, let’s check out these piles of leaves.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – January 14, 2026

Ryan1 Comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

I’m currently in the middle of reading One-Punch Man Vol. 5 by ONE and Yusuke Murata. I’ve been on something of a reading break this past week or so, as I often do at the start of the year, though strictly from novels and the like, just to give myself a bit of a refresh. Comics, especially a parody action series like this, make for lighter, fun reading, so I don’t feel like I’m cheating myself out of my break. I’ve watched the first two seasons of the anime before, so this is really just a refresher on a story I already know. The third season recently released and is apparently rather subpar, so I decided I’m not waiting on that anymore and will just borrow the manga from the library.

Recently Finished

Like I said, I’ve been reading One-Punch Man, so I have four other volumes under my belt. Other than that, I started the year reading Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. Despite my desire for a break, my reservation for this book at the library came in and I didn’t want to keep a high-demand book away from the other people waiting for it, so I made sure to quickly read through it. This was an excellent nonfiction book that is wonderfully accessible to outsiders to the topic while also being very informative. As the title suggests, the book is about humanity’s history with tuberculosis, the impact it has had on society, and our ever-changing cultural attitudes toward it. Intertwined with this history is the story of Henry, a young man Green met in Sierra Leone, whose story helped influence the writing of this book. I highly recommend reading it.

Reading Next

What I decide to read next may change on a whim, but right now I’m inclined to start Ice by Anna Kavan once I’m finished with my break, a novel about a man pursuing a mysterious white-haired girl across a frozen, post-apocalyptic landscape.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

New Books & Novel Discoveries (December 2025)

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I’ve been guilty of leaving these a little too late in the past, but this time it’s because I’ve been trying to take a bit of a reading/blogging break for the new year, which I expect I’ll be done with soon. I’ve once again been wracking my brain a bit trying to remember what new books I received last month, but I’m pretty sure I’ve remembered all of them. It feels silly just not knowing, but I think part of it is I bought a few books as gifts, which is throwing me off.

Enough dwelling on it, let’s see what I do remember.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – December 31, 2025

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Nothing! I’ve finished the last of the books I wanted to get through this year.

Recently Finished

Yesterday I finished reading The Spirit by Thomas Page, a 1977 horror novel recently republished by Valancourt Books. I ended up liking this book a lot more than I was expecting to, especially considering its fairly straightforward premise of hunting a Bigfoot that has a penchant for decapitation. It’s not that that didn’t sound like a good time, I just didn’t expect a lot of depth from it. Though the Bigfoot hunt is very real, it’s much more of a stark depiction of obsession and determination, the creature becoming something of a white whale for one of the characters, offering an altogether more spiritual story than you’d expect from a pulpy-looking horror novel, ruminating on self-discovery and finding purpose in life. I’m really happy that my reading endeavours for the year had such a pleasantly surprising and satisfying conclusion.

Reading Next

I’m a little at odds with circumstances at the moment because I’ve been itching for a bit of a break from reading prose in particular. I do intend to start reading One-Punch Man in the new year, which is manga and thus wouldn’t interfere with this break, but before I do I will be reading Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green, a nonfiction book about the history of tuberculosis infection and treatment and its ongoing impact on humanity. I got this from my library a couple of weeks ago because my reservation happened to become available, but I wasn’t quite ready to read it yet. So, I’m going to try to read it quickly at the start of next month before I take my short break from prose, just so I’m not withholding the book from the next person waiting for it.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

Happy New Year!

WWW Wednesday – December 17, 2025

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

At the moment, I’m about 40 pages into The Spirit by Thomas Page, a 1977 horror novel recently republished by Valancourt Books and featured in Paperbacks from Hell by Grady Hendrix. So far, it has an old-fashioned feel in how it throws us into the premise without much buildup. I don’t know how common this truly was, but for what it’s worth, this is what I was expecting. We’re given some background on the characters, but otherwise it dives right into our one protagonist, “The Indian”, beginning his vision quest and the other, a hunter named Raymond Jason, already in the wilderness with three other men, their encounter with Bigfoot imminent. I’m not very far in so I’m reserving my judgement, but I feel I could take it or leave it so far, as I don’t feel particularly hooked by any of the characters or their respective pursuits of the creature.

Recently Finished

Last week I said I wanted to read another graphic novel but hadn’t settled on one. Since then, I came across Andre the Giant: Life and Legend by Box Brown at the library, a biographical graphic novel about the professional wrestler Andre the Giant. Though I didn’t want to buy it, it had been passively on my radar for a while, so it was a little exciting to come across it at the library. At first, I found it a little unfortunate that it didn’t look to be going into that much depth, a limitation of the medium perhaps, but my attitude turned around by the end. While by no means as exhaustive as biographical prose, it did a great job of creating a narrative portrait of his entire life, highlighting where he came from, the highs and lows of his career, the almost mythical tales from his life and career on the road, and the daily struggles he endured due to his condition, despite how much it contributed to his fame.

Reading Next

Nothing for the rest of the year! I’m planning for The Spirit to be my last read of 2025. I need a little break.

New Books & Novel Discoveries (November 2025)

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I don’t know why, but November went by like it was nothing, in stark contrast to an October that felt especially long—probably in part because of how many books I wound up reading. I tried to show a little more restraint this month, especially as the holiday started to loom on the horizon, but I found myself tempted more than once into buying myself some brand new books. The impulses won.

Still, it was a fairly modest month. Let’s see what I did pick up.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – December 10, 2025

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WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

At the moment, I’m about 100 pages into reading Why I Love Horror, edited by Becky Siegel Spratford, an anthology of essays from different horror authors about horror literature. I’m enjoying it well so far, though they’ve been fairly similar in theme so far, talking about life experiences growing up as well as media influences that turned them on to horror. It’s interesting enough, but I’d appreciate a shift. Fortunately, Spratford has been an exemplary editor on this book so far, with each essay having an introduction by her to prime the reader on the author and recommend a book of theirs to start with as well as another author with similar work. In these little prefaces she has mentioned whether an essay will continue with similar themes and has already primed me to expect a shift in the essays that will follow.

Recently Finished

Last week I read through House of Women by Sophie Goldstein, a graphic novel apparently loosely based on the 1947 film Black Narcissus. It follows a group of nuns sent by a Galactic Empire to a faraway jungle world with the task of civilizing the native population of alien beings. I enjoyed it well enough, having been drawn to the high-contrast visual style, which I especially liked throughout, but overall I found the story to be fairly straightforward and predictable, though not poorly told. To be honest, the story as it unfolds was a good idea, I just think it was too short. The plot could have been expanded more so, the characters given more depth. Still, I’m glad I read it.

Reading Next

Though I want to read two more books this month to round out my reading count this year to 50 books, I only have one definitively lined up to read this month. That book is The Spirit by Thomas Page, a vintage horror novel recently republished by Valancourt Books about a pair of hunters trying to kill Bigfoot. Though it seems to be more of a creature feature, I’m reading this as a winter ghost story, as recommended by the bookseller I purchased it from. Beyond this, I’m hoping to find another graphic novel to read, but I haven’t settled on one yet.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – December 3, 2025

Ryan1 Comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Nothing! I’m between books.

Recently Finished

Over the last couple of weeks I read through Year of the Griffin by Dianna Wynne Jones, the sequel novel to Dark Lord of Derkholm. I didn’t end up writing a WWW post about it last week because I did the lion’s share of my reading of this book since then. In many ways it’s very different from the first book, set a number of years after the adventure tours from our world were ended with the denizens of this fantasy land still working toward mending their world. The story mostly takes place at the premiere magical university, where the lingering impacts of the tours are perhaps felt the most, with standards having fallen sharply. The story follows a motley crew of new students, including Elda, one of Wizard Derk’s griffin daughters, as they try to navigate learning magic from a faculty that isn’t at all qualified. I quite enjoyed this book, though I didn’t quite love it. I’m going to try to review this one soon.

Reading Next

Admittedly, I’ve been feeling in need of a break from reading, but I’ve got a number I still want to get through before year’s end, so I’m going to have to wait until January, I think. The next two books I’m planning to read are both from the library. The first is a graphic novel called House of Women by Sophie Goldstein. I don’t know much about it, I just grabbed it off the shelf because it looked interesting, so we’ll see. After that, I intend to start reading Why I Love Horror, a collection of essays about horror literature, including essays by authors such as Paul Tremblay and Josh Malerman. Seems I’m still in the mood for horror.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

Book Review – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino

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Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino is a novel adaptation of the author’s 2019 film of the same name. Set in Hollywood in 1969, it tells the story of Rick Dalton, a washed-up TV actor who used to be a big star on a Western series from the late 1950s to the early 60s called Bounty Law. After a brief stint in movies, where he tried to elevate his career from TV star to movie star, Dalton is now relegated to playing guest spots as the “heavy” in different shows, where the next big faces in TV get to look good by defeating a recognizable has-been hero. As an opportunity to travel abroad and star in Italian Westerns is presented to him, Dalton must come to terms with where he is in his career and what he wants out of the future. Inter-cut with his story is a colourful, sometimes sinister, cast of characters who have all carved out their own little worlds in Hollywood and strive to make their own dreams a reality—or simply make do with what they’ve got.Read More »