Month: August 2023

WWW Wednesday – August 30, 2023

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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 at the moment! As of this evening, I am between books.

Recently Finished

This is How You Lose the Time WarI had an anticipated amount of time to get a lot of reading done this week and got nearly to the end of This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone; I took some time this evening to finish up the last 20 pages or so before writing this post so that I could have it all finished up. I’m finding that finishing up books this much faster requires some adjustment for me, as my slower pace would give me more time to ruminate over a longer period. This novel felt like something of a whirlwind with how much I got through this week, but I really enjoyed it. I didn’t become quite as enamoured with it as I was hoping, it seems, but it did get me to tear up at some moments, which is an excellent mark in its favour. I’m still working on my Carpe Jugulum review, but I’ll try to have a review of this up soon.

Reading Next

I Wear the Black HatI’m feeling pretty committed to starting I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman next; an essay collection will be a nice change of pace. Afterwards, I think I will read The Lost World by Michael Crichton, assuming Klosterman’s book doesn’t take me too long. I wanted to read the two Jurassic Park books this year, and there’s been enough of a buffer since the first book now, but I don’t want it to cut into Halloween reading, so it depends on how efficiently I get things done.

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

WWW Wednesday – August 23, 2023

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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’ve been feeling a bit off this past week and have had to get back into the groove a bit with work, so I haven’t made any new progress on This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal Eh-Mohtar & Max Gladstone.

Recently Finished

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess 6I did however find some time to read through the sixth manga volume of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess by Akira Himekawa. The story has taken a somewhat interesting departure from the game’s story here, shortly after Link deals with finding the mirror shard at Snowpeak Ruins. Unlike the game, Link has quite a lot more personality in this series, and since he’s retrieved the Master Sword he has gotten a bit of a big head about his role as the Hero. In this volume this culminated into an encounter with Dark Link, a recurring adversary type in the games but one that was absent from Twilight Princess. In the end, the spirit of the Hero of Time as a wolf seems to intercede, but I can’t tell if that wolf is supposed to be him in this adaptation, so I’m curious to see where this all goes; I hope we get even more insight into the older hero and the nature of his more spectral existence.

Reading Next

I Wear the Black HatI’m still not really sure what I want to be reading next, but I feel like I need to make up my mind soon because once I get some momentum going with This is How You Lose the Time War I feel like I’m going to finish it fairly quickly. There are many books I’ve mentioned already over the past few weeks that are likely candidates, but I’ve also been thinking a lot about a new book I just bought called I Wear the Black Hat by Chuck Klosterman. It’s a collection of essays about our cultural fixations on villains and anti-hero-type characters/figures, from what I can gather, and I’m thinking an essay collection might be a nice change of pace. I really enjoyed Eating the Dinosaur, and this book feels like the topic range will be even more focused in a way that I’ll like.

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

Ten Horror Books on My TBR

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme run by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s post is a “Genre Freebie”, and with a Spirit Halloween having officially possessed an empty storefront and opened near me, I figured it was the perfect time to make a list of some horror books. Not only is this a list of 10 books that have been on my TBR for a while, I actually own 9 out of 10 of them. Will I read some of them for the Halloween season this year? That remains to be seen. Still, it’s nice to take stock of what I want to get to.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – August 16, 2023

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

This is How You Lose the Time WarI’m back after a week away! I spent a week in Mexico for my brother’s wedding, and while I was there I started reading This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal Eh-Mohtar & Max Gladstone. It was incredibly hot and spending time with people kept me quite busy, so I only set aside a little bit of time to get any reading done. Still, I was able to get almost 50 pages into this book, which is pretty good for me considering my track record with reading at travel destinations. So far, I’ve just been getting to know Red and Blue more and more as they continue to correspond; I really like how dizzying yet captivating their journeys through time are, with some of their missions lasting for decades before they receive another letter. There are a lot of wonderfully imaginative depictions of periods of the distant past and future that are not over-explained yet are described enough to leave a good impression.

Recently Finished

Carpe JugulumBefore I left last week, I managed to finish reading Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett, the 23rd novel in the series and the sixth book about the Witches. Though I’ve said as much already, I really enjoyed this novel. Since I was so close to finishing it in my last post, I’m not sure what I can say here that hasn’t been said already, except that a nice touch was how it felt like a proper passing of the torch between Magrat and Agnes as the new “maiden” of the coven. Magrat’s absence from Maskerade felt a little too conspicuous for me from what I remember, so getting to see a more mature version of her fully realized and having (presumably) one last adventure with the other witches felt really good. I’m going to try to have a review of this up soon.

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess 5I also managed to finish reading the fifth volume of the manga adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess by Akira Himekawa before leaving, which gave us an even greater shift in the relationship between Link and Midna. What I especially loved in this volume though were the references to the Hero of Time; there is a flash of imagery when Zelda learns Link’s name, hinting at her knowledge of the events of Ocarina of Time, and later on while on their way to retrieve the Master Sword it is more directly confirmed that the Skull Kid who guards the way is the very same that knew the old hero. I really do wish all of the games greater emphasized their connections like this.

Reading Next

I’ve no concrete plans on what I want to read next, as there are a few candidates now that I didn’t read as much as I might have while on vacation. Stay tuned!

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

WWW Wednesday – August 2, 2023

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?

Much to my irritation, for reasons unknown to me WordPress is not allowing me to resize images as needed in a post, so I’m not including any covers today, even though that bothers me to my very core.

Currently Reading

I’ve been able to make yet more substantial progress in Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett since my last post; I’m just under 70 pages away from completing it. I typically enjoy the novels about the witches a lot simply for the love of the characters, even if the plot lines leave a little something to be desired at times (at least as far as I remember, I’ve read so many Discworld novels now), but I am really loving this one. Nanny Ogg, Magrat, and Agnes are all being given a lot of time to shine as characters, in some cases showing how much they’ve grown, and this is the most vulnerable we’ve ever seen Granny Weatherwax, though her gravitas is still maintained. The vampires continue to be an excellent force to be reckoned with, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they are thwarted.

Recently Finished

Last week didn’t have much to show for it and my family suffered a sudden loss, so I didn’t bother posting anything. As a tiny turn of fortune though, the fourth volume of the manga adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess by Akira Himekawa turned up at my library after seemingly being MIA, so we’re back in business as far as making progress on that series goes. I’m surprised with how much this volume sped through certain story beats of the game; by the end, two dungeons are cleared and the subplot with Ilia losing her memory have been resolved. I don’t really mind it, and it does have me curious what the rest of the series will entail, as there are 11 before it wraps up. I like how much more the secondary characters are being fleshed out, so perhaps some of it will have to do with that.

Reading Next

Next week I will be away on vacation, so I won’t be able to post. Still, I have a lot of reading plans between now and when I post again. First and foremost, I plan to read volumes five and six of the Twilight Princess manga so that I can return them to the library before I leave. On my trip I intend to bring This is How You Lose the Time War by by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which I’m hoping I’ll be able to finish while I’m gone. If I do end up reading through it quickly enough, I will then start Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I doubt I will finish both books (there’s a good chance I won’t finish one), but they’re fairly short, so getting through at least one and starting another at least feels doable.

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

New Books & Novel Discoveries (July 2023)

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Although I am, as usual, paranoid that there is something I’m forgetting, I believe that July has been an especially laid back month as far as book buying is concerned. By next week, I’ll be away on a trip, so I suppose the expenses related to that have helped rein me in from spending too freely on things like books. Still, I did manage to pick up a couple of things.

On to the books!Read More »