Month: May 2024

WWW Wednesday – May 29, 2024

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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

RoadsidePicnicI made some decent reading progress this past week, though editing work has picked up again, so I haven’t had as much free time for reading as normal. Still, I managed to get a little further along in What If? 2 by Randall Munroe. I’m continuing to enjoy this book a lot; I especially love his deadpan responses to questions that are obviously fatal. I managed to get an especially good chunk of Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky finished, such that I’m a little over halfway through it now. It’s not especially long, so I’m hoping I can get myself to finish it up by next week. The effect of the Zone on the stalkers trying to raid it and the strange devices found within is becoming increasingly disturbing. It’s not just that we don’t understand what the tech is for, but the effects they have on us are unnerving. Legs touched the “hell slime”? You’ve got no bones below the knees now. Yikes.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week.

Reading Next

Marvel 1602I think I’m being stupid with how I’m neglecting comic books lately, so I decided before I started writing this post that I’m going to read Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman before next week. Considering it’s a comic book by Gaiman, I’m not sure how I’ve gone so long without trying to read it, especially since I’ve owned a copy for a while now. This simply needs getting done, and I’m starting to get impatient with myself. The prospects with reading this book are actually quite exciting, as I actually know very little about it. It’s just one of those books you hear about somehow, but I’ve never actually seen anybody talk specifics or reference it in an obvious way. It seems such an odd time period to place superheroes too; I hope I enjoy it.

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

WWW Wednesday – May 22, 2024

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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

RoadsidePicnicThough I’m not nearly as far along as I feel I should be, I’ve gotten a little over a quarter of the way into Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. I could have talked about this book a little last week, but I didn’t feel that I’d gotten far enough into it to give many impressions. So far, I’m enjoying it pretty well; it’s making for easier reading compared to my last book, which is weird considering this is a Russian science fiction book and not an English children’s book, and it also has a different feel in terms of style that I attribute to it being a translated text. In contrast to a lot of other science fiction, I like how much this one feels like humanity is groping blindly at trying to understand advanced alien artifacts; even the institute that the protagonist works at is largely at a loss. Typically, the trope is that uncovering alien tech jumps us forward, so it’s refreshing to see humanity more humbled by it.

Recently Finished

WovenSince my last post I read Woven by Joshua Barkman, his latest self-published book collecting the comics he released online every day in November of 2023. I actually read this one before the 15th, but I was a little busy and decided to put off talking about it until I could write a more substantial post. Technically, this is my second time reading this story, but it was nice to go through it in one sitting collected together like this. Though these books have consistently told stories about wildlife in a fairly realistic art style, I really appreciate how Barkman has adopted different visual styles with each project; the muted blue and the red contrast really well with each other. It’s also a nice little story about creativity and struggling with discouragement and embracing your passion.

Reading Next

I’m not really sure what I’m going to start next, even as far as comics go, though I’m always giving myself grief about that. I did, however, finally finish my review of Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh, which I finished reading all the way back in March. I don’t know what’s wrong with me that it took me so long, but I’m glad it’s finally done. Other than that, I just want to focus on what I’m reading right now so that I don’t end up taking too long again.

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

Book Review – Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh

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Death in Her Hands

Death in Her Hands is a 2020 mystery novel by Ottessa Moshfegh. Vesta Gul is an elderly widow who lives alone in a cabin in the woods in a small town, alongside her beloved dog Charlie. One day, while walking Charlie along the nearby trails, she finds a note on the ground, held there by carefully placed stones. The note reads “Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.” Though there is no dead body to speak of and seemingly not a single other soul for miles around, Vesta is disturbed by what she has found and makes it a personal mission to unravel this mystery.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – May 8, 2024

RyanLeave a 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 new at the moment. I’m still technically reading What If? 2 by Randall Munroe, but I haven’t made any progress on it in a little while.

Recently Finished

Watership DownOn Monday I finally finished reading Watership Down by Richard Adams, and I have such weirdly mixed feelings about this book. Though it seems there are a number of books akin to this one about animal societies, I’ve not read much of any of them, so I found this book to be a uniquely weird and earnest reading experience. I wonder how many of the others are like this one; I always heard about this book being for kids, but I think I would’ve bounced right off of it when I was younger. It’s surprisingly dense for what it is, takes its time moving the plot along, and deals with surprisingly heavy subject matter. Toward the end, I was legitimately a little stressed out while reading it. All in all, I think it’s a great book, but I frequently had to force myself to read it, so something about it I struggled with too. I have another review in the pipeline almost finished, but I want to get this reviewed too, hopefully a lot closer to the date I’ve finished reading this time.

Reading Next

RoadsidePicnicAs I’ve said in previous weeks, I want to start reading Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky pretty soon. I’m hoping I’ll get this book finished a lot faster after Watership Down slowed my momentum considerably for two months. With that in mind, I can’t help but think about other books I want to start soon after. I’m considering The Truth by Terry Pratchett, but perhaps I may start Authority by Jeff VanderMeer instead. There are a lot of series I feel I need to continue, so I ought to pick up one of those after the last couple of books have been standalone. I need to make myself read more comics too, as usual, but I haven’t decided on what to read next yet.

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