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?

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Currently Reading

Nothing at the moment, as I’m happy to report I’m completely between books right now.

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Recently Finished

Over the weekend I pushed myself to finish reading the last quarter or so of Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. I really enjoyed this novel, which felt like it packed in a lot despite ultimately being rather short. One chapter interestingly moved away from the main character, giving us a different glimpse into how things operate in this town and including a conversation with a drunk scientist where the concept of the “roadside picnic” is brought up overtly. The other character openly resents the notion that it may just be a bunch of crap aliens left behind without a care, that this insults humanity. Though maybe a little on the nose, I feel this is a very realistic reaction and discussion; people who believe in the inherent exceptionalism of humanity would be insulted by the mere suggestion that aliens visited and moved on without a care, that the stuff left behind must be a test for us.

In a surprise turn, I also managed to finish reading What If? 2 by Randall Munroe yesterday while sitting in the waiting room while my car was getting looked at. I don’t have much more to say about this book; I really liked it, and I was surprised to find how breezy of a read it actually is once I actually sat down and read a lot of it at once. I rated it exactly the same as the first book, which makes sense to me. I wasn’t so in love with these that I would give either five stars, but they’re both solidly good enough that they deserve four, and this book seamlessly continues what the first book was doing, which is for the best. Looking back at my own review of that first book, it’s funny to realize that a review of this one probably wouldn’t sound that different.

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Reading Next

I still need to read comics I’ve been repeatedly saying I’d get to, but I’m giving myself a break considering I was able to get two books finished this week. I still need to make up my mind what I’m reading next though, as I’m actually feeling a little stuck on that. I want to start Authority by Jeff VanderMeer for instance, but I’m feeling a bit of a break from science/science fiction first. We shall see.

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