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

With October having kicked off, I started reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley last night; the edition I’m reading includes spectacular pen and ink illustrations by Bernie Wrightson, well known for his work on comic series like Swamp Thing. So far, I’ve only read the front matter, which included a few introductions and sections giving some historical context for when it was written. The more modern introduction was written by Stephen King, and we are also treated to the introduction written by Shelley herself for the 1831 reprint. I was quite surprised to learn that, according to the author’s introduction, in her imagining of the creation of the Creature, when the story was still just a seed of an idea, she described it as being animated by “the working of some powerful engine.” I had thought the explicit use of technology of that nature was an addition by later adaptations, but clearly I’ve been mistaken for years.

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Recently Finished

Everything is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner is an autobiographical graphic novel I picked up from the library a week or so ago. This was another case of me fully embracing the accessibility libraries grant us and picking up a book I wouldn’t have ever purchased for myself. The story mainly covers the author’s experiences spending her summers in Australia as a young girl, her obsession with sharks serving as a through line throughout her experiences. This was one of those books that resonated with me despite not tapping into a precise childhood fixation I shared because the way she was feeling was familiar, even if the subject of her feelings wasn’t. I’m really happy I checked this one out.

James Bond: The Body by Aleš Kot and various illustrators is a standalone volume from the recent James Bond comics published by Dynamite. This was another library book, but what most caught my eye about it was Kot as the author; I think he did exceptional work on the Bloodborne comics (especially for a video game tie in), so my interest is likely to be piqued if I see him attached to something. It was an interesting look at the toll being a secret agent takes on Bond’s body, as well as the fortitude required for him to live this life, weaving together several semi-self-contained smaller stories that all connect by the end. What was most refreshing was the idea of his missions feeling smaller scale; ultimately, the fate of world really is still at stake, but Kot managed to make the focus feel more grounded.

Lastly, I managed to finish reading The Truth by Terry Pratchett, so I’ve managed to read at least one Discworld novel this year. I’m sad that this will likely be the only one, but I don’t want my reading to be too narrow. I feel like I comment on this a lot while reading this series—after all, it’s pretty hard to read 25 books set in the same world and not have similar things to say about it—but I really think this was a solid iteration on a familiar story structure to this series that we hadn’t seen in a while. It did have some notable similarities, like I can’t help but feel like the hero and heroine duo we get in books like these, unlikely to appear as protagonists in the series again, are all secretly facets of the same people. Nevertheless, this was a stronger outing that felt like it had something to say about newsprint and media and stood its ground by having it here to stay in the Discworld going forward.

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Reading Next

Nothing this week, so to speak, but only because I will be posting my opening post for Frighteningly Good Reads either tomorrow or Friday, and that is where I plan to outline what I’d like to read for the month of October.