Author: Ryan

WWW Wednesday – May 31, 2023

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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

Jurassic ParkI’ve made some decent progress in Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, though I’m still in the early phases of the story. I have finally met most of the main cast, however, and it won’t be long now until they arrive at the island. I’m actually surprised how much the first hundred pages or so are focused on the effects InGen’s experiments are already having on the world and the corporate landscape in general with respect to genetic engineering. It’s a sentiment I’ve shared already, but I really do appreciate how much the recklessness of all that’s being done is emphasized. I’m so much more familiar with the film adaptation, and while I continue to think it is a great film, I can’t help but find it a little tacky how much more they sideline the more cynical aspects of corporate negligence in favour or wide-eyed naivete.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week; I’m really letting the comics I keep meaning to read languish for some reason.

Reading Next

Carpe JugulumI haven’t solidly made up my mind about what I want to read next, but I’m fairly certain I haven’t read a single Discworld novel in a least a year, which I find troubling the more I think about it, so there is a good chance the next book I read will be Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett. I’m sure Jurassic Park won’t take me as long as American Psycho did too, so hopefully it’ll be sooner than later, but I do still have a ways to go in that book, so it’ll be a while yet. Nevertheless, I think I’d like to start mentally committing now.

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

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New Books & Novel Discoveries (May 2023)

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I feel like I actually managed to show some restraint this past month, as I only indulged myself once with buying a bunch of books at once. I’ve continued the trend of picking up books at thrift stores as well, so I’m not spending nearly as much money. I really need to be keeping that in line as much as I can. In any case, let’s just get it out of the way now that all of these books were bought second hand.

Enough waffling, on to the books!Read More »

WWW Wednesday – May 24, 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 read a little bit of Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton since last week, though I’m still in the beginning phases of the story; I’ve yet to even meet the main cast of characters. So, I don’t really feel I have much to update about this book as yet. Hopefully I’ll have more to comment on next week.

Recently Finished

Adventure Time Season 11I just finished reading the comic book Adventure Time: Season 11 by Sonny Liew et al., having recently finished rewatching the series in its entirety, including the Distant Lands specials. Unfortunately, before I even finished reading this volume, I learned that the creators of the show don’t consider this comic book to be a canon continuation of the show, as they had virtually no involvement in its creation. There are also references to comics-only continuity as well, so that was a bit of a bummer. The volume contained two stories, one a little longer than the other. The first involved time travel to 1000 years in the future, a concept the comics seem oddly obsessed with. It was just okay. The latter two chapters felt a lot more character focused, however, with Finn still reeling from losing his home and having other humans closer by. Despite the first story being a little middling, by the end it was a nice little epilogue to the series as a whole, canon or not.

Reading Next

The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess 1Though there are a number of books I’ve mentioned in this section that I haven’t started yet, I recently received a book I had on hold at the library: the first volume of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess manga by Akira Himekawa. I’ve been on a bit of a Zelda kick again, since before even the new game came out, and I’ve been wanting to read this manga after recently finishing Twilight Princess HD. I really don’t want to buy more and more volumes of manga, however, and this adaptation is a lot longer than the others, so I was excited to see a lot of this series is in my library’s catalogue (though volume 3 is maddeningly absent). Hopefully the due date will spur me on to actually read this soon.

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

WWW Wednesday – May 17, 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

Jurassic ParkI’ve finally been able to start Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, my first reread in a very long time. I’m only about 20 pages in, but I already feel like I’m in a place where I can appreciate it a lot more than I did when I first read it in middle school/early high school. My interest started with videos emphasizing the horror of this original text, but lately I’ve noticed they’re typically rather repetitive, so I’m going to actively rein in my expectations a little. I don’t recall much being especially disturbing the first time around anyway, and I’m coming off a book that was legitimately upsetting in spots, so it’s likely that this will be a relatively light read. Still, the mystique around the dinosaurs and the fact that the danger they pose is already woefully apparent is something I’m really enjoying.

Recently Finished

American PsychoFinally, finally, I have finished reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I want to try to have a review up soon, but we will see; my schedule doesn’t always allow me to put things up as soon as I’d like (e.g., this very post, which is going up very late Wednesday night). Before completing the book, something finally struck a meaningful chord with me with respect to the continually escalating acts of violence on the part of Patrick Bateman. Despite the horror of it all, it is vacuous. No drama, no suspense, nothing of substance. It’s some of the most discomforting content I’ve ever read, but it says nothing deep about Patrick and it shouldn’t. It doesn’t make him interesting or morbidly fascinating, he is just a sick man committing sick acts, worthy only of revulsion. Though I know its themes run deeper than this overall, these sections at least in part feel like an antithesis to romanticized stories of true crime.

Reading Next

I still have a few comics I’ve been meaning to pick up and read finally, such as Tombs by Junji Ito. Other than that, I don’t really have further concrete plans about what I’ll read next.

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

WWW Wednesday – May 3, 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

American PsychoI’m coming up on the last 100 pages of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, and I’m really wanting to get this book over with. I’ve said it before, there’s no denying Ellis’s talent as an author, but I am really finding this book to be a chore, which is troubling in a book with such recognizable quality. I’m not sure I’ve ever been confronted before with a book so unpleasant yet well written. I understand that the unpleasantness is part of the point, but I still have my limits, especially with it being so character focused. I’m just hoping something comes up in the narrative by the end to tie everything together in a way that I’ll like. I can’t say with certainty that I’ll even be done by next week though, so it seems I’m stuck with it still for a while yet. This one is going to be rather difficult to review, though I can already imagine how I will rate it.

Recently Finished

Despite not having anything to post about last week, I still haven’t finished reading anything else.

Reading Next

I still mean to read Spores by Joshua Barkman and Tombs by Junji Ito sometime soon, I just need to make a point of actually starting them. Although, I suppose if I’m wanting to focus on finishing American Psycho that I shouldn’t sacrifice reading time for anything else right now.

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

The First 10 Books I Randomly Grabbed from My Shelf

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme run by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme is simple yet fun, as all I had to do was grab 10 books randomly from my shelf. I have a lot of books scattered around, however, so some of them were taken from the back of my actual bookshelf and others were taken from the stacks of books on the table next to my desk. I can’t help but fret a little that my selection doesn’t feel as random as it should, but in the spirit of things I kept it as they were selected.Read More »

New Books & Novel Discoveries (April 2023)

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Well, it’s finally happened. Though I actually wound up buying a fair number of books this month, what I’m stuck on is the fact that I actually forgot to include a few new books last month, one of which having been a rather big deal for me. Goodness knows how I forgot about it. I almost forgot another book today too; I think I really ought to cool down on the book purchases next month. We’ll see if I actually do that.

On to the books!Read More »

WWW Wednesday – April 19, 2023

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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

American PsychoProgress with American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis continues to be slow but steady; the story has reached a specific murder victim that I distinctly recall seeing clips of from the film, so I believe this one will have consequences for Patrick finally. I’m most curious about it because his motivations seem to be different than his typical victims, but they have been elusive to me. Perhaps I missed something, but I’m hoping it’s just something that gets revealed more later on. My feelings are becoming quite pointedly mixed while reading this. There’s no denying Ellis’s skill as an author, and I don’t hate reading it necessarily, but I feel like this book is really hard to recommend, and sometimes I feel like I’m tolerating it more than anything else. I suppose my interest was always more academic anyway, but I do wish there was something that I could say I actually love about this book.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week!

Reading Next

SporesThis week I received a copy of a self-published book by Joshua Barkman, a web comic artist I follow, called Spores, so there’s a good chance I’ll be reading that soon. I’ve read it before, as these were published first on Instagram last October, but I enjoyed the little story so much at the time that I’m happy to read it again as a book. I’m still feeling pretty committed to rereading Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton next, though I’ve still got a lot of American Psycho ahead of me. I’m quite ready to move on from it though, so I should perhaps refocus my efforts.

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

WWW Wednesday – April 12, 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

American PsychoI’ve made only a small amount of progress on American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis since last week, and it honestly felt like not a lot remarkable has happened, except for an attempt on taking the life of an associate whose girlfriend he’d been sleeping with, which ended up taking a homoerotic turn that left Bateman bewildered and pathetically seething and his would-be victim not murdered. It seems to me that a lot of this is establishing how he does pretty much whatever he likes in life without consequences, which is not really surprising, but I’m hoping the emphasis means I get to see some good squirming on his part as they start to catch up with him. It’s hard not to assume snippets of the film that I’ve come across won’t come into play, which is fueling some of this speculation.

Recently Finished

Twistwood TalesLast night I decided to read through Twistwood Tales by A.C. MacDonald, which is a recently released book of comic strips. I first came across the author/illustrator online, as these were originally web comics, and I’ve been following them for a while now. This collection appears to include original work as well, though the book only collecting work that already exists online would not have deterred me from picking it up. I’ve got a soft spot for creepy yet endearing in worlds that follow weird fairy tale logic, and this world appeals to that perfectly. Though many are short strips, included is a fairly lengthy story as well, which has me hopeful that perhaps we can expect to see more longer tales set in this world in the future.

Reading Next

TombsThe other day I picked up a new Junji Ito story collection that I had pre-ordered called Tombs, so I’ll probably be reading that soon. Collections of this binding style have appealed to me more often than others, so I’m hopeful that I’ll like this one. My fervor for Ito’s work has diminished a lot as I’ve read more and more, so I’m honestly not nearly as excited to read this one as I would have been in the past. Though I maintain that some of his work is legitimately brilliant, it bums me out a little that my enthusiasm has become so subdued. I can’t help but wonder if it would be different if I had moderated myself more.

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

Book Review – Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss

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Springfield Confidential

Springfield Confidential: Jokes, Secrets, and Outright Lies from a Lifetime Writing for The Simpsons by Mike Reiss with Mathew Klickstein is a 2018 nonfiction comedy memoir detailing the author’s lifetime of experiences as the longest-serving writer and producer on the iconic American cartoon series The Simpsons. Written in a fun, irreverent style, Reiss shares background on the show’s conception and the writers behind the groundbreaking first season and beyond, as well as many other amusing anecdotes about the cast and crew that helped make it all possible. He also shares some of the finer details of the creative process, offering a glimpse into just how much work goes into making a single episode. Also included are pieces of interviews conducted for this book with legends of the series including Al Jean, Conan O’Brien, and more.Read More »