Author: Ryan

WWW Wednesday – March 29, 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 PsychoI’ve made a small amount of progress in American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis since last week, and I’m happy to report that most of what I have read since my last update has not resembled that one chapter that spent a little too much time on products for my liking. I’m curious in what way Bateman’s murderous tendencies will come into play. Is he already committing murders or is something going to set him off? For now, all I know is that he and his friends are pathetically superficial, so I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if his reasons for killing people follow those lines. It’s also kind of fun to realize that I don’t actually know what the meat of the plot is for this story, despite it having a significant enough cultural presence that I feel like I should. I look forward to figuring out what’s at stake, beyond being a killer and not wanting to get caught.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week.

Reading Next

Jurassic ParkThis is talking about something further down the line, but I have been thinking a lot lately about rereading Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. I’ve committed to this so much, in fact, that I’ve already bought myself a copy. I haven’t read it since middle school or high school, so it’s been quite some time, and as corners of the Internet and emerging fan-made lo-fi horror content remind me how much darker the books were than the films, I feel like perhaps I didn’t fully appreciate what I was reading back then. So, I think there’s a good chance this will be the novel I read next, though I don’t expect I’ll be done American Psycho any time soon. I won’t be posting about it again here until I’m actually about to read it, but I figured with things being lighter this week, this would be a good time to talk about this.

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

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WWW Wednesday – March 22, 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 finally started reading American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, though I’ve only gotten about 30 pages in so far, covering two chapters, which is at least enough to make a distinct impression. So far, I’m a little worried that this will be a bit of slog. The first chapter was definitely more interesting, as we are introduced to some of the insufferable people Patrick Bateman keeps as company, himself included, to a lesser extent. A bunch of superficial jerks being superficial jerks, though I’m interested in how Patrick himself seems disillusioned by it while still being completely embroiled in it. The second chapter was so much about Patrick’s morning routine and all of the products he uses to maintain his looks, with which he’s obsessed. I’ve been told a lot of the book is focused on details like this, though I’m hoping it’s more tolerable as a whole throughout than it was in this chapter.

Recently Finished

Berserk 41Unlike last week, where I did not post because I had no real updates to share, I’ve engaged in veritable blitz of volumes of Berserk by Kentaro Miura. I read four of them in total—38, 39, 40, and 41—which has caught me up completely with the volumes currently published in English. It’s a bittersweet completion, however, as volume 41 marked the last manuscript penned by Miura himself before his untimely passing. This volume was especially enjoyable, full of touching moments and heartache, as the characters are finally at a perfect place for quiet introspection and more restful growth. Volumes had been consistently good up until this point, but a little unremarkable; 41 had exceptional payoff to the characters’ hard-fought journey, with substantial emotional stakes added to keep things compelling. It also included a bombshell of an ending that has me eager for more, if we do indeed get a continuation of this story in some way.

Springfield ConfidentialI also finished reading Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss over the weekend, and my enthusiasm for it kind of tapered off by the ending. I think this was due to the fact that at a certain point, I’m not sure when, the focus seemed to shift away from The Simpsons too much. Especially in the final chapters, this book became about Mike Reiss’s career, and we get quite a lot of information on his work after departing from the show for a while. It still managed to hold more interest for the most part, but I did not pick up this book to read about Mike Reiss. I picked up this book to read about production on The Simpsons. When it’s talking about that, it’s quite good. A lot of it doesn’t talk about that, and it ultimately suffers a little as a result. Reiss’s writing style came off as increasingly hacky the further I got too, which hurt it more so.

Reading Next

Right now, I don’t have especially concrete plans on what I want to read next. Finishing Berserk was a big deal for me, and I think I want a little breather from comics after pushing through those last four volumes. I do have some ideas about what book I want to pick up next, but I need to properly get into a groove with American Psycho first before I can look that far ahead.

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

Series I’d Like to Start/Catch up on/Finish

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme run by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme is a TTT rewind, where we can pick a previous topic that we missed, so I decided I’d like to put together a list of books that fit all three of the criteria in the title. I imagine I could have picked one of the three, but I’d rather take advantage of the more broad approach. I’m not sure how to feel about how many series I’ve actually got lined up, but it’ll be nice to put them all together in one place.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – March 8, 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

Springfield ConfidentialI’m really happy with the progress I’ve made with Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss since last week. I’m quite close to finishing it and might possibly be done with it by next week. We shall see, I have a history of such things not following through and I don’t really want to fully commit, especially since I’m hoping some more work will come in. At any rate, I’m enjoying this work quite a lot and you can definitely see Reiss’s imprint on The Simpsons through his style of writing (and honestly, probably its imprint on him in turn). It does come off a little corny sometimes in writing, however, I must admit. I wonder if I’d enjoy some of the quips better in an audio book. Also, the way he characterizes executives and their meddling really has me curious about how the sausage is made with a lot of the movies/series I love.

Recently Finished

Galatea (book)The other night I decided to read Galatea by Madeline Miller, which is definitely a book, though specifically a specially bound short story. I really loved Miller’s novels The Song of Achilles and Circe, so I knew I had to read this one of these days. I’ve actually owned it digitally for a while, but I’m happy I waited until I had a physical book in my hand, especially with the added context by the author in the new afterword. It was a rather brisk read and quite enjoyable, authentically adding onto a classical source of Greek myth while also being critical of it by offering a new point of view that challenges Pygmalion and the so-called happy ending he has with the ideal woman he crafts for himself.

Reading Next

American PsychoI still have plans to continue with Berserk, but I think I’m finally starting to commit to something else that has been a long time coming, a book that I have literally owned since I was 19 years old: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I’ve been putting off reading this for so long that I’m pretty sure I know what the eventual twist is, though it’s quite surprising how much the twist isn’t brought up considering the meme culture that has popped up around the film adaptation. Nevertheless, I want to finally read this; I’ve owned for too long without doing so. Honestly, if I didn’t own it I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to read it at all, but my uncle recommended it to me among a number of other books when I was more seriously getting into reading, which is why I bought it, so I really want to cap those off finally.

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

Book Review – Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle

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Wolf in White Van

Wolf in White Van is a 2014 fiction novel by John Darnielle, American musician and primary member of the band the Mountain Goats. The story follows Sean Phillips, a reclusive game designer whose face has been disfigured ever since suffering  a gunshot wound when he was 17. His games are play-by-mail role-playing games, exploring post-apocalyptic futures and fantastical realms. After two players of his game Trace Italian take their play into the real world, with grave consequences, Sean is brought in to account for it, sending him down a path a self-reflection to that fateful day where his own life permanently changed.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – March 1, 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

Springfield ConfidentialI’m still reading Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss, and I’m continuing to enjoy it a lot. There are insights I really hadn’t even considered before, like how Ralph was not initially written as Chief Wiggum’s son, he was just a kid in Lisa’s class. They decided to connect the two characters at a later time, simply because they could. Though the writing is funny and I’m enjoying it revealing the history of one of my favourite shows growing up, it is really great just for how it works to depict the creative process in general. So much of what we now consider iconic happened by accident, it really goes to show that it often isn’t a matter of a singular creative genius behind everything.

Recently Finished

Berserk 37Over the weekend I read volume 37 of Berserk by Kentaro Miura, which I’m happy to report finished up with the things I was getting a little tired of. The sea god is good and dead, and it seems the story will be moving forward soon. I’m surprised I’m not disappointed that it didn’t move forward even more, however, as a good chunk of the volume includes a flashback to something that happened to Guts when he was still rather young, working as a mercenary with no direction in his life. It essentially depicts an early brush between him and the spiritual realm through a sprite connected to a flower in a jail cell, who saves his life. It feels like they were filler chapters, but I sincerely enjoyed them as a lower-stakes interlude from what we’re used to in the series now.

Reading Next

Other than more Berserk, I’m still not sure what novel I will be starting next. However, I do think I ought to get myself reading Galatea by Madeline Miller. I wanted to read that short story book back in December but never got around to it. I’m sure it wouldn’t take me too long, so I really should make sure to read it soon.

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

New Books & Novel Discoveries (February 2023)

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Once again, I find myself wracking my brain about what I’ve purchased this month. I could have sworn that some book or other had been preordered a while ago and it arrived earlier this month. Apparently that is not the case, as I’ve picked through the books lying around and found nothing. Nevertheless, it has been another rather big month, though unique at the same time, as I usually don’t buy a lot of one series at once. I guess I kept looking for anything else I might have bought because I wanted more than one thing to talk about.

Enough vague waffling, on to the books!Read More »

WWW Wednesday – February 22, 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

Springfield ConfidentialSince last week I’ve managed to make a pretty decent start at Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss, which tells the author’s history and experiences working on The Simpsons for over 30 years. I’m nearly 100 pages in, and I’m really enjoying how light and fun it is to read. If I play my cards right, I should have this book finished up relatively soon. It’s quite something to hear how arduous the process of putting an episode together is, even just as a numbered list of steps. It really hammers home how there is no room for ego in production, as at best only remnants of an original script exist by the time the episode is complete. I’m also learning about fan speculation I was never aware of before, such as one of the writers of the show, John Swartzwelder, not being a real person (he just doesn’t like doing interviews or DVD commentary). I’m not sure I’ll have huge amounts to say each week about this, but I’m looking forward to reading more and more of it.

Recently Finished

Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star 2Over the weekend I took advantage of some unexpected reading time to go through a couple of volumes of manga. The first one was the second volume of Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star by Kaeruno Erefante. I continued to find it to be an amusing read, especially in how it depicts the realities of working in that industry and the less glamorous expectations and pressures put on performers, but the novelty also wore off a bit compared to the first book. I suppose this goes with it being semi-autobiographical rather than focused on plot. At least I’m only borrowing these, so casually keeping up doesn’t feel like a poor investment. I don’t think it helps that it takes a while for a new volume to come out too, with the build up only really leading to more of the same. I’m not sure if it could have been done, but I wonder if this series would have benefited from being put out as one complete work.

Berserk 36I also read through the 36th volume of Berserk by Kentaro Miura. Guts and his compatriots continued to battle the nightmarish tentacles of the sea god, with Guts eventually going into the belly of the beast to try and put an end to things once and for all. It was consistently good, but I’m getting a little fatigued. I’ve had enough of Guts jumping around killing hoards of something or other. I just want their journey to progress now. It was nice to see some growth in Farnese’s abilities, but I’m still hoping this wraps up near the start of the next book. It feels like I’ve been watching a vicious cycle on repeat; the plot needs to move forward more for the core group. At least this promises a definitive end to the threat they’re currently facing. Maybe I will enjoy the actual conclusion of this more than the toil along the way.

Reading Next

Other than cracking open some more Berserk to keep up with my recent commitment to finishing the series by April, I don’t have any other new reading plans. I’m just going to stick with Springfield Confidential on its own for now, rather than my previous thought of it being supplemental to a novel.

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

WWW Wednesday – February 15, 2023

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! I’m actually between books at the moment. Go me.

Recently Finished

Wolf in White VanI managed to have some good reading time this weekend, and I used it to finish Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle. I’m happy to report that the twist that I was afraid was coming did not in fact happen, so things did not go in a disappointing direction for me. I’m actually finding it a little hard to pin down quite how I feel about the book, though, as I can’t say I was deeply enthralled or in love with it, but it had the more unique effect of altering my state of mind in the wake of finishing it. Perhaps this isn’t that uncommon, but it’s rarer that the feeling isn’t something more joyful. It’s something altogether more poignant. I also feel like I didn’t fully “get” the novel, if you take my meaning. Some things definitely resonated with me, but I found the stream of consciousness a little hard to follow at times. I’m going to need some more time to reflect on it before reviewing.

Paper Girls 3I also won’t have to eat my glasses this week like I threatened myself last week, as I also made to time read the third volume of Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughn and Cliff Chiang over the weekend. This marks the end of reading through all the volumes of this series that I currently own, so I’m going to pick up more this year so I can get it finished up. As it turns out, I’m halfway through the series now, and I’m feeling especially hooked by this point. I really like the way this story explores time travel, specifically having only one timeline rather than branches. Each member of the core cast has had a good amount of focus by this point too, so I’m pretty invested in all of them. They’re handling themselves pretty well, all things considered, but I love how they still feel like they’re just flying by the seat of their pants. Tentatively, I’d like to commit to finishing this series before the end of the year.

Reading Next

Springfield ConfidentialSpeaking of reading commitments, one I decided to make over the past week was to finish the Berserk series by Kentaro Miura by April, which is when I will post my next blog update about reading challenges. I’m playing at them a lot looser this year and decided I would rather take on goals as they come to me rather than set up a bunch in January that I may be less enthused about come June. Since I’m not in the middle of any novels anymore, I suppose I should have made up my mind exactly what I want to read next, but I have not. So, I guess I’m going to start reading Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss in the meantime, as that’s been at the top of my mental to-read list for a while now.

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

WWW Wednesday – February 8, 2023

Ryan1 Comment
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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

Wolf in White VanI did not end up posting last week because, due to a deeply unfortunate turn of events that came out of nowhere, I literally did zero reading. Utterly scandalous. So, there didn’t seem to be a point to putting one of these up since nothing had changed. Fortunately for this week, I did manage to read some more of Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle, though I’m still got a bit to go despite how short the novel is. More and more details around the tragic incident with some of the players of Sean’s game are slowly being unearthed, and I’m starting to wonder if he isn’t something of an unreliable narrator. I suppose that shouldn’t come as a surprise, all things considered, but if the story goes in the direction I think it’s going in I believe I will be unhappy with the outcome. We shall see.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week! I am ashamed; I have not been reading comics like I’ve meant to. This could easily change at any time, but look at how that’s worked for me so far.

Reading Next

Paper Girls 3The books I want to read next haven’t really changed, so maybe we’ll be seeing some Paper Girls or Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star or even some Springfield Confidential in the near future. The possibilities are limited and specific. I should have some time this weekend, so let’s just commit to Paper Girls volume three right now, shall we? I’ll eat my glasses if I don’t. Also, I’m not too sure about Springfield Confidential, to be honest. I definitely want to read it soon, but I’m still feeling in the mood for fiction, so I might try to juggle it with something else. What that something else will actually be I cannot say at this time, but I do have a few things in mind.

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