Author: Ryan

WWW Wednesday – September 3, 2025

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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

I’m still in the middle of reading A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, though I’m within the final 100 pages, so I’m hoping I can get it done this week. It’s a solid novel so far, I am really liking it, though it’s still hard not to compare it to the first one and how much I liked it. However, this novel has given me a bone to pick with the crew of the first novel, though I’m inclined to hold back a little because the totality of their rationale is not fresh in my mind. Nevertheless, I really think the crew of the Wayfarer did Sidra dirty by sending her off in the kit. I get that they were grieving the loss of Lovey, but couldn’t they have modded Lovelace (Sidra) to have a difference voice? She’s ostensibly a new person and the ship is going to need a new AI anyway, surely, so why did they send this poor being off in a body she didn’t want, that she struggles to feel comfortable in on a daily basis? I’m really hoping this novel addresses this problem eventually, because it’s honestly an elephant in the room and they need to be held accountable at least a little.

Recently Finished

Nothing this week. Work has been rather busy and I’ve been singularly focused on what I’m still currently reading.

Reading Next

No new plans this week, and I’m still planning to start The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus next. This is normally a week I would perhaps skip, but I had a lot to say about what I’m currently reading.

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

WWW Wednesday – August 27, 2025

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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

Finally, after half a decade and goodness knows how many to-read lists including this book, I have finally started reading A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, the second novel in the Wayfarers series. I actually could’ve posted about this last week, but I had so much going on that I entirely forgot about posting that Wednesday. Whoops! I’m about 150 pages or so in and I’m enjoying it quite a lot. I don’t find myself quite as endeared to the characters as I did the crew in the first book, but it is making for fascinating science fiction to witness an AI meant to be housed in a ship, with all the sensors and viewpoints at its disposal there, try to exist limited to a humanoid body. An especially interesting consideration is how memory would actually work, as there’s only so much space for data storage that is limited to technology rather than a brain when it doesn’t have network access. So far it’s a going concern for Sidra, our protagonist, and I’m curious to see if and how it is resolved. Also, I’m convinced Blue wants to get freaky with Sidra but I can’t prove it.

Recently Finished

The very week I started it I finished reading Strange Houses by Uketsu, and I must say I was kind of let down by it by the end. The integration of floor plans was certainly interesting, especially as it has you follow the characters’ back and forth speculation about what such design choices could indicate and why, but in the end I just found it to be too bland. I thought the author and his friend’s predictions were entirely too accurate to what was really happening, and the revelatory breakdown of what was truly going on was such a formal and straightforward explanation that it was hard to really feel swept up by any of it. It’s just a bunch of names and being told who, what, and where outside any traditional narrative style; it was almost like reading a report of events. I will say, I like that certain things remained obscure and don’t quite add up if you tally it all together, but my intrigue isn’t strong enough to keep me thinking about it either. I hope I enjoy Strange Pictures more.

Reading Next

I’ve been meaning to get to some nonfiction books for a while now, so tentatively I think I will read The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus next, especially since the Halloween season is right around the corner, at which point it will be all about the spooky.

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

Books on my Shelf with a High Page Count

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme run by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic really stood out to me, as I feel like I have a number of hefty tomes that intimidate me away from reading them, despite having them on my shelf. I decided to mix things up a little, splitting it between big books I’ve managed to finish and big books I’ve yet to start. For me, big is anything approaching or above 700 pages in length. Maybe that’s high, maybe that’s low, I don’t know, pick your poison; 700 is just when a book starts looking especially long to me.Read More »

New Books & Novel Discoveries (July 2025)

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I’ve gotten really bad at writing these on time, I’m afraid. I want to blame the heat and workload at my jobs, which definitely are factors, but lately I’ve just lacked the motivation, and I’m sorry for that. At any rate, I acquired some nice new books in July, some of which I’d been looking for for a while.

Let’s see what I a managed to pick up.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – August 13, 2025

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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

Instead of continuing on with books in series I’ve planned to finish up, on Monday I started reading Strange Houses, a Japanese mystery/horror novel by the enigmatic author Uketsu. I was in the mood to read something more horror related and suspected this book would be a swifter read, so I went with my feelings instead of grander plans. I was right about it being a quick read, as I’m already over 60% of the way through it after just a couple of reading sessions. So far, it’s definitely more of a mystery than horror, though the inclusion of floor plans and the strangeness of their designs definitely has a creepy effect. A lot of it feels a bit too much like rampant speculation on the part of the characters, however, and I’m wondering whether that will factor back into the story or if their active imaginations will inexplicably ring true.

Recently Finished

Since last week, I’ve read two graphic novels that I borrowed from the library. The first was Medea by Blandine Le Callet and Nancy Peña, a retelling of the life of the fearsome sorceress from Greek mythology. Overall, I enjoyed it very much, especially the efforts it made to ground mythologized settings into a plausible historical context. Personally, I do prefer when the mythology is fully and unambiguously embraced, but I do like the presentation of it as something that actually happened, especially in how Medea, though obviously not an impartial narrator, mush reckon with the myths that have grown around her notoriety, juxtaposed with what she claims really happened.

I also read Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 1, which is a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami adapted into comic book form by Jean-Christophe Deveney and PMGL. Though the title refers to it as manga, I will call this a graphic novel because, as far as I can tell, it was adapted by a Western team. Though Murakami is a well-regarded novelist and I’ve heard of many of his books over the years, for some reason (big frog) this was the first book with his name on it to ever grab my attention. None the stories blew me away, but I have found myself ruminating on them a little over the past week. I enjoyed their unabashed strangeness and meditative atmosphere. I’m certainly more curious about Murakami’s work now too, though I don’t think I’ll rush out to pick any up.

Reading Next

I’ve not entirely made up my mind on what I want to read next. I’m still being weirdly moody about it.

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

WWW Wednesday – August 6, 2025

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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

Nothing at the moment! I’m briefly between books.

Recently Finished

Last week, I read through Tomorrows by Brittany Luckham, a book of free-verse poetry that came out earlier this year. The contents explore the author’s personal struggles with mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, as well as the difficulties that come with being a person with undiagnosed autism. Further poems explore her love for creativity and storytelling. I picked up the book from the library because I’m actually somewhat acquainted with the author; we both frequently attend the same monthly book mixer. As I’ve said many times before, poetry is fairly outside my wheelhouse, but I quite liked this collection; nothing blew me away, but it was an enjoyable reading experience and I was happy to lend a modicum of support by checking it out.

Yesterday I finally finished reading Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson, the third novel in the Trickster trilogy. I quite enjoyed how this book ramped up the supernatural aspects of the story while integrating them more with the mundane world rather than supplanting it. Despite inhabiting a place of continual fallout from the previous book, it did a good job of still taking its time to slow things down, letting characters catch their breath and try to restore a sense of normalcy to their lives and hold things together, despite the greater sense of imminent danger. The only thing I’m left feeling a little mixed on is the ending. While I enjoyed the climax very well, I wish we had been given a few chapters to debrief on how the characters are and where left off. Instead we are treated to a two-page epilogue that quickly runs down what people get up to long afterwards. It felt somewhat in keeping with some thematic ideas, but I can’t help feeling a little unsatisfied all the same.

Reading Next

Next, I’m going to take care of reading some more comics I got from the library. First up is Medea by Blandine Le Callet and Nancy Peña. Originally published in French, this graphic novel tells of the life of Medea, the notorious and legendary sorceress from Greek mythology. I’m a sucker for interesting-looking adaptations of Greek myth, and while there’s a laundry list of novels I want to check out in that vein that would take a while to get to, it’s decidedly easier to dive right into a graphic novel, so once I saw it on the shelf at the library I decided to take it home with me.

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

WWW Wednesday – July 30, 2025

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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

I’m still chipping away at Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson, though I took a break from it last week, which I’ll get into. I’m just about 100 pages shy of finishing it, though, so with luck I’ll have it done very soon. I’m still enjoying this final book quite a bit, though it feels at a point of suspense at the moment. While there is a general unrest in Jared’s life due to recent events, it doesn’t feel as if anything is urgently a threat at the moment, yet I can’t help feeling like there’s going to be yet another explosive incident. I wish the stakes were a little more apparent than just waiting for the implication of a threat to become more obvious. Still, it’s an enjoyable period of relative quiet for the character while he tries to get a handle on things. I think I’m rather going to miss reading this trilogy once I’m done with it.

Recently Finished

Last week I decided to hell with my apprehension and started reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson in preparation for a monthly book mixer that occurred on Saturday. The theme this month was pirate books, so this was the perfect opportunity to read the pirate book. I almost didn’t make it, but I finished the book in six days, which I’m quite satisfied with. The language was a little antiquated, as expected, which made it a little more challenging, but it was ultimately a rather breezy read. I was surprised by how violent the book ended up being, as I’ve always heard it’s considered children’s literature, with even our child protagonist himself needing to shoot a man in the face in self-defense. The book includes the exact words “I’ll blow your brains out” too, and with how popular and influential it is, I’ve been wondering ever since if that’s the first time that phrase was ever written down.

Reading Next

I’ve got a good handful of library reads lined up, but I haven’t settled on one to start just yet. You’ll have to wait until next week, when I expect I’ll have finished at least one of them.

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

WWW Wednesday – July 16, 2025

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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

Yikes, I’m only just realizing how I missed two whole weeks of these. Two weeks ago I just hadn’t felt I had enough to write about, and last week I was vacationing at a cottage. At any rate, there have been a lot of changes in that time. First and foremost, I’ve been reading Return of the Trickster by Eden Robinson, the third novel in the Trickster trilogy. Though I liked the previous book well, I am especially enjoying this one. Trickster Drift slowed things down a bit as Jared struggled with settling into a new place with unfamiliar family and his commitment to sobriety, so there was a subtle atmosphere of suspense, which erupted at the conclusion of that book. This book has continued the trajectory, and I’m really enjoying the domino effect as the fallout continues. I’m only about 120 pages in, which isn’t nothing, but I should be further along since it’s been a couple weeks, I’m just not very good at reading on vacation.

Recently Finished

Likely about three weeks ago now, I finished reading Curses by George Wylesol, a book collecting various surreal comic book works by the author from over the years. Many of them didn’t have much of a narrative to speak of and were very abstract, so my mileage varied a little. The final story involving ghostly possession, prophecy, and the end of the world in a deeply strange town was a lot of fun, though, and I really appreciate this author’s unique visual style that is really unlike anything else I see in comics right now, so I can’t help but be fond of this. I do want to track down another of his books that seems more singularly focused though, as I think I’ll like that more.

This week I read through Ew, It’s Beautiful, the new False Knees comic collection by Joshua Barkman. It’s not really a narrative thing, so I don’t have much to say except I was delighted as usual by the strips, both old and new, and continue to love the art, which is beautifully realistic but somehow just as evocative as a cartoon.

Reading Next

I haven’t quite decided what I’m going to read next. This month’s theme at a monthly book mixer I go to is pirates, so I was thinking of reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, but with the pace I’ve been going at this week I’m not sure I can actually get to it in time, as I don’t want to shelve Return of the Trickster to do it. We’ll see where things take me.

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

New Books & Novel Discoveries (June 2025)

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Goodness me, I’ve let it happen again: I’ve waited far too long into the next month to post one of these, but I feel like I’ve got a decent excuse this time. You see, the first week of July I was fairly busy with work, and then all of last week I was on vacation. So, this was left to languish, but I was at a cottage! Surely you can understand. I’ve had some last minute remembrances of what I bought, so it’s one of those months, but I believe I’ve got them all remembered properly now.

Let’s see what I picked up.

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Book Review – Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel

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Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel is the third and final novel of The Themis Files. For the past ten years, Rose, Vincent, and his daughter Eva have been stuck on an alien planet. Through Rose’s ingenuity, the alien invaders who made Themis and massacred 100 million people were persuaded to leave Earth, taking their creation with them. Unbeknownst to them, however, Rose and company were celebrating inside Themis when she was beamed away. Though initially prevented from leaving, Rose, Vincent, and Eva have managed to make their way back to Earth using Themis, where they hope they can finally return to living a normal life. Things are never quite that simple, however, and 10 years is a long time following so much destruction and so many lives lost. Humanity and their understanding of who they are in the universe has forever changed and must be reckoned with before peace can ever be attained again.

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