WWW Wednesday – March 6, 2024

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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

Death in Her HandsI’m still making my way through Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh. I think I’ve only managed another chapter or so since last week, but I’m continuing to enjoy it. However, I’m starting to feel like this experience is going to go one of two ways for me: either a shoe will drop that makes the story a lot more interesting or things will stay nebulous with the character ruminating on the ideas of her wild imagination. Though I don’t think I’ll hate the latter thanks to the strength of Moshfegh’s writing, I will be somewhat disappointed. On the one hand, the character does seem to be a really anxious person, more so than she realizes, and on the other hand she does seem sound enough of mind that I don’t think she’s imagining everything. Perhaps by next week we’ll see how things turn out for me.

Recently Finished

Shuna's JourneyOver the weekend I read through Shuna’s Journey by Hayao Miyazaki, an illustrated work by the author that was originally published in 1983, before he even founded Studio Ghibli. Though I referred to it as a manga last week, it actually reads a lot more like a picture book, though with greater visual and thematic depth than one made for children. This actually had some of the weirdest and most quietly disturbing ideas I think I’ve seen from a work of his, specifically in the otherworldly forces presented in the story. It was fun to see early iterations on ideas that would pop up in later works too like the films Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Princess Mononoke. Though this was a library read, I enjoyed it so much that I will likely pick up a copy to own for myself someday.

Reading Next

I still don’t really know what I’m going to be reading next, but I’ll have to make up my mind soon since I will likely be wrapping up Death in Her Hands pretty soon. I just don’t know what I’m in the mood for, only that I don’t want to read more nonfiction right now.

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

WWW Wednesday – February 28, 2024

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

Death in Her HandsQuite on a whim, I decided to start reading Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh; I was glancing at my shelf wondering what I wanted to read next, and I realized that I hadn’t read any of her books in a minute and this one was just sitting right there. I’m just under halfway through at the moment, and while I am enjoying it, it is also a little slow. Much of it has been about Vesta, the elderly main character, slowly divulging details about her life as we follow her stream of consciousness after finding a note in the woods talking about a supposedly murdered girl who is nowhere in sight. I had thought a more direct mystery would be at the heart of this story, but it seems it is much more about the narratives we weave on our own about the world around us, as well as how we go about constructing narrative for creative writing. I’m intrigued to see where this will go.

Recently Finished

Video Game of the YearOver the weekend I managed to finally finish reading Video Game of the Year by Jordan Minor. Though I enjoyed it fine, I once again felt that he indulged himself a little too much with editorializing, this time in particular about games by the studio FromSoftware; if he wanted to talk about the conversations around game difficulty with their games, fine, but I didn’t need a personal anecdote on why he doesn’t like them and feels like they don’t respect his time. It’s a shame, because I know he is capable of writing entries in a more personally detached way because that’s how the earlier entries were done. I’m sure there’s a wealth of places to read Minor’s opinions elsewhere, and I hope this book brings people to those places, but this wasn’t the stage for them. I won’t be giving this book a full review, but I’d rate it a 3.5 out of 5.

Reading Next

Shuna's JourneyThe next book I plan on reading soon is something I picked up at the library after randomly coming across it: Shuna’s Journey by Hayao Miyazaki. This manga was originally published all the way back in 1983 but only saw a release in English in 2022. I’m a fan of Miyazaki’s animation work and had no idea he’d authored/illustrated any manga, so it was an easy choice to pick this up. I’d been needing a comic to read next too, and while this isn’t from the backlog of books I own, it’s still nice to have found something that immediately grabbed my interest. The aesthetics remind me of some of his films, but it appears that this is an original story unconnected to any of those.

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

WWW Wednesday – February 21, 2024

Ryan2 Comments
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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

Video Game of the YearI’m still chipping away at Video Game of the Year by Jordan Minor, though I’ve been making more of a concerted effort this week to getting it finished, and I’m happy to report that I feel like I’m in the home stretch. I’m still enjoying the book well enough, though as it has started to cover more modern games I have found Minor to be a little too opinionated at times; this isn’t to say that the topics and issues he brings up aren’t relevant to the background details around the games being discussed, I just feel he occasionally digresses a little too much and editorializes more than I would want from a book like this.

Recently Finished

The GhostI’m especially happy that I was able to finish The Ghost: A Cultural History by Susan Owens over the weekend, making good on a recent commitment to reading through more books from the library instead of buying them. Though my progress was a little slower due to it being nonfiction, I enjoyed this book quite a lot, and it got me thinking about how so little seems to actually change over time. Even hundreds of years ago, skeptics were publishing very similar arguments against ghosts as skeptics make now. It’s also really amusing to learn that phantasmagoria, which involved lighting effects creating ghostly effects on a stage, came first; the effect wasn’t created because that’s how people reported seeing ghosts, people started reporting seeing ghosts as floating, glowing apparitions after those shows became popular.

Reading Next

I’m still not entirely sure what I’m going to start reading next, but what I do know is that it’s going to be fiction. I don’t have anything against nonfiction, but there’s been a little too much of that going around for my liking. I need more narrative in my life now.

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

Book Review – The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett

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The Fifth Elephant

The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett is the 24th novel in the author’s Discworld series and the fifth novel in the “City Watch” sub-series. Sam Vimes, commander of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, lives a life fraught with danger, pursuing hardened criminals throughout his notorious and modern city and dodging assassins sent by those with distaste for such a committed man of the law. He is about to face his toughest challenge, however, when made to step into his role as a Duke and play ambassador to the mysterious and filthy-rich country of Uberwald, a place that follows its own rules in deference to the various figures who hold power there. Politicking may not be his forte, but with a sacred dwarf artifact going missing and murders piling up, a no-nonsense policeman may be just what the place needs, if only he can keep the wolves from snapping at his heels.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – February 7, 2024

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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

The GhostI’m still plucking away at Video Game of the Year by Jordan Minor; I’m still enjoying it too, but don’t have much more to say about it at this time. Alongside it, I’ve managed to be able to start The Ghost: A Cultural History by Susan Owens since I last updated. My reservation at the library finally came through, and since then I’ve managed to read almost 120 pages. I’m a little disappointed I haven’t read more, but I do find I’m a little slower with nonfiction, typically, so it is what it is. In any case, I’m finding the book really interesting, giving a hyper-focus on the history of ghost folklore in Britain specifically. I had no idea, for instance, that hundreds of years ago there was a harder distinction between a ghost, being the soul of a departed person, and a spirit, which can be considered an inhuman entity masquerading as a dead person.

Recently Finished

I haven’t finished anything in a couple of weeks. Last week I didn’t post because I took a trip out of town, and I haven’t picked up anything shorter to read recently either. Hopefully, I can make a greater push to finish what I’m currently reading relatively soon so that I’m not spending all of February finishing these up.

Reading Next

At the moment, I’m really not sure what I want to be reading next. What I find most vexing (in a small way) is that I can’t immediately think of any comics I want to get to. I had a number of series last year that I was eager to finish, but with them done I’m still feeling a little in-between things and indecisive. Hopefully I’ll settle on something more concrete soon.

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

New Books & Novel Discoveries (January 2024)

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I’ve been a little remiss in getting this post written; even now, I’ve had to force myself to write it rather late. I’m not sure what happened, other than I had to travel a little last week and then somehow all possible spare time got away from me.

With January done, the new year feels properly initiated. I kept things fairly low-key with book shopping, but I couldn’t help myself with picking up some here and there.

Enough jabbering, on to the books!Read More »

WWW Wednesday – January 24, 2024

Ryan1 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

Video Game of the YearI’m still slowly making my way through Video Game of the Year by Jordan Minor; ideally, I want to read two entries a day, but I haven’t quite gotten myself there yet. Still, I read at least two when I do pick it up, and it’s making for some great bit-sized reading. I’ve reached the 1990s, so it’s starting to get into games I actually have some experience with, with the exception of PC titles that passed me by. I’m really enjoying the addition of the “Extra Life” section after each entry that highlights another game of that year, as well as other semi-related titles, so that any possibly glaring omissions get some attention. The medium is full of great games after all, but only one can be featured for each year. I’m glad Minor was able to find a way to make room for so much more.

Recently Finished

AnnihilationI’m happy to report that I managed to finish Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer the other day, sticking to my plan to get it finished before the end of January. I’m also really pleased with how different this book was from the film, as it feels like I can appreciate them better as separate entities now. By its very nature, as the story we’re reading was written by “the biologist” in a field journal, it’s painful yet tantalizing how much has been left mysterious. It’s clear that horrors lurk in Area X, and lifeforms there undergo startling changes in form, but why and how this is all happening and what has happened there as reported in past field journals is so hinted at yet uncertain that I can’t wait to read more. It seems the sequel, Authority, may be written more like a conventional novel (I am speculating), or at least from a more knowledgeable perspective, which I love as a shift in format, starting with an account written in the field—full of discovery and speculation—and then shifting to something more authoritative to grow our understanding.

Reading Next

I’m still holding out hope that The Ghost: A Cultural History by Susan Owens will be returned to the library soon, so for now I’m just going to focus on Video Game of the Year and hope my patience pays off.

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

Books I Meant to Read in 2023 but Didn’t Get To

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly book meme run by That Artsy Reader Girl. It’s been a little while since I’ve put one of these lists together, and with January being so much about looking back as well as forward, this topic felt like a perfect one to take part in. I do have to wonder which of these will end up being unread by 2025, though I don’t even want to think about that year being a reality right now.Read More »