WWW Wednesday is a book meme run by Taking on a World of Words.

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 getting through Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King, which has slowed down considerably after I finished “Low Men in Yellow Coats.” It was a great story and I’m not sure the rest of the book will be able to live up to considering I’m pretty sure it was the only one with the connection to The Dark Tower. I’m on the story “Hearts in Atlantis” itself now, which interestingly feels very different in writing style from “Low Men,” but still hasn’t quite grabbed me. I plan to power through it over the next week or so.

I started reading Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh since my last entry, and I’m about half-way through at the moment. This is the book I’ve been putting the most energy into. The prose is quite beautifully written, the perspective in each story feeling wonderfully distinct while having clear thematic connections and similarities in a way that I feel is deliberate. It’s almost like the book sets out to convey a core human experience in as many different ways as it can.

Recently Finished

Since my last entry I finished Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris. It had some of my most favourite essays of his I’ve read so far, most notably “Loggerheads,” and I felt I learned more about him as an author, whereas in When You’re Engulfed in Flames it was focused more on his personal life and history. I’m not sure which I prefer, but it was an interesting expansion on my understanding of the writer of these pieces nonetheless. The “Forensics” sections were good insofar as they would be interesting to hear performed, but otherwise were too obvious for me and interrupted the flow of the book more often than not. A good collection, but my least favourite thus far.

I also started and finished The Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman and J. H. Williams III. I loved the story and how it tied into elements in the main series, while also expanding upon my knowledge of the world Dream inhabits, specifically the hierarchy of forces at play. It was a little jarring because the impression I got of the story when I read issue #1 when it first came out was quite different from what the story was actually about, but I fault myself for that. William III’s art is absolutely gorgeous and the colours employed by Dave Stewart really made the visuals pop. It really makes me want to read through The Sandman all over again.

Reading Next

I still want to start The Dark Tower (Dark Tower VII), but I’ve resolved myself to finish Hearts in Atlantis first so that the list of books I’m reading doesn’t pile up. I’m hopeful that I will begin it long before March is over.

I’ve been eyeing some of the Star Wars books on my shelf, particularly Tarkin, though I can’t say for sure I will get to it yet. I’m also considering starting What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions as a supplemental read once I clean up what I’m currently reading.

I finally got a copy of Hellboy: The Crooked Man and Others, the elusive 10th volume that I needed in order to continue finishing the series. I will likely read through that over the next few days. I also just got Death by Neil Gaiman, a collection about the character Death of the Endless from The Sandman. It includes chapters focused on her from that series, as well as collecting her miniseries The High Cost of Living and The Time of Your Life. I will likely read this soon too.

 

WWW Wednesday is a book meme run by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I’ve been aware of this for a while, and though I’m thinking I will post every other week rather than every week (I don’t feel I read fast enough for weekly), I thought it’d be fun to participate.

Currently Reading

I started reading Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King last week as a final side-story departure before finishing the Dark Tower series. I plan to read the entire thing, but my priority is getting through “Low Men in Yellow Coats”, since Ted Brautigan is apparently an important character related to the Tower. As a story that’s part of this collection I do find it a little strange just how tied to Dark Tower it is, since as I understand it this book is mainly about capturing the attitudes of 1960s America, especially in relation to the Vietnam War. The family drama is good nonetheless, and King does a fine job of telling the story believably from the perspective of a young boy.

I’m still in the middle of Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris, which I treat as something a little more supplementary to what I’m mainly focusing on reading. I’m enjoying it a lot so far, it’s quite funny, though I liked When You Are Engulfed in Flames more thus far. The essays are good, but the short monologues he was inspired to write by the “Forensics” that high school students dictate haven’t done much for me yet.

Recently Finished

The most recent book I finished reading was Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, the second Philip Marlowe detective novel. The hardboiled attitudes and narrative style was fun, especially the period specific dialogue and exaggerated manner some characters are presented — the loudly-dressed ex-con Moose Malloy being my favourite. It was a strange odyssey through a criminal underworld that Marlowe, despite his intelligence and capabilities, seemed to stumble along through more than deduce and break down on his own. In this way it felt very anti-detective fiction, until the ending which wraps things up conveniently for the reader. The mystery kept me interested nonetheless, though it did drag a bit towards the end, where I started to feel a little tangled in all its threads.

Reading Next

I’ve got several books in mind for reading in the near future, some of them prose and others graphic novels. I want to finally start The Dark Tower (VII) so I can say I’ve finished the series. I’m dying to know how it all ends, especially with the cliffhanger Song of Susannah left me on. I also want to start reading more current books, so I picked up Homesick for Another World, a collection of short stories by Ottessa Moshfegh. I read a little bit of a preview before buying to see if I like her style, but otherwise I want to go in blind.

I’m waiting for a copy of Hellboy: The Crooked Man and Others to arrive so I can finish reading Hellboy. I have all 12 volumes except for the above one (Vol. 10) which has been harder to find, so it’s run my progress on the series into the ground. I’ve been loving it though and can’t wait to finally power through the rest. In the meantime, I’m going to start reading Sandman: Overture by Neil Gaiman and J. H. Williams III, which I’m disappointed I haven’t done already considering how much I love the original Sandman series.