Tag: Books

WWW Wednesday – December 4, 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

AcceptanceThis week I’ve started reading Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer, the third novel in the Southern Reach trilogy. I’m a good 100 pages or so in now, and I’m really enjoying how, once again, this novel is bringing a marked shift in how the narrative is told. While the first was epistolary from a single perspective and the second a more conventional, singular third-person one, this novel is presenting us with a number of different perspectives at significantly different points in time, all pertinent to Area X. What I especially like about this is how it is mixing things up, since things felt a little stagnant at times when solely from Control’s POV in the last book. Revelations have been a slow burn, and already I feel like I’m coming to understand things a little more, but it’s also still profoundly weird, raising yet more questions.

Recently Finished

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids AgainOver the weekend I finally finished reading Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama. This book took me a little longer to read than I would’ve liked, but this month has been busier with work, so I’m trying not to give myself too hard of a time with it. Overall, I enjoyed this reading experience very much, though some things clicked into place when the Afterword confirmed me that it was indeed written for a younger audience, as it definitely reads that way, with mixed results sometimes. Speaking of the Afterword, it actually really tied the whole reading experience together for me. While I may not have been in love with it purely as a novelization of those films, the book is a wonderful cultural artifact, and the background context given by the Afterword really helped to highlight the significance of these novellas and what went into their inception, endearing me to the whole package a lot more.

Reading Next

Over the Garden Wall Tome of the UnknownI’m determined to finish Acceptance this month above all else, so I’m not setting my mind on other concrete reading plans; I don’t want to set anymore lofty reading goals with the end of the year so close at hand. That being said, I’ve recently borrowed Over the Garden Wall: Tome of the Unknown by Pat McHale and Jim Campbell from the library. Though I was quite late to seeing the show, I’ve taken up the tradition of watching it every Halloween season since I first watched it. Naturally, when I saw this on the shelf, I wanted to read this too, so I should be getting to it pretty soon.

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

WWW Wednesday – November 20, 2024

RyanLeave a 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

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids AgainOn Monday, I read the lion’s share of the Godzilla novella by Shigeru Kayama from the book Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again. So, I’ve finished the first novella of the two, putting me at about the halfway point of the book. Overall, this novella follows the plot of the film quite closely, with some added flourishes that make the reading experience unique but were understandably cut from the film version, if they were ever a part of it at all. It was a fun read, but it’s also a movie novelization from the 1950s, so it’s got a fairly pulpy style, though I wonder if that was more an intentional choice on the part of the translator. Despite being fairly straightforward, I liked how much emphasis the narrative put on people’s suffering and desperation in the face of the horror Godzilla represents.

Recently Finished

Snow, Glass, ApplesOver the weekend, I read Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran, a graphic novel I came across at the library recently. I recall reading the original short story of this retelling of Snow White in one of Gaiman’s books, and I really liked the graphic novel adaptation of A Study in Emerald, so I decided this was worth a look. I expected to enjoy it, but I was very surprised by how much Doran’s illustrations elevated this text, creating a superior reading experience to the original short story. The visual style, heavily borrowing from the work of Irish artist Harry Clarke (to whom Doran expresses feeling indebted to), is absolutely stunning, presenting much of it like a visual stream of consciousness, occasionally reined in with traditional paneling when it calls for it. I wish I’d come across this book for my October reads, but its chilly atmosphere is still fitting for the season. I highly recommend checking this out, just for Doran’s art.

Reading Next

No real set plans on what I want to read next, other than a forthcoming reading of Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer to finish off the Southern Reach trilogy.

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

WWW Wednesday – November 6, 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

I’m between books at the moment! I regret not posting last week, but my work schedule is weird and I had people over to carve pumpkins last Wednesday, so I was unable to get a post up in time. As a result, I have a few finished books to get to.

Recently Finished

Vermis IIThe first book I finished since I last posted was Vermis II: Mist & Mirrors by Plastiboo, the second book in a series of art books structured as game guides for a dark fantasy video game that never existed. I really enjoyed the first volume, and I liked this second one even more. The first book felt a little open-ended, as if you’re following a quest line that the player could follow regardless of chosen character, but this time around it seemed to be a guide for a specific character’s journey, with more characters listed at the end, presumably with their own quests. I really liked the focus this gave to the book, keeping the game guide motif while allowing itself a more concrete narrative.

Sherlock Holmes and the NecronomiconNext, I read Sherlock Holmes and the Necronomicon by Sylvain Cordurié and Laci, another Halloween read that I borrowed from the library. This wasn’t terrible, but I don’t have a lot of nice things to say about this book either. It was competently written and drawn, but had very little going on that I found interesting. It being a Holmes story felt especially pointless, as he doesn’t do any detective work. The only real significance is that, somehow, Moriarty has returned, and he is going to use the Necronomicon to fully revive himself because of some nonsense about part of his soul being in Holmes. Actually, that was the most interesting element, as the idea is brought forth that positive changes in Holmes’s character are a direct result of Moriarty’s soul hiding in him, but this isn’t focused on enough. I likely won’t be checking out the second book.

Meddling KidsFinally, I finished Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero, my last spooky read for the Halloween season. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually finish it until November 4th, but the lion’s share of it was in October, so I’m counting it. I really like this book, I’d give it a solid four stars overall, though sometimes I want to say three and a half because the ending sections of this book became something of a struggle for me. There were some great twists and turns in the story that I enjoyed, but so much of it is this trio of burnouts fighting off a horde of amphibious monsters and it just wouldn’t stop; my eyes actually started glazing over and I had to snap myself back into focus during these continual, drawn out fight sequences. It was really good novel overall, but I can’t help but feel like Cantero wants it to be a movie, which can only really hurt a book if indeed the author doesn’t really want it to be a book.

Reading Next

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids AgainThe year is winding down, and I feel like I have to be realistic about what I’m going to be able to get to. Obviously, I can manage a good number of comics on short notice, but I have to be realistic about what novels I think I can read, especially since my work schedule may be dramatically changing soon. So, there are two books I definitely want to read before the end of the year: Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama and Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer. I’m going to start with the Godzilla book, as I’ve been excited to read that one, and I’ll round out the year finishing off the Southern Reach trilogy. Reading a whole trilogy in a year is rare for me; I think the only other time I’ve done it was when I read The Lord of the Rings.

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

Frighteningly Good Reads 2024 Wrap-Up

Ryan4 Comments

Once again, the Halloween season has come and gone, and it’s time to look back at all of the spooky books I managed to read in this year’s horror reading showcase hosted by Silver Button Books.

I feel like I did a little better last year, and there were a couple of books that I’m disappointed I failed to read, but I’m still rather happy with how things turned out. Below are my Frighteningly Good Reads for 2024, though the selection looks a little different from what I presented at the start of last month.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – October 23, 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

Meddling KidsI’ve put a good 100+ pages more into Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero, and for the most part any misgivings I had about the tone and style of this book have dissipated. Things felt a little too cliched with a “beat up a bunch of slovenly dudes at a bar” bit early on, but as the surviving members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club get the band back together and begin their road trip to Oregon to reopen their last case, I really became endeared to them all. Cantero especially does  good job of having their dog feel like a character while still just acting like a dog (rather than like Scooby). I left off at the end of a novel section that tipped its hand a little as to what truly went wrong on that case all those years ago when they were kids, and I really liked how close to the chest the book left these details; you know something supernatural was up pretty early, and but the small revelation nice and succinctly changes the stakes for the characters.

Recently Finished

Loving, OhioOver the weekend I also read through Loving, Ohio by Matthew Erman and Sam Beck, a horror graphic novel I borrowed from the library. Unfortunately, I didn’t like this book very much; I think it was trying to go for too much in a small number of pages, so everything about the story felt a little half-baked. We have adolescent desire to escape a small town, teen depression and suicide, a weird cult controlling too much of their lives, and a killer on the loose, mostly added up to a hodgepodge of these ideas rather than a coherent narrative. The killer is connected to the cult, but otherwise the cult is fairly garden variety, not even seen doing any of the real-world evils we see from cults outside of fiction. And why does the killer have weird powers and why is he doing it? I don’t know. Because cults are weird and scary? He is stopped and there are no consequences for the characters, despite the cult still going strong. Seeds for mysteries are planted early that are deliberately not followed up on. There’s clear talent behind this book, but I really struggle to see what they were going for other than the obvious, cliched stuff.

Reading Next

I still have a number of graphic novels to read for the Halloween season, with only a week to read them now; I really wish I’d spaced them out better. However, I’m really happy that I might be able to pull off getting through two novels, so I can accept some of the shorter stuff being cut. So, I may not get to everything from my initial Frighteningly Good Reads list, but I’m happy that it’ll be turning out a little differently from what I had planned.

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

WWW Wednesday – October 16, 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

Meddling KidsJust this morning I started reading Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero, a horror novel that I did not realize until today is published by Blumhouse Books; I didn’t even know Blumhouse had an arm for book publishing. I’ve only gotten about 20 pages in, but I’m really enjoying the setup so far, especially in how it’s an obvious send up of Scooby-Doo, but the members of their little detective group so far feel unique enough that it doesn’t feel like shallow parody. The setup has revealed that while they did in fact get an old man in a costume arrested, something else, much more sinister, was really going on at that mansion on the lake. The writing style has some interesting flourishes too, the narrator often describing things as if the characters are on camera in a film, but I’m not sure how much I like this yet.

Recently Finished

FrankensteinIn a surprising show of determination from yours truly, I started and finished rereading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley over the last two weeks. I didn’t post last Wednesday because I wasn’t that far yet and it was my birthday, so I decided to take a day for myself as much as I could. At first, I was worried about how well I would fare with this novel because it has been a while since I read older literature. Once I got back into the swing of things, it made for a very enjoyable reread. This was actually my first time reading the 1831 text as well, as originally I’d only read the 1818 version. The absence of overt incest does make it better. Wrightson’s illustrations were also a great addition to this reading experience. Some of them felt a little superfluous, but it was a delight anytime he depicted the Creature. How anyone could not understand how the Creature is supposed to be a sympathetic figure is beyond me; what ended up surprising me, a detail I’d forgotten, is that Frankenstein actually does admit his shortcomings on his deathbed. He’d been such an intolerant heel the entire book I had convinced myself he dies without learning a damn thing.

Reading Next

Vermis III still have a number of books I plan to get to for Frighteningly Good Reads this year, and I think what I’ll try to get through next is Vermis II: Mist & Mirrors by Plastiboo, the second volume of an art book series that creates game guides for a dungeon-crawling dark fantasy video game that never existed. Though I’ve recently watched a video that summarized a lot of the elements this book will cover, the details are fortunately receding from my mind already; a video summary pales in comparison to actually reading a thing as well anyway, let alone appreciating all the art that is has to offer.

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

Frighteningly Good Reads 2024

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Once again this year, I will be taking part in Frighteningly Good Reads, a horror reading showcase hosted by Silver Button Books.

This year she’s organized a Bingo card, which I will see how well I do on, but my reading list this year, as per usual, is mostly just tailored toward what books I really feel like checking out this year.

Without further, here are my Frighteningly Good Reads for 2024:

On top of this, I want to challenge myself to find a book at the library to include among these. I have a graphic novel in mind already, but if I can find a novella I would really like to do that too.

This is a fairly modest number of books, but my reading speed has been especially stunted lately, so I’ll be happy if I can get these ones done.

Have you got any books you’re reading for the Halloween season? Let me know below, and thank you for reading!

WWW Wednesday – October 2, 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

FrankensteinWith October having kicked off, I started reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley last night; the edition I’m reading includes spectacular pen and ink illustrations by Bernie Wrightson, well known for his work on comic series like Swamp Thing. So far, I’ve only read the front matter, which included a few introductions and sections giving some historical context for when it was written. The more modern introduction was written by Stephen King, and we are also treated to the introduction written by Shelley herself for the 1831 reprint. I was quite surprised to learn that, according to the author’s introduction, in her imagining of the creation of the Creature, when the story was still just a seed of an idea, she described it as being animated by “the working of some powerful engine.” I had thought the explicit use of technology of that nature was an addition by later adaptations, but clearly I’ve been mistaken for years.

Recently Finished

Everything is TeethEverything is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner is an autobiographical graphic novel I picked up from the library a week or so ago. This was another case of me fully embracing the accessibility libraries grant us and picking up a book I wouldn’t have ever purchased for myself. The story mainly covers the author’s experiences spending her summers in Australia as a young girl, her obsession with sharks serving as a through line throughout her experiences. This was one of those books that resonated with me despite not tapping into a precise childhood fixation I shared because the way she was feeling was familiar, even if the subject of her feelings wasn’t. I’m really happy I checked this one out.

James Bond The BodyJames Bond: The Body by Aleš Kot and various illustrators is a standalone volume from the recent James Bond comics published by Dynamite. This was another library book, but what most caught my eye about it was Kot as the author; I think he did exceptional work on the Bloodborne comics (especially for a video game tie in), so my interest is likely to be piqued if I see him attached to something. It was an interesting look at the toll being a secret agent takes on Bond’s body, as well as the fortitude required for him to live this life, weaving together several semi-self-contained smaller stories that all connect by the end. What was most refreshing was the idea of his missions feeling smaller scale; ultimately, the fate of world really is still at stake, but Kot managed to make the focus feel more grounded.

The TruthLastly, I managed to finish reading The Truth by Terry Pratchett, so I’ve managed to read at least one Discworld novel this year. I’m sad that this will likely be the only one, but I don’t want my reading to be too narrow. I feel like I comment on this a lot while reading this series—after all, it’s pretty hard to read 25 books set in the same world and not have similar things to say about it—but I really think this was a solid iteration on a familiar story structure to this series that we hadn’t seen in a while. It did have some notable similarities, like I can’t help but feel like the hero and heroine duo we get in books like these, unlikely to appear as protagonists in the series again, are all secretly facets of the same people. Nevertheless, this was a stronger outing that felt like it had something to say about newsprint and media and stood its ground by having it here to stay in the Discworld going forward.

Reading Next

Nothing this week, so to speak, but only because I will be posting my opening post for Frighteningly Good Reads either tomorrow or Friday, and that is where I plan to outline what I’d like to read for the month of October.

New Books & Novel Discoveries (September 2024)

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The past month was a surprisingly heavy one for book shopping, though I mainly blame a surprise library book sale that came up. It’s hard not to make some especially impulsive, even random, purchases when books are going for one or two dollars. I also got a little fixated on determining how my shelf would look going forward with a certain series and ended up picking up a couple brand new books too.

Now let’s see what books I’m carrying on about.Read More »