Tag: David Sedaris

WWW Wednesday – September 14, 2022

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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

Regrettably, despite what I said last week, I’ve actually made no progress on Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones. Though work has been a little lighter over the past week, other obligations have made it so I’ve been able to squeeze in very little reading time.

Recently Finished

PaperGirlsVol1Despite the limited reading time, however, I was able to squeeze in an hour or so this morning to get the first volume of Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughn et al. finished. Though the plot, such as it was, felt a little hectic by the nature of what the main characters are exposed to this bizarre All Saints Day morn, I’m more than hooked on the story and look forward to seeing where things go next. We’ve seen a glimpse of forces at play who seem to use time travel to their own selfish ends, and I’m eager to see their natures expanded upon and with whom the characters will align. The core group is fairly well characterized too, so I expect I’ll continue to enjoy this even if they’re just trying to survive in reaction to the forces around them, rather than getting more actively involved.

Reading Next

Paper Girls 2I’ve got plenty of things lined up here now, don’t I? I still want to start A Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris soon. Won’t be long now, that’s for sure. I’m also planning to start Pet Sematary by Stephen King soon. I’m hoping I can finish that book a lot faster than Dark Lord of Derkholm. I do not know what it is with this book, but I have just been the worst at actually reading it, which is weird because I’m enjoying it a lot. Nevertheless, I’ve been reading it since July; this amount of time on one book is really bad, even for me and my below-average pace. Lastly, since I’m properly getting into it now and I have a couple more volumes, I’m going to read volume two of Paper Girls soon too. Hopefully I get to it more promptly.

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

WWW Wednesday – September 7, 2022

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

Dark Lord of DerkholmI feel like I’m coming up on the final stretch of Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones. In fact, I’m fairly confident that if I hadn’t been more swamped with work than normal over the past week or so, I would have had it finished by now. So it goes. I’ve reached a seemingly perfect point of suspense, as Blade has had his Pilgrim Party campaign go horribly awry so far and now they’ve all up and disappeared. We’ve also gotten a bit of a better look at the plan in action regarding trying to get the tours canceled for good, though I’m sure the linchpin will come down to Derk and Blade. I’m hoping that by next week I’ll be talking about this book in past tense, enjoyment aside. Fingers crossed!

PaperGirlsVol1I finally started reading the first volume of Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughn et al., though I’m disappointed that that’s all I was able to manage. Like I said though, I’ve been a bit swamped. I finished the first chapter/issue of the volume, which was a nicely effective introduction to the characters and they’re surprisingly quickly escalating situation. I was particularly impressed, oddly, but the suspenseful last panel, which has these girls in the 1980s finding a device with a modern Apple logo on it. It’s simple, yet I really liked this small mundane hint of time travel and how it demonstrates how much tech advances in a relatively short amount of time.

Recently Finished

Nothing once again, even after being absent last week. Things have just been so tiresome lately.

Reading Next

Pet SemataryI’d still like to start reading A Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris soon, but with it already being September and my reading going at a snail’s pace, I think I’m going to start reading one of the spooky books from my to-read list for the year. For the moment, I think it shall by Pet Sematary by Stephen King. Something easy and hopefully breezy, to help pick up the pace. It seems that the Comixology app has been fixed a bit too, at least as a digital reader (sans storefront), so maybe I’ll dig back into my digital comics soon too.

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

WWW Wednesday – August 24, 2022

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

Dark Lord of DerkholmI’ve made more decent progress in Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones again this week, though not nearly as much as I probably should have. I had more incidental free time than I had been planning this weekend, but I just didn’t end up dedicating a lot of it to reading. With editing work requiring so much reading on its own, it really is harder to motivate myself to read for fun. I’m still enjoying the book a lot, and it looks like a proper shift in the story is coming. Derk had to play Dark Lord for his first batch of pilgrims, who actually seemed to be outsiders bent on exposing the whole scheme from the other side, and his son Blade has gone off to lead his own Pilgrim Party, so I’m hoping things will become all the more substantive from here on out.

Recently Finished

Yet again, I have failed. I’m not in the best state of mind as of late, however, so I hope you can forgive my more barren posts this last little bit.

Reading Next

PaperGirlsVol1I still want to start reading A Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris soon, though I think I will have to make a more concentrated effort to read it at home, as it is a bit to big to be lugging to my typical reading haunt. I have a harder time getting myself to read at home, though, so I will have to figure things out. I still want to start Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughn et al. too, I’ve just continued to neglect it. Maybe I will turn that around this week; I certainly guilt myself about not starting it enough. If I’m going to keep thinking about it, I might as well actually start it.

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

WWW Wednesday – August 17, 2022

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

Dark Lord of DerkholmI’m still tootling along in Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones; there’s a lot left, but I made some decent yet modest progress over the weekend all the same. The story has outdone itself in terms of surprising me with its darker elements, though I won’t get into exactly what happens. I thought it was handled with fairly deft tact though, I just hope it isn’t completely swept under the rug going forward. The endeavour to march these dark soldiers across the land still hasn’t quite wrapped up yet, so I’ve yet to get the further momentum I was hoping for in the story. I’m only a little over halfway through, however, so I’m still invested. It seems the plot to end the tours has progressed a little too, though I hope it doesn’t all come down to a breach of contract on the part of the true villain.

Recently Finished

Once again, I have failed to read Paper Girls or anything else.

Reading Next

A Carnival of SnackeryLike I’ve been saying repeatedly, I’m going to start reading Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughn et al. soon, but I’ve been saying that for a couple of weeks now, so who can say how soon that will really be. At the moment, I’ve decided that the next book I want to start reading is Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris. It’s not on my yearly to-read list, but I’m hoping it can make for another decent supplemental read. Those usually don’t work out great for me, but I feel like I need to try and have more than one book on the go at a time anyway. I’ve been waiting a while for the sequel to Theft by Finding too, so it’s time I finally started it.

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

Book Review | Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

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Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day is a 2000 collection of humorous, anecdotal essays by David Sedaris, and is the author’s fourth book. Though these essays offer a bit of an eclectic mix of topics, altogether they serve as an unconventional telling of Sedaris’s life story up to that point, covering some of his experiences in school, the eccentricities of his family members, numerous relocations, and career changes. Underpinning many of these essays is a motif of communication and/or self-expression.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – February 3, 2021

Ryan7 Comments
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 at the moment. I’m between books.

Recently Finished

Me Talk Pretty One DayOver the weekend I finished reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris. It didn’t feel wildly different from the other books of his that I’ve read, but having not read one for nearly four years, it was great for getting back into the groove with his writing. I expect reviewing this book may be more difficult than usual, as is often the case with any sort of collection. A number of the essays within dealt with self-expression and/or communication, so it’s not to say there’s no through-line at all, but it’s just easier to consider a book when it’s a more cohesive whole. I guess I’m just worried about how much I’ll have to say about it. This was fun, nonetheless, and I’ve got another one or two of his books lying around the house, so there’s a good chance I’ll read another this year.

Star Wars Age of Resistance - HeroesI also read Star Wars: Age of Resistance – Heroes by Tom Taylor et al last night, staying on top of these “Age of” volumes that celebrate the heroes and villains of the saga from across different eras. It was about the same as the other books for me, so these have been nothing if not consistent, though also unremarkable. In this case, the timing was weird considering this collection was clearly put together before The Rise of Skywalker came out. I’m confused as to why they wouldn’t wait for the trilogy to be finished first. Nevertheless, each were enjoyable one-shot stories, decent despite being filler. I especially enjoyed Poe and Finn’s respective stories, for how they showed a glimpse into their lives before the films.

Reading Next

Star Wars Age of Resistance - VillainsI still intend to start reading the anthology Hellboy: Oddest Jobs, edited by Christopher Golden. I just haven’t taken the time to start it during these past couple of days off yet. Anthologies always feel supplemental to me, so I’m still humming and hawing over whether I’ll start something else at the same time. Maybe not, just so I can get through it more quickly. We’ll see how smoothly the reading goes. I’ll also read Star Wars: Age of Resistance – Villains next, to finally have them all wrapped up. I swear, I kept saying to myself I’d read them all in 2020, but I never got around to them. I’m glad I’ve fixed that so promptly this year.

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

WWW Wednesday – January 27, 2021

Ryan8 Comments
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

Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray is officially on hold for the time being. It couldn’t have come at a worse time, as things are ramping up to the climax, but I will have to wait for my new copy. I will refrain from mentioning it in future posts until I can continue.

Me Talk Pretty One DayIn the meantime, I started reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, the author’s 2000 collection of personal essays. I have sorely missed reading Sedaris’s writing, which manages to strike funny and poignant chords quite well. I’ve read through part one of the book so far, which is a collection of anecdotes that covers a range to times throughout his life as well as members of his family. What’s been most amusing is how familiar I am with these people and phases of his life. I suspect that having read his book Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002, is the most responsible for this. I think it covered a lot of what he developed into anecdotes here, particularly his stints as an artist, creative writing teacher, and mover.

Recently Finished

Star Wars Age of Rebellion - VillainsKeeping the Star Wars train going, last night I finished Star Wars: Age of Rebellion – Villains by Greg Pak et al. As with the other books in this “Age of” series, the issues within were one-shots about specific characters: Grand Moff Tarkin, Boba Fett, Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, and IG-88. As with the others, each story was enjoyable fluff of varying quality. None of them were bad or boring, but as something celebratory and short they can’t do much with the characters. The story about Jabba the Hutt stood out, however, as tales centered around him are a lot less common. I’ve read so many Vader stories, however, that this was an inconsequential drop in the bucket. Worth checking out if you’re not looking to invest a lot in reading Star Wars comics, though.

Reading Next

Hellboy Oddest JobsOn the comic books front I know I’m going to move on to the Star Wars: Age of Resistance books. I’m excited to get to those, as we haven’t had as many tie-in stories to that era, I assume because the movies were still coming out. In terms of books, nothing from my yearly list is really speaking to me at the moment. I’m not sure why. I am however interested in starting the one unread Hellboy anthology I’ve got left: Oddest Jobs, edited by Christopher Golden. With that book out of the way I’ll only have the novels left to get through.

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

WWW Wednesday – January 20, 2021

Ryan11 Comments
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

Master & ApprenticeI’m still in the midst of Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray. It’s grown on me more since last week, which I’m happy about, the more it has delved into the challenges faced by Jedi Masters and their apprentices as they try to forge a meaningful partnership. Additionally, I’m really appreciating the closer look at what Jedi attitudes toward the end of the Republic era were regarding prophecy and how the visions of the future recorded by ancient mystics should be considered. I wanted to have the book done by now, but funnily enough, I literally couldn’t have. As it turns out, about 47 pages of First Lord’s Fury by Jim Butcher are bound within my copy, and 49 pages of Master & Apprentice are just missing, so I can only get so far before I need a new copy. A bewildering predicament, to say the least.

Recently Finished

Star Wars Age of Rebellion - HeroesKeeping up the Star Wars trend, last night I finished reading Star Wars: Age of Rebellion – Heroes by Greg Pak et al. Just as with Age of Republic, it’s a selection of single issues about a different hero from the era of the Original Trilogy. This is not a larger collected volume, however, so it only covered hero characters. I enjoyed it well enough, though I’ve read enough comics about these characters at this point that a small collection of one-shots isn’t going to be anything special. The stand-out issue for me was about Leia, where she had to put her skills of deception to the test and play the role of a bounty hunter against the likes of Bossk, in order to prepare for Han’s rescue.

Reading Next

Me Talk Pretty One DayI still have every intention of starting Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris next—I’m probably going to have to start it before I even finish Master & Apprentice, what with my copy being wrong. My nonsensical faith in the infallibility of printed books has been compromised significantly. I shall continue to love and enjoy them, but something in my heart has been permanently dulled forever more. Future instances where I’ll just hold a book and consider it shall never be the same. Then again, maybe I’m being too dramatic.

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

WWW Wednesday – January 13, 2021

Ryan13 Comments
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

Master & ApprenticeI’m just over a third of the way through Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray, and I’m enjoying it well enough, though it’s a little slow so far. I haven’t been as swept away with Gray’s writing in this book as I have her other Star Wars titles, but I’ll reserve judgment for when it’s all done. She has done an admirable job with Qui-Gon and young Kenobi, though, as The Phantom Menace really doesn’t give a lot for anyone to gone on as far as their characterization. The book has appreciably gotten into the finer details of the dynamics between a master and their Padawan, as well as the myriad of ways Jedi are trained at their temple on the planet Coruscant. As the story gets into the meat of the conflict the Jedi pair have become embroiled in I’m hoping I will start to feel more engaged with it.

Recently Finished

Star Wars Age of RepublicIt has been a rather Star Wars focused week, as I finished reading through the comic book volume Star Wars: Age of Republic by Jody Houser et al, which collects all of the Age of Republic one-shot issues. Focusing on both heroes and villains, each issues focuses on a specific character from that era of the saga. They weren’t especially deep stories, as you can only do so much in a one-shot issue, but there was something to enjoy in each of them. I was especially fond of the Anakin issue, which gave us a story where he acts more considered and compassionate as a Jedi than his usual brash, combative nature. It’s a side of him we can always stand to see more of. The first issue was about Qui-Gon Jinn as well, which was a nice supplement to Master & Apprentice, though it had nothing to do with the events of that novel.

Reading Next

Me Talk Pretty One DayTo take a little detour from all the fantasy I’ve been reading lately, I think I’ll get back to an author I’ve neglected for a while now. I’m sure there’s a few that qualify, but I’m specifically going to start reading Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, which is a collection of humorous, autobiographical essays. I haven’t read one of his books for three and a half years, which is an absolute crying shame. I’ve certainly acquired a few more of them, at least, so I’ll have another at the ready the next time I want to start one.

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

Book Review | Theft by Finding by David Sedaris

Ryan1 Comment

Summary from Goodreads

David Sedaris tells all in a book that is, literally, a lifetime in the making.

For forty years, David Sedaris has kept a diary in which he records everything that captures his attention-overheard comments, salacious gossip, soap opera plot twists, secrets confided by total strangers. These observations are the source code for his finest work, and through them he has honed his cunning, surprising sentences.

Now, Sedaris shares his private writings with the world. Theft by Finding, the first of two volumes, is the story of how a drug-abusing dropout with a weakness for the International House of Pancakes and a chronic inability to hold down a real job became one of the funniest people on the planet.

TheftByFindingCover

Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) is the first of two volumes collecting the diaries of David Sedaris, curated by the author himself. This book is specifically his edit. Of all the entries written in this 25 year span he only included a fraction of what he wrote, selected by himself. He edited some of them for clarity, altered names and appearances where appropriate, and reformatted them for presentation and readability.Read More »