WWW Wednesday – February 22, 2023

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

Springfield ConfidentialSince last week I’ve managed to make a pretty decent start at Springfield Confidential by Mike Reiss, which tells the author’s history and experiences working on The Simpsons for over 30 years. I’m nearly 100 pages in, and I’m really enjoying how light and fun it is to read. If I play my cards right, I should have this book finished up relatively soon. It’s quite something to hear how arduous the process of putting an episode together is, even just as a numbered list of steps. It really hammers home how there is no room for ego in production, as at best only remnants of an original script exist by the time the episode is complete. I’m also learning about fan speculation I was never aware of before, such as one of the writers of the show, John Swartzwelder, not being a real person (he just doesn’t like doing interviews or DVD commentary). I’m not sure I’ll have huge amounts to say each week about this, but I’m looking forward to reading more and more of it.


Recently Finished

Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star 2Over the weekend I took advantage of some unexpected reading time to go through a couple of volumes of manga. The first one was the second volume of Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star by Kaeruno Erefante. I continued to find it to be an amusing read, especially in how it depicts the realities of working in that industry and the less glamorous expectations and pressures put on performers, but the novelty also wore off a bit compared to the first book. I suppose this goes with it being semi-autobiographical rather than focused on plot. At least I’m only borrowing these, so casually keeping up doesn’t feel like a poor investment. I don’t think it helps that it takes a while for a new volume to come out too, with the build up only really leading to more of the same. I’m not sure if it could have been done, but I wonder if this series would have benefited from being put out as one complete work.

Berserk 36I also read through the 36th volume of Berserk by Kentaro Miura. Guts and his compatriots continued to battle the nightmarish tentacles of the sea god, with Guts eventually going into the belly of the beast to try and put an end to things once and for all. It was consistently good, but I’m getting a little fatigued. I’ve had enough of Guts jumping around killing hoards of something or other. I just want their journey to progress now. It was nice to see some growth in Farnese’s abilities, but I’m still hoping this wraps up near the start of the next book. It feels like I’ve been watching a vicious cycle on repeat; the plot needs to move forward more for the core group. At least this promises a definitive end to the threat they’re currently facing. Maybe I will enjoy the actual conclusion of this more than the toil along the way.


Reading Next

Other than cracking open some more Berserk to keep up with my recent commitment to finishing the series by April, I don’t have any other new reading plans. I’m just going to stick with Springfield Confidential on its own for now, rather than my previous thought of it being supplemental to a novel.

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

Advertisement

WWW Wednesday – January 25, 2023

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

Wolf in White VanI was hoping I’d have made more progress with Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle since last week, but work comes first, so I did not end up having as much reading time as I was anticipating. Still, I have made some decent progress and have a better picture of what this whole story is all about. It’s made clear from early on that the main character, Sean, is facing some legal trouble related to the pen-and-paper role-playing game he operates for people via the mail, and up until the point I have reached, the details of the tragedy leading to his legal troubles have been slowly elucidated. It’s painting an interesting picture of how a disfigured loner has found a way to form his own little sense of community and the baffling yet believable misunderstanding that led to the tragedy which puts an unfortunate spotlight on him. With so much of that case uncovered already, I’m curious to see what details are yet to be revealed or if there is a turn in store for Sean.


Recently Finished

Nothing this week!


Reading Next

Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star 2I’m still not anticipating that I will have another book in my hands by this time next week, since I should be more realistic about my time, but I do intend to read more comics by next week if I can. Of course, I really want to keep myself going on Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughn and Cliff Chiang with the third volume, but I would also really like to read volume two of Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star by Kaeruno Erefante, which I intended to read back in December but never actually made time for. Despite the length of time since volume one, this is at least not a narrative-heavy series, so it will be easy enough to jump right back into it.

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

WWW Wednesday – December 14, 2022

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 to update here this week.


Recently Finished

Tracking the ChupacabraA couple of days ago I managed to finish reading Tracking the Chupacabra by Benjamin Radford. It feels weird that it took me as long as it did, since it’s not even 200 pages long with all said and done. I think perhaps the font size and number of words per page makes it appear deceptively short. At any rate, I really like this book, but I would say my experience with it was just good not great. It was well written and well researched, but what stood out most to me was that I am perhaps not the target audience for something like this; it was more or less preaching to the choir the entire time. I needed no persuading, it was not a topic I was even agnostic about. Still, it made for an interesting read and I’m glad I did it.


Reading Next

Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star 2It is becoming more and more apparent to me that I will probably not be reading another full book this month, other than A Carnival of Snackery by David Sedaris, if I can manage to actually pick the damn thing back up again. Nevertheless, I have some comics I’d like to get through to get myself to a certain point in my Goodreads challenge, even if I’m far from my goal of 50 books overall. I’ve just been able to borrow a copy of the second volume of Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star by Kaeruno Erefante, which I’m looking forward to as a nice amusing read. It’s been a little over a year since I read the first volume, but I think I remember enough that that won’t be a problem.

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

WWW Wednesday – November 17, 2021

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

A Gathering of GhostsSince last week I once again had an unexpected amount of free time, so I was able to get a good start on A Gathering of Ghosts by Karen Maitland. I’m enjoying the book, though it has been a little slow-paced so far. Not necessarily a bad thing, I’m just surprised with how much things feel like they’re still being established despite the fact I’m 100 pages into the book now. Strange happenings have taken place and changes are afoot, but a core conflict or concern has yet to fully materialize. Nevertheless, I do enjoy a slow burn, and I like the light-fantasy and spooky vibes the book is giving, so I’m excited to get further along. It’s done a great job of capturing just how bleak impoverished life must have been in the 1300s too. Nothing Romantic about all this muck and hunger.


Recently Finished

Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star 1Late last week I read through Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star by Kaeruno Erefante, which made for a quick and very amusing read. It wasn’t too heavy on plot or character, but in this way fulfilled its role as a diary very well. Keeping in mind how these are somebody else’s lived experiences, however embellished, made it easy to look past these shortcomings. I managed to learn a thing or two as well, such as, apparently, a stigma around the adult film industry in Japan is the fact that many people cannot separate the industry from its past association with the yakuza (the Japanese mafia). I also learned that the author does not draw himself as a bean, but rather frog—a rather minimalist frog at that. His reason for doing so is essentially a dirty joke, so I’ll spare any who would mind that. I look forward to reading more of this series.

Salems LotI also used my surprise free time to finish reading ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I wanted to have a review up before today, but being completely honest, I haven’t even started it yet. My priorities are all over the place, I guess. I really enjoyed this book, at any rate, though there were definite peaks and valleys throughout the story. I absolutely loved all of the prose discussing the town itself, especially as the scourge of vampires slowly makes victims out of everybody in town. The ragtag group of intellectuals coming to grips with the fact that vampires are the problem? I found them inconsistently compelling. I understand that an American vampire novel in 1975, one that refers so much to the films more recent to that time, needs to have the characters come to grips with the seeming impossibility of it all, but it could have been accomplished faster. Too much time spent on skepticism when the reader knows it’s definitely vampires.


Reading Next

This is anybody’s guess right now, to be honest. I have plans, but I’m too in the weeds with A Gathering of Ghosts to commit to anything. I’m also very tired; I have been awake since 4:30 PM yesterday, so I think I will bid you all adieu for now. I’ll have better reading plans to tell you about next week, I’m sure.

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

WWW Wednesday – November 10, 2021

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

Salems LotOver the weekend I unexpectedly had a lot more free time than I was expecting, so I managed to get a lot of reading done on ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King, where I am now just over 300 pages in. King has done an excellent job of making the infection of this town creeping and gradual. So far, most of the townsfolk are still blissfully unaware of what is going on, but it is now noticeably escalating, with a number of people having fallen under the vampire’s thrall. An effectively realistic element is how much the people clued-in to what is going on are wasting time coming to grips with the idea that it could be vampires at all. It’s especially amusing to remember this is much closer to the heyday of the classic Universal and Hammer horror films about Dracula. A sudden incursion of vampires would be hard to believe indeed, and that hesitance is so far undoing them.


Recently Finished

Once again, I’ve not finished anything. I’m really going to have to turn this around soon, for the first time all year I’m behind on my Goodreads challenge.


Reading Next

Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star 1The reading plans I’ve been talking about for the past couple of weeks are not going anywhere, so I’ll not repeat myself, but I recently borrowed a manga volume from a friend that I’m really interested in reading soon. The book in question is the first volume of Manga Diary of a Male Porn Star by Kaeruno Erefante. Though it covers more adult subject matter, it looks to be doing so in a rather PG way, depicting the humorous tribulations of being a male porn star rather than trying to be titillating. I find it especially hysterical how the main character is depicted. While surrounded by beautiful women, our protagonist looks like a bean with arms, legs, and big eyes. I’ll probably read through it in a sitting before next week.

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