This Halloween season I’ve decided to take part in Frighteningly Good Reads, hosted by Molly over at Silver Button Books. I’m going to provide my to-read list for the month here in this post, with another post on Halloween reflecting back to see how well I did getting through them all and sharing some general thoughts. Each novel will be reviewed like most other books I read, but with a FGR tag along with it.
Check out Molly’s blog if you’d like to know more/participate!Read More »
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?
Still chipping away at Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. Just 25% to go. I think I’ll actually finish in a decent amount of time for me despite the page count, but I’m starting to resent how long I’m taking anyway. I’m still enjoying the story, though, especially with things coming to a head in the conflict with the True Knot. I’ve started to have some issues with it too, however, namely with the aforementioned group of villains, who are psychic vampires. They’re just not scary. They’re a bunch of supernatural schlubs living in an RV caravan with delusions of grandeur. I’m sure that’s much of the point, but with a few exceptions I haven’t found them threatening enough to actually worry for any of the characters. I’m hoping that will change as they come up against their big boss, but we’ll see.
I’ve only gotten a little further in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, finishing off the first “Black Dossier” section of the book. Not much more to say about it, except that I’m amused at how sexual a lot of the dossier has been. I suppose that is why it was censured by the 1984 regime in the first place. I do think I like it better that the more mixed media sections of the book are split up, so I’m not reading them back-loaded into the book like I did in volume two. I’d rather not, once again, finish reading the comic book section, feel like I’m done, only to get stuck reading prose for a longer time than I read the comic book. It was interesting stuff, but it got under my skin. Moore is a madman. A brilliant, madman.
Nothing again this week. Oh dear. I am woefully behind on my Goodreads challenge too. I don’t know how all of this has gotten away from me. I guess I was slacking in September and didn’t notice. I’ve not actually finished anything since Coraline back on Sept. 15th. I usually read a few more graphic novels to keep the numbers up. A little disheartening, to say the least.
I feel like I’ve repeated myself several times on what I’m reading next, so I won’t bore you with repetition. What I will say it I plan to post a little blog post tomorrow for Frighteningly Good Reads 2019 that will outline the books I’m hoping to read through for the month of October. Hopefully I can make up for all of the lost ground in September.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
Welp, there goes summer. How about that. Somehow June feels both ages ago and like it only just passed. I will miss it. But now it’s Autumn, the spookiest time of year where everything appears to die. I’m real excited for it. This has nothing to do with my new books. Speaking of which…
On to the books!Read More »
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?
I’m still in the middle of Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, which I’ve decided will be my first official Frighteningly Good Read for the 2019 Halloween season. Check out the link to learn more. According to Goodreads I’m about 44% of the way through the novel, which isn’t bad considering how slow my progress can be sometimes, but I do wish I was further along all the same. The last couple of days my reading has waned a little. I’m enjoying it a lot, nevertheless, and I’m looking forward to when things really come to a head. It’s been a slow burn so far, building up character and laying the groundwork for the conflict ahead. It’s only been a few years since I read The Shining, and despite the greater gap in time between the publication dates it really does read like a sequel.
I also started The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill last night. It’s a little jarring to find Mina and Allan so far removed from where we left off, though still interesting. It’s 1958 and the government of the novel 1984 had had a decade or so controlling Britain, their regime now over and the country still reeling from it. The duo had a run-in with James Bond in what I’ve read so far (going by Jimmy), who is represented about as unflattering as I’d expected considering Moore typically brings to the forefront the worst about these characters. This read is really going to be an undertaking, as the titular Black Dossier is a document we read as the characters do, with sizable sections of prose being the most daunting.
Nothing this week, I’m afraid. Doctor Sleep is long.
I still plan to read Little Heaven by Nick Cutter next. Hopefully that will be within the next week or so. It all depends on how much reading I manage to get done. In the meantime I’ve also been thinking about Odder Jobs, the second anthology of Hellboy short stories. It’s another book on my scrappy to-read list this year and I’m sure it will qualify as a Halloween read too. It could make for a great supplemental book, though I think I will need to finish The Black Dossier first. It’s more than filling that position itself already.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
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?
Last night I started reading Doctor Sleep by Stephen King, the sequel to The Shining. I’m only about 40 pages in, which is a drop in the bucket for how long the book is, but I’m liking it so far. The first chapter dealt with the more direct aftermath of what took place at The Overlook and how Danny learns to deal with the ghosts that continue to haunt him. The following chapter introduced the antagonists of the story, who seem interestingly eccentric so far, though not particularly menacing yet. The book has been a little heavy handed with the abuses we hear about characters having suffered, though I haven’t found anything to be too egregious. I just hope this isn’t indicating a trend in the novel, unless of course it has something to say on the matter I haven’t caught on to yet.
Late last week I finished reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, which you can check out my review for here. I’m quite happy with the way this story wrapped up. It’s an excellent novel and I’m pleased with how much it surprised me.
I’m pleased to report that, as I planned, I started and finished Coraline by Neil Gaiman over the weekend. I’ve seen the film before, so it didn’t have much to surprise me with, but it was nonetheless an excellent book for children and adults alike. I’ve got a special place in my heart for stories suitable for younger audiences that are nonetheless creepy as all get-out and this book is a quintessential example of such a book. There was such whimsy and fun mixed with very troubling situations and even darker implications. I especially liked how much of a firmer a grasp of Coraline’s perspective this gave over the film. I felt much more in the character’s head.
With October creeping ever closer I have to keep pushing for spooky reads. Consulting my scrappy to-read list I think I will read Little Heaven by Nick Cutter as my next novel. I really enjoyed The Troop last year, so I’ve got a good feeling about this one. Plus, it’s Canadian! Goodness knows if I’ll actually be starting it soon though, since Doctor Sleep is by no means a short novel. I’ve got a collection of Lovecraft stories on my list as well, which is probably going to be quite the undertaking too. I’ve certainly got my work cut out for me.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
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?
I’m in the final stretch of Small Gods by Terry Pratchett; only about 75 pages left to go, give or take. I’m disappointed with myself for not having finished it up already, but my attention was a little divided (it ought to be more divided, to be honest), so I’ve still got a little bit of it left. In a rather surprising turn this standalone entry in the series is becoming one of my favourites. A lot of it has to do with the fact that, while it has still be humorous, it’s not funny in the same way the previous books have been. That’s at least how I feel about it, anyway. There’s an underlying sense of menace to the book, thanks to evils of dogmatism, that’s enriching the narrative. I’m not sure I’ve felt this anxious for a Discworld protagonist before.
Nothing this week because I am an appalling failure…well, not really. I went to a cottage for a few days last week, then had to quickly readjust to my nocturnal schedule, so I’m giving myself a bit of a pass since I had to shift gears more than normal. Hopefully I can still pick things up though. There’s still only four months left of the year…
The time for decisions is now! Coraline by Neil Gaiman is up and coming, as I’ve said before, but I will also start Doctor Sleep by Stephen King soon. I want to get it done before the film comes out, and it’s time to get more in gear for the spookiest time of year. No I won’t pipe down about that until November. I’ve got a whole line-up of horror related fiction I want to read, and darn it I mean to get to them.
On the comic book front, I’m still going to start digging in to the new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen books I recently picked up. I’d like to start checking out The Immortal Hulk as well, which should also conveniently be Halloween appropriate.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
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?
I’m a fair amount further into Small Gods by Terry Pratchett and much of the story has clicked into place for me since last week. I’m increasingly seeing how Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are cut from the same cloth, this book also dealing with gods and their dependence on human belief to sustain themselves. I really like how he’s tackling religion in this book, specifically rampant dogmatism. It’s lampooning a very clear parallel to a belief system in our world, without being irreverent to the idea of faith itself. So far it works more to show the ways institutions can become abusive and corrupt. I’m really looking forward to seeing how this plays out. The story feels like a departure from tried and true formulas he’s used before.
Over the weekend I read the third volume in the Bloodborne comic book series: A Song of Crows by Aleš Kot, Piotr Kowalski, and Brad Simpson. It’s the first to feature one of the characters from the game as a protagonist; Eileen the Crow. The team for this series did not disappoint, despite what one might expect from a comic book tie-in telling the backstory for a side character. The narrative was honestly—and I don’t say this lightly—a bit more 𝔀𝓮𝓲𝓻𝓭 than its predecessors. Not incomprehensible, but Kot and company once again captured the dreamlike/nightmarish nature of Yharnam perfectly. It was so unexpectedly bizarre and vague I feel I need to read it again before I review it. I’m totally here for the weird, mind, so I’m happy to give it a second look.
I still have every intention of reading Coraline by Neil Gaiman soon, but on the comic book front I’ve recently gotten the next couple of volumes of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that I needed. So, I’d like to start The Black Dossier by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill soon. Technically it’s volume 2.5 and knowing what I do about where things go I’m curious as to how it will bridge volumes two and three. If it fills in a lot of the detail from that almanac I struggled through at the end of volume two I’m honestly not sure how I’ll feel about that.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
Considering I went to Fan Expo this month, the amount of new books I’ve gotten is surprisingly small. As I’ve gotten more into buying digital comics I’ve seen less of a need to pick up lots of books there, and honestly that attitude seems reflected in what is available at conventions like that now too. There used to be considerably more vendors with great deals on comic books and graphic novels and each year there seems to be less so. Two of the books I got this month I wanted to find at the convention and couldn’t even locate them.’
That all being said, on to the new books!Read More »
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?
I’ve started reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, the 13th novel in the Discworld series. I’m only 10% into the book, but unfortunately I’m having mixed feelings so far. I’m not sure if I’ve just not been in the right mindset for it while reading, but I feel like I don’t have a solid anchor to secure myself to in the story, if that makes sense. The narrative keeps bouncing all over the place, and while I am absorbing some of the world building, it feels a little too scatterbrained. This is the first novel in this series where I’ve felt this way and I’m hoping it’s an anomaly. Better yet, I hope my tune changes as I get further along, but it’s much too early to tell right now.
Over the weekend, as expected, I finished The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. At this point, giving an accurate tally of Evelyn’s deaths feels like a spoiler, so I’m just going to say the title may be misdirection (false advertising) but also maybe not. I expect to have my review posted tomorrow. I wanted to have it up yesterday, but I work nights and I felt very tired after getting home, which is when I meant to finish it. I really enjoyed the book, it definitely deserves much of the hype, but I actually have felt some drawbacks once all was said and done. Toward the end of the novel Turton’s bending of his own rules began to grate on me. I could still just go with it, but not completely willingly.
There are four months and change left of the year and I have a lot of books on my scrappy list to-read to get through before it’s done. I’m afraid I’m going to fail once again. Nevertheless, it is crunch time. It’s the 11th hour of power (maybe). Time to get these books read. That being said, I’m choosing to read Coraline by Neil Gaimain next. It’s almost spooky season, and I’ve got more suitable books than I will likely get through in October, so it’s time to start dipping my toe into the abyss a little.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
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?
I’ve left things after a rather nail-biting series of chapters in The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. The death tally is technically at six now, I think, though I’ve only witnessed two on the page. Things are getting rather knife-y at Blackheath as our protagonist edges closer to solving the mystery, his rivals nipping visciously at his heels. I keep finding myself sub-consciously trying to see if I can piece anything together for myself, but I honestly think the time travel aspects are too elaborately structured for the reader to do that. Luckily, I’m still enthusiastically on board for wherever this is going.
Since last week I started and finished Star Wars: Myths & Fables by George Mann, with illustrations by Grant Griffin. It turns out it’s a middle grade book, which I’d somewhat expected but didn’t fully appreciate the significance of. While I can’t say that younger readers won’t get something out of this collection, I was personally underwhelmed. There were a couple stories I did find myself quite partial too, but ultimately the effort was rather pedestrian. I think I imagined the author would be a little more ambitious with the concept than he ended up being. I’d say they largely played it safe with this book. I should have a full review out soon.
I expect that I will have Seven Deaths finished by next week, which had left me to wonder what I’m going to be picking up off the shelf next. I have decided I really need to continue with the Discworld novels for this year—I’ve only read one of the four I mean to get to—so the next book I will be picking up will be Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. I believe it’s another standalone novel that takes place in the Discworld’s more distant past (that’s the impression I have anyway). I’m excited for the more isolated approach to the world.
Until next week, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.
