Tag: reading

WWW Wednesday – 2017/05/31

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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

At the moment, I’ve only just started reading Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett. I’m a little over 30 pages in, so I don’t have much of an impression of it yet. It looks like the story will be mashing up elements of  Hamlet and Macbeth, which sounds like fun. This book is the second one focused on the Witches, with the return of Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, the former being a recurring character I’m fond of since reading her debut in Equal Rites. Other than that there’s a great little scene where Death is perturbed about having to explain that someone is set to be a ghost after dying (undead things are not really his jurisdiction).

Recently Finished

I’ve had a rather busy week in this respect. First I finished reading Gwendy’s Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar. The ending wasn’t what I expected, but it was a tale that inspired a lot of thought, as well as conflicting emotions. Ultimately, I really liked it. It’s a great story about the effects of power and responsibility over it. I posted a review for it last Thursday.

I also finished Hellboy in Hell: The Death Card, the final volume and conclusion of Hellboy’s story. While short, this series was a wonderful couplet that wrapped up the whole series quite nicely. The final pages are artfully done, leaving things on a muted, bittersweet tone (leaning more towards the sweet). There are a lot of call-backs to the series as a whole, which were woven into the story taking place quite well. One in particular made me very happy I read Hellboy in Mexico before moving onto these books.

Lastly, I also finished reading On Writing by Stephen King, his memoir on the craft that also teaches how to write. I found his advice invigorating and valuable. I’m hopeful that I will take his lessons forward with me as I push myself to write my own fiction. It did leave me a little disappointed in myself as well, however, as I have not been writing fiction as much as I want myself to be. Hopefully I get a good kick from this book. I see myself reading it again in the near future to make his advice stick.

Reading Next

Yesterday I got my copy of Theft By Finding by David Sedaris. I will be starting that soon, and probably putting more energy into it than Wyrd Sisters for the next little while so that I can get a review out as soon as possible.

WWW Wednesday – 2017/05/24

Ryan2 Comments

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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

Last week I said I wanted to get through a couple of books before Gwendy’s Button Box and Theft By Finding were released on May 30th. As it turns out, I was mistaken about the former’s publication date, which was actually May 16th. So, I quickly bought the book and began reading it.

As it turns out it’s a rather quick read (making the Kindle edition much more attractive than the $30 hardcover), so I’m nearly finished with it. While it is written by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar, it still reads a lot like a King story to me. It’s an interesting twist on a familiar tale about the effects of power, its influences, and what one should do with unfettered access to it. So far most of the story has felt in service of building toward something, rather than dealing with something. It has been enjoyable thus far, but things have also been a little too nebulous. This needs to amount to something substantial for me, or I will be left a little disappointed.

I’ve also started reading On Writing by Stephen King. I’m only about 40 pages in at the moment, but I’m enjoying it. Thus far he’s talked about his earliest memories growing up, giving a window into the things that shaped him as a writer. It feels like an honest approach to giving advice on the craft, without pretension or inflated self-importance.

Recently Finished

I finished reading Tarkin by James Luceno over the weekend, the new canon Star Wars novel about Grand Moff Tarkin before earning the rank of Grand Moff. I liked it, but with all said and done I’m pretty lukewarm about it. Getting to know some of the Imperial politics was interesting, but the plot was a bit too much concerned with him and Darth Vader chasing shipjackers around the galaxy. Tarkin doesn’t directly involve himself in the action, which is appropriate, but I wish the story had been more about political intrigue than leading pursuits against dissidents. I never got swept up in the mystery, I kind of just felt led along to each reveal. The details of his past were most compelling, giving a bit of a look at people’s lives on a planetary level.

I also read Hellboy in Hell: The Descent, the first of two volumes in that series by Mike Mignola and Dave Stewart. It had a rather somber feel to it, his descent into hell dreary and nightmarish, and not bombastically infernal. I really like the depiction of the Abyss, full of gigantic eldritch insects skittering in the pitch black.

Certain plot points related to hell from the main series get tied up here too, which felt a little abrupt, yet still appropriate considering they’re issues that needed to be put to rest. It did a lot to leave me wondering what’s next for Hellboy, some unsettling turns leaving his future in Hell unclear and not at all what I would have expected. With only one volume to follow this one I’m cautiously optimistic of where the story will go. I’m worried it will disappoint me, with only one volume to conclude things.

Reading Next.

Theft By Finding by David Sedaris comes out next week, so I’ll be reading that once I get a hold of my copy. Otherwise, I’ll definitely be opening the next volume of Hellboy in Hell, and Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett looms in my near future too.

WWW Wednesday – 2017/05/17

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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 meant to write one of these last week, I really want to start doing them weekly. Sadly, I also do shift work and that Wednesday disappeared in a haze of fatigue. Here’s hoping I can start weekly from here.

Currently Reading

Right now I’m in the middle of reading Tarkin by James Luceno, one of the new canon Star Wars novels. I am enjoying it; this book tells a much more grounded story of Imperial intrigue and squashing dissent and rebellion than Lords of the Sith did, which I’m finding translates better to novel form. However, I wonder if I’m making a mistake by only having read the novels about villains thus far. I like getting into the heads of these characters, but ultimately it is giving the backstory of a man who destroyed an entire planet without batting an eye, because of how much he believes in a strong show of force to eliminate dissenter.

It still presents Tarkin with some interesting dimension, showing that he’s not wickedly cruel and sadistic, but ruthless and committed to his cause all the same. His involvement is a little more nuanced than simply being in on an evil plot to turn the galactic government into a dictatorship. I just can’t get completely behind him because he has no problem enforcing this dictatorship.

I like the book regardless and I’m intrigued to see where it goes. Tarkin and Darth Vader are currently being given a run for their money, which I hope will lead to more interesting developments as they become more compromised. I hope the implied rivalry between him and Vader comes to a head more as well. So far it’s been hinted at, but they’re cooperating just fine.

Recently Finished

Since my last entry I finished The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger (review here). I must say, it did make me eat my words a bit. I said that it likely didn’t have any surprises for me, but I was wrong. There weren’t any shocking plot developments, but what I did find was a prominent personal connection with Holden, which made me empathize with him a lot more than I had before. The novel felt bittersweet by the end and I’m happy I read it. I took more away from it than I thought I would.

I also finished reading What If? by Randall Monroe (review here), which was a lot of fun to get through. I treated it like a read I would come back to periodically, but I enjoyed reading a lot of entries at once too. The humour was solid, but what I really took away was how much his explanations of physics and the laws of nature, when answering these absurd questions, actually taught me things I didn’t know before. It was fun and I know more about the world than when I started.

Lastly, I read through The Incredible Hercules: Dark Reign, which is the fifth volume in a Marvel Comics series about Hercules, which were originally published in the late 2000s to early 2010s. Once again I found they blend the mythology of Hercules with the modern, comic book interpretation of him very well, even dealing with how he’s always working toward overcoming the negative aspects of who he was in those old stories. The previous volume dipped a little in quality for me, so it was great to see it pick up again here.

Reading Next

It still feels as if I’ve got endless books to choose from, but I think I’m pretty set on what I’m reading next. I want to start and finish On Writing by Stephen King as well as Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett before the end of May. In terms of comic books, I want to read the two volumes of Hellboy in Hell — having recently acquired volume two — as well as the first volume of Hellboy: Weird Tales and Frankenstein Underground, which I just picked up for great prices used yesterday.

I hope to have all these books done before May 30th, when Stephen King’s new book Gwendy’s Button Box and Devid Sedaris’ new book Theft by Finding both come out. I want to finish those two new books as quickly as I can to get reviews written and posted, sot that I’m not just writing about older books. Looks like it’s going to be a bit more of an exciting few weeks for reading.

When I Overcame a Tough Book

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Growing up I did like reading a fair bit, though I honestly didn’t get an itch for it until early adulthood. I could be rather picky. While I was younger, I remember I read most of the Harry Potter books, a couple from A Series of Unfortunate Events, Goosebumps, The Hobbit, a random Boxcar Children novel, and a book about a kid raising a raccoon or something. The list I can recall feels rather small. There had to be some superficial element to it that drew me in. I can’t remember the plot to that Boxcar Children book at all, but it had a picture of a T-Rex skeleton on the cover, so I wanted to read it. The novels I had to read for school, especially as I got older, often served as a barrier to my comprehension. At the time, if a book challenged me I was unlikely to want to bother.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – 2017/05/03

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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 in the thick of things with Randall Munroe’s What If?, though I’m a little over halfway through it now. I’m pushing myself a little more to finish it, just so it isn’t lingering in the background too long. I’m still really enjoying it. While it’s humorous, there’s a lot more value in what I’m learning from it. One great section in particular covered the logistics of flying in the atmosphere of other planets and moons in our solar system. He also shares a rather uplifting twist on the lesson in the myth of Icarus, which is (paraphrased) that he never really saw it as a lesson about flying too high, but the ineffectiveness of wax as an adhesive.

I’m also in the middle of reading The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. I was hoping I’d have it done by now, but completing something for a job application and a short road trip forced me to set it aside. I understand why it’s considered a classic, and I’m not having a terrible time reading it, but all the same I don’t like Holden Caulfield as a character nor a narrator.

I get that that’s largely the point with his character, unless you more closely relate to him, but I dislike him all the same. He’s a hypocrite who lays far too much blame on others rather than his own behaviour. At the same time I sympathize, because he’s clearly a deeply depressed person. As a narrator, I just dislike his style. He just ends too many sentences with “and all.” and all.

I see it’s significance in literary history, and I’ll be happy to say I’ve read it when all is said and done, but I don’t feel like it has any surprises in store for me. Before I was halfway in I felt I had a good handle on what the book is going for and while I’m a little optimistic I’m fairly certain there’s not going to be much more to it, other than what sordid activities he gets up to.

Recently Finished

I recently finished reading Sourcery by Terry Pratchett, the fifth novel in the Discworld series. I managed to power through it in four days, testing how quickly I could get through a book of that length if I applied myself a little better. Pratchett’s writing was great as usual — even showing improvement as he’s getting further in his series — I just found the plot a little too underwhelming. The structure is too similar to other books he’s told, where the main character travels along meeting new people and seeing strange sites while a cataclysmic magical threat grows in the background, until things eventually come to a head.

Incidentally, the book was elevated by its climax and conclusion for me, telling something legitimately poignant while also making me laugh harder than I ever have at one of his books. Also, having starred in three of the five Discworld novels until this point, I would have to say this was my favourite Rincewind story, despite my criticisms.

Reading Next

Once again I find myself unsure what I’ll be getting to next. I really want to push myself to finish off all the books I’m currently in the middle of. After that, I’ll like start On Writing by Stephen King, though I also want to start that new book White Tears by Hari Kunzru so that I can review a new release. Otherwise, I’ll likely start Tarkin by James Luceno to get more of the new Star Wars books under my belt.

If I can keep up the faster reading pace I will hopefully start writing one of these weekly.

Until next time. Happy reading!

WWW Wednesday – 2017/04/19

RyanLeave a comment

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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 getting further along in it now, but I’ve still got a ways to go with What If? by Randall Munroe. Still really liking it, although I’m a little disappointed to find I can’t fully appreciate some of the more math-heavy entries. I’ve never really had a penchant for it beyond the basics. One entry in particular I did really like though, which tackles that frequently occurring question “What if everyone on Earth jumped at the same time?” I won’t spoil his twist on it, but I thought it was answered quite humorously by giving us an entirely new problem that the premise creates.

I’m also in the middle of reading Hellboy in Mexico. I feel I ought to have finished it by now, but I’m more lax with getting through it since finishing the main series. The original idea for the one-shot “Hellboy in Mexico” was great and it’s a lot of fun to see it fleshed out. Basically, Hellboy has a “lost weekend” in Mexico in 1956 that spanned about five months. He spent nearly the entire time drunk, so doesn’t remember much of what happened. This book builds on that idea, giving us a collection of stories about what he got up to.

Recently Finished

In defiance of personal expectations I actually managed to power through all of The Dark Tower by Stephen King since my last entry. Not that it was particularly hard; the book was really hard to put down. Cliffhangers were resolved, plotlines wrapped up, and a lot of heartbreak and loss was had. It was unexpected how much I actually found myself grieving for characters after I’d put the book down. That doesn’t happen for me often.  The group is almost constantly traveling forward as well, which I like, encountering harsh conditions, hellish landscapes, and nightmarish adversaries. I don’t want to talk endlessly about it, so what I’ll say in closing is that this might be my favourite book in the whole series. It was a satisfying end. I posted a full review a couple days ago if anyone is interested in more of my thoughts.

I also finished reading the entire Hellboy series, which I feel quite accomplished about, since acquiring and reading the remaining seven volumes I needed had been a mission of mine for the last while. I was happy with how it all turned out, though I wish volumes had run together a little better. Volumes 10 and 11 are both collections of shorts that don’t occur chronologically with the main story, which hurt the pace a bit for me. The conclusion itself was epic, however, and a rather poignant end for the character.

Reading Next

At this point I have the reader’s wonderful problem of having so many books to read I cannot make up my mind. I’m leaning toward Tarkin by James Luceno to get more of the new Star Wars books under my belt, though I also want to maybe power through the Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger so I can say I’ve done it (I’ve owned a copy for years). As I think I’ve mentioned before I also want to continue Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series with Sourcery, On Writing by Stephen King, and Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff. Like I said, lots to choose from. Haven’t made up my mind yet, but you’ll know what I picked by my next entry.

WWW Wednesday – 2017/04/05

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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 hardly into What If? by Randall Munroe, though I’ve read several more entries since I last checked in here. I do love the book, it’s insightful and hilarious, I’m just too absorbed in other things right now to give it enough time.

As I write this I’m 265 pages into The Dark Tower and it has been quite the roller coaster so far. I’m so eager to see the end, yet there’s so much left I can’t begin to imagine where it’ll end up. So far it’s been a lot of finishing up loose ends from the entire series, leaving the final neck of the journey in completely uncharted territory. I’m excited and terrified. The foreshadowing is blinding and I’m scared for how things will turn out for the ka-tet (the core group). I’m only about 30% through this tome so there’s much that could happen.

I really like how King settles in a little and takes his time with new places the story goes. As Roland and company come upon a new area we’re given a chapter dedicated to the adversaries they’ll face, their mindsets, and how their organization works. I love how it expands upon the world and people in a more methodical way, giving us a better view of the big picture than the protagonists’ perspectives ever could on their own.

Recently Finished

I haven’t finished any other prose books lately, my attentions more solely focused on The Dark Tower. However, I have gotten a little further along finishing Hellboy. I recently finished volume 11, The Bride of Hell and Others. It’s another quality collection, though I was a little disappointed it didn’t continue any of the main Hellboy storyline left off from The Wild Hunt either. That’s two collections since that volume now and I’d really like to read more of the main story arc. That being said, “The Bride of Hell” itself was a great story, and other stories in this collection had especially weird and horrific ideas, like a carnivorous house.

Reading Next

I expect I’ll still be reading The Dark Tower for the next few weeks, depending on how much I really throw myself into it. In the meantime I have been eyeballing Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff and Sourcery by Terry Pratchett. I’m sure I’ll get to them soon rather than later, but it’s more just a wandering eye thing right now. I’ve also just picked up On Writing by Stephen King, which I’m actually thinking about starting to read alongside The Dark Tower when the mood strikes me. I’m really on a King kick right now. I might read IT this year too.

Other than that, I’m of course on my way to reading volume 12 of Hellboy, The Storm and The Fury to finally cap off the main series. After that I want to read Hellboy in Mexico, which I’ve owned for a while, and then the first volume of Hellboy in Hell, which I just picked up.

Story Hoarding

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I’ve been ill for the past week, and while that hasn’t stopped me from getting a couple hundred pages into The Dark Tower or from getting sucked into Breath of the Wild, my motivation to write has been a little shot. The sickness was so bad at one point it even stopped me from enjoying said anticipated video game. That being the case, this week’s post is more on the light side. I just wanted to make sure I wrote something. This is a bit of a continuation of a line of thought I had in a post I wrote months ago called “What We Get To,” although more lighthearted.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – 2017/03/22

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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 started reading What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe this past week, though I only read one entry. I’m excited to get into it, though I intend to have it as a supplemental book to what I’m mainly focusing on, so my progress on it will be slow. I love the mix of humour with the stick figure illustrations and the deeply thought out scientific information, so I may get through it faster than I think.

Recently Finished

Over the weekend I finally powered through the last of Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King, so that book is finally behind me, so I can move on to The Dark Tower without any loose ends behind me. The final short story in the book ties things together nicely, where otherwise I’d found everything after “Low Men in Yellow Coats” to be a little bit weaker, though admittedly I’m biased toward the Dark Tower connections.

I also read Hellboy: The Crooked Man & Others. It was a good collections of stories, though at this point in the series I’m much more interested in where Hellboy’s story is going, especially after the events of The Wild Hunt, rather than these miniseries or one-shots that take place in the character’s past. I really like the design of the Crooked Man, he was quite memorably grotesque, and that story itself was really good despite Hellboy being more of a passive participant to the whole thing.

Reading Next

I’m putting most of my energy for the time being into getting through The Dark Tower (Dark Tower VII) by Stephen King. I know I’ve talked about this book every entry I’ve done, but I’m finally gonna get to it in the next day or so. Other than that, it’s continuing Hellboy, of which I only have two numbered volumes left to read.

 

WWW Wednesday – 2017/03/08

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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.