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.