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Author Topic: What are you reading?  (Read 148642 times)

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1170 on: Aug 24, 2020, 10:09:32 PM »
"Working Stiff" by Judy Melinek.  About a lady who does autopsies.  Non-fiction.  She just provides anecdotes about primarily the part of her career when she was a medical examiner in New York. Interesting but once it got to 9-11, I started losing interest.  And the last chapter had too much about her kids in it that I just stopped reading.  But because it was the last chapter it didn't really matter imo.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1171 on: Nov 23, 2020, 11:47:44 AM »
Read through all the Earthsea novels by Ursula K Le Guin for the first time. It was a refreshingly different fantasy world from what I'm used to. Nice to see conflicts resolved some other way than blasting each other with magic or swords.

Read The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. Excellent novella with a neat premise (cleric of an order that records memories talks to someone she finds in a ruin about the days at the end of an empire).

Currently reading The Fifth Season by NK Jemison. I'm not 100% sure what I think of it yet but compelled to finish it, at least. The setting is interesting (supercontinent where certain people are outcast because they can cause earthquakes, but those people also keep disasters from occurring through an organization that keeps them in line).
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B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1172 on: Nov 26, 2020, 04:11:21 PM »
Thank you for reminding me that I need to pick up the Earthsea stuff again. I read the first book and then never bothered with the rest when I fully intended to read the series.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1173 on: Nov 26, 2020, 07:22:46 PM »
I finished re-reading all of Tolkien's major works over the past few months...now via digital e-book format! Anyway...the tablet weighs more than a paperback, so I probably won't do that again, but it was nice being able to pick up exactly where I left off every time and could scale the fonts at will. And reading in the dark is far, far easier.

Currently reading Strike the Blood light novels. Don't judge me, sempai. This is our fight.
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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1174 on: Dec 15, 2020, 07:24:05 PM »
Finished The Fifth Season and going to read the rest of the series. Halfway through The Obelisk Gate already.
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B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1175 on: Jan 14, 2021, 06:37:31 PM »
Tried re-reading Howls Moving Castle but got bored. I listened to the audio book of Earwig and the Witch since it got a CG Ghibli adaptation. Not a terrible story but I'm unclear on how this is being advertised.

--somewhat spoilery below for Earwig and the Witch if you plan to watch it--






















The movie poster shows three adult characters as musicians with Earwig screaming into a mike. But this story is about two of the three adult characters: one of them completely apathetic to Earwig and the other antagonistic and neither of them are hot like on the poster. They adopt the little girl, Earwig, to basically be a child slave and Earwig befriends their talking cat and unslaves herself with magic mischief. The End. I don't know where this musician angle is coming from. I think they might be making a backstory for Earwig's mother, who was a witch, but the mother herself has no bearing on the story.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1176 on: Jan 20, 2021, 08:43:21 AM »
Tried re-reading Howls Moving Castle but got bored.
I loved that book!

I finished re-reading all of Tolkien's major works over the past few months...now via digital e-book format!
Major works as in? Im still stuck on tome 1 of the Middle Earth encyclopedia. That thing is more dense than the Bible.



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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1177 on: Jan 22, 2021, 06:36:22 PM »
I categorize his major works as Hobbit (not so much major as important), LOTR, and Silmarillion. I have read People's and History of Middle-Earth before, but I'm not aching to revisit those.
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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1178 on: Jan 23, 2021, 07:56:45 AM »
I recommend "Unifinished Tales" if you want to read a bit more about stuff surrounding LOTR, Gandalf etc.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1179 on: Jan 23, 2021, 08:29:09 PM »
I read it some years ago. I kind of got overloaded on all the extra stuff after reading the last three books.
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B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1180 on: Apr 17, 2021, 12:25:50 AM »
I finished The Lightning Thief, the first book in the Percy Jackson series. I say finished because like it was an audiobook so I didn't read it. This is the book series about the kid who's the son of Poseidon. The series that everyone said should've been the next Harry Potter.

It probably should've.

It's a decent story for kids. And I'm saying that completely as a compliment. Not too scary but not too mature and even educational. I was using the audiobook to destress after work and I didn't want something overly complicated or "adult." So it served that purpose well.

The characters are good and all felt fleshed out and distinct. The story did make me chuckle several times. I mean genuinely in amusement, not in the snide way when I'm mocking something shitty.

Maybe it didn't grab the audience like Potter did because Potter dives headfirst into the fantasy of being in a magical world and escaping reality in a sense. Percy leaves his Hogwarts to venture on a quest and rejects staying there fulltime to be with his mother. And maybe having an barely-involved dad and a disgusting stepdad was a bit too real for some kids.

But the book was solid. The movie adaptation, which I haven't seen, apparently butchered everything on what should've been a paint-by-numbers production. All they had to do was cut some scenes and just shoot it as was written in the book.

But I am only one book in. Even though The Lightning Thief was solid, I'm actually not sure how motivated I am to actually get to the next one. But I plan to try the next book and see.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1181 on: Apr 18, 2021, 03:10:46 PM »
I haven't read the book, but I remember seeing bits and pieces of the movie, and it just seemed all-around embarrassing. As I was trying to get through it, questions kept popping into my head:

Why did they do this?

Why is he in this?

Who thought this was a good idea?

Pierce Brosnan ends up being some kind of centaur or something, and it just looks awful. Like, somehow worse than the centaurs in Harry Potter, and that's saying something.

I dunno. It just made a really bad impression on me.

You know what, though? I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say it's probably still a better movie than Artemis Fowl. That one I did sit through for whatever reason, and holy shit it's fucking remarkable that that absolute piece of shit even got made. Like what the fuck.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1182 on: Apr 19, 2021, 11:15:07 AM »
After enjoying Earthsea, figured I'd try Le Guinn's sci-fi stuff. I've heard so many good things about Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, but wanted to start at the beginning of the Hainish cycle because I do that. Got a collection. Rocannon's World was a fun one, but I'm having trouble getting started on Planet of Exile.
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B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1183 on: Apr 20, 2021, 09:52:40 PM »
I feel bad that I started Percy Jackson when I meant to pick back up with the Earthsea series. I barely remember anything about it so I'd have to start over anyway. I'm going to continue with Percy Jackson while it's fresh in my memory. (Or if I get bored.)

From what I heard, the Percy Jackson movie is a shell of the book and it's not the way to get into this series. They age up the characters and screw with a bunch of plot points. Speaking of Artemis Fowl, there's another series that got utterly trashed by a shitbag movie. At least Percy Jackson appears to be given a second chance with a Disney+ series. Whether it (1) makes it out of production hell and (2) is any good, remains to be seen. But loads of properties get one bad adaptation and no second chances at all.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1184 on: Apr 20, 2021, 11:13:18 PM »
The Dark Tower comes to mind. People dreamed of the day that series would be adapted, and when it finally happened it was little more than a wet fart. And they didn't even try. It was clearly made on the cheap. It's like they had some contractual obligation to produce and intentionally whiffed it to cut their losses.

That's all speculation on my part, I'm just trying to justify in my head how it could have ended up so awful.

And someone might say, "Hey, man. The Dark Tower books aren't even as good as you remember them," and that might be so, but they still could have made for some great movies, TV shows, animated series, whatever.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1185 on: May 07, 2021, 12:27:07 PM »
Golden Compass is one that had an absolutely awful adaptation and now has a decent adaptation, even though parts of it are still pretty meh. Switching adaptation goals from movie to series seems like a good idea for most book series.
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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1186 on: May 08, 2021, 01:46:32 PM »
I'm currently re-reading the Dragon Ball manga...so far I've made it to the start of the Boo arc. What passes for the story goes a lot better when not dragged out forever and caked with filler.
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B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1187 on: May 10, 2021, 01:07:42 PM »
I read that arc before seeing that portion of the anime and, man... It moves so smoothly in the manga but is fucking exhausting in animated form. So I'm here fast-forwarding through my fansubs because everything is just stretched out. The anime really did a disservice to Toriyama's storytelling. Don't know how improved it might be in Kai since I had long dropped DB before then.

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1188 on: May 14, 2021, 08:41:06 PM »
I'm on Percy Jackson book #3 so I think I'm well on my way to finishing the series. I'm not sure if I would've stuck with this if I had to actually read it as I'm basically going through the books in audio book form. But the audio book narrator's delivery is nice. He does some funny voices. The talking pegasus cracks me up. But I don't think I would've given the same delivery of that dialogue if I was just reading things for myself.

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1189 on: Jun 06, 2021, 09:53:55 AM »
I've kinda stalled on PJ book three and noticed something. So far, each book has been a quest where characters go on a journey. And it seems hard for this to continue to be interesting book after book like this.

Book 1- Go to San Francisco, save Mom.
Book 2- Go to Bermuda Triangle, save buddy.
Book 3- Go to I forget where, save [future] gf.

I get that the author does this because the more popular myth stories were like this but it's a bit too repetitive. Maybe the last two in this series will shake up the formula but it's always in the midst of the journey (about 1/2 to 3/4 into the journey itself) that I get a little bored and have trouble picking the story back up.

This isn't a huge criticism or anything by any means but I've noticed periods where I've struggled a bit to continue the story and saw a pattern with where in the story it was happening.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1190 on: Jul 11, 2021, 09:06:37 PM »
I've been reading comic books again these past couple months. The superhero stuff all seems pretty status quo. DC in particular is just abysmal.

Highlights:

Something is Killing the Children ---> WOW. Wow. Woooooooooooow. This one just really does it for me. I'd rather not go into any detail in case anyone here decides to chell it out, because I went in blind and it just blew me away. I'm probably overselling it now, oh well.

Immortal Hulk ---> Man, if anything is begging to be made into a movie right now, holy shit. But of course, never. It's so, so grisly. You'd never see art like this in a mainline Marvel title even like, ten years ago. Yuck.

Runaways ---> I had no idea they started a new run of Runaways back in 2017. I love everything about this book. Artwork, subject matter, the sense of humor. God damn. Actually got me to go back and revisit the old books. I don't know why, but these characters are just my fucking jam.

Ultramega ---> Heroes vs. Kaiju but all existential and shit. Not like it's never been done before, but this one stands out. Really nice art, too.

Also, got caught up on Saga, but I feel like that one's old news by now. Really good, but it kind of petered out at the end there.

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1191 on: Jul 12, 2021, 06:35:50 PM »
I wish I wanted to read comics. I just finished the third Percy Jackson book a week ago. It took forever but it slogged a bunch. Have the fourth book ready to start.

There was the one comic I came across that I wanted to read but it was in French. Seems like a lot of the comics that interest me lately are French. Don't remember titles because... French. I could've written them down but... stupid. Heh.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1192 on: Aug 23, 2021, 11:39:39 AM »
I still haven't finished Planet of Exile and I've read jack shit elsewise.
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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1193 on: Aug 23, 2021, 04:19:37 PM »
Still comics. Man, I rediscovered Runaways like a month and a half ago, binged the current run and even went back to reread all the old stuff and chell out a bunch of stuff I had missed in the meantime and then...

The new issue comes out and it's the last one. They ended the series AGAIN.

I don't really get disappointed that often. Like, I'm talking legitimately upset. But this caught me completely off guard and left me with that punched-in-the-gut sensation. I loved, loved, loved this new Runaways series. I might just read it all over from the start.

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1194 on: Dec 19, 2021, 10:19:55 AM »
Tried reading Dune but I had been having headaches looking at stuff. So I thought I'd try the audiobook. The audiobook is extremely well done imo. The presentation is five stars. That said, I'm 90 min in and not sure what I'm supposed to get out of this story. I feel like I'm joerammstein playing Chrono Trigger: like I'm too late for this train.

I'm bored. On the plus side, listening to this was like some form of meditation and I needed to meditate.

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1195 on: Dec 19, 2021, 08:06:47 PM »
What! Did I say that? Is that a direct quote, or are you paraphrasing? :laugh:

I heard somewhere that Yoshihiro Togashi hasn't published a new chapter of Hunter X Hunter in like 3 years, but the series is still considered to be "on hiatus." But I also knew there had been a number of chapters following the end of the most recent anime adaptation, so I started reading those.

So the anime adapts roughly 32 volumes of the manga, and the final volume available as of right now is 36. So I have 4 volumes to read (3 now, I suppose) and then... nothing.

I know the dude is married to Sailor Moon and essentially never needs to work another day in his life, but damn...

I want to see the end of Hunter X Hunter.

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1196 on: Dec 19, 2021, 10:24:57 PM »
I'm paraphrasing. I forget exactly what you said. Okay..., so searched for your comment before submitting this post. I implied this paraphrasing to myself upon reading your comment. As far as what you actually said, you only said you tried an emulated copy and couldn't get into it. I know for me, sometimes I think I can't get into things because I'm trying too late. I dunno, I just think CT was specific to its time. If you're already seen and played all sorts of other JRPGs, I'm not sure what it could offer anymore. But I'm a cynic and this is my cynical interpretation of your throwaway comment from 2016 in a random Johnny Depp thread.

Re: HXH... OMG, just end it, sir.  End it. I dare say... wait, I think what I'm about to say might be in the part you haven't read yet. Nevermind. I deleted the name I typed out before submitting my post. Anyway, I thought there was an opportunity to clean up at least one plot thread. But noooooo... I do have to admire the powet the author has. Just fucks off but HxH just remains on hiatus. If he was some peon, it would've been axed years ago.

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1197 on: Dec 26, 2021, 09:18:15 AM »
I've been listening to more of the Dune audio book. I wake up "worried" a lot so playing the audio book--which again is well done but doesn't seem to be saying anything--randomly distracts me and helps me clear my mind. Anyhow, I dare say it's actually starting to hook me now with its water politics. 30% or 6 hours into the audio book. But now my audio book's going to be due back to the library. I found a copy of YouTube but at 21 hours, it might get yanked before I finish. I might actually look for a copy of this to have so I can continue to listen to this story passively.

I'm also trying to read "Hello Habits. A Minimalist's Guide to a Better Life" by Fumio Sasaki. I mean, this book has something to say. I'm not sure if it's much, tbh. There's a tips in here I might write down. Otherwise, if you're read other minimalist and productivity books, I can imagine this book isn't going to give you any new information. It's a quick and easy read, I just have a hard time paying attention so I haven't finished it. Otherwise, I would've finished this a long time ago. I'll probably enjoy this better as an audio book. His previous book "Goodbye Things" is all over YouTube as an audiobook and I like to listen to it while I clean. I imagine I'll have a similar relationship with this book.

I'm trying to start "The Four Agreements." It also looks like a quick and easy read but I always get interrupted or distracted when I start it. :lol:

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1198 on: Jan 10, 2022, 10:22:59 AM »
I'm having a hard time reading stuff. I just don't have a lot of concentration these days. Merla got me some books so I'm hoping to have them read by the end of Feb. But we'll see. I'm slogging through "The Four Agreements." I will finish it. It's a really simple book.

I did start Anne of Green Gables as an audio book for some simple escapism and I'm bored. It's not even something that can be used as meditation like Dune. The audio book presentation is very lackluster. I think this would've benefited from some voice actors like the Dune audio book. Also, I know the story already from Akage no Anne, the superb 1979 anime adaptation Nippon Animation's World Masterpiece Theater. (I watched it all on YouTube years ago and it's still all over there as of this post.) I may still try to read this once I find a print version I like. I did find a couple of copies at Barnes and Noble but I didn't like the formats I wanted. (in terms of size of the book, print/font, etc.)

B E C K

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Re: What are you reading?
« Reply #1199 on: Jan 26, 2022, 11:39:26 AM »
I'm almost done with The Four Agreements. It's like "baBBie's first self-help book" so it should be fucking easy to read but like I said I can't concentrate. But I'm on track to finish it.

I started Happiness by Thích Nhất Hạnh. He died around when Meat Loaf and Louie Anderson did, but he was a Vietnamese buddhist and wrote a fuckton of books. Because he has so many, you don't run into the issue where an author dies and now you can't chell out their work because there's a long-ass waiting list through the library. A bunch of his works are free through the app I use to access my local library so I figured "why not?"

I did finish Hello Habits by Fumio Sasaki in its audiobook format. I put a hold on it so I could listen to it again.


----tl;dr: I go on too long about Percy Jackson----

You know, I never did pick up another Percy Jackson book even though I intended on finishing the series. Maybe when I start working again, I'll revisit the series since I was using these stories to relax after work. But it almost feels like the stories blew their load too early. Like the opposite of the Rowling problem where you wonder why the fuck Harry Potter has to live with his horrible relatives for each and every installment. But instead of this, Percy gets a bunch of resolutions in his books.

His crappy living situation is sorted out in first book. Then Mom's dating in the second or third book (I don't recall) but its not that big of a deal even though the book kinda tries to pretend it is. Second book, Percy meets a half-brother but they like each other and are friends by the end of the book. So no tension there. Percy sort of makes his peace with his absentee dad Poseidon so there's no tension there either. Annabeth, his little girlfriend, understands Percy's feelings and has come full-circle regarding her own relationship with her family so there's no tension there. Grover went to find Pan which is what he wanted to do and we have no reason to believe he won't find Pan so that's that.

There's the whole prophecy throughout the series that supposedly only fits Percy until other characters get introduced. The prophecy is such back-burner material that I don't recall what it is. It's so important that I can find no immediate outline of what it was on Wikipedia. But whatever.

The book wants me to feel uncertain about the prophecy but there's nothing to have you believe this wouldn't be Percy's prophecy. One of the other candidates for this prophecy is subsequently taken out of contention so there's no suspense here. Even though another possible candidate is introduced, he's some unstable little boy who still plays with action figures and had a sister-dependency so there's no way anyone could actually believe he'd be the subject of the prophecy. Honestly, he's the one that should've been taken out of contention. The girl was actually a formidable peer for Percy, a daughter of fucking Zeus, and was mentioned from the very first book. She was a contender for things not going smoothly and actually would behave contrary to Percy, acting as his foil. This was great tension. But the author resolves it and now there's no way it could possibly be her.  Meanwhile the little boy feels shoehorned in and useless. He's Hades's son but who cares?  We barely know Hades. We barely got to know this boy or his sister so I have no investment in him whatsoever.

In looking up stuff I have two things to note:

I realized I completely forgot about Luke. Luke is the running villain of the series. (Of course there's another bad guy behind him but Luke's the one we encounter all the time.) But it's funny that I forgot about Luke. I shouldn't be able to forget the main villain proxy this easily.

Also, the series that was proposed for Disney+ got greenlit and casting is going to start. The author will be involved this time so I'm happy for him. I still think the first book, The Lightning Thief, is pretty solid. But from the second book onward, it's diminishing returns. Hopefully for him and his fans, the entire five-book series gets a nice adaptation. I feel like I need to make a bet on who will be racebent.

Highest odds are that it's still Grover.
Mid-odds are that it's both Grover and Annabeth.
Dark horse is all three leads.

I'm not sure Percy has to be white. Or Annabeth. But there's artwork of their canon appearances on the author's website. So I think casting should match that no matter the race of the actor.

Luke will definitely stay white and blond.  Because "white man eVIL" or whatever.

Because of Hollywood trends, I'm betting any red-heads become black ladies. Juniper, Rachel, Calypso, Aphrodite, and Demeter. (In the movie, Persephone was Rosario Dawson so it's already a thing.) Also, because these fantasy productions love to make non-white people into monsters, bet we'll get a black Tyson, too. (Also in line with the black Grover we got before but there was a white Tyson in the second film.)

The author appears to try and make some sort of diversity attempt in his work already. He does have neuro atypical-characters since half-gods are known for having adhd. And he also already has some lgbt rep in the books. Granted, from the first three books alone, it's not out on display any further than what we already know about the gods themselves. (Apparently, the representation in this regard ramps up with later works and one of the characters has a "was gay the entire time" moment.) Just not clear if all that's enough given the adaptations that get churned out these days.

Non-binary stuff is trendy so I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of characters get pushed into this route.