Which Book Are You Currently Reading?

[Kat23]

I never got super far into the old EU, but I did read the Republic Commando series by Karen Traviss and really liked those. Death Troopers was also interesting.

Wanna see my bookshelf?

Here:

https://www.zeldadungeon.net/forum/...uy-or-received-as-gifts-this-year-2023.75289/

I'm reading "Choices of one", by Timothy Zahn in my spare time.

But these days I'm reading those three books for a reading challenge (from a website I'm a member of):

- "Star Wars, The Jedi apprentices volume 2: The dark rival", by Jude Watson (Sci-Fi).
- "Bertie and the tin man", by Peter Lovesey (Mystery)
- "The devil's due (A Sherlock Holmes adventure, book 3)", by Bonnie Macbird (Detective)

The reading challenge starts on April 1st and ends on April 31, if I finish those three books early, I'll have a week or a week and half left and I'll have time to keep reading "Choices of one".

It's a yearly reading challenge and you can choose the number of books you want to read every month and over the year. I chose to read three books every month for a grand total of thirty-six books over the year. Three books every month is a reasonable amount (and less stressful than five or six every months) for a reading challenge I think, it is for me anyway. And when I have time left, I read some other book from my personal bookshelf. I take at least one day every week to keep reading/finish reading a book on my bookshelf that isn't part of my reading challenge.

Also, these days it seems that I'm "obsessed" with this band and I listen to this playlist a lot (it's great music):

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzG_3q50DuPl3gYlO7io1xEiiTROgpU90

 

[5teelPriest]

Finished "Rhythm of War" a couple days ago, and man, Kaladin reaching the 4th ideal was one of the greatest feelings I've gotten from consuming any form of media, let alone just reading a book. Can't wait for the next one in the series to come out.

Gonna take a little break before going onto "Alloy of Law". I tried starting it right away, but kept getting side-tracked, so I have a feeling I might just be a bit burnt out and in need of a breather. Though I'm super excited to read more about what's going on on Scadrial now that several hundred years have passed.

 

[XandertheWise]

almost about done with Dune Battle of Corrin.

pretty soon will be reading Paperbacks From Hell

 

[Kat23]

I'm currently reading "The devil's due, A Sherlock Holmes adventure #3" by Bonnie Macbird:

("One of the best Sherlock Holmes novel of recent memory." -- Michael Dirda, Washington Post.

Synopsis:

"After Art in the Blood and Unquiet Spirits, Holmes and Watson are back in the third of Bonnie MacBird’s critically acclaimed Sherlock Holmes Adventures, written in the tradition of Conan Doyle himself.

It’s 1890 and the newly famous Sherlock Holmes faces his worst adversary to date – a diabolical villain bent on destroying some of London’s most admired public figures in particularly gruesome ways. A further puzzle is that suicide closely attends each of the murders. As he tracks the killer through vast and seething London, Holmes finds himself battling both an envious Scotland Yard and a critical press as he follows a complex trail from performers to princes, anarchists to aesthetes. But when his brother Mycroft disappears, apparently the victim of murder, even those loyal to Holmes begin to wonder how close to the flames he has travelled. Has Sherlock Holmes himself made a deal with the devil?")

The first two books in the series ("Art in the blood, A Sherlock Holmes adventure #1" and "Unquiet spirits: Whisky, ghosts, murder, A Sherlock Holmes adventure #2") are great and I really enjoyed reading them and the third one ("The devil's due, A Sherlock Holmes adventure #3") is definitely great too (I'm currently reading the third one, I'm about 14 chapters in and I was hooked from the beginning) and I'm pretty sure the last two ("The three locks, A sherlock Holmes adventure #4" and "What child is this, A Sherlock Holmes Christmas adventure" which is book 5) are just as great. I will definitely read all 5 books in this series.

See this (click on the titles and you'll get a synopsis for each of those five books in the series):

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/bonnie-macbird/sherlock-holmes-adventure/

All 5 books in this series are by the same author: Bonnie Macbird. She's always been a huge fan of Sherlock, she read all 60 original Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan-Doyle when she was only 10, and she wrote her own Sherlock Holmes series in the tradition of Conan Doyle himself. I recommend this series to everyone, especially my fellow Holmesians.

Also, you can find video interviews with author Bonnie Macbird on Youtube, she talks about her Sherlock Holmes series. Those video interviews with Bonnie Macbird made me want to read all five books, her whole Sherlock Holmes series.

The month of May is fast approaching (only one week left).

Like I said in my previous post, I'm participating in a reading challenge (from a website I'm a member of).

The reading challenge starts on the first day of the month and ends on the last day of the month. It's a yearly reading challenge and you can choose the number of books you want to read every month and over the year. I chose to read three books every month for a grand total of thirty-six books over the year. Three books every month is a reasonable amount (and less stressful than five or six every months) for a reading challenge I think, it is for me anyway. And when I have time left, I read some other book from my personal bookshelf. I take at least one day every week to keep reading/finish reading a book on my bookshelf that isn't part of my reading challenge.

For the month of May I'll be reading those three books for my reading challenge:

- "Slayer, tome 1: Slayer", par Kiersten White.
- "Slayer, tome 2: Chosen", par Kiersten White.
- "The three locks (A Sherlock Holmes adventure, book 4)", by Bonnie Macbird.

Over the last 15 years, I've read a grand total of 85 "Buffy the vampire slayer" and "Angel" books, I've read pretty much all of them and I've always wanted more (fortunately for me, there are new ones being written and published these days, like "Bloody fool for love: A Spike prequel" by William Ritter which is one of the most recent ones and on August 1st 2023 they're going to release "The bewitching hour: A Tara prequel" by Ashley Poston), there's only two of them that I have never read, Kiersten White's duology, "Slayer" and "Chosen". Kiersten White's duology is different from most of the novel as it is a story taking place in the BTVS universe but the characters are original characters, new characters, Buffy and her friends (the Scoobies) are only mentioned a couple times in the duology and there are references to events that took place in the TV series and there are new characters related to characters we've seen in the TV show, and the main character is a young woman named Nina. The first book is 404 pages long and the second one is 349 pages long.

I was very hesitant to read this duology because if original characters (especially original main character) is not done right, it can ruin the whole story and I'm used to reading about Buffy and the Scooby gang.

But I've heard so many positive things about this duology from people who highly recommend it:

Spoiler

I'm going to read this duology in May. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[XandertheWise]

I just started re-reading the original Willow movie sequel thats a book series the Shadow War Trilogy.

Im re-reading the 2nd book Shadow Dawn. last time i read it was like 18 years ago i think thats how long its been since i read the old Shadow War Trilogy

 

[XandertheWise]

currently reading Clive Barker's Weaveworld along with just started readinhg Anne Rice's Servant of the Bones

 

[Kat23]

June is fast approaching and during the month of June, I'll be reading those three books for a reading challenge (from a website I'm a member of):

- "What child Is this? (A Sherlock Holmes Christmas adventure)" by Bonnie Macbird (that's her fifth Sherlock Holmes novel, "The three locks" is the first book in the series and is a prequel to "Art in the blood" which would be book #2, "Unquiet spirits" is book #3, and "The devil's due" is book #4)
- "Sherlock Holmes: A betrayal in blood" by Mark A. Latham
- "A study in terror" by Ellery Queen (another Sherlock Holmes novel)

The reading challenge starts on April 1st and ends on April 31, if I finish those three books early, I'll have a week or a week and half left and I'll have time to keep reading another book.

It's a yearly reading challenge and you can choose the number of books you want to read every month and over the year. I chose to read three books every month for a grand total of thirty-six books over the year. Three books every month is a reasonable amount (and less stressful than five or six every months) for a reading challenge I think, it is for me anyway. And when I have time left, I read some other book from my personal bookshelf. I take at least one day every week to keep reading/finish reading a book on my bookshelf that isn't part of my reading challenge.

Also, these days I love listening to my "Animal Crossing summer vacation Ambience ASMR" playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzG_3q50DuPkkCAmd0gyn65ch-VfSJse3

Take care,

Kat.

 

[A Link In Time]

A Man of Iron by Troy Senik. It's a book about the presidency of Grover Cleveland. I've been reading it since February so I'm going pretty slowly. Only 120 pages to go. It's interesting seeing how different the two major U.S. political parties were on economic issues in the last 19th century with Republicans favoring tariffs and Democrats having a more hands-off approach to the economy.

 

[Fierce Deity Link]

Just finished Timeline by Michael Crichton a couple nights ago. I didn't really know what exactly I was getting into reading it, didn't read a summary or anything like that beforehand, so when I realized it had actual time-travel elements in it, that was very exciting for me. Love love love time travel-esque stories.

The start was a bit slow, but once the plot picked up I was hooked. Read a bunch each night for the past week or so. Found the unique take on the method of traveling through universes really interesting, and the characters were really fun to get to know.

I have only seen the movie and I loved that. I’ll have to check out the book. Crichton is a great writer.

 

[Vroendal]

I haven't had a good time to get the motivation to sit down and read a large book in a while, so I'm quite excited to be starting Don Quixote in a book discussion group I've joined!! :oo After some deliberation I decided to get the Ormsby translation, it's supposed to be a very accurate but somewhat dry and scholarly translation, but there will be a diversity of translations so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to hear the humor from other versions. o.o

 

[Emma]

A Killer's Game by Isabella Maldonado
I can't say too much about it without spoiling it. If you want to read it, don't read the Amazon description, it spoils the whole plot. Basically it follows a former solider who became an FBI agent and she's trying to unravel a terrorist plot and nothing goes to plan and she has to react fast each time some new twist comes up. Every time you think they've got it all figured out, something new happens. It's much better than I thought. I got it free as one of the monthly options for free titles on Amazon last month.

I have only seen the movie and I loved that. I’ll have to check out the book. Crichton is a great writer.

The movie is very underrated. It's actually a very good adaptation. It was very faithful to book. The deviations it did were totally understandable and I think necessary. Like the whole language thing, a big complaint about the movie being how 1300s French and English would be incomprehensible to time travelers who didn't study the language first). The book explains the issue with the language barrier but doesn't depict it because then the story would be unreadable. It'd similarly make a movie unwatchable even if it's more accurate. You'd have to imagine they're really speaking it but it's being translated for the viewer, like how Schindler's List, or Valkyrie translated German into English to make it watchable to English speakers. It was such a pedantic thing to complain about..

In short, if you liked the movie, you'll love the book.

 

[Fierce Deity Link]

@Emma I shall asd it to my resding list, I have fascinating with The Hundred Year’s War, particularly when Joan of Arc was involved.

 

[Chevywolf30]

The Evolution Revolution by Lee Spetner. It's a fascinating look into the flaws in evolutionary theory and the blind defense and assumptions that go into defending it.

 

[Kat23]

I'm reading manga right now, this story in two parts that I borrowed from a public library:

Spoiler

I had read:

- The Red, Green and Blue arc (volumes 1-3)
- The Yellow arc (volumes 4-7)
- The Gold, Silver and Crystal arc (volumes 7-14)
- The Ruby and Sapphire arc (volumes 14-22)
- The FireRed and LeafGreen arc (volumes 23-25)
- The Emerald arc (volumes 26-29)
- The Diamond and Pearl arc (vols. 30-38)
- The Platinum arc (volumes 38-40)
- The Black and White arc (volumes 43-51)
- The X and Y arc (volumes 56-59)

I'm currently reading the HeartGold and SoulSilver arc wich takes place between the Platimum arc and the Black and White arc.

The Sun and Moon arc in 12 volumes is on my reading list, this one takes place after the X and Y arc.

I can't read the Black 2 and White 2 manga arc yet, the Montreal Public Libraries Network only has two out of the four volumes and I don't want to buy the manga, just borrow them from public libraries (I use my extra money to buy novels instead mostly Sherlock Holmes novels). None of the 36+ public libraries in the network has copies of the other two volumes and this manga arc in four volumes was complete as of April 2020, so the network might never get copies of the other two volumes. I might as well resign myself to the fact that I might never be able to read this arc.

After reading about the ORAS video games and reading the ORAS manga synopsis, I decided that I'm not going to read the Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire manga arc, I'm just not interested so I'm going to skip it (as far as I'm concerned the ORAS video games and the ORAS manga arc don't exist and will never be canon in my book, that arc is complete garbage and most of what's been told in that arc can be disproven).

The Sword and Shield manga arc is still incomplete and volume 8 will be released on December 12 2023. When this arc is complete, I MIGHT borrow it from one or several of the public libraries in the network if they have all the volumes, but I'm not too sure about this arc.

Why am I not too sure about this arc?

Because unlike the previous arcs, instead of being about the video game's main protags, in this case Victor and Gloria, this one is about a Marvin and his two best friends, "Henry Sword" and "Casey Shield". Like what the freak? Every manga arc before has been about the main protags of the then current gen. Where are Victor and Gloria? It's supposed to be about them, not some OCs (original characters) named "Henry" and "Casey" that are not even in the Sword and Shield games. Also, the main protag is supposed to be the future Pokemon Champion of the story, the Sword and Shield protag is no exception to that, but apparently they changed that in the manga arc. And what in the freaking world did they do with Victor and Gloria? This just pisses me off so much.

I'm not sure I like what I read here in this article at all (also why does the author of the article assume that all protags in the franchise are "10 years old" when that's not even true, it seems this person thinks that the video game franchise is just like the lame crap loser never-grow-up Ash Ketchum anime, some of the protags in the later arcs like the Black 2 and White 2 protags named Nate and Rosa are like 15 and nearing their late teens as we can see in the B2W2 video games and the manga arc and they look much older than some of the protags of the first few gens and that's just one example, also the manga are NOT "contructed with kids in mind" as the author of the article assume, it's for late teens and young adults because it has darker, more mature themes and even has disturbing* scenes about the harsh realities of life like crimes and murder and death (temporary deaths but still) and sickness and mental health issues and DNA engineering and children being physically abused/beaten by their parents or guardians (because it freaking does happen in real life too and this kid of messed up thing is one of the harsh realities of life, if anything the protags who experienced child abuse are abuse survivors and that makes them strong people who are better than their parents, sadly most of the child abuse committed by the parents was censored in the english translation, censorship sucks and should be opposed, it seems that Japan has more freedom of expression than the US and Canada, the American continent should do better, people are far too sheltered here) and villains/terrorists that can be taken seriously instead of the stupid buffoons seen in the pathetically childish anime and of course redemption arcs with reformed former villiains atoning for their past wrongs and fixing their mistakes and redemption arcs is my favorite part, the manga are for late teens and young adults, and kids could read it if adults stop oversheltering them about the harsh realities of life instead of keeping them ignorant and unprepared in the name of "protecting" them which does much more harm than good in the long run, the manga are not for like 5 years old kids in baby diapers like the lame crap loser never-grow-up Ash Ketchum anime, it's for mature older fans), I've got a bad feeling about this arc because it seems that they got rid of Victor and Gloria and the protag is not even the new champion:

Spoiler

"Pokemon: Sword and Shield manga has a unique spin on the game's story:

https://www.siliconera.com/pokemon-sword-and-shield-manga-review/

*The 16 most disturbing moments in the manga:

https://gamerant.com/pokemon-manga-disturbing-moments/

I was very disappointed by the X and Y arc and I wish I hadn't bothered reading it. Extremely disappointing. What? Cyrus gets a redemption arc in both manga (Pokemon adventures by Hidenori Kusaka and Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure! by Shigekatsu Ihara) not to mention all the characters that got redemption arcs in both manga, but Lysandre doesn't get any redemption arc in any of the manga? That's just wrong, disgusting and disappointing. Very disappointing, Kusaka. A bunch of Gym Leaders including Blaine got redemption arcs, a bunch of Elite 4 members got redemption arcs, Lance got a redemption arc, Cyrus got a redemption arc, Archie and Maxie got a redemption arc, even Giovanni got a redemption arc after he was reunited with his son Silver. But Lysandre doesn't get any redemption arc? You disappointed me, Kusaka, you freaking disappointed me. No Lysandre redemption arc in the "Pokemon Adventures: X and Y" manga. On that alone, I just don't recommend this arc. Also, the X and Y manga arc was boring compared to the previous manga arcs.

Well, at least, there's still the fanfictions, I love reading Lysandre redemption arcs in fanfiction and most of the ones I read have one of my favorite ships in them; Perfectworldshipping. Not only do I love redemption arcs, I also like love stories/romance very much. I think that love is redemptive and healing, a very powerful force in the universe.

Btw, the manga series written by Hidenori Kusaka spans 15 story arcs and then some.

I love reading with this Ambience in the background:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzG_3q50DuPljNtuHZQk3UnRCs7fIiTvS

I wish you all a nice day,

Kat.

 

[Farore's Chosen]

Re reading Jurassic Park