Holy shit, it's already been two months!? It felt like just yesterday that I'd seen the previous month's update. Unfortunately done no reading this time around either.

On the plus side, I've finally finished moving and I should *hopefully* be able to resume reading, once I figure out a routine to settle into.

Not a lot of time for me to read this past month unfortunately, I am halfway through Universal Harvester by John Darnielle. So far very cool mystery vibes.

LITFAM UPDATE: BACK TO SCHOOL READY TO RULE EDITION

Greetings and salutations Litters. Last month we had a lower total but with more active readers and a severe breech into a now bustlin' 100% gang with @Haggard, @SerebetGM, @Sheik13LoZ, @StrangInk and @Urichov all hitting their goals and DrSevenSeize breaking out of the nobook zone in a newly declassified clandestine book operation. @Joltopus is also possibly the closest of all time.

Top Fam

1. @DrSevenSeizeMD (10)
2. @Asandir and @Pingu (9)
3. @OneThousandMeeps (6)

@argile @Asandir @Atlas @AxolotlGav @CarterSterling @CappyCatII @Darklion0 @Dean @detergent1 @door88 @DrSevenSiezeMD @Dr-Freebase @Ganon-Dorf @Gimmick @GonzaloAtWork @Haggard @JerseyWildcard @Joltopus @Malachy @OlTrout @OneThousandMeeps @Pingu @Prinzy2 @PudgieDaFrog @SerebetGM @Sheik13LoZ @SlutasaurusRex @SourCherryJack @StrangInk @TecNoir @TehPoptartKid @Thewolf257 @TopazAzul @UnderWhirl @Urichov @YendorNG @Yomuchan @ZJ

finished holes by louis sachar

def a youth novel but have only seen the movie so was interested in reading it

Well done all of you. :)

I hope I can still contribute a book or two until the end of the year.

Just finished Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, it's 634 pages with chapters on wildly different subjects so I can't summarize everything, but standout chapters in memory are the ones on Prices, Minimum Wage, Tariffs, and Property Rights. Seriously, no one writes about tariffs outside of academia, so it's refreshing to get a basic explanation of them instead of being needing a 6 year graduate education.

Going back to the Wheel of Time now, The Shadow Rising.

13. The Wet Engine by Brian Doyle

A great creative nonfiction essay focused on Doyle's son and his heart issues. A great short and emotional read. This can be knocked out in one sitting if you can handle the moments of information and emotion overload.

14. Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

This was my first foray into Baldwin's work and what a fantastic first expedition. I'm excited to read more of him in the future. I knew his reputation, but I had no idea his work would be this enjoyable.

Finished Celestial Monsters by Aiden Thomas, the sequel to the Sunbearer Trials. Very fun book! Loved the characters.

Finished Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.

Furiously Happy - Jenny Lawson

Was here for the fucking raccon on the front cover, stayed for the insanity. this book holds.

29: Thunderplump by Dakota Krout

Most recent book in this series. Wife still loves it and it's growing on me. I won't mind listening to the next audiobook when it's dropped.

30: Not Till We Are Lost by Dennis E Taylor

Oh man new Bobiverse! It's such a good series! Latest installment did not disappoint. I almost feel like Taylor is trying to squeeze in too many stories in each book. I wonder if he'll start breaking up some of the plost into their own novels. Or maybe that's what I like so much about the series? He explores a lot of sci-fi topics in every book it's almost too much, but it's not confusing and he writes the many different ongoing plots well so it's not like 'ugh another chapter of this'.

Read Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

fuggin

"a very short introduction to goethe" by ritchie robertson

dats it

46) The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm translated by Jack Zipes (1812/1815)

The stories I managed to get read include: The Virgin Mary's Child (aka the Golden Key), The Companionship of the Cat and Mouse and The Frog King (also known as Iron Henry). These are the original tales as they were first published when they were released in volume 1.

The Frog King had me running back to Vampirella's Feary Tales for this one. In this version of the tale, the princess throws this small frog into the wall because they were getting demanding with their requests. Where as in Feary Tales, the girl beats up and kicks this giant frog creature into a wall.

Reading these tales brought back memories of a college course where we had to read children's literature and discovered that a lot of our childhood favorites growing up were watered down in comparison.

47) Fallout Valt-tec Employee Handbook by Fandom Books and a real-life employee handbook

I had just gotten a revised copy of my jobs employee handbook and read through it. Soon followed up with the Fallout Valt-tec Employee Handbook. Despite the cheer and upbeat wording of the Valt-tec book, it was surprisingly still like a handbook.

Honorable Mention

Introduction: Rediscovering the Original Tales of the Brothers Grimm 1812/1815

The introduction for #46 counts as a short book on its own due to the length. The translator of the original text was very thorough with their research and above the call of duty on this one. Worth the read if you have brain cells to spare.

Hoping to get more reading in before the month is out but still trying to decide on what to read next.

Lots of reading time in this month, as of today three more down for me.

Universal Harvester by John Darnielle — a sort of small town mystery story set in the 90’s/early 2000’s primarily. The tapes at a small movie rental place start coming back with weird intercuts with seemingly no meaning. I don’t know how much I really enjoyed this one, but it definitely felt nostalgic in a lot of ways and was well written with intrigue, but maybe as a whole didn’t satisfy in the end. But also it felt like that was part of the point.

The Gold Coast by Kim Stanley Robinson — this is in a loosely related trilogy of light sci-fi novels about the “Three Californias” I haven’t read the other two, but this one is set in Orange County, and some other parts of Southern California so it felt pretty real and convincing to me.

it’s very Philip K Dick inspired, not quite full cyberpunk, but definitely the massive amounts of advertising and overly commercial lifestyle/urban decay is super well done.

also it was written in the late 80’s so the Soviet Union still exists and they still use tapes, but like futuristic tapes. And I always find that fun. Highly recommend this one.

No Longer Human — This one I picked up because the cover was bright magenta and I liked that. This is one of those “listless man” stories your mileage may vary, but I don’t know that it did it for me. It was short and the writing didn’t waste any time with what was being said, but I can’t help but feel something was lost in the translation. Overall it wasn’t bad, maybe a reread or further contemplation will change my view on it to more positive

Stephen King - On Writing

Finished this book. Not that I intend to start writing, but it's still a compelling read. Especially the part where he speaks about the day he got run over by a truck, and how writing on this very book helped him get back into life.

25. Genevieve Gornichec - The Witch's Heart: an interesting telling of the relationship of Angrboda & Loki, and the fates of their children and the gods.

26. Martha Wells - Network Effect: Murderbot continues to learn about itself and how to deal with autonomy\

27. Martha Wells - Fugitive Telemetry: a shorter side story where Muerderbot is contracted to help solve a murder mystery.

I only have one Murderbot book left to be caught up/sad that I don't have more media and have to wait.

32. Illuminations - Alan Moore

I wrote a very long review of this book while I was reading it and then deleted the whole thing. It essentially boiled down to:

I really really really did not like this book.

31: The Mercy of Gods by James S A Corey

The guys who co-wrote the expanse are starting a new series. Maybe it was the narrator of the audio book but I found it pretty meh. It was very slow to start, introducing a bunch of academics in some cutthroat research university on a planet that's taken over by some alien overlords. They're rounded up and told to do their nerd shit on some integration planet. It was pretty good world building but I never liked the characters and I often felt lost in their internal politics. I'll probably pick up the next one in book form.

32. Dutch Girl – this book covers the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands before and during World War II, through the lens of the van Heemstra-Ruston family and the youngest daughter Adriaantje, who would grow up to become famed actress Audrey Hepburn.

In addition to Audrey’s interviews throughout her career, the author went through old Dutch records and interviewed old neighbors of life under the Nazis, which included periods of starvation and bombings from both sides in the war. One major revelation was that Audrey’s mother was an early supporter of the Third Reich, even happily meeting Hitler before the war. Of course, she lost faith in Hitler once her village and her own family was subjected to Nazi brutality. The only decent constant in Audrey’s wartime life was dance classes, which seemed to help her mentally after the deaths of her close relatives and the slow destruction of her village.

33. Wicked: The Grimmerie – A coffee table book about the yearslong development of the Broadway musical Wicked. Apparently, the author of the original novel agreed with the numerous changes, turning a rather mature political heavy Oz novel into a more family friendly musical. It shows most of the details of what goes into the show: songwriting, costumes, lighting, sound mixing. The make-up artist even detailed the process of painting the Elphaba actresses green every show. The book does acknowledge that the musical was not wholly critically acclaimed but has a very passionate fanbase; it even had fan letters at the end of the book.

34. Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein – I have always seen this book around for years at school, but I never got around to it. It’s a humorous collection of poems and drawings. A lot of them are nonsensical like “Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too” and the artwork has a grotesquely funny style to them.

35. Sense and Sensibility – The classic by Jane Austen, about two sisters finding romantic partners after their sister-in-law kicks them out of the family estate, because according to her half-siblings do not count as family. It was fine for the most part, though the fact that there were two separate secret engagements in the main narrative is repetitious. The romantic suitors are not quite great, at least in modern context; even the best of them, Colonel Brandon, is old enough to be Marianne’s father.

I finished book four in the Wheel of Time, The Shadow Rising.

I'm not sure what I'll read next, either Soviet history or something on the CIA.

Done reading these books:

89. Die Gesellschaft zur Erhaltung der Kaiju-Monster (The Kaiju Preservation Society), John Scalzi, 336 pages

90. Besserwissen mit dem Besserwisser, Sebastian Klussmann, 224 pages

91. Stummer Schrei (Within the Circle), Arne Dahl, 464 pages

92. Eine kurze Geschichte von fast allem (A Short History of Nearly Everything), Bill Bryson, 816 pages

93. Fast alles, was Sie wissen müssen, Sebastian Klussmann, 256 pages

94. Fast alles, was Sie wissen müssen – Teil 2, Sebastian Klussmann, 320 pages

95. Der Taschen-Brockhaus, Ulrike Emrich, 511 pages

96. Lacroix und der Bäcker von Saint-Germain, Alex Lépic, 208 pages

The Kaiju Preservation Society:

Jamie is fired from his job in a start-up company but luckily gets offered a new job, that is only described as working for a company that takes care of animals. As the job is well paid and he is otherwise out of options, Jamie takes the offer and the care of taking animals part remains true - only that this means dinosaurs in an alternate dimension that have bio-nuclear plants inside them. Whenever one of them dies the barrier between the dimensions weakens and Jamie and the other members of the team are also responsible for making sure that no dino enters the real world.

Good book. The dialogue has heavy millenial lingo, which is low key cringe, no cap. Apart from that I enjoyed it.

Besserwissen mit dem Besserwisser + Fast alles, was Sie wissen müssen + Fast alles, was Sie wissen müssen – Teil 2:

Aside from reading, I am an avide fan of the german version of the Quiz tv show "The Chase" ("Gefragt Gejagt" in german). Those three books are by Sebastian Klussmann, one of the Chasers. The first one has basic information on how to increase knowledge and memorise things better and the other two give a good entry for gaining a good level of knowledge about art, sports, literature, geography, science, tv, history, etc.

Since I started to seek more quiz knowledge the amount of answers I can answer correctly has greatly increased and I'll continue to seek more knowledge.

Within the Circle:

The boss of a steel factory is killed with a bomb, soon after a manager of a car factory is killed by a bomb too - seemingly the actions of a radicalized climate activist. Officer Eva Nyman seems to recognize some of the words from the perpetrators letters as typical wording from her former mentor Lukas Friell, now retired and gone off the grid after his last case ended tragically. They need to find Frisell or whoever is behind these attacks fast, as a third, more devastating attack is looming.

Good book. Good balance between making the perpetrator tough to catch but making the police team still come off as competent. First of a series, will read the following as well.

A Short History of Nearly Everything:

How big is the universe? How much does Earth weigh and how can you figure that out? Only two of many questions that are answered in this book, filled with tons of knowledge in a condenced format.

Great book. Author has great talent for explaining complicated things in simple words and make it entertaining with lots of fascinating annecdotes. You can feel the joy of sharing knowledge in every sentence. Highly recommended.

Der Taschen-Brockhaus:

This is a pocked sized encylopedia, giving a good oversight for biology, techology, the history of art, chemistry and other subjects. Simplified but still educational and easy to read with tons of illustrations throughout.

Lacroix und der Bäcker von Saint-Germain:

Second case for officer Lacroix - this time, a famous baker is killed, just hours after winning a competion for making the best baguette - for two times in a row infact, something that has never happened before. As Lacroix investigates, it seems like the voting was rigged in some fashion. Will this lead to the real killer?

Good book. The series has more books (7 in total right now) and I'll read them all, as I find these very enjoyable.

One more before the end of the month so I'm +4 total for September

Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World - By Haruki Murakami

I really enjoyed this one; it's two storylines told through alternating chapters. The first one is a near future sci-fi type of a information courier who stores the information in their brains (Johnny mnemonic style), and the more noire-esque intrigue there.

And the second plot is more fantastical, set in a mysterious walled city with mythical creatures and inexplicable magic and strange customs of a population that never ages or changes.

It could be my admittedly limited pool to draw from, but the first plot felt a lot like Philip K Dick in the near future sci-fi noire mystery, and following a mostly normal person with a weird future version of a common job.

While the second plot felt a lot like the Hainish books from Ursula K Le Guin in the strange world of indeterminate technology/semi magic, strange semi-primitive culture.

Both of these filtered through Murakami though, so it's a bit more pop-culture (of the 50's-80's) heavy, set in Japan, and has the weird moments of Murakami talking about/describing women, which is less prevalent here than other books I've read from him, but does pop up with some regularity.

Also I forgot to put No Longer Human is by Osamu Daza in my last post

Woah, got jumpscared by that month change, if anyone else has updates for September then jump out and say BOO with 'em.

@argile @Asandir @Atlas @AxolotlGav @CarterSterling @CappyCatII @Darklion0 @Dean @detergent1 @door88 @DrSevenSiezeMD @Dr-Freebase @Ganon-Dorf @Gimmick @GonzaloAtWork @Haggard @JerseyWildcard @Joltopus @Malachy @OlTrout @OneThousandMeeps @Pingu @Prinzy2 @PudgieDaFrog @SerebetGM @Sheik13LoZ @SlutasaurusRex @SourCherryJack @StrangInk @TecNoir @TehPoptartKid @Thewolf257 @TopazAzul @UnderWhirl @Urichov @YendorNG @Yomuchan @ZJ

AH

IMSTILLREADINGTOMORROWANDTOMORROWANDTOMORROWANDALSOUNRULY

Your Beauty Mark The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour by Dita Von Teese, this is what I managed to finish for September.

September (3)

29: Thunderplump by Dakota Krout

30: Not Till We Are Lost by Dennis E Taylor

31: The Mercy of Gods by James S A Corey

Another slow month for me. Finding it harder to start new books since I've mostly burned through so many big series and almost everything written by my favorite authors. This year is mostly waiting for new books to be released.

I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry

Another big fat zero.

yeah, I haven't read anything. I've been thinking about picking some (unauthorized/investigative) biography of anyone controversial or questionable. maybe it would be thrilling.