B00!!! with four 0hs!

The Watchers by A.M Shine

What lies behind the mirrored walls? How long will they survive in the box? Wait why do the lights still work?

The I-5 Killer by Ann Rule

You're working at a small shop with a dark parking lot. It isn't busy, but then its always pretty slow. But then... He walk in.

Make Your Own Rules by Andrew Huang

If you want to make music without a premium on live performances and need someone to emulate, this is the guy.

This Is Not a Game by Marc Fennell

The internet's first conspiracy theory. One of the reviews says that they learned more through the wikipedia article. But hey, I got to hear the creator actually talk about Ong's Hat and that's pretty cool.

LITFAM UPDATE: READER BEWARE EDITION

The only thing scarier than a late update is whatever's on that cobwebbed shelf of October tomes you can finally start cracking open on a dark and stormy night. Remember to spook responsibly fellas.

Also give @Joltopus a scary welcome to the 100% gang. Just as the dead sea scrolls predicted.

Top Fam

1. @Asandir (8)
2. @JerseyWildcard, @Joltopus and @SourCherryJack (4)

@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

Not that it matters since I already reached my goal, but there's a +1 missing next to my name. :O

Good job! Welcome. :)

I finished Willie O'ree's autobiography, he was the first black player in the NHL, playing for the Bruins way back in 1957, with a fully blind right eye mind you.

He dealt with many different kinds of racism, although growing up in Fredericton New Brunswick, Canada, he said it wasn't something he encountered or thought about often until he went down to Waycross Georgia for a training camp in the MLB before he was a pro hockey player. That was in the deep south during Jim Crow, and the brutal murder of Emmett Till was in his recent memory.

He spent a lot of time talking about the different teams he played for and how his team mates always treated him like another player, but one night against the Blackhawks, Eric Nesterenko called him the n-word and butt ended him in the face, smashing out two teeth and breaking his nose. He responded by smashing him in the head with his stick, and this is when they didn't wear helmets, so Nesterenko needed 14 stitches to close the wound.

He's still alive at the age of 88 or so, now he does diversity work for the NHL to try and get kids from under privileged backrounds into the game. It was quite an interesting read, I learned that back in the 50's all but the top few players in the NHL worked jobs in the summer time, I guess the quarter million salaries for third liners wasn't quite a thing back then, and Toronto and Montreal blocked Vancouver from joining the NHL in the 70's because they had a split revenue deal with all broadcast games in Canada and didn't want to share any with a third team.

I'm back to the Wheel of Time, book 5 The Fires of Heaven. I think this was my favorite book the last time I read the series, but my favorite chapter was in book four when Perrin had to defend the Two Rivers from Padan Fain's trollocs.

32: Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher

Revisiting a series we started in the Spring. I thought it was pretty good! Some funny bits. Some romance. And it even explained some stuff like what happens to them when a Paladin's god dies. The first book mostly just said they all went berserk and rampaged for a while but this is years later and their souls are scarred, what if another god tries to make them their champion?

33: Constituent Service by John Scalzi

A short story made for Audible that I really liked. A human starts a new job as the liaison for a city in a district that is majority alien. It's absurd and funny. I wish it was a whole series of full length novels.

34: The Old Guard by Glynn Stewart

2nd book in a newer series by Stewart. I enjoyed it but I felt there was a lot of build up for it to be a court intrigue, inside politics kinda thing but then the 'vote' happens and they're off to steal some spaceships. I totally loved where it went but it was a little bit of whiplash with the change in tone. Also the book ended practically mid-chapter. Obviously he plans to continue writing the series but i do prefer a proper ending to books, even books in the middle of a longer series. I don't like jumping right back into a universe mid-scene when the new book arrives. But that is my only real critique. Stewart is one of my favorite authors and I got the ARC of the book by being a Patreon subscriber.

15. Dark Days: Fugitive Essays by Roger Reeves

These essays are reference-heavy and sometimes a mental slog to get through, not because they're not good, but because there are so many layers of meaning to unpack. The main themes across the essays revolve around Race and the power of poetry and silence. This is the newest thing I've read in some time, being released in 2023.

35: Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher

Takes place in the Paladins universe by Kingfisher. We follow Paladin who was possessed by a demon and killed a bunch of nuns, a thief, an assassin and a scholar as they travel across the land looking for the source of magical clockwork soldiers terrorizing their country. We liked the audiobook and have already started the next book The Wonder Engine.

oops, i forgot i was still in this challenge. i'm gonna drop out if that's ok

Had a lot of admin stuff to do, I'll catch up tomorrow!

+2

listened to "the art of focus" by dan koe and read a book on drinking in moderation idr what it was called

16. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

Taking a vacation from real life itself, I'm gonna have to do some retroactive updates.

Everything before May: Nothing

May:

Hazardous Waste Handbook by John Lippitt et al.

I read this purely for morbid curiosity reasons. This book offers a pretty straightforward approach to the methods of protecting workers who clean up the hazardous waste sites and chemical spills. Written for supervisors and site inspectors, but it's okay if you're not - this handbook's very useful in answering occupational health questions regarding this line of work. The manual covers air monitoring, personal protective equipment, decontamination and decontamination protocols and what to do should an emergency arise.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Numerous health and safety checklists, hazardous-chemical data sheets, and personal protective equipment recommendations are presented for field decisions.

June: Nothing.

July: Nothing.

August: Nothing.

September: Nothing

October: (so far)

CULTIVATE!- The Six Non-Negotiable Traits of a Winning Team by Walter and Antoinette Bond

This tome reads the tale of three fictional (I hope) corporate team leaders discovering how to build a high-performing team over a game of golf as they take an introspective look into their own flaws and strengths and learn firsthand how they impact their teams’ cultures.

The authors demonstrate how leaders build the team cultures they work in and explain why it’s up to them to manage and improve it. As the games continue, explanations are provided as to why companies are struggling to recruit, develop, and retain strong teams. Practical and applicable tips for employee and team member retention are provided alongside explorations of the six traits of high-performing teams that are the signature of all elite business units as well, making it a pretty solid recommendation for a project or team leader.

As you can tell, I've been kinda hard at work trying to educate myself on being able to do my new job properly.

A word of warning - it has a lot of golf and golf accessories.

Mobile Device Security For Dummies by Rich Campagna, Subbu Iyer and Ashwin Krishnan

The world moves on and now I have a 'smartphone' from 2014 as part of having to work in upper management. However, I'm still quite paranoid that I could make a blunder that would not be possible in the glory days of the Nokia 3310. To this end, I borrowed this book from a local library to learn more about this 'phone' I have to use now for work purposes.

This book starts off by introducing some basic concepts of mobile device security, then goes right into the thick of it by listing out how badly things can go if your mobile device is compromised. In the next section, it lays down a solid foundation on how to avoid such situations.

I recommend this book for anyone who's recently purchased a smart phone for the first time.

Cybersecurity for Small Networks, A no-nonsense guide for the reasonably paranoid by Seth Enoka.

Staying with the cybersecurity theme of the last book, I also borrowed this from the same library as the mobile phone security guide above. Unlike the above book, this one has some prerequisite knowledge and some hardware tools listed out that you need to have handy to maximize your utilization of this here guide to build some simple, but functional security for your local network.

This book provides guidance whether you're a windows user, a mac operator or a linux aficionado - each section and each use case carefully segmented to provide guidance on how to do "THIS COOL THING" on each platform. However, it's a bit technical so I had to read some things a few times to really comprehend what I was reading through.

Tuberculosis by Henry Wouk.

I recommended this book for a friend of mine who caught this disease and wanted to learn more about it. It was quite surprising to learn that a disease that I had thought was eradicated still clung on. While it lacks the technical complexity and detailed descriptions of medical journals, its perfect for younger readers and/or people who have english as a second(and above) language. Simple explanations with easy-to-follow diagrams detail how TB works, how it was discovered, how it spreads and even superstitions and important discoveries regarding the disease.

One of the lines in the book is a 'nyoro~n' worthy moment. "Health experts predicted that the disease would be

wiped out by 2010 in the United States and all over the world by 2025."

Well, it's almost 2025...

Read the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzzanne Collins.

The Shadow of Kyoshi by F.C. Yee.

This is how you lose the time war by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone.

Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan.

36: The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher

Picked up the sequel to Clockwork Boys. It had a good conclusion and some funny bits.

37: Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher

A shorter one-off story by Kingfisher about a young mage who's sent on a journey to bring rain back to his small town after a years-long drought has them on the brink of survival. He was trained by a very old wizard who was senile and didn't exactly explain much to the poor kid. I really liked the story and despite being short it had a lot of really interesting characters.

+1 for October for me. I was mainly trying to do inktober, which was less fulfilling given I was trying to draw on the bus.

ANYWAY

Language of the Night - Essays on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy

By Ursula K Le Guin

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection. There were a lot of great insights on creativity, work ethic, where ideas come from, existing as a novelist/artist vs person who writes as a job (what we would call a continent creator today)

there are a few annotated essays and speeches where she clarifies and notes changes in her opinions on matters of representation, language, importance of her place as a woman in science fiction from the 60’s to the 80’s. It’s very interesting.

Highly recommended

36. The Well of Ascension - Book Two of the Mistborn trilogy, takes place one year later as the crew of rebels try to figure out their next course of action with the empire. This one is more political in a way, with tense alliances being made and the issue of the power vacuum from the last book. I was more worried about the relationship between Vin and Elend, and how their enemies and their own insecurities keeping screwing them over. While I am going to try to read the final of the trilogy by year’s end, I’m still annoyed by this book’s slightly abrupt ending.

37. Witchcraft: Handbook of Magic, Spells & Potions – Truthfully, I got this book all because the author’s name is Anastasia Greywolf. After actually reading it, it is not great. To use the spells, some of the ingredients are very esoteric and difficult to get, like the coffee grounds used by an enemy, wood from a lightning struck tree, and dirt from a new grave. There is no pronunciation guide for some of the non-English recitations, which would be helpful for anyone brave enough to use them. And there is no history or explanation for why the spells exist or the group that uses them, like there is no clarification that Pow-Wow refers to German Christians in America, and not indigenous tribes. With some editing, the book could have worked as a collection of witchcraft-themed poems.

38. The Dupin Tales – Edgar Allen Poe’s three mystery tales featuring the original literary detective C. Auguste Dupin. Apparently, the character was so far ahead of its time that the English word “detective” did not even exist yet. I must admit; Poe’s writing prose is dense, using more words than needed. I had to skim through the opening pages about chess analysis. After that, it gets better. The first story famously had the killer ape as the improbable murderer. The second story is just long passages of newspaper articles and Dupin’s multi-page stream of thoughts on what happened to the victim. Honestly, the Sherlock Holmes stories by Doyle are a vast improvement over Dupin.

39. Vampire Weekend – A post-modern urban fantasy about a vampire guitarist being forced to find a reliable source of blood while dealing with non–vampire family members she had hoped had forgotten about her. The book purposely forgoes most vampire cliches to depict the vampires as an isolated group within America; thus, plenty of parallels to the gay community. It is not terrible, but it just drags on, especially with the not-so-subtle commentary on class division. Nice selection of 70s/80s era punk and synth-pop songs mentioned throughout the book, though I was expecting a better Blondie deep cut than “One Way or Another” being used.

Done reading these books:

97. Das Mädchen und der Totengräber, Oliver Pötzsch, 496 pages

98. Lacroix und die stille Nacht von Montmartre, Alex Lépic, 208 pages

99. Mind-Blown: Die 362 unglaublichsten Fakten unseres Universums (Mind = Blown: Amazing Facts About this Weird, Hilarious, Insane World), Matthew Santoro, 288 pages

100. Feinde (The Boys from Biloxi), John Grisham, 560 pages

101. Zoo city, Lauren Beukes, 352 pages

102. Warum die Waschmaschine Socken frisst...: ... und andere Rätsel des Alltags, Bernd Harder, 272 pages

Das Mädchen und der Totengräber:

Second book revolving around police inspector Leopold von Herzfeldt and gravedigger Augustin Rothmayer. This time, the corpse of an Egyptology professor is found - the corpse was turned into a mummy, indicating that the murderer has profound knowledge about that process. At the same time, young men throughout the city are stabbed to death and their genitalia removed and a zookeeper is at first glance killed by a lion - but that turns out to be a murder too. Can Leopold solve these cases, that somehow, are all connected?

Good book. Was a bit worried about some Spiderman 3 energy with so many intertwining cases but the juggling of the cases is well done.

Lacroix und die stille Nacht von Montmartre:

Third case for officer Lacroix - this time, the christmas lights from the Place du Tertre in Monmartre are stolen - what seems to be just a case of theft raises Lacroixs suspicion and the next day the big christmas tree is found cut down, only the second step in a series of escalations that keeps Lacroix chasing the perpetrator.

Good book.

Mind = Blown: Amazing Facts About this Weird, Hilarious, Insane World:

Collection of 362 weird facts, ranging from strange laws, prison outbreaks, why some gang members piss on new members, off-putting mascots and tons of other stuff.

Good book. Love weird facts.

The Boys from Biloxi:

Keith and Hugh grow up in the same city but their life paths couldn't be more different - Keith studies to become a lawyer and Hugh works for his father, the boss of the infamous Dixie Mafia. The book details of the Mafias rise to control and what Keiths father as a lawyer and later his son try to fight against them in court.

Good book. Despite the pagecount, the friendship between Keith and Hugh is not well stablished, which makes the later events feel less impactful as they should. I still enjoyed it for the believable tale of a rising mafia clan.

Zoo city:

In this world, killing someone has visible consequences, as every killer permenantly has an animal bound to them that seems to appear out of nowhere, a sort of familiar. Same apllies to Zinzi - now permenantly bound to carry a sloth with her (the sloth is the best character in the book). People that are bound to such a familiar also gain a unique ability with variying usefulness - Zinzi can see objects that people lost and find their trace. She earns most of her meager income from finding objects and its the same task that throws her into a violent chain of events.

Pretty good book. A lot of the book is kind of uneventful searching for clues but still a facinating world that could have used being more expanded upon.

Warum die Waschmaschine Socken frisst...: ... und andere Rätsel des Alltags:

Why does a washing machine consume one sock? How to the holes of cheese form? Why are sloths so slow? Why do sleeping birds not fall off trees? Why can people walk over burning coals? These and other questions are answered in this book with simple to understand but still educational answers.

Good book. Not available in english.

The end is nigh. If anyone else has updates for October hurl them right at the thread.

@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

currently reading a couple books but they are definetly hard to get through

november it is

Didn’t finish ANY books this month. Been focusing on comics lately. Here’s to November!

Vacation ends, but I managed to finish reading three more books.

Practical Science for Gardeners by Mary Pratt

Recommended reading for anyone either getting into gardening and farming, or for those who ask "Why are my plants dying?! I watered it yesterday!". This book cracks open the complex sciences involved behind the mundane looking work of gardening and farming, then presents them in a way that even an absolute amateur like me can comprehend it.

Onion Disease Guide

This book advertises itself as a no-frills, no-nonsense guide to quickly identifying diseases of the onion. (No, not that satire page, the root tuber) by providing descriptions and photographs of the more commonly found diseases and disorders of onion from around the world.

For each disease and disorder, this tome rambles on about the common name, causal agent, distribution, symptoms, conditions for disease development and control measures. The photographs illustrate characteristic symptoms of the diseases and disorders included in this guide.

... I didn't even know onions had diseases.

Adventures in Minecraft

I thought this would be some lets players' chronicle when I saw this but turns out - it's more of an introduction to minecraft and its game mechanics, and how the reader can use the secret magicks of programming using Python to do a lot of things in-game, written with younger people's vocabulary and language perception in mind.

It didn't change much, but it was a fun read. I'm vaguely familiar with python because I did try to do stuff with Renpy. Maybe after I quit my job, I'll take a look at learning to mod minecraft...

48) League of Legends Champions' Lore rabbit hole

It was a massive rabbit hole at that. It started with the Ambessa's reveal which lead to her in-game story which was followed by an introduction of Kindred which lead me down a steep spiral. The forum discussions only elongated the trip. So hopefully, November will be more productive and less distracting...mostly.

6 books for October. Pretty good month of reading.

October (6)

32: Paladin's Faith by T. Kingfisher

33: Constituent Service by John Scalzi

34: The Old Guard by Glynn Stewart

35: Clockwork Boys by T. Kingfisher

36: The Wonder Engine by T. Kingfisher

37: Minor Mage by T. Kingfisher

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

A fantastic read, an absolute love letter to video games as an art form.

Finished the audiobook version of "building a second brain" by Tiago Forte

had some decent advice

Little late, sorry. Managed TWO! Heretics of Dune and Carmilla.

Heretics of Dune took a bit to get going, though I think it was more my personal life than the actual book. Set even farther after God Emperor of Dune, and the dirty Tleilaxu play a very prominent role, as do former Bene Gesserit that broke off during "The Scattering" and made their own sort of chapterhouse.

Carmilla was good as well, written like a diary and before Bram Stoker wrote Dracula, so certainly worth a read if you're into the early novels of vampires.

LITFAM UPDATE: Something Spooky That Way Went Edition

October might be over but the dread of time marching on is here to stay. Luckily there's nothing like a good tome to shepherd your through existence as the outside gets colder and the inside gets cosier.

Last month @Dr-Freebase cut through the branches of distraction, carved a path out of the deep woods of unrealization and into the fields of Elysium. Uh, hit their goal I mean, and combined with @AxolotlGav being yeeted into space by request also resulted in our collective total books read surpassing our collective goal for the year.

All that's left in a post-goal society is to see how far one can wander into the great undetermined beyond.

Top Fam

1. @Yomuchan (8)
2. @Asandir & @Malachy (6)
3. @Sheik13LoZ & @JerseyWildcard (4) 

@argile @Asandir @Atlas @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

33. Play It As It Lays - Joan Didion

Beautiful, sad.