Done reading these books:

40. Fairy Tale, Stephen King, 880 pages

41. Future - Die Zukunft gehört dir (The Future is Yours), Dan Frey, 432 pages

42. Brennender Hass, Fiona Limar + Leif Eklund, 392 pages

43. Das Flüstern der Nordsee, Hannah Husum, 275 pages

44. Critical Mass, Daniel Suarez, 576 pages

45. Weit über der smaragdgrünen See (Tress of the Emerald Sea), Brandon Sanderson, 544 pages

Fairy Tale:

Charlie Read doesn't have an easy life: his mother died in a cruel accident when he was seven years old and his father turned to alcohol as a result. Charlie prays that his father becomes sober and his wish is granted. His relief comes with the burden of feeling that he owes a debt and it seems like his opportunity to repay a good deed finally comes when the old neighbour Mr. Bowditch, allegedly living together with a dangerous dog, falls from a ladder and is deeply injured.

Charlie calls the ambulance and takes care of the house and Mr. Bowditchs old dog - who has long passed her dangerous days and quickly becomes a great friend for Charlie.

But Mr. Bowditch does indeed have a secret - one that alongside dangers, might hold a key to save Mr. Bowditchs dog from her old age.

Good book. I found the first third that was more rooted in reality a bit more endearing than the rest. Overall, especially for a King book, surprisingly wholesome.

The Future is Yours:

Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry might have struck gold, as they managed to create a pc that can read the internet from up to one year in the future - a device that they want to market out to the whole world. As testing is still going they notice that the future seems to be unchangable, as trying to save people that would die in three days for example always fails. When they also further down the road and shortly before launch read that their invention directly relates to the global internet structure seemlingly ceesing to exist, Adhi wants to cancel everything - but by now investors have taken part and Ben is bent on releasing, no matter what cost.

Good book.

Brennender Hass:

Sarahs parents got lost some time ago and her sister died under suspect circumstances. She never gave up her search for her parents and when a recent murder series seems to have connections to what happened to her sister and parents, Sarah further investigates and the killer sets her eyes on her.

Solid thriller. Not available in english.

Das Flüstern der Nordsee:

North Sea, Pellworm: on the small island a young man is killed. Chief detective Gabriel Behrens believes that the murder was committed by a serial killer that has struck in the past; killing for people within a few days. This time, Behrens believes that he and his special team can catch the culprit.

Good book. Bonus points for Behrens having a trained ferret that collects evidence.

Critical Mass:

Sequel to Delta-v which I read last year. Keeping it spoiler free, this follows up on the events of the first one and draws a picture of how future technolgical develepments could be used for improving clean energy and enabling resource gathering from outer space.

Overall good even though it's a bit uneventful at times.

Tress of the Emerald Sea:

Tress lives on a small island that is surrounded by the emerald Sea - a sea that is made out of spores that are dangerous but can be travelled on via ships. Tress lives a simple but happy life and the times she spends with her best friend Charlie bring joy to her heart, until the fateful day arrives where Charlie gets lost in one of the other oceans of this world, the Midnight Ocean and in captivity of the Witch, who is feared for her gruelness.

As such Tress sees no choice - she has to travel the Seas to save Charlie - but she gets on a pirate ship and she has to find ways to survive in that environment.

Very good book. You might like this if you like Neil Gaimans writing style because I certainly felt that vibe with this one.

Finished reading ハリーポッターと賢者の石 (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).

The book that everyone who learns a new language is recommended to read at some point or another, because it's so well-known and available in several languages. I'll be honest, even though I had a copy of the book, I hadn't actually read Harry Potter 1 in english! I'd only watched the movies.

It was quite a bit longer than the other books I'd read, at about twice the size. It did get easier to read as the pages went on, but it still took about 10 minutes per page at minimum. I don't really have much to say about the story itself, because pretty much everyone knows it at this point so there's not much point talking about it. For those curious, it seems there's only 3 spells actually used by name in the entire book, which is strange to me because I am sure there were more than that in the movie. Oh well, maybe it's just my imagination.

Next up, not sure what to read. I'd had Number 6 (ナンバーシックス) on my radar for a while now, but the first book appears to be just a novella, at about a third of the size of HP1. Maybe I'll read that, maybe I'll read something else, who knows.

First of all anyone still holding updates for April get 'em P O S T E D, secondly this dingus somehow missed logs from @Joltopus and @Gimmick last update despite taking note of both so here's a fixed piccy to reflect those before the April update:

@argile @Asandir @Atlas @AxolotlGav @CarterSterling @CappyCatII @Darklion0 @Dean @detergent1 @door88 @DrSevenSiezeMD @Frontlined-Backend @Ganon-Dorf @Gimmick @GonzaloAtWork @Haggard @JerseyWildcard @Joltopus @Malachy @OlTrout @OneThousandMeeps @Pingu @Prinzy2 @PudgieDaFrog @Sheik13LoZ @SlutasaurusRex @SourCherryJack @TecNoir @TehPoptartKid @The-Great-One @TopazAzul @UnderWhirl @Urichov @YendorNG @Yomuchan @ZJ

I finished Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art. I'm hesitant to say that counts toward my goal, since it is a textbook/ art guide more than anything, but I guess I did spend time reading/ studying it, so it would be weird to not include it.

I am halfway through The Time Traveler's Wife. It is actually really good so far. Definitely a product of it's time, but really explores the weirdness of its concept.

I just finished Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom last night.

At the time of writing she was a librarian at a medical college in the research department and taught some classes at the med school on medical history, the book is about her research into books bound from human skin.

A chemist on her team developed a method to test the proteins (PMF forget what the acronym stands for and the book is in the other room) of the books which gives them an answer down to the family level in taxonomical terms, so they could tell if a leather was made from pig, cow, or primate, but they couldn't tell you if something was human or monkey due to the closeness of the DNA.

She spends a lot of time going into the historical periods and stories behind the books she talks about in the book, so there's some on the French Revolution, 1800's America, and other time periods, it's quite interesting and the medical profession to my surprise was the biggest practitioner of binding books from humans, if you were thinking that it was the Nazi's she says that to date they haven't been able to positively verify any human bound books from Nazi Germany.

Worth reading, up next I've got book one of the Wheel of Time, after that I've compiled a list of 100 books I've decided to acquire and read over the next few years, maybe I'll publish the list here if people are interested.

Wonderful book! Totally counts. Reminds me I need to finish it…

Ernest Cline - Bridge to Bat City

That's right, Ernest Cline published another book. This time aimed at kids age 8-12. And what can I say? It's Cline. So this book is of course set in the 80's and contains nothing but nostalgia for that time period. Which makes you wonder: WHO exactly is that book for? Certainly not young kids. I doubt they really care about 80's nostalgia. So, maybe it's really aimed at people who liked RPO and RPT? But for those, a story about how some bats got to live under a bridge in Austin might not be as interesting. Especially because Cline made the mistake of dumbing down his language, to appeal to kids.

This book is just so bad, it really doesn't have any redeeming qualities, which is quite an achievement. Because bats. Bats are cool. This book makes bats so not cool, it's infuriating. 0/10

I'm afraid I'm going to have to drop out of the Reading Challenge.

Dungeon Meshi Volume 3 by Ryōko Kui

I'm off my pace for the year but that's ok. Only 3 for April.

April (3)

11: Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

12: Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikovsky

13: Making Money by Terry Pratchett

It is definitely Millar's best work. It is a shame he didn't write more Superman stories.

His work in Superman Adventures (I think that’s what it was) was great too. I recently discovered his podcast too. The interview with Garth Ennis is full of wonderful stories.

I'm sucking hard this year. One for April.

5: The Sicilian - Mario Puzo

It was good, apparently based on a true story as well, but I haven't gone down the rabbit hole on how true to the facts Puzo stayed. Puzo ties in the Godfather a bit, but only at the very beginning and very end, so seems to me like he did it to ride on the coat tales of the Godfather, which I'm also reading again...

Finished The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. Enjoyed it a lot and found it funny and the characters interesting.

I watched the movie the other day and I thought it was meh. The book is way better. I posted a review on my letterboxd account and if anybody is interested, I can send them a link through messages.

Anyway, I'll just mention a few things about it. The movie failed to capture the book's ultimate sense of dread. Not only that, but the movie felt rushed. I feel like they could turn this into a miniseries and take their time with it.

LITFAM UPDATE: TO MAY AND MAY NOT EDITION

Is it a bird? a plane? No, it's @YendorNG slaughtering that goal with a cold red fist of page-turning fury. Also added @StrangInk to the roster who's already proving to be one of our most rhapsodic readers. Meanwhile @The-Great-One has thrown in the towel so I'd ask you all to kindly donate to our kickstarter rocket fund so that he can be rightfully yeeted into the sun as per the thread terms and conditions.

It's also the first (third) of May, outdoor reading starts today, so bring your favorite volume or at least your favorite page. Not our highest total but a lot of active readers and solid progress toward goals last month. Keep on doing & persuing fambo.

Top Fam

1. @Asandir (16)
2. @StrangInk (5)
3. @Ganon-Dorf, @JerseyWildcard, @Joltopus (4)

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

I doubt I'll make the top fam again now that I've picked up The Wheel of Time, but I started Eye of the World 3 days ago and I'm already 200 pages in, so who knows.

I always knew I'd die in outer space.

It's exactly what that old seawitch said would happen!

Penguin Classics Collection of Anton Chekov's Plays

It was worth the read, it's so interesting how all of his plays changed overtime. This was meant for me to look at for drama uni auditions, but I felt they were too good of a read!

The Cherry Orchard has got to be my favourite, a nice mixture of light and melancholic moments with a colourful cast of characters. I feel that it is his best one, preferring this over Three Sisters. The female characters feel alive for once, especially love Charlotta the governess she's really fun!

Overall it was really great to read into the classics!

And for one thing no one killed themselves in TCO

Don’t worry, you’re top of our hearts

My novel reading has really slowed down the last week or two as I’ve been reading a lot of comics including Kirby and Lee’s Fantastic Four run, John Byrne’s Fantastic Four run, and reading/rereading the works of Garth Ennis featuring the character Nick Fury to prepare for the new series that just started this week. I’m a big Ennis fan, so it feels great to be enjoying two series by him coming out at once. I don’t normally count comics in my progress here, but I probably will if I finish a long run. Oddly and coincidentally, Fury wasn’t the only military fiction I read recently. In fact, that’s almost all I read.

18. Surrender - Brian O’Hare

A lovely little collection of short stories about marines, primarily set during their off time. Very much enjoyed it.

19. Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein

Heinlein is a major SF blind spot for me and this book being covered by one of my favorite book podcasts was the perfect opportunity to finally start filling it. There’s no way I can add anything to the conversations that have been had over this book for nearly a century regarding its politics or lack of politics or too much politics or whatever the hell. All I know is I had a great time reading it. The episode of the Getting Lit podcast covering it was also wonderful. Now to listen to the follow up episode about The Forever War, another book I love.

14: Wartorn Stars by Glynn Stewart

I wasn't as keen on this series by Stewart until this book. It moved the setting to across the galaxy and instead of humans showing up and fixing everything they're being hunted by new crazier aliens and just trying to help some allies who asked for it. Ended on a good new cliffhanger that I'm excited for the next book to drop in October.

Book number 3: Thunder Head

I finished reading another book. The sequel to Scythe. And boy howdy, there were so many twists and turns, things I didn't expect, and a lot of intrigue and surprise. From grim reaper politics to assassinations, this book has it all.

I loved it so much. I can't wait to read the next book, which, is called "The Toll". Also, I really can't wait to see this book series turned into a movie series. Like, there's this one segment in the book where this guy named Greyson Tolliver goes undercover as something called an unsavory. An unsavory is basically one who commits acts of anarchy and is hated and shunned amongst society. In the unsavory world, there are clubs called AWful clubs where unsavories are allowed to unleash chaos unto the staff and building without fear of being punished. AWful stands for Anachronistic Wish Fulfillment. One such club is a 50's style diner called Mault where the unsavories are mean to the waiters and steal dates from the squares, and so on and so forth. Plus, there's this AWful club called Lokup where you pretend to be locked up in a jail cell and you have to find a way to break out. Kinda like an escape room type situation. And added to this highly entertaining segment is that these people think that this is how the past behaved and acted, but really, they don't really know. All they know is information and records from the past, and they improvise from there. In fact, when Greyson was inside LokUp, he thought the whole concept was absurd and didn't believe it to be real.

A quote from the book.

"The idea of incarceration was so foreign and absurd to Greyson that when the cell door was slammed shut with a nasty clank that reverberated in the concrete cell block, he actually laughed. This type of treatment could never have been real. Surely, this was just an exaggeration."

When I read things like this in the book, it's hilarious to me because it's like leaving a time capsule for the future and the people in the future decide that the things in the capsule is now their basis of government. Or how in Fallout New Vegas, the Kings base their identities off of Elvis.

And wow, what an ending. I was shocked. A lot of bad things happen, and basically, evil wins. However, I can't wait to read the next book and see what happens. I sure hope the bad guy gets his come-uppance.

Finished The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas. Loved it. So fun with such memorable characters.

I got through the audiobook of The Hardcore Truth: The Bob Holly Story by Hardcore Holly this weekend.

Good story. Bob kinda seems like a hardass with a little too much ego, but it was fascinating to hear his story from when he started with the company in the mid-90s (one of the worst periods in pro wrestling as far as popularity goes) to the incredible heights of the Attitude Era to when he wrapped up during John Cena's lengthy reign on top.

Bob admits that he never won a single's title or did anything too prolific beyond one championship bout against Brock Lesnar in 2004, but that made this story seem more worthwhile because we're all used to hearing from the legends who conquered the industry like Hulk Hogan or Steve Austin. It's a bit more refreshing to hear from a guy who was near the bottom of the card and was just struggling to get by at points.

As I said before, I'm not sure if Mr. Holly is someone I'd want to spend time with as he definitely seems to have a tendency to bully people (even though he always justified it in his book), but I loved hearing about his youth, interests outside of the squared circle, and how his teenage sweetheart ended up marrying him after he found her via Facebook once he retired from WWE.

Probably worth a look at if you're a wrasslin' fan.

20. A Killer’s Game – A mystery/thriller novel about FBI agent Daniela Vega getting caught in a killer’s virtual maze. The book doesn’t give much characterization to Vega or anyone else for the first 100 pages, but it does hit the ground running with the FBI and NYPD investigating a murder in broad daylight, which leads to a wider conspiracy. Though, having 70 chapters in a 350+ page book can make anything seem faster. It’s a decent enough quick read, though the identity of the killer seemed a bit of a stretch.

21. I’m Glad My Mom Died – Jennette McCurdy's memoirs about being a child actor and working with an emotionally unstable stage mom. It is an unsettling read on how her mom forced her to be an actor at a young age and was responsible for causing all kinds of psychological problems in adulthood. The mom even encouraged Jennette’s eating disorder, which is described in graphic detail, all so that she can look young for acting roles. And as the recent Quiet on Set documentary showed, children’s television and Hollywood in general are filled with creeps, as McCurdy mentioned the iCarly creator being verbally abusive, and several producers and agents making sexist comments towards her.

15: Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher

A fantasy novel but has some romance to it. Listened to the audiobook during my commute with the wife. We liked it and will continue the series

Finished reading Chocolate Wars: The 150-Year Rivalry Between the World's Greatest Chocolate Makers by Deborah Cadbury.

Mixed feelings about this one. I REALLY liked when it would explore the ideals of Quaker capitalism and how it was a much more benevolent force than today's late-stage capitalism and how the titans of industry from that world were truly committed to improving the lives of their workers and surrounding community members and it was fun to read about the different moves from the European and American chocolate companies as they all struggled mightily to gain the upper-hand in the life-or-death, global candy wars they found themselves in.

HOWEVER, a lot of this book got into dry "family history" stuff for the Cadbury family that had almost to do with the subject matter and those bits were a slog to get through. I get that it was Deborah's ancestors that she was exploring, but I feel that it could have been massively edited down for a tidier book with a more tight narrative. Not a total deal breaker, but it did hamper my enjoyment of this a little bit.

Three and a half Hershey chocolate bars out of five.