Done reasing these books:

7. Die Farbe von Glück, Clara Maria Bagus, 352 pages

8. Paradox, Phillip P. Peterson, 480 pages

9. Panik (Panic Attack), Jason Starr, 560 pages

Die Farbe von Glück:

A wrong choice bounds three families by fate: a judge, whose wive had two miscarriages before and can't have more children, forces a nurse to swap his sick daughter with the healthy daughter of another family. Can happiness be found in the wrong place? Does a cruel fate force being unhappy your whole life? As both daughters grow up, they enrich the families they ended up in and through fate, their pathes intertwine.

Pretty good book. The number one complain I have that the dialogue reads like passages out of a mindfulness book, which I found to be immersion breaking.

Not available in english.

Paradox:

Ed Walkers last space mission almost ends in a calamity, destroing the ISS but luckily saving all crew members. With that blunder and being 60 years old, he believes his times as astronaut are over until he gets the offer to partake in a space mission that thanks to new technology, has the edge of the solar system as destination, as three space probes got lost in that area, in nearly the same spot. The mission is not easy, as the untrained scientist David Holmes is also supposed to be part of the crew. A difficult training regime begins and there are also some power plays in the background before the ship can finally take off to their mysterious goal - what will they find at the end of the Solar system?

Pretty good. A lot of my initial complains, like the book only getting real interesting in the last 100 pages are solved by the fact that this is the first book of a trilogy, which I was unaware of and didn't suspect because of the ending. I will read those two soon.

Not available in english.

Panic Attack:

Adam Bloom is a psychologist and when two intruders enter his house, he doesn't hesitate to gun one of them down with ten gun shots, the other man escapes unseen. Bloom is surprisingly unfazed by this event and excpets to be heralded as a hero, which doesn't really happen.

Little does he know that the other intruder is planning his revenge, and that path also includes Blooms daughter and wife.

Book is okay. Despite the cruel events, it's tough to feel sympathy for any of the characters as they are basically all Class A narcissists, especially Adam Bloom.

2: The Naming by Torsten Weitze

Continuing the 13th Paladin story. A few MacGuffins but otherwise a good story continues. I've been liking how the author takes time to acknowledge that the main character is a kid/young adult who is dealing with some heavy things like death and killing and being thrust into importance. The protagonist isn't perfect and makes mistakes. I mean yeah it's a lot of 'Chosen One' kinda tropes but he's not treated like he can't do any wrong. Already started on the next book in the series.

I read the Omnisphere 2 manual I learned more about Sound Match, and I definitely should be using the favorites to sort presets, as well as making my own presets. My favorite section is on Oscillators. I didn't know a single part can use up to 24 Oscillators per voice. And I didn't know the level control on the mixer have the range of -Inf dB ~ +9.54dB.

Honestly, I'm not good at reading.

Insufficient Direction by Moyoco Anno

2- The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson

It's about a girl that goes to boarding school and has to adapt to the discipline of that environment.

It was ok, I was liking it more in the second half, the best parts for me were the descriptions of Laura's (the protagonist) thought processes when she's being deceitful / jealous / manipulative. The drama comes from her just wanting to fit in but in her mind to do that she has to be dishonest.

1 - Martha Wells - Witch King

Same author as the Murderbot series I tackled last year but now it's high fantasy. It was good, but I feel like I might need to give it a second go around at some point because between the metric ton of world-building and alternating present/past/present format of the chapters I feel like I missed a bunch. There was a hook at the end for the next book in the series but I kinda left confused about where things stood.

3 - Oh, God! by Avery Corman

God gives a freelance reporter an exclusive interview in an attempt to get more believers.

I picked this up because the blurb and the quotes from reviewers on the back of the book made it seem like this was shooting for straight comedy, but unfortunately it just didn't meet my comedy standards. I thought a couple lines were funny, like God offhandedly saying avocados were a mistake because the pit was too big, but most of the attempts at humour evoked no reaction from me.

At the very least the book is short and very well paced.

I just finished book 6 of the Wheel of Time, Lord of Chaos. This book was very political in nature as many different factions are wondering how to approach and align themselves with the main character now that he controls two cities and a sizeable army.

It's quite fun to trace all of the influence and factions within factions, and the book really earns it's name "Lord of Chaos" as Robert Jordan will switch the point of view sometimes four times in a chapter, making the reader play keep up as he sprinkles in the intentions and doings of other factions and characters that normally work behind the scenes.

This couldn't have been an easy book to write, but I literally couldn't put it down and finished over one hundred pages today, because I knew my favorite line in the entire series was coming up at the end

"Kneel and swear to the Lord Dragon, or you will be knelt."

This is the coldest lines I've ever read, I get chills whenever I read it and got them again just writing them out.

I had thought when I read this series 15 years ago that I had only made it halfway into this book, but I was mistaken as I kept running into passages that were familiar, so it appears that the next book, A Crown of Swords, will be the first where I encounter new material as I'm certain I never made it further than book 7 before college took over my time.

Not sure what's up next, need to order book seven, I'll either finish Philosophical Investigations or grab something else from my library.

1. Finished reading No. 6 by Atsuko Asano.

The book follows the tale of two characters, Shion and Nezumi, in the titular town of No. 6. Recognized for his intellect and talent, Shion was housed in Kronos, the elite quarter of No. 6, where he had access to the best education and standards of living one could ask for. Until, that is, he spots the wounded Nezumi, who was apparently an escapee from the local prison; rather than handing him to the authorities, he harbored him and tended to his serious wounds before letting him go, conduct which was unforgivable in the eyes of the city. Booted from the upper echelon of society and amongst the common folk in Lost Town, he made a quiet living as a cleaning robot technician.

Until one fine day, that is, when a series of strange deaths in Lost Town have made him the unexpected center of attention as a murder suspect. Pursued by the authorities, Shion was on the verge of being disappeared by the authorities when Nezumi helps him escape, out of No. 6, on the condition never to return.

However, the mystery of the strange deaths - caused by what one can only assume are parasitic wasps, preying on humans - isn't something Shion can afford to ignore. How will he solve this mystery? And, what danger lies ahead in store?

---

A good read. Although I've read the condensed manga version and watched the anime -- so I know the plot quite thoroughly already -- it was still a fun read, since the novels go into a lot more detail about the characters and their thoughts themselves, rather than the plot itself. This was quite in contrast to Harry Potter, where knowing the plot pretty much rendered the story boring to the point of unreadability. It also helped that it didn't overstay its welcome, being a mere 40-50% the length of Harry Potter. I might read the continuation, just to find out whether it continues similarly or not. (Also, the manga and the novels supposedly differ in terms of the "true ending", so that's another thing to watch out for...)

Rating: 7.5/10. It's a bit lacking in terms of plot compared to セーラー服と機関銃, but still a good read nonetheless.

3. The Weird of the White Wolf - Book three of the Elric saga - Michael Moorcock

More Moorcock. Didn’t enjoy it as much as the second one but still great stuff. Got a couple comics on the docket and then one more Moorcock.

I'm not a good reader, but I've got some book to read! So I'm going for 3 (last year I read 1) !

Great readin' last year! This year i think I'll stick with 30 books

1. The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire – An in-universe history book set in the Star Wars universe that treats the subject matter in a serious academic manner, with faux citations and all. Given the title of the book, you can see the strong parallels with the Empire to the real-life Nazi Germany and other authoritarian governments. The author/historian does an admirable job tying in the events of all 9 movies and any canonical inconsistencies (read: fixing plot holes), plus using the various other spin-offs, books, and shows whenever possible. It is worth reading if you are really into heavily detailed histories of imaginary governments because it can get boring, though it does thoroughly establish the political aspects in Star Wars.

2. Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo's Mainstream Explosion 1999 to 2008 – A series of interviews from musicians, producers, fans, and basically anyone who was involved with the 2000s emo subculture. The book covers emo bands that started from Long Island basements to the Chicago suburbs to the emo promised land, otherwise known as New Jersey. It’s almost funny how bands handled the emo label, either because they claimed they were not emo or that the term was insulting to them.

3. DC vs Marvel: The Amalgam Age Omnibus – the very heavy, 1200 page collection of the 1996-97 crossovers between DC and Marvel. The reasoning behind the crossover is a bit convoluted with the two god brothers representing each publisher’s universe. The stories and some of the character designs themselves are fine, but I didn’t care for the fanservicey art. I think only two of the stories were great: Super-Soldier, which was just a reskinned Captain America story, and Dark-Claw Adventures, which was a Batman TAS homage.

8 books...I plan on reading more but I just got back into reading so yeah

Wish me luck and good luck everyone

The first month closes. If anyone else has progress updates for January get them posted.

@Aalasteir @AbstractOutliers @AngelLOL123 @Asandir @Atlas @AypS @detergent1 @door88 @Featherwaite @Ganon-Dorf @Gimmick @JerseyWildcard @Malachy @MetalSlayer69 @ObscuraArcanum @OneThousandMeeps @Pingu @Prinzy2 @PudgieDaFrog @SlutasaurusRex @StrangInk @TopazAzul @TurtleWaffle @Yomuchan @ZJ

Done reading these books:

10. Lies After Death, K. J. Dando, 300 pages

11. Paradox 2, Phillip P. Peterson, 300 pages

12. Paradox 3, Phillip P. Peterson, 328 pages

13. Der Herr der Finsternis, Sergej Lukianenko, 416 pages

14. Murder at Mallowan Hall, Colleen Cambridge, 288 pages

15. Nacht (Can't Run, Can't Hide), Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, 432 pages

Lies After Death:

Tom Crane, who works as a fixer, has lost his wife 5 years ago when she died in a car accident, caused by another driver chasing her down. Now he starts getting messages that claim that the sender knows who the killer is but can Tom trust that to be true and will he find peace at the end of the investigation?

Pretty good action driven book. Read in english.

Paradox 2 + Paradox 3:

Sequels to the book that I mentioned in my last post. Compared to the first one, the pacing has improved substantially and the presented ideas were more compelling as well. Overall a trilogy that I enjoyed for its originality.

Der Herr der Finsternis:

When the teenager Danka sees a ray of light in the middle of the night in front of his window that transforms into a talking cat, his life takes a sudden turn, when both of them walk through a dimensional door - only for the door to get shut permanently, leaving them stuck in a world where the sun doesn't shine, engulfing everything in permanent darkness. For the cat, a being of light to be able to open another door, they need to bring light back to this world.

Pretty good but not the best work by this author. The sassy talking cat is great though.

Murder at Mallowan Hall:

1930: Phyllida Bright is head of household for Mallowan Hall, the place where Agatha Christie and her husband Max Mallowan live. Phyllida loves a good crime book and is especially fond of Hercule Poiriot. Being used to literature crime doesn't prepare her from being quite shook when she discovers a murdered man in the library - but her interest in testing her own crime solving abilities must be satisfied and as it turns out, she discovers a bunch of leads.

Great book. Read this in english too, as I plan to read more english book in general. Highly recommended.

Can't Run, Can't Hide:

Iceland: When his neighbours didn't reply in some days, he decides to look after them and finds a cruel scene when he enters their house: all of them were killed with an axe, presumably days ago, only the husband is missing.

Policeman Tyr and his coworkers start to investigate, with chapters switching back between the investigation and the last harrowing days of the family.

Great book, super tense atmosphere. Highly recommended.

1, the Omnisphere 2 manual.

I haven't finished any books this month, but I'm halfway through one. When I finish it I'll post it :'v

-Just to get an entry end before Jan ends-

1) wandering son/ Hourou musuko

<slice of life>

preface-

Technically I've read 4 volumes, however I going to bundle them due to pictures vs word count. I counted every word in the first volume, and am simply assuming the following have a similar amount. I was wanting to get one more volume read so it was even math wise. I read about 30k words. That's just shy of what Charlotte's web has, for comparison.

History with it-

I started the series when I was in school and never finished it. I just picked it back up and it's very interesting to reinterpret media through an adult lens. In youth I struggled with fiting in, finding and expressing myself . So, i found it very relatable and comforting. I remember having a somewhat cozy and seen feeling while reading it.

The book-

A coming of age story following two "cross dressing" middleschoolers trying to find themselves.

I've heard the story follows them into adulthood and that there's a show adaptation. Both I'm excited for. It's always cool when a story follows its characters over a long period rather than a year for example. It leaves room for more natural character development.

I didn’t get to finish any books for January due to a mass of real life stuff impeding me. I have high hopes of finishing a book for February, though!

Still trudging through my first book. And I'm not far from the beginning. XD

Just 2 for me in January. It's been a busy month. Chipping away at the 13th Paladin series and an ARC from Glynn Stewart

January

1: Ahren by Torsten Weitze

2: The Naming by Torsten Weitze

Fashionably late as usual, the updater was in a less-finished state than I'd realized so I partook in the ancient coding tradition of spending way longer automating a thing than it would take it do it manually, but it's more or less there now for future updates. Anyway, onward to February.

@Aalasteir @AbstractOutliers @AngelLOL123 @Asandir @Atlas @AypS @detergent1 @door88 @Featherwaite @Ganon-Dorf @Gimmick @Jackho @JerseyWildcard @Malachy @MetalSlayer69 @ObscuraArcanum @OneThousandMeeps @Pingu @Prinzy2 @PudgieDaFrog @SlutasaurusRex @StrangInk @TopazAzul @TurtleWaffle @Yomuchan @ZJ

this is the way.

Also, what would it appear like if you dumped the output into the codeblock over here? Can't say it'd be pretty but it'd certainly fit in with the theme.

Edit: Looks like it's 72 columns, comfortably fits with room to spare:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

Hadn't thought of this. Threw it on my news post as a test: https://jackho.newgrounds.com/news/post/1012648

You'd have to scroll horizontally on mobile, but it'll stay sharp compared to a screenshot. Worth the trade off?

Also noticing @ZJ got eaten by the machine, oops, you'll be on the next one bud.

Possibly, although I can't speak on behalf of everyone else. I should say though that the black square used in the progress bar has roughly 2x the width of regular characters on newgrounds, so it might need to be replaced with a character like = or ≡ to maintain the alignment:

| Character         | Count
|-------------------|---------
|≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡|    19   
|===================|    19   
|-------------------|    19   
|▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉|    19
|▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉|    10
|||||||||||||||||||||    19
|0000000000000000000|    19
|XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX|    19
|@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@|    19
|>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>|    19

watch out @ZJ they're coming for you!!!!

4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K Dick — Audiobook — Reread

Simply beautiful. Don’t do a lot of fiction audiobooks but it’s nice for a reread of one of my favorites.

Finished reading Book 2 of the No. 6 series. This is probably the first series which I want to continue reading despite already knowing the plot, it's completely unlike Harry Potter where I was just itching to get it over with near the end of the first book. Granted, 1 book of Harry Potter is more like 3 books of No. 6 so I dunno if I'll hit my limit with #3 so to speak but let's see.

There's not much I can give away without spoilers unfortunately. This book focuses more on Shion getting to grips with his new life with Nezumi outside No. 6, and a few plot points continue. A familiar face makes a brief comeback, and we get to know a bit about Shion's family's past. The book ends on a cliffhanger since something happens to one of the characters, and although we know it's nothing good I guess it's more about how the other characters react to said incident.