Finished reading No. 6 #6 on Sunday (April 20).

Nezumi and Shion are still in the Correctional Facility, but they run into an old ...friend. Well, to be more exact, a bunch of people with whom Nezumi has deep ties with, and from them we learn about the history of how No. 6 came to be. Meanwhile, we get to hear about the happenings in No. 6 from Shion's mom's side, and also some preliminary preparations by Inukashi to help bust Shion and Nezumi out of the Correctional Facility -- but not necessarily out of the goodness of their hearts; there's likely a lot of gold to be had in No 6 if all goes well!

An enjoyable and rather fast read, a good 7.5/10. Now on to #7.

Finished 4 books this month. Finally my habit of reading mutliple books at the same time pays off.

- Learn Norwegian with Norse Mythology by Marius Stangeland

As the title suggests, it's a book aimed at learners of the Norwegian language, written and narrated by the guy who also runs the "lar norsk nå" as well as the "Norwegian for beginners" podcasts. In 10 chapters the book gives a broad overview of old norse mythology, while using simple language

- The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1: Squirrel Power by Ryan North, illustated by Erica Henderson

Even wittier than Deadpool, Squirrel Girl is everyone's favorite hero. She has the powers of a real squirrel, scaled to human size. Her sidekick Tippy Toe, a squirrel, also has the powers of a real squirrel, scaled to squirrel size.

- Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover

The book currently read on the podcast "372 pages we'll never get back". Written by "New York Times bestseller author" Colleen Hoover. I wonder how little talent it actually takes to become a successful writer. This book is by far the worst I have read. The prose is so poor, even a 3rd grader would be ashamed by it. The characters are even thinner than a piece of paper, the plot is more or less non-existant for pretty much 2/3 of the book, and the resolution is done in like half a chapter. But the reader constantly gets treated to endless repetition. Not only are most chapters the same, the paragraphs are repeating themselves as well. And not only do the paragraphs repeat, the sentences are full of endless repetitions.

From what I've read, all her other books make use of similar prose. You could play a game, reading random samples from Hoover's books and guess if they are from Ugly Love or another book. I am pretty sure I would get it wrong most of the time, even though I finished this damn book. But hey, at least this books has a baby with big balls in it. I kid you not.

0/5 stars. Even "Bob Honey Who Do Stuff" is a more pleasant read than this garbage.

- Ildbarnet (Firestarter) by Stephen King

Picked this up during my last vacation in Norway because I need more input. Yes, I am getting rather serious about improving my language skills. I think it's working. :)

The book is about young Charlie McGee and her father Andy. The girl possesses the ability of pyrokinesis (a result of an experiment both her parents partook in before Charlene was conceived). Of course evil government wants to use her abilities for their own destructive purposes.

8. Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies.

Started this years ago and then moved onto other things, but re-started it and completed. An interesting hypothesis on how some societies/peoples ended up technologically advantaged over others through the luck of where they happened to be and the geography of the world.

It's nowhere near as impressive as the other amounts in this thread, but I'm going to aim to finish reading 3 stageplays when I get the chance. ට ට

Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom from Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's Legendary CEO

I'm getting Annie vibes from this for some reason.

***

Finally got some reading in. Hope to get some more in tomorrow before turn in time.

3) The History of Lamborghinis by Seth Kingston

A nice and quick overview of the Lamborghini company and its founder Ferruccio Lamborghini. From their humble beginning to an interesting history of working with motor vehicles of all types. I really enjoyed car history section as there are fond memories attached to some of Lambos.

The Countach was memorable from childhood because I use to own the diecast car model. The Diablos (at least 2-versions) and Mercialago were favorites from racing games.

4) Aloysius X.L. Pendergast by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

A nifty read about how the character Agent Pendergast came to be. In addition to this, readers learn how Preston and Child came to work together along with the way go about creating characters for their written works. As and added bonus, they created a mock interview with said character - as a request for an audiobook version of one their novels.

One of my favorite parts is the museum incident where some quick thinking got the two out of trouble. Apparently the museum situation inspired them - Preston and Child - to write the novel The Relic. Moreover, there's an explanation as to why Pendergast wasn't featured in the 1997 movie adaptation.

I know I mentioned it earlier, but the interview sample is at the end. They pulled it off nicely.

The following were written by Josh Gregory for advanced readers.

5) League of Legends: Beginner's Guide

A simple guide to the LoL game. The author mentions some key points while keeping need-to-know information simple and to the point. This is a somewhat recent publication as the author makes mention of the Arcane series. Unfortunately, when it came to discussing the spinoff music groups they only mention Pentakill (True Damage and KDA were omitted). And for some reason the book was being read in Nevercakes' voice.

6) Streaming: Beginner's Guide

Like the LoL book, the author discusses key talking points in easy to understand terms. However, focus was solely on the Twitch platform with brief mentions of some competitors.

7) Mario Kart: Beginner's Guide

Fun and engaging read. Haven't played an installment myself, but have heard some interesting things about the game from players.

8) Medicinal Plants: A Picture Guide

by Agrihortico CPL

I saw the subtitle A Picture Guide but didn't think much of it until I started "reading". While it does show what some of the known medicinal plants look like, it doesn't do much in the way of explaining each one; not even a snippet. Peppermint and chamomile are the only two that I'm familiar with. The rest, while interesting, are an unknown. Best suited as a companion guide for physical identification.

9) A Family Guide to Terrariums for Kids

by Patricia Buzo

Fun planting projects for kids and adults alike. There's a little bit of every plant for most planting preferences. The Bonsai, succulent and aquatic terrarium projects are high on the list for potential tries in the future. The resources and supplies links at the end are an added bonus.

15. Delilah Green Doesn’t Care - A queer romantic comedy about a photographer hired to take pictures at her sister’s wedding, and getting involved with the maid of honor, a single mother who has to deal with her daughter's flaky father. There is also a subplot with the other friends wanting break up the wedding couple due to the fiancé being a jerk and the sister ignoring all signs. This was one of the better romance books I have read; even the whole wedding drama with the sister was interesting to read through. Which is good because I’m tempted enough to read the follow-up book with the sister as the lead. That said, the author really tried to shoehorn the title into the dialogue.

16. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal – A religious comedy where an apostle named Levi aka Biff tasked to write about his old friend Joshua aka Yeshua aka Jesus during the missing years not featured in the Bible. Turns out, to prepare to be the Messiah, Joshua and Biff traveled to Asia to seek aid from the Three Magi Kings, learn Kung-Fu, and discover coffee. The final chapters are of Joshua’s ministry, as seen from the New Testament, but from Biff’s point of view. Not quite a parody of Jesus’ life as I expected, but there was carefulness in making fun of some aspects of the Judeo-Christian faith.

Done reading these books:

Done reading these books:

38. Nur 6 Tage (Six Days), Philip Webb, 352 pages

39. Was im Dunkeln liegt (The Match), Harlan Coben, 448 pages

40. Jul-Morde, Dahl, Arne u.v.a.m. & Arne Dahl & Thomas Enger & Åke Edwardson etc., 272 pages

41. Mit Worten kann ich fliegen (Out of My Mind), Sharon Draper, 320 pages

42. Das Kind in dir muss Heimat finden (The Child In You), Stefanie Stahl, 288 pages

Six Days:

As long as she has been alive, Cass and her younger brother Willbur were forced to work as Gatherers, searching for a so called Artifact, rumoured to hold untold powers. When two teenagers from a foreign planet arrive, it becomes clear that they are searching for the artifact too - and they only have, you guessed right, six days to do so.

Solid Sci-Fi book.

The Match:

Private Detective Wilde loves to live on his own in the Wilds (riveting) and despite that, wants to know what happened in his past. As a child, he lived, atleast for a period time, in the appalachian forest. Now, he enters his data into several DNA-find your ancestors sites and gets a Match. But stuff hits the fan quickly when his research is connected to a recent suicide and also a murderer series.

Decent book. Too many characters, especially early, some plot lines feel undercooked.

Jul-Morde:

Collection of short thriller stories related to Christmas by scandinavian authors. Overall a good read but some stories were not that great.

Not available in english.

Out of My Mind:

Melody is an eleven years old girl and gifted with an outstanding memory- almost everything she hears or reads she can remember - but no one knows this since she has cerebral palsy and has been bound to a wheelchair all her life and is incapable of speaking.

Thankfully, both her parents and some other people take loving care for her and eventually she gets a way of communicating by getting a PC similiar to the one Stephen Hawking had, allowing her to speak for the first time. But Melody learns quickly that not everybody is willing to take her seriously.

Beautiful book with sad, humerous and uplifting sections. Highly recommended.

The Child In You:

Psychology book explaining the theory of how all of us have an inner child, consisting of a shadow and a sun child that is influencing how we feel and interact with others, etc. The book gives guidance on identifying what negative and positive events shaped your inner child and how to resolve current situations by finding harmony with it by presenting several excercises.

Great book. 

April schmapril. If you've got unposted updates for the month get them out!!

@Aalasteir @AbstractOutliers @AngelLOL123 @Asandir @Atlas @AypS @detergent1 @door88 @Dr-Freebase @Featherwaite @Ganon-Dorf @Gimmick @Haggard @Jackho @JerseyWildcard @Malachy @MetalSlayer69 @ninjamuffin99 @ObscuraArcanum @OneThousandMeeps @Pingu @Prinzy2 @PudgieDaFrog @SlutasaurusRex @SourCherryJack @StrangInk @SteveMaddenFootball @TecNoir @TopazAzul @TurtleWaffle @Yomuchan @ZJ @CalamityGanon @WumbleWare95

10) Building a Gaming PC by Josh Gregory

Why can't all guides be this simple and to the point. An interesting and fun read about building your own custom gaming PC. Considered doing this in the past but planning didn't go past the idea stage.

11) Maintaining and Upgrading a Gaming PC by Josh Gregory

Information can be applied to regular PCs as well. Even though we now have a 2-in-1 computer, I still remember the days when I would help my brother clean out the PC case of debris and dust. Was always fascinating how dust and stuff got in; especially in the amounts we were cleaning out.

Not sure how this happen but I guess I just clicked on the author for other books of interest. Fortunately, he hasn't disappointed. There are other books I'm planning to read before their respective due dates from the library.

There are two more books from Josh Gregory and 6 additional books on different topics. I'm saving those for May and hope to find some more.

eek ! no update other than im halfway through the Yoko Ono biography by David Sheff! Came out about a month ago!

I began reading it because the night previous me and my girlfriend watched "Beautiful Boy" which is based on another David Sheff book, about his own life! I'll get to reading that one this year hopefully as well! Right now it's Yoko!

I have been on an underground comix JOURNEY.

9. Dirty Pictures: How an Underground Network of Nerds, Feminists, Misfits, Geniuses, Bikers, Potheads, Printers, Intellectuals, and Art School Rebels Revolutionized Art and Invented Comix - Brian Doherty (audiobook)

10. Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life - Dan Nadel

New Crumb biograohy is fantastic and pairs very well with Doherty’s overview of the history of the underground comix movement. Even better if you do what I’ve been doing and combine this already very time consuming expedition with Fantagraphics’s Complete Crumb Comics, most of the volumes of which I happen to own. I’ve been putting off reading most of them for a few years now and have finally dove much, much deeper. I’m only missing a couple volumes so it’s still been quite a ride. Working on the few other things I have by him that I’ve never gotten to as well like a collection of his American Splendor issues written by the great Harvey Pekar and a big hardcover of his collaborative comics with his wife the late Aline Kominsky-Crumb.

What a goddamn genius.

The catcher in the rye by J.D Salinger

Part re read part listened to. This book was assigned summer reading back in highschool, and I loved it. I related alot to the main character at that time. So I was interested to revisit it with a few more years experience as difference.

I very much enjoyed the book. I think it highlights aspects of depression well. As well as, not full understanding why, or even caring to at that age. It's a well written story , I highly recommend checking out if you havent.

One for me, read the Godfather...again.

+1

Eldest by Christopher Paolini

I thought I was re-reading these but I don't think I got more than a chapter into it the first time. In my defense I was in 5th grade. The whole time I was just thinking "is this really young adult? Half of this shit would have been completely lost on teenage me." All of it would have been lost on 10 year old me. So I guess it's a good thing I get to enjoy them fresh. The creepy vomiting toddler woman? Damn that's fucked. I couldn't have thought of that. Great stuff.

READING CHALLENGE UPDATE: APRIL → MAY

Changes:

• Added @CalamityGanon and @WumbleWare95. Welcome aboard!

@Aalasteir @AbstractOutliers @AngelLOL123 @Asandir @Atlas @AypS @CalamityGanon @detergent1 @door88 @Dr-Freebase @Featherwaite @Ganon-Dorf @Gimmick @Haggard @Jackho @JerseyWildcard @Malachy @MetalSlayer69 @ninjamuffin99 @ObscuraArcanum @OneThousandMeeps @Pingu @Prinzy2 @PudgieDaFrog @SlutasaurusRex @SourCherryJack @StrangInk @SteveMaddenFootball @TecNoir @TopazAzul @TurtleWaffle @WumbleWare95 @Yomuchan @ZJ

Ooop, I'd noticed earlier but forgot to mention that my count seems to be off - I'm at 6 books completed so far this year.

13: The Father of the Mountain by Torsten Weitze

Not as good as the last installment but this one had some pretty good bits!

I finally read a book its called My Face For The World To See by Alfred Hayes. I got this at the library because it was only 120 pages but it still took me like 50 days to read it (I could only renew the book once, and once that due date came I literallly had to wait for the staff to restock the book before I could borrow it again lol.) Yeah I am not a fast reader. It was a pretty good book although I am a little dumb so I probably missed a lot of meaning and stuff. The caracters were well written though and the writing kinda reminded me of the great gatsby a little bit, so if you like that book check this one out :P

Done reading these books:

43. Snø - Ohne jeden Zeugen: Ein Fall für Snø, Unni Lindell, 480 pages

44. Wenn sie wüsste (The Housemaid), Freida McFadden, 400 pages

45. Sie kann dich hören (The Housemaid's Secret), Freida McFadden, 368 pages

46. Sie wird dich finden,(The Housmaid is watching), Freida McFadden, pages

47. Das Institut – Im Schatten der Wissenschaft, Hendrik Streeck, 432 pages

Snø - Ohne jeden Zeugen: Ein Fall für Snø:

During a hot summer day in Norway the young student Sonja sees moving shadows in the neighbours house - but the neighbours are on vacation in Australia. Alarmed by this, she calls the cops but they find nothing. When police woman Snø wants to talk wih Sonja again, she has no chance to do so as she has gone missing.

As Snø investigates, she finds conncections to other recent missing cases and when those connect to the Norwegian Oil industry, her life is in danger.

Great book.

The Housemaid + The Housemaid's Secret + The Housmaid is watching:

All three books of the The Housemaid series. The first starts with Millie feeling lucky beyond belief. Her troubled past makes it tricky to find a job but now she found one working as housemaid for Andrew and Nina. But quickly Nina starts critcising her for everything and even gaslights her constantly about made up mistakes. Why does Nina seemingly hate her this much? She hears rumours about Nina being mentally unstable but atleast Andrew is nice to her ...

Good series. The first book is great, the second one is good and the third book is a little bit boring compared to the first two.

Das Institut – Im Schatten der Wissenschaft:

A female viroligist falls from a scyscraper in the city of Boston. A seemingly clear cut case but young and ambitious police detective Vince Brittle is, as always, looking more into the case and quickly finds reasons to dig deeper: her diary paints her as a happy person, shortly before a scientific breakthrough - adding a sort of lock to viruses, making it possible to activate and deactive them at will. Her diary mentions doubts about the danger of this method and her fear of selling the potential patent off to a Chinese business.

As Vince Brittle investigates further, it's clear that he has made powerful enemies, as gets beaten up by a group of men at night, later almost shot and is getting suspended after someone from the military puts pressure on his boss. Can Vince still stop this dangerous virus?

Good book. Goes in details about the complications of scientific work, especially getting it published, Ending is a bit sudden.

Im still chippin my way thru Yoko Ono biography, but today I hopped into my local bookshop and nabbed "The Beggar Student" by Ozamu Dazai. It's only about 70 pages, so I read it front to back in one sitting just now at the library.

Im a huge fan of No Longer Human, I think this one has a bit of the nuggets of realness in here, albeit the story is much more self contained. I think it'll sit in my mind for a bit and stew.

I also read a volume of City by Keiichi Arawi, but I won't count that heheh...

I remember those days; except I would always ask the library if it would be possible to recheck out after it got checked back in (if there's no waiting list). Speaking of such, I barely got thru my checkouts by the due date (which was 10min ago - digital).

12) The History of PC Gaming by Josh Gregory

Not what I was expecting, but an interesting read nonetheless.

13) PC Gaming: Beginner's Guide by Josh Gregory

Reads like the Building a Gaming PC book. Though it covers some aspect of playing games, majority of the focus is on building a PC.

14) Stardew Valley: Beginner's Guide by Josh Gregory

A nice change of pace compared to the PC Gaming and History of PC Games books. The author gives a short and to the point introduction of the game Stardew Valley. It was compiled together by a single person and improved upon using feedback from the community. It's like a simulation game of sorts but different from some of the ones most of us are familiar with (Farmville, the Sims Social, etc).

Last of the books by Josh Gregory that I had set aside.

15) The Mütter Museum by Anna Dhody

While being familiar with the Mütter Museum myself thanks to episodes of Mysteries at the Museum and documentaries, I was pleasantly surprised with the presentation. Still not sure why there's no filters for adult non-fiction books on Hoopla but a lot of juvenile titles surface in the search results.

Any way, I got the book out of curiosity since not all kid friendly versions of certain topics convert well. The book is done in the way of a tour by a young assistant who happens to be a young child. He explains the museum's history and purpose, along with introduces the readers to some of the specimens on display.

Despite the juvenile category, the vocabulary and information provided is advanced. As an added bonus, the writer gives readers additional information on the specimens featured in the book. In addition to this, they introduce one of their latest additions named Carol Orzel of whom requested to be donated to help further research and study on her FOP [fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva] condition - similar to Harry Eastlack one of the other skeletons on display at the museum.

Worth the read and well worth the rabbit hole you're likely to dive into to do additional research.

16) Not What I Was Expecting - Lump Post

Bonsai for Beginners by Naoki Shizen, Succulent Gardening by Jacob Wells, The Crochet Crowd by Michael Sellick and Food for Life by Laila Ali. I'm lumping them all under one because it was difficult to get through the books. The cook book wasn't typical for day to day (mainly the recipes aren't something I can prepare at any given moment).

The bonsai and succulent books were informative but it felt like some information was missing or they were targeting a specific group of readers (certainly not the beginner gardener as some of their titles suggest). The Crochet Crowd book threw me off a bit.

I was expecting something specific for the crochet hobby; like tips and tricks. While there are some crochet patterns, there's not much that grabbed my attention in regards to this book. Which in itself is disappointing especially considering my experience with the Crochet Crowd doing the impossible and creating a walk thru video for a nightmarish vest pattern that was wrongly tagged as beginner friendly.

17) Mosasaurus by Grace Hansen

You would think I would have learned my lesson by now; however, in my defense, there was no clear indicator on the description page. This is a juvenile category book where I some how checked out the Spanish (language) edition of the book. Fortunately, my rusty lessons of French and Spanish came back enough for me to go through the book.

As explained by the book and my nephew while looking at the Dr Pepper can, Mosasaurus is not a dinosaur. They're a marine reptile. And despite being an aquatic creature, it breathed air (much like whales and dolphins, to name a few). It lived during the Cretaceous Period, its range was the North Atlantic Ocean.

Fossils have been found in parts of North America, Africa, Japan, France and Nederlands. Oy! Thank goodness for pictures.

**

Had to do some research about Hoopla Digital to understand how it works in terms of book searches. Majority of the books I look for outside of the hobby and crafting categories have turned up a lot of books from the juvenile sections. There are no filters, outside of the book description page, that allows you to narrow your search.

Though, even if there were, the selection of books isn't there. I have three more Hoopla books to go before I switch over to the back burner books from...a while ago.

6: From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Historical drama comic book (graphic novel if you feel so inclined) where The Jack the Ripper murders are the result of a conspiracy involving the royal family and the Masons, enacted by Sir William Gull, Royal physician. 

The writing's great, Gull in particular is an interesting character to hang around, the narrative has that rare gripping quality where you end up reading the entire second half in one sitting.  

The art's generally good, I think the sketchiness works but oftentimes when there's some sort of dynamic pose it comes across as too rigid, the colourization is also usually fine but a little wack, highlights are sometimes too bright and things sometimes have that shitty airbrushed quality. There's also this baffling decision where background elements will inexplicably use a real photograph and it sticks out and looks stupid everytime.  

Finished reading No. 6 #7.

With Shion's direction, the two manage to break in to the deeper levels of the Correctional Facility, and manage to locate Safu -- but just barely, by the skin of their teeth. Meanwhile, Inukashi and Rikiga (a former reporter living in West Block who was apparently Shion's mother's ex) execute their end of the plan to help the two escape. It seems like things are going south in No. 6 on its anniversary day, though, with several people dying the same mysterious deaths that got Shion's coworker killed - and the city goes into a state of emergency.

There were a couple of points where I was completely taken by surprise -- to avoid spoilers, let's say it was in terms of seeing things come together. It's the endgame now, with 2 books left in the series there's not much left in the way of plot development (since the series is very slow-paced and spends a lot of time on descriptions and character development over actual story). Still, it's anyone's guess as to what's going to happen next.

A good 7.5 or even 8/10. On to #8.

7. Water On The Brain by Denys Gamblin

22 comedy short stories about the happenings of a water engineering firm. Pretty funny, there's a few duds but they're more hit than miss. 

8. (Selected poems of) Samuel Taylor Coleridge, selected by James Fenton. 

Pretty cool, I liked the poems with a more narrative focus than the ones that were just nature descriptions.

Christabel, The Mad Monk, Kubla Khan, and The Ancyent Marinere are all great. 

11. Yours Cruelly, Elvira - Cassandra Peterson AKA Elvira (audiobook read by Elvira)

Tons of great stories about show business from the 60s through the 90s and a little bit after. The audiobook is fantastic. Big recommend.

finally finished yoko ono biography! was a good read and i enjoyed it! I was just spotty with my reading habit for past few weeks since I was busy with programmin work! Im lookin to catch up though I got another osamu dazai book in the queue rn yessirrr

Done reading these books:

48. Wir werden jung sein, Maxim Leo, 304 pages

49. Das Register, Marcel Mellor, 646 pages

50. Der Dienstmädchenmörder, Walter Christian Kärger, 336 pages

51. 22 Bahnen, Caroline Wahl, 208 pages

52. Finsterhaus (The Shadow Lily), Johanna Mo, 496 pages

Wir werden jung sein:

The lifes of four participants of a Medical study change drastically: the experimental heart medicine that is supposed to regenerate cells in their hearts has spread through the body, regenerating cells all over and de-aging them by roughly eight years. The first one to notice is the former Olympic medal winner Verena, when she partakes in a swimming event for charity and breaks a world record.

Quickly, public interest in this medicine rises but with them moral questions: What happens when more people live way longer? Who is or isn't allowed access to this medicine?

Good book. Not available in english.

Das Register:

Washington, 2003 in an alternate timeline: The Registry has changed humanity forever, because everyone is capable of sending a personal audio message to themselves 10 minutes into the past. This has made murdering, most crimes and accidents vanish. David Manoah works for the Registry and receives a mysterious Message :"Keep yourself away from Lois, she will be your ruin". When David gains knowledge that a murder is planned despite the Registry making that allagedly impossible, he gets thrown into a political conspiracy that changes everything - and the only person that can help him is a woman called Lois.

Cool book with an unique take on time travel. 

Der Dienstmädchenmörder:

Munich, 1886: the pathologist and detective Hajo von Zündt autopsies the corpse of a woman and finds out that she didn't, as initially expected, die due to an accident but was actually killed. First trails lead to her fianceé but Hajo believes that someone else is the killer and the trail of other killed woman leads him into the moor and the evil doings of nobility.

Pretty good book. Wish there was more focus on the forensic research methods of the 19th century.

22 Bahnen:

Tildas days are tightly structured: studying, working as a cashier, swimming 22 rows and taking care of her younger sister Ida, and also her mother when she has a bad day. Tilda is tired of this small city, most of her friends have moved to Berlin or Amsterdam. But Tilda can't leave - the sole responsibity lies on her, to make money and take care of Ida, as her mother is an alcoholic.

When she gets an offer for a great job in Berlin, her heart is torn: how can she follow that dream job when Ida is not ready to be left alone with a neglecting mother?

Great book, easily one of my favorites that I read this year. Beautiful writing and all characters feel real. Also has a sequel that I will read soon.

The Shadow Lily:

Next book in the Hanna Duncker series. This time, a man called Tom and his 1,5 year old son go missing. Hannah and her colleagues try their best as any hour in a missing case counts - and the pressure rises when Tom is found dead, clearly murdered - but no trail of his son. At the same time, the deeds of her father still haunt Hanna and it seems like an unknown party wants to scare her from doing further research in that old case.

Good follow up to the first book. Will read the rest at some point.

18) Wild Goose Chase by Sequoia Childrens Publishing

Ignore the title. It's essentially a picture-book dictionary of some common idioms and their actual meaning. Some might enjoy the cart before the horse one as even the horse understands that something's wrong.

19) Simply Crochet Issue 161

A fun issue with some interesting patterns that are within my patience range. The article on YarnSub was a nice little bonus as it explained how the site came to be and how the owners go about their research for finding the ideal yarn substitutions. This issue also came with a Tunisian crochet bonus booklet filled with some fun and somewhat simple patterns.

20) Lincoln Rhyme by Jeffery Deaver

Another book from the Mysterious Profiles series - the previous was Aloysius X.L. Pendergast by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. While from the same series, the presentation is drastically different. Instead of an interview/behind-the-scenes type of book, we instead get a short story featuring the title character Lincoln Rhyme.

Most may be familiar with the character thanks to the Bone Collector movie featuring Denzel Washington, Angelina Jolie and the guy that played Al Bundy from Married with Children. For the obscure few, you're likely familiar with books he's featured in. While the short-story format is interesting, I was kind of hoping it was going to be a behind-the-scenes type of book.

21) Jack Reacher by Lee Child

Another one from the Mysterious Profiles series - it's part of the filters on Hoopla. Like the Aloysius book, this is very much a behind-the-scenes type of writing. Reading Lee Child's experience about how he came up with the Jack Reacher character was entertaining.

What I like about what he wrote, was that he didn't want a perfect protagonist. Child wanted someone that was somewhat relatable with flaws. However, the main character doesn't notice these flaws and is highly functional (I know the sentence doesn't make sense, bare with me).

In addition to talking about the lead character of his books, he also discusses how he went about writing along with the reasons. His take on this character's creation is funny and engaging; much like Preston and Child.

To sum up how he came up with the character's name, he got part of the name from a trip to the grocery store with his wife (jokingly telling him he could work as a professional reacher for the store if the book thing doesn't go well) and the other part from wanting a simple sounding name (Jack - little to no room for assumptions). I also like how the author mentions that Reacher isn't easy to intimidate.

---

Considering, if able, to add some Jack Reacher titles to my To Read list. But first, the other backburners. That's the last of the Hoopla Digital books - nearly missed the deadline. Not sure which title(s) I'm going to tackle next but I'm sure it'll be interesting.

Entering late, but aiming for 5 at a minimum for the rest of the year. Been considering doing a just for fun little podcast where I talk about my personal takeaways and reviewing texts I read for a while, but it would be fun to share my reading adventures in here too.

I’ve already finished multiple manga volumes so far (Chainsaw Man 1-16, Mob Psycho 100 vol 1, Jojos P1 Vol 1, etc) I also reread my favorite Shakespeare text, A Midsummer Nights Dream.

The next books I’m working through are the Illiad, the Oddesey, the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, and then Paradise Lost.

I wanted to build up to reading the Divine Comedy by improving my understanding of how Dante views the author Virgil (who he also makes a character in his own work), and I thought reading the Aeneid (Virgil’s work) could help me a little with that. Come to find out the Aeneid builds off the Illiad and the Oddesey? Apparently? So now theyre on my list too. After that, Paradise Lost is more of a comparison point/victory lap for me bc I've been wanting to read it for a while. It just makes sense to read it after the Divine Comedy for me lol