11 - John Birmingham - American Kill Switch. Final book in the "End of Days" series, which wasn't bad but I had hoped it would go a bit more to cover how some of the other places were impacted by the "zero day" cyber attack. A few moments where the author was writing something they thought was correct but wasn't, such as a child eagerly waiting to change the batteries on their Nintendo Switch for new ones...

3/5 overall for the series

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Volume 2 - Squirrel You Know It's True

Contains Issues 5 - 8. This time Squirrel Girl fights against Ratatoskr, a Squirrel from the Prose Edda. It is said to run up and down Yggdrasil and deliver messages between the eagle at the top and the serpent at the bottom of the tree, but it also likes to tell lies and keep feuds alive.

I learned about Ratatoskr through other sources and by reading up on it I discovered this comic series in the first place.

Few months ago I started the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, seen all the other versions of it, just never read the books (despite owning them for years!).

First book of the trilogy is great.

Second is good, but if you don't like Zephod you won't enjoy it (a lot of people I know stopped reading here).

Third is okay, worked better as a radio show.

Forth is dull.

Fifth is better.

I enjoyed it a lot, but to my surprise I actually prefer the BBC radio show version!

There's a 6th book (not written by Adams). I'll probably look into that next.

Done reading these books:

65. Ich bin Circe (Circe), Madeline Miller, 528 pages

66. 'Ndrangheta (Mafiopoli), Sanne de Boer, 304 pages

67. Schärennacht (Death in Summer), Lina Areklew, 496 pages

68. Mars-Genesis, Brandon Q. Morris, 416 pages

69. Totenfest, Geir Tangen, 544 pages

Circe:

Circe is the daugther of the Sun god Helios and the Nymph Perse. She is different than her siblings, with a voice that sounds like one of a mortal and unlike other gods, cares about humans and also has a gift for witchcraft. These traits and actions related to it lead to her getting banned to a lone island, where she crafts potions, takes care of wild animals and sometimes ships with men of different moral qualities arrive at her island - and one day Odysseus.

Good book. Drags a bit at times, especially early when Circe is by all accounts timid but her development was well written.

Mafiopoli:

Book by the journalist Sanne de Boer details how the Ndrangheta from Calarbria has risen to power in Italy and how the organisation has also spread their influences to other parts of Europe, emphasised here the Netherlands and also Germany, how german jurisdiction is unfit to judge mafia activity and how the Ndrangheta makes use of local crises to gain support within the population.

Great book. Sad to see how badly some Ndrangheta cases were handled in Germany but not surprised. Also wild in how many aspects of infrastructure the Ndrangheta has their hands in - leading to prices for buildings rising, trash management being total corrupt (like the mafia having a trash company with low prices as a front and then just throwing trash into the ocean) and straight up influencing elections, not just in Italy but also elsewhere in Europe.

Death in Summer:

After some trauma, Sofia Hjortén returns to Ulvön. Police work there is easy as major crimes are simply not happening - until one day a man is killed on Midsummer. A shocking turn of events especially for Sofia, as her former boyfriend from many years ago, Fredrik Fröding, is the main suspect and doesn't help reducing suspicion by running from the police to do investigations on his on. And then more murders happen.

Solid book.

Mars-Genesis:

2058: An AI has built a Mars colony for the spaceship with 100 humans that is supposed to arrive soon. This colony is special - as living on Mars has cancer and other health risks, everybody in the team is atleast 50 years old. All could be well but the AI has turned hostile and is trying to sabotage the spaceships arrival in various ways ...

Great book.

Totenfest:

Sequel to Requiem and second book of a trilogy revolving around journalist Viljar Gudmundsson and police officer Lotte Skeisvoll. Viljars 17 years old son attents a party and wakes up next to a dead girl the next day - and has no recollection of any events that unfolded. Can Lotte, still suffering from the events from the first book, handle this case?

Good book. Looking forward to reading the last book of the series.

11: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Funny stuff. The funniest stuff I place squarely on the protagonist, Ignatius Reilly, a great big fat mean incompetent man who's also intelligent, eloquently spoken and uniquely motivated by his hatred of the modern world. This leads to a lot of funny scenarios with everyone he comes across. The side plots are pretty good too. 

I regret to inform you the 2025 glass is about to be half-empty. Also we're closer to 2050 than 2000.

Anyway, if you've got unposted updates for June get 'em out once you're done with that temporal crisis.

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

I cleaned up the office space/computer corner in my house and re-discovered the Captain Tsubasa mangas. I finished volume 5 yesterday (after skimming through volume 4 again to remind myself what was going on).

Tsubasa and his team lost against Hyuga, but Kojiro does not celebrate this victory as he should, because he thinks he failed his team and could not beat the much younger Tsubasa in a direct duel. Boohoo, cry me a river!

At 6/30/25 09:07 AM, Jackho wrote:

: I regret to inform you the 2025 glass is about to be half-empty. Also we're closer to 2050 than 2000.

:

: Anyway, if you've got unposted updates for June get 'em out once you're done with that temporal crisis.

I've read Tombs by Junji Ito and Land of the Sons by Gigi. I know I've read some more but I have to find them

Finally read The Stranger by Albert Camus last weekend, nearly forgot to post about it.

The original sigma male (Sorry I had to)

Read #1 is all done! Woopeee!

As someone who admittedly hasn't done a lot of reading over the past few years, it's felt kind of refreshing to get a little into it again, and such a bizarre and thought-provoking story has my creative motivation pretty high!

19. The Hunger Games - Dystopian novel about kids being forced to kill each other for entertainment. I saw the first movie years ago, but only now read the novel. The first part, which has Katniss volunteering herself to be a tribute and going through preparations, slows the book down. Once the actual Games begin, the book gets interesting, but because I have seen the film, most of the twists lost their surprise. The Games themselves in the book end up going much longer than the movie, so that drags on too, especially when Katniss and Peeta rest their wounds for days.

20. The River Has Roots – A 100-page novella filled with fancy prose about two sisters who act as go-betweens for a faerie land. All is well until one of the sisters falls in love with a faerie and is forced to deal with a human suitor. It is a very verbose tragic and bittersweet tale.

21. A City on Mars: Have We Really Thought This Through? - A nonfiction book questioning if humanity is even close to achieving its goal in colonizing space. The authors argues that current governments and billionaires have not yet answered the many legal, social and technological problems people will face in space. They point out that even seemingly small issues like sanitation and hydration have not been figured out for potential space colonies.

17. The Final Deduction - Rex Stout

18. The Poison Squad - Deborah Blum

19. The Doorbell Rang - R. Stout

20. Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy L. Sayers

21. Sleep No More - P. D. James

22. Marble Hall Murders - Anthony Horowitz

23. Stars Collide - Rachel Lacey

24. The 30-Day Engagement - Waverly Decker

Heckuva month.

13. Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton 

14. Beyond Apollo - Barry M Malzberg

15. Virtual Light - William Gibson

16. The Dying Earth - Jack Vance

Oh crap.

Also, I got an absolute score for this year's birthday present, check'em out!

The Self-Sufficient Life and how to live it by John Seymour: An introduction to a lot of matters regarding a self-sufficient lifestyle, from building proper soil and fertilizer mixtures attuned for specific crops, through non-chemical pest control to homebrew wineries and even a crash course on clean energy and waste disposal. THE tome for everyone who's scored a chunk of land and want to use it to reduce and offset paying for food and other necessities.

The Complete Food Garden by John Seymour: A splendid (albeit slightly yellowed) tome from 1978 I got that has a bunch of advice for growing all sorts of veggies and produce in your backyard throughout the year. Explanations for several soil-affecting cycles are also provided, with vocabulary aimed towards the layman rather than the scientist. If you're growing any kind of food crop, I greatly recommend this book.

The Self-Sufficient Gardener - A Complete Guide to Growing and Preserving All Your Own Food by John Seymour: A companion book to the above tome. This one's from 1979 and had a bit of water damage on the cover, but that didn't stop it from being a magnificent guide to the second step of growing food - making it last. While it does touch upon the basics of growing healthy veggies and herb, the preservation section is an absolute goldmine of low-tech food preservation techniques. Here I thought I knew it all, BZZZT. WRONG.

Cost-Effective Self-Sufficiency by Eve & Terence McLaughlin: Self-sufficiency, with a focus on budget solutions than the above-mentioned tomes' advanced high-yield operations. It's a little different from the John Seymour books as this one's written for beginners in the art of self-sufficiency, meaning a lot of smaller-scale stuff rather than the full-on country lifestyle. Just because it's the basics doesn't mean it won't be of help though - gotta crawl before you learn to walk.

The Manga Guide to Linear Algebra by Shin Takahashi and Iroha Inoue: Well, I had to do it sometime. And what better time to try and figure out this subject that had long evaded my understanding on a peaceful summer vacation? Less of a technical manual and more of a manga story with a lot of explanations provided. Still a tough subject, but this book helped me feel less like a retard lol. I'll figure it out for real, just gotta keep at it... with a pen and a notepad to do the actual work. I'll get my act together then.

DJing and its potential Neurophysiological Implications by Samuel Pombo for June

June kicked my ass IRL. I've done barely any reading. Just 1

June

16: The Green Sea by Torsten Weitze

Reading Challenge Update: June -> July

Changes:

1. @bubblemunkee and @WumbleWare95 broke out of the dreaded no-book zone. Smooth moves!

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

Yeah... Not really proud of my progress...

House of leafs is really hard to read (specially for bad readers like me).

But I've made progress! I've pass the first half X)

I finished "Can Ireland be One" by Malachi O'Doherty.

I was recommended this book while in Belfast at a small book store after I said I was interested in learning about the Troubles, I thought it would be a history book. I was dead wrong.

This book was a look at the different attitudes groups in Ireland hold towards unification and how they may vote if the question of unification is voted on in the near future. O'doherty outlines very fancifully how the terms Catholic and Protestant mean very different things from the 1970's and how in todays world they don't even necessarily refer to one's religious beliefs.

Another point he makes is that after the Easteer Rising of 1919 the North declared their national hero's as the Irish that fought in WW1, but the South declared Pearse and de Valera as theirs.

While I would have enjoyed a history book going from the Easter Rising to the Good Friday agreement, this was an incredible way to get introduced to the topic as I have just enough of the backdrop to know where to start next.

Going to do another book in the Wheel of Time next, then probably something on Irish history.

June was a doozy and I forgot to check in. I'll just file it under July since the craziness carried over.

22) Lots of Rabbit Holes by Various Sources

Not an actual book but that's all I've been falling into lately. I go to check in with some communities that revolve around my hobbies and the next thing I know I'm reading up on Make-a-longs (to encompass all the creative hobbies), stationery shops, expensive and cool looking journals along with journal size classifications. Just when I thought I was done getting distracted, one of the community discussions leads me to PaperBlanks.com.

I spent way longer than I should've on the site but the journal designs were attention grabbing. While browsing, I encountered their collab section which features journals with cover art created with the works of a famous person; be it a classic music composer, author, painter, etc. Well, one of the collab pieces caught my attention but I couldn't figure out why.

It was a collection of journal designs inspired by Enid Blyton's Famous Five series. The name and cover art just stuck to the point where I found myself re-visiting the page. Next thing I know, I'm exploring the author's store page on Amazon and later their official site reading up on their Famous Five books.

I was reading and pondering and reading and pondering. It wasn't until I saw the cover redesigns that something started to click. Then I went back to looking at the original cover art that was featured on the journal and the door blew wide open.

While I never read the author's books, I have been exposed to works that were inspired by the author but never knew it at that time. I say at the time because after making this discovery I got curious and dove into another, yet connected, rabbit hole: the original publication dates.

The book series pre-dates a cartoon show that was a childhood favorite. I say this because this childhood favorite got cited a lot as inspo for another book that was reviewed some years ago: Meddling Kids. The show: Scooby-Doo.

I got crazy excited over this info and went searching for the book series. Fortunately, I found the original set that hadn't been edited - they are planning this with a lot of classics for some reason. Yes I bought the 21-book set and plan to read them when I get some down time.

In addition to this, I plan to do a re-read of a past book. No worries, I haven't forgotten about the backburner books. Of course that doesn't stop me from getting distracted.

I have finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence! It felt like I was on a road trip while reading it, where along the way it feels like a long, and a tad monotonous drive. I think it's a very good book ! But I found myself needing to go back and reread pages from my mind wandering. Along the way, there was a lotta just awesome good ass profound moments and things I will think about for a long time, the same way I still have different moments in my mind from childhood roadtrips. I give it the jirard completionist rating of finish it.

Next up is The Tetris Effect: The Game that Hypnotized the World

I randomly stumbled across it at the library, and so far it's pretty damn good and got me sucked in! If you watched the Tetris movie from AppleTV+, I think this is a good companion book that grounds that movie.

Over the past few months I've been also doing a bit more studying with programming books! None that are particularly front-to-back page turners, more like textbooks that I need to slowly read and study and practice with. But I think I have a good handful of em now that as I get through (and eventually finish) them I will also post my findings / reviews

Just finished my first audiobook. Listened to Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose. Definitely a lot more information that the HBO series.

Finished The LEGO Story: How a Little Toy Sparked the World's Imagination by Jens Andersen today.

Really fascinating book that completely chronicled the origins of the LEGO company from its humble beginnings as a Danish carpenter's side-hustle in the 1930s to it being one of the biggest toy companies on the planet in the 2020s.

One of the things that I appreciated about this one was that it had plenty of access to insider stories and photos while not being a total puff piece that only told the positive side of the the company's many ventures. This book wasn't afraid to address the numerous failures that LEGO has had over the decades and actually called out a few company executives for being jerks or incompetent boobs. It was nice to be able to get something approaching a complete history, warts and all.

Definitely worth checking out if you're an AFOL. Also, I can't believe the company's factory burned down four times. Unreal!

17: The City of Cutthroats by Torsten Weitze

Still chasing Macguffins - I mean Paladins. New characters are getting some fleshing out but I'm curious how such a large cast of characters will work in the final books that are coming up soon. I've been driving alone to work for the past month and that's cut down on how quickly we're getting through this series.

I have started 2 other books - the first wheel of time book but man that was slow going and I dunno if I'll pick it back up anytime soon, and another book that had me hooked in the first chapter because the main character has pet cats that live in a spaceship with her. Also just got an ARC of Glynn Stewart's next book so I'm excited to start that soon.

Done reading these books:

70. Der Weg der Wünsche (The Narrow Road between Desires), Patrick Rothfuss, 224 pages

71. Erklärs mir, als wäre ich 5 – Künstliche Intelligenz , Petra Cnyrim & Jonathan Kemper, 112 pages

72. Wir von der anderen Seite, Anika Decker, 384 pages

73. Tiefe Schluchten (The Quiet Mother), Arnaldur Indriðason, 400 pages

74. Freier Fall (Hostage), Clare Mackintosh, 448 pages

The Narrow Road between Desires:

Short story revolving around Bast, a character from the Kingkiller Chronicle series.

Good book. Only read this if you read the two Kingkiller Chronicle books, reading this one has increased my interest in re-reading them.

Erklärs mir, als wäre ich 5 – Künstliche Intelligenz:

This book gives a good oversight about AI - the history of AI, how language based AI bots work, how they learn and promt strategies, etc.

Good book. This is part of a book series aiming to explain a certain topic in an easily understandable fashion, also known as ELI5.

Wir von der anderen Seite:

Rahel Wald wakes up in a hospital, with tons of tubes everywhere. What she doesn't know yet but will soon get told is that she was put into a coma, as a last ditch effort to save her, as multiple of organs were failing and chances of survival being grim.

Now, the next step is recovery - both physically and mentally. The book describes her healing process in a humourous but also touching fashion.

Great book. All processes of slowly starting to walk again, physical rehab etc. are described well.

The Quiet Mother:

Third book revolving around the retired policeman Konrád. He is contacted by an old woman to find her child which she gave away around 50 years ago, as she couldn't raise the child due to personal circumstances. Konrád politely refuses, as he estimates the chance of finding any traces of the childs wereabouts to be low. Sadly, the woman is found dead, murdered, only a short time after.

Filled with regret, Konrád now chooses to investigate to make ammends and clear his conscience.

Solid book. Overarching story arc took up a bit too much of the book, leaving the currrent case feeling more like a filler episode.

Hostage:

Stewardess Mina once dreamt of being a pilot herself but anxiety made this dream unachievable. Now, she is part of the first 20 hour nonstop flight from London to Sydney. But things turn grim quickly when an unknown person drops a letter in her pocket, claiming that her adopted daughter has been kidnapped and that she will only live if Mina follows the instructions - meaning that the flight will not reach its destination.

Great book. Buildup takes a bit but then it's a real thrill.