Finished: The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

Started: The Great Mortality, John Kelly

Finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, started Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King.

**Under the Volcano, Malcolm Lowry**

Wow, this book is dense! From the beginning you know that all will end tragically. The prose is enjoyable, except in the consul parts, they are hard, brutal and sad (especially if you know someone alcoholic). I finishe almost a month ago and I am still thinking about this book. A truly masterpiece.

**First Person Singular, by Haruki Murakami**

I do not thinkt that he is a good writer, but his stories are enjoyable. The stories in this short story collection reads like a memoir, and while not outstandig and a bit forgetful, I had a good time with it. You can read this one in one sitting. For me, better than Men without Women, but inferior to The Elephant Vanishes.

**Sólo para fumadores, Julio Ramón Ribeyro**

Arguably the best short story south american writer in the second half of 20th Century. He deserves more recognition. Just finished the second short story and I can not read the next one without thinking a lot about what I read before.

Finished:

**The Children of Chaos, by Trudie Skies** 3 stars- The first 600 pages were pretty rough to get through with a meandering pace and repetitive visits to domains. Kayl’s impulsiveness and carelessness were less charming the second time around and Jinx has turned into a more one dimensional villain type. Despite that, the final 150 pages were excellent with high stakes and tension, timeline fuckery, and interesting plot developments. A bit of a disappointment given how much I loved the first book but the ending was so exciting that I look forward to reading the final book

**Little Mushroom: Judgement Day, by Shisi** 4 stars- Dark post-apocalypse dystopian scifi/horror story with a romance subplot. I’m really enjoying it so far but objectively the writing isn’t great quality and I suspect it’s a translation issue due to the awkward structure of sentences (this was originally written in Chinese). Regardless, I love this and am super excited to see how the rest of the story goes

CWs: >!attempted rape, genocide, body horror, death on a large scale, gore!<

**Little Mushroom: Revelations, by Shisi** 2 stars- This series fell apart in the second half. The poor translation quality combined with confusing particle physics and string theory explanations for what was happening turned big sections into mumbo jumbo. The plot really dragged in sections and then it started going hard with Christian religious themes, had I known this series had a religious bent I wouldn’t have picked it up. The most enjoyable parts were the extras because they allowed the characters to have some breathing room and actually show some depth.

Currently Reading:

**Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know, by Cyan Wings**

I've gotten back into reviewing books, so I had a couple that I needed to get finished up (Jo Denning) and have been delighted in both so far.

I finished **Dead Blood City by by Jo Denning**

Started: **Prophecy by Elizabeth Haydon**

Started: **Hush Hush City by Jo Denning**

Will start **Destiny by Elizabeth Haydon**

This week I finished **Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto**. This was cute, but in my opinion not quite as good as Sutanto's Dial A for Aunties series. 3 stars

Currently Reading

* 6 Times We Almost Kissed by Tess Sharpe (6%)
* Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor (Audio) (29%)
* Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro (52%)

**How To Keep House When You're Drowning by KC Davis**

It says a lot that this is the first book I've been able to finish since April :( I'm having a tough time. But I liked it, it was short and to the point, which is something that can't be said about most self help. It was a compassionate mix of attitude reframing and practical advice that I've never gotten from anyone else about trying to manage cleaning with my ADHD and depression. It's actually insane how much shame people try to use to get others to clean, but this is the first thing I've read that was like, oh this person actually gets it.

Finished: **Book Lovers**
Started: **Really good, actually**

Finished **Our Mathematical Universe, by Max Tegmark**

and resumed **The Utopia of Rules, by David Graeber**

**Moby Dick, by Christophe Chabouté:** Graphic novel. I read Melville's book relatively recently, so in comparison this "interpretation" doesn't seem so great to me. It feels like it's all happening too fast and it kind of bothered me that the artist decided to draw all character faces almost in the same manner (most have the same chin/mouth and everyone has the same eyes). I have two more comics to read from the same artist and I hope they are better.

Finished:

**The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne**

Another one I haven't read in 15 some odd years. I honestly didn't remember much of it from my time in college so it almost felt like reading it for the first time. I quite liked it though I do think the themes are maybe a tad too much for a high school classroom and should be saved for college. 4.5 stars

Started:

**The House of Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne**

This one I haven't read before though I did visit the titular House of Seven Gables around 30 years ago now. A lot lighter reading thus far than *Scarlet Letter*. My edition features a quite striking photograph of said House of Seven Gables

Continuing:

**The Algerine Captive, by Royall Tyler**

Didn't make as much progress in this one as I would have liked but thus far it's been pretty funny. The humor in the first half of the book is very much in the same style that Mark Twain would later use especially in his non-fiction books. The second half, which I haven't quite gotten to yet, is totally different in tone. As an aside, I really do like the cover art that the Modern Library used..

Finished:
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - really enjoyed reading this book. Gave it five stars.

New:
Poonachi or the story of a black goat - I have started reading this novel by Perumal Murugan today and so far enjoyed it.

Finished:

**Medium Raw, by Anthony Bourdain**

It was okay. Kinda entertaining but it was mostly a rundown of Bourdain's heroes and villains of the culinary world.

Started:

**Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah**

I'm about 80 pages into it. And so far it's outstanding.

Finished: Hollywood Godfather: The Life and Crimes of Billy Wilkerson by W. R. Wilkerson

Started: Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster by T. J. English

Started

**Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction, by Eric H. Cline**

**The Road to Delphi: The Life and Afterlife of Oracles, by Michael Wood**

Also read **A View from the Bridge, by Arthur Miller**

Finished: **Gilgamesh the King, by Robert Silverberg**

Started: **Sinuhe the Egyptian, by Mika Waltari**

Finished:


Grace of Kings (Ken Liu). Great read that makes use of a lesser known period of Chinese history as its inspiration. Definitely plan on continuing the series.

Guards, Guards (Terry Pratchett). Great read that makes me sad that we lost such a great author in Sir Terry.


Started:

Bi: History of Bisexuality (Dr Julia Shaw). Audiobook. About halfway. Very interesting so far.

October (China Mieville). Great read so far that strips the 1917 revolution of its ideological aspects and studies its as a human story.

Finished: **If We Were Villains, by M.L. Rio**
I started this book without really known much about it. I don’t know what to say without spoiling anything other than I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There’s a lot of Shakespeare verse used by the characters and because of that I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get into this but that fear quickly went away once the story picked up at about 25% into it. This is definitely one of my top favorite reads of the year.

Started: **I Could Live Here Forever, by Hanna Halperin**
I’m about 30% of the way through this book and so far I’m really enjoying it.

Started: Lexicon by Max Barry

FINISHED

**Plutoshine, by Lucy Kissick**
It’s hard to criticise this book without spoiling its plot, which for the most part was actually quite intriguing. As a debut novel it wasn’t that bad but the more I think about it the more issues I have with it, especially the lack of any intelligible motives on the part of the characters and its lackluster resolution that’d somehow managed to completely underplay, if not ignore, the novel’s biggest asset.

**Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, by Hannah Arendt**
A brilliant, brilliant book. One, no doubt, I’ll be revisiting in the not-so-distant future.

***

STARTED

**The Good Soldier Švejk, by Jaroslav Hašek**

Finished: **Funny Girl, by Nick Hornby**. This was about the cast and crew of a sitcom in the 60s. I thought the 60s setting was well done, it was written in a light and fun way, and I grew attached to the characters. The main character had some edges at first but became a bit too perfect in the second half of the novel though.

**Death in the Clouds, by Agatha Christie**. I enjoyed it while reading (and guessed the murderer, though not really for good reasons) but the ending left me scratching my head. Either I'm missing something or the solution wasn't that convincing.

Currently reading:

**Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier**

Although I have to agree with some of the criticisms I've heard about this book, I am really enjoying it. The prose is great and I like the characters.

Finished:

**Overtime (Viršvalandžiai), by Jurga Ivanauskaitė**

This is an interesting one. The author is one of my favourites in recent Lithuanian literature. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2005 and she referred to her life after the diagnosis as overtime. This book is a collection of her thoughts about life, death, the nature of suffering and her journey. She wrote this book until she couldn't anymore. Jurga Ivanauskaitė died in 2007.

**The Bookseller of Kabul, by Åsne Seierstad**

**Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys**