vivdunstan

Catching up with this list another month on. I have nearly finished another book, but am posting this belatedly to mark the end of April ish. I am relieved to have just finished book 8 of The Wheel of Time. A book which very much deserves the descriptive word "slog". And that was with me skimming much of it. But I am still enjoying the series too much to stop. Just 6 books to go ... Conversely the text games book was an absolute highlight of my reading in recent years. Even if I did take quite a long time to read through it. It was very much worth the time.

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1. Delicious in Dungeon (manga) volume 1 by Ryoko Kui
2. 50 Years of Text Games: From Oregon Trail to A.I. Dungeon by Aaron A. Reed
3. The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
4. Murder Isn't Easy: The Forensics of Agatha Christie by Carla Valentine
5. The Path of Daggers (Wheel of Time book 8) by Robert Jordan

Last year I finished 60 books. In some previous years I've finished more, sometimes less. For 2024 I'm setting myself a reading target of 25 books, though will probably smash it. But I want to focus on more longer books, albeit interspersed with and alongside shorter ones.

Long books that I plan to read include rereads of Lord of the Rings and Our Mutual Friend. But I also intend to read a couple more Wheel of Time books, which are pretty chunky, and can take some time.

I'm also intending to read more books in translation, including some long ones. Will be drawing up a list of those soon. It depends which ones I can get in Kindle format, so I can read them with an utterly gargantuan font. Due to my progressive neurological illness audiobooks haven't been a good option for me since the 1990s, but gigantic font ebooks work well for recreational reads.

And of course there will be lots of non fiction books read alongside the fiction. That is already underway, and I expect to keep that more flexible.

But yup, a year of quality reading over quantity this time.

A new month, a new bunch of reading books currently on the go. Still reading Wheel of Time book 7 but making excellent progress with it.

Inspired by posts elsewhere by some fellow book readers I thought it might be nice to look back on what I read this month. I probably won't manage this every month.

Here are the 10 books I finished in May:

• Lord of Chaos (The Wheel of Time, #6) by Robert Jordan
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman
• Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao
• Doctor Who The Return of Robin Hood by Paul Magrs
• Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordain
• Donald Duck, Duck in the Iron Mask by Disney (short comic)
• I am Oliver the Otter by Pam Ayres (picture book)
• The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
• Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram by Iain Banks
• Bowie on Bowie: Interviews and Encounters edited by Sean Egan (interviews collection)

It was honestly a relief to finish the first book, another long Wheel of Time one. But it's the best in the series for me so far, and really shakes things up. So looking ahead hopefully.

Stardust by Neil Gaiman was this month's book club choice for me, a lovely fairy tale book, albeit somewhat different from the movie. I have reread this several times over the years.

Messy Roots graphic novel was a recommendation from the paid TBR service I treated myself to a subscription of. It's really interesting, showing how a family adapted moving from China to the US. And then there's the spectre of Covid as well - they had come from Wuhan many years earlier. Recommended, though I think it was maybe a bit more light in places than it might be.

Paul Magrs' latest Doctor Who book is lovely, a melancholy tale of an older Robin Hood and outlaws, with a clever timey wimey plot. A little too many different character points of view in places for me, but overall it was a strong read.

Percy Jackson book 1 was a quick fun read. I'm not sure I'll read any more in the series, but this was breezy stuff. It reminded me in many ways of Neil Gaiman's American Gods, but aimed at a younger audience.

The Donald Duck comic book was a quick read in the Comixology app on my iPad. Very funny retelling of the Man in the Iron Mask.

We love watching Pam Ayres on the telly so when we chanced on a signed copy of her latest rhyming poem picture book in our local bookshop we snapped it up, even if we are way over the target age range! It's really sweet though, and educational. And gorgeous otter pictures!

The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas was a surprise. Given its very short length by his standards I didn't expect the depth and twists in store. A gripping historical novel set in late 17th century Holland at the time of Tulipmania. An absolute gem.

I'm Scottish but haven't tried too many whiskies over the years. I have my favourites, especially Balvenie Caribbean Cask. Iain Banks's book Raw Spirit is a sprawling travelogue around Scotland, going to lots of whisky distilleries with stories of history, the places and tasting notes about the drinks. I now have a very long list of whiskies I want to try! It was a bit too rambling in places, very political as well which even though I share his politics got somewhat exasperating. Probably also a bit long. But still a good read.

Alongside the Dumas book my other standout highlight of the month was the book of David Bowie interview transcripts edited by Sean Egan. I read this on my Kindle and it's very long, but a fascinating insight into his life and career. The interviews span the 1960s to the early 2000s, and seeing how things evolved for him was intriguing. I did not expect to be so gripped by this. And I now want to explore more of his back catalogue of music.

Getting on well with my spread out (but not too spread out!) read of the epic fantasy series Wheel Of Time. I'm nearing the end of book 6, and the latter half of this book is utterly riveting. I'm now over halfway through the whole saga by page count, and feeling optimistic of reaching the end of the 14 book series.

Just finished a couple of books, so starting on a new novel, Wheel of Time book 6. Here’s a visual with it and the other two main books I’m reading at the moment: Iain Banks on a whisky road trip around Scotland, and a collection of interviews with David Bowie.

Continuing the Wheel of Time with book 5, and also reading fantasy / coffee shop mashup Legends & Lattes. For non fiction The White Mosque by Sofia Samatar, John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed, and Iain Banks on a whisky road trip. And continuing Loren Wiseman’s “Grognard” collection of Traveller RPG columns.

Just finished The Shadow Rising, book 4 of the 14-volume Wheel of Time fantasy saga by Robert Jordan.

On the downside it was a very long book, and felt like a slog at times. 1005 pages of story on my Kindle, and the longest book in the whole series.

The story does open up and also deepen in places here. New locations are introduced, and similarly new foes encountered. Though the latter sometimes suffered from being spread too thinly, without enough development or coverage in every case.

Another downside was that the story was split into too many strands, that it could become confusing, and not all would get the attention they deserved. I was also personally less interested in the storyline that I think was probably regarded by the author as the main one, and constantly wished to return to some of the others.

However it was a fun read, and in particular it further developed and deployed a marvellous fantastical storytelling element that I adore but don’t want to detail for spoiler reasons. There was one particularly surprising shock plot twist that made me go “What?!?!?” And I want to see where it all continues. But yup, a shorter read would be nice!

I dithered a long time between 3 and 4 stars in my Goodreads rating, eventually settling on 4, rounded up from what I’d probably rate as 3.75 out of 5 stars.

Current reading, early September 2022 edition. Near the end of Wheel of Time book 4 and Terry Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum. Next up Zoe Gilbert’s Herne the Hunter tale Mischief Acts. For non fiction I’m reading David Long’s Lost Britain, Brian Kernighan’s Princetonian columns and (still) Loren Wiseman’s Traveller RPG columns.

Both the fantasy books are good, but especially the Discworld one. I am still loving the Loren Wiseman book. All the others are new reads for me. Last night I finished my 53rd book of the year so far.

I’ve just finished The Dragon Reborn, the third in Robert Jordan’s 14-book Wheel of Time series.

I’m not going to go into the plot in detail. But in a nutshell it’s epic fantasy, largely quest based, with a recurring set of characters, that grows as time moves on. A timeless battle of good versus evil, on a massive but also personal scale.

This latest installment saw new places visited and old ones revisited, and also loads of political machinations. There are also many more nods to the bigger arc-long story, either in the form of straight out prophecies, or glimpsed in magical in-between worlds, or both! I really like these sections of the books. It definitely helps me appreciate each book as part of a bigger whole, and want to read the rest.

The one downside for me was that there were just too many boat journeys, including at the same time, which I found confusing in the end! I also need to look at a fictional map ...

But otherwise a riveting read. And a very thrilling ending.

I’ll be reading book 4 in the near future.

Rating a strong 4/5.