Done reading these books:

46. Percy Jackson 1: Diebe im Olymp (Percy Jackson & the Olympians 1 - The Lightning Thief), Rick Riordan, 447 pages

47. Percy Jackson 2: Im Bann des Zyklopen (Percy Jackson & the Olympians 2 -

The Sea of Monsters), Rick Riordan, 335 pages

48. Percy Jackson 3: Der Fluch des Titanen (Percy Jackson & the Olympians 3 - The Titan's Curse), Rick Riordan, 367 pages

49. Percy Jackson 4: Die Schlacht um das Labyrinth (Percy Jackson & the Olympians 4 - The Battle of the Labyrinth), Rick Riordan, 429 pages

50. Percy Jackson 5: Die letzte Göttin (Percy Jackson & the Olympians 5 - The Last Olympian), Rick Riordan, 464 pages

Percy Jackson is a 12 year old normal boy - atelast he thinks he is until he starts getting attacked by numerous monsters that seem to have stepped right out of greek mythology - which turns out to be actually the case. Percy finds out that he is a Halfblood - which means that in his case his father is one of the Olympian Gods, Poseidon. To secure and train him, he is taken into Camp Halfblood, a training camp for Halfbloods like him. Similiar to Harry Potter, each book goes for roughly a year and features one big story arc that gets resolved.

Well known series I think. I was looking for fiction that features greek mythology and remembered that I never read these before. Overall despite it being aimed at a younger audience I still found the series enjoyable, with book 4 and 5 being the best ones.

30: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

I was not a fan of the style but the world was interesting. I didn't like the stream of consciousness writing. The end with the academic conference was cringey.

The style of writing reminded me of an English class I had as a teen. If we had good enough grades on the assignments in the first quarter the teacher gave us a laminated "artistic license" and we were allowed one essay to break whatever rules we wanted.

... Handmaids tale felt like the sort of adolescent mess we wrote in that class.

I'm really slowing down again so I may take a short break from reading. Maybe download a few podcasts for my drive to work. I've surprised myself reading 30 books. More than I ever read before in a year and it's only July.

So here's a question. I typically read and listen to the audiobook back and forth. But DC just released a high budget audio drama based on the Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaiman.

Being a fan of the comics I'm listening to it but should I count it to my total here? It's more akin to old school radio dramas with sound fx and a large cast (narration by Gaiman himself) but it is an adaptation of the graphic novels. Thoughts?

It's a fringe example but I'd count it, being on audible, 10 hours long and by a well known author. Plus graphic novels can be counted regardless. Up to you though. Whatever feels right famalam.

Finished reading The Simple Path to Wealth by JL Collins.

Amazing book. The author, a longtime investor that's been financially independent for a while now, wrote it from the perspective of what advice he'd give to his daughter who had just graduated from college. In this book, he basically talks about the importance of staying out of debt, investing in low-cost index funds and having your money work for you over the years, toughing out the rough financial times (like stock market crashes) with the knowledge that the stock market always rises over time, living off your portfolio so that you'll have "Fuck You" money and won't have to take crap from anybody ever again, and giving back generously when you can. This is all a brief summary of his points in the book, but the long and short of it is that this book was made for dummies like me that aren't sophisticated in their financial plans but aim to do the right thing with their money and live a comfortable life. I was already a Dave Ramsey fan that followed his principles of paying off debts and establishing an emergency fund, but this book gave me even more clarification on what to do now that I'm out of debt and looking to be financially independent at some point.

Highly HIGHLY recommend this book. I plan on coming back to it again and again as I continue my financial journey as its filled with great practical information that's perfect for adults of all ages. I would encourage you all to do the same.

Finished reading the latest issue of the "magazine for computer technology", this time it dealt with pasword managers/password safes. Conclusion: KeePass is a pretty good tool, but needs some tweaking from the user if they want to sync it between different devies. The second big cover story is a purchase advice for tablets. I'm not interested in buying a tablet, so I just scanned across that article real quick.

So I missed out on including some books from the end of last month - so here are the last few books I read.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Man - this was great. My initial thought going in was that the Handsmaid's Tale really doesn't need a follow up. That book is amazing and really concise in what it tried to do. While I still feel that book doesn't NEED a follow up, I'm glad we have the Testaments.

The novel fleshes out the world of the Handmaid's Tale, in particular the transition period to the Gilead regime. Like the first novel, the world is heavily allegorical - for me, it was the perfect marriage of world-building and thought-provoking commentary.

I think it reads quite different from the Handsmaid's Tale - for me that book was very metaphor forward. The Testament's tells an engaging story first, and weaves in the metaphorical elements.

I'm too brain dead right now to get into why the book is so good but if you even have a passing interest in the subject matter, you should read these books.

Becoming by Michelle Obama

This was a solid memoir. She has an interesting life story and she tells the story of it in an engaging manner.

I devoured the first half of the book - her childhood, education and career are fascinating. In some ways, I wish the book had just focused on that. This section does a great job of highlighting the interplay of race, social class and income inequality help form someone's outlook on life.

The second half chronicles Barrack's presidential campaign and her time as a First lady. This part was fine, but it just didn't speak to me personally. I had to force myself to slog through the ending, which was a little disappointing as I loved the first half so much.

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

hmmmm... not an easy one for me to sum up. I can see why people love this book - it just missed the mark of what I enjoy.

I enjoyed what the story setup in the first hundred pages - I was disappointed with where the story went though. It felt like it setup some exciting conflicts and touched on some interesting topics, but then chose to resolve everything in the blandest way possible? It was unfortunate because the topics introduced were exciting to see in a popular mainstream title. I would have loved if it had really gone in and tried to ask tough questions about race, class relations, biases etc. Instead, it ended up being a story I feel like I've read hundreds of times before.

I couldn't personally recommend it - that said, lots of people love this, so maybe I'm wrong on this one!

So I just read Handmaid's Tale and it didn't connect with me. how different was The Testaments? Maybe I'm some sort of masochist because I was still thinking about picking up Testaments eventually since I have now read Handmaids

That's a tough one to answer - I really liked the Handmaid's Tale so my opinion might not be the most useful.

What I will say is that the follow up is much more plot driven than the Handmaid's Tale. It reads much closer to a thriller set in a dystopian world than the original novel. From that point of view, it is much easier to get through as the story moves along at a pretty fast pace (even if you don't like the allegory side). You also get a range of perspectives and interweaving narratives, and the chapters are short, so if there's a character you don't like you're not stuck with them for too long.

At the end of the day though - it is the same world from The Handsmaid's Tale. If that left you cold, The Testaments might just feel like a longer version. If you really didn't like it, I'm not sure it would change your mind.

It probably depends on how much you didn't like the first one more than anything else.

Done reading these books:

51. One Of Us Is Lying, Karen M. McManus, 496 pages

52. One Of Us Is Next, Karen M. McManus, 448 pages

53. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman, 416 pages

54. Tagebuch eines Killerbots (All Systems Red - The Murderbot Diaries #1) , Martha Wells, 576 pages

55. Penance, Kanae Minato, 320 pages

One Of Us Is Lying:

Bayview High is a normal Highschool like any other - with students like Bronwyn, who endeavours to go to Yale, the prodigy - baseball player Cooper, beauty queen Addy and Nate the outsider who spent some time in prison for dealing with drugs. All four of them find themselves in the same classroom for detention, as all 4 allegedly had mobile phones with them in class, all claim that the mobile phones found were not theirs. With them in detention is Simon, the infamous creator of a Gossip-App that regularly reveals secrets of students of Bayview High.

All of a sudden Simon collapses - and as it turns out, he was poisoned. Bronwyn and the other three become main suspects and all eyes are now on them as secrets they never wanted to get out get revealed.

Great book. Told from the supect of the four students. The whodunnit part is kinda easy to figure out but the afermath of secrets coming to light and how each protagonist deals with that made this a very engaging read. One Us Is Next is the sequel and also very good.

Anansi Boys:

Charles Nancy, called Fat Charlie by most, is an average man, expect that his father Anansi is the spider god. Anansi dies and shortly after Fat Charlie finds out that he has a brother - a man called Spider who after being called upon, creates havok in Charles life with his careless attitude, going so far as stealing his fiancé, Charles losing his job and ending up in prison for a bit. One of Anansis old friends gives Charles the advice to seek out the help of another animal god to get rid of Spider - but that ends up making everything worse for everybody.

Good book. A lot more lighthearted than American Gods and certainly weaker story but I still enjoyed this more humorous story.

All Systems Red - The Murderbot Diaries #1:

Plays in the far future when humanity managed to build colonies throughout the universe. Mega Companies control eveything via the help of Murderbots. The book is told by the perspective of one of them, who has been ordered to protect a group of scientists that wants to explore the resources of a planet.

Unknown to all, this murderbot has managed to hack the module that is designed to control them - resulting in the robot not only getting a free will but also an unquenchable thirst for watching cheesy space Telenovelas while protecting the humans, making their sassy but secretely emotional nature come though in their telling of the story.

Great book. Book is split into four stories that are connected by an overreaching story arc and killerbots growth.

Penance:

A peaceful village in Japan, where the air is very clear, is struck by a gruesome event: a young schoolgirl, Emily, was killed by an unknown man. Before the incident, she was with her four friends Sae, Maki, Akiko and Yuko. None of them can recall the face of the murderer, which makes Emilys mother livid and after three years with no track of the murderer she makes an ultimatum to the four by now thirteen year olds: if they don't enact penance for their failure, she will take revenge. After that, the book goes into detail how this affected the lifes of Sae, Maki, Akiko and Yuko, all getting involved in their very own misery.

Decent book. I found some of the motivations for the behaviour of some of the protagonists to be convoluted and not really being connected to the threat by Asako (Emilys mother). Read this in english as a german version doesn't exist and hasn't been announced to be in the works but after Confessions which I enjoyed greatly, I wanted to read more from this author.

A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews

This was a book read for my book club - one of my friends girlfriend is from Canada and this is her favourite Canadian author, so she wanted to share it with us.

A Complicated Kindness is a novel following Mennonite teen Nomi who is living with her father after her sister and mother seperately "leave" their Mennonite community. The book jumps around in time, and reveals Nomi's relationship with her religion, her community and her family.

For the first approx. 100 pages - I wasn't sure about this book. It doesn't really have much plot to pull you along and the jumping around in time was confusing at points. However, once I started to get to grips with the writing style, I really enjoyed it.

This book is funny. I don't read a lot of books that make me laugh out loud, and this book had me chuckling multiple times. There's an almost absurdist humour to some of the dialogue which I enjoyed. The humour is balanced against some v. dark themes, which I always appreciate in a book.

I also connected with the main character, in many ways I could see myself as a teenager reflected in her. The awkwardness, inability to fit in to her community etc. felt very reminiscent for me.

Cool book - worth checking out if the above sounds interesting.

Just finished it and man was it good. Definitely a great adaptation of the graphic novels. I'll count it as my 31st for the year.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

Outliers is a non-fiction book that looks to explain the success of "outlier" individual - people who are seen as exceptional in what they achieved. The book aims to highlight the structural and environmental factors that lead to their unusual levels of success. it achieves this through a series of narratives and studies - taking you from a comparison of two genius level IQ individuals to a chapter on how ethnicity has affected the rate of plane crashes.

I had read one of Gladwell's books during college (The Tipping Point) and enjoyed it - I think I referenced it in a couple of essays too. My boss recommended this one months ago, so I decided I'd check it out. And its an enjoyable book - Gladwell definitely has his craft down, he's a master storyteller. The book flows really nicely, and would be a great entry point for someone looking to get a basic understanding of sociological concepts.

From my point of view, the book makes some interesting points and tells a great story, but the points it makes feel a little basic at times. It seems to shy away from anything vaguely controversial - Gladwell is happy to make the point that having certain opportunities allows individuals to become "outliers" or that cultural norms can lead to plane crashes, but isn't really willing to connect these concepts with more meaningful subjects, such as race, poverty etc. His best recommendation to help children to get out of poverty? Make the school holidays shorter. Not exactly massively progressive thinking.

Besides that though, some interesting points and info - would recommend if you enjoy these types of books.

Finished the next magazine (as I've said, I read a lot more than what I post here. I read so few books because I am busy reading magazines). This issue's main topics: "Hidden" features in Windows 10, and how to make your LAN at home faster. The most interesting article is about how to make using the Linux terminal a lot easier with customized commands. I will use a few of those for sure.

Also, finished reading "The Messenger" (original title: Kalypso). Apparently the second novel in a series about police inspector Frederik Beier of the Oslo police. The novel was okay, but there are many things that I dislike about "modern" novels: First of all, of course Beier's private life is a mess. He is divorced from his first wife, and estranged from his kids. His current gf is just a substitue for one of his colleagues that he has a crush on put is too much of a coward to tell her that he still is in love with her. Plus, throughout the book there are sentence like "they desperatly needed to talk alone", but they never do. I really hate that. :(

Don't know if I will read the other parts of that series as well.

Done reading these books:

56. Sie (Misery), Stephen King, 528 pages

57. Miracle Creek, Angie Kim, 512 pages

58. Coraline, Neil Gaiman, 176 pages

59. Harry Potter und das verwunschene Kind. Teil eins und zwei (Bühnenfassung) ( Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two: The Official Playscript), J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne, 368 pages

Misery:

Paul Sheldon is a 42 year old writer, among his works the most succesful one is the series revolving around Misery Chastain. One day Paul happens to get into a car accident, which he survives with horribly broken legs - being saved by his biggest fan, Annie, that took it upon her to take him home and nourish him with pain killers. Aside from not being taken to a hospital and being unable to leave his bed because of the mess that his legs have become everything seems okay - until Annie reads Pauls last book and finds out that her favorite heroine Misery dies. Livid, she forces Paul to write another Misery Chastain book - just the first step into his own long path of misery.

Fantastic book. Greatly unsettling in many sections. Due to the main character being a writer it also shares some thpughts about both writing itself and what it means to be a writer. Highly recommended.

Miracle Creek:

Young and Pak, a korean couple that moved to the USA (Young and her daughter first due to monetary contraints), Virginia and a town called Miracle Creek, are the owners of an oxygen chamber, called the Miracle Submarine that basically lets patients breathe 100% oxygen for a session. That therapy is used by parents of autistic children for the most part. Everything is splendid until one day the worst case happens: the oxygen chamber explodes, killing the mother of one of the children and the 8 years old Henry, the son of Elizabeth, a woman who has both admirers and doubters for her efforts to seek out many therapies and diets for her son. Pak and Mat both suffer great injuries in their efforts to save the patients. Pak's daughter Mary is in a coma for some time.

The book's story plays one year later when the trial begins to find out who started the fire, prime suspect being Elizabeth. Told from multiple perspectives, it becomes apparent that everyone is trying to hide small things that they deem to be unrelated to the case overall to hide secrets from coming out. But wounds can't heal under such circumstances and the painful truth gets slowly unraveled.

Great book. Reminded me a bit of Little Fires Everywhere.

Coraline:

Coraline lives with her parents in an old house. Other residents live there, too. One day Coraline finds a locked door in the appartment, after her mom gives her the key for it, she finds a brick wall behind it. But one day there are just deep shadows instead of a wall and Coraline crosses over, finding herself in a mirrored version of her house, where her room has all the toys and clothes she dreamed of and her other mother seems way more interested in her than her real mom. After she returns to her real house, she gets confronted by the fact that her real parents vanished. The only place where they can be is the mirrored house, so she returns there but now everything seems much more sinister and Coraline must be carfeful to save herself and her parents.

Good book. Bit too short to get fully immersed in compared to other Gaiman novels but still worth reading.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two: The Official Playscript

Says everything in the title, really. A playscript of a story that plays years after book 7 of the series, revolving around Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy who are best friends. The mysterious Delphi Diggory, niece of Amos Diggory, asks them to go back in time to save Cedric Diggory, Amos son. But everything goes badly and all of a sudden Voldemort might be back once again.

Pretty good for what it is. Reads a bit like fanfiction at parts but overall pretty enjoyable and short read due to the nature of being a playscript.

Figure I give an update while I can still remember. My local library's -Con event took off this past Saturday of July 25 but virtually. There were tutorial videos, cosplay contests for all ages along with art contests for all ages. Plus there were give-a-ways where I won two of the drawings (haven't picked up the prizes yet) and a fun HP themed Scavenger Hunt where the librarian would provide a riddle and we would have to search our house for the object that answers the riddle.

There were also vendors present both selling and giving away items along with providing videos sharing how they do what they do. So much fun and now for my reading list.

18) Shining Light on "Dark Winter" by Various; from Clinical Infectious Diseases Vol 34, Issue 7 April 2002

I've been on the hunt for some Tom Clancy books; mainly books that could've inspired The Division game. While the game wasn't based on a particular work, it was based on Tom Clancy's specialty of writing about things related to military stuff. Well, while browsing, I came across this site that highlighted a part of this large text book that talked about one of the two items that the game was inspired by: Dark Winter. The piece is about the length of a short story but an interesting read nonetheless.

19) Online & Print Articles

Again, the quantity of online articles has increased yet again over these past few weeks. Aside from virus coverage, I've been reading mini guides related to my go-to game of Hero Wars, PR releases for next gen consoles, some snippets about a potential revival for G4 along with troubleshooting issues for my computer and mouse.

I got another book that I'm in the process of reading and will hopefully be done by the end of this week or sooner. If I do finish on time, I may get to this other book I've been wanting to read. This is all for now and hope everyone is doing well.

King talked about this one in particular in the book On Writing, painting it as a sort of watershed moment for his style. He had the story planned out in advance, where Sheldon would be killed, fed to the pig and Annie would have the novel bound in his skin.

When it came to actually writing it though, Sheldon ended up far more resourceful than King had expected, and both characters had more complexity than planned. He hasn't bothered planning a story in advance since, generally he comes up with the character first and builds the story by following what they would naturally do.

Lockdown has really helped me pick up reading again. I have sorely missed reading for fun, with my full time job and other past times it's been hard to put tome aside for reading.

I've done about 5 whodunit's which are my absolute weakness, I know how low brow that is so I won't give further details.

However I finally started House of Leaves after it peaked my interest about 5 years ago.

I've not found myself "scared" or "anxious" like a lot of readers reckon they were while reading but I enjoy the uniqueness, the completely seperate story and references within the pages. Looking forward to the conclusion.

If ya'll have any more updates for July get 'em posted

@Absurd-Ditties @Asandir @Atlas @Boss @Crink @Dean @DistractedDuck @FoAngel @Ganon-Dorf @Haggard @Joltopus @Kiwi @Little-Rena @Malachy @MercyfulDeath @Peaceblossom @Peregrinus @Phobotech @Quisty @RainyG @SevenSeize @TheReviewTrickster @TopazAzul @Welldoneshellfish @Yomuchan @ZJ

Heck, I've zoned out.

Sonia Shah - Pandemic: Tracking contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and beyond

Squeaked one last one in for July, Axiom's End. A well written first novel by an author. Takes place in 2007 with a WikiLeaks character who releases info about first contact and it takes down Bush but that's all sort of background info to a character driven story about a young woman who stumbles on to the aliens themselves. I would recommend.

January (4)

1: Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky

2: Welcome to the Occupied States of America (First Contact) by Peter Cawdron

3: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

4: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

February (5)

5: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

6: The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

7: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

8: Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein

9: Storm Front by Jim Butcher

March (5)

10: Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

11: Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

12: Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

13: Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie

14: Provenance by Ann Leckie

April (6)

15: Maelstrom by Peter Cawdron

16: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K Dick

17: The God Engines by John Scalzi

18: The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World by A.J. Baime

19: The Last Emperox by John Scalzi

20: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

May (4)

21: Forever Free by Joe Haldeman

22: Homeland by R.A. Salvatore

23: Exile by R.A. Salvatore

24: Sojourn by R.A. Salvatore

June (4)

25: Neuromancer by William Gibson

26: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

27: The Crystal Shard by R.A. Salvatore

28: Streams of Silver by R.A. Salvatore

July (4)

29: The Halfling's Gem by R.A. Salvatore

30: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

31: The Sandman Audible by Neil Gaiman

32: Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis

Books read this month:

1. The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
2. Becoming by Michelle Obama
3. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
4. A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews
5. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
6. DopeSick by Beth Macy

Aside from Little Fires Everywhere - I enjoyed all the books this month - So a good month of reading. Was also nice to mix in some more non-fiction titles, which I'm trying to incorporate more.

The only book on the list I haven't given a mini-review is DopeSick. Beth Macy is a journalist who has been following the effect of opioids (prescription and heroin) on rural America, focusing on the Appalachia region. She charts the meteoric rise of opioid use in the area - from the early 90's to 2018.

The narrative weaves together the stories of addicts, doctors, advocates, dealers and bereaved parents. Macy brings the rural drug abuse epidemic down to a very human level. I found that interesting - it highlights how grey everyone involved is. Who's to blame? Government officials that turn a blind eye? Or pharmaceutical executives who pushed their drugs to the point of widespread addiction? Or relapsed drug users who find themselves hitting rock bottom time and time again? Or the drug dealers bringing heroin to the region?

In some ways, the book asks more questions than it answers. It highlights how unintelligible creating an overarching narrative of addiction and rural decline is. But by reducing it down to the stories of the people affected, it feels like you can take some hope away from whats being done now. That said Macy doesn't compromise the integrity of her reporting for a happy ending - she notes the contested research and opinions on best treatments for addiction.

Despite being a little long - I enjoyed this. Very thorough journalism throughout.

july

12. Fear Street Cheerleaders The Second Evil by 

R L Stine

13.Gremlins by George Gipe

14.The Book of Cosmograms 64 Universal Symbols 

by Cody Kuiack  

15.The 12 Screams of Christmas by R L Stine

16. Don't Go in the Basement by R L Stine

basically only finished goosebumps books which in a way were like the water or lube of books. helped keep me going into the other shit that is more textbook sized. i kind of felt like i realized that hes actually a really good writer to make the stories engaging and really terse and concise and thats a really powerful decisive style that you need to be good at to sell as many books as he has. but maybe its just a gimmick im falling for because im as distracted as a kid a lot of the time. i think the practice of reading simpler books to warm up is something powerful ive found with these though and it will help me get through the harder reading. i also really loved the gremlins novel, it felt like it had a more meaningful and deep theme than the movie can get across but I didnt actually go back and watch the movie which maybe i should for comparison. i have been reading a few music magazines as well but figured I wont put them down maybe to balance the fact that everything ive been able to read to completion is kids books right now

Finished the audiobook of How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams (The creator of the Dilbert comic series)!

Very interesting little book. It was less of an autobiography on a man who became a world famous cartoonist after a dull career as an office drone in corporate America and more of a collection of advice from Adams on a variety of topics like proper conversational techniques, diet, exercise, and getting ahead in your chosen career path. His advice, while often humorously stated, was pretty novel and did change my thinking of some subjects. I loved his platitude of "goals are for losers" because it's so striking and against what the common wisdom is on goals, but actually has some meat behind it because he goes onto advocate creating systems that will allow you to move beyond simple goals and set yourself as a more successful person in the long-run. He also makes a lot of good points about how much of success in this world is tied to luck but that you manage that by staying in the game (Or picking a game with better odds) until your lucky break hits.

There was enough about the guy's life (From his humble beginnings to his corporate gigs to his cartoonist work to his many failed start-ups that he's done since Dilbert became such a big thing) that I felt like I got my money's worth as far as the Dilbert story goes, but I do wish there was a bit more. Maybe he figured that was a better read.

Worth a read if you like the Dilbert comics. The advice is good and the humor is of the same caliber.

LITFAM UPDATE: ALL BOOKS NO CROOKS EDITION

I definitely didn't forget to post this two days in a row, it's just that 5G interference or something. Also I'm expecting a 600% increase in books by next month since many of you wont have tiktok for much longer.

Another good month of progress, second-highest total of the year. @RainyG hit his goal but then didn't, leaving @Kiwi in the lead and @Boss close behind. @Asandir's totals keep growing and may need to be nerfed in the next patch. @Haggard wins the 69% award.

Top Fam

1. @Asandir (18)
2. @RainyG (6)
3. @Boss (5)

@Absurd-Ditties @Asandir @Atlas @Boss @Crink @Dean @DistractedDuck @FoAngel @Ganon-Dorf @Haggard @Joltopus @Kiwi @Little-Rena @Malachy @MercyfulDeath @Peaceblossom @Peregrinus @Phobotech @Quisty @RainyG @SevenSeize @TheReviewTrickster @TopazAzul @Welldoneshellfish @Yomuchan @ZJ

Ok so something that I find EXTREMELY weird is that I watched the back to the future trilogy like 5 times last week and I am at 88% of my goal without realizing it... wtf

also that tik tok thing had me laugh out loud for real

Nice.

This reminded me of the Newgrounds Writing Anthology from the days of yore that got a physical print edition and all, always regretted not picking it up, but upon searching for that link I find out there's a kindle edition. That's going right up to the top of my backlog.

Gonna count this in the next update, hopefully. This has been on my to-read list for a long time, I love some of Scott's other books and sometimes listen to his daily streams (fair warning, while he doesn't consider himself republican he's very pro-Trump and at least slightly insane) where he often recommends this one in particular to people asking for advice.

The nostalgia chick? Is this the phoenix from the ashes of channel awesome?

This is a blessed lineup and I'll not tolerate you downplaying lord Stine. I might have to give some Goosebumps a go to see if it still holds up. Being concise is definitely a strength in writing but I think ti's also just about recognizing how long a given story needs to be. Also ever knew Gremlins got a novelization.

Hope this means you're about to read some serious shit.

I think so yeah? I'm not familiar but you're not the first person to put that together when I mentioned reading the book. It was a recommendation from @allpro (who hasn't used NG in a long time but we're in a discord server together and fb friends).

You know what would be an interesting series to revisit as an adult would be Animorphs. It dealt with some really dark and serious issues while targeting 5th-9th grade readers. Like full on murder and genocides and war and PTSD stuff.

January:

1. The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish - Katya Apekina

February:

xxx

March:

2.Sweet Salt Air by Barbara Delinsky

3.Barbara the Slut and Other People by Lauren Holmes 

4.Dark Matter by Blake Crouch 

5.Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan 

6.Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray & What It Means for Modern Relationships by Christopher Ryan

7.Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

April:

8.Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

9.How to Love (Mindfulness Essentials #3) by Thich Nhat Hanh

10.Tampa by Alissa Nutting 

11.The Boho Manifesto: An Insider's Guide to Postconventional Living by Julia Chaplin

May

12.An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

13.How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't by Lane Moore

14.The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson 

15.The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

16.Every Word You Cannot Say by Iain S. Thomas

17.Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

June

18.Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson 

19.Sex and the Goddess: An Intimate Exploration of Woman’s Erotic Spirit and Sacred Sexual Power in Myth, Legend, Life, and History (Volume One) by Karin E Weiss

20.The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart

21.Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

July

22.Action: A Book About Sex by Amy Rose Spiegel

23.Online Seductions: Falling in Love with Strangers on the Internet by Esther Gwinnell, Nancy Cooperman Su

24.Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction by Judith Grisel

August

25.High Achiever: The Incredible True Story of One Addict's Double Life by Tiffany Jenkins

26.The Art of Cooking Venison by Albert Wutsch

27.Love Spells: Rituals, Spells & Potions to Spark Your Romantic Life by Semra Haksever

28.Normal People by Sally Rooney

29.Lurking: How a Person Became a User by Joanne McNeil