I think April has been the highest number of books I've read in a single month since I started participating in this little challenge a few years ago but after checking page counts it's not the most I've read yet this year. That was last month with some ultra long HP novels bringing my total pages read way above any other month this year (I only started counting pages read the other day out of curiosity). I'm pretty far into the Starship Mage series and I like it. I have also heard good things about The Murderbot Diaries so I think that may be next.

January (4 books, 1,419 pages)

1: Points of Impact by Marko Kloos

2: The Settlers of Catan by Rebecca Gable

3: A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi

4: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling

February (3 books, 1,510 pages)

5: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling

6: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

7: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

March (6 books, 3,225 pages)

8: Orders of Battle by Marko Kloos

9: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling

10: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling

11: Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre

12: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by JK Rowling

13: Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northrup

April (8 books, 2,271 pages)

14: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

15: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

16: Starship's Mage by Glynn Stewart

17: Hand of Mars by Glynn Stewart

18: Voice of Mars by Glynn Stewart

19: Alien Arcana by Glynn Stewart

20: Judgement of Mars by Glynn Stewart

21: Unarcana Stars by Glynn Stewart

Finished reading "Gespenster-Krimi Band 17 - Dr. Satanos"

It's about a mad scientist who seems to think he's some sort of Victor Frankenstein. He wants to create humans that bow to his will. He even manages to transplant heads from one person to the next. Interesting stuff. But of course his early experiments go wrong, so Scotland Yard is there to investigate (namely John Sinclair, who went on to become one of the most well known characters in the world of German dime novels).

It's an okay novel, of course a little bit on the cheesy side, but enjoyable overall.

LITFAM UPDATE: MAYDAY MAYDAY LATE POST INCOMING EDITION

Happy Star Wars month, nerds. Another decent month of progress, with progress-leader @Malachy even going mad enough to dethrone Pace King @Asandir by obliterating eight tomes, though Asandir still has the highest monthly record so far this year (10 back in January).

@bigfritolay laid down the big fritos to flex some Olympian knowledge and blow out of the no-book zone with @Yomuchan in tow.

Added litfam regular @Dean and pro gamer @mlgnoscope69420 to the roster. Good luck, boys.

Funfax: 42 is the same total we had for April 2020, and this was the month @Dean joined in last year too. It's all one big loop after all.

Top Fam

1. @Malachy (8)
2. @Asandir (6)
3. @bigfritolay (4)

All mistakes are for emergency use only.

@Absurd-Ditties @Argile @Asandir @bigfritolay @Boss @CoolCatDaddio @Crink @Dean @Egeus @Ganon-Dorf @GonzaloAtWork @Haggard @HeartHeaDude @JerseyWildcard @Joltopus @Malachy @mlgnoscope69420 @Phobotech @Positron832 @PumpkinHeaDude @PurpleShoes @RainyG @Sekhem @Sensationalism @SevenTheEasterBunny @Simonides @SlutasaurusRex @Tacopug @Teaseblossom

@TehPoptartKid @tehslaphappy @TopazAzul @Urichov @Yomuchan @ZJ

I've finished one book now. Now I can continue reading The Da Vinci Code again.

Didn't realize I was a late starter last year too! I'm about a third of the way through my fourth book. I'm trying, and often failing, to set aside some time in the mornings to do some reading before I start work. Need to try and get into more of a routine to keep this going.

Did I already say this? I read Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk.

Sounds familiar but I can't find a previous post about it, guess you can look forward to a +1 in the next update.

22: Sword of Mars by Glynn Stewart

The background story is now a full on war. But I'm not sure the bad guys that came out in the last 2 books are the real bad guys...it feels like something else is going on.

Done reading these books:

32. Weltengänger, Sergej Lukianenko, 608 pahes

33. Weltenträumer, Sergej Lukianenko, 496 pages

34. Der Tagträumer (The Daydreamer), Ian Mc Ewan, 160 pages

35. The Lost World - Vergessene Welt (The Lost World), Michael Crichton, 506 pages

Weltengänger and Weltenträumer:

Kirill lives a normal live until one day everyone around him seems to forget who he is; on top of that, his ID and other documents that prove that he exists literally crumble to dust. Even his beloved dog Cashew (what a nutty name!) forgets him and he ends up losing his apartment and job as nobody recognises him anymore.

After that, he gets a message to visit a certain place. Out of options, he accepts and finds out what happened to him: he has been turned into a Functional, people with a subset of special abilities, in his case his funtion is to become a customs officer, who gards entry inbetween parallel worlds. Kirill adjusts well to his new role but soon that new comfy lives reveals its unpleasant underbelly.

Fairly good books. The ending kinda sucks but the philosphical musings of the main character that are used as segway for the next story beat were both entertaining and endearing. I have not found any evidence of english versions of these two books existing.

The Daydreamer:

Peter Fortune is ten years old and finds himself, you guessed it, daydreaming a lot. After a short introduction, the book is divided into mini-chapters that each have one daydream, from switching bodies with his cat, switching bodies with a baby to eradicating his family with vanishing cream, etc.

Good book.

The Lost World:

Sequel to Jurassic Park. Six years after the first book, reports of strange reptiles rise again. Paleontologist Levine is eager to investigate but the corpse of an unknown reptile-like being is burned before his eyes to ashes by government agents. After that, he finds the island where the dinosaurs for the Hammond-Jurassic Park were bred. And soon afterwards he needs to be rescued - by Ian Malcolm who barely survived the events of the first book and now finds himself in the same nightmare again.

Good book. There are some story similarities to the first book but a very enjoyable read. I also found the things that were said about the impact of learned behaviour from parents/older generations interesting, that species that stopped evolving physically fully rely upon adapting to changing environments by cognitive ability.

"This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big continent, and their evolution slows down. Now, for our own species, evolution occurs mostly through our behaviour. We innovate new behaviour to adapt. And everybody on earth knows that innovation only occurs in small groups. Put three people on a committee and they may get something done. Ten people, and it gets harder. Thirty people, and nothing happens. Thirty million, it becomes impossible. That's the effect of mass media - it keeps anything from happening. Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same. Bangkok or Tokyo or London: there's a McDonald's on one corner, a Benetton on another, a Gap across the street. Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there's less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity - our most necessary resource? That's disappearing faster than trees. But we haven't figured that out, so now we're planning to put five billion people together in cyberspace. And it'll freeze the entire species. Everything will stop dead in its tracks. Everyone will think the same thing at the same time. Global uniformity."

Finished reading "TKKG - Abenteuer im Ferienlager" (Adventures at the holiday camp. Or maybe I should translate this as: 'This one time at band camp'?? :O )

TKKG is short for Tarzan, Karl, Klößchen (literally: Dumpling. You could call him "Meat Loaf" as well, I guess) and Gaby, they are 12-13 years old and are one of those pesky kid's gangs that always meddle with the evil plans of evil adults who just want to do evil things. It was first published in 1979 and later adopted as audio drama in 1981. It's quite notorious for making use of dumb stereotypes. People who are up to no good always have scars in their faces, or have hooked noses, or have "a face that looks like that of a bird of prey", they are always part of a brutal rocker gang, or are gypsies or whatever. Our "heroes" on the other hand, take pleasure in beating up bad guys, but it's somehow justified because "they want to protect the weak". Also, women, especially girls, are always sent home if something is about to get slightly dangerous because apparently they can't look after themselves. In fact, almost every woman is characterized based on her looks. If she's "good looking", then she's a nice person. If she's fat or "ugly", then she's mean spirited and is jealous of good looking women/girls (same goes for the guys, but they are characterized based on their actions, women/girls on the other hand are always only characterized based on their looks).

Anyway, almost every kid growing up in Germany had a few of those audio dramas lying around at home, and it's still getting produced today (albeit, with much less stereotyping going on).

and in case anyone's wondering: No, Tarzan isn't a black guy. He just tans very easily.

In fact, even the re-issue of 2005 still makes use of the German equivalent of the N-word. I thought, we would've been past that already at that point.

Anyway, it's a badly written book. It's so bad, it makes me wonder how on earth this could ever have been marketed towards young kids, and I also wonder why it's still an ongoing series with over 200 books to it's name. I also wonder why it was so sucessful at some point that they even made it into a TV series; which was also really bad and everyone involved is ashamed to have been part of it. None of the kid's actors from back then (except one) stayed active in the business after the series got cancelled.

Looks like I had a blessed childhood by avoiding this. Instead I grew up with tons of Benjamin Blümchen casettes (Benjamin Blümchen is a talking elephant and has numerous adventures in his zoo, also the person who is the voice actor for him also is the voice of Mr. Krabs in the german version of Spongebob).

No books yet but...

11) A Whole lot of online and print articles

I've read some articles on some districts going back to in-person learning (despite not having safe guards in place), stock prices, weird lawsuits, lottery winners anonymity, troubleshooting mobile app issues, every blog post (not many are up) on the E3 site in regards to E3 2021, forum posts for different sites, tutorials, natural pest remedies for gardens and my to-do lists which seem to get ignored anyway.

Not sure what's next on the itenerary but do hope I get to the backburner book I've been trying to get to for the longest.

23: Mountain of Mars by Glynn Stewart

Just truckin along with this series. Story is still heating up. Honestly surprised it's kept my attention this long.

24: The Service of Mars by Glynn Stewart

Had a wee bit of insomnia and was up all night reading. Finished the 9th book of the series. And unfortunately the audiobook of the 10th one hasn't been released yet so I won't be able to listen to the next one on my drive to work this week. It looked like the bad guys were winning the last few books but Stewart threw in a deus ex machina in an actually pretty entertaining way. Pissed off mage princess/admiral goes ham on the main baddie's whole fleet.

Finished the audiobook of SuperFreakonomics today.

I had read the first book by the two authors when I was in high school and loved it so I made a point to finally see if the sequel was any good. Thankfully it was. These guys are great at exploring the inner workings of various institutions and figuring out why human beings do certain things (Usually it's because the incentive structures are set up a certain way).

In particular, I liked how this book looked into the economics of prostitution and how that's changed over the years and how monkeys could be trained to appreciate the value of money to the point where they would understand supply and demand. Found myself endlessly fascinated by this shit and talked about what I was learning with people in my life so that's the mark of a good book in my eyes. All of this made me want to check out the podcast that these guys do now. If it's anything like this book, I'm sure I'll dig it.

Just finished the last book in the first Percy Jackson series! On to the next one.

I should have 10 books total by the end of the month if I really get into it!

How was it? I remember a friend being into it a while ago but I never got into it.

It’s pretty good! The closest thing I can describe it with is Harry Potter, but it’s definitely it’s own thing. The books never get boring, and since there’s so many you can read one and pick up the next one immediately. It’s a good read and it actually started me with my love for reading, so I definitely think you should check it out

25: A Darker Magic by Glynn Stewart

10th book in the series and last one published so far... It was a let down. The story followed a secondary character from earlier books and it only took place on one planet and for some reason Stewart threw in zombies and ended with a dues ex machina (or magica?). He keeps flirting with this idea that there is an alien civilization out there coming to fuck over humans but I'm not so sure I'll return to the series as new books are published. Oh well. I think despite the 10th book being a bit of a letdown (and apparently not written as the end of the series anyway) I really enjoyed the Starship Mage series and would definitely recommend it.

16) Bat Out Of Hell 2100 - So this is a bit different than my usual reads. Last month, songwriter/producer Jim Steinman passed away. He mainly did music for Meat Loaf and Bonnie Taylor, but most people probably know some of his songs (Bat Out of Hell, Holding Out For A Hero, Total Eclipse of the Heart). Anyway, Steinman had written a film treatment back in the 1990s called Bat Out of Hell 2100 based on his music. The film was never produced, but Steinman did rework it into Bat Out of Hell: The Musical, which was produced in 2017 and removed the Peter Pan names (I saw it Off-Broadway in 2019. It was...unique; very melodramatic and hammy even by musical standards.) 

The 80 page treatment is a dystopian future take on the Peter Pan story, with Peter leading a gang of eternally young Lost Boys and fighting Captain Hook’s police army in the NeverLand. There is a lot of exposition describing how New York City is now taken over by a corporation with a divide between the powerful rich and the poor. Many of the Peter Pan characters are given new roles: Tiger Lily is a leader of an allied gang, Wendy is the daughter of a mad scientist, etc. There are a lot of interesting ideas all around, but since this is a treatment it is very incomplete.

 A good chunk of the treatment focuses on the songs to be used; some are original songs, the rest are from Steinman’s song catalogue. Captain Hook’s villain song “Who'd Do The Dirty” is catchy, but it is strange for the proposed film to start with “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now”, which is a very grandiose love song and not at all the right song to start a musical (the eventual stage musical moved the song to the end of the show). 

17) Star Wars: The Light of the Jedi – this is the first book of the new High Republic media event. All and all, it is pretty good for the most part but it was hard to track or care for the half dozen protagonists in the book; even in the first part of the book, characters were introduced and killed in the same chapter, presumably to add urgency to the situation but still.

The books, set about 170 years before the prequels, details a catastrophic collision in hyperspace, which leads to a large-scale rescue effort by the Republic and The Jedi. The antagonists and the ones responsible for the disaster, The Nihil, got much better characterization. Looking forward to the follow-up book in the summer, although it is written by a different author. 

Done reading these books:

36. Die Abnormen (Brilliance), Marcus Sakey, 508 pages

37. Eine bessere Welt (A Better World), Marcus Sakey, 472 pages

38. Mit Feuer geschrieben (Written in Fire), Marcus Sakey, 412 pages

39. Elf Leben (Eleven), Mark Watson, 271 pages

40. Die gelöschte Welt (The Gone-Away World), Nick Harkaway, 728 pages

Brilliance, A Better World, Written in Fire (Brialliance trilogy):

In 1986 a world-changing discovery has been made: around 1% of the population is born with special abilities (ranging from stuff like doing difficult math in seconds, being able to count the amount of certain objects instantly, like beans in a jar; to high levels of strategic planning, etc.). Brilliant people range from level 4 to 1 (1 being highest).

Main character is Nick Cooper, a federal agent, who is working for a government organisation that aims to stop Brilliants that pose a danger to national security (like hackers trying to create a super computer virus). Cooper has tracked down over a dozen of these people, mainly due to the fact that he is a Brilliant himself - he basically can analyse micro expressions quickly and thus predict enemies behaviours. Despite that, there is one man that has escaped his grasp: John Smith, a man who allegedly is behind all government-endangering behaviour and a terrorist, who killed 73 civilians.

After another massive terror attack that kills over 1000 people, Nick Cooper makes a tough decision: he asks his chief to claim publicly, that Cooper is behind that attack, so that Cooper can go underground and weasel his way to John Smith to finally stop him.

Overall good books. The first two are especially good with the focus on the conflict between normal and brilliant people (who suffer from various bad treatments, like Grade 1 brilliant children thrown into "academies" that are desined to break their will and render them obedient). Book three focuses a bit too much on action and doesn't add all that much to the series.

Eleven:

Story revolves around Xavier Ireland, who is a radio DJ and host of the radio show Late Line together with co-host and friend Murray, a show where callers share stuff that impacts their life and Xavier gives them adive.

Xavier moved to England and changed his name after a major life event that he hasn't resolved mentally, and as the title suggests, this leads to an act of unaction that chains together to impact eleven people in various ways.

As that chain goes on, Xavier gets to know the cleaning lady Pippa and this is the first step towards him healing from his trauma.

Good book, nice amount of humour as well.

The Gone-Away World:

The world as we know it has ceased to exist - anti-matter bombs have ripped holes into reality. At the edges of the world, a weird substance takes form of peoples nightmares. Thankfully, the Jorgmund Pipe exists, filled with the substance FOX that manages to keep the nothingness at bay and thus creating havens for the rest of humanity to live in.

Until the pipe catches fire - the starting point for the main character and his best friend, Gonzo Lubitsch and their team to rescue the day.

Top tier book. After the introdcution, the book first goes back in time to reveal the backstory of the main character and how he met Gonto Lubitsch, a journey filled with a martial sensei that is enamoured with tupperware, getting caught up in being accused of revolting against the government and witnessing a mad scientist developping the anti-matter bomb, thinking they are the big genius until the whole word starts firing similiar bombs.

Writing is similiar to David Mitchell, but respecced and putting more points into absurdity and humour - so basically amazing. Probably not everbody's cup of tea but I loved everything about this one.

Katana: The Samurai Sword by Stephen Turnbull. It's a short, but quite detailed history on the weapon of choice for many a weeb like myself. Its earliest history, designs, how it was forged, evolution and cultural importance over the centuries is explained, along with a detailed explanation of samurai creed over the ages. A really great read, in my opinion.

Stories from a Tearoom Window by Chikamatsu Shigenori. A collection of short stories and lore from the 16th century in Japan. While there is no overarching story line that connects these short stories together, they cover everything from tea room preparation, tales of historical personalities and a unique insight in what the society and it's connection to the Way of Tea was like at the time.

Technology sure is amazing. This thing was originally written in 1739, forgotten until 1804 when it was picked up by an anonymous individual and the stories rearranged and published. And I just finished reading it. Surreal. I don't think Shigenori ever expected his writings to be read like this.

Intrusion Detection Systems with Snort by Rafeeq Ur Rehman. A guide to Advanced IDS Techniques Using Snort, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and ACID. Net security is a pretty important subject for any would-be developer, and having an understanding of systems security is a pretty big deal in my opinion.

And on a side note, Emergency First Responder by Christopher J. Baudour because I'm taking a medical (first aid response stuff) course. It's quite the tome, so set aside a week or so to completely read through it. Comes with excellent guide points and treatment step-by-steps.

Got two more books for May:

41. Drachenreiter 1 - Drachenreiter (Dragon Rider), Cornelia Funke, 448 pages

42. Drachenreiter 2 - Die Feder eines Greifs (Dragon Rider: The Griffin's Feather), Cornelia Funke, 416 pages

Dragon Rider and Dragon Rider: The Griffin's Feather:

Story revolves around the dragon Firedrake (called Lung in the german version), who lives together with a small group of dragons in one of the last few places that hasn't been occupied by humans. But sadly, that place in the mountains is planned to be flooded by humans, so Firedrake seeks out the legendary Rim of Heaven, a place where dragons that fled from the dragon-hunting creature Nettlebrand found a new home.

Along the way, Firedrake crosses paths with the boy Ben and along the journey they become friends. But the journey is filled with danger, as Nettlebrand is still hunting for dragons.

Dragon Rider: The Griffin's Feather is the sequel and explores the themes of the first book further.

Very good books. On top of the great writing, the books are also filled with illustrations by Cornelia Funke and they are amazing as well. Also cool to see the author's vision of how her characters look. Suitable books for kids but with the underlying message of preserving nature and saving species from becoming extinct also a good read for adults.

In my opinion Cornelia Funke is one of the best german fantasy writers and on top of these two books, I would also recommend checking out the Inheart trilogy.

Finished another book in the series. Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

Great read but long as hell.

This brings me to 10 for the year. Still on track.

Weeoo update alert, anyone with more big books to post, try to get em in today or tomorrow.

@Absurd-Ditties @Argile @Asandir @bigfritolay @Boss @CoolCatDaddio @Crink @Dean @Egeus @Ganon-Dorf @GonzaloAtWork @Haggard @HeartHeaDude @JerseyWildcard @Joltopus @Malachy @mlgnoscope69420 @Phobotech @Positron832 @PumpkinHeaDude @PurpleShoes @RainyG @Sekhem @Sensationalism @SevenTheEasterBunny @Simonides @SlutasaurusRex @Tacopug @Teaseblossom @TehPoptartKid @tehslaphappy @TopazAzul @Urichov @Yomuchan @ZJ

I read 2 this month. 🙂

only one book for me thing month sadly

I read Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions.

It was a science fiction short story collection. It kinda sucked tbh. None of the stories were really that interesting and the way the stories were told were sometimes hard to follow.

Hoping the next book will be more exciting

Well I have read one more book. So now I have read 2 books and still reading The Da Vinci Code. I have to admit that the way it was revealed that Rémy is on the evil side was surprising and unexpected.

i have 1 book to add to my paltry tally

Black Run (Rocco Schiavone #1)

it was an okay murder mystery. i liked that the proh tah gonist wasn't a smarmy know it all but at the same time, the book had an annoying habit of telling you the prooohhhhhtagonist had figured something out cryptically without really letting you in like "heh, so he liked smoking? heh, just as i thought - i'll tell you later". it desperately wanted to be a page turner but it kinda fell flat for me. and then when everything is made clear, it kinda fails to provide depth for the motives

i'm prolly just gonna read some YA fiction next

see you in 2 months when i read 200 more pages

The bastard was really a waste of my time