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I can keep a tally of users and total books they've read, just drop in here and say what you read and what you thought about it, should be a fun discussion I think. Oh, and I guess let me know how many systems you own or something. Maybe you'll win a prize! Probably not. Read books because it's the Chad thing to do on a website about trading videogames.
I finished Upward, Inward, Outward: Love God, Love Yourself, Love Others a few weeks back. It was worth a read because it had a few really good parts that I appreciated, but I didn't care for the book as a whole. The author is way too "look how much of a bro I am". I don't know if that makes sense, but I don't know how else to describe it.
I picked up and I finished Bad Golf My Way by Leslie Nielsen this week. Co-authored by Henry Beard from National Lampoon. Completely in line with that type of silly and light humor. The various pictures of Leslie Nielsen and his wacky golf antics are the highlight.
Rex is also seven foot tall at the shoulder, bulletproof, bristling with heavy calibre weaponry and his voice resonates with subsonics especially designed to instil fear. With Dragon, Honey and Bees, he's part of a Multiform Assault Pack operating in the lawless anarchy of Campeche, south-eastern Mexico.
Rex is a genetically engineered Bioform, a deadly weapon in a dirty war. He has the intelligence to carry out his orders and feedback implants to reward him when he does. All he wants to be is a Good Dog. And to do that he must do exactly what Master says and Master says he's got to kill a lot of enemies.
But who, exactly, are the enemies? What happens when Master is tried as a war criminal? What rights does the Geneva Convention grant weapons? Do Rex and his fellow Bioforms even have a right to exist? And what happens when Rex slips his leash?
I finished up Joe Vs. ELAN School. A friend of mine ran into this randomly and got hooked. I checked it out and decided to read the whole thing as well. What a crazy story that had real-world impacts as a result. The whole thing is told as an illustrated web-comic/graphic novel that unfolded many years after the author’s experience at ELAN School. The opening half of it is gut wrenching. While the project has diminishing returns in the later chapters the final stretch and conclusions is fascinating. Such and interesting project. I commend the author for his dedication throughout the story. The whole project can be found at the below link.
Once you get a few chapters in to the story it is easy to go down a long rabbit hole related to ELAN. So many things sound so far-fetched so it is easy to cast doubt and write this off as fictionalized/embellished early on. By the time you get through it you can’t believe how something like this existed. The wikipedia related to the school is just the tip of the iceberg.
Gone Girl - Good stuff, but Gillian Flynn wrote the screen play for the movie and there wasnt much difference. Still a good book if its been a while since you watched the movie.
I just finished up A Damn Near Perfect Game by Joe Kelly (MLB pitcher). An old coworker of mine apparently was his college roommate so it seemed worth reading before baseball season. Nothing special really. Most interesting part was that he shared the official MLB letter and umpire report with a little personal background from his suspension after his "incident" against the Astros. Nothing really groundbreaking though. I'm a little bummed he basically let's Rob Manfred off the hook after having a couple conversations with him saying basically "he's actually a really cool guy who is a good listener". So many people I know hate Rob Manfred's stance and what he has accomplished as commissioner outside of the pitch clock essentially.
I guess I'm prepared for baseball season with a month of spring training left still?
17. Livability: Stories (Jon Raymond) - Read through this one based on Bill's comments - really enjoyed it. Some well-told, beautiful, and sometimes heartbreaking, tales of human experience.
18. If We're Being Honest (Cat Shook) - Couple times throughout the year, I'll take out a book from my library via Libby that I know absolutely nothing about. Just totally blind, check out the book, and go. Sometimes it works out really well and I find a new author I love. Not so much the case this time.
The narrative concerns the Williams family and opens with the loss of the father/grandfather Gerry. The family's heartbreak is then turned to confusion and anger after Gerry's best friend Fred drunkenly reveals in his eulogy that he and Gerry had been living a lie and had been lovers throughout their entire friendship.
It wasn't a "bad" book. There were just a million familial characters introduced throughout the book and the whole thing just felt... shallow. It read more like the author was using a fictional setting to deconstruct their own experiences of growing up, which is fine, but this one just wasn't my cuppa.
I really slowed down this month. It's Baldur's Gate 3. Finally picked it up and started playing and it's just really got its teeth sunk into me right now.
19. Dracula (Bram Stoker) - Another classic that I'd never picked up and read through. Dracula is so well-known within culture that I just never bothered with the source material and I really think I did myself a disservice there, as I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Doctor Van Helsing is such an incredible character. And Seward's description of him in: "He is a seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows what he is talking about better than anyone else." That's solid, and still, Van Helsing comes across to me as humble and he's bloody stalwart to the hilt.
A classic, for sure. Now I emphatically know why and an easy suggestion to anyone like me that previously never bothered.
I love the situational tension that is created in the gaps. I generally like when a story lets me pal along in the narrative and leaves space for me to knit together subtext threads.
Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinlein - This was honestly incredibly boring. I know it's basically nothing like the movie but I'm gonna try to watch it at some point.
I've read Heinlein's Moon is a Harsh Mistress which wasn't bad, lots of libertarian ideas he makes a case for. Also, Stranger in a Strange Land, but I honestly don't remember it that well, but I think I liked it.
The Starship Troopers movie was campy fun, mostly a military story with alien bugs to fight, low-brow but enjoyable.
Very good. Very short! It's nice to have something you can pick up and finish quickly and still get a good time out of. Now for Horus Heresy 2 Appreciate the recommendation
Weird book, I've liked everything I've read by Murakami. This wasn't as strong as Wind Up Bird but still really enjoyable. He has a way of articulating the angst and unknowns of coming of age without overdoing it. Something about the way he writes makes me think of this as a literary form of a Studio Ghibli film for a little older audience. Grounded in reality with a bunch of whimsical concepts woven in. This book is full of symbolism and references, plenty of which I'm sure I didn't pick up on but still quite enjoyed.
> I listened to the audiobook of that, didn't really like it
>
To me this sounds like something better handled by an internal dialogue, especially if you can empathize with hating everyone you know except for that one chick who gets you
I recently put "Wind Up Bird" on my list of books to buy at some point... it's cool to see someone here say it's good too.
I just finished re-reading 5 graphic novels by Adrian Tomine. 5) Killing and Dying, 6) Shortcomings, 7) Sleepwalk: and Other Stories, 8) Summer Blonde, and 9) Scrapbook: Uncollected Work. They are all collections of short stories. The writing is high-quality and the art is mostly clean and appealing (he does New Yorker covers too). I was really into him like 10 years ago. So, I'd saved these. Now, we're clearing out our bookcase and I'm giving them a final read before I give them away. I recently noticed that Shortcomings is a Netflix movie, so I'm planning to watch that too.
re: Murderbot - I listened to all of the books(novellas) so far. Most are quite short (except for one, I think). I liked them, though I wouldn't say they are great. I think the sci-fi world-building stuff is well done and I found them funny. So, that's a nice combination. There's a lot of detailed description of tactical combat that's done well, but I got a little tired of it too.
20. A Gentleman in Moscow (Amor Towles) - This one was a gift from my mom for Christmas, as it's her favorite book. (Which I believe largely is influenced by Casablanca being referenced at some length between two characters, then returned to again in the closing - Casablanca is mom's favorite movie too.)
Wouldn't be a book that I would have picked up intuitively had I not asked for everyone's favorites, but it wound up being a really delightful read. I took my time with it and chewed away slowly. It opens with the titular gentleman being sentenced to house arrest at his beloved Moscow hotel and a wonderful yarn unfolds from that point onward. While a work of fiction, loads of Russia history unfolds throughout the narrative, so I would regularly have to take breaks and go read about Russian history, because honestly, I was just passingly familiar and woefully ignorant.
There's some touching moments in here and it might just be because I'm a relatively young dad (our eldest is three and the youngest will be two come May), but there were some moments where I was getting unexpectedly choked up while I was reading.
Appreciate the recommendation
