What are You Reading Right now?

Maybe the Shareef don't like it but I'm enjoying it

 

the creators by daniel boorstein

 

I'm reading the short stories of Conan wrote by Robert E. Howard in the 30's.
Really loved all this universe created by him.
All the short stories of Conan were released in Brasil in 3 volumes.

 

The first book I read back when it came out in '98 and the other one just came out recently, but I decided to reread the old one for the heck of it before continuing on with the newer one. After reading all those Dune books I just haven't wanted to read much fiction and have mainly just been sticking to sports and rock bios while I come down off the spice. I've always been a big Pearl Jam fan and have gotten to see them 4 times over the years including a somewhat infamous concert in Dallas back in '98 when an insanely drunk Dennis Rodman crashed the stage and provided some dancing and backup "vocals" for a few songs.

 

This masterpiece (Ebook version)

 

Is that Rodman?

I try to switch it up. I'll read a sci-fi/fantasy book then I'll read a historical or biographical text. I'm currently reading the Swish of the Kris a book about the Moro Pirates of the Philipines or Black pirates who fought against the Spanish during the 15 - 16th century recommended by my Filipino martial arts instructor thereafter, I'll read a book about writing since I self-published a comic book back in '95 gearing up to publish another book.

I'll also read a book about writing and illustration; for example, I read the Alphabet Squadron now I'm reading the Swish of the Kris, afterward, I'll go back to fantasy then I'll read a Joseph Campbell book he has so many to avoid boredom of reading books in the same genre. I also read short stories in various periodicals.

Brain pickings is a wonderful blog about why we reading:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/08/03/neil-gaiman-view-from-the-cheap-seats-reading/

I always recommend this blog to people who are interested in reading and also artists who have to read manuscripts to complete assignments and projects for publishing. I took book illustration and Language and literature in college reading manuscripts is a must for aspiring book illustrators.

I love books especially the book cover illustrations. I became a member of the sci-fi book club and was overwhelmed by the number of books I received in the mail every month the blog I recommended set me straight on why we read... enjoy.

 

Listening to Agatha Christie's "The Murder at the Vicarage" in audiobook. Read by none other than General Pryde himself, Richard E. Grant.

 

Frazetta covers inspired so many, I have a couple of his art books in my library!

 

That's been on my reading list for about a year now, and I have the book with that cover and the updated one...

 

Really loved his covers for Savage Sword of Conan, one of my favorites alongside Earl Norem.

 

I remember running out and getting Heir at my local B&N. I was so excited about a new era of Star Wars. It was like a new Star Wars film was being released. I still got my paperback coffee stains and all, I ended up getting the rest of the series Dark Force Rising and The Last Command in hardcover, and later Dark Horse comics adapted them into high-quality comic books with glossy paper.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 22, 2020, Original Post Date: Dec 22, 2020 ---

Earl Norem reminds me of Joe Jusko for some reason, similar styles I guess.

joe jusko art

 

That's what I said. It was even more surprising because he wasn't even playing for Dallas at the time, that was a couple years later but he was raised there.

Oh yeah! One of my favorite books ever, I don't re-read many books but since it came out when I was a kid I've read it probably 6 times. Probably more but those are the times I remember. Sometimes I continued and read the whole trilogy sometimes not. That's just about the only EU book I feel that strongly about, I've enjoyed quite a few of them (hated some too) but I wouldn't call too many of them great except that one.

 

I recently finished Timothy Zahn’s Hand of Thrawn duology, and...

...was starting to grow disillusioned with fiction.

HoT was a plodding, nonsensical yarn with way too many side-show quests (i.e. too many characters that all got their own pointless mission), very uninteresting arcs (where Zahn somehow manages to make Luke Skywalker’s the most boring side-story), excessive focus on Zahn’s own vastly inferior characters at the expense of legacy characters we’re invested in (Zahn sure loves his own characters -- which are degrading copies of legacy characters, btw), and a central plot which failed to engage and land, and which was poorly executed to boot. (The Imperials were the one highlight of the series, whom shines only by association to everything else that didn’t work).

(By the Whills, the 90s EU books were sh**e)

I finished the Hand of Thrawn after a string of unsatisfying fiction reads, which lead me to suspect that I was suffering from egotistical new-writer-think-they-know-best-itis. It’s a common problem; when you set out to study creative writing, you begin to see the craft and mechanisms behind other author’s work, and compare everything you read to some theoretical ideal fiction that doesn’t exist but against which all other works nonetheless fade.

I was starting to resign myself to the fact that, due to an inflated sense of self-worth, I was probably never going to appreciate a novel again…

…and then I picked up this little beauty:

Spoiler: Angelman's new favorite novel (spoiler tagged for dramatic effect)

Now, I’m just about 120 pages into it but... the Whills be praised! Here’s a novel, from an (at the time) young and rather inexperienced author that does everything right; the characters, the structure, the pacing, the world-building, the subversion of genre, the plot. Rock solid stuff! Excellent craft! All of the charm!

This novel, which even belongs to a genre that is not quite to my taste (High/Epic Fantasy), has restored my faith in fiction. Thank you, Mr. Sanderson. You’ve inspired me and I’ll go write something now.

 

Listening to "The ABC Murders" audiobook by Agatha Christie. So far, so good.

 

I've only read like 6 or 7 of her books (including that one) but every single time she managed to pull the wool over my eyes and keep me guessing until the reveal.

 

That's about where I'm at now. I've listened to:

And then there were none
The murder of Roger Ackroyd
Endless Night
The mysterious affair at Styles
The murder at the vicarage
The ABC murders (current)

So far I like all of them except for Endless Night. Internally I refer to it as Endless Boredom. I listened to it because an article listed it as one of her best books.

I had never read any of her books until this year. I read about Agatha Christie herself and it said that she had sold over a billion books.... in English, and another billion translated into other languages. I thought there must be something to this. Some of the time period language is difficult at times and the British slang can get confusing but I'm getting it.

 

the murderbot diaries and dead lake by darcy coates. Just finished ready player 2 and zombie fallout 15.