Decrepit be a readin' fool!

Was gonna comment that myself. I doubt anyone reads as much as our very own Decrepit

In my neighborhood we've got at least three book kiosks within walking distance. These are little stands with glass doors, in which locals place books which can be taken. We can also leave books as well. I have no idea if this practice is common outside of Maryland; probably it is.

Anyway, lately I've been reading a book found within one of the kiosks: Carl Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections. I'm not in the habit of reading biographies or autobiographies or anything much which is "serious" and "real", but I've always wanted to learn more about Jung after taking Mister Wizda's psychology class during senior year of high school.

Otherwise, I mostly read more 'modern' literature: Emily St. John Mandel is my current fave for instance. Read all her stuff. Impatient for more from Emily!

Carl Jung's biography is slow-going for me; he gets long-winded, and there are times I skim. But it is fun to read about Jung's day for two reasons: 1). Part I'm at now, it's in the 1890s. Electricity isn't even a thing yet, in his old country village. No cars. Death is always at the doorstep, for stuff which we easily avoid nowadays. I hope he describes what it was like when things start to modernize, and how this possibly influenced his chosen profession somehow (as I assume it did).

2). Others may disagree, but I've always been curious about Jung's greater affiliation with worldly symbolism. He's just broader-minded, in comparison with Freud. Freud's the father of psychoanalysis, but he's always struck me as the more rigid of the two. Anyway, I'm learning about both these fellows, lately. 🥃

The year (2024) half over, and me having been totally remiss in reporting books as I finish them, I present a catchall listing of what I've read to date, including dates and times of completion. Unless specifically stated, all are initial reads:

1. 01/07/2024: 1024 “The Tawny Man Trilogy, book 1: Fool’s Errand� by Robin Hobb
2. 01/14/2024: 1556 “Gettysburg, A Journey in Time� by William A. Frassanito (third read)
3. 01/22/2024: 1838 “The Tawny Man Trilogy, book 2: Golden Fool� by Robin Hobb
4. 01/25/2024: 0418 “Steaming Into, book 3: Steaming into the North West: Tales of the Premier Line, Extended Version of 2017� by Michael Clutterbuck
5. 01/27/2024: 1948 “Steaming Into, book 6: Steaming into the Broad Gauge: Tales of the GWR’s Daring Experiment� by Michael Clutterbuck
6. 01/29/2024: 0717 “Steaming Into, book 7: Steam into Troubles: Tales of Trials and Tribulations of Steam Engine Crews� by Michael Clutterbuck
7. 01/31/2024: 1152 “Steaming Into, book 4: Steaming into the Heyday: Tales of the Great Western Railway at its Zenith� by Michael Clutterbuck
8. 02/02/2024: 2058 “Steaming Into, book 1: Steaming into the Firing Line: Tales of the Footplate in Wartime Britain� by Michael Clutterbuck
9. 02/04/2024: 1829 “Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America’s Bloodiest Day� by William A. Frassanito (second read)
10. 02/05/2024: 1234 “Steaming Into, book 5: Steaming into the Blitz: More Tales of the Footplate in Wartime Britain� by Michael Clutterbuck
11. 02/07/2024: 0437 “Steaming Into, book 2: Steaming into History: Footplate Tales of the Last Days of Western Steam� by Michael Clutterbuck
12. 02/26/2024: 1525 “Grant and Lee: The Virginia Campaigns 1864-1865� by William A. Frassanito (second read)
13. 02/27/2024: 1259 “The Tide Child Trilogy, book 1: The Bone Ships� by R.J. Barker
14. 03/01/2024: 1512 “Osprey, Men-at-Arms series: The Iron Brigade� by John Selby, color plates by Michael Roffe (second+ read)
15. 03/04/2024: 1327 “Osprey, Men-at-Arms series: The Army of Northern Virginia� by Philip N. Katchner, color plates by Michael Yourens (second+ read)
16. 03/05/2024: 1803 “The Tide Child Trilogy, book 2: Call of the Bone Ships� by R.J. Barker
17. 03/09/2024: 1030 “The Tide Child Trilogy, book 3: The Bone Ships Wake� by R.J. Barker
18. 03/13/2024: 0824 “The Broken Earth, book 1: The Fifth Season� by N.K. Jemisin
19. 03/16/2024: 1256 “The Broken Earth, book 2: The Obelisk Gate� by N.K. Jemisin
20. 03/24/2024: 1108 “The Tawny Man Trilogy, book 3: Fool’s Fate� by Robin Hobb
21. 03/31/2024: 1736 “The Rain Wilds Chronicles, book 1: Dragon Keeper� by Robin Hobb
22. 04/03/2024: 1811 “The Rain Wilds Chronicles, book 2: Dragon Haven� by Robin Hobb
23. 04/08/2024: 1315 “The Rain Wilds Chronicles, book 3: City of Dragons� by Robin Hobb
24. 04/11/2024: 1732 “The Rain Wilds Chronicles, book 4: Blood of Dragons� by Robin Hobb
25. 04/19/2024: 0422 “Fitz and the Fool, book 1: Fool’s Assassin� by Robin Hobb
26. 04/19/2024: 0742 “The Velveteen Rabbit� by Margery Williams Bianco
27. 04/29/2024: 1256 “Fitz and the Fool, book 2: Fool’s Quest� by Robin Hobb
28. 05/06/2024: 1425 “The Fabulous Phonograph, 1877 – 1977� by Roland Gelatt (second+ read)
29. 05/22/2024: 2330 “Chalion (World of the Five Gods), book 1: The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
30. 06/06/2024: 2116 “Gilgamesh the King� by Robert Silverberg
31. 06/14/2024: 1439 “Beethoven’s Only Beloved: Josephine!� by John E Klapproth (third read)
32. 06/15/2024: 1812 “Krieg (War)� by Ludwig Renn, translated by Michael Sanders
33. 06/16/2024: 1818 “The Mystery of the Inn by the Shore� (1895) by Florence Warden
34. 06/27/2024: 2058 “Enuma Elish: The Babylonian Creation Epic� (also includes ‘Atrahsis’, the first Great Flood myth) as rendered by Timothy J. Stephany
35. 07/01/2024: 1700 “UNHOLY TRINITY: How Carbs, Sugar & Oils Make US Fat, Sick & Addicted and How to Escape Their Grip� by Daniel Trevor
36. 07/10/2024: 2223 “Fitz and the Fool, book 3: Assassin’s Fate� by Robin Hobb

The year has been a treasure trove of riches, especially fantasy. I can't recall any title being less that fine. The various Robin Hobb Realm of the Elderlings series, began last year and finished yesterday with "Assassin's Fate", top the list. Easily some of the best fantasy I've ever read. As to non-fantasy, the nod goes to the various "Steaming Into . . ." books, a largely fictional depiction of the lives and times of British steam-era railroading, mostly at the driver/fireman level. Right up my alley!

My problem at the moment is figuring out what to read next. "Assassin's Fate" is an extremely hard act to follow.

I solved my problem of finding a book to follow Hobb's "Assassin's Fate" by reading a non-fantasy / non-fiction title, "Unworthy Republic, The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory" by Claudio Saunt. A worthy book on, as the title reads, a shameful subject. It provides much detail on how our nation's original(?) inhabitants were forced from their homes and livelihoods in the slave-owning Southern states and their northern neighbors, from roughly the 1820s through the 1840s. An easy recommendation for anyone interested in this aspect of U.S. history.

If you enjoyed that one, I highly recommend the others, Paladin of Souls, Hallowed Hunt, and the Penric series of novellas all set in the same universe. Outside of Guy Gavriel Kay and Joe Abercrombie, I think they've been my favourite fantasy books of the past 20 years.

Thanks for the recommendation. I like The Curse of Chalion quite a lot and plan to buy the follow-ups at some point. Your endorsement reinforces that conviction. Like you, GGK has been my favorite writer of books published as fantasy for decades. I've not yet sampled Abercrombie.

At 1204, 19 Jul 2024 I completed an initial read of “Gods of the Bible� by Mauro Biglino, a recent Amazon Kindle purchase. For want of a better term, I'll label it Speculative Non-Fiction. Food for thought. I was heavily into this sort of thing during the early to mid-70s, reading lots of von Daniken and others of his ilk, laying the genre aside when it became painfully obvious that new entries were mere rehashes of what had been written before, with nothing new to say.

GotB takes a different approach from those earlier titles. The author, who worked as a translator for the Vatican for ten-some years before being fired for translating religious works too literally, goes back to the oldest known versions/sources of what we know as the "Old Testament" before theologians turned it into what it is today, and gives what he purports is a literal, more correct reading. "God", Angels, and so on are seen in a very different light. What's more, the Old Testament comes across as a more consistently logical narrative, if uncomfortable for those of a certain persuasion. Fascinating stuff. Do I believe it? As a possibility, yes. As a certainty, no.

A follow-up to the list of 2024 reads several threads above, including completion times/dates

37. 07/13/2024: 0610 “Unworthy Republic, The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian
Territory� by Claudio Saunt
38. 07/19/2024: 1204 “Gods of the Bible� by Mauro Biglino
39. 07/28/2024: 2002 “Daughter of the Empire� by Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts
40. 08/06/2024: 1951 “The Negro Workers: Address delivered Tuesday, October 30, 1923, at Commonwealth Casino, 135thy Street and Madison Avenue, N.Y.C.� by Eugene V. Debs
41. 08/15/2024: 1052 “Declaration and Confession of Robert Watt�, written, subscribed and delivered by himself, the evening before his execution for High Treason at Edinburgh, Oct 17 1794, published 1794
42. 08/19/2024: 1731 “Memoirs of A Revolutionist� by P. Kropotkin (1906)
43. 09/05/2024: 1624 “The Winnowing Flame Trilogy, book 1: The Ninth Rain� by Jen Williams
44. 09/13/2024: 2132 “Immortal� by Jessica Duchen (second read)
45. 09/21/2024: 1929 “The Soldier Son Trilogy, book 1: Shaman’s Crossing� by Robin Hobb
46. 09/28/2024: 0808 “The Soldier Son Trilogy, book 2: Forest Mage� by Robin Hobb
47. 10/03/2024: 1954 “The Soldier Son Trilogy, book 3: Renegade’s Magic� by Robin Hobb
48. 10/05/2024: 0817 “The Expert System’s Brother, book 1� by Adrian Tchaikovsky
49. 10/06/2024: 0152 “The Expert System’s Brother, book 2: The Expert System’s Champion� by Adrian Tchaikovsky
50. 10/06/2024: 1430 “Way of the Blade, 100 of the Greatest Bloody Matches in Wrestling History� by Phil Schneider, art by Chris Bryan

No.44 is my first re-read of a Kindle ebook, which was also my very first ebook purchase/read. No.42 is an excellent read downloadable free from Project Gutenberg. Soldier Son Trilogy further cements my conviction that Robin Hobb is one of our top-tier fantasy writers. The two Tchaikovsky books were, as expected, quite enjoyable. Gods of the Bible was an utterly fascinating page-turner. Way of the Blade was a loan from my brother I'd not otherwise have an interest in reading. I'll likey buy the two Daughter of the Empire follow-ups if they go on sale.

Oops . . . lunch time!

Books read during 2024 after my last post:

51. 10/11/2024: 1144 “The Heel of Achilles� by E.M. Delafield, published 1921
52. 10/25/2024: 2029 “Song of the Beast� by Carol Berg
53. 11/09/2024: 1306 “Play of Shadows� by Sebastien de Castell
54. 11/13/2024: 0925 “The Greatcoats Quartet, book 1: Traitor’s Blade� by Sebastien de Castell
55. 11/17/2024: 1702 “The Greatcoats Quartet, book 2: Knight’s Shadow� by Sebastien de Castell
56. 11/20/2024: 1905 “The Greatcoats Quartet, book 3: Saint’s Blood� by Sebastien de Castell
57. 11/23/2024: 1115 “The Greatcoats Quartet, book 4: Tyrant’s Throne� by Sebastien de Castell
58. 11/24/2024: 1046 “When I was a Boy in China� by Yan Phou Lee, published 1887
59. 11/28/2024: 0512 “The Faithful and the Fallen, book 1: Malice� by John Gwynne
60. 12/02/2024: 1708 “The Mark of Zorro� by Johnston McCulley
61. 12/04/2024: 1937 “The Song of Achilles� by Madeline Miller
62. 12/15/2024: 0317 “Lilith’s Brood, book 1: Dawn� by Octavia E. Butler
63. 12/19/2024: 2019 “The Discovery of King Arthur� (original version, published 1985) by Geoffrey Ashe (seventh read)
64. 12/27/2024: 2125 “Oz, book 1: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz� (published 1900) by L. Frank Baum (second read)

I not only again read over fifty books, but soared beyond sixty. This might be a lifetime record. Of this batch, the de Castell books take top honors. The Greatcoats Quartet books had an obvious Three Musketeers vibe, which I was pleased to see de Castell acknowledge in his closing credits. Lots of fun. I like his Play of Shadows even more. It has the same qualities as the Greatcoats books (and is set in the same world) but is, I think, even better written.

As for the year, all fantasy novels were enjoyable, and many top-notch. Pick of the litter goes to the various Robin Hobb books. As for non-fiction, “Gods of the Bible� by Mauro Biglino impressed me most.

Due to the serious illness I was hit with last January 2025, I've failed to report my reads. Here they are:

1. 01/06/2025: 2049 “Service Model� by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2. 01/08/2025: 1559 “All Quiet on the Western Front� by Erich Maria Remargue
3. 01/16/2025: 0419 “A Sorceress Come to Call� by T. Kingfisher
4. 01/30/2025: 1828 “Genesis of Shannara, book 1: Armageddon’s Children� by Terry Brooks
5. 02/02/2025: 0551 “History’s Greatest Lies� by William Weir
6. 02/06/2025: 1312 “Genesis of Shannara, book 2: The Elves of Cintra� by Terry Brooks
7. 02/09/2025: 1243 “Genesis of Shannara, book 3: The Gypsy Morph� by Terry Brooks
8. 02/14/2025: 2028 “The First King of Shannara� by Terry Brooks
9. 02/18/2025: 2025 “The Book of Words, book 1: The Baker’s Boy� by J.V. Jones
10. 02/20/2025: 0649 “Lost to the West, The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization� by Lars Brownworth (fourth read)
11. 02/24/2025: 1929 “The Book of Words, book 2: A Man Betrayed� by J.V. Jones
12. 02/28/2025: 1941 “The Book of Words, book 3: Master and Fool� by J.V. Jones
13. 03/06/2025: 04x6 “Fallen Gods, book 1: Godkiller� by Hannah Kaner (read in hospital)
14. 03/10/2025: xxxx “Fallen Gods, book 2: Sunbringer� by Hannah Kaner (read in hospital)
15. 04/07/2025: 2005 “Shattered Sea, book 1: Half a King� by Joe Abercrombie
16. 04/13/2025: 1921 “The Illustrated Tarzan book 1, picturized from the novel Tarzan of the Apes, 300 pictures� by Edgar Rice Burroughs, published 1929
17. 04/16/2025: 2105 “Waterloo� by Thomas Edward Watson, published 1908
18. 04/22/2025: 1154 “The Twisted Ones� by T. Kingfisher
19. 04/27/2025: 0954 “The White People� by Arthur Machen, written late 1890s
20. 05/05/2025: 1929 “The Bright Sword, a Novel of King Arthur� by Lev Grossman

If forced to pick a favorite read of the year thus far, I'd hesitantly settle on The Book of Words trilogy, though oddly they are the reads I recall the least about. As it stands now, thanks to one nearly month-long reading slump and the slump I'm in now, I am unlikely to read fifty-plus books this year, which is not a bad thing.

Out of all those books I have only ever read "All Quiet on the Western Front" and it was way way back in school so I don't remember anything about it

I've battled a strong reading slump for some time. Book after book after book has been started, but can't long hold my interest. Finally, not long before bedtime day before yesterday, I began a book that looks to be a keeper. It's something of a surprise, my fondness for the "classics" being rather spotty. The title? Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, seen here in a replacement cover I made for my Project Gutenberg download, utilizing an image from within the book. I'm already 20% done, with no hint of a slump kicking in.


My draw to it is the 1930 "early talkie" film adaptation, which I'm a huge fan of. I'm also a fan of "WWI in the trenches" books. All Quiet on the Western Front is not my favorite such book, but it's a darn good one.

Not wanting to hijack this thread, but I felt like suggesting looking into Red Baron, a DOS game which may have been remade and available on GoG for play on modern PC:s. I thought because of your interest in this time period you may find it interesting to look at, read about and possibly fly around in WWI airplanes. It's a very well-made game.

A few more replacement book covers for Project Gutenberg downloads:

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, utilizing the author's image. This is one of my favorites to date.

Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, utilizing an image from within the book.

Charlotte Guest's The Mabinogion, utilizing the author's image.

Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, utilizing either an image from within the book or one found online.

As to what I'm reading now, it's still Jane Eyre.

I played a good bit of Red Baron when it was new and shiny. Good game. I never became good at it.

Today I finished The Three Imposters, by Arthur Machen. It is on Project Gutenberg, so it is free. I have read some of its constituent parts as standalone works, such as the Novel of the Black Seal, and the Novel of the White Powder. But this is my first time reading the entire book from start to finish. All in all I am rather, ambivalent about it.

For starters, it's construction is definitely inspired by The Arabian Nights. I believe the author even said so directly. It is basically a series of smaller, essentially standalone stories all tied together by a single, overarching narrative. In this case in the narratives of the titular Three Imposters, who are telling the protagonists of the wraparound story - Dyson and Phillipps - their tales.

The source of my ambivalence comes from the fact that Machen tips his hand the very start, and shows us that the Three Imposters are just that, imposters - liars. Because of that they are inherently unreliable narrators. We cannot trust anything they tell us.

On one hand, this provides the ambiguity that a good Weird Tale thrives on, where at the end the reader wonders, what really happened? It goes with the idea that a really good supernatural story should also have a somewhat rational, even if highly improbable, explanation. If the reader chooses to read that into it. In this case, the narrators of the tales are liars, so the supernatural stories they confer might be all b.s.

But I find that in this case at least, it ultimately undercuts the stories. The Novel of the Black Seal in particular is often rightly cited as a major influence in HP Lovecraft's stories The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, and The Shadow Over Innsmouth, among others. You can clearly see the influence of Machen's Faerie Euhemerism in the Black Seal on Lovecraft. But Lovecraft played it straight. In his universe, Cthulhu is real. The Deep Ones are real. The Whately brothers are real. That is the horror.

But also, the wrap-around story does not really offer us up much new. We have these Three Imposters trying to find a mysterious Man with Spectacles, and telling their tales to the protagonists Dyson and Phillipps with the spectacled man placed in them somewhere directly or tangentially. But where at first it seemed like the Imposters were hoping to use Dyson and Phillipps to find him, in the end they do it on their own. Dyson and Phillipps don't really do anything of note in the story, except to act as receptacles for the smaller tales within it. They don't drive events, but are rather just observers.

So ultimately I recommend reading the two best stories within it as standalone tales: Novel of the Black Seal and Novel of the White Powder. Unless you are a completionist, or just have time on your hands.

I've downloaded four Machen titles thus far, but have read none of them. One, The Hill of Dreams, was one of the first books I made a new cover for. But of all my covers, it is the one I like least. I'll likely redo it at some point, as I already have with a few other subpar covers.

I have now read the Three Imposters, Hill of Dreams, and The Great God Pan. TBH, I am kind of ambivalent about him overall. Mainly because the outlook he has in his writing is that Paganism is evil and monstrous, and I am a Pagan. So it is hard not to take that personally. For example Hill of Dreams was a really cool story about a girl getting in touch with nature and her Witchy roots. He treats this as a bad thing, and she meets a horrible end.

He also treats Nature itself (intentionally capitalized) in much the same manner. The Great God Pan is all about how seeing the real hidden face of nature utterly destroys one, and spawns a monstrosity that plagues mankind. There is also a lot of latent misogyny in it. Primarily in that Machen cannot seem to imagine that a woman can be anything other than an object for men to have sex with. His "good" female character is a girl (not a woman) who meekly submits to being experimented upon and is quietly inferred to being serially raped by the man who in essence owns her. The "bad" woman is the result of those experiments, who goes on to somehow sexually destroy men. I can only presume by showing them her bare ankle. *gasp*. This was written in the Victorian Era after all.

Mostly I was interested in Machen because he was a major influence on other, better writers, like Lovecraft. For example, Lovecraft took the idea that there is a hidden face to nature that is drives people crazy to see it, and adapted it to there being hidden forces that are outside of nature (like Cthulhu) and to bear witness to them drives one crazy. That I can get into much easier. As a product of the natural world, I find it hard to believe that the natural world would drive me insane. Kill me through starvation or lightning bolts sure. But not that I could not handle the very nature of Nature itself. Beings from outside reality OTOH, well, that is the essence of Cosmic Horror. One can never grasp what they are, because they are so alien and beyond out abilities to comprehend.

I still suffer from the intense reading block that kicked in near the end of my hospital stay early March. That said, I did manage to finish Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre� last month. I rather enjoyed it. Ms. Brontë was certainly a fine writer! I have to admit that the sometimes lengthy stretches of introspection / inner conflict occasionally overstayed their welcome. Than again, “Jane Eyre� is far from the only book to suffer from this sin, if sin it be. <LINK> Here’s the “cover� I created for my Project Gutenberg download, utilizing a graphic from within the book. <LINK>

Upon finishing the above, I attempted a reread of Terry Brooks’ “The Sword of Shannara�, the first of his seemingly endless string of Shannara-related titles. Going in, I recalled that I considered it mediocre during prior reads. I now consider that assessment overly generous. This, plus my reading block, combined to make this attempt a DNF. (To be fair, I find the second Shannara book, “The Elf Queen
of Shannara�, much better.)

I’ve since moved on and am now about 70% into another, more recent, Brook’s title, “Pre-Shannara: Word and Void, book 1: Running with the Demon�. By the time Brooks got around to this one, he was a far, far better writer. I was hooked from the start, and remained hooked. Were it not for my block, I’d have finished it days ago.

SubRosa having brought up Aurthur Machen, none of whose books I’ve read, I’ll mention having created new “covers� for several Project Gutenberg downloads. First up is “The Great God Pan�, which was hard to find cover-art for, few otherwise usable images I found online being in the Public Domain. <LINK> Here it is. <LINK> Next, "The Hill of Dream". In this case, PG's cover already sported cover-art, but lacked TITLE and AUTHOR’S NAME. <LINK> I remedied that. <LINK>

I have been listening to a lot of audiobooks lately. YouTube has some really good readings of classic short stories and novels. Gates of Imagination, HorrorBabble, Richard Crowest, and Edward E French are good channels for old horror and sci fi stories that are in the public domain, and they have excellent voices.

Thanks to that I have been listening to a lot of them at work whenever I am doing things that are labor intensive but not thought intensive. I have gotten through a lot of short stories, like Guy de Maupassant's the Horla, the White Wolf (or The Wolf, depending), Clemence Houseman's the Were-Wolf was really good. I loved White Fell so much I made her a werewolf character in the Stormcrow Fiction.

I have also done a few longer ones lately. I started with The Island of Dr. Moreau by HG Wells, and just Sunday finished The Time Machine. What really jumped out at me about Dr. Moreau is that while the protagonist reviles the Beast-Men for being savages, it is the so called "civilized" men doing the overwhelming amount of violence and cruelty.

For example, Moreau is a vivesectionist, and his work of uplifting animals to the status of Beat-Men is astoundingly sadistic. I know vivesection was a practice at the time, and I have no doubt Wells deliberately chose this route to call it out as barbaric. However, he also shows Moreau, Montgomery, and eventually the protagonist as all being quick to kill the Beast-Men in order to keep them in line. The only way they can maintain their idea of civilization is through violence and murder. I wonder if that was an intentional critique of Real Life by Wells or not? Or is he limiting that to only authoritarianism? Because Moreau is essentially a cult leader, with the status of a living god, and is an absolute authoritarian. Wells wrote that part really well.

By the end though, its a pretty bleak story, and left me feeling emotionally drained.

The Time Machine was likewise full of social commentary about the Capital and Working classes. That is something that is usually completely stripped out in film versions of the story, which tend to just portray the Eloi and nice, and the Morlocks as nasty monsters. But in the book the Eloi are the remnants of the Upper Class, who literally do nothing but play all day, and have no real intellectual life or drive. While the Morlocks live in darkness and work, they make the clothing the Eloi wear, seemingly prepare the food that they eat, etc... Whatever work needs to be done, they do it. The twist is of course that the Eloi are free-range cattle.

If that was not bleak enough, the novel then has the protagonist going much farther forward into the future, and witness Earth's final days as a barren, nearly lifeless world inhabited by mold and a few Lovecraftian horrors that apparently eat the slime. All that remains of the planet's living legacy.

I think the novel's saving grace is that at the end the time traveler finds some flowers that Weena put in his pocket, and ruminates on how they represent a simple act of human kindness, and perhaps that feeling is the most noble achievement of human kind. Not buildings, because they all fall down. Not knowledge, since books will all turn to dust and ideas themselves be forgotten. It is all ephemeral, so what really matters is how live in the here and now, and how we treat one another.

Anyway, I think next up is going to be Jules Verne and Journey to the Center of the Earth. I also have a copy of Andy Serkis reading the Lord of the Rings, so I might go with that instead. I also have All Quiet on the Western Front ready to go, when I am feeling ready for something really dark.

At 2058 yesterday evening, 4 Jun 2025, I concluded an initial read of Terry Brooks' "Pre-Shannara: Word and Void, book 1, Running with the Demon". I liked it very much. Smaller in locale and timespan than his sprawling early Shannara entries, I find it far better written. It held my interest from start to finish. I'll definitely continue the trilogy.

But first, a possible change of pace. Having created a new cover for Mary Wollstonecraft's (the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley of Frankenstein fame) "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", I decided to give it a try. I'm only partway through the short, meh biographical introduction, so it's too soon to report on the book's worth or lack thereof.

A few days ago I "read' All Quiet on the Western Front, from the audiobook here.

It is good. It goes quickly, as the writing does not get bogged down like the armies did in the trenches. It is not a standard, single story with a beginning, middle, and ending. Rather it is a series of individual anecdotes that were clearly taken from the author's personal experiences in the First World War (he was a German infantryman on the Western Front). This is not a bad thing. In fact, I think this is why the book flows so quickly and seemingly effortlessly.

All together the events span a period of about 3 years, and they show different facets of an ordinary soldier's life during the war. The Nationalism that prompted him and his classmates to join direct from graduating high school, the grimy and gross facts of life such what it feels like to crush the lice that live on you, or how they ambushed the rats that ate their food (and them). Going home to find that he does not belong there anymore. And of course the artillery bombardments, and a face to face encounter with a French soldier that really brings home the horror of it all.

I was surprised at how faithful the movie adaptations have been, at least the 1930 and 1979 films. They pretty much hit every mark in the book, except the Russian prisoners of war back home.

I love me a good WWI in-the-trenches novel. Read AQOTWF early this year (2025), before my accused reading block kicked in. Its 1930 film adaptation is one of my all-time favorite movies. (The remake is okay but doesn't equal it IMO.) "Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914 – 1918", an early Kindle purchase read during 2021, remains my favorite such book. Its one drawback, if drawback it be, is that Barthas, a real-life person, spent the closing months of the conflict in relative safety, rendering the ending a bit anticlimactic.

I "read" an audiobook of War of the Worlds yesterday while I was at work. Here is a link to it. It was good. The best of HG Well's work that I have read so far of late (The Time Machine and Island of Dr. Moreau). It is very much an adventure story - which those are as well - but this one has a faster pace. There is more happening, and the stakes feel higher. The story does not waste much time, it quickly gets right into the first cylinder landing near the protagonist's home in Surrey. From there it is a quick succession of events as he bears witness to the invasion.

It is not an action story, in that the protagonist is not an action hero. He is not wrestling Martians or getting into gunfights. Though there is a fist fight at one point, and a hatchet does eventually get used. Instead the protagonist and later his brother are essentially point of view characters who are there to describe what happened in this big event. But they are not shaping the event itself. They are simply swept up in it.

Which in itself works as an example of what life is like for the millions of refugees displaced by war and other misfortune. That was one of the points of the story. Wells wanted to show what it is would look like if some technologically advanced culture came along and did to Britain, exactly what they had spent centuries doing to Indigenous populations around the world. It is not subtext, but actual text. He directly calls out the genocide of the people of Tasmania at the beginning of the book.

In the Sci Fi sense, it is predicts several things. First the Martian War Machines are sort of like precursors to real life tanks, in that they are machines piloted by people, armored and filled with devastating weapons. There is a clear line to mecha from here as well. Of course he has the Death Ray, in the form of the Martian's heat beam. But similar things might have been done before. What surprised me was that the Martians also used chemical weapons, with something like poison gas that they fired from tubes. They also had aircraft, which is not a giant leap, as balloons had been a thing for a century and people had just started using dirigibles with propeller engines around the time of his writing. Wells took the next step and took this emergent technology further ahead, and imagined it without the need for a big gas bag to hold it up, and instead fly of it is own accord.

He also goes back to microbes here, and the idea that the Martians either did not have bacteria and viruses on Mars, or that they had eliminated them. This was something he touched on briefly in the Time Machine, in which the future Golden Age that preceded the fall to Eloi and Morloks, humans had also wiped out harmful microbes, and with it diseases.

All in all it is a really good story. I highly recommend it. I can see why so many films and TV series have been made from it. It lends itself very easily to a visual format.

Thanks for the neat reviews!

Today I finished "reading" Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson.

Stephen Stanton has an absolutely outstanding audiobook version of it Here on YouTube, that is broken up into separate episodes by chapter. It is the same Stephen Stanton who is the voice actor (well actor), who played Grand Moff Tarkin in the Clone Wars, and other characters in the various animated Star Wars shows. He's really good, and brings a lot of versatility to the character's voices when they are speaking dialogue.

The fantastic ability of the reader aside, the book itself is pure gold. I have not read it since childhood. But it really holds up after all this time. So many of our tropes and common conceptions of what pirates are come from here. The parrot, the peg leg, buried treasure, fifteen men on a dead man's chest, and so on. Stevenson's pirates are drunken scalawags, brutal ruffians, and greedy rogues. They really come to life as real, breathing scoundrels that practically jump from the page and hold a cutlass to your throat.

Of course Stevenson himself did not invent all this whole cloth. He got a lot of inspiration from the various books about real world pirates that were floating around by the mind 1700s. Many of which purported to be non fiction, but in actuality were short on the non, and long on the fiction. But there was some truth. Captain Kidd really did bury his treasure. He had been accused of piracy, and thought he could get his name cleared by facing the charges. He hid his money first so the authorities could not just take it for themselves. Instead he thought he could use it as a bargaining chip. He was wrong, and swung from a noose.

In any case, it is a very fun, engaging adventure story. It does not slow or drag, but continues on a brisk pace. The characters are likeable. Their actions make sense. John Silver really stands out among them. He is a neat villain to read because he is both intelligent and charismatic. He gets you to like him and convinces you that he is your friend. In the way that a true sociopath can do so well. When in reality you are just a tool for him to use, and a throat to cut once you are no longer useful.

A timely report, SubRosa. I've had 'Treasure Island' on my Kindle for several years and created a new cover for it a week or so ago. I'll give it serious consideration for my next read.

I've not posted my reading log for a while now. Here are the books I've read since my last log post:

21. 05/24/2025: 2126 “Jane Eyre, an autobiography� by Charlotte Brontë
22. 06/04/2025: 2058 “Pre-Shannara: Word and Void, book 1, Running with the Demon� by Terry Brooks
23. 06/22/2025: 1152 “The Venetian Heretic� by Christian Cameron
24. 06/27/2025: 1534 “Jack Sheppard, a Romance, vol. 01 of 03� by William Ainsworth
25. 06/30/2025: 1324 “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century� by Barbara W. Tuchman (fifth read)
26. 07/01/2025: 0800 “Jack Sheppard, a Romance, vol. 02 of 03� by William Ainsworth
27. 07/03/2025: 1930 “Jack Sheppard, a Romance, vol. 03 of 03� by William Ainsworth
28. 07/05/2025: 0423 “The Case of Oscar Slater� (non-fiction) by Arthur Conan Doyle
29. 07/06/2025: 043x “Eve’s Diary, Complete� by Mark Twain, illustrated by Lester Ralph
30. 07/07/2025: 1051 “A Brief History of the Tenth Michigan Cavalry� (during the U.S. Civil War) by L.S. Trowbridge
31. 07/10/2025: 2332 “Lost Gip� by Hesba Stretton, illustrated
32. 07/20/2025: 2046 “A Hero of our Time� by Mikhail Lermontov, English translation by Marr Murray & J.H. Wisdom

After watching a YouTube video discussing the exploits of Jack Sheppard, a real-life English criminal noted for his numerous escapes from seemingly inescapable incarceration, I visited Project Gutenberg, which houses a small selection of books about him. I chose a romance built upon his exploits. Available as either a single-volume download or broken into three downloads, I read the three-book version, which includes illustrations missing in the single-volume download. It was a fun read. Almost everyone in these books is corrupt, criminal, or both. The few who aren't exist primarily as victims for those who are. Bad things happen to them. Recommended.

Mark Twain's "Eve's Diary", also from Project Gutenberg, is quite short but a sweet read, as one might suspect considering the source.

"Running with the Demon" reinforces my opinion that Terry Brooks' more recent Shannara entries are a decided improvement over early series releases. (I recently attempted a re-read of the original "Sword of Shannara" book but DNF'd fairly early on.)

Jane Eyre is Jane Eyre. I enjoyed it, except during a few episodes of introspection / inner turmoil that overstayed their welcome. (Project Gutenberg)

"Venetian Heretic", an Amazon purchase, was a solid, entertaining read with possibly the best-written Gondola chase in literature. A solid recommendation.

"A Hero of Our Time" (Project Gutenberg) was readable, but didn't overly impress.

"A Distant Mirror: ...", receiving its fifth read and the only paper book on the list, is one of my favorite non-fiction history works.

I made new covers for all the Project Gutenberg titles. Here's the cover for Jack Sheppard, volume 03.

And speaking of Treasure Island, here's its new decrepit cover.

As threatened, I read R. Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (free Project Gutenberg download), finishing it yesterday evening after retiring to the sofa for the day.

Subrosa said what needs be said about the book:

"In any case, it is an entertaining, engaging adventure story. It does not slow or drag, but continues at a brisk pace. The characters are likable. Their actions make sense. John Silver really stands out among them. He is a neat villain to read because he is both intelligent and charismatic. He gets you to like him, convinces you that he is your friend. In the way that a true sociopath can do so well. When in reality you are just a tool for him to use, and throat to cut if you are not long useful."

It's not my favorite seafaring novel by a long shot, but certainly enjoyable, start to finish. I'm glad to have read it.

BTW, my ongoing "kitchen table paper-book", read as I dine, is "The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler" by Robert Payne, receiving its fourth or fifth reading. It's a favorite bio, and this go-round has added appeal due to parallels with current happenings . . . which I'll not detail since we're not that sort of forum. I'm now at page 319, just over halfway through, with Hitler about to invade Czechoslovakia.

I've not yet decided on my next Paperwhite e-book read.

The Behind the Bastards podcast had several good episodes on Hitler. Not simply talking about the obvious stuff, but the more personal quirks and nature of his private life. One was how he loved Karl May's Old West novels. One two parter was about his girlfriends. He had seven girlfriends throughout his life, and six of them committed suicide. At least one my have had 'help' doing so as well. His big move to impress the chicks was to beat his dog with a whip. What a romantic...

He also gave himself the nickname "Wolf". You never give yourself your own nickname. Giant red flag.

Yesterday I read A Princess of Mars, the first book in the Barsoom (or John Carter) series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was a lot better than I expected. Like Treasure Island, it is a fun romp across a fictional Mars - aka Barsoom. Like Treasure Island, it moves at a brisk pace, even in the exposition heavy areas where Burroughs is telling us how Martian society works.

It is far from perfect. Early on there is a line about how all the slaves loved Carter back in Virginia that was just painful to read. From there we get a ton of examples of the Damsel in Distress trope, with a healthy topping of Deus Ex Machina. At least the latter serves the purpose of keeping the story moving along at a quick pace, and prevents things from getting bogged down in what would otherwise been slow plodding if things had unfolded in a more realistic fashion.

OTOH, I really loved the Post-Apocalyptic setting this has. Like Lord of the Rings, it is not our standard Post Apocalypse story, which is set close to the end of the world, and tends to focus on how the survivors are trying to survive in the wake whatever catastrophe destroyed their society. Instead it is set thousands of years later, and the characters live in the ruins of previous societies that have so thoroughly vanished that no one really remembers who they were. They just know that at one time Mars was a place thriving with life and advanced peoples. Now it is a dying wasteland where six-limbed nomads travel across deserts that were once oceans, while 'civilized' humans live in a city states where they not only recreate the technology of old, but perhaps even surpass it in some places. But always, the ever-present specter of the planet's death hangs over them all. It really brings a sense of stakes to everything. This is a world that hangs on a knife edge of continued survival.

In any case it is an enjoyable fantasy adventure. If you like Conan, you will probably enjoy this.

Well, inspired by Decrepit and SubRosa's posts, I thought I'd add what I've been reading this year too

*

JANUARY - FANTASY MONTH


Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland

A fantasy novel, where the five most dangerous killers in the land have been mysteriously summoned to work together for a single objective: to kill the God King Joon. An interesting novel, that I assumed (wrongly) would have a tone similar to the Grimdark of Joe Abercrombie or Jay Kristoff, but actually has much more in common with the breakneck pace, and twists and turns, of Brandon Sanderson. This is part of a trilogy, of which the final part has just been released, that I probably will pick up at some point if it comes on offer, to see how the story continues.

The Crucible of Chaos: A Novel of the Court of Shadows by Sebastien de Castell

A standalone fantasy offshoot, from his Greatcoats series, about a mortally wounded magistrate who investigates an ancient abbey where the monks are going mad and the gods themselves may be to blame. Like most of de Castell's books, this follows it's own path, a merging of fantasy, detective, supernatural, horror and some quirky as hell characters. He does atmosphere brilliantly though, and you're never quite sure where his stories are going. A fun read, and I am a fan of the author generally.

The Justice of Kings: Book One of the Empire of the Wolf by Richard Swan

Having enjoyed the blending of genres in de Castell's novel, I saw this which sounded like it might offer a similar but different experience.
"Sir Konrad Vonvalt is the most feared Justice of all, upholding the law by way of his sharp mind, arcane powers and skill as a swordsman. At his side stands Helena Sedanka, his clerk and protégé, orphaned by the wars that forged the empire. When the pair investigate the murder of a provincial aristocrat, they unearth a conspiracy that stretches to the very top of imperial society."
Enjoyable but it didn't grab me in the same way the previous book had. I don't regret reading it, but I don't think I'll be continuing with the series. Whilst the plot was clever and well done, the characters and the writing style just did absolutely nothing for me.

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

Another attempt at finding a book that successfully combined fantasy and murder mystery.
"In an opulent mansion at the borders of the Empire, an Imperial officer lies dead - killed when a tree spontaneously erupted from his body. Even here, where contagions abound and the blood of the Leviathans works strange magical changes, it's a death at once terrifying and impossible. Called in to solve the crime is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricity. At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol, an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. Soon, the mystery leads to a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself."
Oh boy! This one was GOOD! Really, really good. I've bought the second in the series recently, and looking forward to reading it when I get that Fantasy urge again. Great plot, great world building, great characters, which was a relief after the previous disappointment.

*

FEBRUARY - SURPRISINGLY STILL FANTASY MONTH


Still had that fantasy itch, but was craving a little more Epic Fantasy at this point.

Wizard in Exile: Wrath of the Stormking Book 1 by Michael G. Manning

This is the start of a new follow on series, set after the events of the previous Art of the Adept, which I'd read a few years ago. That had been a very solid and enjoyable Heroic Fantasy series, let down slightly by a disappointing final book. Similarly to how Tad Williams revisited Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, I was curious to see how the author would tackle the events. Got to say, I enjoyed this, and will continue reading the next book at some point.

Age of Assassins: The Wounded Kingdom Book 1 by RJ Barker

A fantasy novel, first in a trilogy, that I'd actually picked up in 2018 but had never gotten around to reading. Girton Club-Foot, apprentice to the land's best assassin, still has much to learn about the art of taking lives. But his latest mission tasks Girton and his master with a far more difficult challenge: to save a life. Someone is trying to kill the heir to the throne, and it is up to Girton and his master to uncover the traitor and prevent the prince's murder. Although the plot sounded like it offered possibilities, it also sounded extremely generic, which I think was the reason I'd put off reading it for so long. I was wrong. This ended up being a very pleasant surprise, and I ended up grabbing the other two books in the trilogy immediately after I finished.

Blood of Assassins: The Wounded Kingdom Book 2 by RJ Barker
King of Assassins: The Wounded Kingdom Book 3 by RJ Barker

The rest of February was finishing the above trilogy, as the story had hooked me and I needed to see how it ended. In fact, I'd been so surprised by how much I'd enjoyed them, that I went and bought another of his books that started a new series, and decided to make March a continuation of Fantasy books.

*

MARCH - EXTREMELY SURPRISINGLY STILL FANTASY MONTH


Gods of the Wyrdwood: The Forsaken Trilogy, Book 1 by RJ Barker

I'd been impressed by the previous series. It had excellent reviews. A premise that sounded intriguing.
"Cahan du Nahare is known as the forester - a humble man who can nonetheless navigate the dangerous Wyrdwood like no-one else. But once he was more. Once he was a warrior. Udinny serves the goddess of the lost, a goddess of the small and helpless. When she ventures into the Wyrdwood to find a missing child, Cahan will be her guide. Vicious outlaws, warring deities and an evil empire, set within the bounds of a forest out of darkest folklore. The Gods of the Wyrdwood have awoken."
I'll be charitable, and say the book didn't work for me. I really do feel like I'm being charitable too. Not a series I'll be continuing with, didn't take to any part of this story.

The Girl and the Stars: Book of the Ice 1 by Mark Lawrence

After that disappointment, I went straight into a book by an author I've had a mixed time with in the past. I'd really enjoyed his Book of the Ancestor trilogy, which I thought was excellent. I had quite enjoyed his Broken Empire series, which I'd found interesting and different. I hadn't enjoyed his Red Queen's War series at all, though I'd stuck with it in the hope it would get better. But the premise sounded intriguing, so I gave it a go. "East of the Black Rock, out on the ice, lies a hole down which broken children are thrown. On the vastness of the ice there is no room for individuals. No one survives alone. To resist the cold, to endure the months of night when even the air itself begins to freeze, requires a special breed. Variation is dangerous, difference is fatal. And Yaz is different. Torn from her family, from the boy she thought she would spend her life with, Yaz has to carve a new path for herself in a world whose existence she never suspected. A world full of danger. Beneath the ice, Yaz will learn that Abeth is older and stranger than she had ever imagined."
Lets just say I should have trusted my instincts. Not a success, and won't be continuing the series.

Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
Empire of the Damned: Empire of the Vampire, Book 2 by Jay Kristoff

"It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. Ever since, vampires have waged war against humanity building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Gabriel de León, half man, half monster, and last remaining silversaint, a sworn brother of the holy Silver Order dedicated to defending the realm from the creatures of the night, is all that stands between the world and its end. Imprisoned by the very monsters he has vowed to destroy Gabriel is forced to tell his story, a story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the War of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity's last remaining hope: The Holy Grail."

Thankfully, March ended on a good note, due to the above two books - the third of which is due out later this year. Kristoff is quite a divisive writer, some people love him, some hate. I fall into the love category. Suffice to say, if you've read his previous books and enjoyed them, you'll love these. If you read his previous and didn't enjoy them, these won't change your mind. My favourite Grimdark writer is Joe Abercrombie, but Kristoff runs a close second for me.

*

APRIL - TIME FOR SOMETHING DIFFERENT


As much as I love reading in the Fantasy genre, all the novels tend to be plot driven. After three months of non stop fantasy, I was absolutely craving smaller, intimate, character studies.

Outline by Rachel Cusk
I'd been wanting to read this for quite some time, and it didn't disappoint. I really enjoyed it, but some of my friends who also read it have not had the same experience. In fact some of them truly hated it.

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
First book on the list which was a reread, though it had been well over a decade since the last readthrough. Still one of the finest books I've ever read for putting you in the mind of the protagonist.

Post Office by Charles Bukowski
Ironically, given it was his first book, the only one I'd never read. For some reason I read them in reverse order. There is an incredible energy to the writing in this book, but I think I prefer his later ones.

Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3 by Annie Proulx
Collection of short stories. I'd read both her previous collections, Close Range: Wyoming Stories and Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2, and was eager to read more. Her novels, like The Shipping News and Postcards, are superb. Her short stories are possibly even better.

The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
A sequel to her 2010 novel A Visit From the Goon Squad, which I'd previously read and really enjoyed. This was a beautifully written book, but didn't grab me anywhere near as much as it's predecessor.

*

MAY - CONTINUING WITH DIFFERENT THINGS


The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
Another book I'd picked up some time before, but never got round to reading. Last year I'd read a few Japanese books that had been translated into English, and found them fascinating reads, like Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata and Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, so I was eager to read another and had heard a lot of good things about this one. They're a very unique style, but I have to say I'm a fan.

After that, time for another pivot:

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Astonishingly, I'd never read this. I've read the majority over the years, but because I'd seen the film, I always put this one off. Finally got around to it, and it was just as good as I expected. However, I've always preferred the next writer on the list, so I decided to reread my favourite of his to see how it compared.

The Chill by Ross MacDonald
And as amazing as Chandler was, I'm sticking to my original belief that Ross MacDonald was even better!

52 Pickup by Elmore Leonard
One of only two Elmore Leonard novels I've never read before, and the novel that signalled his switch into writing crime, from way back in the year I was born, 1974. Without question, one of my all time favourite writers, and the remaining book I've never read, I'm hoping to get to this year. So many books, so little time.

The Complete Western Stories by Elmore Leonard
All his short stories from before he started focusing on crime novels. Even back then, he still had an ear for dialogue and characterisation that few other writers have ever matched.

*

JUNE - SOMEWHAT BIZARRELY, ALISTAIR MACLEAN MONTH


I'd been a huge Alistair MacLean fan when I was a young teenager, and had really enjoyed his classics, like The Guns of Navarone, Fear Is the Key, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare. I hadn't read any of his books though for well over thirty years, and all of a sudden a whole bunch of them came up as a Sunday Daily Deal on Kindle, so I grabbed several that I'd never previously read.

Bear Island by Alistair MacLean
The Golden Gate by Alistair MacLean
Seawitch by Alistair MacLean
Athabasca by Alistair MacLean
Floodgate by Alistair MacLean

After the taut dialogue and plotting of Elmore Leonard et al, this came as a bit of a culture shock! Flowery writing, dialogue that waffled on, characters that were wafer thin....but, I gotta say, he knew how to tell an exciting story! I enjoyed all of them, particularly The Golden Gate which was a rip roaring adventure, but I did have to turn off my inner critic.

*

JULY - RANDOM MIX TIME


Holmes, Margaret and Poe by James Patterson
Holmes Is Missing: Book Two of Holmes, Margaret & Poe by James Patterson

The first book was another one that came up as a Kindle Daily Deal, so I grabbed it, read it, enjoyed it, and promptly bought the second for full price. Which I regret, as it was nowhere near as good as the first one. I'm guessing a third one will come out at some point. If it does, I'll probably wait for that to be a Kindle Deal before taking the plunge. Once bitten and all that. The first one was great fun though, a good example of how a great premise can power a book. But not two.

Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino
First non-fiction book of the year. Really enjoyed his take on some classic movies from the 70's, like Bullitt, Dirty Harry, Deliverance, The Getaway and one of my all time favourite films, Taxi Driver. Several films he talks about I haven't seen, so that's added to my ever growing list of films to watch too. Might have to do a "Films I've watched this year" list at this rate!

Separate Paths: Book 2 of the Unnamed Saga by Stuart Maher and Peregrine Anish
An author well known on these forums, for good reason! Buying Book 3 shortly.

The Silence by Don DeLillo
Although the most critically acclaimed of DeLillo's novels have been his larger books, like Underworld and White Noise, I've always really liked his shorter novels like Cosmopolis and The Body Artist. This one fell into the much shorter category, and it was a very interesting and slightly challenging read. Most enjoyable!

And, although not in book format, I want to give a shout to some forum stories. This month also included the reading of Buffy - Book 4: Drodda the Icewitch by Acadian, Jerric's Story: A Nord's Adventures in Cyrodiil by Grits, Home for the Holidays: A Saturalia Short Story also by Grits, The Saga of Joan of Arkay: A Morrowind Main Quest Story by Renee and last but not least, A Wood Elf in Windhelm: Stranger in a Strange Land by haute ecole rider. These have all been a real pleasure to read.

And that brings us up to the end of July, and a quick count tells me that it's been thirty two books read so far this year.

RECENT READING

Finished 07/30/2025: 2018
“The Life of Lazarillo of Tormes and His Fortunes and Adversities� by an Anonymous 6th Century Spanish author, English translation by Sir Clements Markham (1830-1916)

This Project Gutenberg download is a well-written, enjoyable read. Banned by the Spanish Crown and included in the Index of Forbidden Books of the Spanish Inquisition, Wikipedia credits it with launching the “picaresque novel� genre, its protagonist being a lowly mistreated servant who survives by outsmarting his masters. Its closing chapter, with Lazarillo having garnered some success in life, brought a smile to my face and had me shaking my head at the same time. Easily recommended.


Finished 02/2025: 0855
“The Red Badge of Courage: An Episode of the American Civil War� by Stephen Crane (1871-1900) – Project Gutenberg ebook

Once considered an American classic, it might still be. I swear I read it half a century ago, yet nothing this read rang a bell, other than generalities. A good read, but not, I think, a must for non U.S. Civil War buffs.


Finished 08/03/2025: 1031
“Escape from East Tennessee to the Federal Lines� by Captain Robert A. Ragan – Project Gutenberg ebook

I initially assumed this to be about a Federal soldier's escape from Southern captivity, or possibly the escape of a slave as documented by a Union officer. It is instead about pro-union residents of Tennessee who are mistreated by their “rebel� neighbors, focused on the author’s escape, his helping others to escape, his becoming a Union soldier, and his unit’s actions until the war’s end. Covering a little-publicized aspect of the U.S. Civil War, I found it an engrossing, worthwhile read. Recommended.


Finished 08/04/2025: 0327
“Weird Tales magazine, Jun 1937: The Carnal God� by John R. Speer and Carlisle Schnitzer – Project Gutenberg ebook

A short, okay read. It wasn’t, alas, carnal enough for me. In truth, it isn’t carnal at all, more's the pity.


Finished 08/16/2025: 0427
“The First Druids of Shannara: Galaphile� by Terry Brooks

A solid entry in a long-running series of variable quality. The title says all that needs be said about the book’s storyline. Self-recommending for those invested in the Shannara universe. Those new to Shannara should start elsewhere. (I find the series’ start, “The Sword of Shannara�, one of its weaker novels. It remains the logical starting point, though a case can be made for one of Brooks’ several “pre-Shannara� series. I am particularly fond of his Genesis of Shannara trilogy.)



Finished 08/19/2025: 0828
“A History of Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas
Being an Account of the Early Settlements, the Civil War, the Ku-Klux, and Times of Peace� by William Monks – Project Gutenberg e-book

This is “Escape from East Tennessee . . .� on steroids. Brutality abounds. The author, as the book alludes to, is not a well-educated man. It shows, yet gives the writing a rough-honed honesty. Bad things happen here. The author himself is no choir boy, but at least stands for honor and goodness, to the limited extent they exist during the Civil War and Ku-Klux sections. A strong recommendation for anyone at all interested in this era of U.S. history.


Finished 08/20/2025: 1643
“Lord of the Flies� (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition — ebook) by William Golding

This classic about a group of British schoolboys marooned on a deserted island, and their not-so-gradual descent into savagery, is the only book force-read during my long-ago school days that I liked well enough to buy my own copy of. I read it again in my early twenties. It was, alas, stored in my parents’ home when that abode was destroyed during a 1973 tornado. I always meant to repurchase it, but didn’t take the plunge until finding it reasonably priced on Amazon.com early this month (Aug 2025). To the extent one can know such things after so long a time gap, I liked it every bit as much this read as I did over 55ish years ago. A solid recommendation.


Finished 08/21/2025: 2015
“The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler� by Robert Payne (fourth or fifth read)

The sole paper-book on the list, read at the kitchen table during meals. It’s an excellent bio of a not-so-excellent man. At 600 printed pages, it’s too short to do the man and his “achievements� full justice. Still, what it covers is handled excellently. Published in the early 1970s, it misses out on some aspects of Hitler’s life not unearthed until later on. Hitler’s health is a case in point. Payne says that Hitler’s physical health remained robust until relatively late in the war. The book also champions Hitler visiting England for a short time in early adulthood, a view that is nowadays disbelieved. Still, it’s a page-turner and a solid recommendation.

Speaking of Hitler’s health, my current kitchen-tablet paper-book is “The Secret Diaries of Hitler’s Doctor�, that being one Theodore Morell, receiving its second read.

I’m in between e-books at the moment, having no success finding a title that holds my interest beyond its first few pages.



To: Burnt Sierra
Subject: The Crucible of Chaos: A Novel of the Court of Shadows by Sebastien de Castell

This book is in my Paperwhite library. I have yet to read it. I have read de Castell’s Greatcoat Quartet and think highly of it. I like another Greatcoat novel (though they play only a minor role in it), Play Shadows, even better, giving it a very solid recommendation.



To: Burnt Sierra
Subject: Age of Assassins by RJ Barker

I’ve not read this, but have read his “Tide Child Trilogy�, think quite highly of it, and give it a strong recommendation.


BOOK COVER creation:

Here are two personal favorite Project Gutenberg cover replacements made during the past month or so.

First up, an obscure title, “The Subjection of Women� by John Stuart Mill�, created 27 July 2025.

Second, a not-so-obscure title, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace� in the Maude translation. PG's supplied cover is rather decent in its understated way. I hadn't planned to replace it. But, me being me, I recently succumbed to my tendency (so far as book covers are concerned) to not leave well enough alone.