Category: Current Reads
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On not Finishing a Book/”The Luminous Dead”/What I am Reading
I want to talk a little bit about not finishing books. My last didn’t finish was “Angkor and the Khmer Empire: A History of Cambodia’s Legendary Temple Building Civilization” which wasn’t a history of anything, but rather a poorly written guidebook which looked like it had been translated via google translate. It was awful, and […]
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Series/”Otherland”/What I am Reading/Future Plans
Let’s talk a little bit about series. I have a predilection for long works. I’m not sure what this says about me, but if you’ve written an 1,500 page novel, I kinda want to know it exists. If it’s some weird literary nonsense, I probably want to read it. But it doesn’t have to be […]
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Back at It/ “Angkor and the Khmer Empire”/ What I am Reading/ Next Entry
I have returned from our soujourn to Thailand and Cambodia; it was a lovely trip, but this isn’t a travel blog. Unfortunately, on the way back, I had some sort of stomach issue, and so I didn’t really get much reading in. While I was there I attempted to read “Angkor and the Khmer Empire” […]
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Bangkok/What I Read on the plane/What I am reading
This isn’t a travel blog, but I am in Bangkok right now; it’s just after breakfast time. I had a big bowl of Jok with pork and eggs, and the aunties who run the stall apparently find my lumbering frame and desire to eat Thai food adorable. Bangkok is a unique place; things grow and […]
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“Dr. No”/What I am Reading.
I’m about 65% of the way through “Dr. No”, which I started on a whim after someone on Reddit mentioned it and… it’s a thing. The first set of Bond books had some of that good-old fashioned 50s racism– outdated terms and descriptions, but I never saw them as ‘racist’, per se. Fleming used the […]
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Finished “Bubblegum”/What I am Reading/Notes on Process
I finally finished “Bubblegum” and while I am glad I read it, my feelings about it are a little complex. It’s the subject of this Thursday’s entry. I ended up focusing on it exclusively to get it ‘out of the way’ which now means I am back on my normal ‘two or three books at […]
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More about Long Works/”Bubblegum”/”ducks, newburyport”
According to Storygraph, the service I use to track my reading and occasionally provide recommendations, just over half of the books I have read this year are over 300 pages long. A quick google shows me that 300-350 pages are in the ‘safe zone’– the length that’s considered more or less ideal for a novel […]
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Falling Behind/What I am Reading/Future Plans/Back on the Horse
I have fallen behind in my reading, which happens from time to time. My band had a gig opening for surf-punks Daikaiju, which I enjoyed a great deal. The book I am reading “the most”, “Bubblegum” is kind of a weird slog– I’m enjoying it, and the story, but it seems overlong. I like long […]
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What I am Reading
So, I have more or less had a week off from reading– my COVID booster and then some life circumstances have kept my nose out of books. While I am typing this, it will be my first chunk of time in a bit to actually resume. Going to head back to “Bubblegum” and “Virginia Woolf” […]