What are you reading?

[Danster]

Reading anything interesting?

I enjoy reading, but I'm a slow reader. My wife races through a book a week; however, in the rare instance where we've read the same book, I'll try and discuss it with her but she won't remember anything that happened. So I read slow but take it in, she reads fast but doesn't retain it. I think I prefer my method.

I also struggle to get engrossed in more than one or two books. This becomes a problem because for the last year or two, I have been reading book series to my kids. To my youngest (6) I'm reading the Harry Potter books and we're halfway through book 4. That's fine, I know the books well having read them myself and to my other kids. However, at the same time I've been reading Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy to my son (10), which I hadn't read before. So I haven't really had any brain space for taking on anything just for myself.

Anyway, we've finished Pullman's trilogy (and both really, really enjoyed it), so now I am going to achieve a long-standing ambition and I'm going to read The Hobbit, followed by the Lord of the Rings trilogy, to my son. I read The Hobbit as a child, but believe it or not I've never read Lord of the Rings. All four books will take us over a year to read I suspect. I won't let him watch the films until we've finished!

[General Ceel]

For years one of the ways I kept my youtube channel populated with new videos was by reading and reviewing short stories. I kind of got burnt out on that and moved away from it for most of 2023. But as we speak I'm gearing up to dive back into it. 4 to 5 years ago I read and reviewed 68 H.P. Lovecraft short stories. Those were his main works. Now i've tracked down the rest of his minor prose work - these are stories where he worked as cowriter, or revised the work of others. I'm looking forward to finishing my journey through his work.

On a similar note, I've read and reviewed 200 short stories by Ray Bradbury. By some accounts, he may have written around 600, and I fully intend to track them all down eventually.

More generally, I guess I don't read as many novels as I used to. Every year or two I'll reread the major Tolkien works, and a few other favorite works from other authors. Its a time and focus thing. Novels take longer to read, and while I read reasonably fast, if I'm focused on a short story collection I'm less likely to also open up a novel at the same time.

[Danster]

I should probably delve into the short-story realm. It will generally take me three weeks to read a novel, sometimes four. In part because I am a slow reader, but I generally only read before going to bed and some days I'm just too exhausted to do anything other than shut my eyes when I get into bed.

[General Ceel]

Short stories are so underrated. You should definitely pick up an anthology to read through.

[General Ceel]

Poetry and the Gods - HP Lovecraft (1920)
Review: https://youtu.be/CgxRJivvohY?si=p6mZsnlgludDWqnX

[Danster]

Jason Plato's How Not to Be a Racing Driver.

[General Ceel]

"The Crawling Chaos" will be the next story I read.

[General Ceel]

The Horror at Martin's Beach: https://youtu.be/hGIbdvH4eW4?si=_35OZTil-xHXY7XH

By H.P. Lovecraft and his wife Sonia Greene. About a sea monster.

[Danster]

I'm up to Chapter 4 of The Hobbit with my boy. It's slow-going because he has so many clubs and after-school engagements so we don't always get a chance to get a few pages in before bedtime.

[General Ceel]

^ pretty cool that you are sharing The Hobbit with him. Less cool about having "so many clubs and after-school engagements" already at that age.