I love my fruit bat bookmark by Little Gold Fox I got while in Portland last month!

What a fun, beautifully made book! The text can be read through in about an hour or so, but each page just looks so good, with large, high detailed images. It is cool to read through some of the design inspirations, and they even discuss some retcons. I'd love to own this eventually.

Meh. I guess if I had done a little research on the Color series, I would have known that they all feature their hero pining over someone they lost. I guess I wasn't in the mood for Cap mourning Bucky so soon after reading Matt Murdock's story. Or maybe I just don't find Captain America to be that interesting. Even Sale's art seemed uninspired. And, if I hadn't seen the MCU movies, I would have had no idea who anyone in this comic was.

I wanted to like this much more than I did. I felt the world was just too vague. I love Luli's story, and if it played as a slightly heightened Hollywood tale, it would have been excellent, but there was too much magic with no real explanation or purpose. I kept expecting it to come into play somehow significant, but there just kept being teases of something more that was never explored. More magic or less magic, but this balance wasn't right.

One review called this the most Baz-Luhrmann-ie Baz Luhrmann movie. After almost 9 years, I'm so excited!

The fight continues...

I am reminded every few years of this philosophical exercise, and it is never not relevant...

https://youtu.be/SWlUKJIMge4

I was reading this Goosebumps classic in a treehouse my dad built. A storm was brewing, and I read a line, something along the lines of 'he opened door and was hit with a blast of stale air' just as a gust of wind shook the tree house. I promptly closed the book and ran inside 😆 #throwbackthursday

@MoonWitch94 #thoughtfulthursday
📖 🤖🌗🛸👾🌌🚀
📖 I have been getting a little bored with contemporary fiction; it feels like there isn't much originality. Sci fi offers so many new options.
📖 I don't think I've ever been enticed by a title... Can't be sure, though...

Did you know that Daredevil's yellow suit only appeared in his first 4 issues? I bought this book a while ago with a couple other Daredevil titles, intending to read them around the same time, but since Tim Sale's death, I decided to read this one at least. A sort of Year One story, Matt is writing a letter to Karen (who has died?) looking back on their early time together. A perfect intro for those who watched the Netflix shows.

😁

R.I.P. Tim Sale

A couple highlights from this very entertaining collection of comedy haikus.

Not all that interesting. Maybe I take too long between volumes, but I really don't have a good grasp on Valance's character. He seems to be a little all over the place. There wasn't much meat to bite into here, lots of skipping around, and huge gaps in time that make no sense if you haven't read more of the Way of the Bounty Hunters tie ins.

A pretty solid collection of poems and other writings. Deals a lot with race, hence the title. There is an odd secretion in the middle where he pivots to transcriptions of conversations he had with some friends. Overall, a decent read.

It is rare and wonderful when you find such an original story. I have been wanting to delve into Mosley's work for a while, and this did not disappoint. Somewhat reminiscent of Flowers for Algernon, but dealing with themes of race and aging, a 91 year old man is pulled out of his dementia stupor by a caring teen and an experimental drug. Beautifully written, and one of my new favorite final lines.

What an absolutely delightful listen! Brooks breezes through his life and career with all the charm and humor he has always shown. He is a natural born storyteller, and listening to him narrate is a wonderful experience. He seems to have valued every experience, always finding the positive side. This is not a gossip book; he has nothing but praise for his friends and collaborators, taking pain to mention most of them by name. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

If you haven't read what has become one of the most challenged books of all time, make sure to seek it out this Pride Month. It is available on hoopla if you can't find it at your local bookstore or library. Absolutely essential reading.

My Powell's #bookhaul

I'm not sure it was okay for them to be selling an ARC of Drowned Girls, but I was on a budget and couldn't afford the hardcover🤷

Our vacation to Portland was absolutely packed! Only had one morning to read, but I'll post a book haul in the next couple days. Lots of nature, lots of beer, our first indoor concert since the pandemic (Bastille), and lots of time with my wife's family. 6 more hours of driving tomorrow, and I wisely took an extra day off Tuesday 😁

- On the beaches of Florin looking out on the Cliffs of Insanity
- Fezzik, DPR, Wesley, and Buttercup
- Fezzik's stew, MLT sandwiches, and dessert from Miracle Max

#thoughtfulthursday @MoonWitch94

Holly Gibney. She really escalated the Bill Hodges trilogy, and even got her own spin-off. Strong supporting characters are only an issue if the main character is weak.

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView

West coast mecca

I tend to impulse by anything that references Mark Twain, so I picked up this independently published graphic novel while visiting Arti Facts in Hood River, OR. It details the 2001 Cincinnati Riots. Released a decade after the riots, and a decade prior to the uprising surrounding George Floyd, I am still processing the facts that 30 years of protests have produced 0 change...

Finally relaxing in our hotel room after 16 hours of driving over two days. Spending a week in Portland, OR. We are just two blocks from Powell's! Bastille concert, day trip to the coast (i.e. down the shore), waterfall hikes, and some family time with the in-laws. I was looking for something light on my Kindle to read, and remembered I downloaded a Goosebumps collection 😁

A short collection of biographical stories from the author's youth. He has not yet fully acknowledged his queerness by the end, but he details several scenarios that begin to open some doors, as well as some general stories about growing up in an Indian home.

💠 Listening to Mel Brooks' new autobiography. If I had gotten the book, I'd have just read the whole thing with his voice in my head anyway
💠 Digital audiobook
💠⭐⭐⭐ for his adolescence. I'm sure it'll jump to 5 stars when it gets to the good stuff, but I could listen to him talk all day regardless
💠 Nothing. I just read back a few pages if I forget something or lose my focus.
#thoughtfulthursday @MoonWitch94

A decent lecture on personal struggles and lessons learned from lock down. Sounds like the actual presentation was very visually heavy, but I thought the text was fine on its own.

So excited to start this book on audio. A friggin' legend!

Pretty interesting, but about half way through it started to get really random and seemed to lose any narrative thread. Maybe a narrative thread wasn't planned, but the topics seemed to be plucked out of thin air and it ended so abruptly I don't know if he was trying to make a statement with the final chapter or if he just ran out of things to talk about. Still, easy to digest ideas and useful topics.

I hear a lot about how great Carrie's shows and writing are, but I was a little underwhelmed with this audio. I think I would have liked more of a memoir, but this was an adaptation of a stage show. I mean, she opens saying that she had electroshock therapy and that it affected her memory, but that's it, and I'd be interested in learning more. Some amusing anecdotes, but overall a bit scattered.

I read Dune in 2009. I was taking the train every morning to Philly for work. I have never not read, and there were some good reads while I was in AmeriCorps, but Dune really got me back into reading for fun after college. I remember reading while walking through the train terminals and down Market Street because I didn't want to put it down. I'm about an hour into the new Dune movie, and it's bringing back a lot of memories of the book!

I really enjoyed this audio. I liked the way the footnotes were incorporated, as they are essential to the humor of the book and making it more accessible. The cast of The Good Place read all the quotations and references while the author expertly reads the rest of the text. Good as a companion piece to The Good Place or on its own as an introduction to moral philosophy, which more people should be aware of in this day and age.

1. New book: Gallant by V. E. Schwab. Old book: 'Salems Lot by Stephen King

2. Yes. For some reason, I am often able to focus better when I have something to block out.

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView

Won this ARC from Tor.com Instagram page! Not sure if I'll get to it before vacation, but I'm looking forward to reading it. I love classic Hollywood.

A bit of a bleak read, but short and powerful. I would suggest a little research on the radium girls before picking this up. It is an alternate history novella where elephants are brought in to replace radium girls because they are dexterous with their trunks and their mass means the poison takes longer to set in. Like I said, bleak. But the three POV s are very well written and it is a solid story.

Pretty cool, pretty creepy. Definitely would have been better as an occasional entry on a blog. Less effective flipping through them all at once in a book. Still, a great concept well executed.

A very powerful novel in verse about a young woman whose father signs his own names to her painting. Someone who orders a commission then rapes her and she must debate bringing charges against him in a world where she doesn't have a voice.

Books and booze on #independentbookstoreday
Drove to Carbondale, CO for White River Books and Marble Distillery, and Basalt for Bookbinders and Capitol Creek Brewery. Also stopped at Tesseract Comics in Glenwood Springs because #comicscount :)

Something I appreciate with the juvenile tie-ins is that they have a line or two of dialogue directly from the main books to mark their place in the larger story. They are not essential reads, but they do a good job of filling out the events of the other books. The children's picture books are fluff, but it's nice sometimes to have a visual of certain character, species, or events.

I may have been 15 minutes late to work today finishing this book. The Republic Fair is set to be a spectacle for the Galaxy to marvel at, but it is also a prime target for the Nihil. Pulls in a great new anti-hero character from the comics and provides a well-paced thrilling story.

It's bottling day! Did my first homebrew. It was a lot of fun and tastes pretty good so far. 2 weeks to bottle condition, then it will be ready to share. Already looking towards the next batch 😁

A great children's book detailing the life of the absolute badass Bass Reeves. A review I read said something about it putting Reeves on a pedestal, but when there are so many children's books praising problematic figures like Christopher Columbus and Alexander Graham Bell, I have no qualms turning this man into a legendary figure.

Very cool story. Dr. Strange is murdered, but he removed his body for a week from the timeline so he could set his affairs in the case of his death. It, of course, correlates with a interdimensional, world-ending threat, but the murder mystery is really cool.

Illustrated and adapted by a veteran Pixar animator, this is a beautiful retelling of a 2500-year-old legend, whittled down from three thousand pages of text to a much more manageable graphic novel. Amazing art and a good story

An interesting and unique read. Basically a book of poems that tell a linear story. So much is conveyed with very few words. Highly recommended one-sitting short novel.

If you have any spark of interest in ASL or language in general, this is a great read. Unfortunately, despite multiple efforts, I have no knowledge of ASL, but the history and development discussed here is fascinating. I would say there is not too much about the village being studied, but that aspect is used as a jumping off point to delve into discussion of language, both spoken and signed. Lots of amazing research and well written.

Garbage. Here's the gist: if you want to eat healthier, start with one serving of fruit or vegetable a day. Want to work out more, start with one pushup or ten jumping jacks. There are very few actionable items given, and A LOT of filler, mostly common sense (diets don't work, processed foods are bad, etc.), but presented here as if he has come from the mountain top with revelatory information. Very full of himself, but aren't most self-help folk?

Another great entry into the High Republic series. An excellent mystery surrounding an abandoned space station. Great new species and dangers. Also, Geode is amazing!