Friday Reads 4/26/2024
I am right her in the middle of a long streak of busy days. I will pretty much be going all day every day until May 5. So there hasn't been a lot of change in my reading this week, nor do I expect there to be much change next week either. Fair warning.
May ends on Tuesday and it doesn't look like I will complete all my courses in the Magical Readathon. When it comes back around in August, I will perhaps not choose a 750 page book during the busiest season of the year. Anyway, here's what I'm reading.
Empire of the Damned by Jay Kristoff - I am finally half way through this! It has taken me all of April to get half way. I am plugging along because I am liking it. We are following the young girl who is called The Grail. She is meant to be the one who can redeem the earth from it's endless night. The story is first told by a vampire hunter called Gabriel, then it switches to his sister (who is a very powerful vampire) Celene. Currently, Dior (the Grail) is in the custody of a powerful vampire pair of siblings who want to make her their thrall. Just now, a different pair of vampire siblings has shown up to take her to their evil overlord. It's very tense.
The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People's Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin - I love a good personality book. This scaffold says that the four types are based on how people answer the question, how do respond to expectations both exterior and interior. The four types are Upholder, Questioner, Obligers, and Rebels. I am solidly in the Questioner spot but with tendencies toward both Upholder and Rebel.
How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing Learning and Thinking by Sonke Ahrens - So I found this podcast called The Read Well Podcast. The host says, "I believe it is more important to read well that to be well-read." Ok. He also has a website. Ok. I'll check it out. Oh! There's a book club. When I signed up, I got a list of 30 important books the host feels should be read slowly. This was on the list. I ordered it immediately. It is generally aimed at students and academics writing dissertations and research papers. But I believe it will be helpful to me when I'm taking notes for book reviews.
On Friendship by Michel de Montaigne - This is the first thing I'm reading with the Read Well book club. The discussion is on Tuesday evenings and we are literally reading 2 pages a day. I have to read each paragraph a few time to understand what the hell he's saying, and there are a lot of references to Greeks of whom I know nothing. I might end up having to do some research.
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky - The book club is starting this one after book discussion Tuesday. This will take about 2 months to read because we are doing 15 pages a day. The host says his favorite book is Crime and Punishment, so it's no surprise to see another Dostoevsky on the reading list. The book club has only been running since last summer, I think. They haven't read a ton, yet.
So there it is. This is what I will be reading in the next week. It seems like a lot, but a couple of these things are metered reading.
What are you reading?