Round-up: January 2019

Welcome to my new monthly round-up series. Each month I’ll take a look at what I’ve been reading and writing over the last month. I hope that these will be interspersed with book reviews and short stories.
January didn’t feel like a particularly heavy reading month, but I finished four books so I’m technically ahead of schedule. I’d love to have enough time for reading to continue getting through a book a week, but based on previous years I’m looking to get through 40 books this year.  

What I Finished Reading

Free Speeches
I got this one a few years ago as part of a Neil Gaiman rarities Humble Bundle. It was an interesting read, I didn’t really know about any of these issues facing the comic book industry. There was only a short piece in there by Gaiman, the rest were from others involved in the industry. I won’t write a full review for this one. 3 out of 5.


An American Family by Jackson Baer
I was given this free ebook in exchange for an honest review. I have yet to write this review so I won’t go into too much detail here, but look out for my full write up coming soon.


The Outsider by Stephen King
I love me some Stephen King and while this was no The Stand or Dark Tower epic, it was still an entertaining read. I listened to it on audiobook and the narration was fantastic. I won’t be writing a review for this one, but I gave it 4 out of 5.

Myths to Live By by Joseph Campbell
I got a bit bored with the earlier chapters and put it down for a while, but when I came back to it I found the later ones.  I’m not sure if that’s because they just are more interesting or if I was just in a different headspace when reading them. I picked this one up because Neil Gaiman mentioned Joseph Campbell in something that I read, and I’m a Neil fangirl so I’ll read anything that he tells me to read. I won’t write a full review for this one, there’s just too much to unpack. 3 out of 5.

What I Started Reading

Chuck Steak by Casper Pearl
I was given an ebook copy of this in exchange for an honest review. I’m about 25% through so far and enjoying the foray into a different genre. It’s a satire on the 90s action-cop genre, not a genre I’m entirely familiar with, so I’m sure a lot of the satire is being missed on me, but the style of writing and the humour is keeping me entertained.
The Martian by Andy Weir
When I saw the movie back in 2015 I didn’t realise that it was based on a book. I’m pretty uptight about always reading the book first before watching the movie or TV adaptation so I wasn’t sure about doing things in the opposite direction this time. I’m glad I did though. I’m listening to this one as an audiobook and I think the performance is adding a lot to the feel of it. I’m really enjoying this read and, so far, it seems like not too much was lost when it was adapted to film.

What I’m STILL reading

Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life by Steven C Hayes & Spencer Smtih
I need to get cracking with this one because it’s borrowed from a work colleague and I feel I’m starting to take advantage given how long I’ve had it. It’s kind of requires you to take breaks though, both as part of some of the exercises and to just absorb and implement the techniques.
Altered Carbon by Richard K Morgan
I loved the Netflix series, and this was another case of me not knowing that it was a book adaptation before watching it. I finished watching the series and ordered the book that same night. The book hasn’t got its hooks into me the way the series did though. I’m over three-quarters of the way through so I’ll push through and finish it, hopefully, this long weekend.

Walden & Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
My version contains both Walden and Civil Disobedience, so while I finished Walden way back in August last year it will remain on my ‘still reading’ shelf until I have also read Civil Disobedience.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
I’ve been slowly working my way through this since May last year. I only read a few paragraphs at a time so that I don’t overload on these nuggets of wisdom. It will be a long time before this one moves to the finished pile.
Striking Techniques by Lawrence Kenshin
This is another one I only consume a small chunk of every now and then. It’s Muay Thai instructional book that also includes video and external links. It depends on my motivation for training as to when I read this one.

Wishlist

I added three items to my wishlist this month:
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbour’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
These all came from this article, a list of Slavic SFF books that have been translated into English.

What I’ve written

My writing has taken a back seat to pretty much everything else over the last six months or so. I told my Aunt that I would do the 12 short stories in 12 months challenge with her again this year, but it’s already five days away from the first deadline and I’ve only written 300 of the 1500 words required. I don’t think I’m going to make it, but I’ll give it a final push this long weekend.
My reviews from last year came to a halt when I got swamped with other life stuff. I would still like to finish writing reviews for all the books I read for last year’s reading challenge, but some of them I read so long ago now I don’t know that I would actually have anything useful to say about them.

I have promised three indie authors reviews for ebooks that they’ve given me in exchange. One of them is almost three months overdue now so I should concentrate on getting this done as a priority. Look out for this in the next few weeks.

Other than that I have some vague ideas for articles I’d like to write, but actually sitting down to do them is where I run out of steam. I’m hoping when the work situation in my real life settles down, I’ll have more motivation to get back on the writing wagon.

Until next month,

Alice

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