Hey all, Dani here.
Okay, so this last week has been a little better on the mental health side of things, honestly. Yes, I still had quite a few overtime hours for work, including last Saturday, but I was able to read a bit more, and we got our Dungeons & Dragons group together for a session…virtually, which had a few minor technological hiccups, and felt a bit different since we weren’t all in the room together, but it was better than no D&D at all. In fact, because it went well, and because we are all basically staying home and having a socially distanced Thanksgiving, we decided that we have the time to do a bonus session this weekend. So when other people here in the US are out Black Friday shopping, we will be sitting at our computers, rolling dice, and slaying a dragon…well, not really, we are actually about to go on a werewolf hunt, so we’ll see what happens.
Anyway, I also have a little bit of an update on the video game side of things…so I picked up my Switch and decided to do a few mindless minutes cleaning up my island in Animal Crossing. I seriously got maybe five minutes in and got the warning that my Switch battery was low…and my charger was in another room entirely. But hey, at least I played something. And then today I charged up my Switch, and I think I might play some of Skyrim or The Witcher III.
I guess that actually transitions well into the watches because I just finished another re-watch of “The Witcher” on Netflix. I’m really hoping that they’ll announce a DVD release sometime soon. Of course I’d also really like to buy “The Queen’s Gambit” on DVD too. Oh, and last week when I was painting a miniature for the local game store’s weekly painting competition, I watched a couple episodes of “The Adventures of Merlin” so I could have something going on in the background while I worked. Man, I missed that show. Oh, and fun fact…I still haven’t watched the last half of season 5. I know how the show ends, but I wasn’t ready to let it go, so I stopped watching. In my mind, Merlin and Arthur are still going on so many adventures. I’ll probably suck it up and do a series re-watch and finale watch those last handful of episodes at some point though. Damian and I are about halfway through Season 5 of “Supernatural,” so we’ll probably finish that this weekend, and we’ve watched a couple episodes of Season 2 of “One Punch Man.” And I think we’re finally going to sit down and watch “The New Mutants” tonight, so I’ll go ahead and include that here on this watch list.
I did manage to get one book off of my currently reading list from last week, so while that isn’t great progress, at least it’s something. I’m going to try and get a review for Hush by Dylan Farrow up soon. After that, to help keep myself from slumping again, I decided to read through one volume of manga and three graphic novels, which I seriously find to be an easy way to handle readathons and slumps. They are easy to read, generally fun to look at, and they also tend to be rather quick reads for me. So I managed to read Black Clover, Vol 23 by Yuki Tabata, The Umbrella Academy Vol 1: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba, Dave Stewart, and Nate Piekos, The Umbrella Academy Vol 2: Dallas by Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba, Dave Stewart, and Nate Piekos, and The Witcher Omnibus by Paul Tobin, Joe Querio, Piotr Kowalski, Max Bertolini, Carlos Badilla, Brad Simpson, Travis Currit, Marcin Blacha, Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, and Nate Piekos. Can you tell that I’m on a bit of a Witcher kick right now? Honestly, I don’t know, with the temperature dropping, the nights getting longer, and the possibility of all that chill and snow, it just sort of feels like the perfect time to pick up the story of Geralt of Rivia, in any format possible.
When it comes to current reads, I have the four that are still hanging out on my list–and I hope I can get some of them off there this holiday weekend–as well as a couple new reads. Obviously I’m still working on The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson and The Thousand Deaths of Ardor Benn by Tyler Whitesides; these are both rather lengthy books. Ardor Benn is over 750 pages, and the first of the Stormlight Archives is something like 1100 pages, so with my slump recently I haven’t been motivated to sit down and really dig into a monster of a book…which is annoying because I own and continue to buy monster-sized books. I wish I could say that length is why I haven’t finished The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab or Archive of the Forgotten by A.J. Hackwith, but it is literally just due to that lack of motivation that comes from a reading slump mixed with mild depression. The new books added to the currently reading list this week are Vampires Never Get Old edited by Zoraida Cordova & Natalie C. Parker and the audiobook version of Ready Player Two by Ernest Cline and narrated by Wil Wheaton. One is a collection of vampire short stories, and I’ve heard really good things about it, and the other is of course a long anticipated and slightly dreaded sequel to the amazingness that was Ready Player One. I’ve only made it a couple chapters in, and it already feels different. There’s been some equipment upgrades, and now a new puzzle has appeared, leading to a whole new hunt for the Gunters, but I’m not truly hooked into the story yet. I’ve seen some great reviews, and I’ve seen a few horrible reviews, so I’m still a bit wary and concerned.
As for what I’m reading next…well, this time around I think I’m just going to focus myself on clearing out my current reads. We’re nearing the end of the month, and I’d like to add a bit to the reading portion of my monthly wrap-up. I’m excited for December though. Once again, I’ll be participating in Diverse December, and I have selected quite a few interesting sounding reads for that. I also have picked up a few seasonally appropriate Christmas-y reads, that will either be read throughout the month or doing my #JolabokaflodReadathon on Christmas Eve/Morning.
Okay, so that is all from me for now. I’m about to sit down and type up my Most Anticipated Winter Releases post, so expect that on Friday. Until then, what are you currently reading? Let me know in the comments, because no matter what goes on in this world, I am always happy to talk about books (and D&D, but this is primarily a book blog so…lol), and I will be back soon with more bookish content.
Free State of Geek 