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Mandaris

Books

Currently reading: The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison 📚

I’m really enjoying it as an audio book, but this leads to me getting the names mixed up.

Moonbound - ★★★★☆
Poster for Moonbound features a red sky with a tear revealing the moon.
A book so good, I forgot the world was burning

I heard about this book📚 on episode 757 of The Incomparable podcast. It seemed like a nice little distraction and was a nice little adventure.

The book description states that it’s part of a wider universe, but I feel the story is mostly self contained with an option to make it the start of a larger series. The author has even set up a webpage that contains information about the book. I especially like the Notes on influence section.

He even has a video on making the script for the novel.

So check it out if you want to do a little light reading.

Overview

Robin Sloan expands the Penumbraverse to new reaches of time and space in a rollicking far-future adventure. It is eleven thousand years from now. A lot has happened, and yet a lot is still very familiar. Ariel is a boy in a remote village under a wizard’s rule. Like many adventurers before him, Ariel is called to explore a world full of eye-popping discoveries and challenges: unknown enemies, a mission to rescue the world, a girl. Here, as they say, be dragons. But none of this happens before Ariel encounters an entity from an earlier civilization, a sentient, sensitive artificial intelligence with a special perspective on all of human history—who becomes both Ariel’s greatest ally . . . and our narrator. Moonbound is an adventure into the richest depths of Story itself from the creator of the Penumbraverse, Robin Sloan. It is a deeply satisfying epic of ancient scale, blasted through the imaginative prism of one of our most forward-thinking writers. And this is only the beginning.

Finished reading: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir 📚

Finished reading: The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose 📚

It is not a good book. I don’t recall the last time I read a book where I was so angry with the main characters. I think I kept going because my wife and I were trying to figure out how this was a best seller.

I know why now because this book just makes you shake your head with the audacity of what happens.

Currently reading: How to Calm Your Mind by Chris Bailey 📚

Finished reading: Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan 📚

I really had trouble putting this book down. I really enjoyed having a female protagonist in a fantasy novel who has some drive and initiative.

At the end, I’m conflicted between seeing where the story goes and having it end in fear that it won’t be able to continue to satisfy.

Finished reading: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson 📚

And by “Finished”, I mean I put it down after the second chapter. The title captures your imagination but it really felt like it was relying on that too much and then began complaining about what’s wrong with the world.

Finished reading: My Murder by Katie Williams 📚

Book cover of My Murder

Jason Snell had been promoting this book on one of his podcasts. Luckily it was available via Libby from my local library as an audiobook and I devoured it in a few days.

Truthfully, it has a lot of things that I have seen in other books but the way that it’s combined is done very well. I can see this being turned into some kind of tv mini series.

The only complaint is that it feels somehow too short and too long at the same time. I think it’s because it seems to drag after the first 3rd and then the conclusion seems to wrap up so neatly and quick that it kind of makes you wonder.

Finished reading: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman 📚 - ★★★★☆

I’ve never been so relieved for being reminded that I’m going to die.In fact, there is humor found throughout the book related to this very topic.

Truth is, we don’t really know how much time we have and with this world. You only have this moment in time, make the right choice for you. If it doesn’t work out, you have to accept it and make another choice another action.

I’ll see you next week.

Maybe.

Currently reading: The Circle by Laura Day 📚

I remember reading this a while ago and feeling more in control.

Finished reading: Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear 📚

I’ve got to go back and start re-reading this one. There are some habits I’d like to take up.