Made-Up Bits

a personal blog, by Sven Seebeck -

Thanks to all the talk about personal libraries  I somehow remembered that thanks to Libby I can borrow audiobooks via my library. How could I forget that! I already placed some books on hold and borrowed two more.

This will mix up my plan, but I have managed that already, and will save me a lot of money.

My upcoming Reading List - A plan

I have a “problem”: I get quickly obsessive about things in general and additionally tend to be a completionist. When I like something, I really “like” it and have to read/watch/listen/own everything about it. Not always, sure, but often enough. My latest object of “liking” is Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time series. My wife had frequently encouraged me to start reading the series and in November ‘21 I eventually did.

Continue reading →

It didn’t took nearly as long as I initially thought but just finished reading: The Shadow Rising: Book Four of ‘The Wheel of Time’ by Robert Jordan. I think I should read something else for a change, but then again really would like to see how the story continues. So… 📚

Two books that I read lately

A few weeks ago I started to read Robert Jordans “The Wheel of Time” and in the meanwhile I have finished the first book, the “Eye of the World”, in the series. It’s a great book and I enjoyed it a lot. Needless to say that I plan to continue the series, which, with 12/13 books to go, is no small task. I still refrain from watching the series on Amazon though, as from my understanding the first season is more or less based on the first three books and I don’t want to spoil the series for me.

Continue reading →

Finished reading the audio-book of Clive Barker’s “Mister B Gone” during the night. Who thought the life-story of a demon could be both grizzly and fun. The book was read, performed in fact, by “Pinhead” actor Doug Bradlely (Hellraiser), who I was delighted to learn, also has a series of classic horror stories he’s performing. Great! 📚

And no, I didn’t burn the book.

2000 Pages of Sandman

While I more or less binged the rest of the series beginning from Vol.5, the first four volumes I read spread out other the last year with lots of other books in between. When arriving at the last few volumes, in which a lot of characters and story arcs were referenced, I figured that I had a hard time remembering some of the characters and stories. I figured those of course after a while and will re-read the series at some time anyway.

Continue reading →

My long overdue "The Books I read in 2019" post

I’m rather happy with the outcome of last year’s list and I managed to read quite a few books. As always there is a lot of Neil Gaiman in there, and I also during this year have re-read quite a bit of his work. While many of the books were audiobooks actual physical books have made a huge comeback here, and by now I don’t know why I ever though that digital books were such a clever idea.

Continue reading →

The Last "Reading-Update" for 2019

After reading Richard Matheson’s Nightmare at 20000 Feet, which I thoroughly enjoyed (if that is a proper to thing to say about horror-stories I don’t know) I was looking for something lighter and continued with the first of the Hercule Poirot stories and then read a collection of stories by Cory Doctorow. While the above were audiobooks, I, at the same time, re-read Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere of which I recently got the used, illustrated edition of and liked it even more that the first time I read it.

Continue reading →

And some more recently read books

During the last few months my every so frequent blogging-streak from the beginning of the year, turned into a lot-less-frequently blogging streak, but at least I continued to read and write a lot, albeit offline. I’m far away of having lost interest in blogging, but especially during the last weeks I had the feeling that the only thing worth posting would be the “yet-another-book-I-finished” post. Hence I thought it much better, and more considerate to simply summarize them and put them all into one post.

Continue reading →

Another Update on my Reading List

Even though time is limited I try to read on a daily basis and additionally routinely forget to update the blog accordingly. But here are my latest finished books. My two latest arrivals As I of recently “discovered” the joy of graphic novels there are few of those, with a few more that I already have waiting to be read in my shelve. Graphic Novels Neil Gaiman: The Problem of SusanNeil Gaiman: American Gods Vol.

Continue reading →

More new books - Just in time for Halloween

Upon first glance the “Annotated Lovecraft” is spectacular and I’m sure that I will without doubt also order the recently released second book of it. I have the “Annotated Dracula”, also by Leslie S. Klinger, already on the way as well and I have the feeling that more books like this will follow. I have read “The Graveyard Book” already twice this year, and this, graphic novel adaptation will be third time.

Continue reading →

The forgotten Reading-List updates

It’s been a while since my last update, but in fact I read a lot during the last few weeks but didn’t quite came around posting updates. Social is hard. I know. Anyway here is now the list and I updated the Book-Log accordingly. Ray Bradbury: The Illustrated ManNeil Gaiman: Trigger WarningNeil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book (re-read)Joe Hill: Full Throttle - StoriesNeil Gaiman: Snow, Glass, Apples (Graphic Novel)Neil Gaiman: American Gods Vol.

Continue reading →

Two finished Books

I finished the audiobook Margaret Atwood’s “The Testaments” the other day and it’s nothing but brilliant. Even though the faith of the two main characters is kind of pre-defined since the beginning, I found myself wondering many times what is going to happen to them. Also the story gives a bit of an insight about the “how that could happen”. In short it was a very captivating book and I frequently found myself getting extremely angry at the system in the book.

Continue reading →

My Reading List for the Summer Holidays

The other day I finished Jeffrey Konvitz’s “The Guardian” and now I have the feeling that I have read enough 70’s horror, if at least for a while. Since summer vacation is only a few measly days away, I thought it’d be a good idea to plan my reading for the next two months. Browsing through the Storytel catalogue I decided on the following, albeit not necessarily in that order

Continue reading →

The Book-Log

Earlier this month I published my reading list from 2018, and in the process realized that putting it together took a felt eternity. Some books were in my Kindle, some in Audible and some in Storytel. It was a bit of a hassle to look them all up and a rather time consuming endeavour. Sure, I could have relied on Goodreads, but, as far as I know, it integrates only with the Kindle, and audiobooks would have to be added manually.

Continue reading →

My “The Books I Read List for 2018”

I started out rather strong and finished a couple of books right in the beginning of the year, and then I explored Audiobooks, which was the moment, when thing got, not necessarily out of hand, but surely a bit wild. Once I started to read audiobooks two things happened almost immediately: The time I spent reading an actual book declined almost immediately (this has also to do with the fact that I prefer focussing on one book at the time)The time spent listening to podcasts declining equally dramatically.

Continue reading →

The one with the "Murderbot" and other Novellas

I posted a short micro-blog the other day, when I started with the Murderbot Diaries, and in the meanwhile I of course finished the whole series. Suffice to say, that I liked it a lot. Great story, great writing and the character of the Murderbot is just the best. At the moment there are four books in this series (a fifth one is said to be published in 2020 and a prequel on Wired) and it was one of the few books (or series in this case) where the thought: “Hey let’s listen to this again” crossed my mind.

Continue reading →

The Audiobooks and one other thing that I listened during the last weeks

Since finishing the The Complete Sherlock Holmes I have read a few more books, but, aside the Herbie Hancock autobiography didn’t came around to quickly post a note to the blog. This is unacceptable of course. Anyway, here is now the list, because you need to know: John Scalzi: RedshirtsHerbie Hancock: PossibilitiesJohn Scalzi: The Android’s DreamThe X-Files: Cold Cases (technically this is not really a book, it’s an audio-drama in fact, and features both David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson and it is a hell of a fun and I will definitely get the follow-up as well) Currently I’m listening (I still can call it reading):

Continue reading →

Currently Reading

I have been listening to audiobooks plenty before but since I started to use Storytel I have been a bit on binge. After having finished Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry I continued re-reading Douglas Adams’s Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy read by Stephen Fry. I enjoyed how his reading brought the book to life, which also reminded me how much I liked his podcast when it was still around.

Continue reading →

What's next on my Reading List

Many things work better for me when I have a goal, a deadline or something like this and finding motivation for reading is not that different. Now that I finished my last book it is time to think what I want to read next. Dan Brown: Origin The latest book in the series with Robert Langdon. I am already half-way through this one, and like it so far.John Scalzi: Your Hatemail will the RatedJohn Scalzi: Don’t Live for your orbituary John Scalzi: The Last Colony (Old Man’s War #3) Yes, there is a lot of Scalzi in this list, but hey, he’s great and the first two books are like a collection of blog posts from this site (which is actually a great read in itself).

Continue reading →

The Books I Read in 2017

The stats from Goodreads came in the other week and I was happy to realize that I reached my reading-goal for this year. I didn’t succeed with big fanfare though, as I just nailed it with 17 out of 17 books. Okay, the year is not over yet, and I just started reading Persepolis Rising, and still have John Scalzi’s ”Your Hatemail will be Graded” in the works, but somehow I doubt I will get either done still this year.

Continue reading →

What's next in my Reading List

The other day I finally (I’m sorry to put it this way) finished “The Night Ocean” and am now thinking what to read next and this is what I came up with. Even though the I have managed to read more or less regularly during this year I did not read as much as I hoped to. I finished the Expanse series (okay the novellas are still waiting for me) but aside the aforementioned “The Night Ocean” by Paul La Farge not much else.

Continue reading →

The next books on my Reading List

I’m taking a short break from the Expanse series. I just finished reading the 3rd book in the Expanse series, Abaddon’s Gate, and already look forward to the next book, Cibola Burn, which is already waiting for me on my Kindle. Since I now read the first three installments in a row, I thought it would be nice to read something else in between and already have something in the line.

Continue reading →

The Books I finished in 2016

Two years back I realized that I by far don’t read enough and started to do something about it. And even though I made some progress in 2015 I challenged myself to at least read one more book than I did in 2015. Seven books would suffice, which seemed manageable. So, I did what every reasonable person would do and had set a goal in my Google Calendar app to read every day.

Continue reading →

The Books I Read in 2015

I remember how I realised at the end of last year how few books I have managed to read during that year. In fact I was even a little bit shocked about it. So something had to be done and I challenged myself to read at leas one book more during this year. TL;DR I managed, even though I still don’t read as much as I would like to. I planned to read a bit every day, and mostly I succeeded with that.

Continue reading →