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.
On Support Chat
Over the course of the last few days I had to spent some time in a couple of sessions in a “support-chat” to sort out some issues that I had with an order (or better the lack thereof, and the money paid for). In either of those instances the support had been understanding, friendly and helpful, yet, a few thoughts came into my mind. These were not related to the quality of the support, which was good, but more of a general type: who, or what, am I actually talking to.
Weeknotes #7
It is time for a long overdue edition of the Weeknotes. Life and my newly found extensive journaling habit have kept me from sitting down and actually writing the Weeknotes even though I had enjoyed writing them. Yes, all six of them :-) To keep things reasonably short I will limit myself to the last or so week. Twenty Twenty Theme On the blog the biggest change was of course my switch over to the new default theme Twenty Twenty this week.
This Year's Gingerbread Village
I almost forgot to put the picture’s up on here but Tiina and the kids’ have built this year’s gingerbread house, or more of a village actually. It is as great as always. As usual, there is some sugar involved and it will come “down” in the beginning of January.
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.
Light-River
From the recent light-show event in the city. I like to believe Kylo Ren’s lightsaber to have been an inspiration for this one.
The Thing with the missed Blog-Anniversary
The beginnings of this blog are a bit in a grey zone but I remember starting blogging more or less consistently in middle of November of 2007 on the photoblog platform Pixyblog (I still remember how I set up the blog in my stupidly small teaching room with a flaky internet connection) and then eventually moved over to Wordpress where I hosted for the longest, yet ever so often tried a hotch-potch of other platforms.
The Ocean(s) at the End of the Lane(s)
Much to my surprise my expected, and already delayed delivery of the illustrated edition of Neil Gaiman’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” somehow managed to pass through the postal-strike and arrived yesterday! Mystified about size and weight of the package I realized after opening that I have received not one but two books! I can’t really fathom how I managed to pre-order the book twice (I actually did, had to check), yet here we are.
A few days ago
Since the weather turned rainy, grey and generally dreadful a quick reminder of just a few days ago.
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.
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.
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.
My Neil Gaiman Book-Collection is Growing
Even though it was not planned in any way, my daily habits and doings are getting more and more analog and I find this move very enjoyable and reading an actual, physical book is, by a long shot, a much better experience than anything that a digital book has to offer. Somewhere along the lines I realized that I could save a lot of money by purchasing used books and use that saved money in the local comic book store.
A Walk Through the Woods
Autumn will soon over and yesterday we used most likely one of the last chances of this year to have a nice walk a through the woods. We chose a rather short walk (2.8 km) and round about the middle there was a nice fireplace to grill some sausages. And just for the fun of it, a fire:
At Koitelinkoski
It was mostly grey in the morning, but for a brief moment the weather improved a bit. It helped that I at that time didn’t have to look after burning sausages anymore. Still, after all those years I like to come back here. It has changed though dramatically since I visited here for the first time about 12 years ago.
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.
A few more Books
I had pre-ordered both the Neil Gaiman “Snow, Glass, Apples” and Randall Monroe’s “How To”. The latter I pre-ordered long ago enough to have completely forgotten about it already and it’s shipping notification confused and delighted me at the same time. This makes me wonder what else I pre-ordered at some point… Anyway, Michael Sull’s “The Art of Cursive Penmanship” is another addition in my attempt to further improve my handwriting.
The Book Thing
Last week arrived a delivery of a collection of mostly used Neil Gaiman books and the other day I purchased these two beautiful graphic novels. Also Neil Gaiman… there’s a theme hidden in there. For the last couple of years I have been mostly reading on the Kindle, which even though nice and for the greater part convenient, in hindsight leaves a feeling of having missed out on things. At the moment it feels much nicer to read an actual book.
Insta-Graphic-Novel-Purchase
We are performing with the Big Band tonight and after the soundcheck I went over to the comic book store. Looking forward to read these.
The One with the new Pen - Part 3
I have been looking into a few more pens recently, and was looking for something that is somewhere between my Kaweco Student Soul and the Lamy Safari. I like both, but find the Safari sometimes a bit too scritch-scratch and would like to have something slightly larger than the Kaweco, but first of all I wanted to own a piston pen. The TSWBI Eco series seemed to tick all the boxes, and since I couldn’t decide on a color I opted for the transparent one.
My Star Wars Lego Family
My wife surprised me with some new additions to the Lego Star Wars Family for my birthday which go nicely in the new display alongside the Falcon. Also in stealth some not-so-Star-Wars-but-equally-fun-figures and dog hair, which is apparently only visible in pictures but not in real life.