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I set my reading goal for this year at just 6 books, which is NOT a lot at all but sounded like a challenge when I set it because I really haven't been reading for several years. It's March 1st, and I am already halfway to that six book goal.

I did finish reading Connie Willis To Say Nothing of the Dog, which was a fun reread. It's a time travel mystery with light romance in it. Even knowing how the "mystery" ends, it's still a good reread because the journey to get to how it all ties together is so much fun. A++++ book, would definitely reread again and I do recommend this one.

Friends elsenet linked to this list of the century's best romances so far (and oh gods are we really a quarter way through the century already? I feel old). The very first thing I did upon presented with the list was CTRL+F for Courtney Milan, who I was pleased to see WAS listed. She made the list for The Duchess War which happens to be the first book of hers I read. I like it a lot! It's a good book! But as previously stated in this thread, I think another book in the series, The Countess Conspiracy is (a) a masterpiece; ( better than The Duchess War.

One nice thing about The Duchess War which is endearing is that:

Possible spoilers: highlight to view

the couple has bad first sex, but then gets better with practice, haha. This just felt so true to life! Because things AREN'T always perfect in the bedroom.

ANYWAY! My real reason for posting this is to say that I scoured the list of books for another author to try, and ended up buying TJ Alexander's A Gentleman's Gentleman even though I've never read the author before because it sounded fun and was cheap enough on Bookshop.org for the ebook. Folks, I devoured it in mere days.

I really liked both Christopher and James, though I did feel we missed out on really knowing James as the book is told completely from Christopher's viewpoint. Therefore, it was hard for me to understand what was going on in James' head, because we only ever saw how Christopher reacted to James' own reactions. There's reasons for the one-person POV, and it does work in this book, but I did sorta wish I could have known James better.

This is a historical romance, but Christopher is trans, and well, I felt the author did a really good job of writing a trans character in a historical setting, so props to the author for that. I had no problem believing that Christopher and James were very happy together; do I believe they were in love? Eh, not sure. There are other books I've read where the author was more skilled at making me believe the characters loved each other.

It's a really fun read, rather light despite the problems of being trans in that particular timeframe. Do I regret buying it? NOT AT ALL. I can foresee myself rereading it in the future. It was definitely good enough to keep my interest, so was worth the money.

Now I'm reading another book on the list, "A Princess in Theory" by Alyssa Cole. I just started it last night and am only a few chapters in, but it's captivating and I'm already rooting for the heroine. It's a bit of a shock to read a present-day setting though, after reading three historical novels in a row.

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Watch me play games on Twitch!
Schedule:
Mondays: Kingdom Hearts
Fridays: Final Fantasy XI
Saturdays: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail Side Quests & Shenanigans

I got into a book called How Minds Change by David McRaney. I'm three chapters in and it's fascinating. The author writes very well, too.

Also been poking around Linux in Easy Steps by Mike McGrath. This is basically something of a new user's guide to Linux Mint, but if you're reasonably computer-savvy, you can probably figure out most of the stuff in Mint that has a GUI, so I've been focusing on the last couple chapters where all the terminal commands are.

Quote (Kane)

Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 24th February 2026 09:33)

Last year I read a couple self-help books (lol @ the Kefka quote; they're books, not booklets!) and a book called "Living without Plastic" (which is just a ton of ideas for living without plastic, especially single-use plastic), but I also read a modern urban supernatural novel called Vampire Weekend (by Mike Chen) and poked my head into the novels from the Pathfinder role-playing game franchise.

Now if we could only get those in power to care about how much plastic [and various other forever (and nigh-unto-forever) chemicals] we produce and consume.

Recent world events have, unfortunately, made me think that some people just want to see the world burn.

Meanwhile, though, local officials here are generally on board with efforts on reducing waste, reducing single-use plastics, and recycling -- in part because we have a genuine waste crisis going on here; we're literally running out of space in our landfill. But getting regular folks to even do things like not put nonrecyclables into the recycle bin has been a pain and a half. (And we even already have single-stream recycling, where you don't need to sort cans from plastic and such!)

I think there's something to be said that we as a society/civilization need to re-learn the lesson that we can't really treat the items we discard as out-of-sight-out-of-mind, so things like single-use items that don't properly decay only give an illusion of convenience that passes the problem to someone, something, somewhere else.

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 4th March 2026 20:38

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Right now I am reading The Expanse book 1 - Leviathan Wakes. It is excellent. The Expanse is a Sci-Fi space-noir set in Earth’s near future, after the discovery of hyper-drive and before the discovery of light-speed and interstellar travel. It is set within our colonized Solar System with 3 main major players - Earth, Mars and The Asteroid Belt, as well as several Moon colonies and large space stations. I watched the TV series first (probably 3 times now, it is phenomenal) so a lot of it is familiar but the narrative structure is interesting. The chapters alternate between main characters. Book 1 is Holden - Captain of the ship Rocinante - and Detective Miller. Book 2 is Bobbie - a female space marine from Mars - and Lady Avasarala - One of Earth’s top diplomats. I already have book 2 ready to start as soon as I finish book 1.

It is a very easy read. Fun, concise and to the point and it flows so well.

I had been reading Ulysses by James Joyce but holy hot damn chapter 3 was complete and utter nonsense. What a troll.

This post has been edited by Rinjin on 12th March 2026 09:22

Quote (Rinjin @ 12th March 2026 01:18)

Right now I am reading The Expanse book 1 - Leviathan Wakes. It is excellent. The Expanse is a Sci-Fi space-noir set in Earth’s near future, after the discovery of hyper-drive and before the discovery of light-speed and interstellar travel. It is set within our colonized Solar System with 3 main major players - Earth, Mars and The Asteroid Belt, as well as several Moon colonies and large space stations. I watched the TV series first (probably 3 times now, it is phenomenal) so a lot of it is familiar but the narrative structure is interesting. The chapters alternate between main characters. Book 1 is Holden - Captain of the ship Rocinante - and Detective Miller. Book 2 is Bobbie - a female space marine from Mars - and Lady Avasarala - One of Earth’s top diplomats. I already have book 2 ready to start as soon as I finish book 1.

It is a very easy read. Fun, concise and to the point and it flows so well.

I had been reading Ulysses by James Joyce but holy hot damn chapter 3 was complete and utter nonsense. What a troll.

Leviathan Wakes is excellent--and you've got a whole series ahead of you.

I enjoyed the excerpts of Ulysses I read back in my undergrad days, but I get how people could bounce off it entirely.

Quote (Kane @ 12th March 2026 16:36)

Quote (Rinjin @ 12th March 2026 01:18)

Right now I am reading The Expanse book 1 - Leviathan Wakes. It is excellent. The Expanse is a Sci-Fi space-noir set in Earth’s near future, after the discovery of hyper-drive and before the discovery of light-speed and interstellar travel. It is set within our colonized Solar System with 3 main major players - Earth, Mars and The Asteroid Belt, as well as several Moon colonies and large space stations. I watched the TV series first (probably 3 times now, it is phenomenal) so a lot of it is familiar but the narrative structure is interesting. The chapters alternate between main characters. Book 1 is Holden - Captain of the ship Rocinante - and Detective Miller. Book 2 is Bobbie - a female space marine from Mars - and Lady Avasarala - One of Earth’s top diplomats. I already have book 2 ready to start as soon as I finish book 1.

It is a very easy read. Fun, concise and to the point and it flows so well.

I had been reading Ulysses by James Joyce but holy hot damn chapter 3 was complete and utter nonsense. What a troll.

Leviathan Wakes is excellent--and you've got a whole series ahead of you.

I enjoyed the excerpts of Ulysses I read back in my undergrad days, but I get how people could bounce off it entirely.

I just finished Book 1 and I was very satisfied with it. The TV show didn't stray too far from the source material here, aside from a few things like added characters for drama/tension.

I also found a couple of Star Wars books at the Goodwill - Tales From Jabba's Palace and Tales from the Cantina. I have previously read most of Jabba's Palace and A Barve Like That is one of the single best Star Wars stories out there. I loved The Book of Boba Fett TV series, but I really wish they would have adapted A Barve Like that.

Without spoiling too much (not that anyone would be concerned I imagine), Boba Fett wakes up alive in the Sarlacc stomach, being slowly digested. The Sarlaac actually communicates with him telepathically through the voices of other people it has digested.

I think that if the show adapted this short story and added in the Sand People plotline that many feel was the best part of BoBF, the show would have been incredible. Instead of Bacta Tank flashbacks, Boba would have flashbacks while in the Sarlaac stomach that included his father, Jango, as well as characters like Cad Bane and Han Solo.

The way Boba Fett breaks free from the Sarlaac stomach is also way cooler in the short story.

Moderator Edit

2026, nobody cares, etc but still going to edit some profanity to keep the site family-friendly. Hope you understand. -R51

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 23rd April 2026 16:13

Quote

2026, nobody cares, etc but still going to edit some profanity to keep the site family-friendly. Hope you understand. -R51

time to post the complete text of Catcher in the Rye

So I've been borrowing a few too many books from the library. I find potentially interesting fantasy books far faster than I actually have time to read them. Well, I've read some of them, I guess.

I mentioned previously that I read The Dragon with the Chocolate Heart by Stephanie Burgis. This is the first in a series of (so far) three books set in the same world, involving some of the same characters. The direct sequel is The Girl with the Dragon Heart, and I've finished that one, and I'm now reading The Princess Who Flew with Dragons. These are kid-friendly books (the library put them under J FIC) but don't let that fool you into thinking they're bad. They're engaging stories that are easy reads, but long enough to present memorable characters and go in depth into their settings, so they're quite enjoyable.

I also started reading Flamecaster, by Cinda Williams Chima. I had some extra time in a library one day and started browsing its catalogue and picked out like ten books...then put like five back on the shelf, and then the library was closing before I could pick one so I borrowed the rest lol. Ended up starting this one. This one's a darker fantasy story about a boy and a girl who are targeted by an evil kingdom. Another book I picked up is A Language of Dragons, by S. F. Williamson; this seems to be set in a fantasy version of our world (there's dragons but they're normal part of life in London) where a dragon language translator finds herself in the midst of a civil war. I haven't started this one yet.

Meanwhile, I also picked up a book called Life Without Plastic by Chantal Plamondon. This book is actually quite a bit different from the book Living Without Plastic, which I read last year, despite their nearly-identical names.
* Living Without Plastic is an easy read with a bunch of ideas about replacing plastic things in your home and your life with non-plastic things. The title is printed in lowercase ("living without plastic"), and its subtitle is "More Than 100 Easy Swaps for Home, Travel, Dining, Holidays, and Beyond" (with proper capitalization this time).
* Life Without Plastic is far more in-depth. For example, before the book really gets into suggesting any replacements, it has a whole huge chapter covering the history of plastics and covering the differences between the various kinds of plastics (this is one reason they're hard to recycle!) and comparing the relative safety and recyclability of each. (This book's subtitle is "The Practical Step-by-Step Guide to Avoiding Plastic to Keep Your Family and the Planet Healthy", in case you were curious.) The book has tons more words than the other book, and the font is smaller, but it's actually written pretty nicely so it's still a pretty easy read in my opinion.

But yeah, obviously, each book does something different. You may be able to find either or both of them in your local libraries.

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )