May in Books

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t read much in May. The month started with Christopher Paolini’s To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, a monumental 1200-page space opera. I think that wore me down and I mostly chilled without books after that.

Best

  • To Sleep in a Sea of Stars – 5/5, a book I enjoyed and touched me, despite its absurd size.
  • Howl’s Moving Castle – 5/5, a sweet low-stakes fantasy story. It’s not the type of book you can binge but it is kind of cool the way Legends and Lattes is. Something that can flush your brain a bit if you feel down.
  • City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett – 5/5, an epic dark fantasy, almost steampunk, where tech faces miracles and gods. It has an unique world and even better developed characters than City of Stairs. Robert Bennet is clearly a very strong fantasy author. Looking forward to finding his other works.

Worst

  • The Belgariad #2 – DNF at around 30%.

I think this is is the worst month for reading since I started writing the monthly reports here. However, the 3 books I completed were all great, so it evens things out a bit.

My first impactful books

~ Veselin ~ 9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What’s the first book you ever finished and still remember to this day?
View all responses

The first was a comic from a series called Daga (Rainbow). My first Daga was number 14, and I don’t think I was able to read when I got it. The Daga series featured stories from popular books, including the entire Hobbit, from start to finish. There were also lots of space stories, things you can try to draw yourself.

Then came children’s books, like Pinocchio, Alice, Pippi, and so on. Then came pirates, adventure, the Wild West, Dumas, and Jules Verne. By the age of 10, I was already in the hundreds of books finished, but there was no Goodreads, and it’s difficult to say for sure. My mom would frequently bring me fresh books from the library.

There were several milestone books that had a big impact on me:

  • Pippi Longstocking – for its unlimited re-readability and for showing true friendship.
  • Winnetou – it’s difficult to say what I saw in this one. I guess it was a certain moral superiority in the main characters that looked appealing at the time.
  • The Three Musketeers – the first half is just so satisfying, with imperfect characters following their paths and accepting the present.
  • The Lord of the Rings – for the depth of its world-building.
  • Foundation – for introducing me to the world of truly great science fiction.

Now that I look to my book reviews, I still read Fantasy and Sci-Fi, occasional adventure/pirates, and some of the folks who published Daga keep impacting the gamebook genre to this day. Lost interest to the Wild West.

What if…

~ Veselin ~ 11 Comments
Daily writing prompt
If you had an unlimited budget for 24 hours, what would you do?
View all responses

Given that:

I’d try to build a vault full of gold and enjoy it for a bit, think Uncle Scrooge.

This little fellow doesn’t know the concept of money or budgeting, and appeared to be happy.

Roses

~ Veselin ~ 12 Comments

This is the best season in Sofia. Warm without being too hot, sunny with some rain. Long days. Flowers.

And a new cat showed up in the yard. Or at least I don’t remember seeing her before.