What I'm Reading

I am currently reading The Path of Daggers, which is book #8 of The Wheel of Time. For those who might not know, The Wheel of Time consists of 14 loooong books, plus a prequel. Books #1-11, and the prequel, were written by Robert Jordan. Books #12-14 were finished by Brandon Sanderson, following Robert Jordan's death. For many, The Wheel of Time is a must-read for those claiming to be fantasy fans, ranking up with the likes of The Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, and The Sword of Shannara. In short - it's a classic. For various reasons, including the length, bad reviews of some of the middle to late books, and Jordan's death (i.e. the series not having an ending!), I have pushed off reading this series. So, July 30, 2018 - with the knowledge that Amazon would be producing the TV Show!! - I started my WoT adventure. I will have plenty of time to finish, I have a feeling. Only last week, February 19th, it was announced that the first two episodes will be directed by Uta Briesewitz. Yay! She has some great experience on: Westworld, Fear the Walking Dead, The Defenders, and Orange is the New Black. I'm hoping this will be a hit the scale of Game of Thrones. Start reading now, people! Oh, by the way, I am technically listening to WoT through Audible. Great readers - a man and woman; I think it's interesting to switch, depending on the chapter's point of view. So, anybody out there read WoT already? Got opinions about the infamous slow books? Do you think Sanderson finishes it up well? Better? Lastly, is anybody planning to start reading at least Book #1 before the Amazon show starts up?

I am currently reading (via my Kindle Paperwhite) a biography of John Jacob Astor, by Axel Madsen. I've made it an unofficial sort-of-goal to try to read more non-fiction, as that is not typically my thing. But, I am finding, that I am actually enjoying my delve into non-fiction much more than I thought I would. It probably helps that this isn't strictly for random education; this book is part of my research for a future book I'd like to write. Beyond fantasy, I really like the whole mountain man adventure concept. I think Lewis and Clark's expedition was pretty epic and fantasy-esque. Anyways, Astor's involvement and accomplishments in the early fur trade in America is fascinating. The founding of Astoria, the first American 'settlement' on the west coast - neato. The pre-existence though of the Russian trading post, New Archangel, to the north - huh! Imagine it being 1800 and you've collected a few thousand sea otter pelts in Alaska (cold work!), and then you have to sail with them along some very cold, icy islands and trek across Siberia with them somehow and get them to be people's hats in Western Europe. How does one do that?? Does anybody else like mountain men stories? Survival stories? Any recommendations for a good early 1800s America book?

I am also currently listening to the My Favorite Murder podcast (shout out to Leslie who recommended!), which I feel belongs in this discussion alongside audiobooks. It has the same feeling to me (like, closer to being an audiobook, than to being a TV show). Anyways, it's two ladies chit-chatting about serial killers and other violent criminals - true crime. I'm a bit late to the game (#27); it kicked off in 2016 and has been wildly popular, but at my rate I'll catch up soon! I decided to check it out after watching Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes documentary on Netflix, which I watched after binging Season 1 of Mindhunters, also on Netflix (which is fiction, but based on true crime). I also just finished watching Abducted in Plain Sight on Netflix (another true crime documentary), which was absolutely crazy. So yeah, going through a bit of a crime phase. Don't get murdered! Anyways, am I alone? Anyone listen to the podcast? Any favorite true crime shows I should try? Or books?

I am also reading Batman Rebirth, through ComiXology on my Amazon Fire 10 Tablet. I'm a bit behind on this one too. I'm somewhere around Issue 30 of this story, and I think in real life it's up around the mid 60s. BUT, they only come out once every other week, and I've been reading one a night, so, you do the math. I'm very excited to get to issue 50, which is (spoiler alert!!!!) batman and catwoman's wedding (but I knew that a long time ago and that's old news for anybody who pays even a little bit of attention; I heard a lot about it at last year's C2E2). Anyways, after the big wedding issue, catwoman has a spin-off story, and I plan to start that too. So, I'm fairly new to comics; it's a husbandly influence that got me started. It's more interesting than I would've thought before. If anyone wants to get started, get a Kindle Fire with a big screen (like the Fire HD 10), and then get the ComiXology app, and order the comics through there. Why deal with paper? So, I also like She-Hulk, a cool strong lady lawyer, who's green. And I'm intrigued by the number of people I see at C2E2 who like Squirrel Girl. Anybody read that? Anybody here read comics? Anybody at least like super hero movies?