If I were to ask myself last year summer that I was going to read a lot of books in the coming year I'd probably say "Yeah right." or something to that extent. But low and behold I have read A TON of books since reading Norwegian Wood. And guess what? Not a lot of them were as good as Norwegian Wood! Some were! The others were still pretty good though!......!
But yeah, I'm not sure why, but I've kept on reading books with no real end on site. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I get all my books on my phone. It's not something I thought I'd end up doing when I got my first "Smart Phone" but hey, here I am reading books. Honestly, I thought I'd just play mobile games and check out twitter or something. But most mobile games suck (Sorry I meant "Not for me"), and twitter is well... twitter!So the notion of needing a time waster eventually became reading books.
At first, I was so in love with Murakami, that I thought I'd try and read all of his works. 3 multiple dimensions later, that kinda got boring. So I just kinda moved on from there and found out about Brandon Sanderson and these "Mistborn" books and well, welcome to the fantasy genre Almeda!
Looking back I'm pretty sure I read about 19 books in the span of about 13 months. So that's just about a book or so a month. I don't even think I ever finished a game month in my entire life of loving games. But I still love them vid games! Really! I do! It's just, I don't know! You can kinda just quickly read through a part you don't like in a book. When you play a bad level in a game, you have to play through that level.
I've always been a story guy in video games, so I guess it comes as no surprise that I'd like books. I just didn't know how much. I am 100% way more infatuated with books then I ever had been. Reading books like Mistborn and realizing how much detail you can put into a story, making it last as long as you want. Or reading a book like Moth Saga which pretty much cuts the bullshit and gets directly to the point of the story. It amazes me the way a person will craft a story. It amazes me the different ways they go about telling a story. It's just all very very amazing. Good books and bad. Seeing how people do their thing and do it so differently is just amazing.
I mean, I guess that's the same for video games right? With there different genre's and ways they present the story? He wait, I talked about some books but I wanted to write a list about all the books I read.
So hey! List!
Norwegian Wood- The book that started it all. I've contemplated reading this book again but I rarely replay games. So re-reading a book should follow the same logic. As far as I remember, it's still the best book I've read.
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage- Still onboard the Murakami train, this book is pretty much the only physical book I have (accept for one other I guess). I really did like this book. So much so that I actually finished it that very day. That was a pretty amazing feat. It's probably still my second favourite book by Murakami.
The Blood King (The Summoner 2)- So that first book I read turned out to have more. Way more infact. But I'd actually like to think of this as the end of the series. Prince Drakye slays his evil half brother and becomes king. What more do I need to know? I don't know. I just felt like for a 60ish chapters book. Almost 40 of it was training Drayke, 15 of it traveling back to Drayke's home, and then 5 about him winning it back. It kinda drags I guess.
1Q84- Holy hell was this the start of me not liking Murakami. There's a lot of cool moments in this book but is tied down by such bullshit. The third part is basically about a girl waiting in a room for a guy she loves.... that's about 30 some odd chapters. What I said in this video is pretty true.
The Fault In our Stars- Good book. Kinda sad book. Makes me want to read more from this guy.
Mistborn Trilogy (3)- My first real entry into the "epic fantasy" genre and man. These are long ass books. But I really enjoyed my time with them. My only issue was with the second book. I loved the first and third, but book 2 seemed so stagnant. Too many things going, in a setting I didn't really care for. But man, if you're looking for a book that has movie like moments, this is one of them.
The Wind up Bird Chronicles- So like I literally skipped chapters in this book. I just couldn't take it. There was so much flash back stuff to characters I didn't care for, that by the end it didn't really matter. At this point, this book made me want to take a break from Murakami books.
City of Stairs- I was really confused with this book. I mean, I liked it's setting and story and all. But I couldn't get over the fact that the person was like a diplomat or something. But she was really someone who was fascinated with culture. Kinda like a Historian I guess. Anyways, the author used that as an excuse to "World Build" because she was so interested with that culture. I thought it was just a lazy excuse. Like why not just make her a historian or something? I really didn't see the need for her to be involved with the government. But maybe this book was above me or something. Still, good stuff though.
50 Shades of Gray (Book 1 and 2ish)- SO Yeah I started reading these books. Haven't finished yet, not really planning to. I feel like I could really go deep in this, and I will. I had a friend pretty much say "Every guy should read 50 Shades" and that's basically why I started reading these. Now I know you may make the assumption that "Oh she likes to be tied up and shit" but no. I'm not saying this goes for every hetero girl out there (or maybe all I don't know), but the big thing about the first book was how unrelenting the guy was when it came to his affection.
So I'd like to say that both these characters are fucked up. Like really, they both are. The main girl may be sweet and innocent at first but as the story develops, well her logic for staying with him is pretty stupid. But the main thing that happens in this book is as follows; Girl and guy have sex, Girl gets paranoid that guy doesn't love her, guy comes and reassures her, sex again, paranoia again, reassurance again. That's it. That's what happens in the first book. BDSM aside. So I feel, the reason why my friend said "every guy should read 50 shades" is because of how often he'd just show up when the girl would get paranoid. Because he's rich he can fly anywhere, drive anywhere, appear anywhere. And I guess that's what she liked about it. Cause she wants a guy to be ready and waiting or something (I could be completely wrong here).
The second thing I want to say is how much I don't feel the need to read any further. This is how the first book ends:
*Guy spanks girl*
Girl: Stop spanking me I think you're weird!
Guy: Ok. :(
And that's actually a great way to end the first book. It left me wondering how they were going to get back together. Maybe the girl would go through a lot of soul searching and realize she actually likes the BDSM stuff? Or she likes the guy so much that she can put up with that stuff? Or both! But here is like the first chapter of book 2.
*Two weeks later*
Guy: I miss you.
Girl: I miss you too.
Guy: Let's get back together.
Girl Ok.
I hated, HATED this. Cause now, all that ending in the first book was just a hook for people to read the next. And instead of building up anticipation (which by the end the second book is about 25 chapters), of there eventual reunion, they just do it right away. Which leaves the rest of the book to be about sexing and spanking.
GREAT. THANKS BOOK! I DON'T NEED TO READ THE REST OF YOU!
Sputnik Sweetheart- The last Murakami book I read (So far). The main reason I gave this book a shot was two fold:
- It was only 17 chapters long.
- I wanted another romancy thing like Norwegian Wood, and the internet said this book was about romance.
Moth Saga - Reading these series of books after something like Mistborn really made me love books on a whole new level. While I don't think Moth Saga are bad books, I think it doesn't go into detail as it could have. This is mostly in comparison to Mistborn really.
Moth Saga left me mesmerized mostly because of what my mentality was before reading books. The best way to describe these books is by saying it cuts all the bull shit that a normal epic fantasy does. It doesn't go into a huge "World Building" thing describing in full detail about its universe. Its fights aren't as detailed and well, it's just a lot shorter. I'll give you an example.
The first book in Moth Saga was about how this girl was going to a town she'd never been too. About five or so chapters later guess what? She's there. Now, if this were Sanderson writing this, I'm sure as hell he'd spend about 20 chapters describing the journey in full detail. Here? Not so much. And that is both a good and bad thing for me.
Before reading Mistborn, I think I would of really liked these books. But after reading them, all I was left with saying was "Man, the writer could of gone into more detail about stuff." But then what would that of achieved? The story would of ended the same. So why would it matter that this book doesn't go into full detail about its world.
It's something that I can probably go into more paragraphs about (Compare and contrast the writing styles of Brendan Sanderson and Daniel Arenson based on only one series of books by each author), but lets just say I like most of the Moth Saga. Haven't read the follow up stuff though. Maybe later?
The Martian- I was actually surprised to find out this guy was a game dev back in the day. That's pretty cool! A lot cooler than when people come up to me and be like "Bro you like vid gayms? Yo Dedmus like vid gahms too! You must like Didmause!" What was I talking about? Vid games? Those are cool. Man I can't wait till that Xenoblade comes out for WiiU. I swear it'll be the first WiiU game I'll buy sinc-
So I really liked The Martian. And, I can see this really working as a movie. One might say that this was a bit of a gateway to see if I'd like Scifi stuff. The only thing I didn't like about it, and this is no fault of the book, but I could care less about science stuff. When the guy explains how he mixed chemicals to make water and how that could turn out bad was like the most boring stuff for me. But yeah good stuff.
The Stormlight Archive ( Book 1 and 2)- While one can say I've read 5 books from Brendan Sanderson, I feel it more appropriate to say I only read two. I consider the Mistborn trilogy to be one whole and The Stormlight Achive to be the other since they are just continuations of each others respective stories. But yeah, I read these books in like three weeks. Nearly 2 million words read in three weeks. No regrets. It's really good.
Girl In Translation- In my attempt to try and be more diverse (I felt at this point I was getting into a bit of a Fantasy binge), I decided to try and read other genre's. Girl in Translation was one of these attempts, and I thought it was pretty swell.
I was actually put off a bit with the setting to be all honest. I'm not much one of an immigrant story lover, but this one pulled me in right when the girl in question went to school. It was kinda charming seeing her struggle in school trying to understand what her teaching wanted, and I felt her whole trying to grasp English was a good hook for this story. The romance sub-plot was actually my favourite party really. Anywho good stuff.
Those are all the books I've finished. I'm still trying to get through some like Absurdistan, Dragon Sword and Wind Child, Stormdancer and I guess the rest of 50 Shades of Grey (I read some earlier this month and I feel like its time to comeback to it) but I'm pretty early in all of them, and none have yet to hook me just yet. So I feel like the next month or so will be a slow month for me. Especially considering it's time for vid games to come out. I've been wondering if I should get an Xbox One or a Steambox first recently. Like I know I'd probably end up with both eventually, but the question is-
Here's a small list of books I'm hoping to read in the coming future (Can you believe it's already October? I swear it'll be the end of the year faster then you know it):
The Wheel of Time series- 14 books! 14! Man, I don't know if I'm up to the task. I feel like this would last me the entire 2016 year and I don't think I have it in me to commit myself for that much.
Suzumiya Haruhi series- seeing as these are Light Novels it seems like a doable thing. About seven chapters each book. Times that by 5 because I've already seen the anime. That leaves about 35 chapters to read, which is about the average length all the books I've been reading have been. About.
The main reason for reading these are because there doesn't seem to be any future plans for the anime to return. And with Aya Hirano living in her own world right about now, it seems fitting to at least try to finish the story in some other medium. Also Kobo doesn't have book five but it has the other ones. Weird right?
Dune- To be fair, I've actually been trying to read this as we speak. I think this will become the next book I try to finish. But I have no idea what's going on. All I know is that there's a guy named Paul, someone named Jessica, A duke, A Baron, An Emperor and something called CHAOM. If you think that's a lot it really, REALLY isn't.
Also, I don't think I'll read all of them. Probably just the first one.
So yeah that about does it for this post. What do you think of books? Use the Hastag #BooksForAlmeda to reccomend me books. Or leave me a comment saying I'm wrong for not like City of Stairs enough below. If you were a book which would you be? Click this link to find out which book you shou-
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