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POPULAR: What Did You Read Today?

kintsugi

the warmth of summer in the songs you write
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Heya! This is a parallel thread to What Did You Write Today? except it features the other part of what we do with writing—reading!

It’s kind of exactly what it says on the tin, but what did you read today? No limits on content except that it has to be readable (music, movies, etc are cool but don’t count); you can talk about fanfic on this site, fanfic on other sites, published fiction, textbooks, the back of a box of cereal... anything with written words that you yourself have processed with your brain! Reading is a huge part of honing your skill as a writer, and even if you aren’t tackling a book a day, it’s great to keep something on hand.

Please do tag if the thing you’re posting has graphic content/gore, and mark all plot spoilers in spoiler tags. Also, no flaming//please be respectful of your fellow authors.

——————

Today (yesterday technically) I read Prey by Michael Crichton, which is a scifi/thriller about a cloud of nanobots that has, like all fictional robots, decided to murder the shit out of everyone (I do mean this somewhat literally; they’re part E. coli.). Yet it’s incredibly well-researched (the biography at the back is four pages long and is basically just peer-reviewed papers on animal psychology, nanotech, and programming), has a pretty neat supporting cast, and uses the phrase “and then the cave exploded” completely non-ironically.
 
Read an article for school about the important role education has in overriding the unhealthy American lifestyle. :p I feel like that's a topic beat into the ground over and over already, so I rolled my eyes at first, but the writing style managed to be both aggressive and elegant at the same time. Academic writing very rarely is anything but dry.

The research study's results heavily suggest that the benefit of each year of schooling completed is likely to add at least 2 years to your life. Sounds skeptical on the surface, but if you're the type who asks their math teacher why calculus matters in the real world, the premise of the study says any education gives you the critical thinking skills to actually identify, resolve, and self-direct your way through life's problems rather than react solely with stress (which, in abundance and/or when handled poorly on a consistent basis, can shorten your life).

I have a feeling I'll be using this thread to test my reading comprehension skills a lot for grad school, don't mind me.
 
Nice thread, kintsugi!

Well, yesterday I read the prologues to a pair of fics off of Bulbagarden, and the day before I read the latest chapter of Gama's Brotherhood, so I'm doing okay on the fic-reading front, I suppose! I could be doing a lot more reading, honestly. I don't think I reliably read fiction on a daily basis these days, which is very sad.

Other miscellaneous recent reads: my own work from the distant and recent past, some SCP pages, and if you count nonfiction, a staggering number of diverse assorted posts and articles. That last one's always true for me.
 
I added the popular prefix since it's a mirror to "what did you write today" which also has it. Someday I'll think of a better name for that prefix...

Anyway, read a bit of @Ambyssin's Guiding Light today where Shane starts to have flashbacks of his death as a human and freaks out, and the first four chapters of Brandon Sanderson's Oathbringer novel (which I've been meaning to pick up since I bought it for my boyfriend for his birthday back in December, lol).
 
Well the day is just starting but yesterday I was reading My Hero Academia (yes I’m a weeb). I’d stopped reading it for a while but I caught up on like an interlude arc.

The weird thing is that I thought this arc would be more slice of life as the usually are but instead we had a ver small scale struggle between the protagonist and the villain of the arc, who was a small time villain who couldn’t cut it out as a super hero but even as a villain he mostly commits small scale “crimes” that are just roundabout (and misguided) ways to do good. Like stealing a supermarket that had been selling expired products to customers.

The thing is that even though it was a short interlude arc the fight is still one of the most emotionally engaging ones and i kind of ended up rooting for the villain when they showed that all he really wanted was to prove he wasn’t a failure and not to disappoint his sidekick, a young programmer who basically fired him to make her his sidekick after his actions resonated with her. In the end even the protagonist tried to make it seem like it had all been a misunderstanding so that the authorities wouldn’t take him away.

I also liked it because even though he’s a villain his struggle was relateable, he wasn’t done Uber powerful tyrant or a villain with a tragic backstory, he was just a man with little in the way of skill and intelligence who instead of receiving the support he needed was discarded for what he lacked and part of the reason the protagonist related to him is because he’s essentially whatbhe would’ve become if he hadn’t met his mentor at the beginning of the story and hadn’t met his classmates who always try to help him out.
 
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I reread A Wizard of Earthsea! Solid piece to revisit, and makes me nostalgic for that whole mythos again. It’s also refreshing to have someone try to tell a fantasy story in fewer than 600 page increments.
 
The Age of the Horse, Susannah Forrest- a reminder of why I ought to read reviews before buying hardbacks. It's another one of those books ostensibly about history/nature, etc, that are really unfocused and self-indulgent rambles. As much of the wordcount is about Forrest's own banal travels as it is about horses.
 
Been re-reading His Dark Materials with my partner. Currently halfway through The Subtle Knife! The knife just showed up. Forgot how grim that whole bit was.
 
Been re-reading His Dark Materials with my partner. Currently halfway through The Subtle Knife! The knife just showed up. Forgot how grim that whole bit was.
Those books always leave me conflicted these days. Which reminds me that I still have Lyra's Oxford and The Book of Dust to read ...
I have some incredibly fond memories of that series, but I haven't revisited in a while. If I may, what causes the conflict?
 
I have some incredibly fond memories of that series, but I haven't revisited in a while. If I may, what causes the conflict?

For me, as a criticism of "religion", His Dark Materials is decidedly artless. I mean, for one thing it's really a criticism of the Catholic Church. It's also one that flat-out ignores how religion can inspire people to great generosity and humility, as well as callousness.

But still, I enjoyed them a lot, and the ending of Northern Lights is the kind of scene where you let out the breath you didn't realise you were holding
 
For me, as a criticism of "religion", His Dark Materials is decidedly artless. I mean, for one thing it's really a criticism of the Catholic Church. It's also one that flat-out ignores how religion can inspire people to great generosity and humility, as well as callousness.

But still, I enjoyed them a lot, and the ending of Northern Lights is the kind of scene where you let out the breath you didn't realise you were holding
Gotcha. That makes a ton of sense, actually. I read it at an age when my parents thought it was a witchcraft book so naturally I snuck it home from the library and read it in secret I wasn’t fully old enough to comprehend who are all these winged people and why is that baby in a crystal manger is that a symbol, so I can confidently say that any religious criticism flew well over my head. I was more drawn to the zeppelins and fluffy animal friends... I probably ought to add this to my long list of to-reads.

Read a pretty neat creepypasta on FFN, a review of A Wizard of Earthsea, and an article about trade embargo/tariff history. Mixed bag of a day.
 
Gotcha. That makes a ton of sense, actually. I read it at an age when my parents thought it was a witchcraft book so naturally I snuck it home from the library and read it in secret I wasn’t fully old enough to comprehend who are all these winged people and why is that baby in a crystal manger is that a symbol, so I can confidently say that any religious criticism flew well over my head. I was more drawn to the zeppelins and fluffy animal friends... I probably ought to add this to my long list of to-reads.

I read them in a similar spirit - pretty much as fantasy stories. It was only when I came back as an adult that the religious themes started to get on my nerves
 
ummmm can this also be "what did you read since you last posted" lmao

Finished @Ambyssin's Halloween special chapters and Team Captivate special chapters, chapters 5 and 6 of Oathbringer, and have read half of my own fic, Flying in the Dark, in preparation of writing the next chapter... and doing minor edits along the way, nothing more, nope, no more rewrite reboots
 
I think I just read a fic on FFN that does the first chapter of SRBS better than I did the first chapter of SRBS. This is embarrassing.

Let's see. Taking a page out of DP's book since it's technically today in yesterday... and I did some catching up on guidance and DTYD, and a few more chapters of Guiding Light. Very fanfic heavy times.
 
Read some articles on sleep disorders in preparation for this health psychology class's final project... And somewhere in there, I read up on the different facts on articulating words as a throwback to my speech pathology program 'cause I felt like it. :V Then looked into how they effect mood/tone/pacing/etc. in creative writing (ie., words with plosive sounds like /b/ and /p/ are most effective in an angry or energetic scene).

Also still truckin' my way through my re-read of Flying in the Dark. Sighhh.
 
Yesterday I read chapter one of canisaries' Seiren and the day before it was kintsugi's Dungeons & Dragonites. I think I'm gonna try and read fanfic little and often. Let's see how that goes.
 
Please note: The thread is from 1 year ago.
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