(Y-11) Vacation Time

Today marks the first day of the two-week spring vacation period.

Also, tomorrow will be the mid-point day for this eleventh year of reading, for which I’ll post something on Monday morning to see how I am faring for the first half of this amazing year.

As always I have big plans for my reading, and in between, I’ll squeeze some traveling and hopefully some work on my little desert oasis to get in shape for the upcoming summer season, I have been promising myself to have this space to read comfortably outside.

And I will follow thru this time.

I have so much to go thru in this post, and I know that I have been really lazy, I mean this is the second of the month of April and it is almost half-way done.

 So let me begin with what I have been reading.

I finished five graphic novels, ranging from some good old Batman to the Mad Titan tearing his way thru the Marvel Universe.

On that note, and trying to catch up with Thanos’ recent storyline, I read Infinity Book II and Thanos Rising, the latter beautifully executed by Jason Aaron, on the controls as the writer, and the amazing artwork by Simone Bianchi.

On the DC Universe front, from which most of the reading comes, I went thru some new, some past storylines I haven’t read and one historic milestone.

To start off, I finished reading the sixth volume of the current run of Detective Comics, beautifully executed by James Tynion IV, it is always great fun to run around with the Bat Family thru the dark crevices of Gotham City.

For some passed storylines, I finally finished reading Forever Evil, by now legendary DC writer Geoff Johns.

I read the first two issues when it originally came out back in 2013 but lost track it and now came to find to read in my Kindle Unlimited subscription, so I took advantage, and let me tell you, watching Lex Luthor as the hero will always be disturbing.

And to keep on transversing the DC Universe, I read some single issues of new material, or at least newly published here in Mexico.

Spinning off the events of Dark Nights: Metal comes a new story about the spooky Batman Who Laughs, developed by the all-star team of Scott Snyder and the wonderful Jock.

Also in the Dark Knight department, the highly controversial and now infamous Bat-penis, I read the Spanish and censored edition of  Batman: Damned, by the always edgy Brian Azzarello and the stunning art of Lee Bermejo, this particular edition has the variant cover edition by Jim Lee.

Another series I started reading is Justice League Dark, and I love it from the first page, I am a sucker for all the magical and weird characters from the DC Universe.

I read the first two issues and yesterday bought the third one, which consequently is the conclusion of the first story arc.

Which relates directly to the idea of bringing to the main continuity of characters such as Swamp Thing and John Constantine, from which I am currently reading the first story arc in the Rebirth era of DC Comics.

And now to finish off my recent trek thru the DC Comics Universe, the historic and landmark issue number one thousand of Detective Comics, in which the Dark Knight not only reaches this historic number but he also celebrates 80 years of publication history.

I got the Bernie Wrightson variant.

To close out the comic book/graphic novel front, I read the omnibus of B.P.R.D.: 1946-1948, where you can see the first years of the agencies peculiar cases, all of this pre-Hellboy’s involvement, for he was a wide-eyed kid living somewhere in the New Mexico desert.

And some of the amazing sketch drawings of the series.

Now on the book front, I keep on pounding away on the third book of the Neverwinter Saga, Charon’s Claw, currently on page 327, and I have plans to finish the saga on the first week of the spring vacation so I can start reading the first two book of Brian Catling’s The Vorrh Trilogy on the second week.

In which we are taking a small trip, but more on that later.

This has been an eventful couple of weeks, I went to “Fiesta de los Libros” which is an event of my Alma Mater where you can buy all its the scientific or historical publications but the catch is that the price is around 5 dollars for all the books you can fit on a paper bag they give you, needless to say, I took around 7 bags home with books related to my masters degree.

Below you can see the place and some of the exhibitions during this week-long book celebration.

The other event was a home game of the newly founded Mexican League of Football, in which our fair city, Ciudad Juarez, has one of the five inaugural teams.

They started losing the game by 16 to 0 at the half but came from behind to claim a 24 to 16 victory.

The next game and season closer is on April 28, and hopefully, we will be playoff bound.

Now I will like to talk about my numbers.

For the eleventh year of reading, I have a total of 22,029 pages and closing in the last year total with only 10,119 pages to go, just before the halfway mark.

Still, I am 30 days behind my reading schedule, but what are vacations for if not for closing down gap from crazy reading projects.

In concern of my total reading for my project, I have amassed 255,056 pages of reading and on the next significant milestone, which is reaching 500,000, I have 244,944 pages to go.

And in my projection, which started as the finishing date of the particular number to be on July 26 of 2029, now it has come down to May 14 of the same year, slowly but surely I am gaining ground.

In order to chip away at the page at my total pages to read and on to get that finishing date closer I have promised myself to grab my enormous pile of to read books and try to at least knock down 3,000 pages and a couple of months of ground gained.

Here are some of my reading materials for the upcoming weeks.

Well, I am off to chase those pages and rest my ass off.

azr.

(Y-11) 198 days and the 20,000 pages

It has been quite a while since I have written a proper post, so here we go because I have a lot to go thru in this entry.

Let me start with what I have been reading and what I finished reading.

First off, I finished the first volume of the fantastic run by Joshua Hickman dealing with the Mad Titan; I am referring to Infinity, where the Avengers, and heroes from all over the Marvel comic universe, come face to face with another conquering scheme by Thanos.

I love these colossal crossover events by Marvel, especially if the Kree Empire is involved, right now I am starting to read the second volume, and it started off with a bang.

The other thing I am currently working on is the sixth volume of James Tynion IV run on Detective Comics, The Fall of the Batmen, I fell in love immediately with this series, he is using characters like Anarky, Azrael and Spoiler, not the most well-known in the Batman Universe, but super cool.

The other things I finished reading, and in the commemoration of the 25th publication anniversary of Hellboy, some volumes of the adventures of the B.P.R.D., minus Hellboy, in this particular stories, The Plague of Frogs volumes 3 and 4.

The agents confronted the flourishing threat of the now legendary War of the Frogs, and with Roger out of the picture and Captain Daimio in full were-jaguar mode, the possibilities of coming out of this conflict unharmed are growing thin.

I highly recommend diving right into the Hellboy Universe, it will not disappoint.

You can find a really complete timeline to navigate thru this ever-growing universe full of iconic characters and stories.

I forgot to mention that along with these two amazing volumes, I also read the Spanish version of the second volume of Hellboy, Wake the Devil, which consequently was the book that put me over the 20,000-page mark for this year, but more on that later.

On the really neglected book front, I am still working on Charon’s Claw, currently on page 193, but I have promised myself to at least read for 30 minutes each, this with the idea to finish the Neverwinter Saga before my spring break vacation, which starts on April 15.

Now let us talk about my numbers.

As I mentioned before, the 20,000-page mark has been reached for this eleventh year of reading.

My current total is 20,475 pages, and my real progress is closing in my projected total, I can see how the gap is closing, and my rhythm is slowly getting in tune with what my heart desires to read this year.

This process has been slow but I gain ground each and every day, but still, I am 27 days behind my reading schedule.

With this in mind, the upcoming vacations are going to be crucial for me to keep closing this gap, and eventually finish the year with 53,000 pages.

Now concerning my next milestone, reaching 500,000 pages, this is the current situation.

The global total for my project is at 253,502 pages, this after 3,825 days.

And with 4,453 days until my 50th birthday, I have a lot of work ahead of me.

With these numbers in place, and keeping in mind my currents speed and average of pages per day, the next significant milestone, according to my projections, will be achieved on June 1, 2029.

Which is not an acceptable date, because this would mean that I will only have 2 more years to finish half a million pages.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel because when I started projecting when I was going to reach this goal the original date was July 26, 2029.

That is almost two months gained.

So the plans for the weekend are quite simple, close off March on a high note and probably get pretty close to 22,000 pages and gaining some more ground on the end date of my next milestone.

The books on my cache are:

Infinity Book II

Charon’s Claw (Third book of the Neverwinter Saga)

Batman: Detective Comics Vol. 6

Now back to it, for the night is dark and full or reading.

azr.

P.S.

I really need to update my Goodreads page.

P.S. of the P.S.

Here are some of the passed infographic sheets generated with bookly.

 

(Y-11) Officially back from hiautus

Well, I am officially back from my break from writing on this blog, almost a week after what I have planned initially, but who is counting.

I have so many things to get into, and honestly, I do not know where to begin.

So I’ll try to start with what I have been reading and take it from there.

Currently, I am working on two things, the second book on the Neverwinter Saga, starting the now infamous Drow Drizzt Do’Urden, with the legendary city of Neverwinter, reduced to rubble, and the constant attack of a not so friendly Lich, Drizzt must learn to trust his new companions in order to get out of this one alive.

It is hard to read this fantastic saga and not have those familiar faces to tag along with the lone Drow in his eternal quest for redemption, I especially miss King Bruenor, dwarves are some of my favorite fantasy characters of all time, it does not matter which universe they inhabited, they are always so cool, I think it has to do with the beard.

Right now I am at page 187 of 363, my reading has slowed down a bit, but I have all of the intentions of rearranging my schedule to fit in more reading time.

There are still two books left on the Neverwinter Saga, Charon’s Claw and The Last Threshold, after finishing these two I have a conundrum ahead of me, jump right back into reading The Malazan Book of the Fallen or read Jerusalem by Alan Moore.

For now, I’ll focus on what is in front of me.

The other thing I am currently reading is a compilation of the Avengers Vs. Thanos, with the glorious work by the legendary Jim Starlin.

This is some old school comic books, just amazing.

I am well over the halfway point, and the plan is to finish it this lazy Sunday, well, that is my plan, to squeeze in some reading between episodes of The Umbrella Academy, which started streaming on Friday on Netflix, so, check it out, but not only the series also the fantastic comic book by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá.

That is for what I am currently working on.

Also, I finished a couple of graphic novels.

The third volume of Robert Venditti run on Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps, part of the Rebirth series of DC Comics, I think I have said it before, Mr. Venditti was born to write Green Lantern.

Here is the infographic sheet generated with Bookly.

The other graphic novel I finished was the second volume of B.P.R.D.: The Plague of Frogs, and it is not enough words to describe it.

What a complex and beautifully haunting piece of modern horror literature, I love that although the characters are immersed in a fantasy horror world, they do not lose complexity or depth to tell the story, in fact, the underlying conflict in each one of them make the story that much more vibrant.

If you haven’t read any of this work or Hellboy for that matter, you are missing out on a monumental series.

Here is the infographic sheet generated with Bookly.

And a couple of Mike Mignola covers just for the beauty of it.

 

Once I finish Avengers Vs. Thanos, I’ll jump into the third volume of the Plague of Frogs, I am hooked.

Now lets talk of some of my numbers for this eleventh year of reading.

First off, and since I have started using Bookly at the start of this year, the app has been keeping track of the time I actually spend reading, and so far I have rung in over 60 hours of active reading.

You can see in the stats below, things like reading speed and total pages, and my current streak of 48 straight days of reading.

So far it has been a handy tool to keep track of my reading, and if you are a bit obsessive like I am, you will definitely fall in love with this app.

Now for some total numbers of my reading so far.

My total for this year is closing into 15,000 pages.

14,667 to be precise, just 333 pages to go.

Still, I am a bit behind schedule, 27 days to be precise, all of my effort to close the gap these past few weeks have not been what I hope for, but I am confident this will turn around shortly.

But the other event that has been ringing in my head for the past few weeks is the impending goal of reaching the first quarter of my reading, that is 250,000 total pages.

Right now, I sit on 247,694 pages, that is 2,306 pages to go, and according to my calculations, and if all stays the same, I will reach my goal by March 5.

And then, all-out party.

Of course, I plan to reach before that date.

I have so many things to keep me motivated for the upcoming months, like the release of the new American Gods season, March 11 by the way, the reboot of Hellboy starting the delightful David Harbour,  April 12 by the way, and the new series based on the work of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens, premiering on May in Prime Video.

And to top it off, I will return to one of my favorites sections of my blog, Caffeine Pilgrimage, with two new places Casa Polanco and  Boston Tea Bar.

So many things to do, of course, all of this between my reading.

Now I’ll get back to enjoying my Sunday.

Being back to my plotting and my writing is lovely.

azr.

 

 

(Y-11) January numbers

A quick update of my reading for January.

And yes I made a chart.

Those two spikes in my activity are the weekend of the 24in48 readathon, I wish that my head was I bit better, but there it is always the next one.

The positive thing is that I finished January on a high note, 161 pages for the last day of the month.

Right now, I’m beginning my journey thru the mesmerizing pages of one of my favorite comic book universe, Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.

To start off, B.P.R.D.: The Plague of Frogs Vol.1

Off to read.

azr.