What are you reading these days?

I've started Céline's D'un château l'autre. It's a spicy one, the style is almost entirely oral, it's like a rant of an old crazy man. Sometimes borderline incomprehensible, it's actually hard to read without speaking it out loud at times.

Céline wrote virulent antisemitic books before WW2 and flew to Germany with people of the Vichy regime at some point, which apparently is told in this book. For now he's mainly complaining about his editors and the lack of money (he got all his stuff taken at the end of the war).

In the middle of a bunch of stuff so somewhat small this time, but here's the text-based things from my art diary:

I just finished with two videogame books. The first was Speedrun Science: A Long Guide to Short Playthroughs by Eric "Omnigamer" Koziel. It's a 300+ page book entirely dedicated to every and all aspects of "speedrunning", or the act of trying to complete a videogame as quick as possible. My introduction to speedrunning was watching famed runner Siglemic beat Super Mario 64 in record time on his Twitch channel. I was absolutely mesmerized from start to finish. I had never seen someone play with such a high skill level. I didn't even know that half of what he did was possible! I haven't really followed the speedrunning scene since then, but my husband and I make sure to catch every "Games Done Quick" marathon and make an event of it.

The book is basically a speedrunning textbook, and could easily be used in college courses on the topic, if such classes existed. I enjoyed reading over the history section, and my eyes glazed over a bit in the technical sections, but overall the guide is both readable and thorough. The author someone with a very strong knowledge of the field and a good understanding of how to convey that to the audience. I can't say I loved the book and wouldn't give it a blanket recommendation, but I can say that it's absolutely great at being what it is. If reading 300+ pages on speedrunning sounds awesome to you, then you're definitely the target audience! Everyone else however, even some of those with a strong interest in speedrunning, likely won't want to sit through the level of detail he goes into.

The second videogame book was Rainbow Arcade: Over 30 Years of Queer Gaming History. I borrowed this from a friend, who kickstarted it. It's basically an accompaniment to a museum installation of the history of LGBT characters, developers, and themes in videogames. I didn't attend the museum exhibit, so my impressions are based entirely on the book, which I found to be a bit more scattered and piecemeal than I wanted it to be. It's clear that the museum part was the focus and the book was secondary, so I don't really hold it against them, but I really wanted this to be a definitive queer compendium of gaming and it doesn't quite scratch that itch.

That's not to say I didn't like some of it, and their hearts are definitely in the right place. They cover a lot of ground, to the point that the book felt constantly rushed despite it being 100+ pages. I would finish with a section when it felt like it was only just getting started. I guess that goes to show just how much there is that other titles could expand on. I feel bad for being a bit lukewarm on the book, especially because it's a labor of love, and because it's nice to have a queer gaming rally point as big as this one.

Finally, in non-gaming reading, I'm just finishing up with Harry Markopolos's No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller. Markopolos is noteworthy for identifying Bernie Madoff's financial management business as a Ponzi scheme years before anyone else. He thrice reported his findings to the United States' financial regulatory agency: the Securities and Exchange Commission. They ignored his reports, the first of which he filed in 2000. Madoff's fraud continued until the 2008 financial crisis, when so many investors were desperate to get their money out that Madoff was unable to pay out and admitted his scheme to his sons. They called the FBI, and he was arrested. Madoff defrauded people of an estimated $65 billion.

This book is Markopolos's deserved and uncompromising "I told you so." He has a 65 billion dollar chip on his shoulder, and he spends page after embittered page lauding himself and excoriating others. The book is actually an interesting character study, as Markopolos, the "good guy" interested in rooting out fraud, comes across as quite unlikeable, entirely through his own disclosure! He very clearly has a strong command of numbers and complex financial concepts, many of which have gone right over my head, but these strengths can fuel a condescending, arrogant voice that's hard to sympathize with. He also repeats himself constantly, making the book much longer than it needs to be. I can't say I've loved it, but it's at the very least interesting, and it's made me want to read a follow-up book that focuses specifically on Madoff himself.

I'm very slowly making my way through Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. I say slowly because I actually own a physical copy and started it earlier this year but there were a lot of library books I went through this year so it got put on hold. I'm hoping to sit down this weekend and have some quality time with it. I've enjoyed the book so far but am only a little under halfway and it is not a particularly small book.

I've been really enjoying historical fiction recently. I read The Downstairs Girl which was absolutely phenomenal, I could NOT put that book down. I've also read a smattering of other historical fictions books and man I just really love them, to me it has the same allure as Sci fi and fantasy in that you're in a place you could never be and here are these people in front of you living these lives.

Of course a lot of historical fiction has some romantasism attached to them but, for better or worse, Pachinko is particularly stark to me. It talks about Koreans in Japan during WWII and how they were treated as less than second class citizens. But that's just where I'm at in the book as it spans several generations and initially started out on a Korean island with one of the current characters grandmother I believe. I'm hoping for the best with the rest of the book!

I really didn't think this would be my first post on Tildes (or really anywhere), but after years of taking the mickey out of his back covers, I've started reading Lee Child books - beginning with The Killing Floor and now into Echo Burning. They're action-packed books with twists that tend to get me. They bring back memories of reading Matthew Reilly books on holiday as a kid. I like the detail that Child puts into things like firearms; which leaves me unsure whether he consults members of the military or police, or he's just winging it.

I just finished John Darnielle's first novel, "Wolf in White Van". Recommended reading for fans of "The Mountain Goats" or anyone that's interested in insularity and the fringe (marginal not Scottish).