I felt like I had found a reading groove towards the end of 2023. 2024 was going to be a great reading year (or so I hoped). I’ve now found myself with a lot less free time which has impacted my book choices. This has also had the side effect of making me picky about what I want to read. Bouncing around between titles is not something I typically like to do but now I try and take what I can get.
Empire of Silence – Christopher Ruocchio
The book that I’ve been reading the longest. Although, I did take a couple of months off from it. The public library allows you to borrow books online and I never finished it within my timeframe. Then I realized I still had access to it on my kindle so I started to read it again.Truthfully I am still trying to gather what is going on. Tensions between the main character and his father are at their peak and feels intense to read. From my understanding it’s an outstanding book and the first in a series. I’ve only scratched the surface and I’m looking forward to where it will take me.
God: A Biography – Jack Miles
Second longest book I’ve been reading. A very interesting book that looks at God as solely a literary character. Jack Miles adds tons of details about history and how its impacted the bible and the stories it tells. I’ll admit that it is a little over my head at times and is dense with information. Currently I’ve made it halfway through the book. I find myself reading only a few pages at a time before putting it down for the night. Still a very interesting book that has definitely taught me a lot about how the bible was influenced to make God (the character) so incredibly powerful and helped transcend him into a religious deity. Really hoping to finish this book by the end of this month.
Nevernight – Jay Kristoff
I started this title after I thought Empire of Silence had been returned. I purchased it only because I recognized the author’s name. I don’t have much to say because I put this book down for the moment. In no way is it a bad book. Right off the bat it started violent and intense. When reading it though I could not shake the similar vibes it was giving off to some books I read last year. So I started God: A Biography. I will come back to this title eventually.
Good Vibes, Good Life – Vex King
The most recent book I started to read and the one that has all my attention. I came across this book on Amazon maybe at the end of 2023 (time is flying by so fast). It was very cheap from what I remember and had great reviews. When I saw the author touted as an influencer I was ready to move on. But I read some of the reviews and decided to purchase it. While doing some side reading for work, I started to browse my kindle library and saw this book. Since I had a commute I had nothing to lose. And what a great decision that was. The author compiles tons of information and advice and tries to improve your life in general. It is a self help book but it’s filled with a lot of ideas that I’ve actively applied to my life. So in a sense I’m biased but there really are a lot of common sense ideas in the book that people need to hear. Trying to improve your life for yourself and not for the sake of impressing others. Focusing on being the best you that you can be. It’s a lot of sappy stuff but I’ve come to realize that changing your perception of how you feel about something, really goes a long way. The author goes into a lot of other things that you may or may not agree with but his ultimate message of being a better person is universal. If you like self help books or want to have a better attitude towards our fragile life, you should pick this up if it’s cheap. I’ll finish this book within the next couple of days.
But really I have been reading a lot
I’ve been doing a lot of reading for my job. That has been taking up the majority of my time. Even though I actually am enjoying what I’m reading and I chose to learn additional information myself, it still feels like work sometimes. So getting a chance to dig into some of the books above is always welcome. Ultimately, I’m just thankful I have the luxury to sit around and read at all.
*Side note* The main image is AI generated. Let me know what you think. I’m not 100% sold but its decent and I had no picture to post so I’ll take it.
All The Stuff With BlinkAfi 