Re: What Have You Been Playing... IN APRIL 2024?

Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com> writes:

I haven't read a book in a long time.

I have this book pipeline in that my local newspaper reviews books and
if I see something interesting, I reserve it from the library. So then I
get it some weeks or sometimes months later since those reviews tend to
cause a rash of reservations. Works great except sometimes there's too
much to read or I have some bought books I'd also like to
read. Thankfully the library system here has a queue management system
so I can basically delay when I get a book.

I've mostly been watching Star Trek Discovery of late.  With a dash of
Lower Decks, which I didn't like initially, but my daughter wanted to
watch and it's grown on me.  Lower Decks isn't entirely appropriate
for her age, but I'm not about to shut it off for some sex remarks.

Oh, I came to like Lower Decks although at first it was more than a
little annoying. Discovery too but it was kind of all over the place. I
wasn't too big of a fan of the first season but it improved as it went
on.

As for recent reading, I read some 1990s detective stories by the
Finnish author Leena Lehtolainen. Mostly because her work has been
turned to TV twice now and it's been shot in my home town both
times. The newer TV version is really fairly poor, it has such abrupt
endings that after the first episode I thought it was a two parter. I
had to think back and then it was like "oh they did arrest someone, I
guess he did it then". In other words, a whodunit with the actual
whodunit revelation part cut to the bare minimum.

Well, the detective books are short, maybe more novellas than novels so
definitely light reading. But they do paint a picture of maybe more the
80s than the 90s (when they were written), no cellphones or internet but
there's a lot of driving around in old cars and references to dialing
rotary phones and phone booths and all that stuff which now seems
ancient but isn't really that old.

And on the non-fiction side, Julian Baggini's How to Think Like a
Philosopher. Finnish translation which I'm regretting a little now but
an interesting read all the same.