Finished Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum. This is strongly in the healing and slice-of-life genres, detailing the struggles of running an independent bookshop, along with the personal anxieties and issues of the shop's employees and regulars. I liked it, but some combo of the writing, pacing, and translation felt a little clunky to me in places.
Currently a quarter of the way through The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. Hyunam-dong was a little slow (imo), so I'm balancing it out with something fast-paced (with footnotes!). It's enjoyable so far.
Finished A Murder of Quality by John le Carré. Not terrible, but I agree with it being rated/reviewed more poorly than the rest of the Smiley series. Smiley spends most of the book interviewing people that avoid telling him key pieces of information because his cover story is wrong for that kind of confidence, and the rest is PoV switches, some of which withhold other information from the reader (and are thus fairly pointless). He figures it out anyway, of course, but in terms of being a) a good whodunit, and b) a good Smiley book... eh. I still found it very readable, though.
Currently reading Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum. This is very slice-of-life, told in little snippets. Quick to get through, but very meandering. Not sold on the translation in places.
I may have forgotten to check this thread for months... oops. Wasn't expecting a square clarification question in here.
I agree with Jaymes on both points. However, I believe I ended up deciding any typographical symbol counted when I was picking out books for Storygraph recommendations. (I probably should have changed the square description for clarity, mb.) Technically, they're not all punctuation, but Wikipedia seems to take the broader stance (which is where I figure most people would look up what counts), so why not?
I plowed through The Odds by Jeff Strand last week. Both this and the other book I've read by him (Allison) are what I call "popcorn horror": hits the ground running, kind of fluff, sort of action-y, slightly humorous while still being pretty horrific. It wasn't my favorite, but it was kind of exactly what I needed to get me out of my slump.
I'm currently partway through A Murder of Quality by John le Carré. Not a particularly noteworthy murder mystery so far, but I'm enjoying it anyway.
I'm nearly done with Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. It's delightful, and I do love seeing more of the Librarian, but I'm a little confused about how much hype it gets. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's pretty great! I'm just not finding it better/more accessible/etc than the other Discworld I've read so far.
Still kinda in a reading slump, so probably grabbing something fast-paced next.
I started squinting real hard at the tesseract dev (before the controversy) when I saw a tesseract patch note that said something about getting rid of Þ (in some form, idr exactly, just that there was no mention of an option to turn it off). I think it's nice to have a few instantly-recognizable posters in the community, esp. when what they're doing is harmless.
I'm maybe not the best person to answer this (it's not a genre I read), but I'll give it a shot. I think there's definitely some blurriness about what counts as progression or not, but from what I gather, the main difference is the emphasis on "leveling up" like in games. Beating the big bad or becoming immortal or whatever is still part of it, sure, but you're really reading it to see your favorite character training to become more powerful (usually across a very high page count/lots of volumes, since progression fantasy originally came from webnovels). Think, like, any popular shonen title ever (Naruto, Bleach, etc). LitRPG specifically includes video game elements like stats and loot (and I think setting?), while cultivation is a subgenre of xianxia (which is a whole other thing I know even less about, sorry).
Afaik, "progression fantasy" covers both litRPG and cultivation novels (and, I guess, anything else with a heavy focus on the protagonist getting progressively stronger).
In the Mouth of Madness is great (although a little silly in places, iirc)! I'm surprised Monsterdon's watching it, tbh; they usually pick way more B-movie things.
I finished The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem! I finally just sat down last night and spent an hour or so getting through the last 20%, and now I wish I'd done that sooner. It's a neat little story about an unknowable threat on an alien planet; a lot of time is spent with crew scientists conjecturing why things are the way they are, but neither the characters nor the reader ever find out for sure. I found this both refreshing (not having the answers keeps things interesting) and frustrating (lots of dialogue and musing bog down the pacing). The last chapter finally dispenses with so much talking, but then ends somewhat abruptly. I liked it, but more in a "the storytelling was interesting" kind of way.
https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/ I've had this site bookmarked for eons; it's a little awkward to navigate, but so much information (maybe overwhelmingly much!) on watercolor, painting tools, perspective, color theory, etc.
The Princess Bride: someone close gifted me the paperback without realizing I already had the hardcover, and I don't have the heart to give it away.
The Return of the King, because I grew up with a secondhand mishmash of editions. Over the years I've collected one full matching set, but kept the second RotK because it has a foldout map.
The Odyssey: the translation I had for college, plus a different translation I was given (haven't read it; not sure how different it is).
Alice in Wonderland, although not sure this counts, since they're in different collections.
do the widths of those books actually correspond to what was read?
The individual books, no, but the colored sections are indeed percentage-accurate. A more detailed page-count-related breakdown has definitely been on my list to include; look for it in 2026's stats, barring complications.
I'd be interested to know how you put all this data together and what you used to visualise it! :)
Last year, JaymesRS and I brainstormed a list of the kinds of info we wanted to extract from submissions; we add to it when we have an idea, or when I notice a fun correlation in the data. (Though we did initially check out r/fantasy bingo's stats for ideas, we mostly do our own thing.)
For collating, I just throw all the raw form data + any thread submissions into a spreadsheet that's set up to count the bingos, hard modes, substitutions, etc, as well as stuff like genres, publication decades, etc. It's kind of an ugly mess atm, but it works! So far, I've been collecting the metadata manually, but I'm probably gonna look into automating that via API at some point.
All the graphics (graphs, charts, visualizations, etc.) are done by hand in Affinity Publisher v2.
Thank you for the kind words! It's wonderful to hear you're having a good time. :)
Grats on bingo!
Finished Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum. This is strongly in the healing and slice-of-life genres, detailing the struggles of running an independent bookshop, along with the personal anxieties and issues of the shop's employees and regulars. I liked it, but some combo of the writing, pacing, and translation felt a little clunky to me in places.
Currently a quarter of the way through The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. Hyunam-dong was a little slow (imo), so I'm balancing it out with something fast-paced (with footnotes!). It's enjoyable so far.
Sounds good to me!
Finished A Murder of Quality by John le Carré. Not terrible, but I agree with it being rated/reviewed more poorly than the rest of the Smiley series. Smiley spends most of the book interviewing people that avoid telling him key pieces of information because his cover story is wrong for that kind of confidence, and the rest is PoV switches, some of which withhold other information from the reader (and are thus fairly pointless). He figures it out anyway, of course, but in terms of being a) a good whodunit, and b) a good Smiley book... eh. I still found it very readable, though.
Currently reading Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum. This is very slice-of-life, told in little snippets. Quick to get through, but very meandering. Not sold on the translation in places.
I may have forgotten to check this thread for months... oops. Wasn't expecting a square clarification question in here.
I agree with Jaymes on both points. However, I believe I ended up deciding any typographical symbol counted when I was picking out books for Storygraph recommendations. (I probably should have changed the square description for clarity, mb.) Technically, they're not all punctuation, but Wikipedia seems to take the broader stance (which is where I figure most people would look up what counts), so why not?
I plowed through The Odds by Jeff Strand last week. Both this and the other book I've read by him (Allison) are what I call "popcorn horror": hits the ground running, kind of fluff, sort of action-y, slightly humorous while still being pretty horrific. It wasn't my favorite, but it was kind of exactly what I needed to get me out of my slump.
I'm currently partway through A Murder of Quality by John le Carré. Not a particularly noteworthy murder mystery so far, but I'm enjoying it anyway.
Oh it absolutely was (with some Hamlet mixed in for good measure).
I'm nearly done with Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. It's delightful, and I do love seeing more of the Librarian, but I'm a little confused about how much hype it gets. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's pretty great! I'm just not finding it better/more accessible/etc than the other Discworld I've read so far.
Still kinda in a reading slump, so probably grabbing something fast-paced next.
Yeah that's totally fair. I'm not a big fan of all of them, but I'm ok with them doing their own thing.
I started squinting real hard at the tesseract dev (before the controversy) when I saw a tesseract patch note that said something about getting rid of Þ (in some form, idr exactly, just that there was no mention of an option to turn it off). I think it's nice to have a few instantly-recognizable posters in the community, esp. when what they're doing is harmless.
I'm maybe not the best person to answer this (it's not a genre I read), but I'll give it a shot. I think there's definitely some blurriness about what counts as progression or not, but from what I gather, the main difference is the emphasis on "leveling up" like in games. Beating the big bad or becoming immortal or whatever is still part of it, sure, but you're really reading it to see your favorite character training to become more powerful (usually across a very high page count/lots of volumes, since progression fantasy originally came from webnovels). Think, like, any popular shonen title ever (Naruto, Bleach, etc). LitRPG specifically includes video game elements like stats and loot (and I think setting?), while cultivation is a subgenre of xianxia (which is a whole other thing I know even less about, sorry).
I started Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. It's fun so far; can't really go wrong with Discworld.
Afaik, "progression fantasy" covers both litRPG and cultivation novels (and, I guess, anything else with a heavy focus on the protagonist getting progressively stronger).
In the Mouth of Madness is great (although a little silly in places, iirc)! I'm surprised Monsterdon's watching it, tbh; they usually pick way more B-movie things.
I finished The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem! I finally just sat down last night and spent an hour or so getting through the last 20%, and now I wish I'd done that sooner. It's a neat little story about an unknowable threat on an alien planet; a lot of time is spent with crew scientists conjecturing why things are the way they are, but neither the characters nor the reader ever find out for sure. I found this both refreshing (not having the answers keeps things interesting) and frustrating (lots of dialogue and musing bog down the pacing). The last chapter finally dispenses with so much talking, but then ends somewhat abruptly. I liked it, but more in a "the storytelling was interesting" kind of way.
Still picking out a new book.
https://www.handprint.com/HP/WCL/ I've had this site bookmarked for eons; it's a little awkward to navigate, but so much information (maybe overwhelmingly much!) on watercolor, painting tools, perspective, color theory, etc.
Aw, thank you! That's very kind.
The individual books, no, but the colored sections are indeed percentage-accurate. A more detailed page-count-related breakdown has definitely been on my list to include; look for it in 2026's stats, barring complications.
Last year, JaymesRS and I brainstormed a list of the kinds of info we wanted to extract from submissions; we add to it when we have an idea, or when I notice a fun correlation in the data. (Though we did initially check out r/fantasy bingo's stats for ideas, we mostly do our own thing.)
For collating, I just throw all the raw form data + any thread submissions into a spreadsheet that's set up to count the bingos, hard modes, substitutions, etc, as well as stuff like genres, publication decades, etc. It's kind of an ugly mess atm, but it works! So far, I've been collecting the metadata manually, but I'm probably gonna look into automating that via API at some point.
All the graphics (graphs, charts, visualizations, etc.) are done by hand in Affinity Publisher v2.
I came in to recommend Leech, their first book, but Works of Vermin is good, too!