Looks like it might be “@hijackart”. Hard to be sure since a lot of his current work seems to be gallery pieces, but there are one or two things that pop up on image search with a similar-ish tag.

Oh wow, you went hard. I got through around 50 last year (which was way more than I’d planned, and not something I intend to try again), but only a few were over 400 pages, with maybe a dozen novellas.

Anything in the super-long range you read that you’d recommend? I’m always hesitant to pick up anything with a high page count b/c they often seem like they’re long just to be long, and slow pacing and me don’t mix.

I’m partway through the mainstream published version of There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm. The original was one of my favorite reads from 2024 bingo, so this kinda-reread is really comfy. I can’t say I’ve noticed any big changes, outside of removing all mentions of SCP and reordering some chapters, but I also don’t usually remember stuff in detail, so it’s hard to say. I did flip back and forth between the two versions briefly at the start, and the part I was reading had definitely been rewritten, but it seemed to be mostly superficial differences rather than content.

(If your interest has been piqued by seeing other people in here read it, the original is still available here for free; just read the qntm-authored stories in order, including all of Five Five Five Five Five.)

That’s awesome, grats on the goal!

This last week I finished up The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. I liked it, but I wonder if I still would if I hadn’t already read/been a fan of the Moomin books. I was expecting some kind of overarching story or significant character growth, but it’s really just a series of little 3-10 page anecdotes that sometimes just stop without much resolution. If the authorial voice wasn’t so strong, or the characters so familiar (fictionalized family members, whom she also pulled from for the Moomins), I might have dropped it.

I also sped through Joe Country by Mick Herron, so I’d be ready to watch the new season of Slow Horses at some point. I liked it better than the previous 2 or 3; can’t really put my finger on why, though. Less outlandish plot, maybe?

Currently trying to settle on a new book: the last couple nights, I’ve been bouncing between Slewfoot by Brom and There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm (the rewritten version; I read the original a couple of years ago).

I hope you enjoy it!

Finished The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. Last week I complained it was overlong; turns out it was just a slump in the pacing, as I enjoyed the last 25-ish% much better. I have some minor quibbles with some of the explanations at the end, but overall, I liked it.

Read/finished Full Speed to a Crash Landing by Beth Revis. This was short and zipped along quickly. I didn’t love the MC’s personality, but the cat-and-mouse aspect was great, so I’ll probably end up putting the next one on my TBR.

Currently ambling my way through The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. Each chapter is a little story about an older woman and her granddaughter, who are living on a Finnish island. If you like the Moomin books, you’ll probably vibe with this as well.

I’m 2/3 of the way through The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. It’s been an easy, entertaining read so far, and I enjoy the gimmick of it being the manuscript of an unreliable narrator that someone else has added clarifying material to. It is starting to feel overlong, though; not sure if it’s me, the pacing, or if the story’s just wearing a bit thin.

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).