Reading Challenges; or Setting Outside on a Sunny Day with a Good Book
Taking advantage of the weather and spending time reading
The Pacific Northwest includes everything from sage brush deserts to mossy rainforests. You'll find rivers, lakes, miles and miles of trails, or cities like Portland and Seattle. From where I sit, you can see a massive white volcano peak thrusting up from the horizon. Or you could if the tall dark green Douglas fir trees and paler aspens and cottonwoods didn't block the view. A little way down the road and the view of Mt. Rainier is unobstructed. No clouds in the sky. No rain in the forecast.
In fact, it's readinary weather! It's the perfect sort of day to sit outside in the shade of those trees with a good book as the temperatures climb up to 90°F+ degrees today. I plan to do that soon and finish reading The Beast House by Richard Laymon. Given the recent news, sitting outside and reading about a horrific beast haunting a house is a welcome distraction.
Laymon wrote a bunch of books starting in the '80s up until his death in 2001, with a few books coming out in the next few years after his death. His books fit into the horror, splatterpunk genre. They're entertaining books that remind me of popular horror films. The "Beast House" features in several of the books that Laymon wrote. It'd make a good series of horror movies, if anyone wanted to develop them. The series starts out set in 1979—if movies did get made, I hope they'd keep it set at that time. You might be able to update it to set it today, but I think it'd be better set in the pre-Internet, pre-cell phone world it was written in. It'd also be the sort of thing that could go really wrong, depending on the budget and filmmaker. Done right, though, I think it'd be great fun.
Reading Challenges
Over the next few days, I'm going to finish posting books from Crini'z A to Z list of science fiction and fantasy books by trans authors to my Instagram feed for #pridemonth. An "A to Z" list is a great format for a reading challenge. I recommend checking out the list—lots of great titles there.
I set a reading challenge for this year of 80 books. I may end up reading more than that, I'm currently ahead by several books. Whatever your reading goal, I think it's great to have one. Not that I need much motivation to read! Especially at times like this.
What type of books, or specific authors/titles, do you turn to when the rest of the world is too awful? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading.
Best wishes, always, Ryan
Looking for a quick escape? Check out DRIVE-BY STORIES. Each day I'm sharing a short short stories ~3-8 pages long on my Instagram & Facebook stories. Follow me to catch each story as released. I'm sharing some of the stories here for everyone, with the full archive of stories available to paid READINARY subscribers. When I get to 100 stories, I plan to publish a collection. I hope you'll check them out, I think they're fantastic fun.