Reading Goals

I'm starting to do a lot better these days reading-wise. I'm still a long way away from reading a book a week (like in the good old days) or even 1 about every 2 weeks, but I do find I'm slowly regaining some acceptable speed.

I've managed to finish the Blood of Elves earlier this month and am about halfway through The Devil's Apocrypha.

Through circumstances, my reading plans for this year have been sunk, disastrously so, and so I'm wiping the slate clean and setting myself some new reading goals that should be easily attainable. 

The goal is to finish one of these books each month.

The Devil's Apocrypha by the end of October, The Exorcist in November and As a God Might Be in December.

As you can see, I've been drawn to a particular theme here.

I found that after my recent reading slump, if I'm to commit to any reading project again, it's going to have to be books that hold a particular fascination for me, and that means some good ol' Christian mythology.

The Devil's Apocrypha is a re-telling of certain parts of the Bible with an eye on making the Biblical god as much of an asshole as possible, while all the while making the devil as sympathetic as possible.

There's a cool and slightly mind-boggling origin story for the Divine Mythology - more on that in a few days - but after that it's mostly downhill. It's not horribly written but neither is it any memorable. It's also a bit try-hard in its language and style and not as clever as it thinks it is, but at the very least I'm getting some illicit thrills out of it.

The Exorcist needs no introduction and has been on my shelf for a while and I thought that this might be a good time to give it a go. Catholicism isn't my bag but I'm here for the darker side of things anyway.

And As a God Might Be is a bit of an unknown right now.

I bought it in a state of excited hype because it was mentioned by Abalieno on Loopingworld, and is said to contain some existential and metaphysical themes and to dwell on the nature of God and what it means to be human. I'm not expecting any supernatural shenanigans but having taken a peek before, I can already say this one will be the best written novel of the three.