Sravanesh > Recent Status Updates

Fantastic audible full cast edition. Loved the final battle with the basilisk and the incredible sound design. I didn't realize Kit Harrington was Gilderoy Lockhart until I looked it up and he did a fantastic job. Look forward to the new cast edition!

Very bored with the beginning. The kid lives on a farm, his father went bankrupt and left his mom there. Mom told him to leave and he did. Now the kid is homeless and stealing food. Not a good start to a novel and don't really like it but will read on when I am truly bored, I guess.

Listening to the audible cast recordings of this book. Very immersive and love the voice of the Basilisk. Again, just as well done as the previous book.

Completed the third book. Such a great read and the nostalgia from two decades ago just hits you. It still holds up as one of the best HP novels. The Alfonso Cuaron movie is very faithful to the book and did a great job in adapting it. Probably the last movie I really liked in the series as the rest do not have John Williams composing its score and didn't have decent directors.

Finished reading the chamber of secrets. Even now, reading it after more than two decades of when I read it first, it still holds up and gives warm and fuzzy feelings. The whole sequence of Harry going into the chamber and the fight with the serpent and aftermath was fantastic. It was well done in the movie but the book completely withstands the test of time. Very few other books have ever given me this feeling.

Apparently he had a crush on Hillary Clinton when he met her, and introduced her to Bill Clinton, when they all went to Yale Law School along with Clarence Thomas. He went to Yale because he wanted to do good and learn how, which is why many went there, he says.

Halfway through the second book. The second movie is really faithful, but the Book Malfoy is a lot more intolerable. And there is a lot more detail into the Polyjuice Potion and Aragog chapters.

Started on the second book as I listened to the sorcerer's stone cast recording on audible. Still a delightful read and love JKR's prose. About a quarter of the way through the second book and picking up bits and pieces I forgot over the years. Reading one book a month to get caught up on when the next cast recording comes out in December.

Incredible book. Biden was a fool to have dropped out, and he was still very capable of governing, contrary to popular "opinion" in his party. Or he shouldn't have sought reelection. But dropping out was the worst move because America didn't know Harris. Trump monopolized on his assassination attempt and cornered the angry white people vote while fooling them to think he cared. It's the revenge administration now.

He talks about how he was influenced in the civil rights era, particularly when white activists were murdered when going to the South. He talked multiple times about how he hates bullies and has been dealing with them all his life (early on due to his height, and later on due to his opinions). His politics are obviously left-leaning but he is very sincere and offers a good argument.

On the full cast edition. It's a fantastic, top-tier production. The voices are so good, the sound design (effects, music, background, etc.) is so immersive, and they seamlessly transition between the chapters. The full cast edition on audible is a must have for every Harry Potter fan.

Rereading this book that I read as a kid. I have watched the Caviezel film about it which was meh. Looking forward to the 8-part miniseries supposedly being released next year. This is one of the greatest revenge stories, and Edmund Dantes is about to get horribly betrayed after returning from a voyage where his captain died and he had to assume command.

Two third of the way through, we hit an impending tragedy, with the main character acknowledging that he was a fool to think he can ever change the system. Things have been pretty smooth, considering the morbid nature of the games. I love the lore drop but we all know what's going to happen. I like this book a lot. But the author definitely "Gary Stu'd" her protagonist to make him a lot more competent and eloquent.

This is now a plot to blow up the arena and end the Capital's sadistic games. Haymitch seems to be a little too Gary Stu even though he's from the crappiest district. I'm on board with the plot though, but being a prequel, I know it'll end in a tragedy as the hunger games survived to see Katniss chosen for the games.

Pretty fun read so far. Protagonist is another kid, and told from first person POV. It's a prequel so I'm tempering my expectations. But so far so good.

This hard-right, religious conservative clerked for a COA judge after graduating law school at Notre Dame, and then clerked for one of the best writers and jurists on the supreme Court, Justice Scalia. She was then plucked out by Don McGahn, white house chief of staff under trump, because she was on some hard right lists to overturn Roe v. Wade. She doesn't talk about her conversation(s) with Trump or any of this.

Was not impressed by the original hunger games trilogy. But this book shows promise after the author has matured. I don't often read teenage dystopian novels but this one was highly rated. And the quotes in the beginning of how the ones governed let a small group of assholes govern them rings true of the current state of affairs. Book starts with Haymitch Abernathy being chosen for the reaping.

Really well-researched. Getting an insight into Trump's insane circle was great. What I learned is we could do this all over again is that Biden should've done one of two things, never ran for the 2nd term, but if he still was going to, never drop out. He would've had a much better shot than Kamala. He should've stayed. Also learned Trump didn't want him to drop out after that disastrous debate performance.

This book is hilarious and sad simultaneously. The main buffoon, Figgo, a low-iq neo-nazi has the worst luck. I guess that's what this book is really about - the author torturing trump supporters and white supremacists by ridiculing them senselessly and showing how inept they are. The cursing and punishments in here are classic. "Fucknoodle" and Figgo getting a graft on his nose of scrotum skin are my favs.

Quickly escalated from an impending volcano eruption to a plot to save the world from death by nuclear waste and parasites. I can see Michael Crichton's fingerprints on this very lightly, some would say a latent print. Maybe 10% it is his. The vast majority of it is just set-piece to set-piece, disaster to another, without much character development. I guess that's what James Patterson novels are like...

Yeah, I'm done...

This is a terrible hitpiece of a book. Jake Tapper is obviously angry that Trump won and found a good scapegoat. He relies heavily on anecdotes and polls, and as every election has taught us, the polls are garbage. Every "credible" pollster had Hillary leading in 2016. Polls indicated Biden would lose in 2020 or were close. And then indicated that the 2024 election was much closer for Kamala than it was.

Really one of the worst books I've read. It skips around so damn much between flashbacks, random plot reveals, and a horrendous villain/alien org that I really think that something was lost in translation as this book was originally written in Mandarin.

There's some serious loss in translation but we finally get an explanation and the crazy bitch behind the deaths, and the evil, traiterous org bent on helping aliens defeat its own planet. This book is a damn slog for about two thirds of it, and finally gets good. Probably going to end with this book though because I really cannot stand the prose which is translated from a very difficult language, Mandarin.

...wtf is this book...
Commander? Trisolaris? ...

Tapper is very angry at Joe Biden for running, and then dropping out leaving Kamala Harris to lose to Trump. This seems to be his book to vent his frustration for leaving Kamala Harris 107 days (and not enough) to try to beat Trump. Tapper says the "original sin" is Biden deciding to run again when he should've dropped out due to advancing age and declining cognitive ability. Not much proof here either way...

Halfway through the book and it skips around between multiple characters, a video game, a guy who studies the three body problem, his dead wife and the organization she's in, and I have no idea wtf is going on. The story is definitely lost in translation a bit because some mannerisms, sayings, and behaviors are just odd.

Only spent half a chapter on Trump and nothing substantive or critical except she was rooting for Hillary and, now, Kamala. She's biting her tongue because she doesn't know the outcome of the 2024 election when the book was written, and knows that Trump can retaliate against those who criticize him. She then skips to COVID, where she backtracked on lockdowns when it became unpopular. She wilted under pressure.

After a dull 4/5ths of a book, she finally starts criticisms, including how Modi needs to do more on global warming reduction, while China and the US create seven and fifteen times more carbon emissions per capita, respectively. She doesn't bring these criticisms to the Chinese, however. And she finally gets to Trump, whose provocations she ignored and is pretending he's a sane person instead of a master manipulator.

Though the trap and betrayal were telegraphed and predictable, the second half of this book turned into a fast paced, excellent thrill Ride of developments that were pretty unpredictable. Rake is a fucking badass and the addition of Jaqen's voice actor and plot, really made this into a really good book. I'm hoping they land this in a satisfying ending but the ride has been really good as well in this trilogy.