One of the nicest things of being done writing is that I have more time for reading.

Last night, I finished “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince“, which, despite many people’s promises that I’d hate it, I thoroughly enjoyed. In a series like this, each book is not a separate entity, but is another layer on the ongoing story, so it’s hard to say how this compares to the other books. I think it fits, explains a lot more (although most of it unsurprising if you’ve been paying attention) and further demonstrates that the author had this all figured out ahead of time. I’m now looking forward to the next one more than I’ve anticipated any of the others so far.

I recently finished “Eragon“, which is a dragon rider book by Christopher Paolini. It was fantastic. It’s made more amazing by the fact that the guy was only 15 when he wrote it. It’s a ripping good story, wonderfully deep characters, and he, too, appears to have the whole story figured out, even though it promises to be three huge tomes by the time it’s done.

And last night I started “Eldest” which is the next in the Eragon series.

I recently finished listening to “The Man Who Was Thursday” by G.K. Chesterton. It was ok, but rather disappointing, considering who recommended it to me. I thought it would be more profound.

And I’m about to start listening to “Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”, from Librivox. This will be the first full-length work I’ve listened to from Librivox. I haven’t been very impressed with the quality of their shorter works, but mostly that’s because every chapter of the stuff I listened to was recorded by a different voice. That is sort of jarring when you’re getting to know new characters. This one all is by one voice, and so I have higher hopes. We’ll see.

And apart from that, I don’t think I’ve added anything to the list of stuff I’m reading. Hopefully before I get dragged into another writing project, I can actually finish some of the things that have been on that list for a very very long time.