WWW Wednesday 2025: 10 September

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words, where bloggers share their answers to the reading world’s three W’s:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

I’m a day late posting this week, and for my first one, too! Oh, well, I decided to go with it anyway.

Disclaimer: While I do participate in a few challenges and readathons, I am also a mood reader, so any books waiting in the wings are subject to abrupt and unannounced changes. You have been warned lol.

Pages in Progress

After a long reading slump earlier in the year, I’m currently playing catch up on my challenges and readathons, so I’m reading a lot more than I normally would. I’ll keep up this pace for as long as I can, as I’m really hoping to actually complete at least one challenge this year. Next year, though, I’ll be back to my normal reading schedule, because this isn’t a load I can keep up long-term.

Book Cover: The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally

Book Cover: Half-Arse Human by Leena Norms

Half-Arse Human by Leena Norms: Hardcover. 294 pages. 60% done. Current Goodreads rating = 4.03. A self-help book with a difference. I’m enjoying it so far. Highly quotable. Those of us who love to watch Leena on YouTube will recognise her characteristic humour shining through every page.

February Dragon by Colin Thiele: Paperback. 174 pages. 14% done. Current Goodreads rating = 4.15. An Australian YA novel by one of Australia’s most beloved YA authors. I read it in school and I remember enjoying it, but it’s been so long that I don’t recall much about the story, except that it involves a bushfire (the February Dragon of the title).

Tsunami Kids: One Family’s Fight for Survival by Rob Forkan and Paul Forkan: Paperback. 272 pages. 10% done. Current Goodreads rating = 4.19. This is about the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami in Sri Lanka. One hell of a prologue.

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally: Paperback. 188 pages. 10% done. Current Goodreads rating = 3,68. Picked this up because it’s written by the same author as Schindler’s List. Jimmie Blacksmith is a mixed race Australian who doesn’t fully fit into either culture. I’ve only just started it and I’m already gritting my teeth at the treatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Half the people Jimmie encounters treat him like dirt, the other half talk down to him like he’s a bloody toddler. It’s infuriating.

Letters for Emily: A novel by Camron Wright: Paperback. 213 pages. 12% done. Current Goodreads rating = 3.90. A heartbreaking story about how it feels to have Alzheimer’s, what it’s like to have a loved one with Alzheimer’s, and a grandfather’s desperate race to record his legacy for his beloved granddaughter before the disease steals his memories and turns him into a caricature of himself.

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter: Paperback. 114 pages. 15% done. Current Goodreads rating = 3.81. As the title suggests, this is a book about grief. Very unusual format. Quite intriguing.

The Plays of Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (Wordsworth Classics) by Oscar Wilde: Paperback. 150 pages. 4% done. Current Goodreads rating = 4.50. This volume contains two plays: An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest. I’ve neither seen nor read An Ideal Husband, but I took in a performance of The Importance of Being Earnest as a girl and recall enjoying it immensely.

The Bitter Sea: Coming of Age in a China Before Mao by Charles N. Li: Paperback. 283 pages. Borrowed from Mum. 14% done. Current Goodreads rating = 4.01. This is the memoir of the son of a Chinese government official. I’ve only just started the book but I can already tell it’s going to be good.

The Dead Won’t Sleep by Anna Smith: Paperback. 304 pages. 45% done. Current Goodreads rating = 4.21. Crime mystery set in Scotland. First in the Rosie Gilmour series. Protagonist is a journalist. So far, it’s been fairly meh.

Extraction of Arrows by Kathryn Lorimer: Paperback. 67 pages. 79% done. Current Goodreads rating = 4.25. A Book of poetry in three parts. Excellent so far.

Criminolly Presents Garbology: The GarbAugust Anthology of Awesome Trash by Troy Tradup (editor) and Oliver Clarke (Introduction): Paperback. 451 pages. 84% done. Current Goodreads rating = 4.31. Every year Olly, from CriminOlly hosts a reading challenge called GarbAugust, where we spend the month of August reading trashy books. Trash, in the sense of unashamedly commercial, purely for enjoyment books, not badly written ones. This year and last, in honour of GarbAugust, he put the call out for people to submit trashy short stories or flash fiction, then published a selection of them as an anthology. This is last year’s book. It is, sadly, no longer in print, having stopped production when this year’s book was released. But, if you can track down a second-hand copy, I highly recommend doing so, because I’m loving it.

On the Shelf Again

Book Cover, Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult.

I didn’t read my challenge/readathon books in their correct month/s due to being in a reading slump, but I’m counting them anyway, because I did read them!

Title: Plain Truth
Author: Jodi Picoult
Prompts:
The 52 Book Club Challenge 2025: A pun in the title
2025 Buzzwordathon: January: ‘Truth’ and ‘Lies’
Time to Read: 49 days
Rating: 4.25
Spice Rating: 2
Some Thoughts (not reviewed yet): Interesting concept. Multiple POVs as is usual for Picoult. Extremely interesting and difficult themes, also Picoult’s usual MO. An Amish woman is on trial for infanticide. Did she do it? Did someone else do it? Was the baby even murdered at all? Excellent book. It may have taken me a while to read it, but that was just because I have a lot of books on the go at once, trying to catch up from my reading slump. I actually really enjoyed this book. Plus, it did not end the way I expected.