Raw Data:
Novels - 17 ↑
Short Stories - 1 ↑
Manga/Graphic Novels - 1 -
Comics - 1 -
Average Rating - 3.10 ↑
Pages - 4195 ↑
Words - 1376K ↑
The Bad:
City of Stairs - 1star dnf of the now-typical usual suspects
Blades of Damocles - 2.5stars of the Hated Astartes, aka Space Marines
The Good:
Blood Debt - 4stars of Victor the Assassin being Victor the Assassin
The Final Deduction - 4stars of Death and Taxes ;-)
Miscellaneous Posts:
- [Journal] Verdi, Carteggio
- An ERA Update
- Gray Ogre - MTG 4E
- My Week XXIV or Bearly Surviving!
- Bookstooge's Criteria
- Greed - MTG 4E
- A History of ….. Bookstoogia
- Sunshine Blogger Award - 2025 Edition
- Green Mana Battery - MTG 4E
- My Week XXV
- Green Ward - MTG 4E
Personal:
First and foremost, my "Bookstooge's Criteria" post was the top post for this month and this year. even topping the hits for my "About" page (who can resist that lovable Mr Zip after all?). It even tops all but 5 posts from 2024, and that is in this month alone. That kind of post only happens once or twice a year. But I am glad it resonated with so many of you, as that is a good feeling as a blogger. And that's enough bragging from me ;-)
Mrs B contributed a post midmonth and that always makes me happy. She read my review of Austen's "History of England" and decided to do her own farce of a farce based on the fictious land of Bookstoogia.
Work was all over the place. New Guy is now fully in the Environmental Department so I got bounced around with Tall Guy (he's over a foot taller than me), by myself or with whoever. It was a very unsettling time. I knew it was coming though, so I just rolled with the punches. I have a feeling this whole summer is going to be like this.
Mrs B and I have started attending the Seventh Day Adventist church full time this month. It's a bit of a change, but with how I was dealing with the contemporary worship music at the Sunday church (ie, I wasn't, I had to sit out in the vestibule because I couldn't stand to even listen to it any more), something needed to change. Thankfully, it's an amicable change and we still have our circle of friends from the Sunday church. They are a real blessing to us.
My reading for May was insane. 20 books/comics are the kind of numbers I would expect to pull down if I had two weeks off from work. But I was just insatiable and tore through the books like a beast. My average rating went up quite a bit too. After last month's 2.86 fiasco, getting back to 3.1 feels good, real good!
Cover Love:

This actually had THREE contenders, first time that has happened in years. There was the Warhammer 40,000 novel about the Necrons (immortal but insane ultimate killing robots), called Reign. Next was the Shadow novel, Shadowed Millions. Finally, and the winner in my books, was the fantastically despicable Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Like I wrote in the review, the Arcane Casebook vibes were superduper strong with that cover and I couldn't resist.
Plans for Next Month:
Because I read so fething much this month, I am going to ease WAY back on that. Which in turn means less posts, so I'm going to go back to taking Saturday's off again. I was ok with posting this month, but it was ALL because of how much I read and I don't foresee that happening again.
Going to watch and review the final story arc for the Yu Yu Hakusho anime. Since I stopped reading the Demon Slayer manga, I hope to sneak in a graphic novel in it's place. Not sure which one though. Probably either the Shadow/Batman: Murder Geniuses recommended by Lashaan or the next Usagi Yojimbo, which is the samura rabbit that I started last year :-)