Started Mary Astor's Purple Diary by Edward Sorel yesterday, and am already more than halfway through it. It reads pretty fast.

EDIT (4/18): Mary Astor's Purple Diary was quite interesting! A bit atypical as far as most biographies go, but I suppose that's to be expected from a critical cartoonist author. Makes it better, in my opinion, most biographies are so dry and dull.

[b]EDIT (4/23): Witches Abroad was LOVELY. Funny and wholesome at the same time. Technically part of a particular Discworld arc, but it was fine even without reading the books prior to it. It also read incredibly quickly, I finished it a few days ago; read some manga in the interim.

Started The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux yesterday. Romance is one my least favorite genres, so the "historical romance" space has been taunting me. But Phantom is basically a romance, right? And the story takes place quite some time ago. So that should count, yes? That's the logic I'm going with, at any rate.

EDIT (4/29): The Phantom of the Opera is such a lovely book! And several portions of the movie adaptation actually make more sense to me after having read it. It's not a typical romantic tale, but if Jane Eyre counts as a historical romance, then Phantom does, too. It's actually incredibly dramatic, but also sweet, in a way. Leroux is practically a magician the way he paints scenes with words.

Current book is Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo. I've been after this one for WEEKS, so I am quite excited to have finally gotten my hands on it. This copy looks nearly brand new, and its accession date is only a few months back, which makes it seem like maybe the reason I couldn't find it for so long is that the previous copy was lost or damaged and had to be replaced. But I have it now, and that's what matters!

EDIT (5/6): Crooked Kingdom was such a good book! Definitely lived up to my expectations. Some parts of the ending cut deep, though. ;w; But all the character growth makes up for it.

Finally tracked down instructions for requesting inter-library loans so I can read the next book in the Drizzt series, though! Which means my current read is The Companions by R.A. Salvatore. I've been hunting for this book for over a year, but I've never managed to find a copy for sale in any of the physical shops I've frequented. Extra excited to be able to borrow it and FINALLY move forward in the series.

Currently reading Hello Charlie by Charlie Hess and Davin Seay, which is a true crime book about Robert Browne. (The "true crime" space is an easy fill for me, it's a genre I love, the only challenge was deciding which book to bring home.)

EDIT (5/16): Hello Charlie was quite interesting. It was also more respectful than a lot of the true crime books I've read - which tend toward being sensationalized - and deals more with the victims, their families, and the effects of the crimes rather than "propping up," so to speak, the crimes and criminal.

Just started A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. Originally was perusing his work seeking to fill the "historical fiction set in the US" square and kind of accidentally stumbled upon this gem which will fill the "featuring time travel" square instead. I have pretty high hopes for it; the person that checked me out said it was a favorite childhood book, which seems adequate as a recommendation to me.

EDIT (5/24): A Connecticut Yankee was quite fun! Some of the scholarly/critical complaints about it just didn't make sense to me. Were there some weak points in the plot? Sure. But did the plot meet some of the aggressive claims made by scholars and critics (both contemporary to the book and current)? Not really, not in my opinion, at least. It was fun, and humorous, and had some messages in it that are still quite relevant in our time. I think that more than makes up for its weaker points.

Going to start The Bat by Jo Nesbø today. I don't really know much about it, but the author is Norwegian, and the main character is an inspector from Oslo. It's hard to go wrong with a mystery novel, so I'm hoping this will be good.

Read the first volume of The Croaking yesterday, which was a thoroughly gripping comic, I couldn't put it down until I finished it. Might have to try to track down the actual web toon, I really want to know where the story goes.

Current book is Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks. I don't know if I will like it, I just got it to fill the "historical fiction set in the US" space for my challenge, I'm not big on historical fiction as a genre.

Moving on to a stack of comics/graphic novels, including the first volume of Monstress, some of The Runaways, and Eternals. Specifically, the 2020 compilation of the 2006 Eternals miniseries. Didn't realize Gaiman had worked on it until I found this at the library, actually. Makes me wonder why the movie was so... lukewarm, I guess, is the nicest way to put it.