Month: October 2025

Numbers: October 27, 2025

Welcome to another installment of my Magic Mondays , this week was not the most productive one, but as always, I greatly enjoyed the process, what’s the point of doing anything if your not enjoying it.

And believe me, I’m reclaiming that joy from the time that the project began, it feels like all the new possibilities, future collaborations, and some plans beyond the written words in this blog, are injecting new energy into this slumbering project.

Even though this week, number twenty-one of this year of reading broke with the streak of the weekly total, I could only read 521 pages, the other activities from the week more than make up for it, my favorite thing was to resurrect the Caffeine Pilgrimage, post coming really soon I promise, and being a collaboration with someone so special that will be integral part of this new era of the blog, just make it worth not having that much progress for the week.

As always adjust will be made, for example, the goal for the current week, number twenty-two, will have to be 1,724 pages. This is typical when my reading doesn’t get quite where it should be. Not that I’m concerned about a little set-back, it’s actually more fuel for the fire and great motivation to dive into my beloved books and get some reading done.

Now, for the order of business, let us start with the most proximate milestone at hand, the 600,000-page mark. With all the milestones, and in sight of the low number for the week, there was a little step back. Nothing catastrophic and easily managed. For this milestone there’s still 4,749 pages to go, and the new projected date is December 16 of this year, three days later that the last projection, but I’m more than happy that is still happening this year.

The next milestone, the 750,000-page mark, and the one that has an amazing prize at the end, further down the road, I will elaborate more on this matter, but the thing that can be shared right now is that it is a 10-day road trip to reconnect with nature. But in order to do so, I must first reach that coveted goal. Right now, there’s 154,749 pages left, last week the project date was March 31, 2030, there was a little 3 day step back and this week date is April 3, 2030. Still, my main goal is to finish around April, 2027, to have at least 4 years to handle the last quarter million pages.

Talking about the final milestone, the coveted 1,000,000-pages left mark, the same as with the other important milestones, a bit of a step back. The date from last week was May 27,2037 and for this week is June 1, 2037 , just like the other two, a 3 day set back. Not a big issue, but one that I must not let happen that often.

This still keep me in around 55 years old when this milestone is achieved, but with consistency and a lot of caffeine, that goal will be conquered, more now that ever, my motivation is sky high.

A quick recap

  • Total Pages (Y-18) : 16,841 pages
  • Pages Left (Y-18) : 53,424 pages
  • Total Pages (General) : 595, 251 pages
  • Date to achieve 600,000: December 16, 2025
  • Date to achieve 750,000: April 3, 2030
  • Date to achieve 1,000,000: June 1,2037
  • Days behind: 2,187 days

For now, I’m off to read

Azriel

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The Journey: October 26,2025

This past week was crazy busy, and as you can image , my reading took a little bit of a hit. With Halloween just around the corner there’s some preparations to be made, so in all, it was really enjoyable and spooky days.

Now, I will put some extra effort to keep my weekly goal streak going. Nothing major, just 906 pages to go, and a good 4 hours on this lazy Sunday to achieve that apparently huge number. I have done it before and I’ll do it again.

One of the great news for this week is that one of the sections of this adventure will return with a new post, Caffeine Pilgrimage, that’s the one where I go to different coffee shops, drink copious amounts of that magical elixir , and check out the reading vibe of the place. I’ll be doing this collaboration with a pretty cool and special person, which makes the experience even more exciting.

Let’s talk about the reading plans of the last days of spooky season. First of all, my current progress on The Reddening, serious what a creepy and exhilarating ride at the hand of Mr. Nevill, is almost at page 300, which is about three quarters of the way through.

I also added to my reading itinerary a couple of short stories collections from his extensive bibliography, Before you Sleep and Before you Wake., so is easy to say that this spooky season was placed in the really capable hands of this British author.

And not being satisfied with those three works, yesterday, there was the addition of his most recognized work, The Ritual, which as my in-house expert on new horror films, it’s a very disturbing and memorable movie. I’m thinking that the book should be even greater than that.

On the comic book front, there’s a lot to go thru. For starters I stumbled upon a collection from two of the greatest horror creators in the medium. Steve Niles, from 30 days of Night fame, and the legendary illustrator Bernie Wrightson, this beautiful black and white collection includes three stories, for my money the best of the collection will be The Ghoul, there’s a bit of hints of Hellboy and a noir detective that just make it a delight to read

To continue with the great stories for spooky season, I can’t not get enough of my favorite comic book universe, of course I’m talking about Hellboy and the B.P.R.D. My latest incursion was with the finally of the story arc of the long running Hell on Earth. Although one of the greatest member of the extensive history of the B.P.R.D comes and saves the day, the great Liz Sherman, the earth shattering consequences are feel throughout several planes of existence. Yes the frogmen are defeated, along with the Black Flame. But a new terror rises in the mist of the appear victory.

Which brings us to the new story arc, The Devil You Know, starting off with the first volume, Messiah. As the B.P.R.D neutralizes the apocalypse, while trying to rebuild the world among cults and demons running around, they return to the ruins of what once was their Headquarters to find a mysterious coffin containing the remains of non other than Hellboy himself, to get the full shock effect of this revelation I recommend to read The Fury and Hellboy in Hell story arcs

Not to exaggerate, but I strongly believe that this spooky season has been the best, not only in all the material that has passed thru my hands, but also the overall feel and especially the catching up with all the horror movies I missed out on in recent years, again, this is all thanks to my in-house expert, and future collaborator on this blog , on the subject.

I’ll get back to reading, there’s a gargantuan task to be tackled, and as always, I’m not about to back down from a challenge, especially if there’s coffee and books involved.

For now, I’m off to read.

Azriel

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Numbers: October 20, 2025

Welcome to another Magic Monday, and for the second week in a row, the goal for the 20th week of this year of reading was achieved. The projection for each week is 1,351, considering that the total for this year is 70,265 pages, the minimal average should be the aforementioned number.

Since the first months of the year weren’t that productive, I adjusted the new weekly average, it fluctuates, but for the current week, number 21, my goal is to read 1,683 pages.

The number is not so far fetched, considering that the last two weeks I had a 1,400 (W-20) and 2,000 (W-19) pages. Only need to be more consistent and try to hit those marks on a regular basis. I have started using a weekly planner and there, let’s say a more simplistic way that my previous reading journals, I can keep track of each day progress.

Now that I understand my reading patterns, the amount of pages that are allocated for each day vary, for example, from Monday to Wednesday, normal reading days, the total should be 168 pages for each day, around 10%. Thursday, for reasons I don’t understand, is typically a more active day, 20% is in order or 336 pages.

Friday is the slowest day, around 118 pages or 7%. Saturday is a wild card, sometimes is the most productive day, sometimes my reading is close to nothing, to be on the safe side, it’s treated like a normal day of reading, another 168 pages. Sunday, now that’s the star of the show, coming in on a whopping 33% or 556 pages, which the last few weeks have been achieved.

Now that this new pattern has emerged, I’ll keep tracking how effective it is, but let’s jump into how things are shaping up for my crazy little projects.

The next big milestones is the 600,000 pages mark, on that front , there’s only 5,155 pages left, and the new date to reaching my next stepping stone is December 13 of this year. That’s a 11 days improvement from last week.

On regarding the next milestone, 750,000 pages mark. The new date is now March 31, 2030. Here there was also a significant improvement of 23 days. This particular milestone has become the engine that’s pulling me along. Once this goal is meet, I’m planning to take a week-long trip thru some magnificent natural reserves, sort of a disconnect to reconnect, coming along this journey is someone really special, who has reignited my passion for the written words and more specially for coming back to capturing my progress thru the project.

The next one is the big fella himself, the coveted 1,000,000 pages mark. I’m so glad to say that this goal also saw some significant improvement on the finishing date. Last week the projection was for June 14, 2037, this week is for May 27, 2037. That’s a 19 days improvement.

These type of steps forward keep me in motion, and hungering for more stories, although there’s still a long way to go, I’m certain that these dates will be keep coming closer to my goal. Right now, I would be 55 years, 11 months, 22 days old when I get to the mountain top, but as always, I’m aiming to be crossing that threshold by my 50th birthday.

A quick recap:

  • Total pages (Y-18) : 16,435 pages
  • Pages left (Y-18) : 53,830 pages
  • Total pages (General) : 594,845
  • Date to achieve 600,000 : December 13, 2025
  • Date to achieve 750,000 : March 31,2030
  • Date to achieve 1,000,000 : May 27, 2037
  • Days Behind : 2,183 days

For now, I’m off to read

Azriel

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The Journey: October 18, 2025

Welcome to the post formally known as The Daily Journal. Since sometimes I can’t write daily, I think the best course of action is to change a little bit the dynamic of this entries, just cram my day to day progress with these crazy journey of mine.

Continuing with the spooky season theme of the passed two weeks, I’m knee deep into the not so explored genre horror.

I’m currently on page 138 of the incredibly creepy The Reddening by Adam L.G. Nevill, this book has make me want to further explore the author’s bibliography and probably also check-out the movie based on his popular novel, The Ritual

On the Vampirismo collection, I’m fallen a little bit behind and currently working on the sixth story, La Dama pálida by famous author Alexander Dumas. The goal is get thru each an every single story by the end of October.

On the comic book front, what would spooky season be without tossing some of the genius work by the incredible Mike Mignola, famous for creating the ever expanding universe of Hellboy. Im continuing with Volume number 12 of the Hell on Earth Series, Metamorphosis, the whole continues in shambles as the threat of the mysterious creatures keep haunting human kind.

Also, I’ll throw in some one shoots from Hellboy and one of the series of the Expanded Universe, Rasputin : The Voice of the Dragon, which follows his rise to power that leads up to the summoning of Anung Un Rama, the event that started this whole series

For me, being Mexican, spooky season extends until November 2, that’s when we commemorate our dearly departed with Día de muertos, hopefully, I’ll get around and share the incredible festivities that we partake in honoring the memory of those who left us to go on their new journey.

As I intend to keep my week goal streak going, between tonight and tomorrow, I have around 800 pages to read .

With that in mind, I’m off to read

Azriel

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Daily Journal: October 13, 2025

I’m coming of a reading high that I haven’t experience in quite a while.

My numbers were phenomenal over the weekend and they went as so:

Friday, October 10: 315 pages

Saturday, October 11: 543 pages

Sunday, October 12: 598 pages

I do feel a shift of my focus during spooky season, the combination of colder weather, hot coffee, and wearing hoodies, just make the perfect environment to get lost in books, and with the selection for reading this year it’s only enhancing the experience tenfold.

I must say that my current book, The Reddening by Adam L.G. Nevill grab me by the balls and it doesn’t want to let go. That combination of archeological finds and the tension of disturbing some ancient beasts from their resting place is just done perfectly. Yesterday only sleep kept me apart from reading more of it, still, I made some decent progress, 73 pages.

The other book, Vampirismo, a compilation of classic vampire tales, has gotten me thinking of returning to one of my favorite mini-goals of this project, one short story a day keeps the impending feeling of doom of not finishing this project in time away. So, after that dramatic diatribe, yesterday was the classic tale from John Polidori, The Vampyre, it’s was good but not phenomenal, today on the docket, La buena Lady Ducayne by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, let’s see if this one fairs better.

On the comic book front, I’ll go back to one of my favorite series from the mid-90’s Marvel Universe, Midnight Sons, but this time in its newest incarnation. The Midnight Sons are a supernatural “group” of superheroes that are mainly comprised by Blade, Morbius, and The Ghost Riders Danny Ketch and Johnny Blaze. This particular arc is called Blood Hunt,and apparently they will have to face the Werewolf by Night on steroids. Let’s see if it’s as fun as I remember, either way this one is special, it was a gift from my biggest and best supporter and the one who got me back to writing, forever grateful for that.

As a final note, I have an infinite amount of books and comics that I want to read, and as all bookworms know, that comes with the territory of having mountains of TBR just sitting on our shelves, both physically and digitally, for that matter, and in the interest of bringing those mountains down to hills, I device a couple of reward systems.

The first being a completion of 10 stamps, each stamp is equal to one book finished, in order to buy the next book. In this case in particular I’m using it to continue my dive into one of the most iconic series from Warhammer 40K or better said 30K, that’s an explanation for another time, anyway, I’m of course talking about The Horus Heresy.

I’m hunting for book number five , Fulgrim,the series, by the way, is 60+ books long, and I’m proud to say that I have already collected 5 stamps. I’ll post a photo next time of my card where I keep track of my progress.

The second reward system is time read, and for this particular reward I’m going after at least 24 hours of actual reading and in return, I’ll buy the next volume on a series that only recently came into my radar, The Wandering Inn by Pirateaba.

Right now the series is 17 books in, and with a whopping 23,000 + pages of total story, I’m more than intrigued to jump into a long epic fantasy series. Below you can see the first volume of the series,the second volume, the one that I’m hunting for, and the almost complete reward card

There’s so much to read and achieved, the one thing that I can say is that I haven’t been this motivated in a long time

Off to read

Azriel

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Numbers: October 13, 2025

Welcome back to my Magic Mondays, the blissful day when I get to obsess over how much did I actually progress with my goals, hyperventilate, write about it, and then continue with my reading, because panicking has never been a solution to getting to those pages read.

I’ll start with the most proximate goal, and work myself up to the elephant in the room, those coveted million pages.

To start, there’s only 2,063 days left until the deadline of my project, better known as my 50th birthday, and a whole lot of pages to go thru. But as my mantra has always been, “one page at a time”, the next milestone is of the utmost importance.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, the current year, the 18th of this project, began a little bit slow. In the 20 weeks that have transpired, only 3 have been completed with their respective total projected, those numbers will simply not do. The current total is a meager 15,138 pages , but hope has been regained, the past week was phenomenal, a total of 2,000 pages. and I intend to continue with that pace, in doing so, this could be easily a over 50,000 pages year . I’ll make the remaining 237 days worth every second.

My next big milestone is reaching 600,000 pages. I’m glad to say that is even closer that expected, right now there’s only 6,452 pages left, and with the current pace, I’ll be crossing that goal on December 24 of this year, as always,each day , I’ll strive to bring that date close and closer.

The next milestone , 750,000 pages, is another beast , right now my projection is to get to that goal on April 23, 2030. That would leave only a year and two months to read the remaining 250,000 pages, insane numbers , that quite frankly, I see as impossible to achieve, that’s why my intentions is to reach that three quarter of a million pages no later than April 2027, let’s see how this progress each and every week.

Now, for the aforementioned elephant in the room, the projections place that particular milestone way too far from my original goal. Right now it sits, uncomfortably, at June 14, 2037. That’s 6 years and 8 days too late for my liking. As with all my goals, I’ll keep close tabs on the progression forward, as I said before, “one step at a time, one page at a time”, but right now it will seem that jogging is no longer the method of getting there.

A full sprint is my future, a whole marathon at the speed of a 100 meter race.

So quick recap:

Total pages: 593,548 pages

Date to achieve 600,000: December 24, 2025

Date to achieve 750,000: April 23,2030

Date to achieve 1,000,000: June 14, 2037

Pages left on (Y-18): 55,127 pages

For now, I’m off to read

Azriel

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Daily Journal: October 12, 2025

It took a while for me to get back to sharing my progress in this crazy journey of mine, but here I am, eager to get back on track with my reading.

I think the first order of business on this return is to give you a quick update of how my numbers are going and what I’m currently working on.

As you may already know, spooky season is my favorite time of the year, and so far, I have read some amazing eerie and disturbing stories.

In the case of the creature of the Black Lagoon and Dear Creature, the stories follow a reptilian type creature that haunts the waterways, but in two totally different approaches, to be completely honest, I was pleasantly surprised by Jonathan Case’s Dear Creature, not only is it beautifully illustrated, but it also has a more whimsical approach to the creature, sometimes really funny, sometimes really heart wrenching, but in all an amazing tale of trying to belong and find happiness.

On the other hand, the Creature from the Black Lagoon transported me to back when I was 12 and starting to get into those classic creature-features that were already ingrained as the basis of all the genre of monsters.

Another volume I started working on was A Very DC Halloween, seeing the classic characters from the DC universe embroiled in supernatural scenarios is always fun, and just teasing on the cover a Swamp Thing story, well that will get me to open it up every time.

On the book front, I just re-started my spooky season tradition of reading Frankenstein, beautifully illustrated by William O’Connor, as always this behemoth of a book never fails to amaze me, and with the impending release of Guillermo del Toro adaptation, this was the perfect timing to get immersed in it’s captivating story

The two other books that hopefully will be finished by the end of spooky season

The first is a compilation of vampire called Vampirismo, containing some classic authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander Dumas, H.G.Wells, Robert E.Howard and the main reason for buying this particular collection was to finally read the seminal story by John Polidori, The Vampyre. Considered the first romantic vampire story and created on the same faithful night where the brilliant Mary Shelley gave birth to her famous Prometheus.

The second is the folk-horror novel The Reddening by author Adam L.G. Nevill , as the description of the book goes, I’m getting into a world of ancient rituals , prehistoric vengeful gods and mythical red creatures. Sounds like the perfect book to cozy up for the colder weather.

On the number side of things , I’ll just make a quick update, the full rundown of my totals and date of the next achievements will be posted on the next numbers post, which as tradition dictates, will be done on the magic Monday of each week.

So far on this year, the eighteen of reading, my total is 13,971 pages. I started a bit slow but right now my pace has improved drastically. The goal for the year is 70,265 pages, clarifying that I measure from my birthday , which is in June, so the year starts one day after and finishes on the exact date of my birthday.

The two next impending goals are reaching 15,000 pages for the year, projected for October 21, and the next big milestone on the whole project , reaching 600,000 pages, that according to my average and pacing it should be achieved on the last day of 2025, of course I’ll try to bring down that date.

Now more than ever each day gained and each page read is worth gold,my conviction to arrive to those coveted objective has not changed. In around 6 years, I’ll be celebrating with a trip to culminate this amazing adventure, the journey has been spectacular, not let’s thread those final footsteps to my emerald prize .

For now, I’m off to read

Azriel

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