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