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Hello super readers,  This part 3 of 5 of Amazing Spider-Man Back in Black written by J. Michael Straczynski, illustrated by Ron Garney, inking by Bill Reinhold and coloring by Matt Milla. In this episode Peter Parker finally confronts the man responsible for having Aunt May shot. King Pin!  Oh, ya, maybe it need not be said again... This leads into One More Day which leads to Brand New Day which is the name of the upcoming movie.  Not much else can be said. This whole issue leads to the confrontation at the end which we knew was coming by the end of the previous episode.  I worked on deleting more pauses in my speech. Frankly I thought I paid Podbean to delete those for me but I guess I had to look for little stutters and such to cut out. I imagined to cut out a whole minute so I hope it makes for smooth listening.  watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTG3Czu_f2k&t=1050s  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0AUth1MCFo  Read: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Black-J-Michael-Straczynski/dp/0785129049 

Read: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Black-J-Michael-Straczynski/dp/0785129049 

Hello awesome readers! Today we're looking at Pigeons at Daybreak by Anita Desai. It is a slow somber story about Mr Basu who is terminally ill and taken care of by his wife, Otima Basu. We see all the little bickerings of a couple who is 55+ plus years old. Things are quite compact in this story. Both care characters care for each other though the resentment is also quite clear throughout. The story is a picture of one of their days from morning one day until dawn the next day. The story starts with Otima taking forever to situate herself to read the newspaper to her husband since that was once one pastimes. Honestly, there's nothing exciting here. I am sharing this story because I had to read it for a class many times but since I am going familiar with this sort of illness to caretaker sort of lifestyle I felt I could share this story and ask others to comment on it. (No, not me, my wife, child etc are sick...)

This one is on "The Sheriff's Children" by Charles W Chestnut. It is a short story about a man accused of a crime and at the risk of being lynched for it. Once the sheriff hears of all this he wants to maintain order in town and have justice be properly served however that may go. After several twists the accused meets a tragic end. I liked this story and its twists. The themes of racism and mixed-raced persons is fascinating and perhaps educational for us. Sometimes two episodes carry a theme that carries very well together but this episode and the last one could not be any further apart. One thing to say about that is that I want this to all be conversational and I am not going to pretend to research everything thoroughly for these reviews. There's a balance between being well read, well spoken, academically bright and conversational. I want to lean towards the conversational part because I believe that's the most important part.  Now, what scares me with this podcast is how to use terms like black, African-American mixed-race, multiracial, mixed heritage, miscegenation and others. What am I supposed to say at different moments? Like am I Hispanic, Latino, or white? In China I was certainly white. So, I certainly try to say what one thinks s/he is to say. Read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-best-short-stories-by-black-writers-1899-1967-langston-hughes/3e865397bba0e728?ean=9780316380317 or http://public-library.uk/ebooks/86/96.pdf 

Hello Everyone! Today's episode is on "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" by Ernest Hemingway. I found a set of Ernest Hemingway books I bought in China years ago. They're both short story collections but one is a translation into Chinese. "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" has all the classic dialogue we expect from Hemingway. In this story Francis Macomber and his wife Margot travel to Kenya so Francis can hunt in the safari, but it proves more than he can handle and during the trip tensions rise between Francis and his wife and Robert the professional hunter. Eventually things end badly for Francis. Read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/complete-short-stories-of-ernest-hemingway-ernest-hemingway/59cba40c3bf84ef5?ean=9781025566368 https://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/303/Hemingway/The%20Short%20Happy%20Life%20of%20Francis%20Macomber.pdf Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct-vhTrKKGg

Niagara Falls, Or Does It? by Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver is a short children's novel for Age 8-12 years or Grades 3-7. It's the first in the Hank Zipzer series. I borrowed this book from my previous job to review after reading a autobiographical piece by Henry Winkler. Though, this book is about a kid struggling with dyslexia, who doesn't even know it, there are concepts here universal for us all and we could all learn a bit from from it. So, you hope you listen and if you're a super big kid listening then you can finish this book in a day and hand it off to someone else. Every now and then a book can remind someone why teaching in K-12 may be worth the effort. read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/niagara-falls-or-does-it-1-henry-winkler/285b653a84f02f5a?ean=9780448431628&next=t

Matilda by Roald Dahl. What more can be said about this timeless classic? I will admit I kinda like the movie better than the book which is ironic because the material is kinda anti movie huh? It is funny how the book has some anti-American lines, but the movie is American. Danny DeVito and Mara Wilson were great in those. It was kinda neat how her powers manifested differently in the book though. That made for a quieter ending at the end though huh? What do you think? Did you read the book, watch the movie and watch the play? read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/matilda-roald-dahl/824a5772c165334f?ean=9780142410370&next=t 

This is an archive in which I covered Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell. It is quite a brutal novel. I wouldn't have known it was a children's novel if not for doing a bit of research for the review. It is about a woman living on her for about twenty years after her tribe had been murder by seal hunters. Year after year her tribe had been given a poor deal in exchange for allowing a foreign sailors to seal hunt in their lands. Finally their tribe leader protests and rebels leading to the slaughter of their people. This leads our main character to live for years on her own without companion. This archive doesn't exactly follow the conversational tone I aim for. As of this writing I am studying for a post-graduates degree, but that is for me and perhaps for employment. As for books I feel conversations are more important than trying to slip in every piece of literary jargon possible. I mean, your opinion is more important than mine after-all.

This is an archive I made many many many years ago of Space Station Rat by Michael J Daley. I don't remember this whole story other than I had a full cast audio of it I got from Humble Bundle. A boy everyone finds annoying (just a normal kid) befriends a stowaway genius rat that escapes to horrible experiments. I'm not even sure I read the book or just listened to it. Either way it was a fun kids book and you should check it out even if you're like grandparent aged and just want something fun to listen to. Read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/space-station-rat-michael-j-daley/6f33cbf8fd41a4bc?ean=9781497638174&next=t  Listen here: https://fullcastaudio.com/space_station_rat/

This is Book Chat with You. This is just a quick announcement. The next four episodes are archives from before. One from the stone age and a few a bit more recent, but I just never uploaded on here for several reasons. I should have done this a week ago when I had no time for this, but perhaps this will give me a bit of a buffer.

In today's episode we look at Sensational Spider-Man 38 which is part of Back in Black that leads to Brand New Day. Sensational Spider-Man 38 is the second of a two part issue featuring Eddie Brock also known as Venom. This is a dark dark issue. There's some exposition explaining how Eddie Brock came to be without the symbiote that turns him into the anti-hero Venom. He is sick and dying of cancer alone in a hospital. The symbiote still talks to Eddie which is most likely Eddie losing grasp on reality. (There of course is a later retcon of this which turns Eddie into Anti-Venom but that's for another time.) Eddie does a dastardly deed to an innocent person and struggles within himself on whether or not he can do the same to Aunt May. Meanwhile Peter Parker, Mary Jane, Mary Jane's aunt and Madam Web are trying to communicate with Aunt May through a seance.  watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTG3Czu_f2k&t=1050s  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0AUth1MCFo  Read: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Black-J-Michael-Straczynski/dp/0785129049 

In today's episode we look at Sensational Spider-Man 38 which is part of Back in Black that leads to Brand New Day. Sensational Spider-Man 38 is the first of a two part issue featuring Eddie Brock also known as Venom. This is a dark dark issue. There's some exposition explaining how Eddie Brock came to be without the symbiote that turns him into the anti-hero Venom. He is sick and dying of cancer alone in a hospital. The symbiote still talks to Eddie which is most likely Eddie losing grasp on reality. (There of course is a later retcon of this which turns Eddie into Anti-Venom but that's for another time.) Once Eddie hears of Aunt May being in the same hospital he considers murdering her in her sleep. Meanwhile Peter Parker rushes to Madam Web for help.

Hello. On this episode we discuss Carol Shields short story "Dolls, Dolls, Dolls, Dolls." This story doesn't have a conventional story arc. It weaves in and out through the main character's memories and thoughts mostly connecting to dolls. It starts with the main characters thoughts of a letter she received from her friend visiting Japan and going on a tour through doll factories and pivots to a time the main character and her friends gave up using dolls altogether in an attempt to tackle a traumatizing event. This was a difficult story to go over due to the narration style and just having returned to the USA something with a simpler linear prose may have been more welcome though, regardless, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this story.

Hello Everyone, This is Matthew Hernandez. I decided to try another monthly recap. In this episode I went over the various stories I read this month and ask you what you read, what you think about what you read, and if you read some of these stories. The stories I read and recapped are: "The Moths" by Helena Maria Viramontes, “The Second Coming” by Joe Gores, “Love So Fleeting, Love So Fine” by Carol Shields, “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” by Irwin Shaw, “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, Amazing Spider-Man #539 by J. Michael Straczynski. I feel like I should type more here about which story stuck out to me most here, but I think I did enough of that in the episode. Enjoy! Well I posted links to these episodes in the original episodes.  follow me: [email protected]  https://discord.gg/36WxYB7T  https://locals.com/bookstoread/feed https://x.com/BookChatWithYou 

Join Matt Hernandez in discussing A Small Good Thing by Raymond Carver. This is a short moving story about parents dealing with tragedy. Though, in the background of it all is their own approaching loneliness which comes headfirst into the loneliness dealt with by a local baker. In short, Ann goes to a baker to order a cake for her son, Scott's, eighth birthday, though on Scott's birthday he is hit by a car and after some unknown complications dies in the hospital. During this time the baker kept calling them at first to remind them about the cake, but it became trolling from there. Ann mentions the loneliness they will feel and when they confront the baker he apologizes, but also mentions his own loneliness that he deals with. So, though it may not seem like it this story is just as much about loneliness as it is about loss. Read here: https://bookshop.org/p/books/cathedral-raymond-carver/e8d92534e3fc618a?ean=9780679723691&next=t or here https://www.sevanoland.com/uploads/1/1/8/0/118081022/a-small-good-thing.pdf  Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KwHHfJBC2A 

Rockets Red - Community Far Away

Hello, in this episode I will look at Amazing Spider-Man #539 Back in Black which will lead to Brand New Day. I thought about doing comics before and I have before, but to be 100% one of my few podcasts with any listens / watches in Battle Angel Alita, so I figured on covering Spider-Man up to Brand New Day hoping that I catch a bit of a rush with the upcoming movie. Though, to get why there was a hard a reboot of the series perhaps one could start a bit before that and then cover Brand New Day for a few runs after that.  I haven't read these in a very long time, so it's a bit like reliving my past right before joining the navy and my first two years or so in. In a sense Back in Black doesn't start here. It would start somewhere during Marvel Civil War, but I don't have many of those comics and I certainly don't have them with me in China. Peter's aunt May is shot by a sniper aiming at Peter Parker. Peter Parker unmasked himself during the Civil War, but now regrets that decision. Though, his aunt getting shot and Peter Parker trying to save her leads to Brand New Day which was a hard reboot of the series.  I won't preface further comic discussions with why and such about covering comics, and will try to leave further descriptions simply about the book, story or comic itself.  watch or listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTG3Czu_f2k&t=1050s  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0AUth1MCFo  Read: https://www.amazon.com/Spider-Man-Black-J-Michael-Straczynski/dp/0785129049