EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay, didn't get a chance to make one yesterday.

In general news, all the discussion sections are up for The Starless Sea. Feel free to join in once you finish! All prior book threads are still open, if anyone's still on The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. No rush!

This week I had a bit of a library dump as they bought several books I put on recommend several years ago all at once, haha. And of course i hadn't read the first of one of the series in years, so had to re-read it.

So I finished:

Gideon the Ninth - ended up loving this! Kind of dark, but plenty of snark to keep if light hearted and easy to get through. I really need to pick up the next one! I used this for my popsugar bechdel prompt test. There's a lot of female characters in it and they talk about all kinds of things like training, swordfighting, necromancy, plots, conspiracies. I mentioned over in the popsugar group and someone laughed and said "you know. #girlthings"

Sleeping Giants - hadn't read it in a few years, so needed to refresh my memory before binging the next two. I liked it, really interesting concept for a series. Kind of reminds me of Space Odessey 2001. No prompt, just a re-read

Waking Gods - of course the 3rd book came in first at the library, but i'd actually picked this one up on a book deal and never got around to to reading it. I liked this one a lot too, had a bit more action. I used this for a seven deadly sin. There was a lot of pride, wrath, greed involved. Both on personal and worldwide scales.

Only Human - this is the one that dropped in on me, i didn't like it quite as much as the other two. Thought the resolution wasn't everything i hoped for, and there was too much focus on the small drama. Used it for the made up language, there were aliens involved that had a lot of words worked in.

Currently reading:
The Silent Patient - This one, I don't know why i'm still reading it. Spite maybe? It's weird, it's going fast, I'll probably finish today. But It's just...annoying me so bad. But I still keep reading. The main narrator is SUCH a white-knight creep. I don't like how the author is writing about women. This is another one of those books that got so much hype, and has so many great reviews and I'm left going "why?" It'l probably end up being my 3-word title.

The Count of Monte Cristo - over in popsugar there's a group of people who decided to buddy read this. I don't know how well i'll keep up but i did read the first chapter. It moved better than i thought it would for a classic, and a translation. I know it's on the list of beloved classics, so hoping it goes better than classics usually do for me.

QOTW:

Do you keep a TBR list? What does that mean to you? How strict are you at following it?

I asked this one over in the popsugar group this week too. I always wonder because I don't really keep a TBR list. At least nothing resembling a proper list that I check. I have books on my want to read on goodreads, but it's generally ones I entered a giveaway for so it gets added automatically or books I own but haven't read yet. Once in a while I'll actually add a current one, but i never look at want to read later, so I don't know why I bother. I'm very much a mood reader, so I just grab whatever looks good at the moment if I don't have an actual plan. I guess for me, literally ANY book could be a tbr. If i hear about a book I really want to read, I generally will immediately put it on hold at the library if available, or put a price watch on it for kindle later.

Still plowing through the Camolud Chronicles this week. I'd managed forget that Uther is over 900 pages, so that's pretty much been my week, although it's very close to being done. This is such an oddity in the series, as it's the only one in the series that's not a first person POV, and is the same events as The Eagles' Brood, but from Uther's perspective instead of Merlyn's. I've largely enjoyed it, but the author added several new characters (and a subplot) that aren't seen elsewhere in the series, to help fill out the "why" and "how" of several key events. For me it just feels bloated though, rather than adding much to Uther's story. Still a good read, just not at the caliber of the others.

I've had a super rough couple of weeks with my job hunt, and am debating my next book, since I'm currently doing a ton of escapist binge-reading as self care. As much as I love this series, let's face it, Camelot is not cheery reading, especially as we get down to the end. It's a lot like Shakespeare: you know going in that this turns out well for absolutely no one! So I may set the last two in the series aside for a bit, in favor something more comforting and less unabashedly tragic. From somewhere in quietness of the void, Tolkien is whispering my name, but we'll see.

QOTW- yep, I have a TBR list and use it almost religiously to keep all my reading organized. I constantly have recommendations thrown at me, so when I'm looking for my next read, or scheduling library holds, it's really helpful to have a list that I can work from. I keep it aggressively curated, so it's just books that I'm honestly intending to read, and there are around 60 on it at the moment. I really wish that Goodreads would let you have multiple TBR shelves though, as a separate stack of books that I just want to keep on my radar, for one reason or another, would also be helpful to have.

Sarah, couldn't you just make shelves you designate as tbr shelves? Like they could be marked as want to read, but you could also apply them to different shelves.

Sheri wrote: "Sarah, couldn't you just make shelves you designate as tbr shelves? Like they could be marked as want to read, but you could also apply them to different shelves."

I need to play with that idea a bit. For awhile you while not able to do this without Goodreads counting it as "read," which throws off my numbers. I'll need to see if they've changed this though, as I know people were asking for it- there seems to now be more flexibility with their shelf system than there used to be.

I finished two books last week, both of which were first books in trilogies. The first was The Bear and the Nightingale, for my other Goodreads group. I thought it was lovely! It's a story about the conflict between traditional folklore and the spread of Christianity, and also a story about family. I loved the atmosphere of the northern Russian forest (and am sending a silent thank-you to my high school Russian Lit teacher for teaching me all about Russian patronymic names, because character relationships might have been more confusing otherwise) and a brief trip to Moscow. I've just taken out the second book The Girl in the Tower from the library so I can continue the story - it looks like this one is going to take place more in the city so I'm excited to see where the story takes me!

My other read was Red Rising by Pierce Brown. I've read enough YA dystopias that this one didn't feel especially original, but that didn't stop me from ripping through it in a few days. I've had it sitting on my bed table for months - it was actually one of the books I received in last year's FoE Book Flood exchange and somehow I just never got around to picking it up until now! I will probably not purchase the others, but I'll definitely take them out from the library to finish the series.

QOTW: I don't have a formal TBR. I do keep track of books I own that haven't read yet via my want-to-read tag, and just recently created a second shelf for books I want to read but don't yet own, but I don't really plan what to read next (except for book club reads).

Sarah wrote: "I need to play with that idea a bit. For awhile you while not able to do this without Goodreads counting it as "read," which throws off my numbers. I'll need to see if they've changed this though, as I know people were asking for it- there seems to now be more flexibility with their shelf system than there used to be."

You can do this! I have a want-to-read-not-owned shelf that I just made - if you go to edit your shelves, you can designate a shelf as exclusive, meaning you have a set of shelves that you can only select one of. I'm not sure I'm explaining it that well, but play around with it!

I love the Bear and the Nightingale so much! That whole series is lovely. If you like the Russian folklore aspect, I highly recommend Spinning Silver. Uprooted is also excellent, but it's more beauty and the beast than Russian.

Shel wrote: "Sarah wrote: "I need to play with that idea a bit. For awhile you while not able to do this without Goodreads counting it as "read," which throws off my numbers. I'll need to see if they've changed..."

SWEET!!!! Thanks for the head's up! I was hoping for something like this!

Sheri wrote: "I love the Bear and the Nightingale so much! That whole series is lovely. If you like the Russian folklore aspect, I highly recommend Spinning Silver. Uprooted is al..."

I loved Uprooted! Spinning Silver is on my radar screen already :)

I just finished The Starless Sea which I loved so much. I felt like I was in a spell the whole time I was reading it. I appreciated it so much not just as a reader, but as a writer, too. The meta-ness of stories about stories gets me every time. I'm using it as my Popsugar book with a character with a vision impairment or enhancement, because of all the stuff with Zachary's glasses.

I'm not sure what I'm going to start next. I have two books out of the library right now, but one is another fantasy. I kind of want to switch gears and read something lighter and fluffier, to give The Starless Sea a chance to settle in my brain, so I think I might go with the romance: The Bromance Book Club. This is to be my planned Popsugar book about a book club.

Shel, I loved the Bear and the Nightingale! I just read it last year. I haven't gotten to the sequel yet but I really want to soon. I was also grateful for having studied Russian in high school - patronymics and diminutives get tricky in Russian.

Another one for the Russian folklore if interested is Deathless by Cat Valente.

QOTW: I don't really have a formal, well-ordered TBR. I pretty much just throw anything I think I'd want to read on either my "want-to-read" shelf or my "maybe" shelf here on Goodreads. Well, I guess I kind of have a TBR list right now for Popsugar, but it's only really to keep me on track for the challenge and remind me which books I found to fit each prompt. When it comes time for me to choose a new book, like right now, it's pretty much based off my mood and my library situation.

I didn't update last week because I just didn't really have one. To be fair I don't have much of one this week either. After this one of Plato's dialogues I'm going to have to take a break book though, it's scrambling my brain a bit. I'm about halfway through Amberlough now and still a bit confused about the political landscape (which is kind of essential to the book).

QOTW (plus last week's):
My ideal reading spot would be somewhere comfy where my back and knees could be supported. A chair or sofa. Somewhere I wouldn't slide down too much. And not so warm I just outright fall asleep!

My TBR list I keep as only physical books that I own on my TBR shelf. I do also have some ebooks, but for various reasons it isn't my primary reading method since I don't have an actual ereader. But I also keep a separate book recs list in a googledoc. Plus a just general mental list of ideas.

This week I did a reread of Sabriel, which I got for a gift. Still enjoyed, and I like rereading a series again after I get all the way through it.
I also really enjoyed the second Gunnie Rose book by Charlaine Harris, called A Longer Fall. The series is an alternate history western with magic; I suspect she enjoys creating books that aren't easily catalogued.
I also read two of the six Forward short stories that I somehow borrowed for free with Amazon prime; they've been nice to have on hand to read quickly while waiting somewhere. https://www.amazon.com/Forward-collec...
I don't keep a specific TBR list. When I see something I'm interested in, I either request it from the library right away or put it on my wish list for requesting later. I own a lot of the books I like to reread in between new stuff.

Two reads this week, both ebooks I got for free through BookBub. (This is not doing a darn thing for my *physical* TBR stacks!)

Rise of the Dragons and Rise of the Valiant by Morgan Rice. Storywise, they are GoT for those who don't want to slog through the GoT books and want less carnage among main characters. Incredibly frustrating reads as these books are self-published and, as far as I can tell, have not been edited. Doubtful I will continue the series, even if I do stumble upon them for free.

I slotted them as Ravenclaw/Trelawney/book with a prophecy or omen, and Hufflepuff/Care of magical creatures/book with a magical creature also found in the HP universe (these books have both dragons and trolls). 9/60

I've now just started Gone Girl, which should be a good palate cleanser. I do have one gripe though - the print is *sooooo tiny*. My poor, poor old eyeballs!

QOTW: I have four physical stacks of TBR books, along with an Amazon wish list, a Goodreads "Want to read" list, and favorited books in both my Overdrive library accounts. I'm trying to whittle down my physical books first.

This week I read Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference. I didn't realize it was mostly written in opposition to various gender essentialist pop-sci type books; I'm willing to believe an angry takedown was needed, but it wasn't what I was hoping for. There was also some outdated language used to describe trans people, and no mention of nonbinary people, but that may be due to its age. The main theme was that it's very difficult to determine what brain differences might be "innate", since brains exist within society and are inevitably influenced by it, even very early in life, which is something I'll try to keep in mind.

Then I accidentally finished The Pale Horse. I saw a Facebook ad for a new BBC adaptation, and figured it might trickle across the pond eventually. I never need much prompting to read a Christie. I thought this one was fun, and now I'm concerned that the adaptation will be very different in tone.

QOTW: I've started using the "want to read" for books I hear about and don't think I'll remember. It's mostly things I can't get from the library right now. There are only 16 books there; I should probably put more "maybe" books on the list, as I've found I don't have qualms about removing things if I've lost interest.

The only finish for me this week was Me. I very much enjoyed his memoir. There were parts that actually made me laugh out loud. I noted a few last week. Another example was when he talked about performing at Wembley Stadium, huge crowd and they had advertised that they would play end-to-end. He talks about how the band was doing a fantastic job. The music was amazing. But then he looked out and saw all kinds of people leaving. The problem was had only *just* been released in the UK and no one knew any songs from it. They came to hear the songs they knew and loved. But he felt he couldn't deviate from "the plan".

I thought that was funny because we go to rock concerts a lot and always kind of cringe when "we're going to play X, Y, Z from our new album". Reading the other side of that was amusing.

I'm still listening to The Consuming Fire. There are three or four story lines going on in this, and I'm definitely wanting to stay in one when the chapter breaks and moves to another. I'm definitely less interested in the bad people's scheming and more interested in the archeological trip to an formerly cut off part of space and what they find.

I got, again, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and picked up where I left off. I want to read and participate in the (now old) discussion there. This book is not really grabbing me in, still, 150 pages in. That's probably why I ran out of renewals and had to order it again. I'll keep trying.

Still waiting for Starless Sea at the library.

QOTW: I have a long want-to-read list here at GoodReads. Anything at all that seems interesting gets added. It is my "don't forget" list. Then when I'm going to the library I'll make note of 4-5 books to look for that fit my mood whether it is fluffy romance or non-fiction of some kind.

Shel wrote: "Sheri wrote: "I love the Bear and the Nightingale so much! That whole series is lovely. If you like the Russian folklore aspect, I highly recommend Spinning Silver. [book:Uprooted|2..."

Oh that's so funny! I got more Russian out of Uprooted (Baba Yaga, Vassila the Beautiful), than I did out of Spinning Silver. I liked both, but *adored* Uprooted. It's the only book that I have ever finished and then gone straight back to the beginning to read again!

It was kind of a weird week for reading... I had a few books come in from the library in a glut, which was both good and bad.

First I finished The Thorn Birds, which I was working on last week. I'm glad I finished it, but really was left with a "meh" at the end. It's well written, it really is... the various narratives for each person are woven together well, I didn't feel like any one character got too much page time, and the motivations and inner life of the characters make sense... but, there's just so much sadness and pointless death, and so very little redemption. (And I've read GRRM's GoT series, so it's not like I'm not used to lots of people being offed.) It's a gritty, realistic story of the struggle of life, and the novel really holds true to that... but I didn't come away feeling proud of the family or like there was an uplifting takeaway from all the pain.

Two of the library books that came in were the 2nd and 3rd books in N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth series, The Obelisk Gate and The Stone Sky. I tore through those pretty quickly. I still really appreciate the world building she's done with this series... I have never read anything else like it, and I loved how she balanced the narrative and finding out what really happened in the history of the world to make "the world end, for the last time." I do have a couple of very very minor gripes (more, I really wish she'd told us more about X), but I don't want to spoil the series for anyone who hasn't read it (omg, you totally should if you haven't), so I won't go on about that.

I picked up Sweet Water after that, which has been in my pile for a little bit. It's by the same author who wrote Orphan Train, which a lot of people have told me they really enjoyed. It was enjoyable enough but I felt like it ended abruptly, and there's a romantic relationship in there that I just can't make sense of.

I started reading Will Bonsall's Essential Guide to Radical Self-Reliant Gardening, which is suuuuuuuuuper dense with information. Good stuff, just takes more time than fluffy reads. Gardening and figuring out how to make my gardening practices more climate-resilient is a particular interest of mine right now. I haven't gotten far enough in the book to give a really indepth review, but the premise is gardening with a significantly more "closed" system than we typically use—not importing compost/amendments/etc from external sources and not using animal products/waste, and using what we have access to keep the soil healthy and productive.

I've been needing a big of a break from that at times, so I picked up two romance novels that were given to me at Christmas as kind of a joke... Thief of Hearts and A Pirate's Pleasure. Both are fluffy bodice rippers in the truest sense of the term. I received them because at one point I really wanted to write the most horrible, tropey romance novel possible, but various life events have dampened the urge to write... the gifter was hoping this would kickstart something. I appreciated Thief of Hearts a little more... the writing was pretty good although the different sections of the book needed some transition work (and I think one part of the plot could have been dropped altogether with no harm and causing the reader a great deal less confusion), and it took a while to get to the bones of the plot, but it had a reasonably satisfying ending. A Pirate's Pleasure involved lots of screaming and fist banging against a strong manly chest, interspersed with torrid kissing scenes and heroic restraint (from the hero/villain) from ravishing the heroine on the spot... not my favorite, but good research I guess! *laughing *

QOTW: My "to read list" previously consisted of the pile of unread books I have around the house and a list in Trello of books that I thought sounded interesting enough to track down. I only started keeping that in the last couple of years. I moved everything over to Goodreads at the beginning of this year, and added a bunch from WoC to read based on a challenge list that I found. I don't really care about tracking which books I own, though. I keep the ones that I like enough to read again and pass the rest along unless they're reference books... so I don't separate by "owned" or "not owned."