EPBOT Readers discussion
2021 Reading Check Ins
>
Week 3 Check In
date
newest »
newest »
I admit, I spent most of Wednesday morning waiting for something awful to happen, and now I feel so relieved that everything was fine. It's like what someone on Twitter was saying, it's like four years of anxiety fell off my shoulders.I feel bad, I haven't even gotten the book club book (still a long wait at the library) and from all the reviews I've read, I think I might skip this one.
I had a few finishes this week:
I finished off The Silvered Serpents, which I'd been in the middle of last week. I liked it, but not as much as the first one in the series. The last quarter or so of the book, though, has me anxious for the third. This was my Popsugar book from your TBR list you meant to read last year but didn't.
I also read a sweet middle-grade book, Ana on the Edge, which is all about a young figure skater discovering her gender identity as nonbinary within a sport that's quite rigidly gendered. I used this as my Popsugar book about a subject you are passionate about, since I'm a huge figure skating fan, and I was in the right mood for this book after US Nationals last week.
Just today I finished Well Played, the sequel to Well Met which I loved. I don't normally like romance storylines that start with deception from one of the two parties, but I thought this was resolved pretty well and I enjoyed both leads. I used this as my Popsugar book from your TBR list you associate with a favorite person, place, or thing, since it's set at a Renn Faire, and I miss going to them.
Some manga finishes too: Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 24, Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 25, Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 26, Komi Can't Communicate, Vol. 7
Currently reading:
I'm just starting The Good for Nothings, which will be my Popsugar book that has fewer than 1,000 reviews on Amazon or Goodreads. I'm only one chapter in but I can already see some of the comparisons to Guardians of the Galaxy.
QOTW: I haven't read her books in awhile, but Lackey was one of my comfort reads growing up for sure, especially in my teen years. Fluffy romances are kind of a good genre for this, as is some fantasy. What also works for me as a comfort read is to reread an old favorite, one where I know how everything turns out.
Mod
Have continued to make progress with the kiddo on The Lost Hero. I'm really enjoying the tension between the Greek and Roman versions of the same gods - still don't know how it's going to play out!
QOTW: Lackey is one of my comfort reads too! Everything turns out happy, folks who want romance find romance, those who don't are happily single and fulfilled, even characters who die come back as helpful ghosts or are reborn as magical creatures...it's pure fluff and just so comforting :)
Old childhood favorites like the Anne of Green Gables and Little House books are also good for comfort. And I have another really odd little quartet of books that I also return to over and over. They are super weird but something about them just strikes a chord with me - the Rings of the Master series by Jack Chalker (Lords of the Middle Dark, Pirates of the Thunder, Warriors of the Storm, and Masks of the Martyrs). They're, like, REALLY weird. But I love them. The ending is soooo satisfying.
My library is doing "grab and go" holds for the next two weeks, so I went through my list and requested everything that was available. Picked up four books on Wednesday! If they extend it I'll move on to putting things on hold again.My e-book hold on Solutions and Other Problems came in over the weekend and I immediately read the whole thing in one sitting. I did literally laugh out loud, but I also feel a bit weird about it. I'm having trouble articulating exactly what I mean. The author obviously went through some tough times, and it's fine for her to put that in the book if she wants to talk about it, but I feel like there were some things presented as "haha isn't this a funny story" where I was like "no that is really not OK." I guess I would still recommend it, but I had been hoping she was OK for a while, and then the book finally came out and I am still hoping that.
Next I returned to the Ngaio Marsh well. Swing, Brother, Swing was kind of a weird one, with an eccentric peer deciding he wants to join a jazz band, but I enjoyed it. I think that may be partly because, despite a rather complex and improbable scenario, I did figure out whodunnit. The requisite Young Couple was perhaps not quite up to the usual standard, but not bad.
The first of the physical books was one I have been trying to get for over a year, what with holds and library closings and such. The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu is basically what it says. Some of it was more historical etymology, and some was analysis of large data sets of menus or restaurant reviews. I like food and I like linguistics, so it was fun, although I thought it sometimes strayed a bit from the language part into just food history.
QOTW: My comfort read is classic mysteries. It's maybe a little weird to consider murder comforting, but generally everything gets all wrapped up satisfactorily, and ideally you see how all the pieces fit together and it makes sense, unlike actual life. It's not a great genre for rereading, but it includes some very prolific authors.
Work is making up for the lull last week, so just one finish to report: Elevation. The audiobook (read by King himself) includes two short stories. The second is pure filler, and perhaps the most pointless King story I've read/heard in quite some time, maybe ever. The title story, or should I say its finale, blew me away.
Yes, some of it is heavy on stereotypes, and yes, King can't seem to help himself when it comes to describing women's legs (think the leg equivalent of "Boobing breastily to the stairs, she titted downwards"), but my, the feels of that finale. Used it for the "sun, moon, or stars on the cover" prompt. 8/100.
QOTW: I don't often reread except when challenge prompts specifically call for it. When I do, it's often David Eddings' Belgariad. I got the collected volumes for Christmas to replace my falling apart stack of paperbacks. Comfort reads are often horror: zombies and vampires (not the sparkly kind) and werewolves, oh my :)
Ugh this week!I read five chapters in Assessing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse students and one chapter in Special Education Assessment for my SPED coursework.
I'm 95 pages into The Witch is Dead by Shirley Damsgaard
I'm about 50 pages into Easter Island by Jennifer Vanderbes
I'm also still listening to A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan with my husband.
My other carry over book from 2020 is Tricks of the Trade by Laura Anne Gilman which I'm about halfway through but set down.
I did finish a manga volume! Vampire Hunter D vol. 4 by Hideyuki Kikuchi
Hello! Hope everyone is doing well. We're having some gorgeous weather here this week, and I'm trying to make the most of summer while it lasts. I might even manage to convince myself to start running again if this keeps up!This week I finished The Man Who Saw Everything, and I'm not totally sure how I feel about it. I think the writing was good, and the format was interesting but, ultimately, I don't think I actually liked the story. I think I'd gone into it under the impression that it was a bit time travel/fantasy adjacent, which it isn't really. And, although they were very human and relatable in a lot of ways, I didn't really take to any of the characters, certainly not the main one. So, a bit meh overall.
Currently reading The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, which I've been hearing good things about and am enjoying so far - a good combination of period murder mystery and fantasy with a fun mechanism of seeing events unfold from several different perspectives and a narrator that has no idea and is just trying to working things out as they go along.
QOTW: My comfort reading has changed over the years. I used to do a lot of re-reading, but I rarely do anymore. Some books that I do revisit when the going gets tough are Haroun and the Sea of Stories (as mentioned last week), All My Friends are Superheroes for a quick and reassuring read, and occasionally other childhood favourites like His Dark Materials. Otherwise, I tend to look for maximum escapism when looking for comfort and lean towards sci-fi and fantasy for that purpose.
i finished You, and Supernatural's Children of Anubis. i have a few books to pick up from the library, but for now I'm almost done with my reread of If Tomorrow Comes, which goes with the --><-- QotW
yes, i reread. i don't really have any criteria for why i reread beyond i remember liking it before. i have the Sidney Sheldon books (only those by him, not Tilly Bagshawe) on my reread list, as well as Ilium & Olympos by Dan Simmons; the Han Solo trilogy; the Harry Potter series; and the Sue Grafton Alphabet mysteries... but only A-X. i also have Y, so my plan is to read them all. A-X are rereads, but i don't remember a lot about them. and then i'll read Y at the end of it all. i'm a little sad Grafton wasn't able to write Z. :(
Mod
That's one of mine too! I've been trying to get my 9 year old interested so I can read it out loud to him, but so far he's not shown much enthusiasm.
Trystan wrote: "i finished You, and Supernatural's Children of Anubis. i have a few books to pick up from the library, but for now I'm almost done with my reread of [book:If Tomorro..."I have also been a fan of Sue Grafton from the start and will do an in-order reread someday. I am trying to figure out a nonspoilery way to perhaps suggest an alternative plan for you. Let's just say Y was not my favorite, and made it sadder that she wasn't able to write Z.
Kathy wrote: "I am trying to figure out a nonspoilery way to perhaps suggest an alternative plan for you. Let's just say Y was not my favorite, and made it sadder that she wasn't able to write Z."eh, it's fine. i'll read it anyway. i'm sure i've watched much worse cliffhangers from tv shows that i knew had been cancelled *cough*Farscape*cough*
Mod
One question in particular is not so absurd. On page 114, the "absurd" question is "Could we eliminate the virus for the common cold if everyone quarantined for two weeks?" It was interesting to compare his answer to 2020. He did discuss things like the economic impact of shutting down world trade for 2 weeks. I wouldn't say he was spot-on, but definitely in the ballpark on that.
I'm also still listening to Nemesis Games. I am about 75% of the way through and so much is happening. Good books!
QOTW: My comfort is fluffy romance novels where I don't have to think. But they have to be good. I still cannot tolerate those where everything would be solved if people just spoke to each other about obvious things. Lack of communication drives me nuts, but good ones are just fun to forget about the world.
I rarely reread books. I've reread a few Nora Roberts ones (sometimes by accident) and there are quite a number of those, particularly her early works, that have not aged well.
Other "comfort" reads would be things like my Alton Brown/Good Eats cookbooks. Sometimes when looking for comfort paging through readable cookbooks and making something new is a lot of fun.
I *FINALLY* finished The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes Stories this week - it really did have a great variety, and several really good ones I hadn't already read elsewhere, so the month I took to finish it is no reflection on the quality!I'm now about 25% through Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which is really well-written. Last weekend all of my IRL book clubs participated in the library's community read of Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You and did the online author visit with Jason Reynolds, and I was so impressed by how well he consolidated so much into such a short and readable book that I had to read the longer one it was based on. They're definitely different books - it was helpful to learn during the author talk that Stamped was written from scratch from the same research rather than being a summary or adaptation. Being a history and data person, I really appreciate the research and density of Stamped from the Beginning, but I can 100% understand why Stamped is a better choice for a general audience.
QOTW: Obviously, lately I have been struggling to keep up with first time reading without throwing rereads into the mix! I do enjoy taking a break from the book club grind with the occasional cozy mystery or YA scifi when there's time, though - hopefully life will calm down and I'll have more chances for that soon!
I didn't do a whole lot of reading last week, but I did read A Game of Fox and Squirrels, I loved it but also used a whole bunch of tissues...surprising for a middle-school level book but also I don't handle reading about child trauma well, no matter how non-graphic...regardless I thought it was charming and hopeful.I also read The Women in Black, which was enjoyable but really lacked substance. I am apparently completely on a different page when it comes to humor, this is the second book this year described as 'hilarious' that I didn't think had any particular amount of humor in it. Oh well. Spoiled by Terry Pratchett...
QOTW: Probably my most read book is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I've probably read it 10 times--there are some sad bits, but the characters are so well written, and the humor is witty and kind, and I want to move there to live with them all.
Otherwise if I need a book I know is solid, like after a run of depressing/difficult books, I'll re-read Dorothy Sayers and Terry Pratchett, and occasionally Ngaio Marsh and Agatha Christie. Sometimes you just need to know in advance what's coming and how the book will make you feel!
I'm making notes of all of your comfort reads now...
I didn't check-in for Week 2, so this post covers a couple weeks, all audio books this go-round. First I finished Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. It was about the lies a founder/CEO told about her start-up company in Silicon Valley. I was surprised that she could continue raising so much money when she couldn't deliver the product she was selling and over the course of so many years. Interesting story. Sad that it really happened.
Then I finished The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. It was about a blue woman from Kentucky who was a librarian for the Pack Horse Library Program in the late 1930s. Librarians, women's rights, racial inequity, extreme poverty, living in remote areas, and all well researched and written about. It was really good - historical fiction, kept my attention, a few hard parts, though the main character's sense of perseverance and strength really come through.
Last, I finished Educated. This book didn't live up to the hype for me - definitely an inspirational story, though I some things felt very repetitive and other things were glossed over. The book was mostly focused on her family and family dynamics, glossing over some of the educational pieces as she went to graduate school. For instance, she was a survivalist and never went to school, taught herself enough to get into a good university, and eventually made it to Cambridge and Harvard, yet there was little description of her reactions to flying, to a large city, to figuring out how to navigate college, etc. It was hard to listen to some of the anecdotes. Overall, it was just ok for me.
Next up: Touching My Father's Soul: A Sherpa's Journey to the Top of Everest and Fortune and Glory.
QOTW: I rarely reread books. My "comfort" genre is murder mystery for the same reasons as Rebecca stated - things get wrapped up very nicely, and you usually see how it all fits together. Plus they have lots of action.
I haven't checked in in a while, so playing catch-up here. Nothing's really impressed me yet this year - a lot of so-so books, but at least I'm putting a dent in my TBR pile :)All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists. This was transcriptions of Terry Gross's interviews with a variety of artists, musicians, writers, etc. from her radio show. Kind of dry, but there were occasional interesting bits.
Dreaming Pachinko. This is the 3rd book in a loose series, and I liked it best of the bunch. These are hardboiled detective meets japanese pop culture-style books. They're a bit surreal and quirky, but well written and entertaining.
Norse Mythology. I listened to this on audio and wasn't terribly impressed. I love Gaiman's reading voice, so could listen to him all day, but mythology has always been very dry to me, so it was hard to get into.
Night Broken. I'm well into the Mercy Thompson series now, and this was the perfect amount of familiar characters and new adventure.
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. This came highly recommended by a bunch of people at a writing conference I attended in the fall, so I figured I'd give it a try. It's a quick, easy read with lots of worksheets and handouts you can do on the side if you want to put in the work. In a nutshell, he advocates pursuing incremental change (1% better than before) to build good habits over time. I know lots of people who've had great success with this method, so if you're looking to make some changes in your life, this book might help.
Finally, Winter Moon. This was a collection of fantasy novellas by Merecedes Lackey, Tanith Lee, and CE Murphy. I was kind of stunned at how much I disliked Lackey's contribution. I really had to grit my teeth and plow through it. Tanith Lee's story was beautifully written and full of poetic, evocative imagery. I was only in it for the CE Murphy story, though. I just started the Urban Shaman series and this was listed as book 1.5. I'm currently reading book 2, and while you definitely do NOT need to read this story to keep up on the series, it was still a fun interlude with lots of background about the main character's mother.
QOTW: I almost never re-read books - too many piles of new books clamoring for my attention! That said, I have revisited a few SF stories in recent years - 2001/2010 by Arthur C Clarke (I particularly love 2010), Dune by Frank Herbert, and All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson. None of these are particularly "comforting" reads, but they all have elements I felt like revisiting at the time. My comfort genre is urban fantasy - I want escapism and to believe in magic for a little while.
EPBOT Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists (other topics)Night Broken (other topics)
Norse Mythology (other topics)
Dreaming Pachinko (other topics)
Winter Moon (other topics)
More...
Hope everyone's doing well. Feeling more hopeful about the future after yesterday!
Book club
Ok so I have to admit I am in a dilemma. I know I am in charge of the discussion, but I am having a VERY hard time with November 9. I have 9 days left on my check out, so I'll take one more stab at getting it finished. But I don't know if I have it in me to do as detailed of a question set up as usual for this. I might just set up a finished reading thread with some general questions and have a more open discussion.
Also I want to make it clear I'm in no way complaining about the book being selected, everyone has different tastes, and I don't expect people to have read a book before suggesting it. I'm just stating that I personally am having a hard time with it, so it'll affect the way I normally handle the discussion.
If there's anyone who loves it who wants to take over the discussion, feel free to let me know!
This week I finished:
A Dream So Dark - Finished this up, really enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next book coming in November. Counted it for popsugar's book with a deck of card symbol on it (heart and diamond), Book Nerds book with a weapon on the cover (a sword), ATY book with a character from a deck of cards (there's mentions of a queen), and Read Harder YA book with a Black lead that isn't about Black pain.
Ring Shout - enjoyed this, have a couple more books by the author i'm now looking forward to trying. I counted it for Popsugar genre hybrid (historical fiction, fantasy, horror), Book Nerds 7 deadly sins (there's a lot of wrath), ATY book by a new-to-you BIPOC author.
forgot to mention last week I also finished Coffee Talk which is a visual novel that i'm using for Popsugar's book in a format you don't normally read. I liked it, cute story, liked the art.
Currently reading:
Black Futures - Roxanne Gay is doing a book club, i don't think i'll participate much directly but I'm interested in reading the books. I'm about 200 some pages in, it's really interesting. Basically an art book compiling Black artists across all sorts of genres, from music to performing art, to writing, internet projects, traditional artforms, etc. Using it for Popsugar book about art/an artist, not sure what other prompts for other challenges yet.
1Q84 - getting started on this, slow going so far. It's interesting, but not very engrossing. It's my popsugar book on my tbr that is the longest. Goodreads said it was 1300 pages, but my kindle says 900 some. Might just be based on formatting, like the hardcover was longer but a paperback got condensed with smaller print so the page number went down, and that's what the kindle count was based off of or something. In any case, it's long and slow.
November 9 - As I mentioned I'm having a hard time with this. I REALLY dislike the main guy, he is such a creep. Making it hard for me to get through, but I'll give it one more shot before giving up.
QOTW:
I know we've had this question before, but hey there's new members! So what's everyone's comfort reads? Do you re-read? Go to a particular genre?
Mercedes Lackey is one of my big ones, particularly her elemental masters or 500 kingdom books, and Black Swan. They're based on fairy tales so most of them end up with happy endings, so they're not going to give me gut punches. (unlike some of the valedemar ones, as much as I love them). Or other fairy tale retellings or sometimes just fluffy romances that i know wont' be terribly challenging.