EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone, I'm really sorry I never got a post done for last week. I was swamped at work, and had a stupid busy weekend.

I'm doing a combo post for this week and last, because I have a few minutes to spare and I don't know if I will tomorrow!

I have slipped back into a re-read groove so have not finished any of my other started-in progress books, but read Storm Warning, Storm Rising and am a few pages from finished with Storm Breaking. Once I finish this i'm going to make myself finish Caraval, because my loan's almost up. It's not that I didn't like it, I just got sucked into the lure of comforting re-reads.

QOTW:

The promt lists are out for popsugar and ATY! Anyone participating next year?

Back in August i was all "I'm burnt out on reading challenges, I might only do one next year" etc, but now I'm already making plans for both, and will probably throw read harder on there because why not.

Again no one has to feel obligated to participate in order to post here! I just like having some guidance with the whole "what do I read next?" sometimes, and to help me pick stuff I might not otherwise try.

Also as a note: I don't have this group locked down at all, anyone can create topics. If anyone ever notices I don't have a post up, but you want to post, feel free to start the thread yourself! You don't have to worry about coming up with a question or anything like that (unless you want to!). I won't be upset, I'll just add on when I can!

Thank you Sheri for the reminder that we can start conversations too!

I just, in the last two days, finished two books. The first is Our House. This was recommended in a magazine over the summer. I wasn't sure what to expect. It was very good. I'd call it a domestic psychological thriller/suspense. I do think some of the writing could have been tightened up a bit. But there were surprises all over the place. It grabs you right at the start with the woman coming home from a weekend away to find strangers have moved into her house, and all her things have been moved out. The rest of the book is how it got to this.

The second book I finished was an audiobook Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. This was an enjoyable book to listen to as I walked outside. It was not terribly long either, maybe 5 hours total. I want to download and listen to the next book. It looks like there are several in this series. I'll have to look up which one is next.

I started reading another non-fiction that I grabbed from the New Book shelf at the library last time I was there. It is Play On: The New Science of Elite Performance at Any Age. I have just started this. I may end up skimming it. While I'm very active, interested in fitness and of a certain age, in no universe would anything I do be called 'elite'. So we'll see what this book really is about and how much is relevant to me.

Although I've participated in these weekly discussions for a good 18 months now, I've never done a reading challenge. You all have made me consider one. I'm not sure because I don't read fast mostly because I read as I go to bed. And I read a lot of non-fiction and it seems many of the challenge books people read are fiction. I'll see what the lists are and decide. If I do I'd probably set a modest goal.

Susan, there's definitely people who read mostly non-fiction for the challenges, over in the challenge-specific groups! About the only ones you couldn't twist to a non-fiction book are the ones that are genre-specific (Like reading a cyberpunk book this year, or a LitRPG for next). If you want a smaller challenge, Read Harder's generally only about 20 some prompts, not 50/52 like popsugar and ATY. Read Harder is geared more towards making you expand your boundaries, while the others do that to some degree, but also have sillier prompts like books with a certain color cover, or titles with certain words in them, stuff like that.

I am delighted to report that I finished all 825 pages of Le Rouge et le Noir, which counted as both "an assigned book you hated (or never finished)" and "a book that scares/intimidates you". That completes the 2018 ATY and Book Riot challenges for me! And it wasn't as painful as I remembered, although it still remains a slog of a read with zero characters I actually like.

I also finished Karen Memory, which was an uneven but pleasant steampunk romp. That was the K in the alphabet soup challenge, which will be the last I complete this year. All I'm missing now is X.

Yay! Popsugar 2019 is out! So many overlapping prompts with ATY! I will have to sit down and cross-reference my book choices and my TBR stacks, and I am very much looking forward to it.

My goal in 2018 was to read more, and that's when I found the Popsugar challenge. My competitive nature really lit a fire under me, and I'll be finishing the year at 91+ books. See, now I look at that number and think, can I push it to 100? We'll see :)

You can do it Danielle! :D

I was a reading overachiever (what a surprise!) and finished my Goodreads goal of 104 books this week. This is the first time I kept track of books since 5th grade, so I wasn't sure if that was a reasonable goal, but it looks like I have a pace of 10/month rather than 2 a week.
I really enjoyed the first four Magnificent Devices books by Shelley Adina, based on a recommendation from Gail Carriger that they were on sale through kindle. Quick and fun steampunk.
Susan, it was a while before I realized that the author of the Alcatraz books (that I read with kidbots and really enjoyed) was the same Brandon Sanderson who wrote the Mistborn epic fantasies that I later found through FoE. Quite a difference in style, but liked them both.

Congratulations! I'm hoping that I stay on track to hit my reading goal, but I've been distracted lately.

Hello All!

I haven't posted for a few weeks as I've been crazy busy at work, too. (I'm actually supposed to be doing some marking/updating my online course right now, so. . . go procrastination?). One exciting thing, though--I had to go to Porland for work and was able to go to Powell's books! I picked up a few things I'm very excited about, and generally was just in my happy places while browsing around.

But first--Susan, so glad to hear you liked Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians. I listened to it earlier in the year and loved it! I've been wanting to listen to the next in the series, but my library doesn't have it. I'm either going to have to check out the physical book or break down and buy the audio version. Either way, I'm determined to continue on with the series.

So, since last I posted, I finished reading Riders of the Purple Sage, which I quite enjoyed, despite it being a Western and so a genre I don't typically read or like. It was published around 1915, I think, so a bit old school in its treatment of the female characters for my taste, but a well-constructed and thoughtful book nonetheless. I think I gave it 4 stars, but it was closer to a 3.5 for me. Apparently it's been made into a movie a few times, so I'd like to see one of those. This was my Popsugar book with your favourite colour in the title, and score one for Popsugar for getting me (once again) to read something that I normally would never pick up.

Next, I read The Graveyard Book for the prompt about death, and that was also the November prompt (although the group chose another book for it). The more I read Neil Gaiman, the more I love him. This was such a beautiful book. My only regret was that I didn't read it as an audiobook, because the only thing that would make this book more enjoyable is hearing him read it to me. I was at a charity book sale on Tuesday and picked up a like-new copy of American Gods for $2, so I look forward to reading that over the holidays.

I'm currently reading Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights for the Popsugar book that is an allegory prompt. According to the New York Times, this is an "an allegory about humanity’s struggle between superstition and reason." I can see that, but I also see allegory connected to news media, fake news, and (mostly American from the book's POV) society--I suppose those aren't mutually exclusive allegories in this day and age . . . It's better than The Golden House, which I read way back in January for the "issue facing society today" prompt. I don't know, though. I'm about ready to give up on Rushdie. I love his earlier works, but lately he just seems to be too much verbosity masquerading as genius. I might just go back to re-reading Midnight's Children and still loving him.

So, not counting the current book, I'm now at 47/50 books for the Popsugar challenge and back on track to finish by the end of the year. I know I've said before that I'm not going to do the challenge next year because I'm ready for a year of unfettered reading and re-visiting old friends through some series re-reads. I'll likely be back for 2020, though. And there's a good chance sometime around next September I'll take a look at the list, see where I'm standing, and if I'm aligning with it, I might finish it off. We'll see.

Lastly--and not for any challenge at all--I've been listening to Hollow City when I walk back and forth to work. Sadly, I've been taking too long to listen to it, and it was checked back into the library yesterday. I'll have to wait until it comes up again before I can finish the story. I find this series of books just the right level of interesting YA to keep me company while I walk, and the narrator is doing a great job.

@stephanie even if you're not doing a challenge next year, please continue to participate here. I love hearing about what you've read and have taken so many suggestions from your these past couple of years.

@Susan--of course! I love checking in with this group, even though I haven't been very regular about it lately. Thank you for your lovely note! I fear I'm going to disappoint you, next year, though. There will probably be a lot of, "well, I'm on book 4 of A Song of Ice and Fire" or "still reading the Discworld series" posts. :-)

I have not checked in since..... spring? I love seeing what people are reading though, and I just started Beartown based on seeing it mentioned in the group. This fall we bought a house and moved, so I switched over to audio books to listen to while painting, tearing up carpet and packing.
I have read 29 books this year, surpassing my goal of 25. I did the 2018 Pop Sugar challenge, and even though I didn't finish it, it made me get out of my comfort zone of books. I am going to try the 2019 Pop Sugar challenge, and what is ATY? I might check that out too.
At the beginning of the year I declared that this was the year I rediscover my love of reading. I have loved listening and reading new books this year, and look forward to a new year of challenges and books!

Welcome back Lynette!

ATY is Around the Year in 52 Books, the idea is to read a book a week :)

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... this is the reading list, they were group voted via polls.

If you want a smaller challenge to do, there's also Book Riot's Read Harder, https://bookriot.com/2018/12/12/2019-...

Fewer prompts, designed more to push what kind of books you read, than reading a higher quantity.

:) Hopefully one of them work for you! You could also just pick and choose prompts that sound fun from any of them.

Hope you can find time to check in more! We like having more people commenting!