EPBOT Readers discussion

Yikes, I just realized I missed two weeks of check ins, so sorry! I do have the threads open, so if anyone is getting impatient with me, feel free to start a new thread if you see one missing :)

Book Club

I put up a poll for the book to finish out the year. https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2... I'll try to make sure to announce the winner next week.

I finished quite a lot over the last several weeks, I don't think i want to post that many all at once haha. So I'll just do the last week or so.

The lightening thief: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - did an audio re-read while crafting and drawing.

Juliet Takes a Breath - queer coming of age story, was really good. I used it for ATY book related to the NATO alphabet, J-Juliet.

Freshwater - this was really difficult for me. It was powerfully written, but I really struggled to finish it, i kept putting it down to read lighter stuff. A lot of depictions of sexual violence, self harm, suicide attempts. Also the format jumped around a lot in perspective and time so I had a hard time really sinking into it narratively. I'm glad I read it, i think, but very tough,.

The Night Circus - both as a palate cleanser and because it was october, figured it was time for my yearly night circus read.

Currently reading:

Cinder - audio book re-read

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - just started, will be my ATY warrick prize for book in translation.

QOTW:

Since it's approaching the general holiday season, do you read holiday centric books, or seasonal reading?

I generally don't, but occasionally I'll make an exception. I often end up reading Night Circus around this time of year, it's not really a Halloween book but it still feels thematic for right now. Sometimes I read the Hogfather around Christmas, but not always. Otherwise I usually am going based on my holds at the library, so just trying to read what currently is up before too many come in at once. Usually as the year winds down I lose interest in reading serious stuff, and just want escapist or fun stuff. I get stressed at holidays, I don't want to have to think too hard. Once the new year is over, I'm more willing to intersperse serious stuff in with my reading.

I finally finished the Popsugar challenge last week! It's only my second year doing it, but I finished a lot earlier this year than last year. And now that I'm done I can read the books I couldn't fit into prompts earlier!

The Bronzed Beasts - this was my free book for Popsugar (borrowed from the library). I enjoyed this series in general, although there are parts I was a little frustrated with.

The Obelisk Gate - Afrofuturist book
The Stone Sky - book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title
I admit I did this on purpose because I really wanted to finish this series. It was so good!

Paladin's Hope - I love this series, and it's another great entry.

I've also read a ton of manga since the last check-in, so I'm not going to list it all.

I'm currently reading The House in the Cerulean Sea - enjoying it so far!

QOTW: I generally don't read holiday-specific books. I do tend toward lighter books this time of year, between doing NaNoWriMo in November, and holiday prep in December.

Oh i forgot to mention, i did finish popsugar last week! (or the week before? maybe? time means nothing anymore) I have two prompts left for Around the Year and then i'm just kind of coasting. Book Nerds I never really intended to finish, I just wanted to see how far I'd get without trying TOO hard.

I have a bunch of finishes since the last check-in. I really should check them in on Book Nerds too. I've been more sporadic about that. In any case I have finished:
The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions. This is about the previous mass extinctions and where Earth is currently headed. Used for Book Nerds book about earth. It was really good, engaging although a bit depressing.

Fuzzy Nation I finished listening to this book by John Scalzi.

White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, Writing This was by the same Latinx author, who lives in my town, as the YA novel I finished last time. It's a book of essays and at the event she read one of them from the book.

I also listened to several Scalzi short stories: Judge Sn Goes Golfing, Utere nihil non extra quiritationem suis and The God Engines. That last one I did not like. It is the first Scalzi I did not like. It is very dark and weird and more like a horror sci-fi story. It was also a lot more sexist than I've ever seen from him.

I am currently reading Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It. It is Adam Savage's memior/bio. So far I am enjoying it and I think the rest of my family would also like it.

I have to find a new audiobook to listen too as I just finished the Scalzi ones, literally, 20 minutes ago.

QOTW: I don't usually actively seek out holiday books. If I happened to be at the library and saw something that caught my eye I would probably get it though.

Sheri, I swear I am not stalking your reading list! Recent overlaps entirely coincidental. With that said...

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - I don't want to spoil anything for Sheri, but it's about a woman living in a remote part of Poland, practicing astrology and developing a theory about mysterious occurrences in her community. I don't know how I felt about it; parts of it were lovely or funny, but I think my overall impression was "maybe I just don't 'get' lit fic."

Strange Practice - I saw this on a list of "comfort fiction" somewhere, but it was kind of a weird mix of found-family cozy urban fantasy and horror thriller. It wasn't extremely scary or anything, but it was odd to go from "nice vampire makes latte art for friend" to "somewhat gruesome description of evil antagonist situation". I do think I would consider another book in the series around the spooky season in future.

Stories of Your Life and Others - These were really great! Believe the hype (from, like, twenty years ago). I liked the ones that sort of built from taking historical concepts of cosmology/science as fact. I haven't seen Arrival, but when I read the story on which it was based, I was like, "how could you make a movie out of this?' but immediately corrected myself, because I do know how you could, I'm just not sure you should. (Maybe they did a more elegant job than I can imagine, and I'm sure they gave the author an amount of money that would convince me.)

Piranesi - This was OK. What I liked about Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell was the combination of an almost fairy-tale story with the dense faux-scholarship of the footnotes, but this one didn't really hit either of those. I warmed up to it a bit in the last section, but then the ending left me with too many loose ends. I don't mind some ambiguity, but I felt there were some specific things I'd been waiting to have explained, and they weren't.

Unexpected Night - I accidentally had a run of sff there, so I needed a classic mystery. This is an American author said to have been a favorite of Agatha Christie. I thought it was perfectly good: entertaining but not incredible. I'm not in a rush to read more from the author, but I would consider it.

QOTW: I do love holiday reads, but I have kind of been burned out on cozy mysteries, which is where I usually find them. As noted above, I did read an appropriately spoopy book this month, and I have a couple of Christmas reads bookmarked (I do try to save those for the appropriate season).

Sheri, happy to hear you were busy and not sick! (I always start to worry when it's too long betwen posts by Jen or the Bloggess.)

Read several things that finally came through on my library holds. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street was pretty good, interesting blend of characters. Also liked This Is How You Lose the Time War; it reminded me a bit of Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. The other long-awaited book was The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I definitely liked it; it was really different and clever, but I probably won't reread because lots of miserable people. One of the inside reviews was "Quantum Leap meets Agatha Christie."

I read the latest Gail Carriger, Ambush or Adore: A Delightfully Deadly Novel. I have loved everything set in the Parasolverse. This one was a little sadder than most but still good.

My unusual reading for the month is The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. SmittenKitchen.com is my favorite cooking blog; I even like reading her intros before the recipes. This was my choice for my IRL book club in November. We're doing a potluck, each making a recipe from the book or her blog, to mix it up a bit.

I don't usually aim for holiday books, but Donna Andrews seems to have been writing a halloween or christmas book most recent years (just checked and there's a new one), so apparently I do read the new one of those each year.

In the last few weeks I've read:

Flowers for Algernon (prompt - a classic) - I'd read it twice before but it had been years, and my other GR group chose it for one of the group reads. It's just as heartbreaking the third time.

All Systems Red (prompt - a novella) - Finally getting into the Murderbot series after so many friends have raved about them. Loved it and will definitely continue!

Her Perfect Family (just realized I didn't assign this to a prompt, so I have to go look at the list!) - a free Kindle First book. Not my usual genre (thriller) but it was entertaining, if not quite believable.

Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom (related to air) - we listened to this audiobook on a road trip a few weeks ago. My whole family loves the Wayside School books, but we hadn't realized that a new one had been published! This was just as much fun as the first three.

When Sorrows Come (top of TBR prompt) - newest October Daye book, I'd pre-ordered it and read it the minute it appeared on my kindle. I love this series so much!

Mothertrucker: Finding Joy on the Loneliest Road in America (one word title prompt) - lovely little memoir that had also been a free kindle first book.

I'm between books at the moment and haven't decided what to pick up next.

QOTW: I often re-read A Night in the Lonesome October around Halloween, but not necessarily every year. Otherwise...not really.

had to go back and see what I've read since my last check-in.....

i finished with The Towering Sky, then a powerful memoir, Once a Girl, Always a Boy: A Family Memoir of a Transgender Journey; and the other day I finished with The Plot, a book I requested way back in like May and the library just got it lasts month o_O

I am now finishing my own book, The Alienist, which I started back in June, but kept setting aside for library books XD

QotW: maybe? if a book I'm reading happens to align with a holiday while I'm reading it, then yes. i don't make it a point to line things up like that. i just read the books. XD

Rebecca wrote: "Sheri, I swear I am not stalking your reading list! Recent overlaps entirely coincidental. With that said...

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - I don't want to spoil anyt..."

I wasn't blown away by Piranesi when I read it earlier this year either. It was one of a few dissapointing books by authors whose earlier books I really enjoyed.

I've been holding off listening to the audiobook of Ready Player Two for that exact reason.

I didn’t really live Piransi either, but I also didn’t like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell. I just thought Piransi sounded like the kind of book I’d love. Which made it more disappointing that I didn’t .