Random’s Comments (group member since Apr 30, 2009)

Random’s comments from the Beyond Reality group.

Shel wrote: "Generally no - I admire special editions but for the price, I could buy multiple other books."

I tend to lean that way myself.

I do have a huge annotated volume of Shakespeare's plays and another for Sherlock Holmes that I enjoyed for the annotations. But they weren't particularly special or expensive. I think I got both for cheap at Costco many years ago.

They're also both too large to comfortably read. :)

Finished System Collapse which marks the finish of my Murderbot reread.

Starting Roadkill at the hearty recommendation of my husband.

After that, I am planning on starting the Expeditionary Force series at the prompting of both my husband and a coworker. This may take a while since the series is quite huge.

I'm having problems answering some of these questions as they seem somewhat ambiguous in their meaning. Can I message you with some clarifying questions?

There were also a number I had difficulty answering because I kept wanting to say "well it depends on . . ."

I'm old. How many people here can remember back when the the only way to find new books was to wander the book store/library, pick up books, flip them over, and read the blurb? Well ok, there were things like book reviews in news papers and magazines, maybe the NYT best seller list, but the blurbs were by far primary.

I still almost always read the blurbs. They are the primary (often only) way I decide if I want to read a book or not. I don't really read reviews because, well honestly, way too many people out there don't know the difference between a review and a book report.

A review is a critique on the book and what you thought about it. A book report is proof you read the book. If you have to give synopsis on what happened in the book, that's a book report, not a review.

Exceptions might be later books in series where I am already committed and I already know I'm going to read it. I skip the blurb then. I Also really avoid the blurb on later books in series, because they can often spoil earlier books. And I really don't like spoilers.

Another reason I tend to avoid reviews and go for the blurbs is a desire for me to go into a book with no preconceptions. I want to experience a book fresh, come to my own opinions, then I am ready to see what others thought. Not the other way around.

Out of curiosity, I created a Storygraph account yesterday and attempted to import my books into it.

This did not go well. At one point I had to delete and recreate the account to get things straightened out.

It had trouble importing a significant number of books and I'm still trying to straighten things out.

None of my Start reading dates imported.

I have missing tags that only show up if I look at a book I know is assigned that tag.

Some tags/shelves have counts that don't match between the platforms and I've had to export data from storygraph so I can do a direct compare to see what is missing. (I've got over 300 books assigned to some of these tags).

You have to look at a book's editions list to find out simple things like what format you have shelved.

It blends personal tags, public tags/genres, and "moods" as the same thing grouped together.

Site is absolutely not designed for a desktop as I can only see 4 books at a time (and my browser window stretches pretty much from the top of my screen to the bottom and I'm running at 2k resolution at home and even higher here at work. As you scroll, there's a quite noticeable pause every 11 books, which gets very annoying as you are trying to hunt down the messed up books from the import.

So far, it does not seem to be a good site to organize your personal library. Also, so far, its focus seems to primarily to show you pretty graphs of data that means absolutely nothing to me.
Its not helpful to be told a science book about evolution is Adventurous and Slow-Paced. (I can see slow-paced, but adventurous? Really?)

I have not been able to check out the Book Club functionality yet as I have not yet been able to find a way to look for existing Book Clubs at all. Is it invite only? It also seems like anyone can butt in on a buddy read, though I have not yet tried.

I realized last night I made an error in my previous response.

I actually only use the notification feature for give away notifications and if anyone likes or responds to one of my reviews.

Because I visit the site frequently, I just go to Community/Discussions and look for anything that is unread in regards to group discussions. So I see all of the group announcements almost immediately.

I skip and come back to spoiler threads of I haven't yet read the book.

1. How often do you check Goodreads?
Daily, or at least near daily. There are a few exceptions for things like vacation, etc.

2. Do you get notifications on the website (little red dot by the bell)?
Its the only way I choose to get notifications. I think about a decade ago I threatened Goodreads staff I would start sending Goodreads email to the bit bucket for my entire domain (I'm the admin and thus god) if they didn't stop sending me email I didn't want to receive.
I absolutely 100% do NOT want to receive email notifications. I also refuse to have any app on my mobile devices that sends me notifications that I do not want. (I'm pointing at you Audible. That's the reason why I crack your books!)

3. Do you generally participate in the polls (always, when you are notified about them, when you remember to check)?
I always look at them. I don't always vote. Usually in cases where I'm just not interested in any of the books or its a time period where I know I just won't have the time to join in the discussions.

4. Do you read the selected books even if you don't post?
If I read the book the same time we are discussing, I will usually post something, even if its just to say I read it. I may not if its a book I've read in the past and I am not rereading with the group.

5. Do you have an account at any of these platforms/websites: LibraryThing, StoryGraph, Discord?
I have a Discord account.

6. IF we were to move the group to another website/platform, do you have a preference?
Would you follow the group? Would you participate more/less/the same? Would you prefer to stay at Goodreads?
Don't know. I guess it would depend on the platform and how invasive it is. I prefer to check the group when its convenient for me, not when others decide they want to post. If I don't have time to check the web site, I don't have time to have my inbox flooded just because a discussion was active.
Discord would seem like an odd option for this type of discussion group. Its more setup for live discussions and other uses are, to be honest, massively clunky.

7. Please share any other thoughts or comments you have concerning this topic.
I won't move anywhere that will require a subscription/monetary cost.

Leserling wrote: "I've been a volunteer for Distributed Proofreaders for Project Gutenberg for 14 years, where I am a mentor for newbies, and have been a volunteer for librivox for more than 10 years now. "

That is so cool. I considered volunteering for Project Gutenberg myself but never actually got around to it.

I'm Random and I live in the Seattle, WA area. I've been a member of this group since its move to GR in 2009 (not counting this as a fun fact).

- I'm also a member of the NKNP minority, though I have had cats in the past. Making sure my husband doesn't manage to maim himself or burn down the house is enough for me. Its like trying to take care of a toddler with access to a credit card, power tools, and a total lack of common sense. :)

- I can easily spend so much time in my head that I can appear to do nothing but sit and stare off into space for hours at a time. It tends to weird people out.

Most of the books I read this year were rated 4 stars, which tells me that I made some good choices this year. :)

My favorites:

SF/F
The Road to Roswell
Passage
Nettle & Bone
Starter Villain

Horror
The September House
How to Sell a Haunted House

Short Story
Walking to Aldebaran

I know, I know, I say this every year.

I do not set reading goals. I read for pleasure and setting goals makes it work, not pleasure.

The only thing even close to a goal I set for myself is to try and avoid rereads. I have been doing really well with that until the later portion of this year.

I am glad I did it though. It had been long enough that rereading the first 4 books of the Bobiverse series has made the 5th book (will be done before the end of the year) a lot easier to follow. So many Bobs.

And a reread of Murderbot has just been pleasure because I really do enjoy that character so much.

On that note: Heard a Murderbot TV series is being made. I think Apple TV+. I am currently in hopeful nervous stage. Novellas might actually transition to a TV series better than full novels, but I can also imagine how easily this could also go so very wrong. I will try and keep my fingers crossed. I so rarely like TV shows or movies based on books.

Same as Shel. I do, but, like just about everything else, I have to be in the right mood.

One that comes immediately to mind is the Wicther Series. Very good but man it can be brutal to read at times.

Possibly Scourge of the Betrayer. I've never finished that series, though I enjoyed the first book and have the entire series.

Its been insane as we had to get a final release out for the year at work and have been swiftly running out of time. Its kind of hindered my Murderbot reread fest since I've been working 10h days.

Holiday traffic is in full swing, so commutes have also been averaging 1.5 to 2 hours one way. Bad for sleep or any relaxation time at home, but bonus for audiobooks.

So I've gotten through the reread fest of the first 4 books of the Bobiverse series and have just started Not Till We Are Lost which is new for me.

I have some vacation time coming up over the holidays, so planning on trying to get through Murderbot. But I also have a second play through of Veilguard ready to go, so more distractions. At least that will be an enjoyable distraction. :)

I guess I did with Dragonfly Falling though I can't say if it will be a temporary break or a true will not finish.

I really wanted to like the series so much but

- Too many characters without enough definition. For example, I literally could not keep any of the fly kinden straight in my head. They just all merged together for me.

- Too much action/too many fights/too many long battles. I'm just not an action person. I get bored and loose attention if it doesn't get broken up with things I find interesting. A long fight during one of my commutes can leave me wanting to scream.

- A couple instances where a character would act out of character for no reason other than conflict was needed.

Really a pity as I have enjoyed this author's SF quite a lot.

I've never written anything beyond what was required to pass certain classes.

But, if I did, I would use a pen name. I like my privacy. Its the same reason I've used this nick for the last 30 or so years.

CJ wrote: "I have read all the Murderbot stuff I can get, including the 3 short stories available (one's in the anthology, Take Us to a Better Place and it's a kind of creepy story about the p..."

Oh, I did not know about that one. I've got to grab it as I'm in theprocess of a series reread. :)

For anyone interested:
Take Us to a Better Place looks to be free on Amazon Kindle (not part of Kindle unlimited).

The rest of the series, other than book7, is also free with Kindle Unlimited.

Read this many years ago and I am doing enough rereading right now that I don't plan on reading it again.

But my favorites were
Story of Your Life
Understand
Hell is the Absence of God

and honestly most of the rest of them.

I have some very complex feelings about Liking What You See. I may reread that story for discussion.

This is kind of hard because it was a long standing annoyance in my family. All I ever wanted were books and tapes (music) for birthdays, Christmas, etc. I had full lists written out and updated for every gift giving occasion.

But there are a few that stand out.

The best was a gift certificate to a local book store. $20 could go a long ways at the time and I still remember the Christmas both of my brothers got me $20 gift certificates. I came out of that store with a huge bag full of books. Among those books was the initial Dragonlance trilogy, which I absolutely adored at the time. So much in fact that I am terrified of rereading them as I don't want to crush those childhood memories.

A few times growing up, one of my brothers would just randomly just leave a book on my bed and say nothing about it.

The first time this happened was Trixie Belden #2. My first introduction to the series and my first book passion outside of Winnie the Pooh. :)
I begged for more Trixie Belden books so much afterwards that one Christmas my parents just bought the entire rest of the series for me. That is pretty high on one of the best Christmases ever. :)

The second surprise book left on my bed was A Wizard of Earthsea, and kicked off my love for that initial trilogy.

And, I think a 3rd might have been Dragonflight
This was like 40 years ago and I'm not entirely sure if this was one of those surprise books or if I got it through other means. But I was young enough at the time that I would not have been able to buy it by myself.

November has been a bit of a loss for me.
Dragon Age: Veilguard released on Oct 31. 120h in and I still haven't finished Act2. My reading time would be pretty much 0 if it wasn't for audiobooks and long commutes.

I also got suckered in to doing some rereads.

A coworker and I were discussing the Bobiverse books. There's a 5th ones out, and I read the initial 3 books long enough ago that details are muddy in my head. So many Bobs! So now I'm rereading (or listening in this case) them all so I can talk to him about them easier. I'm on the second one now For We Are Many

Which I should have finished by now, but I also tried to convince said coworker into reading the Murderbot series. I opened the first book to read that hook of a first paragraph and basically finished before going to sleep that night. I'll likely be starting the third this weekend. I'm finally giving in to a Murderbot Diaries reread.

Bah, I'm not supposed to be doing all these rereads.

What I'm grateful for is nothing earth shattering

Quiet mornings, a hot cup of good tea, and a little time where I can just be and not have to accomplish anything

Rainy nights with the sound of pattering rain lulling me to sleep

The scent of lilac carried on a warm breeze

A bowl of hot soup on a cold day

Good books and the authors who write them

Purring cats

And a cheat, but its honest
I'm grateful for my husband, whose insanity meshes so well with mine