Sheri’s Comments (group member since Jul 25, 2016)

Sheri’s comments from the EPBOT Readers group.

I sent out a group message, but in case people missed it, The Left Hand of Darkness won!

Over in FoE, someone posted this article which I thought was lovely, and relevant.

https://granta.com/her-left-hand-the-...

Welcome Alexa! Hope to see you posting :) happy reading!

Hi everyone!

Had a nice weekend hanging out with a friend I don't get to see much, but still got some good reading done.

I finished:

The Red Threads of Fortune which is the continuation of The Black Tides of Heaven, it was really great. I ended up marking them both down for the Asian author popsugar prompt, as well as a nonbianary author for the nonbianary/trans author prompt in Read Harder. I haven't decided if I'll use them for ATY's far east author/ setting yet, I feel like I'm going to read more Asian authors and don't know if I want to triple dip so early.

All the Light We Cannot See - I tried a new thing this week, going to a Books & Brew which is a book club that meets in a brewery. This was the book for it, and I actually managed to get a copy in time to finish it about one hour before the event started. I ended up having a lot of fun at the even and liking the book a lot more than I expected. I've been reading a lot of WW2 fiction since i started doing reading challenges, wasn't really looking forward to yet another one. I really liked it though, there was almost a kind of magical realism to it, centered around this diamond that was rumored to be cursed. The main protagonists were a young blind French girl during the occupation of France, and a young brilliant boy who went to an elite Nazi school. I really appreciated the different views, both from a person who's differently abled and a Nazi presented as a very human character. The book in NO way excused anything about the Nazis, but presented a view of a young kid whose choices in life were to go into the coal mines and probably die of a terrible accident, or go into the military where he could pursue his technological dreams, even if it meant being surrounded by increasingly uncomfortable viewpoints and occurrences. The kid often knew things weren't really right, but also saw what happened to those who rebelled and he just wanted to survive. Also the sections from the point of view of the blind girl were beautifully described, really giving the feel of how someone without sight would navigate the world and life in general. All in all a lovely book.

I am counting it for Popsugar's book with unusual chapters, it was broken into various parts, and each part into different viewpoints with title names. Also ATY's book with an author that has A, T, and Y in their name.

Saga, Vol. 2 - Finally got around to reading this. I bought a physical copy of it a couple years ago, read the first issue of it, and it disappeared. I've searched EVERYWHERE and I cannot for the life of me figure out where it got to. So I finally sucked it up and borrowed it off hoopla just so I could move on in the series. I enjoyed it a lot, will have to start moving forward again.


Currently reading:

Into the Drowning Deep - This will be my popsugar book featuring an extinct or imaginary character, involving mermaids. I'll also probably count it for ATY's book with a monstrous creature, seeing as in this novel the mermaids are apex predators of the deep. I love Seanan McGuire in general, and how she writes such a diverse cast of characters without feeling forced. I'm not too far yet, about a quarter, but enjoying it a lot so far.

Dead Beat - still plugging away at the audiobook, been watching bake off with my husband, I got him hooked on accident. So less audio book time while i stitch.

QOTW:

I know we're all book readers here, it's the nature of good reads after all. (Even those of us trying to read more!) But what else do you read?

I'm a big fan of comic books, which I do put into good reads when they come into trades. I also really love web comics and follow a number, such as Something Positive, Questionable Content, Sinfest, Gunnerkrig Court, Dumbing of Age. Used to follow Girls with Slingshots but that ended a couple years ago, still follow Danielle Corsetto on Patreon though. I used to read a lot of Cracked, but it seemed like most my favorite writers left or at least don't write as often, and I never got into the newer crowd as much.

Glad to see so many new people/lurkers commenting :) Welcome all!

There seems to be a very large support for some Ursula K LeGuin, so for this round I'm just going to go ahead and limit the choices to either Left Hand of Darkness, or A Wizard of Earthsea. Please keep note of those other suggestions, we can put those forward again for the next round, probably in late march/early April.

Here is a link to the poll!
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

I'm also going to send out a message with the link, so those not following this thread will see it too.

Welcome to all the new people, glad to see more people commenting! Good luck on all of your reading goals!

Danielle, where is the prompt list for that one? I don’t think I want to do five but I’m curious haha

Welcome Bev! Good luck on your reading goal!

Hi Megan!

I always set my goodreads goal pretty high because I read a LOT of comics, and it inflates my numbers. I always feel weird setting a lower goal and blowing through it halfway through the year because I went on a comics binge and cleared through 20 titles in a week or something like that.

Hi Everyone! Happy new year!

Welcome to a fresh year of reading! I hope everyone was able to successfully complete whatever reading goals they had for last year. Even if you didn't, good job on finishing what you did!

For those who are new, these threads are for checking in weekly with what you you've been reading the past week. It's particularly helpful for those of us doing reading challenge(s), to keep accountable and get ideas for what to read for prompts we haven't gotten to yet. However anyone's welcome if you just want to chime in with what you're reading! I usually try to think of an extra question to ask each week, just to keep conversation going. Feel free to comment here or message me if you have ideas of more questions to ask!

This week I have finished:

The Glass Sentence - This was a book that I recommended the library get digitally so long ago I don't remember why I added it. just suddenly got notice that they purchased it and auto-checked out for me. It was ok, somewhat interesting but not terribly engaging. Took me longer than usual to read just because I was busy, and it wasn't sucking me in.

Super Chill: A Year of Living Anxiously - used up my hoopla downloads for december on a bunch of comics, breezed through this in less than an hour. I like his comics, but i found he'd been promo-ing this book so much, each time with a new "exclusive comic to the book" that I'd already read over half of them from those promos.

The Black Tides of Heaven - First challenge read of the year. Counting it for Popsugar's book by an author from Asia, as well as Read Harder's book by an author that is transgender or nonbianary. (The author is nonbianary). It was really good, very different from a lot of the fantasy I read. There's a lot of mention of gender roles and the whole society treats it different than our current society does.

currently reading:

The Red Threads of Fortune - the first book was good, but pretty short so I immediately went and bought this one. It's the continuation of the previous story, but from the other twin's perspective this time.

Dead Beat - re-reading via audio still

QOTW:

Since I know we had a bunch of sign ups, plus people who said they lurked but want to be more active, how about a little bit of an introduction, and what reading goals you have for the year.

I'm Sheri, I work from home as a web designer, and live in Michigan. I'm married, no kids, four cats which is plenty enough for me.

This year I'm potentially working on 4 reading challenges. Popsugar, Around The Year in 52 books, Read Harder, and Reading Women. I'm hoping pretty much all of Reading Women can be worked into the rest of the challenges by virtue of picking as many women authors as I can. I don't double dip within the same challenge, but I'll easily stretch a book across as many challenges as I can.

Happy reading everyone!

Megan, I'm still going to put out a poll next week. :) Not-Ursula suggestions are still welcome. If anyone sees other suggestions they're liking, feel free to add support to those as well.

For those just looking to read more Ursula K Le Guin in general, The Dispossessed is only 2 bucks for kindle right now, at least for those in the US. https://www.amazon.com/Dispossessed-A... (I don't object to people selecting the dispossessed, just it has't been specifically mentioned yet)

I’ll still send out a message to the whole group next week to see if we can get additional selections, but if there’s a strong consensus I’m cool with just setting left hand of darkness as our book.

As far as popsugar goes, it’s set on the planet Winter, and the weather is icy. Could probably count as a winter book read in winter. Also could be for a past years prompt, book set on another planet. The rest are probably subjective. You might think it should be made into a movie. I’m sure celebrities have recommended it, but whether they’re admirable is subjective, etc.

Stephanie,

I don't know how full your TBR for next year is already, but I recommend NK Jemisin as a woman author of color who writes sci fi/fantasy. Particularly her The Broken Earth series. It's a sort of hybrid genre book, there's magic but it's very geological-based magic so it feels kind of sci fi as well. The first book was good, but the trilogy got really good for book 2 and 3.

Ann Leckie also writes great sci-fi. I'm finishing up her Imperial Radch series. It sort of explores gender and what makes a person a person through the vehicle of an AI that is not human, but resides in a human body. It can get a little confusing because it uses "she" as the default pronoun, so I tend to envision everyone as women until someone uses a gendered title like "grandfather" and I realize that character was male. But the AI has very little concept of gender, so tends to only really acknowledge it if the situation needs it.

Also I'd say the story is pretty good for Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe. I personally don't find that a good narrator makes up for a crappy story, I wouldn't have liked it if the narration was the only thing going for it.

Since Ursula K Le Guin died in 2018, I think it'd be great to read something of hers. So I would like to recommend The Left Hand of Darkness. It's one of her most famous books, and is known as a sci-fi staple. I have read it before, but it has been a while, I'd love to revisit.

If people would rather go fantasy, I'd also go with A Wizard of Earthsea. It's also a staple of fantasy, and again one she's very well known for. It's a bit more YA, but still very good.

Hi everyone, here's a thread for selecting the new book for re-starting the book club for the new year.

I have some requests:

1) Please keep it fiction for this round. The last four selections have all been some variety of nonfiction, I'd like to mix it up a little!

2) Please suggest one book at a time, with a reason for why you think we should read it. It doesn't have to be a book you have read yet, but explain why you want to read it. If you're using the desktop, linking the book title to the goodreads page would be helpful, so people can easily read the descriptions. You can suggest more than one book, but make sure each has a reason why you suggest it, and they're clearly separated either with separate posts or in distinct paragraphs within the same post.

3) If someone recommended your book already, you can "vote" for it by saying you also recommend it, and you can add your own reasons if they differ from the ones originally listed. Books that seem most popular I'll gather into a poll for official voting.

I'm not going to set an exact timeframe, it'll partially depend on how busy I am and when I can set a poll up etc. But I do want there to be more than one or two suggestions, so I'll probably keep it open until there's a decent selection of options.

Thanks everyone! Let's pick some books!

Hi everyone!

I'd like to get the book club going again in the new year, and was wondering if anyone had ideas going forward.

Does the poll for picking books work best? Would people rather have a comment thread where people can discuss choices first, and then make a poll? Any other ideas?

For discussion, I was trying to google some questions to encourage further discussion than just whether or not people liked it. Is that good? Any other ideas for format? I havent' done any real book clubs before, I'm not an expert. If anyone has suggestions, I'm open!

Thanks everyone for being here. I'll send out a group wide email sometime next week to encourage people to check back in here. :) Happy new year!

Hi everyone!

Combining check ins to end the year, I was just so busy with work/holiday prep last week I just had no time to write one up.

Hope those that celebrate had a nice Christmas, and that those that don't have been having a nice week :)

This week I finished:

The Assassin King - Woo finished this, can start the next two books that I haven't read, hopefully fitting them into challenges once the new year starts.

Blood Rites - finished listening to the audio book for this while working on all my Christmas cards.

Dragondrums - wanted something nice and easy to read on Christmas while I relaxed and enjoyed being done with family and frantic prep.

currently reading: Ancillary Mercy - I figured this would be hardest of my current library books out to fit into prompts next year so started on it now. Should finish it up before the new year starts.

QOTW:

Now that we're at the end of the year, what were your notable reads of the year? Anything surprise you?

I think The Golem and the Jinni was one of my surprises. It was a random book I pulled off the shelf at the library, because it was pretty. It had blue edged pages and a pretty blue and bronzy cover, and it sounded interesting enough that I was willing to try it. Ended up loving it!

I really loved Spinning Silver, although that wasn't a surprise so much since Uprooted by the same author is a fantastic book as well. I love a good fairy tale retelling, and this one was done really well.

I also really enjoyed Sourdough. it was an interesting book, didn't really fit into a particular genre. Not really sci fi, since most the technology is at elast within reasonable grasp soon, if not now. The sourdough starter seemed to have some sort of magical powers, but not really enough that'd I'd call the book magical realism. It was fun though, and I'm glad I read it.

Hope everyone has a fantastic new year, see you at the start of a new reading year!

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!

HI everyone! Wow, week 50 already! Year's almost over!

Busy time of year, so I've been mostly doing re-reads before gearing up for next year's challenges.

This week I finished:

Dragonsong & Dragonsinger - I love this series particularly these two and they were nice short reads to give me a break.

Elegy for a Lost Star - Finished this up, it's also a re-read but I hadn't read them for over a decade. One more to go, then I can star on the new trilogy next year. We'll see if I get to it, a few library holds came up!

Death Masks - listening to the audios as a re-read, i really like James Marster's narration.

Currently reading:

Artemis Fowl - A heard a lot of people saying good things about this, and there's a movie or series or something coming out soon so thought I'd give it a try. Maybe it's an age thing, where I didn't grow up reading it, but I'm not really that impressed yet. It's ok, but I'm not loving it. I don't really like the whole "genius child who is really mature" trope much, it always feels like a lazy way for an adult to write a kid's book without having to learn to write a believable child. Even mature kids are still children.

QOTW:

This is the time of year for lots of winter holidays, anyone have anything fun/exiting/that you're looking forward to going on?

I mostly just have some family stuff going on. We might check out the restaurant up the road's new year event, assuming it's still going on. I haven't seen signs yet, but they've done it the last few years, so hopefully!