Stina’s Comments (group member since Dec 11, 2016)

Stina’s comments from the Challenges from Exploding Steamboats group.

I listened to Honor Yourself for my #Winterween "read in the dark" book. It's a 20-minute guided meditation, so I figure there is no way that translates to 100+ pages. But here is your chance to read a children's picture book or a Poe short story or something and count it as a challenge read with zero guilt.

This came up on a Chance card while I was playing Becca's Bookopoly (https://youtu.be/FMvFcCE3X_8) last fall, and it got me completely stuck. I'm blaming that orange cover. I wanted a fresh start at Bookopoly this year, but I didn't feel right completely blowing this off as a book I need to read, so here it is.

Since this is such a specific prompt, I didn't add it to the main challenge. You can consider this a sort of bonus prompt.

This was the Victober challenge group read last year. I tried listening to it and made some progress, but I think I will do better with a text version.

Since this is such a specific prompt, I didn't add it to the main challenge. You can consider this a sort of bonus prompt.

I have several that would work for this, but the one I'm most interested in right now is River of Darkness. What are your "river" books?

I've tried a few time to read The House of the Spirits, and I guess I am going to try again. It's the only book by her that I own already, and I don't think trying to read anything else of hers will go any better for me.

The Reading Women Award: https://www.readingwomenpodcast.com/r...

Reading Women is a podcast I listened to for awhile last year, and this was on their Reading Women Challenge list. Their awards lists are slightly more interesting than the Women's Prize and the Stella Award lists, but there still wasn't a whole lot that appealed to me. I expect I will read The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays.

Of course, I will be doubling up with The Island Kitchen: Recipes from Mauritius and the Indian Ocean. But I expect Brownies and Broomsticks will work as well. And somewhere I have a copy of My Life in France. Haven't seen it in years, though.

The Stella Prize: https://thestellaprize.com.au/
The Women's Prize for Fiction: https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/

I'm going to have another go at The Tiger's Wife. I have to admit, I think most of these books sound incredibly boring and/or grim. And I have issues with the Women's Prize after that misguided "Reclaim Her Name" campaign. So if you want to read a woman-authored book that won some other major prize, go right ahead.

I'm planning to read Jade City. Any other recommendations?

I'm still reading Fishy Business: The Fifth Guppy Anthology, but Catfishing on CatNet is tempting me. What fishy titles do you have in mind for this one?

I will most likely read something by Charlie Jane Anders, K.B. Wagers, Sarah Gailey, or Alex Acks.

This is open to interpretation, of course. You could go with something anywhere in the other hemisphere, or you could look at a globe and make your best guess where you'd come out if you tunneled through the planet.

Or you could try for something more precise and use an antipode calculator. Like this one: https://www.antipodesmap.com/. That's what I did. Of course, it dumped me in the middle of an ocean. But the nearest bit of land that I could find a book for was a French archipelago, so I will be reading L'Arche des Kerguelen: Voyage aux îles de la Désolation.

I only have a few of these right now. The Outsiders is at the top of the list.

I believe this is the list intended by the original challenge writer: https://booklistqueen.com/50-states-r...
There are several I plan to read, but A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is the one jumping out at me right now.

Gah. [Insert stream of invective against "bestseller" lists here.] But I do own at least one, and it's one I plan to read this year anyway: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life. But if you decide this prompt is just too stupid to live, well, i agree with you. Read whatever you want. I sure as hell am not going to look it up to see if it's on some marketing list.

Well, I've started both To the Lighthouse and Nadja, so I should read either or both of those. But frankly, neither one is all that appealing. I will probably just count my upcoming re-read of The Mysterious Affair at Styles.

The complete list of winners is posted at https://www.goodreads.com/choiceaward.... These are the most likely ones for me:
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death
The Silent Patient
Recursion
Ninth House

I have several issues of The Missouri Review lying around, so I might as well read one of those. There are also quite a few online literary magazines in various genres, so you should be able to find something to your liking.

I saw both The House of the Spirits and The Map of Salt and Stars on a list of books that qualify for this prompt, and I think I already have copies of both. I have also been recommended The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After.

I will probably listen to Our House Is on Fire: Greta Thunberg's Call to Save the Planet. Are you going the nonfiction route as well, or are you looking to fiction for this prompt?