MobileRead Book Challenges discussion
2018 Individual Challenges
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Rumpelteazer's 2018 Reading Challenge
In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware.A very good book, I've read one of her books before (last year?) and I must remember to pick up the other ones.
Which also means I've made my half-way goal! I'm 55 pages over my target of 20000 and four book ahead of schedule.
Now I need to keep going, the second half of the year I usually read a little bit less than the first half, so I still might not make it. July tends to be the month I read the most. I always look after a friends' house and dog for about three weeks in July and August.I've selected my long summer book: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. I can remember my English teacher telling class about it, he had read it during his summer vacation. Ever since I've wanted to read it, so this is the year it's going to happen.
July is usually my terrible month. Over the last seven years I'm averaging a staggering 4 books in July which is better than I thought,
HomeInMyShoes wrote: "July is usually my terrible month. Over the last seven years I'm averaging a staggering 4 books in July which is better than I thought,"For whatever reason February is my worst month. Also November and December, but that's because it's the busy time in the store. February has no excuse.
In the past couple of years I went away for a week in either May or June, and I didn't do that this year. I can read 500 to 1000 pages extra during a week away. So that is partially why I'm behind a bit. I do have a week away planned for October or November instead of earlier in the year. So that week will be made up later than normal. I also plan to go away for a couple of days at the end of August.
Traditionally May is my best month (over the past six years), also January is good, but that month I go away for a week and July or August, depending when the summer school vacation is in our region, when I go house sitting.
I just saw that I have rated 1000 books on GoodReads. It might stay that way for a little while, since my current book isn't a fast read.
Bianca wrote: "I just saw that I have rated 1000 books on GoodReads. It might stay that way for a little while, since my current book isn't a fast read."my numbers on GR are so screwy, I barely pay attention to them.
MrsJoseph wrote: "my numbers on GR are so screwy, I barely pay attention to them. "Yes, in one place it says 1000 books rated, in another place it's around 1020 books. Oh well, it's still an impressive number IMHO.
I'm still not doing well with my current book. But it's got an X in it, so I'll have to finish it (Mr. X. by Peter Straub).
Mr. X by Peter StraubAn okay story.
I forced myself to read the first third of the story before realizing I burned myself out over the previous two weeks. So I took a two day break before picking up this book again.
Currently I'm feeling a bit directionless in what I want to read. I know that I'm in the mood for something specific but I don't know what (which is really annoying).
Bianca wrote: "Mr. X by Peter StraubAn okay story.
I forced myself to read the first third of the story before realizing I burned myself out over the previous two weeks. So I took a two day break ..."
I know that feeling. I have a list of 10 books via FictFact but I don't want to read any of them. :(
I'm in the middle of a Books of the Raksura buddy series read which is a good excuse not to have to start something new and force myself to choose.
MrsJoseph wrote: "I know that feeling. I have a list of 10 books via FictFact but I don't want to read any of them. :(I'm in the middle of a Books of the Raksura buddy series read which is a good excuse not to have to start something new and force myself to choose. "
The book I chose is the fourth in the Abhorsen series by Garth Nix, Clariel, and it was the right choice. I chose it because it was different than the books I have been reading lately. Monday is normally a day I read very little but I've spend most of the day reading.
But I'm still not sure what I'm in the mood for. So after I finish Clariel I'll pick something from my first-in-series mountain and then back to my active series list.
I love "first in series mountain."According to FictFact, I have started and/or completed (Mostly just started) 71 series. I know this is wrong as I'm seeing new ones I've not added all the time.
It's ridiculous, lol.
My current system is that I use FictFact for series I've started on or am up to with (I love that you get updates when new books are going to be released). I use a virtual library to keep track of first-in-series I own and haven't read (way too many), and I use my Amazon wishlist to keep first-in-series I haven't bought yet.This is currently working for me, except I have to stop buying first-in-series until I've reduced the mountain a lot. Exceptions will be new series by favourite authors.
Bianca wrote: "My current system is that I use FictFact for series I've started on or am up to with (I love that you get updates when new books are going to be released). I use a virtual library to keep track of ..."Wow! My system isn't nearly that organized.
I keep my library catalog in Book Collectorz but sadly I've only taught myself to use part of the system.
Except for free kindle books and the like. I pretend they don't exsist anymore unless I need to read them, lol.
Then I've started using FictFact again for my series. The rest is catch as catch can. Which is probably why I have a first in, last out reading policy. O_O
MrsJoseph wrote: "Wow! My system isn't nearly that organized.I keep my library catalog in Book Collectorz but sadly I've only taught myself to use part of the system.
Except for free kindle books and the like. I pretend they don't exsist anymore unless I need to read them, lol.
Then I've started using FictFact again for my series. The rest is catch as catch can. Which is probably why I have a first in, last out reading policy. O_O "
Well, this is my system at the moment, it can change at any moment.
I know about reading new books first and letting the ones bought a while back live on the TBR pile.
I was doing fairly well with buying new ebooks this year, until I had this huge binge buy a little while ago. So now I'm only allowed to buy new books by favourite authors or that are part of series. So far, so good-ish.
The Haunting of Riley Watson: A Haunted House Mystery- Book 0 by Alexandra ClarkeActually a good story. However, I did give it only two stars because it isn't a full story. It ends on a cliffhanger. Considering this is called "book 0" of the series I expected it to be a prequel and not really part 1 of a series. I would like to read the second book, but I'm not sure I will because I don't like to be forced to do so. Luckily it was a free book.
The End of Temperance Dare by Wendy Webb.A fun ghost story. Though the twist is good, it is somewhat cheesy.
The Burial Hour by Jeffery Deaver.A good story, very hard to put down once I got into the story (which lately takes a while). Since it's mostly set in Italy I'll wait before reading the next Nic Costa book (a crime series set in Rome).
Now onwards with my Summer Read: Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chan. My English teacher in secondary school told us in our second year that this was his summer read and it was one of the best books he'd ever read. That will be 25 years ago this September. I tried to find him, he was my favourite English teacher and I just found out he died two years ago.
I had always assumed that Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang was a fiction novel. Turns out it isn't. It's the true story of her grandmother, her mother and herself.It's a slow read, I've only read a third, but it's good.
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang.This has been the best book I've read in a long time. It tells the story of three generations of Chinese women from the start of the 20th century until the the 1990s. It was a fascinating read.
The Weight of Lies by Emily CarpenterA thoroughly entertaining read. I managed to read almost 300 pages yesterday and it was very hard to put down. I've put Carpenter's other books on my Amazon wishlist, to remind myself to try and read more of her books.
It looks like I have a chance this month to read more than my average for July. I only have to finish a book of around 200 pages by Tuesday. I wanted to read Stephen King's Salem's Lot, but that's over 600 pages. I could probably make it, by I don't want to risk it. So I'm on to the next Nic Costa book and then Salem's Lot.
Dante's Numbers by David Hewson.Not as good as the previous book. I found it dragging a bit, especially the second half.
It was a good month, I've read 300 pages above average for July. I'm still 500 pages behind average for the first seven months of the year. I still have two weeks of house sitting to do, so hopefully I can keep going at this pace.
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King.I suspect this is a reread for me. There were many familiar things, but also many unfamiliar. But if I did read it it was in 1998, during a very stressful and hectic secondary/high school exam time.
I did really enjoy it. I deliberately read it slowly. You can see many familiar things and ideas which return in King's later works. I will have to get my hands on both the 1979 film and the 2004 mini-series.
Now onwards with a couple of shorter books, starting with The Joy Luck Club, then I can cross off another letter from my alphabet challenge.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy TanA very good book. I am glad I read Wild Swans before this book, because it gave me a better background of the times the mother's lived in China and their motivations for wanting to go to America.
Interesting. I found The Joy Luck Club left me a bit flat despite being a theme I've read and enjoyed many times. Maybe too much of the same when I read it.
I don't think I would have enjoyed it so much if I hadn't read Wild Swans before. The mother's in The Joy Luck Club were of the same generation as Jung Chan, the author, in Wild Swans. Whilst Chan got a chance to go to university in the UK and stay there the mothers in the Joy Luck Club moved to the US with nothing. They want for their daughters what they themselves didn't have, but also to teach them the Chinese values they were taught. Which is what also happened in Wild Swans; mothers trying to teach their daughters the old values and the daughters moving on with the times. Neither daughter nor mother understanding each other.Even if the mother were able to provide a better life for their daughters the same happened as in previous generation. It doesn't matter whether it's in China or the US, or probably any other country.
Thinking of changing how I count books in series. At the start of the thread I list the series I'm working on, how many books I've read and how many there are in a series. I do count the short stories as a full book. So if a series has 5 books and two short stories I list the series as having 7 books.I think I'm going to only list the full books, if I've just read a short story I'll list it as having read 3.5 books out of 5.
Some series have so many short stories that it looks like a series is much longer than it actually is. Plus, some short stories are published in such a way that I can't get them (e.g. a Rebus story by Ian Rankin published in the Radio Times) or won't get them (I refuse to buy an anthology of short stories for just one of them).
Bianca wrote: "I don't think I would have enjoyed it so much if I hadn't read Wild Swans before. The mother's in The Joy Luck Club were of the same generation as Jung Chan, the author, in Wild Swans. Whilst Chan ..."I wonder if you would like The Best We Could Do. This is a daughter trying to come to grips with her parents in graphic novel form. Vietnam instead of China.
I will have to look into this one. In theory I love graphic novels, but in reality I just don't finish them. I've started the Sandman series about half a dozen times and I still haven't finished it, whilst I really like it.Which reminds me, I started it again a while ago. Time to read the next one.
Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead.A fun read. I will continue with it, but I'm not sure if I'll finish it. I've started a bunch of supernatural/urban fantasy YA series and after a couple of books given up on them for various reasons.
Also, I can cross the letter V off my ABC challenge, which I hadn't realized until I finished the book. Just two more letters to go.
I did well these weeks whilst house sitting. Since the 23rd I've finished 6 books and 3125 pages. I'm secretly hoping I can finish the book I'm about to start, but tomorrow I'm working all day, so not much time to read. My Sunday is also planned fairly full; cleaning in the morning and a shopping trip with my sister in the afternoon. My friends are returning on Monday or Tuesday, I expect on Monday. If they return on Monday I'm leaving after my father has picked up my stuff (there's no dog to keep company and walk), if they return on Tuesday I might have a chance of finishing this book, I'll spend most of Monday reading since most of my stuff has been picked up.
Murder on the Oxford Canal by Faith Martin.A surprisingly fun book and start of the DI Hillary Greene series. Fairly straightforward British detective, set near Oxford. DI Hillary Greene is somewhat disgraced by her crooked, late ex-husband, who was also a police officer. She has to prove both her innocence and get back to properly working a case again.
When I finish with Lincoln Rhyme series I think this one will replace it. It's a longer series, 17 books so far, but at least this first one was an easy and fun read.
To Hold the Bridge by Garth Nix.Okay. A short story collection, only the first of which was set in the Abhorsen universe. The rest was okay; some I liked, some I didn't like.
Just one more full novel to go in this series. So I should finish this series within the next two months or so (depending when my randomizer app chooses it for me to read).
I've finished two books during my trip:Hunted by Darcy Coates
A fun read. It's about a girl getting lost in the woods and a group of friends trying to find her. Just one thing; the friends prepare well before going into the woods, they buy hundreds of dollars worth of stuff. And then they got lost. It's set in present time. Couldn't they have bought a hiking GPS or used the GPS on their phone (download the map before entering the forest, since they knew there was no reception there). Still, a fun read.
The House of Long Shadows by Ambrose Ibsen.
I'm really enjoying Ibsen's books this year. Great ghost and horror stories that are very hard to put down.
Indeed. Contrary to popular belief your cell phone can actually use its GPS without a carrier signal, although I'm curious how accurate it is in practice. Still you figure getting one within 50m of a point might be reasonable enough to help.
HomeInMyShoes wrote: "Indeed. Contrary to popular belief your cell phone can actually use its GPS without a carrier signal, although I'm curious how accurate it is in practice. Still you figure getting one within 50m of..."Especially when they know their friend got lost, one of them researched and remarked several people a year get lost and are never found. They did bring maps and compasses, but when you have no idea where you are it's fairly useless, as was proven in the story.
Even an inaccurate GPS would point them in the right direction for the car park and/or civilization.
It's super hard to get GPS to work even with just piss poor reception (instead of 0 reception). At least with my phone, that is.
True. You need to know a few things.What kind of GPS are you using. What's the terrain like -- and more importantly what is the built environment like -- I get fairly accurate GPS around here, but it flakes out near metal structures (faraday cage effect.) Out in the mountains you can get blocked by ridges and peaks depending on where things are in the sky.
A good old compass and a knowledge of stars might be helpful. Detailed contour maps are more useful if you know a bit about reading them as you can locate features and wayfind from that standpoint. The biggest problem is is that, technology has made us pretty bad at what used to be something we learned as we went. Do a search for GPS navigation follies and you'll find no end of stories of people getting lost in the woods with GPS and cellphones and maps. We trust the technology and that technology is only as good as the map we've got. Backroads and backwoods are notoriously out of date and do not inidcate current conditions well.
I might be leaning to the book being somewhat believable. You'd think that one of them would have done a Hansel and Gretl kind of thing and tied plastic tape to trees marking a way back or known locations.
I can understand that GPS won't always work. But the author portrays it as if they bought everything they would need and more. At least let one of the characters ask the smart person in the group why they didn't buy a GPS, then let her explain why it won't work. Or let them buy one and let it not work in the woods. The smart person did give them all a map and compass, but didn't explain how to use them. Eventually one of the group gets it out, realizes she doesn't know how to use it, figures she needs a landmark, climbs a tree to see where the nearby mountain is and that way uses the map and compass to decide which general direction she should go to find people.The girl who got first lost used paper to mark her route, but she ran out. The group of friends brought rolls and rolls of string to mark their route, but there's *something* in the woods with them, so that didn't work out either.
By not mentioning GPS it feels like the author missed, or ignored, something really obvious. While she could have easily acknowledge it and then discard it as useless in this situation.
MrsJoseph wrote: "It's super hard to get GPS to work even with just piss poor reception (instead of 0 reception). At least with my phone, that is."Not to totally derail the thread, but...what kind of phone? Mine is pretty good in most cases, although I'm not usuallly outside of a reasonable signal. A bit of wander in some urban areas, but usually within what seems like a 10m radius unless I'm in a building.
I should probably read the book, before I go crazy in the discussion. :haha:
iPhone 6S.But it's also had a bath, so... O_O
Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon.A good addition to the series. Only seven books unread in the series, with one to be released next year. I might be able to finish this series next year.
Malefic by Ambrose Ibsen.The second and latest book in the House of Souls series. It might be the final book, too, though the ending makes it possible that more books follow.
Now I'm going to read the latest Lincoln Rhyme book, after that I've finally finished this series. I read the first book in January 2015.
The Cutting Edge by Jeffery Deaver.Somewhat overly complicated story line, but a fun read nonetheless.
Up next is my second reread of the year, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, because I saw that Netflix is releasing a series soon based on the book. I read it for the first time between 2001 and 2004 and it was the only book that I found scary as an adult.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.It's been a while since I read this book, a couple of things were familiar but most things I couldn't remember.
MobileRead Book Challenges
Books mentioned in this topic
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I was looking for something today and found my Sandman graphic novels by Neil Gaiman. I'm starting from the beginning, I've never finished them all and I thought it might be a fun thing for summer to do.