Week 2 Check in

[Sheri]

Hi everyone!

Another Thursday, another check In!

This week I finished Ancillary Sword which was pretty good. I'm liking the series more as it goes on. It's counting as my popsugar book set on another planet (mostly on a space station, but whatever. they do go on a planet for a bit.) and my ATY prompt for book a friend rated 5 stars. I don't think I love the series as much as a lot of people do, but it is pretty good.

I also finished Last Rituals which I really, really tried to give the benefit of the doubt. I tried to say maybe it was just my mood, or the fact that I was tired and couldn't concentrate while reading. But on talking to Stephanie, who's also reading it, I am just coming to the conclusion that it's just not a very good book. It's not very well written or thought out, and the characters are pretty flat and uninteresting. It counted as my Nordic Noir, and also for ATY book set in a country I want to visit, but haven't (Iceland).

Currently I am reading The Power, but I took a bit of a break to read Reserved for the Cat. I initially thought The Power was going to be empowering and awesome, but as I was reading reviews they kept mentioning how dark and intense it was, although still really good. So I felt like I needed a mental break before really delving down into that. So I'm kind of bracing myself for it to go super dark and dystopian, once I get back into it, probably tomorrow.

So what's everyone reading?

Are people happy with their early starts? Cursing their book choices? Already finding something amazing?

[Meg]

I went on a book binge on Monday because I was home sick and just in the mood to read. Read the first two Bel Dame Apocrypha novels by Kameron Hurley - God's War and Infidel - highly recommend these. Very fast paced, and a very non-traditional fantasy setting.

Then I read Scalzi's The Collapsing Empire which had all sorts of delicious political intrigue with a space opera weird physics background.

And then I finally got around to starting Elizabeth Bear's Range of Ghosts - I'm only about 1/4 of the way in and very pleased so far. Fantasy set on the steppes of East Asia - there's horses and sorcerors - it's great. I'll finish that and then pick hopefully start From a Certain Point of View - so that I can read it and then my husband can before it's due back at the library.

(If you can't tell, I read really fast. LIke 180-250 pages an hour fast (except for academic books :(). But... I am also blessed with a really good memory for text, so I can totally tell you what I read and pick up a book I think I've read, open at random, and be able to read a page or two and remember what happens before and after. I'm a weirdo, for sure.)

[Sheri]

Haha, Meg I think you read even faster than me :) I don't have the memory you do though. I'll re-read books and certain scenes will stick out like "oh yes, I did read this" but still have no recall how the book actually ended.

[Meg]

Sheri wrote: "Hi everyone!

Another Thursday, another check In!

This week I finished Ancillary Sword which was pretty good. I'm liking the series more as it goes on. It's counting as my popsuga..."

I really enjoy the Elemental Masters series - I have A Scandal in Battersea on hold on overdrive right now. If you like Lackey - the 500 Kingdoms series is also good - more fairy tale retellings, but with the twist that the Fairy Godmother is an actual role that is required to keep the world in check.

[Sheri]

I love 500 kingdoms :D I’ve not read her newest elemental masters, not found them on sale or in library. Eventually! I have steadfast and Home from the sea and blood red I think it was?

[Lynette]

I went back to work this week, So my reading shifted a bit.

I finished The Wizards of Once on audiobook- I loved all the voices that David Tennant did for all the characters.

I also read Fortunately, the Milk to my class this week. It went fast and now we have started Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library, which will count as my Popsugar book that takes place in a library. Most of the books I read last year were in my class, but I am making sure I read for me too- I just hate to not count a book that fits so well into the category. I wanted to read it over summer and just didn't get to it.

My current audiobook is Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between.

I am waiting for my next library book to be ready to pick up, so I am not reading anything else right now. I feel like I should be, but two books right now are enough, right?

[Susan]

Youngest child went back to college yesterday so this past week has been a bit crazy with getting things done and ready. But thank you to Stephanie, who last week told me about the Children of Hypnos serial by the author of Eliza and Her Monsters. My husband finished it this week and loved it too. His usual (nearly exclusive) genre is sci-fi so this was outside his norm. All of us read it in the past few weeks. My youngest read it a 3rd time before going back! She also read the serial online in its entirety in one sitting.

I've paused Year One for the moment so that I can try and finish Uncommon Type: Some Stories. The reason is that, while both are from the library, Uncommon Type has no renewals whereas Year One I can get several more weeks in renewals if needed.

My middle child got me a Book Of The Month club subscription for 3 months and I just got As Bright as Heaven as my first book. So the TBR pile is kind of growing and you'll see my same titles in my comments repeat in the coming weeks.

I admire all of you who can read so many books so quickly!

[Jessica]

I'm more like you Sheri. I can never remember how things end, until I'm basically at the end again.

[Jessica]

I read Binti last weekend. All in one day, in one-sitting. So it may count as my one-sitting book for the Read Harder challenge. Although it could also count for sci fi book with female protagonist by female author on that same challenge. For pop sugar, it will probably count as Book by author of a different ethnicity than you. Although it could also count for a book set on a different planet.

Since then I read the Spark notes for Animal Farm, to catch all the analysis I missed by never reading the book in school. It was good to get the brief overview of Stalin and all that. I'm going to count it because my copy of Animal Farm has both it and 1984, so it would only count as one book. So I'm counting the sparks notes basically to count for Animal Farm as a separate book.

I'm currently reading 1984, which is another book that I never read in school. I know it was flying off the shelves last year, but I never got around to reading it. It looks like I have less than 100 pages left in 1984.

Next up, I'll probably start The Bat for Nordic Noir for popsugar and it will fit Genre Fiction in translation for Read Harder challenge.

I've also been trying to finish the audiobook for I Know I Am, But What Are You?. I think out of female comedian memoirs I've read, Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling have been my favorite. Amy Pohler's book was pretty good also. And I did love Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, which I also listened to as an audio book.

Good luck everyone!

[Stephanie]

Hello All,

Susan, I'm glad to hear the Children of Hypnos serial was worth checking out. I haven't read it, but I'm going to try and find some time now.

My reading week has been a bit slow as I went back to work this week, but I did manage to finish The Golden House on Monday. I was kind of disappointed in it. It seems like the longer Salman Rushdie keeps writing, the more over-inflated some of his prose gets. I still thought there were moments of genius in the book, and I did enjoy long sections of it, but at some points I felt like just saying, "Okay, we get it, you're really smart and have an excellent command of language. You can stop dressing up every single sentence and image." Still, I don't regret reading the book and gave it a solid three stars for my prompt about a book addressing a current social issue.

As Sheri mentioned, I'm also am currently reading Last Rituals for the Popsugar Nordic Noir prompt. Sheri found this book and mentioned it to me, so we thought it would be fun to read it around the same time so we could compare notes. In her defense, the description of the book looks really good, and I was very excited to read it. Unfortunately, we've both discovered that it's a real stinker of a book. I'm only 1/3 through, but this is about as close to a Did Not Finish (DNF) experience as I've come. It's pretty poorly researched, with an awkward translation from the original Icelandic, and not really thoughtfully developed in terms of character motivation and why certain characters might even be involved in the story at all. Oh, and lots of casual stereotyping, too. However, it's a fast read and since I don't really care for the genre to begin with, I'm going to tough it out and finish since I don't want to have to start a new book for the prompt.

And I feel like such a Negative Nelly now, ha! So, to answer Sheri's question, after starting my year with two murder mysteries and a Salman Rushdie novel, I'm definitely going to be turning to something lighter and fun for my next couple of choices. It's been a bit of a rough start to the year!

Speaking of which, I'm continuing to make my way through the How To Train Your Dragon audiobooks as I walk back and forth to work. Last week I finished How to Speak Dragonese and I'm currently on How To Train Your Dragon: How To Cheat A Dragon's Curse: Book 4. I just love these books and David Tennant's narration so much! They've gone a long way to keeping me happy with some light fluff as I've been slogging around in a big snow dump that's been keeping the sidewalks a little perilous since Monday, and then again today when it started raining. I am routinely thankful that one of last year's prompts was "an audiobook" as I had never listened to one before, and now I really enjoy them!

[travelgirlut]

I finished Persepolis Rising, which I quite enjoyed, and was in the mood for more space opera, so I picked up Off Armageddon Reef. Though I'm not sure why I grabbed this one as I've read it before and it really isn't space opera at all. 95% of the book is on a planet, not in space. Also, the way the author spells all the names in the book drives me CRAZY, so this time I thought I'd try listening to the audio book. But let me tell you, it was worse!! The narrator's attempts at accents was horrific!! I gave up and went back to reading it. And the more I read the more I ask myself why I'm wasting time reading this again when I didn't even like it all that much the first time around. Sigh. We'll see if I end up finishing it.

Not sure what's going to be next. Hopefully something much better!!

[Sara]

After being stuck on what to read last week, this week went much better. I spent the weekend binging on Kiera Cass's The Selection Series. This YA series has sucked me in! I finished The Elite and The One and 2 related novellas The Guard and The Queen. These two books complete the initial trilogy, which follow a girl named America as she competes with 34 other girls to win the Prince's heart in a dystopian future where North America is now one large country. While she competes she also has to decide if she loves/would rather be with her ex-boyfriend and if she thinks she could be queen. There are 2 more books set 20 years later (not sure if I'll read those or not). The novellas are told around some of the same events/times, but from other characters' points of views. Overall, it's dystopian, it's a love story, it's emotionally charged YA fiction, and there are multiple POVs, each adding extra depth to the story. What's not to love?

After all that lighter reading, I started Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. I'm only a few chapters in and like it so far. NDT's writing makes the content more accessible than I ever thought it would be. However, I can only read about a chapter a time before it's too much to take in. As a filler, I've also started Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest's Most Controversial Season. Mt. Everest fascinates me. To be more accurate, the people who subject themselves to such extreme conditions to climb this mountain fascinate me. Last year a read Into Thin Air and a few related books. A friend recommended this one to me. So far it's been a lot of history of discovering and the first attempts to climb it, with an emphasis on those climbing from the more difficult north side.

Now that I'm listing out the books, that's quite a swing in subject matter! I guess my 2016-2017 reading challenges did their job in getting me to read more than just murder mysteries!

[Susan]

Sara enjoy Astrophysics for People In a Hurry. I read that last October and enjoyed NDT very much. I agree that it is also a lot of information and it often helped me fall asleep, since I read in bed before going to sleep. But I really did enjoy the material. We saw him on tour at the end of September and I even bought a galaxy shirt to wear! Definitely see him in person if the opportunity ever comes up. That was the first of 3 dense science-based non-fiction books I read in the fall (followed by a few fluffy romance novels to counteract).

Also, have you seen the movie Everest? It sounds similar to your book. My husband had my daughter and I watch it with him a couple years ago and it was not the sort of movie we were in the mood for that night (spoiler: some people die up there, based on a true story).

I'm loving all the discussion here!

[Daniele]

Hi all!

Newbie here. Working on the Popsugar challenge this year.

So far, I've gone through The Lovely Bones, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Brave New World, Frankenstein, and Sons for the Return Home, as #10, 33, 46, 9, and 7, respectively.

Just picked up Polytechnique 6 décembre, a collection of editorials, letters, and essays about the 1989 shooting at Montreal's École Polytechnique. (Please consider that a trigger warning.) I originally thought it might fit under #2, true crime, but I'm likely going to move it to #15, about feminism (for those unfamiliar with the event, a young man whose application to the engineering school had been turned down walked into a classroom, told the men to leave, then started shooting the women - in essence, for taking his place. He killed 14 "feminists" before turning the gun on himself.)

I've already got lighter fare lined up for afterwards: The Night Circus.

I can't wait to hear and discover all your great reads! (friends welcome, BTW.)

[Sheri]

Hi Daniele, welcome! I hope you like The Night Circus, that's one of my favorite books! I love how dreamy and rich it feels.

[Amanda]

Finished Good Omens today. Toddler was sick this weekend, so lots of snuggle time that was good for reading.

[Stephanie]

How did you like it Amanda? We have a few people in here who have read it (myself included---I discovered it last year). I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[Sheri]

Also for a few more days Good Omens radio drama is up on bbc :D http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04knthd 9 days left!

[Megan]

I’m starting to think that finishing The Horse Dancer is going to be my sole achievement for the year if I ever do - it’s just so hard to get into that I’m avoiding reading anything! Hopefully the next thing I read will be more engaging!

[Kathy]

I also really enjoyed Night Circus-one of those books so good I read twice in a row because I didn't want to end. I wish the author would write another.
With Sue Grafton's death this month, I am reminded of how much of my adult reading material has been mysteries authored by Sisters in Crime members; I believe she was one of the founding members. Elizabeth Peters, Margaret Maron, Carolyn Hart, Joan Hess, Marcia Muller, to name a few. Most of them have long-running series featuring one or two characters, and I have read them as they were published. I have decided to pick at least one series a year and read them in order. I've started with Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott series, which she has declared done at 20 books. It's fun to see interactions between characters in the beginning once you know where they end up at the end.