Week 5 Check In

[Sheri]

Hi everyone!

Hope everyone is managing to stay warm. I'm in Michigan and it's about -14 right now, feels like -31. We've been told to keep our heat at 65 due to a gas fire at an energy plant, so things are a bit chilly, i'm huddling in blankets and on a heating pad to get by.

This week I finished:

The Blue Sword - ATY's Something Blue prompt. I never got into McKinley in my early fantasy days, I wish I had. She writes great fantasy with female protagonists.

Beauty and the Werewolf - a re-read just for fun

The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write - this is for popsugar's celebrity I admire, emma watson's book club. As well as reading women's book featuring a religion not your own. I wanted to like this more than I did. I have trouble with collections sometimes, because they just jump all over. This was a particularly bad example of it. It had essays, short stories, an excerpt from a play, poetry, it just was all over. I had trouble getting into a groove because there just wasn't an overlying theme other than they were British Muslim women. Nothing was awful, it just was hard to really read as a book. but the other book I was reading at the time needed too much attention to keep pulling away from it to just read one or two entries at a time.

currently reading:

Starless - this will be my popsugar book I meant to read last year, and ATY's book that is over 500 pages. I'm really liking it, about half through. Not quite as amazing as her Terra De Ange books, but still pretty solid. Also I think it's a stand alone which is kind of nice.

The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help This will be my popsugar book written by a musician. It's the audio book, read by Amanda and features her music in between chapters so it's pretty cool. The intro said a pdf with pictures should accompany the audio book, but it's a library loan so I don't know how I'd access that. Libby isn't showing anything as I read. I have some mixed feelings about Amanda Palmer in general, but I do enjoy her music and she puts on a good show.

QOTW:

Kathy sent in some great ideas for questions, so I'm going to pull from one of them this week.

Do you re-read books? Do you have the same criteria for watching movies?

I re-read books all the time. Sometimes if I'm stressed I just want to sink down into an old favorite. Other times I just have been reading too much new stuff, especially if it's heavy stuff, and I want to take a break. Other times something will remind me of a story and i have to go re-read it.

Movies is a little harder because I don't own as many movies as I might want to re-watch, and i tend to be lazy about putting in dvds. So there's a few movies reliably on streaming that i just watch a ton. Especially if I just want some background for drawing or crafting and don't want to focus on a new movie.

[Daniele]

Work has been completely bonkers this week, so I have *zero* reading to report 0_o Hopefully I can remedy that this weekend.

QOTW: I'm like you, Sheri, in that I'll often have a movie going I'm only partly paying attention to. (I also do this a lot with the bootleg OBC Hamilton videos I stumbled across online. Don't tell LMM.)

I do reread books, but since that's a more attention-intensive activity, I can't say I do it as much. There are a few prompts in the various challenges that specifically call for a re-read, so I have those planned out and I'm looking forward to revisiting old friends.

I have also enjoyed listening to the audiobook versions of books I've read before. Sometimes the change in format lets you glimpse things you hadn't noticed before.

[[deleted user]]

I'm finishing out January with 10 finishes - a few that I started reading in 2018, so I expect this will be a higher yield month than most. A few YA books in the mix made for quick reads, too. Here's my rundown for the month:

The Smell of Other People's Houses
The Summer of Jordi Perez
Along for the Ride
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl I listened to most of this book.
Good Morning, Midnight This one was haunting -- an interesting discussion on lonliness. Still thinking about it!
The Proposal
Notes from My Captivity One of my favorites for the month.
Fat Girl on a Plane
The Outsider
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

I'm working through the PopSugar challenge and am finding I'm fitting my books to the challenge instead of finding books to read that fit the challenge (if that makes sense) so I hope to diversify my reading a bit more this month.

[Stephanie]

Hello All,

This week, I finished reading Career of Evil, and I have to say, it ended with a rather spectacular finish that made we want to read the next book in the series immediately. The next book is just out recently, but my local library has close to 70 holds on its digital copies and 128 on the physical copies, so I despaired. BUT, my university has one copy AND I put in a request for it. I should have it by next week. Yay!

I haven't read any audiobooks since this weekend since it's hell-frozen-over-cold here in Canada and I've been either getting dropped off at work or taken the bus, which reduces my listening time. I did, however, download the first episode of David Tennant Does a Podcast With . . . (in this case, Olivia Coleman) and throughly enjoyed it. Those two are delightful!

While I'm waiting for Lethal White to come in (and this relates to the QOTW), I started a re-read of A Game of Thrones. Husbot and I are re-watching the HBO series in the lead-up to the final season, and I thought it would be fun to read along at the same time. And it has been! I'm kind of surprised at just how close the dialogue follows in this first series--I had forgotten that it was much closer to the books than later series.

I am an avid re-reader. Certain books and series are old friends, and I look forward to re-reads every few years. That includes A Song of Ice and Fire, Outlander, Wheel of Time, Lord of the Rings and The Simillarion, but I've also started revisiting books I cherished as a child and young adult, just to see if I still love them. These would include Birth of the Firebringer (which we talked about last year!), The Singing Stone, and work by Carol Shields and Jane Urquhart. I've been thinking about doing an Anne of Green Gables re-read this year, too. Actually, given how structured my reading has been by PopSugar over 2017 and 2018, this is likely going to be a year of re-reads for me as I didn't really get to do that over the last two years.

I don't usually do movie re-watches deliberately, but there are certain movies I'll sit down to watch if they're on, like Ever After, The Marvel Universe Movies, Top Gun (nostalgia, haha). I do do TV Series re-watches, including GoT, Grey's Anatomy, Lucifer, Doctor Who, and Good Behavior, most recently.

[Sheri]

Oh I do love Ever After, I'll totally watch that if I find it pop up on streaming or something.

Legally Blonde is my #1 go to, haha. I don't know why, I just love it so much.

[Stephanie]

Sheri wrote: Legally Blonde is my #1 go to, haha. I don't know why, I just love it so much."

Bend and snap! That's also one of those movies I'll watch if I come across it!

[Sheri]

I ended up buying it digitally because it was removed from streaming and I found I still wanted to sit and watch it.

I think maybe it started back in college, my knees went out when I was on a trip to New York. While everyone else went out bar hopping, I was in way too much pain to do any further walking and we had another day of the trip still. So I laid in the bunk at the ymc and legally watched it that evening. And then the next day after another full day of walking on agonizing knees, I did the same thing because it was on AGAIN. haha. So I just associate it with "watch Legally Blonde when you need things to be better"

[Sarah]

Been a fruitful week here. Husbot has a big project at work, which unfortunately means late nights and weekend hours for him, but lots of unsupervised time with very large books for me.

Finished Wheel of Time 3 The Dragon Reborn and started on book 4 in the series The Shadow Rising, which is almost complete. The amount of foreshadowing and organizational prowess in this series, keeping all the plot-lines straight, never fails to stagger me- it's so well done! I'm currently following one particular character's arc closely, trying to figure out if one of the twists at the end of their story (which caught me completely off guard) was foreshadowed as other elements were, or if the authors threw it in more spontaneously. Like "how in the world did I not see that coming?!?!?"

Left to my own devices on Saturday, I also cannonball-read the prequel New Spring. It's such a wonderful addition for those of us who love a good background story, and explains so many of the motivations that drive the first few books in the series.

In other reading, I tackled MurderBot Diaries #3 Exit Strategy. It was fun, but I didn't love it quite as much as the first two in the series. The plot just didn't quite click with me for some reason, possibly because it felt a bit forced and contrived. Picking up #4 from the library tonight, so we'll see if the series finishes on a strong note.

QOTW: I love re-reads, and try to balance out my reading load between something I know that I already love and something new (that I hope I will love). A good re-read is comforting and feels like visiting family or old friends. Plus I often get something new or pick on an unexpected nuance with each time through. Husbot and I are very much the same way with movies, too. We have old favorites that we've watched many, many times, but enjoy something new to balance it out, too.

[Marina]

This week I finished Sourdough, a short and sweet book that was very millennial, quite relatable, and rather delightful all in all. Feeling a bit stuck over what to read next. I feel like I should mix things up a bit, but nothing is really grabbing me so far.

QOTW: I used to re-read and re-watch all the time when I was younger, but I do it a lot less now. The books I re-read tend to be ones that I've loved since I was a kid - Harry Potter, Narnia, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, His Dark Materials - generally fantasy that has a strong message of good triumphing over bad. I find them very comforting and easy to escape into. Sometimes it's just a re-read of a book that I remember thinking was awesome, but can't recall any of the detail or want to see if it still holds up. These days, however, I feel like there's just so many books in the world that I should really concentrate on the ones I still haven't read! Same goes for movies/shows really. No matter what anyone else says, I'll always love Armageddon at times when I just need someone to save the world. I'm probably slightly more willing to re-watch movies, just because it's less of a time/attention investment than re-reading a book.

[Kathy]

Finished up The Stepsister Scheme, which is my second Jim Hines book and Waistcoats & Weaponry, which is an old favorite. I liked the Stepsister Scheme but am waffling on reading the series. I am enjoying being part of the Parasol Protectorate read along.

I reread books all the time; they are like visiting old friends. I guess it's a healthier habit to reread "comfort books" rather than binge on "comfort foods" when you're stressed (though sometimes they may happen simultaneously.) I also rewatch movies all the time. I thought about this question because in my IRL book club most people said they don't reread books, although more will rewatch movies.

This past year was the first I started logging books on Goodreads and movies watched on Letterboxd. Based on my reading output and current age, I estimate that I have time to read about 4000 more books. (Most people think that's a lot; I am worried it's not enough to get through all the books I need to read.) My book and movie ratings are for future me. 5 stars are all-time favorites (that I would like to own and will likely read/view multiple times), 4 stars I would read/watch again, 3 stars I liked but wouldn't read/watch again, 2 stars are books/movies I finished but felt like a slog to get through, and 1 stars are do not finish. This is also helping me purge my book collection, as I'm only keeping 4 and 5 star ratings. My favorite books from the past are generally doing better than movies. "I didn't enjoy that as much as I remember" is a more common reaction to movies than books.

[Jessica]

This week I finished The Left Hand of Darkness for the book club and my thoughts on it are in the discussion thread there.

I also re-read (or technically re-listened) A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms which I knew I would enjoy. I've been on a bit of a Song of Ice and Fire related kick since finishing Fire & Blood at the beginning of the month. I'm hoping to re-read the main series soon, I'm just waiting for the holds from the library.

I also made progress on Washington: A Life which I'm glad about, although no progress on my German read, Heidi.

I'm about 2/3rds of the way through a really interesting non-fiction book called Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania about the sinking of the Lusitania in WWII. It started out slow but I've really been enjoying it.

In terms of re-reading, it's something I do often. Especially with my "comfort books" that I love and am very familiar with, such as the Harry Potter books and Tamora Pierce's works. I tend to pick those up as a "before sleep" read because I know I'm more likely to put them down when my eyes get tired. Also, Kathy, I think you and I have the exact same rating system in terms of how many stars a book gets based on re-readability. :D

[Alexa]

I’m journeying to Africa with my books this week. Set in West Africa, in the country of Nigeria, is Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor. A very well written YA book of magic, learning to live as both a mage and as a normal person (lambs in this book). 5/5 stars!
My second was Birth of a Dream Weaver by Ngugi wa Thiong’o. When I found out that Nnedi Okorafor was a first generation American, I asked a friend for recommendations for the Africa, Asia, or South America prompt. She gave me several names and my library had Birth of a Dream Weaver on the shelf! This is Ngugi’s memoir of attending college in Uganda while his native Kenya was going through their fights for independence. It’s especially interesting as I had just recently read Hidden Figures and there are many parallels in the way Kenyans were treated by their colonial overlords and the way colored Americans were treated by whites. Also5/5

[Jen W.]

I'm such a slow reader! Last week, all I can claim is having finished In Other Lands, which I enjoyed. As I mentioned before, it's very rambly, and almost reads more a collection of novellas, each dealing with a year in the life of the main characters. I liked the main character, Elliot. He was kind of a sarcastic jerk, though, and I can see how other reviewers didn't like him.

I'm still working on The Left Hand of Darkness. It's been pretty slow-going for me, but it's starting to pick up.

QOTW: I used to re-read books a lot more often than I do now, probably because when I was a kid/teen I was limited to my collection and what I could get from the library. Now it's almost exclusively either old familiar "comfort read" favorites, fond memories of a book I read years ago, or else books I would like to catch up on again due to a new release coming. Recently I've started re-acquiring some old favorites in e-book format when they go on sale, and re-reading that way. I'm more likely to re-read in a format like audio or e-book, something I can pull out on my phone and read/listen to during my bus commute.

I have pretty much the same standard for movies, although I think those tend to age worse than books in general. I have favorite "comfort" movies that I have heavy nostalgia lenses for, even if I objectively know they have issues. I don't tend to re-watch as many movies, just because I have a limited capacity for passive watching most of the time. If it's more than a couple of hours, I need to do something more interactive.