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Renee, Mistress of the Mini-Challenge
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Apr 05, 2016 05:38PM
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Hi all my name Tammie and i am new here. I love to read books and make friends to.
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Hi, my name is Amandeen. My favourite books are :
- The maze runner
- Harry Potter
- Uglies
I read all type of books <3
Hi! My name's Kayla.I joined Goodreads two years ago but never used it until now. I've been a teacher for five years, teaching English and History, and just became a stay-at-home mom when my son was born. I need an outlet for literary discussion!
I enjoy the classics, almost everything written by C.S. Lewis, and books on history, science, music, politics, food, and culture. There are very few books I don't enjoy!
However, I feel as if I've lost a good deal of my attention span when it comes to reading. I feel like the Internet has done something to my brain - it's so much harder for me to focus on reading for long periods of time anymore. So I could use the motivation and encouragement from a group like this to get back to my favorite pastime. I want my son to grow up loving reading as much as I did.
Anyway, thanks for making such a great group!
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Hello Book Friends!! So glad to meet you. I live in ChicagoLand, Illinois, USA. I joined this group as a way of finding books I am sure I have missed along the way. I have kept a running log of everything I have read (with comments) since, well , forever. I read lots of different genres, some more often than others. Would like to expand my searches for the great ones. I read almost anything except the Romance genre, not as much as I should in non-fiction( but that hasn't always been the case). I love the classics, the new & shocking, mysteries, fantasy & some science fiction authors. I read YA for myself & so I can recommend good books for my grandchildren.
I am a SuperHero fan in movies, love Game of Thrones ( read all the books) & but don't do graphic novels ....yet. And BBC Movies & TV.
Soo glad to meet you!
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Hello, my name is Blake, I am 18 years old I love YA books and psychological thrillers. I enjoy sharing my thoughts on books and I enjoy hearing other people's thoughts. feel free to add me, message me, or reply to me. I love spreading inspiration and positivity (:
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Welcome to the group Kimberly.Wow having to cut your challenge by more than 50% ouch.
I don't have a set genre of books I am reading for the challenge. I just go with what inspires me next to read.
That is what I tend to do go with the flow. One of the reasons I don't do a huge amount of the "mini" challenges. I'm not bound (oops sorry for the pun) to a particular genre or type of book. I do tend to favor sci-fi and movie or television related books.
Kimberly, I don't like sci-fi and didn't like Slaughterhouse-Five, but I can recommend you The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I loved. The book is very humorous and it's a good read if you don't usually like the genre.
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1) I love my Audible, but before you spend the money, you might consider checking out the website of your local library. With an Overdrive download (free), you can get audiobooks from your library. And with the Kindle app (also free), you can borrow ebooks from you library. Again from your library.
2) Librivox is a society of volunteers who record books in the public domain, which are free for borrowing. (I have the Librivox app on my smartphone. Also, free.) Since the volunteers are primarily nice people who have volunteered their time, the readers are mostly not professionals, and that can take getting used to. But if you like classics, this is a wonderful resource, and some of the readers are quite good. (I can suggest some names if you're interested.)
3) Kurt Vonnegut is not typical of Science Fiction writers. The Hitchhiker books are good, silly fun. I also highly recommend the Vorkosigan Saga books by Lois McMaster Bujold. I'm reading them right now and they're terrific! Not obscure. Not filled with technical jargon. Just good plotting, character development, and smart, witty dialogue. I'd suggest starting with Shards of Honor and Barrayar. They tell the story of Cordelia Naismith, who becomes the mother of Miles Vorkosigan, and will give a good idea of Bujold's writing. I think Barrayar may have won the Hugo.
One more thing... I do most of my "reading" these days via audiobooks. I still read physical books, but they're more like a treat when I have the time. Or a few pages before I go to sleep. (Also a treat.) The audiobooks make it possible for me to have stories and beautiful language in my life regularly and opulently on a regular basis. No one here will judge what you read or how you read; we just love to read and talk about books. :D
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I also read Slaughterhouse Five in school (and hated it), and can safely say that it is not representative of Sci Fi as a genre. I'll second Renee's recommendation of the Vorkosigan Saga as a place to start, if you want to explore.
Hi! I'm here for the July Readathon, and might stay in this group after that, depending on how much I have going on in other groups. I read mostly sf/fantasy, classics, and some nonfiction. (I have a challenge to read sf from different subgenres going in another group.)Renee and Alison, I've never read the Vorkosigan Saga but it's on my list... I'll get to it someday. Douglas Adams is great though. My science fiction tbr for 2016 includes Aurora, The Philosopher Kings (sequel to The Just City, which I read last year) Necessity, Heroes and Villains (picked up this one at a university library sale for $1),Existence (recommended by an offline friend), Station Eleven and The Forever War. Also I started Snow Crash earlier this month, but I'm not sure if I will finish it.
Marina wrote: "Kimberly, I don't like sci-fi and didn't like Slaughterhouse-Five, but I can recommend you The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I loved. The book is very humorous and i..."Great minds. I was thinking Hitchhikers as well. Although it is more Humor or satire wearing a sci-fi coat. Douglas Adams is like that, more humor than sci-fi.
I agree with what Renee said Kurt Vonnegut (technically a "Jr.") and especially Slaughterhouse-Fiveis not typical Sci-Fi.
Sci-Fi Authors Larry Niven and Fred Saberhagen are two of my favorites.
Come to think of it I think I am more sort of series Sci-Fi and I tend to be big bug eyed monsters space sci-fi rather than the cerebral weird acid-trip sci-fi.
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Kimberly OH what questions.LARRY NIVEN his best known work is Ringworld and its series, I've read that and the book that follows Ringworld Engineers. One of the things about him, however, that I don't like is when he goes into the details of how the things work. The main premise of the series is this "ringworld" that is just what it sounds like a "planet" shaped like a ring not a sphere, that was manufactured around its sun. If I recall in the first book it was mostly just about exploring the world, and then in the second book it was many years later and the main characters have to return to try to fix the planets decaying orbit, so that it doesn't wobble into its sun. I also enjoyed The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton which If I recall was actually a collection of short adventures featuring the same character. I first read that in the late 1980s and more recently a few years ago (I'm afraid to check exactly when) More recently (in just the past few months) I read A World Out of Time which in many ways reminded me of Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley which the movie Freejack (starring Emilo Estevez) was based on. In A World Out of Time the main character was cryogenically frozen and revived some 200 years later with his mind/memories being transferred to a "mindwhiped" criminal by a society that is run by a totalitarian global "state" government. He accepts a mission to seed planets to be terraformed for the state and gets fed up with the whole system of the state and eventually rebels. There is a lot more to the plot my abridged synopsis might be misleading. I'm not good at describing things in detail. One of the details the Niven gets into that almost took me completely away from the book was about the type of ship that was being used a "Bussard ramjet" (that can be looked up for details on how it works). I sort of recall knowing of the book ages ago but was more recently lead to it around the beginning of the year when I was reading the first book of my 2016 reading challenge Wizards, Aliens, and Starships: Physics and Math in Fantasy and Science Fiction. The book was mentioned when discussing the details of ramjet rockets. A lot of the mechanical and physics related details go straight over my head. It is odd that I am so into science fiction but have little interest or detailed knowledge of the science behind things.
And for FRED SABERHAGEN: my first exposure to his work was the collection Empire of the East which is the combined version of a trilogy that has as strong Lord of the Rings vibe. Details on that are real fuzzy but I do recall it was more fantasy with some advanced mechanical engineered technology instead of purely magic technology that fantasy often follows. I recall at one point one of the main characters uncovers some lost technological "beast" that turns out to be some kind of tank. Another of his books I enjoyed was Merlin's Bones which admittedly I tend to confuse with the movie Timeline so I'm not sure how best to describe it. He also has a time-travel series Pilgrim that consists of two books Pyramids and After The Fact The first book goes back to ancient Egypt for something I forget what, and the second is about saving Abraham Lincoln from being assassinated. There is a combined volume of these books called Pilgrim
Unfortunately a lot of these books I had read some 25-30 some years ago. Thus details will be very fuzzy and might be confused with other books. I have been meaning to re-read many of them.
JennyAh Enders Game! I haven't read that but seen the movie, yeah yeah I know movies in the last 20-30 years haven't really been too faithful to the books they are based on and the books are better at least 95% of the time, but it was a fun movie.
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Hi, my name is Anne. I read mostly YA fantacy, but I want to expand to reading more differend genras (I already do that, but I want to do that more often) I hope that this group will help with that.
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Welcome Anne,I think this group will help with you finding other genres to get hooked on. The members here seem to have a wide variety of favorite genres.
Hey, I'm Rosie! I read most genres: realistic fiction, YA, new adult, "classics," science fiction, fantasy...I can't wait to explore this group :)
Welcome Christa.I also have problems deciding on "favorites" books as well. And the mood thing I guess. If pushed I'd probably say The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is my all-time fave.
I've been curious about The Book Thief for a while. It sounds like an interesting read. I haven't gotten a copy yet, haven't seen the movie. I think I'll hold off on that until AFTER reading the book.
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In all fairness to Vonnegut you MUST remember when he wrote his books & what was going on in the world & why. I believe, like Steinbeck, his books are better for listening than reading. Try that. Especially Slaughterhouse Five, Hocus Pocus, A Man without a Country & God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian. Different times.
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These days I read for pleasure, so I generally steer clear of postmodern or modern works. I find them so depressing - either bizarre and chaotic or full of bleak reality. The world is full enough of these things and I'm looking for something else in my reading.
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Hi! I am Cherie. I live in Hillsboro, Oregon (just west of Portland). I am still working full time, so I don't get to read as much as I would like. I have three grown girls with children of their own. That is 13 grandchildren scattered around the west and one married and in Germany - in the service. I read just about anything and love listening to audio books. Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes are my passions. HF is next. I have 2 African grey parrots, but no cats or dogs. I mostly hang out at the YLTO group, but I saw a post by another member (Deborah P.) and I had to come over and check out the group and the challenges. I saw a book coming up on the group read thread Graceling, that I own and want to read.
I have not read through everything yet, but I will soon.
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Cherie wrote: "Hi! I am Cherie. I live in Hillsboro, Oregon (just west of Portland). I am still working full time, so I don't get to read as much as I would like. I have three grown girls with children of their o..."Sherlock Holmes is also my passion. My goal is to read all of the short stories. So little time.
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Greetings! My name is Jasmine and I live in Portland, OR of the United States. My favorite genres off the top of my head right now are Magical Realism, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Historical Fiction, Memoirs, and Poetry. My favorite viewpoint to read from is first person. I'm happy to be here.
Welcome Jasmine, and anyone else I might have missed welcoming to this group (no mater how long ago you joined).
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Hello! I'm Kim from Anchorage, Alaska. I used to be a big reader but sort of fell away from it for one reason or another. I'm new to Goodreads and this is the first group I've joined. I'm looking forward to getting my feet wet with some challenges and finding new authors/books to love.
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