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June & July 2020 Group Read - Beach Reads
message 101:
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Agnieszka
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Jun 25, 2020 05:57AM
I know it dosn't really fit here but I just found this Pride & Prejudice variation and had to laugh at the cover
and because I love the fact the author was so creative and fast I plan to read this novella when I re-join KU :-)
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That is a cut cover! And very, very unique for Pride and Prejudice! 😃 A modern day retelling of a classic. I'm probably going to be reading
today as it's just 193 pages. And it's Thursday so it's my busy day with 4 meetings. Won't have much time to read. It's why I chose this short book. It's a collection of stories. I think most of them take place in woods... This is a book I found in a little free library some time ago.
Well I do like to enjoy reading horror and especially creature stories. There was a lot of "fooling around" in the story though. Creature stories can be fun. I don't think I'd want to read a book about human trafficking... although I did see a movie on it once. A woman thought she was getting a real job in a foreign country but instead they grabbed her and she ended up in that human trafficking deal..
Personally I think it's very hard to find books that make you laugh. Or it is for me anyway. Most of the jokes people think are funny, I don't think are funny. I guess I'm weird! 😁 I have weird medical issues so why not a weird sense of humor? I did laugh a bit at Our Man in Havana. Hopefully those books will be funny for you!
I have the urge to read some sci-fi. I think I'll read some of that soon...like after I finish Suicide woods. I do enjoy switching genres.
Well I have read
which was a collection of 10 short stories. I guess you would classify them as horror.. they were all well written (but I did dislike one of them because it was wondering all over the place) and many were unusual. For example one was about a bear trying to raise a human baby in a human house...the bear understood some things but didn't grasp other ideas. It was sort of a weird story but also very interesting! One was about a pandemic that swept across the world. And apparently this book was published just before the real one started! What are the odds? The longest story in the book was about a YouTube star who does risky stuff and he's hired to go on a dangerous mission to Alaska to find some people that got lost. It seems that Alaska has a type of Bermuda triangle where weird stuff goes on and people vanish. Lots of twists and danger in this adventure story!
The horror in here is probably no worse than what you'd find in your typical thriller. People dying. Some stories in here take place in Minnesota.
I also read
which was about a young girl who wants to enter her horse in a barrel race at a rodeo but her mother is against the idea. Now while I did enjoy the story and I think the book does teach some good things, why live on a horse ranch and raise your kids on the horse ranch if you don't want them to engage in horse related activities?? This part makes no sense to me! And it's the thing that stood out the most to me. I think it's only natural that if all of the girl's friends ride horses and own horses and they are all entering the rodeo (which is for kids) that she will want to too. Oh this book was the state of Colorado! I have also started reading
which so far is a lot of science but yet very fascinating! It's written in a story format and very easy to read. Parts take place in Massachusetts but also in Sibera and the Artic Circle. If you like science, animals and are interested in some earth science (like how hoofed animals keep pastures healthy and how they can keep the Earth's temperature cooler) than you should read this. So according to what I read so far, pastures keep the earth cooler while forests and jungle keep in hotter. And of course it discusses ideas on how one could really bring back the extinct animals like the Mammoth..
No comment on the horror short stories *grins mischieviosly*I have to agree with you on why live on a horse ranch and raise your kids on the horse ranch if you don't want them to engage in horse related activities?? This part makes no sense to me! It really doesn't make sense.
Thank you for the recommendation! Woolly The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures looks interesting. Unfortunatelly it's very expensive so I'm not sure if I can get it. Let's hope on a huge Amazon deal.
Germany was hit by a heat wave the last few days and I forgot how tiring that is - especially if you flat heats up to almost 30°C (around 85F) and the night I slept with open windows to cool it down I got woken up very often by inconsiderate people outside and next mornig my neck was stiff and painful (that was three nights ago so it added trying days but today seems to be a little better again) *grrr it's sauna time*
I suppose it was the reason I was not in the mood for most of my books yesterday - continued only The Forgotten by Baldacci when I was reading on my balcony but knocked out four (actually 3.5) novellas (all between 75 and 100 pages) so it was one of my more productive days :-) Since all of them turned out to be erotic romances I hide the details behind spoiler taggs again (view spoiler)
Today I started
Alone with Mr. Darcy: A Pride & Prejudice Variation - read the first chapter before I got up and already enjoy the story. I doubt I finish it in the remainig four days (because it's historical fiction and almost 400 pages) but it will be a nice distraction when I'll need one.
For the past two or three weeks fireworks have been going off each night. People all over the city are setting them off (illegally mind you) and the city is getting lots of complaints. One home owner had their property set on fire because some idiot tossed a lit firework out of a moving car! So I've been hearing the loud POPs and BANGs each night. Sometimes you even hear them at 1 am!At my mom's house my bedroom used to get up to 90 F or a bit higher. And the windows didn't open.. I think that's one reason I like it hot. I think I just simply got used to it from being baked every summer..and I can be outside on super hot days and to me it just feels nice and pleasant. Like last summer. I had gone out walking on 76 street. I had been walking for awhile (probably 12+ blocks) and out of sheer curiosity I decide to check the temperature. Well to my surprise is said the heat index was 102 F! I had no idea. To me it felt like 80 or something like that.. of course in previous summers I had already walked distances like 6 miles in 95 F heat. I know how to walk in heat. And how to do it safely.
And we have humid heat here.
We had a few days when it had gotten like 85 F here a few weeks ago. I went for my long 10.5 miles walk..I was coming to the part of the walk when I'm climbing the hill and I'm not even sweating. I can walk that route in about 3 hours.. I just don't sweat very much..
Authors should watch that they don't constantly use the same word over and over. Unless maybe it's a phrase that a character likes to use..there was a character like that in Lydia Bailey. It was part of his native talk, the speech style of Haiti...so he would say it a lot. I was ok with that.. but they should get a theosaurus and use it.
Hopefully this morning I will finish the Mammoth book. I have about 100 pagy to read.
It's great you had a productive day in your reading! This month I've been challenging myself to see how many books I could read and how many pages it adds up to be..I have figured that out for each previous month too and so far I think I have surpassed it. I know I definitely have passed it with the number of books read. Before January was my best month with 23 books read. But this month I'm at 32 books and that doesn't count the Mammoth one yet! And some of them have page counts in the 300s and 400s so it's not like they are all super skinny. Like Lydia Bailey was 488 pages and A High Wind in Jamaica was 408 pages and Cold Fear was 465 and Enigma was 415.
I try to finish all of the books I start too. But sometimes I'll put a book off for awhile and then finish it later. Others if they are truly awful I'll just quit reading them, because I find them too boring! Then there's the occasional book I can't read because it makes me upset.
I think today I need to go buy yogurt.
Oh and to make the horse story even nuttier the mother had been a champion barrel racer when she was younger! And her daughter had no idea her mother had even done anything like that because her mother had kept it a big secret! The girl found out from her friend, because the other people in the area all knew about the mother being a champion barrel racer. It seems the mother was jealous of her sister, because the sister was a world traveler and visiting many countries. And the mother got a dreamy look when she thought about traveling. It seems she thought by getting mixed up with horses, that the horses "ruined" her life because that's how she met the husband (who is dead in the story) and she ended up with a kid. Her sister never rode horses so that's why she thinks that way. So her thinking goes "if I hadn't started riding I would be visiting Hong Kong, Tokyo, London and Amsterdam too! I would be a world traveler and I'd be visiting Rio and vacationing in the Caribbean!"Edited to add: there's plenty of people out there who never rode a horse in their life and they've never been to a foreign country either. Visiting foreign countries goes more according to how much money you earn and your education. It's not really about riding a horse.
This thread is a great way to find out about other books. 😁
Maybe we should continue to chat over here during July? Because the new thread is going to be food books and we are reading lots of other books for the challenges we are engaged in. Like Popsugar.
Well I have finished Woolly which was really wonderful! It's almost the biography of the scientist named George Church and he and a team is busy working to bring back the Mammoth..by doing so they also hope to cure the Indian elephant from going extinct (Because they suffer from a disease) and the project in the end may stop global warming !! A very fascinating book and easy to read. This is a book I actually found in the little free library. 😁 I'm glad I grabbed it. So I'm going to start on these next:
and also
The second one there, The Immortals, is going to be for the Popsugar challenge #17 a medical thriller. I've read lots of books by this author before, like the popular DragonLance series. Also Death Gate series and Knights of the Black Earth.
I really like the brilliant colors on the cover of Fortuna. It's a very fat book! 506 pages.
I looked at the Popsugar challenge and I realized that a few books I read earlier this month actually check off categories! I can use Enigma for #13 - same as a movie or TV title and I can use An Unhappy Medium for #12 the Bechdel test. So that's two more down!
I would find #25 the hardest. Only words on the cover.
Oh I found out my local library is open!! That's where I got Fortuna from. 😁 And I also dropped off two big heavy bags of books there today too! Books I had since February! It was good to return them! The place was almost deserted. I don't think too many realize they are open again. Of course I don't know how long they will stay open...
I think I will try to work on finishing the Popsugar challenge. I only have 12 more to do. And I have books picked out for them. Just need to read them.
Agnieszka, I know you are doing the Popsugar challenge too..are there any particular categories you find very hard? The ones I found the hardest were:
An upside down image on the cover. I remember looking at shelf after shelf of books at the library (central library) and not finding one! I think I spent about an hour, just going book after book! Then a few days later I went to East library and within 10 minutes I actually found TWO books with an upside down image on them! It was nutty!
The other one I find hard of course is the words only on the cover. Almost all covers have some kind of graphic on them! I have one book that might fit but then it has a few little red triangles by the words! I have another and it has both English and kanji on the cover, but luckily the kanji is considered writing so I will probably use that one.
Well I ended up starting on Fortuna. Fortuna is actually the name if the spaceship. There is a family on it and the mother is kind of strict it seems. The oldest girl was drinking whiskey and landing the ship as the others got some sleep. They are carrying hidden cargo (smuggling no doubt) but also delivery of frozen fruits and vegetables. But the ship is in bad shape so it crashed while landing. I can see the main character, Scorpia, is going to be very interesting!Her brother (half brother) is on another planet for the last 3 years in a war. He seems dryer and he doesn't fit in on that planet because he was raised elsewhere. I guess he might be thinking of leaving now that he has served the required 3 years
Brother sent a message to his mother and the girl Scorpia was going to become the next captain but now brother might..she's not too happy..she's had a very rough childhood.
So far I like this story! Hopefully I can read it quickly.
Oh I saw the library had changed their online page where you can order books! Before if you looked at a book the page would suggest similar books or if the book was in a series it would show you the whole series in order. Now that is all gone! I don't know why they changed that as I had found it very useful.
Sarah wrote: "This thread is a great way to find out about other books. 😁Maybe we should continue to chat over here during July? Because the new thread is going to be food books and we are reading lots of other books for the challenges we are engaged in. Like Popsugar."
Why not! I already changed the thread title and let La Tonya know later today so she won't archive it when the month's over.
I'm glad your library is open again.
Sarah wrote: "Oh I saw the library had changed their online page where you can order books! Before if you looked at a book the page would suggest similar books or if the book was in a series it would show you the whole series in order. Now that is all gone! I don't know why they changed that as I had found it very useful."
Let them know. If the change was made because some people didn't like it that way perhaps they will change it back. Though if it was due to speed/technical issues they'll at least know it could be good to look for a solution.
For me there're always several diferent levels of tasks/call-outs/prompts that are difficult and so different from each other I can't weight them against each other:
1) (more rarely by now) find a book at all
2) Find books I'd actually want to read for it or
3) I call them 'not gonna happen' or 'won't even attempt it' (usually: LGBT+, hard-cover SF or fantasy, horror or particular author/book I decided not to read)
4) not really searchable tasks - here I just read my books and hope for the best and lucked out already on all of them
This year's PopSugar had only one for #3:
A book by a trans or nonbinary author - even if I knew where to look for and actually found one I can get my hands on I admit I'm just not interested in and after reading two of those in an anthology I'm even less inclined to do so in future. Just because LGBT+ books and authors become more and more popular doesn't mean I have to read them. In challenges where I have to complete all tasks to finish it and this kind of tasks pop up it's a reason for me not to join. Last year I actually considered not to join the PopSugar challange for this reason and voiced it in the group. One of the moderators responded I can just set a goal for a # of task and complete the challenge that way. So I removed the three I knew I won't go for/find a book for and completed the other tasks.
#1:
A book with more than 20 letters in its title - I circumvent my issue it by including sub-title
#2 issue were in the this year's PopSugar:
A book with a great first line (usually classics - and I'm not really fan of those as you know by now) in the end I re-read Austen's Pride and Prejudice though A Tale of Two Cities was one mentioned several times in the propmt thread for this one.
A bildungsroman (usually YA & classic) I streched it used the basic definiton and read Fighting Silence by Aly Martinez
A medical thriller (not my genre) I picked one but have still to force myself to actually read it - luckily I found a short prequel to a series so it's a consolation
Read a banned book during Banned Books Week (I already missed the Canadian week in February so I hope I won't forget the US one in September) - it's not findning the book issue but the timing here
A book set in the 1920s (genre issue) in the end I found a very short cozy mystery set in that time period and read it - still didn't really like it
#4 group:
A book with a map
A book with a character with a vision impairment or enhancement (a nod to 20/20 vision)
A book with a made-up language - with this one I knew I can always fall back on one I read several times though I still hoped to find a new one and even if it was a two or three lines discussion it was well enough for me (Run to the Ground from last month's animal thread)
Blend of several issues:
A book that won an award in 2019 (I browsed the various award shelves several weeks until I found a few books I can get my hands on and am interested in reading but the first two attempts were not very promissing) - I noticed most of the books that actually won an award seldom are my cup of tea so I hope one of the reming will be my kind of books
A book written by an author in their 20s (If I don't want to be stuck with classics it was pretty difficult to search - most contemporary authors don't state their age & start later anyway) - in the end it was like with your book I found the information by chance and could use a contemporary book after I amost gave up to find one in time - it was one of the German animal books and her debut novel (with 28 or 29)
A book with a main character in their 20s (usually YA/NA - if you go outside these genres it's rarely well searchable) luckily one of my favorite RS series is about the children of the original MCs and in one book both MCs were in their 20s
Tasks I originally thought will be difficult but found books easy (with minimal research)
A book with an upside-down image on the cover - luckily I remembered
A book that passes the Bechdel test - since I'm not a fan of chick-lit, plain romance or plain romantic YA/NA that was very easy, especially with all the mysteries/thrillers/RS with strong female MCs
A book with the same title as a movie or TV show but is unrelated to it - in the end I just checked my book titles with IMDB and looked if there was a movie with this title and found one already in January
A book about or involving social media - here I lucked out again. In the Help Me Decide challenge I picked books for a friend who had a book from a series of short stories centered around social media - I could imagine this could even be something for you:
each book set has 8 short stories (though only the first two or three can be read in any order) - out of the 16 stories only eight were published as single books the other either in other anthologies or in this book set. If it were not for one character I'd already finished the 2nd set but I dislike her so much I still have to read the last two of them. If you want to read them - they are part of the KU and if you have enough patience you'll get them for free sometimes on Amazon. I read the first book set from KU and started the 2nd one than at the beginning of US lockdown both were free so I grabbed them.A book with only words on the cover, no images or graphics - after the 2nd or 3rd time I found this task in one of my challenges I made a folder for books with 'text only' and now I pick them from there. Unfortunatelly sometimes it's still not working. Originally I wanted to use
and read it only to find afterwards the very light objects hidden in the the background. Now I plan to read
or
or if I'm really desperate I pick one of my read 'non-cover' books like
or similarIf you still have issues with this task and since there's no page minimum for the PopSugar challenge you can use the Freebie link I posted you and pick anything on Amazon you think appealing (or if it short not even then). You'd be surprised how many of them have text-only-covers.
A fiction or nonfiction book about a world leader - I was so desperate because I feared I'd have to struggle through
(I just had no idea for this promped) until I stumbled somewhere (most likely the PopSugar thread for this prompt) on
and when I looked for King's 'I have a dream' speach I got in the result list also
a collection of Obama's best speaches - now I plan to read both of them in July since I need several books with black, red, yellow/gold & white covers for a monthly challange (colors of German/Polish flag - German black/red/gold, Polish white/red)A book with a robot, cyborg, or AI character - I didn't believe I'll find a book for this one but the In Death series helped me out. One of the books I read had severeal 'murdered' droids *grins*
A Western was an issue only until I stumbled on the Western MPG in a book and realised most of the books set on the american West Coast fit here. After that it was very easy and I didn't have to go for one of the short classic Western freebies I downloaded for this task :-)
That took longer than I tought and now I'm done. I'm going back to my books.
I just finished
and loved this book even more than the first one in series. I know I'll regrett it within a couple of days when I won't be able to finish some of my challenges but I can't wait and decided to read the next one
=
where the MC has to go after his brother who espcaped from a military maximum security prison - where he was on death row after being convicted of treason.
Well I've made it to page 276 on
and the story has taken an unexpected twist! At this new development I'll be able to use this book for a medical thriller, as now a pandemic is sweeping the one planet. And it was done on purpose too! I would say I'm more than halfway through the book, as it has like 500 pages.I've also read
today.. this is a travel book of sorts, the author's travels in the Himalayas of Nepal. He writes of his own personal experiences in traveling in some wild and empty places, of the people he met, the animals and plants he saw. He also cannot handle high altitude very well, so he wrote about his reaction to that too. The book also has some lovely black and white drawings. They are simple but he manages to capture the scenes with a few simple shapes and shading. I was quite surprised when the book came to the end and his mountain trek was over... I've never seen an actual mountain before. There are none here in Wisconsin. Sometimes I think all mountains are like Everest where you need climbing gear and ropes...I forget that some mountains you can actually hike over. Which is what he did. There were a few surprises in the book, too, like the little town in the middle of nowhere that had a bunch of motorcycles.
I actually read a transgender book and I didn't realize that's what it was while I was reading it, so it only confused me! I didn't understand why they were using the term "they" for a singular person. Not everyone is going to realize the character is transgender or non-binary, etc. Maybe if they had added a note at the beginning of the book to explain it but they didn't so I thought it was some error...For the "great first line" I just chose a book with a first sentence that was very shocking & attention grabbing. That's what many other people are doing too. The book I chose said he had killed someone. And it was a true story, a journal type book. A biography.
For a book about social media I have
which I had last autumn in a free library. I'll be reading that one soon..This is my first time doing the Popsugar. I never even heard about it before. I do find lots of the challenges fun. I admit I enjoy searching for books that fit the categories. But normally I don't really ever read anything about the author. So I just ran across that thing with the author in his 20s by accident!
For the world leader one I read
which is a fictional book about the life of Horatio Nelson, the famous British Admiral. Lord Nelson. He was a world leader of his time. I really don't like politics so I chose to read about the Navy Admiral. And without the library website having the search that it did, I wouldn't have known this book had existed! I actually read that book,
...read it in 2018! I thought it was really bizarre! Today I found
and I was shocked it actually fit the category! And it only has text on the cover! How rare! I have no idea what it is about but I'll try to read it. If it's too awful I'll just read something else. I'm glad you loved the Forgotten book and that you will read the next one in the series. Sometimes you have to read stuff for fun, that you just enjoy, and let the challenges wait for another day. And sometimes you have to remember it's ok to let the library books go back to the library even if you didn't read them. It's not the end of the world. I know sometimes I feel I need to read all of the books I check out but you really don't have to. And a few turn out to be really rotten!! And on occasion I admit I check out more than I can actually read! 😅 I guess I get too excited or something.
That is a new idea! Read books that the covers are the color of a flag! I bet that could be tricky to find!
I also remember searching the library shelf (in a random row) back at the beginning of the year (Jan?) Looking for a bird on the cover. Just by accident I found
which I actually ended up loving and it has a lot of ideas in it about society and how one could fix it. In fact yesterday I checked out two more books by the author. Including the famous
which I had actually read as a teenager. The vision impairment one was easy for me: I just read
as the main character has a magical vision impairment where everything he sees ages before him. It just withers away. Young women become crone's when he looks at them.
Well I have finished Fortuna today. I enjoyed this story. It was a great adventure story set in space. In some ways it reminded me of
which was also about a crew on a ship in space that had lots of action..I also found out it's the first book in a trilogy.. a great fast moving story! I guess in some ways it's about doing the right thing even if that thing is harder to do than something else.
I feel sleepy now... I've had a busy day too.
I've not forgot you. I'm just too tired to write anything - the last few days I was hardly able to sleep. I hope to be back tomorrow.
I think sometimes all of the reading we do catches up with us and then we get really tired! And it doesn't help any if other things pop up and cause issues too...Today I read
which is a book I've had for a long time but never read before. I had picked it up because of the horse on the cover. Well it turned out to be a very bleak, depressing book! The cover may say "life" but there was tons of death, destruction and abuse in here. And the end was very weird and kind of surreal too. I really don't like it. I'll probably rate it only 2 stars. The plot also seemed to borrow ideas from other popular fairy tales or stories. And at the end everything the two main characters had gone through didn't seem to matter or really change anything, which didn't make any sense to me. I've read lots of fantasy over the years (been reading it since I was a teenager) and this bleak tone is very unusual for fantasy...
On a brighter note, I've finished this month of June with 36 books read and 9309 pages.
Sarah wrote: "And at the end everything the two main characters had gone through didn't seem to matter or really change anything, which didn't make any sense to me."It sounds like a 'Noir' story and I agree with you it appears so senseless. Unfortunatelly it's very realistic and the reason some people love it and this genre was created. In the last year's PopSugar there was a prompt to read a Nordic Noir and after reading some of the Scandinavian thrillers for other challenges I decided from the beginning not going to do it - I don't like Noir and the Nordic is in a category on it's own.
I'm so glad you were able to read so much this month. In the past I tried to rise my reading goals until I noticed last year I'm reading so much I have no time for any real life and now my goal is to go back to ~60,000 pages a year. So far I'm more or less on track with 33,810 pages. If I won't read more than 65,000 pages this year I'll try to go for 50,000 next year.
I'm glad you enjoyed Fortuna and were able to find lessons for your life out ot it.
Sarah wrote: "I've also read Without Ever Reaching the Summit A Journey by Paolo Cognetti today..
I was quite surprised when the book came to the end and his mountain trek was over... I've never seen an actual mountain before. There are none here in Wisconsin. Sometimes I think all mountains are like Everest where you need climbing gear and ropes...I forget that some mountains you can actually hike over. Which is what he did. There were a few surprises in the book, too, like the little town in the middle of nowhere that had a bunch of motorcycles."
This one sounds interesting and I had to chuckle about your experiences. Since my parents loved traveling and in communistic Poland (or Eastern Europe) that was very restricted we visited many different parts of the country of my origin. In the south we have two mountain ranges (Tatry & Beskidy) and we were at least twice to the first one plus I was born in the western part of it though we left it before I was really able to remember it very well. In Germany we lived most part of the time in Black Forrest which is not that high but close. Still the wanderlust didn't leave my parents so we visited some parts of Germany as well, including the lower parts of the Alps. Due to my health issues (I wasn't really aware of for more than 20 years) I never liked hiking or much walking, I was always happy when we went to a lake or the Balticum and spent as much time as possible in water.
Sarah wrote: "I actually read a transgender book and I didn't realize that's what it was while I was reading it, so it only confused me! I didn't understand why they were using the term "they" for a singular person. Not everyone is going to realize the character is transgender or non-binary, etc. Maybe if they had added a note at the beginning of the book to explain it but they didn't so I thought it was some error..."
I can understand how that was confusing. Last year I read a collection of short stories Summer Heat - I bought it because of the disabled and chronic sick MCs. Most of the stories were (luckily) MF romances but there was one MM (the first one I liked - ever) and a couple of binary/transgender. One of them was written in such a neutral way I'd most likely only pause at the end and wonder what was that it it were not for the inctroduction where it was explained why it was written that way. The other didn't use they as main pronoun but each time the introduced each other it went in this way:
My name is Lexie and my partner is Gary. Our pronouns are both she, her, hers.”
“My name is Joon and my partner is Adam. Our pronouns are both he, him, his.” (Between the Pages short story, loc. 8059-8060)
and that was what was so difficult to deal with for me. All in all the story was written in a very strange style or had more errors than was ok for me so I got very cautious afterwards. I have to admit I was raised way too conservativ and lack the necessary immagination to enjoy most of the romances that are not classic MF sort. I doesn't mean I judge or reject people living in a different way it's just not something I want to read about at least not if it's central to the plot and very graphic.
Sarah wrote: "This is my first time doing the Popsugar. I never even heard about it before. I do find lots of the challenges fun. I admit I enjoy searching for books that fit the categories."
I can understand the fun of challenges and searching for books that fit since it's my most favorite part of any challenge. I joined PopSugar this year for the third or fourth time though the first year it was just a challenge in one of the challenge groups I'm member of. Only a year later I relised there's an group dedicated for this challenge only and so I joined it and complete it there since than. What I love most about that group, there are people to help you find books/post whant they read for any of the prompts and you can ask questions if you have any or help you find fitting prompts for books you read and have not idea if you can use it anywhere but would love to.
Sarah wrote: "Today I found The Women in His Life by Barbara Taylor Bradford and I was shocked it actually fit the category! And it only has text on the cover! How rare! I have no idea what it is about but I'll try to read it. If it's too awful I'll just read something else."
I admire you open approach to books and how you are willing to read so many different genres and books. I'm very particular about what I read but am glad to see I opened up much more since I joined GR 5.5 years ago. At that time I was reading only Christian fiction, mostly historical romances. Reading SF or anything paranormal, violent of with sex in it was unthinkable back than so I am happy about the development and try not to beat up myself if I'm not not willing to cross some boundaries or perhaps never will.
I finished yesterday
- about half way through I struggled with some of the developments in the P&P-variation because they went such different way from the original and painted some of the characters so very different from Jane Austen. In the end it was all resolved and I'm glad I finished it. Now I can understand why Abigail Reynolds is one of the favorite P&P fan fiction authors. Her style is interesting and very visual and the characters make sense (even if they behave different from what you expect or wish).Additionally I read another erotic romance - here I went back to the beginning. (view spoiler)
By now I'm almost 40% into
=
. Again it's very different from the previous two in series and I love it. It's very mysterious and if I'm not wrong will be a blend of conspiracy, espionage and cyber thriller - or at least I hope for this blend :-)
I read this in June. I guess this is a beach read! Rum and coke on the beach maybe? History of Bourbon
By: Ken Albala, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Ken Albala
This book takes the the listener back to the 1700s and follows through to today. It gives the laws, the many names and types of whiskies they came up with, how they made it and the small changes made today, some known inventors and famous brands. The narrator was the author and he seemed extremely knowledgeable in the subject and was an excellent narrator.
Montzalee wrote: "I read this in June. I guess this is a beach read! Rum and coke on the beach maybe? History of Bourbon
By: Ken Albala, The Great Courses
Narrated by: Ken Albala
This book takes the the listener b..."
If it's a beach read for you we are happy to hear about it. I'm glad you enjoyed this book and were able to learn something new about this topic.
I finished
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and it was what I expected and even more. I did not like everything in this book but this series starts to come close to my favorite of his - Amos Decker. I already lend the next one in series from the online library. I have to read two other books first before I start this one.Next I'll re-read
. I read it almost seven years ago in German, it was my second Nora Roberts book and the start of my love for romantic suspense as genre.
I read the next travel cozy
and liked it much more again. I'm not sure if it's my very favorite or the 2nd one. What I noticed was that both of my favorites have much more adventure in them than the others so it's most likely why I enjoyed them so much.The best part was about Dot (a little white puff of a dog belonging to one of the MCs) becoming friends with a Kangaroo and his mama and other wildlife situations the dog's behavior made me laught.
I'm a third through High Noon and enjoy the book very much. I forgot (or rather supressed) a very nasty character and dislike him now even more - because I already know how much the trouble he'll cause the female MC.
Well I have finally finished reading
which was a very hard to read book! The first 150 pages were in my opinion about nothing as nothing much actually happens. It's just so super slow, boring and it was literally putting me to sleep! I mean yawning a lot! And I don't like books that do that yet I wanted to finish it.So the plot did improve slightly after page 150 (it has 320 pages) but it's a very bleak, depressing story. It's not a great romance like people claim and I don't understand why people say that. One of the main characters, Heathcliff, is a truly awful person! He's mean and controlling and just awful. The entire book revolves around him and how he rules the lives of those around him. And he has absolute control. The people in the book are also very isolated so that adds to the problems.
Then to this bleakness add some paragraphs that are as long as the entire page plus dialect that is very hard to read (from a few servants). I struggled trying to figure out what the servants were saying sometimes.
I read this for the group Pool on another group. There are other books I'll be reading this month from the Pool and I only hope they will be better!
One thing I did find interesting was in the forward of the book. There were three Bronte sisters and all three had books published. I find that very amazing. I just think it's against the odds that all three would be successful at getting books published. Another sister write
and the last sister wrote
...... I do have a copy of Jane Eyre and that is in the Pool too so I'll be reading that this month..and I hope it's more interesting! I must admit I never heard of the book Agnes Grey before.
I'm glad you enjoyed your books, Agnieszka. And sometimes it's hard to decide which book is your favorite in a series. I don't think I have ever read a book by Nora Roberts but I have read her In Death series under her J.D. Robb name. My favorite one in that series was the one about the lady jogger that was murdered. I guess I found it interesting because I do a lot of walking so I can relate. I also liked how they were looking for clues. That locked room murder with the computer game was good too.
And adventure in a book is something I always love. It keeps me reading!
I don't know what I will start reading next but I'll decide soon..
Oh I've never read Pride and Prejudice. There's lots of those classic books I've never read.. and I think in the book Pool we are doing, I can't help but feel I'm the one that has chosen some odd, unusual books! Like one of them is a sci-fi book..and the other two are more, well, lesser known I think. But it seems that the others have chosen books that are very super famous..which means probably that people who want to read old classics have already read them. And I don't think people would want to reread the same book numerous times unless it's a big favorite of theirs. So that's why I chose some books that are not super famous. Like take the name "Wuthering Heights" and "Jane Eyre"....even if you never read them before you've heard of them.. right? My phone by the way doesn't like the word wuthering and keeps changing it to withering! So anyway I'll be curious to see if anyone else actually read any of the 3 books that I've picked this month.
I admit I'm not even sure what "noir" is really but for some reason I relate the word to detective stories or maybe the 1920s or something?? I don't think it's a category I have much experience with. Often if I read a book that fits the Popsugar challenge category I'll go post it on the threads over there.. maybe it'll help someone else find a book to read. I've actually found a few "authors in their 20s" already to my own surprise!
Sarah wrote: "My phone by the way doesn't like the word wuthering and keeps changing it to withering!"Looks like you have a very inteligent phone that wanted to tell you something *grins*
I've never read Jane Eyre but from the movies I've seen I'd say it will be similar. Do you have a time limit on the pool books? If not or if there'd be enough time for a buddy read after A Tale of Two Cities I'd be interested in it. The only reason I plan to read it because I need it to complete a challenge but don't really look forward to it and a buddy read would help to finally get it done.
I love P&P and read it at least five times in three different languages (even if it's not my favorite of Austen's books - that's Persuasion). The first time around I really didn't get the hype and read it a second time becaus (of course) I needed it for a challenge. Even now I'm struggling with the first half of the story and only because I know it will become much better and will leave me with a feel-good-feeling long afterwards I was able to finish it each time and was more than glad about it.
Sarah wrote: "I admit I'm not even sure what "noir" is really but for some reason I relate the word to detective stories or maybe the 1920s or something??..."
Noir is french for black though I'd rather say bleak. This genre tells crime stories (they are not always detective stories) usually without a happy end - kind of ...and they all are dead now or ...they all lost everything - not my kind of fun.
The GR definition is:
Noir fiction is a name given to a mode of crime fiction which can be regarded as a subset of the hardboiled style.
In this sub-genre, the protagonist is usually not a detective, but instead either a victim, a suspect, or a perpetrator. He is someone tied directly to the crime, not an outsider called to solve or fix the situation.
See also pulp noir.
Pulp noir is a subgenre influenced by various "noir" genres, as well as pulp fiction genres, particularly the hard-boiled genre. Pulp noir is marked by its use of classic noir techniques, but with urban influences.
Whereas film noir directly involves characters living bleak existences to accomplish a goal with odds against them, pulp noir often portrays a grittier, one-man army. Typically, the main character has no distinguishing abilities, but can hold ground against seemingly impossible odds. Pulp noir locations are often seedy, run-down and degradated urban landscapes, where the lack of law, morals and even the proliferation of crime and drugs are common themes.
Hardboiled fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with crime fiction (especially detective stories), and distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sometimes sex.
The Pool books are for July. But I do have my own copy of Jane Eyre so we can discuss it whenever you want to..if need be I can always read it first for the Pool and then I could discuss it later with you once you read it. Because I can refer to my copy if I have to, since it's not a library book or anything..I have started reading
for the Pool which is one of the 3 books I have picked..and so far it's about a newsman who has traveled to a different planet during a war to get a big news scoop. But he's a unique person apparently and while visiting this HUGE building on Earth he had a very rare experience.. apparently the fate of humanity might be resting on him. But he's ignoring it as he finds the very idea super frightening. People on Earth keep telling him he needs to return to Earth and to take charge of that huge building but he doesn't want to. Sometimes he has visions.. and truthfully I'm unsure what I think about the war going on in this book. I think I do find it a bit odd they are fighting with troops on the ground when they are clearly space age and they can zoom up and back from planet A to B and back to A in less than 24 hours. I think this is the first book by this author I have read.
It seems we always have to read difficult books for challenges, huh?
The main character was indeed a victim. And there was sure a lot of violence in that book!! The 'crime" was being done by people in higher authority (like taxing too much) so the main character wanted to set off to find a solution but sort of never really did and nothing was changed, because the main character had changed. Sort of like a hero setting off on a quest but then abondoned it...
I'm going to see how much I can get read tonight. I was able to sit outside earlier today and got some sun..
Well I have finished Soldier Ask Not. Truthfully I'm not very thrilled with this book at all. I found it very dull and boring, probably because there was too much politics and similar stuff in it. At it's heart it's a story about revenge and how one man weilds great power of destruction but not in the usual manner (as in a king or general ) but because he is clever and knows how to manipulate others. But I just didn't find it interesting...I guess these award winning books are often sleep inducing! At least it was a bit better than Wuthering Heights! This story had won the Hugo Award.
At the beginning of my GR time I tried to read as many awarded books as as could only to notice I rearely agree and even less often liked those. So now I'm rather cautious if I see awards on the main page. So far the only exception for me was the Christy award where I liked most of the books (exept those who won it for the speculative fiction part of it - these are often too fantastic for me) even those historical :-) The only downside of this award is most Christian fiction is rather expensive and those awarded or by authors who won it are rarely on sale and so if I don't get them for birthday or Christmas I can seldom afford them and my library isn't willing to buy them because there's not enough of interest in our city (we have more than 60 per cent of populations originally from muslim countries and another 10 to 15 from former communistic countries which are mostly atheistic). Luckily there are a few counties in our state that are mostly Christian so more and more Christian books are available in the online library and because they have usually a long pre-order list some bigger libraries start to open up to the idea as well.I can understand your dissapointment if you pick a book (especially an awarded one) and it's not what you expected or at least you didn't like it. I hope the next one will be better for you.
Let's see how we (or rather I) manage with A Tale of Two Cities before I can say more about Jane Eyre.
Hopefully a Tale of Two Cities will be more interesting! These are the other two books that I've picked for the Pool:
I'm going to be reading A Tale of Two Cities today...
Sarah wrote: "Hopefully a Tale of Two Cities will be more interesting! These are the other two books that I've picked for the Pool:
I'm going to ..."
According to the review of one of my friends it's A far, far better historical thriller... so I think it should be more interesting.
I'd rather finish High Noon first but know it I won't start A Tale of Two Cities now I'll fall behind on the first day and since I won't be able to read the next two days as much as I'd like that's not an option.
This afternoon I read
for my classic ABC challenge (letter Y) and it was a fun read. I actually read all 281 pages in one sitting. It was fast moving fantasy adventure story about a young woman named Gillan who decides to volunteer to be one of the 13 brides that are being given to these shapeshifting beast men. No one really knows anything about these beast men but due to services they had done, they are owed 13 brides. And since Gillan doesn't fit in, she decides to go on the journey. Herrel is the man she ends up with and he's different than the others. But she's not normal either. She's a witch (but she doesn't know that) and his people don't like witches! It's a great story with many different environments, magic, weird creatures and a quest to find out who they really are.
There's no unicorn in it though. Just horses. 🐎
I basically was reading for a bit over 5 hours straight!
I'll read more of A Tale of Two Cities next... 😁
Well I've finished
today. I read this for the book Pool and it also fit my Decades challenge..so I've actually knocked two different things off with one book! And this was a wonderful story that read very much like a fairy tale..and full of action too. Of course I've heard other versions of this story but I never knew the original was by Mark Twain. Or that the prince in here was based off a real one: Edward VI. He became king when he was only 9 years old! I can't imagine a country being run by a child that young. Can you? It's a very heavy responsibility!
I'm sure the actual plot details are made up of course. 😉 But I found the tale fun, very entertaining, easy to read and I just never knew what was going to happen next. Elements of the plot we're very random and not guessable. And that's good in my book! Both characters had problems when they switched places.. Tom the Pauper found out that being a prince was a lot of hard work and Edward found out how many of his people lived and the problems they had.
I also enjoyed looking up some unique words that were in the story..
And it looks like I only have 4 more decades to finish my decades challenge. 😁 So maybe if I'm lucky I'll finish it this month yet.
Sarah wrote: "Well I've finished today. I read this for the book Pool and it also fit my Decades challenge..so I've actually knocked two different things off with o..."I heard several times about this book and even noticed once it was by Twain but never read it. I had to read at least two of his books in school and didn't like them - though I was in the minority since most love Tom Sawyer. I can't even remember what the other was or were if it was more than one.
For the same challenge I need A Tale of Two Cities I consider reading Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I could immagine you'd like this one as well. The MC is struck on his head and wakes up in the time of King Arthur and decides to 'modernise' the country and times (of course that can't go well, so chaos breaks out) which reminds me of my favorite TV show (back when I was young) MacGyver - in one episode he hits his head and lands in the times of King Arthur - I wouldn't be surprised if it was losely based on this story :-D
As far as I'm aware there was at least one other child-king. You can read the abbreviated report of his life in the Bible (in one of the books of Kings and one of the Chronicles) - his name was Josiah and he had great advisors which led to prosperous times in Jewish history. I have an incling somewhere deep in my brain I read about another one but can't grasp it enough to be sure if it was fictional or historical one.
I have to admit the decades challenge doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy but I'm glad you have fun with it.
I hope so much I can finish A Tale of Two Cities today so I can start something more fun.
I just decided I've had enough classic for a month (or even a quarter) so I won't attempt Jane Eyre this month so feel free to read it any time you like.
I read a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court back in school many years ago. I think we read it in middle School. And yes I did love it! In fact I liked it much better than the regular king Arthur story... although we read that in school too. And yes, reading A Tale of Two Cities is a bit difficult! Hopefully I'll be able to read some of it today but of course I have all of those meetings. I've also read on many reviews that people say that the Two Cities book is very different than his other books. That he messed up the characters or something in this one. Some say they loved his other stories but hate this one... Other people of course say it's great (but some people will say anything is great - I know a lady that does that...of course ask her WHY it's great and she goes silent).
Sarah wrote: "but some people will say anything is great - I know a lady that does that...of course ask her WHY it's great and she goes silent"Oops! LOL!
So after a long and painful struggle I finished A Tale of Two Cities (at third attempt) and the best part were the last few chapters.
Well I've finally finished it too and I'm glad I'm done with it..it's just simply too boring and long winded! I've much rather read
from.1931. at least it's moving at a good pace and it's kind of funny too. I'm reading this for the book Pool and for the decades challenge (1930s)... I don't recall if I need it for the ABC challenge... anyway it's a zany story about a man and wife switching bodies and the hilarious, outrageous situations that results from that..
Sarah wrote: "Well I've finally finished it too and I'm glad I'm done with it..it's just simply too boring and long winded! I've much rather read
from.1931. at least it's moving ..."I can immagine this book will be fun!
I started yesterday two books and enjoy both of them :-)
Wicked Deceit is an action packed rescue opp
Worte müssen etwas bedeuten: Seine großen Reden by Barack Obama lit. transl. Words Must Have a Meaning: His Biggest Speaches - this is a collection of 25 of Obama's speaches all over the world starting the day he was nominated as presidential candidate and closing with his wife's speach addressing sexist comments agains Hilary Clinton during the last election campain. Since I'm usually not interested in politics I'm still flabbergasted I set it on my library wish list (I discoverd it while looking for M.L. King's spech I Have a Dream), lend it and actually started to read it and the best thing is I enjoy this book so much I even read it in the tub earlier today instead of the other one I started yesterday. I'm already 35 per cent through the collection and now I am even more impressed by this politician and mourn much more what happens now on the American political scene.
Late last night I finished the speaches collection by Barack Obama and liked most of them very much - unfortunatelly the translation wasn't the best so I'll look if I can get my hands on one in English.Since I was really low the last day I decided to squeeze between something fun and read
Divorced, Desperate and Dead and enjoyed it very much despite the paranormal elements. It's one of the more enjoyble books in this series for me and I look forward to the last one. I hope to read some more of my started and challenge books in next days - we'll see how well this will work.
I finished today the travel mysteries book set and will continue with a food themed next.If you're interested in my review of
you can find it here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I finished last night The Dangerous Jacob Wilde - book 1 in Wild Revenge: The Dangerous Jacob Wilde / The Ruthless Caleb Wilde / The Merciless Travis Wilde. After overcoming my frustration that I found out the author's formula for her romances it was ok. Not as great as the very first book of her books I read which is set after the brothers' stories but good enough I'll continue - with pauses between the books so I (hopefully) won't get frustrated again.
After a short pause for food cozies I'm back to my regular stuff.I just started
=
which continues the John Puller series I mentioned last in msg. #121 - its library license expires in two days so that's my plan for these.I couldn't wait any longer and started today
as well.
I have been busy the last few days with the book Pool on Old Books New Readers and I have finished 3 books..The most recent being
which I had never read before. I admit I enjoyed this story much better than Wurthering Heights (thankfully). It's about 4 sisters who are somewhat poor and make do with what they have and it's set during the civil war. They have great imaginations and talents too. Each one seems to be gifted with something, like music, art or writing. And fashion. The story revolves around their daydreams of what they think their lives would or shouy be like (building castles in the air) and the reality years later when they actually grow up. There's also lots in the book about building proper character..I read this book in 3 days.
I've also read
which is a western about revenge..it's about a young girl getting revenge on the man who shot and killed her father.. I did enjoy this one. It moves fast and was a good tale, but I really don't think the price she paid in the end was worth the revenge. But that's my opinion. And the third book I read was
which was a very wild story written in 1931. It actually made me laugh out loud a few times! It's about a man and wife who switch bodies thanks to an old Egyptian statue they have and of course they create huge problems! They just don't act or sound right and it creates a lot of turmoil. Very zany and funny..
I hope you were able to finish your library books before the due date. I have several library books here I need to read too and they are for the book Pool. I have just finished one of them today. Lots of the books in the pool are incredibly fat books too. Like the one I just finished was 491 pages! Oh and I have finally created an Amazon account. I didn't have one before.
I hope the book formula you discovered doesn't annoy you..I don't think authors want us to figure such things out. But of course sometimes we do.
Sorry I haven't posted anything for awhile. I had a bad week last week. Very stressful! I couldn't even read anything! But I did do a ton of walking, which is one of my ways to relieve stress.
Today I have managed to read two short books for the book Pool... These are both books I have read many years ago as a kid.First I read
which I remember reading when I was maybe 20 or so.. I remember the flying monkeys in the book, an illustration of them. After reading this I realized there were parts of the story I had totally forgotten. Or else they had not been in the edition that I had read before. Maybe parts had been edited out?? I don't know. I also admit I never really cared too much for the movie version, because the witch laughing in the tornado at the beginning of the movie had really scared me bad when I was little. I still don't like that movie. It just turns me off very strongly! Instant dislike! But reading this wasn't too bad. Maybe because it's not the movie. I did notice an inconsistent plot element which I find rather confusing. The Tinman claims he cannot harm a soul, not even the evil witch, yet he manages to kill a cat? It just doesn't add up! It's like he's a liar now? Or that's how I kind of see it. I do realize what the book is doing (the scarecrow looking for a brain while he already is kind of smart - he just doesn't realize it, the Tinman doing lots of crying which suggests he already has a heart, etc) but I just don't get that one bit. I also wonder now if it would be better perhaps for Dorothy to take her Aunt and Uncle to live in Oz?? The second book i read today was
which is a book my class read in middle school (7th grade). I've always loved this book. That hasn't changed. I know it's kind of dark but I like that it's about animals and the plot is interesting.. if you ever read it you know it's about how animals chase the farmer off the farm to take control themselves. But soon the pigs take control and then things are not so nice. I also like the song in the book, "The Beasts of England" which I had memorized as a kid. 😁 I actually still remember parts of it today..So all together even though I had lots of meetings I had managed to read about 300 pages...of course one was a kids book so that makes a huge difference!
Tomorrow I'll try to tackle the Iliad.
Sarah wrote: "I have been busy the last few days with the book Pool on Old Books New Readers and I have finished 3 books..The most recent being
which I had never read before. I..."I read Little Women last year for the first time and liked it so much I want to read the other books in series as well. I'm so glad I got several years back the book set with most if not all of them for free so I can continue whenever I'm in the mood for this kind of book.
Western is not really my genre - at least not enough to buy the book and I've never seen it on sale so far though I enjoyed the movie.
I'm glad you enjoyed Turnabout.
I had to read Animal Farm in school and hated it (plus didn't really understand it) I read 1985 a couple of years ago (because I needed exactly this book to complete a challenge) and hated it even more. I decided to accept this is not stuff I enjoy or even am interested in but am glad for you you loved it.
I finished
=
with five hours left yesterday late afternoon and had enogh time left to read the two final speeches by the Obamas and loved them. Today I read the first speach Barack Obama's after his presidency (shortly before the mid-term vote in 2018) and was shocked the political situation in the US was even worse than what I thought and was glad Obama spoke for the first time so open about some of the issues and how much he encouraged the young people in audience to involve themselves in politics, go vote and make a mark in this world so it can change for better.I finished today also
and it was even better than what I expected. It's not an easy book to read and for sure not one you read it once and are done but something to take out time and again and work on life areas in need of improvement. Just for the fun of it I looked up the statistics and out of the 990+ ratings it had 61% 5 stars and not a single one 1 star rating - I thought that really fascinating.I'm always a third into Forrest Gump and hope to make it today to the halfway point before I either continue one of the books I already started or add another one to the mix :-)
I think there are different ways to look at Animal Farm. First is the way it is in the book...it's about the farm animals chasing the humans away and ruling themselves. That's what it is on the surface. It sounds like a nice idea, huh? Animals being free... But they are not really free.Then there's the other way to look at it. And maybe this might help you understand it.. imagine all of the animals in Animal Farm as humans. Because that is what they really represent. The pigs are the smooth talkers. They are the oily politicians who get into office by making false promises. They say one thing, like "drinking alcohol is against the rules!" But they will go do it themselves in secret. They get guards to protect them and keep them in charge (the dogs with the spiked collars). This would be like the private security that politicians have. The common person can't rebel because of the dangerous guards. Then the other animals represent different kinds of people. Some are very simple minded, like the sheep, and repeat what they are told..others are also kind of simple minded and believe that the rulers are honest and fair. Some like the donkey is smart enough to see the truth but he keeps it to himself and doesn't really do anything about it. The white mare only cared about ribbons for her hair...this would probably be like the common person who just lives their life while ignoring the politics going on..they really don't care as long as they can go do their own thing.
The pigs basically turned the farm into a dictatorship. Because they were smart, clever and crooked. The others didn't know any better and had bad memories. Many simply believed what they were told.. they had the other animals as slaves. The animals represent humans. That's what the end scene means, because it said they when the animals looked in through the window they could not tell the pigs at the table from the humans. Pigs = crooked human rulers
You see this sort of thing in sci-fi a lot. Authors make commentary on issues of the day but they sort of "hide it" by saying it's an alien doing it or it's taking place on a different planet. But it's really statements on what's going on in our society.
In the book they kept using the term "comrade" so I guess it's a reference to Communist?? Anyway it shows how crooked rulers get into power by lying and smooth talking.
I hope this might help you understand the book even if you didn't like it.
Often I guess I like it because I'm looking at it on the surface as a story about animals but I also understand the deeper stuff too.
Today so far I have read part of the Iliad. I now have the main characters down and understand how they are all related to each other. I had to look one name up on YouTube as to how you say it but the others I already knew. I guess right now I'm about 20 % through the book? I'll read more later tonight. Parts of it are a little dull but not too bad. It's written in a poem like format.
I'm glad you really liked the book It's Okay.. hopefully you will find parts of it useful.
I have never actually seen the Forest Gump movie. Maybe someday I'll read the book..I must be one of the few people who have never actually seen it.
Yes the political situation here can get bad. Things are even worse now because of that virus. Like I read today on the news that like 25,000 people have applied for rent assistance in my city but they only are able to help a small number of those people. So many businesses are closed (some permanent) and others are struggling and so many lost their jobs. Landlords want to kick people out on to the street as they can't pay rent because they lost the jobs because of the shutdown from the virus. It just turned into a huge mess!
Obama was a great president. But he faced many problems in office, like others would not cooperate with him and put roadblocks in his way..
And it's great you finished No Man's Land too. 😁 It's always good to finish a book..
I'm not too sure if I've ever read 1984 before but I usually find those distopian books interesting..
Last night I finished
but rated it only 4* because it's partially depressing and I didn't like the ending. It shows it's not always good to see the movie before reading the book - somehow I liked the movie more (thought it's many years I watched it for the last time so perhaps I'd see it different now anyway).Afterwards I started
600 Hours of Edward and I love the style but realised now I need something to laugh so as soon as I'm finished here I'm off to look what I'm in the mood for.
Reading Until Infinity
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