2021 Read All the Books: Around the Shelf in Eight(y) Years

[Dj]

Meredith wrote: "Dj wrote: "Meredith wrote: "I’ve read 3 of my goal of 19 so far.

Alphabet of Thorn,
The Best of All Possible Worlds,
Six of Crows."

I really enjoyed..."

Might try Od Magic that was another one I really enjoyed.

[Dj]

So I have read four books off the group bookshelf and so far not one of them is one that I had picked to read for the challenge. That is what renewing my Library card gets me. LOL.

[Meredith]

Dj wrote: "Meredith wrote: "Dj wrote: "Meredith wrote: "I’ve read 3 of my goal of 19 so far.

Alphabet of Thorn,
The Best of All Possible Worlds,
Six of Crows."
..."

Thanks for the rec!

[Lost Planet Airman]

Dj wrote: "So I finished: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?


What is there to say about this book. Contorted, Convoluted, Contrived,..."

There's a multivolume graphic novel that I thought made some of the contortions and convolutions clearer.

[Dj]

Mike wrote: "Dj wrote: "So I finished: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?


What is there to say about this book. Contorted, Convoluted,..."

I saw that when I was looking for the book in the online library catalog. I might give it a chance in the future. Although with my TBR list it is hard to say

[CBRetriever]

it's on my TBR list so I'll tackle it at some point

[DivaDiane]

There are still a few days left in the month and I hope I'll finish A Memory Called Empire before the end of the month, but so far off the shelf I've read:

Lock In 3.5stars
Fate of the Fallen 4 stars
The Best of All Possible Worlds 4.5 stars

Rendezvous with Rama is up next.

[Midiain]

January was a good book month and six of them were bookshelf reads. I enjoyed all of these very much. Six Wakes was by far my favorite. I struggled to get into The Windup Girl, partly because I'm not really a fan of bleak, dystopian novels and it probably didn't help that I'd just read two other bleak books. For me, it's one of those books where the last third makes up for all the problems of the other 2/3.

Fate of the Fallen
The Poppy War
The Book of Phoenix
The Windup Girl
Six Wakes
Fuzzy Nation

I'm at 95 now. February isn't likely to be as productive.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

wowza! A good month indeed!

[Jessica]

Well, I had a 0 January (from this list, at least). I was focused on reading the things I'd been meaning to read forever, but hadn't - in part because of 2020 book challenges! Ha.

In Feb, I intend to get to at least The Obelisk Gate (as I keep putting my library hold on hold while I finish other things) and The Calculating Stars as it's on my e-reader and ready for me!

I intended to get into The Poppy War and The Man in the High Castle discussions, but it isn't happening for me as of now. Ah well, I adapt to what works for me!

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Yes! I forbid guilt for reading / not reading! Unless it's funny to tease, and then I reserve the right to tease thusly.

[Bonnie]

Excellent work!
I also had a good bookshelf month. Ranked in order I liked them, best to worst:
The Golem and the Jinni
Nimona
The Best of All Possible Worlds
The Poppy War
Fate of the Fallen
The Mote in God's Eye
Gideon the Ninth

[Dj]

Allison wrote: "Yes! I forbid guilt for reading / not reading! Unless it's funny to tease, and then I reserve the right to tease thusly."

got it, teasing good, guilt, bad. As long as the teasing is non-hurtful and in moderation.
Now I know what to look forward to. LOL

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

haha exactly, DJ!

[Dj]

So for Jan I finished four books off the Bookshelf
Swords of Delverty
War of the Worlds
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Slaughterhouse-Five

War of the Worlds was great the others...not so much.

The funny thing is that not one of these books was on either of my challenge lists. Curse you Library, you evil temptress of good free reading. LOL

[HeyT]

The RNG gods have spoken for February so my three shelf backlist books are:
Alif the Unseen
Gods of Jade and Shadow
Servant of the Underworld

[CBRetriever]

Finished This Alien Shore and currently working on Gideon the Ninth

[Dj]

So once again I finished a bookshelf book that I didn't own when I made the list. Still don't own it. The Library is pretty demanding when it comes to getting things back. So far I have to say The Road is the best book I have read this year. This is a little bit of a surprise since I am not overly fond of End of the World type books, but this was Masterfully written.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

what book??

[Dj]

Allison wrote: "what book??"

I edited the post, it was the Road

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

ohhh, I can totally see that being almost tailor made for you, DJ!

[Dj]

Finished The Gunslinger and I apologize to all the King fans out there, I was utterly underwhelmed. Here is my review.

An interesting tale spoiled by character descriptions. I forgot just how nasty King could be when describing people.

[Dj]

So I finally read the first book on my original list. A Closed and Common Orbit

Such an amazing read. It was hard to imagine that the person that told me this book was better than the first one could be right. Until I finished and it just left me astounded that a follow-up book could in fact be better than the first one. It is really nice to see how the two lives, so dissimilar on the surface can bear such a resemblance. Having read the two, I am itching to start the third.

[Meredith]

Dj wrote: "So once again I finished a bookshelf book that I didn't own when I made the list. Still don't own it. The Library is pretty demanding when it comes to getting things back. So far I have to say The ..."

You are making me want to move this up on my library list. I've started checking off bookshelf reads by getting the Audio CDs from the library to listen when I'm driving and this is available.

I agree with you about Closed and Common Orbit. At first I was dismayed it didn't have all the characters as the first book but it turned into an excellent read. The third book was also really good.

[Dj]

Meredith wrote: "Dj wrote: "So once again I finished a bookshelf book that I didn't own when I made the list. Still don't own it. The Library is pretty demanding when it comes to getting things back. So far I have ..."

Thanks, I went out and bought it right after I got done with Closed. I haven't moved it into a heavy part of my reading rotation yet, since I have all these challenge books to get out of the way but I did read a bit of the beginning and I have high hopes for it.

[Aga]

My goal is to read 20 books from the shelf this year. I'm 3 books in.
So far I've read:

"The Fifth Season"
"Fate of the Fallen"
"The Poppy War"

In February I'm going to read:
"Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City"
"The Man in the High Castle" (I'll probably start today)
"Lies of Lock Lamora"

I enjoy our discussions so I choose mainly from books of the month, planned RRs, and BRs.

[Dj]

Aga wrote: "My goal is to read 20 books from the shelf this year. I'm 3 books in.
So far I've read:

"The Fifth Season"
"Fate of the Fallen"
"The Poppy War"

In February I'm going to read:
"Sixteen Ways to Def..."

Nice going. Some good choices there.

[CBRetriever]

Finished the 2nd of 10: Gideon the Ninth

quite a read

[Aga]

Dj wrote: "Nice going. Some good choices there."

I hope I can keep the pace. It's going smooth so far. I usualy read the book of the month only if it's the one I voted for. This year I had luck two months in the row.

[Dj]

Nice. May Fortune always be in your favor then.

[Tawallah]

I'm joining this late with an aim of hitting 25
Bookshelf Challenge
Start : January 1, 2021
End: December 31, 2021

Books read: 15/25

Options:
1. Fate of the Fallen- March 25
2. The City We Became
3. The Ghost Bride
4. The Sword of Kaigen July 13
5. Remnant Population
6. Gods of Jade and Shadow- February 28
7. Semiosis- March 31
8. Spinning Silver- Nov 14
9. The Song of Achilles- February 15
10. Rosewater- March 6
11. The Calculating Stars- CR
12. All the Birds in the Sky
13. Foreigner
14. Sabriel- March 27
15. The Grace of Kings
16. The Well of Ascension Oct 24
17. The Passage
18. City of Stairs April 6
19. Wild Seed
20. Everfair Nov 28
21. Gardens of the Moon
22. The Color of Magic
23. Three Parts Dead May 28
24. Storm Front Nov 30
25. Arcadia July 23
26. Velocity Weapon
27. Recursion
28. Here and Now and Then
29. Planetfall
30. Sea of Rust
31. The Fifth SeasonAug 30
32. A Natural History of Dragons
33. The Quantum Thief
34. The Name of the Wind
35. The Dragon's Path

Re-reads:


Books read:

[DivaDiane]

Great list, June! Welcome to the challenge!

[Aga]

Hoho! This is my lucky year! I voted for "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" and it won. Voted on "Piranesi" but it was hard to choose between this and "The House in the Cerurelan Sea". So my reading list for March contains both books of the month and "The Obelisk Gate" (RR)

[Anna]

Aga wrote: "Hoho! This is my lucky year!"

And my unlucky one, I've yet to read a single group book in 2021 :D I've read several of them before 2021 though, so my % isn't suffering.

[HeyT]

So far this month I've read Alif the Unseen, Gods of Jade and Shadow, and Broken Monsters. I'm still planning on hitting Servant of the Underworld and Witchmark this month.

[Dj]

June wrote: "I'm joining this late with an aim of hitting 25
Bookshelf Challenge
Start : January 1, 2021
End: December 31, 2021

Books read: 1/25

Options:
1. Fate of the Fallen
2. [book:The ..."

I have only read Saberial and Well of Accession on your list but I enjoyed both of those, hope you will as well.

[Dj]

Aga wrote: "Hoho! This is my lucky year! I voted for "We Are Legion (We Are Bob)" and it won. Voted on "Piranesi" but it was hard to choose between this and "The House in the Cerurelan Sea". So my reading list..."

I thought that We are Legion was a fun and interesting read. Hope you like it.

[Aga]

Dj wrote: "I thought that We are Legion was a fun and interesting read. Hope you like it."

Sounds good :)

[Lowell]

**"Eye of the Tiger" starts playing**

Reading long, hitting the books
took my time, read my pages
Went the distance, now I'm done with that tome
Just a man, picking out a his next read!

It's the Eye of the tiger...




ok, yeah, that schtick isn't going to get old, really! but hey, finished a club read this month, and going after another one. I'm a bit behind, but whatever. It's gonna happen.

Currently Reading


On Deck


Finished!


DNF

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

haha well done, both on the book and the presentation!

[Richard]

On track at the moment. Two fantasy reads but very different books.

Little, Big; poetic, deep, convoluted and mysterious.

Shadow's Son; basically a fun assassin-y romp.

I’ve got plenty to choose from for my next leg of the trip, so time to throw a dart at the shelf and see what gets hit.

[HeyT]

I've finished Servant of the Underworld and Witchmark which I enjoyed enough to look into the rest of their trilogies. Now I just need to find time to slot them in lol
I also read Smoke Bitten which gets me caught up on Mercy Thompson. I enjoyed it but it's not the best or worst of the series just average. Another series I'm slowly catching up on is Alex Verus and I read Fallen. I'm glad I decided to catch up on this series this year as the last one comes out in December and I'm addicted.
Rounding out my reading I finished The Best of All Possible Worlds which I enjoyed because it was more character driven versus the plot driven stuff I've been reading.

edit: omg I just realized I put this in the wrong thread but like half of them are bookshelf books so I guess its not that bad of a mistake.

[Midiain]

I only got to one bookshelf read in February: The Warded Man. I had mixed feelings about it but liked it enough to read the next book in the series, The Desert Spear. I think I liked it and hated it in equal measure.

This month I'm planning to read Caliban's War, The Mere Wife, Ancillary Justice, The Bear and the Nightingale, and join in the Amazin' Eights read of The Salvage Crew.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Ambitious! A nice mix of different stuff there :)

Aside from the botms, the only book I've read thus far is Wool, which started off SO GREAT and then unraveled, to use a pun, as is my preference.

[Lowell]

**"Eye of the Tiger" starts playing**

Ok, Picking back up on The Final Empire. I'm not going to re-read the beginning of it, but I did pick up from where I left off with not much loss. I'm going to ear-read this one now, though, because I think that will help pick up again.

Currently Reading


On Deck


Finished!


DNF

[DivaDiane]

I read Rendezvous with Rama and Children of Time in February. I’m now 2 books ahead on my goal. We’ll see how i do in the next couple of months, while moving house.

[Amanda]

So far I'm on track with 4/24: Fate of the Fallen, Best of All Possible Worlds, Book of Koli, and Poppy War. I'll be reading Cerulean Sea this month so just need to decide how to fill the second slot.

[Beth]

Goal: 7
Read: 2

Currently reading:


Finished:


On deck (subject to change!):

[Lowell]

... for today's song choice, we substitute the word "empire" instead of the word "countdown"

We're leavin' together
But still it's farewell
And maybe we'll come back
To Earth, who can tell?
I guess there is no one to blame
We're leaving ground (leaving ground)
Will things ever be the same again?

It's the final empire...
The final EMPIRE!

Ahem. Anyhow, Another one bites the dust. I audio binged and eyeball read my way through Sanderson's earlier work, and I gotta say... it's definitely a stepping stone that was needed for him to get to work on The Way of Kings. It's not as polished as his later works. giving it 3.5 stars, rounded down. it's a solid 7, as it were.

Currently Reading


On Deck


Finished!


DNF

[Bonnie]

They do look nice with all the covers showing, don't they?! I had another good month, read seven from the bookshelf. Here they are in order I liked them:

The Book of Koli
The Girl With All the Gifts
Kushiel's Dart
Alif the Unseen
Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City
An Unkindness of Ghosts
The Book of Phoenix

Reading-enjoyment-wise not so great, I did not love any of them. A lot of fantasy here; I generally like SF better so maybe that is why. Well, several of these are SF though...