What Else Are You Reading in 2021? Showing 1,951-2,000 of 2,230

[Michelle]

I believe it's a chapter book.

[Anna]

Yay, I've absorbed info about children's books without even trying to! Thanks! :)

[Michelle]

It's amazing the stuff we pick up without realizing it :)

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Thieves!

[CBRetriever]

Wikipedia says:

A chapter book or chapterbook is a story book intended for intermediate readers, generally age 7–10. Unlike picture books for beginning readers, a chapter book tells the story primarily through prose rather than pictures. Unlike books for advanced readers, chapter books contain plentiful illustrations. The name refers to the fact that the stories are usually divided into short chapters, which provide readers with opportunities to stop and resume reading if their attention spans are not long enough to finish the book in one sitting. Chapter books are usually works of fiction of moderate length and complexity.

so it's before middle-grade

[Anna]

I read it in one sitting, yay me and my attention span! :D

[Mary]

Yes, chapter books are called that after their chapters. They are generally the first books that children read that are long enough to have them, and also short chapters help if the child wants to put it down and take it up again.

[Dj]

Ozsaur wrote: "Dj - Star Eater is... different. The weird elements are actually working well together."

Looks like I will have to give it a look. Thx

[Karen]

Anna wrote: "(I don't want to start a thread just for this question, so I'll dump it here.)

What do you call a kids' book that is shorter than (adult) novel length? It's not a novella, but it's also not a pict..."

It's generically a chapter book. A picture book will have far fewer pages and writing with illustrations on the majority of the pages. I personally would put it under novel.

[Anna]

Interesting, so chapter books could be novels, even if they’re under 100 pages? I’m not super strict about the 160 page cut off for adult books, but a 90 page novel sounds wrong!

[Eric]

I seem to be on a Guy Gaveriel Kay kick. Finished his A Song for Arbonne. A medieval fantasy laced with infidelity, deception, quests for power and troubadours to spread the word. Five stars. I will read Kay's A Brightness Long Ago next.

[Stephen]

Eric wrote: "I seem to be on a Guy Gaveriel Kay kick. Finished his A Song for Arbonne. A medieval fantasy laced with infidelity, deception, quests for power a..."

I really enjoyed A Brightness Long Ago.

I haven’t read A Song for Arbonne.

ETA:
I guess I should say a little more than that. I remember A Brightness Long Ago as one of my most enjoyable reads of the last 2 or 3 years (don’t remember exactly when I read it.) Colourful, supenseful, humane, fun, smart. Great stuff.

[Jan]

I finished and really enjoyed Connelly's latest police procedural. The Dark Hours. Classic well-plotted Connelly.

Now I've started Terciel and Elinor. I'm enjoying being back in the Old Kingdom. Makes me want to go back and reread the rest of the books. (This one's a new prequel).

[Feliciana]

@Anna- Can you categorize it as "Middle Grade" book? That's how I usually describe books that are targeted towards 6-8th grade students (U.S. school system) which are usually between 11-14 years old. They are also typically chapter books, but the chapters are shorter than most YA and adult novels (most of the time).

[Anna]

Ann, yes but I have both age and length! So this one was a kids’ book (younger than MG) but something between a picture book and a novel. I’m still not sure if I want to add chapter books, I don’t read so many of them that it’s statistically interesting 😄 I might keep marking them as picture books, because they definitely aren’t novels! It took me 10min to read it.

[Michelle]

Well, you could always categorize them as short stories. Ten minutes' worth of reading in total isn't enough to call it a book.

[Anna]

Nope, it’s not a short story (says my brain)! And that (it not being a novel) is why I finally decided to do something about it, but all this thinking aloud has convinced me that it’s fine to keep categorizing these as picture books. Maybe I’ll change the name and call it children’s books, that way it’s anything for younger than MG 🙂

[CBRetriever]

I'm thinking that The Little Prince could be called a Chapter Book though it is truly meant for all ages

[Dj]

Well, time to do some catching up. This review is for.
The Tea Dragon Society

A great book for young readers with a powerful message. Without being all slamming you over the head with it, it has a message about diversity as well as acceptance. It is a nice read and one that I would recommend to parents without the least bit of hesitation.

[Dj]

A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking

Sometimes things just sort of fall in your lap. The title of this book intrigued me enough that I picked it up when I had the chance, then someone else mentioned how good it was. So I moved it up on the list of when to read. What an amazing thing it is to find such a wonderful read all on accident. A very young girl with a talent for animating bread shows that maybe there really is no such thing as a little talent.

An enjoyable read that can be shared with almost any age.

[Dj]

The Purloined Poodle

Not really a stand-alone, but also not a book that adds a great deal to the movement of the story for the Iron Druid series. It is however a short read that is an enjoyable interlude and brings to the fore the character of Oberon. A good read while waiting for the next in the series to come out on the main storyline.

[Dj]

Decision in the Ukraine: German Panzer Operations on the Eastern Front, Summer 1943

A book that could have carried more weight if he had been willing to have a more realistic idea of what the German Army was capable of at Kursk and after.

[CBRetriever]

Dj wrote: "The Purloined Poodle

Not really a stand-alone, but also not a book that adds a great deal to the movement of the story for the Iron Druid ..."

Didn't care for this one or the other one based on Oberon. Too cutesy for me (a little of the dog goes a long way, but an entire book was too much).

I just finished Spin by Robert Charles Wilson which was pretty good. It's not something I would have picked out to read (it was part of a Humble Bundle) but it was a satisfying read

[Michelle]

I should be finishing up my re-read of Grand Conspiracy either tonight or tomorrow. As one could guess from the title, conspiracies abound in this one, and I am enjoying my read immensely.

[Mathew]

I'm halfway through Making Money and have to say it's not as witty as some of Pratchett's other books, but I find the actual story really good so far. Maybe because it's about financial matters and I'm interested in that sort of stuff?

[Anna]

Woot! I finished a 550 page eye-book! It doesn't even matter what the book was, I'm just happy that I have no eye-books in progress for the first time in MONTHS, and the next time I feel like eye-reading, I can pick whatever I feel in the mood for! ^_^

I've also learned my lesson, for a bit at least, and will not be starting another huge tome while eye-reading is still a struggle. Novellas and short books for now!

(Now I have to sleep for two days to get rid of this eye-reading induced headache.)

[Jacqueline]

I actually went to bed and eye read a book last night. Haven’t done that in forever. I do sometimes if Hubby and I go to bed early and might get a chapter or two in if I’m lucky before he closes his and turns his light out and then I end up finishing in the middle of a chapter in the middle of a page. I haven’t done it for a couple of years when I’ve been by myself. Not since I was living full time down at the beach.

The book is The Tea Ladies of St Jude’s Hospital by Joanna Nell. Not SF or F though. Love Joanna’s books. She’s a Doctor and she writes what she knows. She has worked in ages care so her first book was based in a retirement village as was her third. Her second was on a ship about the wife of a ships doctor who had dementia. She was a ships doctor for a time. This one is set in a hospital. She knows her characters so well and it comes out in her writing. Anyhoo I’m halfway through it and am looking at finishing it this morning. I’ve been reorganising the house after all the moves and I’ve set up a dedicated reading/sewing area with my two favourite chairs. Winged recliner for reading and POÄNG for sewing. Then I might get on to Aurora Burning once I’m finished in St Jude’s. I have Auroras End sitting here waiting.

[DivaDiane]

I just finished TJ Klune’s latest novel, Under the Whispering Door. It’s not as fantastic or charming as The House in the Cerulean Sea, but it was lovely nonetheless. Maybe a little overlong and drive the point home a bit hard, but still like a hug in a book.

[Anna]

I really didn't like the ending of Whispering Door. I would specify inside tags, but I suspect you're on the app, Diane, so I won't :) But yes, a feelgood read for the most part.

[Michelle]

I finished the excellent Grand Conspiracy last night, then went back to the Empire Series dealing with the Roman Legions. This one is volume 10, or I guess I should say volume X to keep in the proper theme: The Scorpion's Strike.

[Jerry-Book]

Reading "Paladin of the Lost Hour" by Harlan Ellison. This is Ellison's homage to "Lost Horizon" by James Hilton. One can find it at http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/palad.... It was also a Twilight Zone episode. It won the 1986 Hugo and Locust awards in the novelette category. The TV show features Danny Kaye in one of his last roles before his death.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&r...

[CBRetriever]

finished book 3, A Sword from Red Ice, in J.V. Jones's Sword of Shadows series (over 600 pages). Now on to book 4. Book 5, is, unfortunately in the wasteland occupied by Martin's (2011), Rothfuss' (2011) and Kirstein's (2004) next books in their series (Jone's last book in the series was published in 2010).

also finished Peter V. Brett's Demon Cycle with the last novella in the series: Barren. I moved on to an Andre Norton two book volume: From the Sea to the Stars.

and also started a short story collection: The Final Frontier: Stories of Exploring Space, Colonizing the Universe, and First Contact with stories by

Buckell, Tobias S.
Liu, Ken
Skillingstead, Jacl
Kress, Nancy
Swanwick, Michael
Dickinson, Seth
Bear, Elizabeth
Rusch, Kristine Kathryn
Jones, Gwyneth
Novakova, Julie
Bishop, Michael
McMullen, Dean
Lake, Jay
Scholz, Carter
Singh, Vandana
Vaughn, Carrie
Kelly, James Patrick
Valentine, Genevieve
Owomoyela, An
Egan, Greg
Warrs, Peter

the first one was pretty good

[Stephen]

I finished rereading Farmer in the Sky, another Heinlein juvenile, yesterday. I found it very enjoyable. At the moment I’m about three quarters of the way through The Blond Baboon, a 1978 police procedural crime novel set in Amsterdam. (I’m reading a 1996 trade paperback reissue that caught my eye at the library.) So far it’s excellent, lots of juicy character stuff, quite sophisticated. I have only read one other novel by Janwillem van de Wetering and it wasn’t this good.

[Raucous]

DivaDiane wrote: "I just finished TJ Klune’s latest novel, Under the Whispering Door. It’s not as fantastic or charming as The House in the Cerulean Sea, but it was lovely nonetheless. Maybe a little overlong and dr..."

That was my reaction to it as well. I liked what he was trying to do with the book. I didn't always appreciate how he got there quite as much as I did in The House in the Cerulean Sea.

[Leonie]

I'm currently reading Aurora's End by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Really enjoying it so far.

[DivaDiane]

Raucous wrote: "DivaDiane wrote: "I just finished TJ Klune’s latest novel, Under the Whispering Door. It’s not as fantastic or charming as The House in the Cerulean Sea, but it was lovely nonetheless. Maybe a litt..."

Very well said!

[Karen]

I just started Seven Lies for my abc-123 challenge. No verdict yet.

I've been reading The Once and Future Witches at night so I'm not getting through it very quickly. Interesting mix of suffragette movement and witchcraft.

Listening to The Midnight Bargain. It's sweet...magical romance lite. A bit repetitive at times but still moving forward.

I'm trying Time Tourist Outfitters, Ltd. and so far I'm not impressed. Anyone else read it?

[Benjamin]

Anna wrote: "I really didn't like the ending of Whispering Door. I would specify inside tags, but I suspect you're on the app, Diane, so I won't :) But yes, a feelgood read for the most part."

Anna, I felt the same.

[Faith]

My review of The Fall of Babel by Josiah Bancroft

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Araych]

Lies, Damned Lies, and History by Jodi Taylor

Chronicles of St. Mary's #7, books should be read in order. Being the further adventures of our heroine Max (now pregnant) and her English compatriots as they spin through time and drink tea. Wonderful series with lots of humor and a bit of history lesson here and there. 4 stars.

[Chris]

I finished Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb yesterday. I enjoyed the trilogy overall. I found the main character a mix of both understandable but also frustrating at times. But unlike a lot of stories where you think "Why would this guy do something so obviously foolish/wrong", this story more often left me thinking "Yeah I can picture how someone in that situation with all this stuff going on would make that mistake." I'll be looking to pick up the next trilogy in the not too distant future.

Since then started His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. I've seen this book pop up on recommendations before and it happened to be available at my library's ebook library when I was looking for a fix lol. I'm only a few chapters in but it definitely seems like an intriguing story and interesting world.

[Michelle]

Chris wrote: "I finished Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb yesterday. I enjoyed the trilogy overall. I found the main character a mix of both understandable but also frustrating at ti..."

I loved that trilogy! Every now and again I re-read it.

[DivaDiane]

Don’t skip the LiveShip Traders! It has a different set of characters, but it’s important to the lore and the series as a whole.

[DivaDiane]

Also, I’m reading We Shall Sing a Song into the Deep, which I am very much enjoying. It’s a novella and a sort of post-apocalyptic closed system dystopia.

[Chris]

DivaDiane wrote: "Don’t skip the LiveShip Traders! It has a different set of characters, but it’s important to the lore and the series as a whole."

That's the one I was going to start with next, yeah. I had started the first book years ago but due to some circumstance or other never found time to get far in it. This time around I decided to start from the very start and then get back to that one after the first trilogy.

[Beth]

Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity: I read this one spurred by a recent interest in walking- and biking-centered city planning. Not bad for a first book on the topic. It was maybe a little too directed at city council types for this general reader, but there's a lot more material out there that could be pursued. Next (whenever I get around to it) is The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

The Steerswoman: read it for our BOTM and for the VBC discussion coming up in a couple of days. I liked it a lot. Slightly too brainy vs. feeling-y for my tastes, but I definitely enjoyed the story and characters enough to keep on with it.

I'm... not really sure what's next! Since Steerswoman is the first book of a series, I should probably either read a standalone, or continue a series I've already started.

[Eric]

I finished Guy Gavriel Kay's A Brightness Long Ago. Four solid stars. Crafted, as Kay does on historical happenings. This would be 15th Century Italy. Warring city states. Rival mercenaries. Thought I'd take a break from Kay.

Off to The Old Curiosity Shop.

[Phrynne]

Leonie wrote: "I'm currently reading Aurora's End by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. Really enjoying it so far."

I just finished it Leonie. I thought it was a very clever way to wind up the trilogy. I loved the time travel!

[Phrynne]

I really enjoyed Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne and loved the references in it to the Iron Druid.
My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Jacqueline]

Phrynne….spoilers fgs Ssshhh I haven’t read it yet.