Week 6 Check In

[Sheri]

Hi everyone,

Been a rough week at work, dealing with a stressful project. Late check in post!

Hope everyone is doing well!

This week I finished:

The Burning God - finished up the Poppy War series. I have to say that war books aren't my favorite. But this one was captivating enough I wanted to finish. That being said, was kind of disappointed in this one. It was a rough read, lots of violence, bad conditions, death, injury etc. The ending was kind of a letdown. I understand why it ended that way, and honestly maybe it's the only way it COULD have ended, but it still wasn't a satisfying conclusion, for me. Counting it for popsugar book set mostly outside, Booknerds related to fire, ATY book with title and author name both containing u, reading women book over 500 pages.

The Old Guard, Book Two: Force Multiplied - I liked this, interesting because I had thought the movie was changing things from the book. But i was reading the afterword, and looks like the author of the comic actually wrote the screenplay. And a lot of the things set up at the end of the movie were segued into this second book.

Cat's Cafe: A Comics Collection - just wanted something fun and cheerful, and I love this webcomic. Couldn't resist when i saw it on hoopla.

Crooked Kingdom - finished this up, i admit i waited far too long to read it after Six of Crows. I only vaguely remembered Kaz and Inej, I couldn't remember basically anything else from the first book. That being said, I still enjoyed the story of this. I'll have to go back and read them back to back at some point. Counted for book nerds book with a criminal, aty book set in a made up place.

Snotgirl, Vol. 3: Is This Real Life? - This is such a weird series, but I'm strangely enamored of it haha. It's full of drama which normally I can't stand, but it's weird drama so I like it.

Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 1 & Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 2 - the covers caught my eye on Hoopla, so I grabbed them. It's weird, can't do horror movies at all. Horror comics I'm fine with. Horror books are hit or miss. It's pretty violent, probably wouldn't recommend to the group at large. But I do love a good monster hunter, and I kinda want to cosplay Erica Slaughter if cons are ever a thing again.

Currently reading:

Empire of the Wild - not super far in this yet, book involving the rougarou. Counting it for Popsugar book by Indigenous author, Read Harder genre fiction by an Indigenous author, reading women book inspired by folklore.

The House in the Cerulean Sea - still doing audio book. I like the reader, but I'll probably still re-read it in print soon. The librarian who runs my book club said she was going to pick it for the next round of books, and wasn't sure she should since I was reading it already, told her not to worry. So i'll probably grab the print in a couple months to refresh.

1Q84 - haven't actually touched this this week, will get back to it soon.

QOTW: Borrowing from Popsugar's: Are there any books from the 20th century that you think will become classics?

The Book Riot article helpfully lists some qualities of a "classic," from Italo Calvino:

* Exercise an influence over the reader, become unforgettable, be reread often, and “hide in the layers of memory disguised as the individual’s or the collective unconscious.”
* Constantly generate discussion, and always have something new to present to even those who have read it before.
* Doesn’t allow you to remain indifferent: Readers are profoundly moved by it.
* Have a timeless quality or, effectively capture a certain time period in a bottle, “trailing behind them the traces they have left in the culture or cultures through which they have passed.

I feel like there's quite a few books that would fit that. Some off hand I can think of :

I'd like to think The Night Circus. I realize I'm biased since it's my favorite book, but it seems like it provokes pretty strong reactions of people who read it. You either love it, or you don't. I've not seen many people just sort of like it. It has a timeless quality because of the circus never aging. I know I've read it at LEAST 6 times. It always still provokes a dreamy sensation in me, inspires me to make art.

Grudgingly I'll say A Gentleman in Moscow . I personally did not like it AT ALL, but it certainly provoked a response. And a ton of other people i know just adore the book, fawn over the writing etc.

I'd say the Broken Earth trilogy as well. I don't know if I've read any other sci fi or fantasy that was quite like it.

[Shel]

Two finishes for me this week - November 9 (Meh - I shared my thoughts on the discussion thread) and The Lost Hero (bedtime read with my 4th grader). Really enjoyed the Lost Hero and have The Son of Neptune lined up to start next!

I'm also just getting into Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.

QOTW: I'm drawing a blank on this one right now. I'll ponder and see if anyone else's answer inspires me!

[Jen W.]

A few finishes this week:

Harrow the Ninth - the last part of this book was just wow. I had my suspicions about what was going on throughout the beginning of the book, but yeah, the ending just blew me away. I used this as my Popsugar book with something broken on the cover (view spoiler)[which has a bit of a double meaning, because Harrow herself is pretty broken (hide spoiler)].

I also finished listening to Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You on audio. This was my Popsugar book found on a Black Lives Matter reading list. I liked the way the author laid out the history, and it made me interested to read the longer work. Also, the audio was read by the authors, and I really enjoy when authors read their own work; I feel like they get to inject a little more meaning and personality into it.

Some comics and manga finishes: A Man and His Cat, Vol. 3, Nimona, Hatsu*Haru, Vol. 8, Hatsu*Haru, Vol. 9, Takane & Hana, Vol. 15, Takane & Hana, Vol. 16

Currently reading: The Midnight Bargain - this is sort of historical fantasy + romance hybrid, about a young woman in a sort of Victorian England equivalent setting who doesn't want to get married because then she'll be barred from following her passion for learning and practicing magic. It's really good so far. I'm using it for the genre hybrid in the Popsugar challenge.

QOTW: Future classics from the 20th century... hmm, I don't really know. I don't read a lot of popular "general" or "literary" fiction, and I feel like that's what tends to become known as "classics". The Book Thief, maybe, is one of the few I can think of.

For genre fiction, I feel like some of Neil Gaiman's work might potentially reach classic status. Works by Octavia Butler, too, such as Kindred.

I'll probably think of more once I've had time to let the question stew. :)

[Rebecca]

Boss was out this week and it was kind of a "mice will play" situation at work. I don't have Monday off, but I'm happy to have a weekend.

First book this week was Murder in Old Bombay. At first I found the writing oddly stilted, but either it got better or I got used to it, and it stopped bothering me. The protagonist is set up as a fan of Sherlock Holmes, but other than a couple of references, that didn't really go anywhere, and I thought several of his deductions were pretty much just guesses. There was a fairly long episode toward the middle that put the main story on hold and added a weird element that I didn't think was adequately prepared. I don't mean to imply that it was terrible, but I feel I've read similar but better works from authors like Sujata Massey and Abir Mukherjee.

My second book was November 9, and I've left my feelings in the book club (I largely share Shel's "meh"). I will say that I found it to be a very fast read, in case anyone has been worried about the time factor.

QOTW: 20th century, or 21st century? I feel like there are some pretty established classics from the 20th, like all the stuff we read in high school (The Great Gatsby, All Quiet on the Western Front, Things Fall Apart). For the 21st, I don't know; it'll end up being something like The Goldfinch and I'll be mad about it. Maybe The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness?

[Sheri]

Haha sorry meant 21

[Jen W.]

Haha, ignore my answer, then! :D I'll have to think about some more recent stuff.

[Trystan]

i'm still reading The Once and Future Witches, but i hope to finish soon!

books that might become classics?
from the 20th century - the Dune series
from the 21st century - A Song of Ice & Fire and the furthering of the Dune series XD
those are my thoughts.

[Susan]

This week I finished Rusty Nailed. It is book 2 in Alice Clayton's Cocktail series. It was mindless and fun. At some point I'll probably read the next one.

I only finished that last night, so I'm now just barely beginning A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression. I added this to my TBR list on GR back in 2018. I have no idea how that came to be, but it must've sounded interesting and I have it now, so we'll see!

I also started the next Expanse novella, 5.5, The Vital Abyss. I am about 1/3 of the way through this audiobook as it is not that long.

QOTW: I have no idea what might become classic from this century so far. I am just not having any concrete thoughts come to mind.

[Megan]

I think I missed a week of checking in - things are finally settling down a bit after a busy couple months, so I've had a bit more reading time at last.

If I checked in two weeks ago, I had probably just started Swing Time. I really didn't expect it to take as long as it did to read, and I'm still not sure why I didn't finish it faster. I really enjoyed it, so I may have been unconsciously stringing it along...but it worked out this time, because it gave me the opportunity to pause and think about each stage of the main character's life. All of the characters were so well done and so much like people you meet in real life that I got pretty caught up in wondering what they were going to do next in the way you wonder about real life acquaintances. There were a few moments where it did feel a bit like things were written with some kind of English class in symbolism in mind, but not enough to put me off. This was IRL book club #3's February selection, and I didn't finish in time to discuss it with them, which is unfortunate since it would be a good one to discuss. I'll have to rope them into talking about it after the main discussion next month...:)

I'm now reading IRL book club #1's pick for the virtual meetup this Sunday - The School of Essential Ingredients. It also has realistic characters, but layered with this almost magical style like Aunt Dimity, Maeve Binchy, etc. It's a really quick read and hard to put down, so I'll probably finish tonight and not be rushing to read the morning of the meetup as I've been doing lately!

QOTW: I'm glad someone clarified that we're talking about the 21st century, since there is no shortage of 20th century representation on school book lists! But thinking about what will be timeless is difficult without knowing where the world will be at the end of the century. Picture a group having this conversation in 1921 about the books that had come out since 1900 - you'd probably hear a lot more Zane Gray and Edgar Rice Burroughs titles, and not a lot about folks who'd had books out but were yet to hit their peak fame like James Joyce, Kafka, etc. - and if the group was entirely made up of adults, they probably wouldn't even think about the books from that era that have had the most enduring popularity - Secret Garden, Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan, Wizard of Oz, etc.

So by that logic, I'm going to guess that we would be really surprised if we were still around to see what people are reading 100 years from now, but that we've probably heard of some of the authors. I'm pulling for the Night Circus, too, Sheri. :)