EPBOT Readers discussion
2021 Reading Check Ins
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Week 16 Check In
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Wow, I actually happened to see the notification the same day you posted the thread and am not the last person to check in for once - woo hoo! I hope you feel better soon, Sheri - I lucked out and had no side effects to speak of from either dose, but I've known several folks who were pretty wiped out for a while after both Pfizer and Moderna - they've all recovered, and I hope you do, too!I finished The Once and Future Witches, and I will hold off on saying much about it until the threads are posted, since it's pretty action-packed and it seems like just about anything could be considered spoilery. I will say, though, for those who haven't started, that because of how much happens, it's not one you can breeze through, so plan for it to take a little while.
I'm now reading IRL book club #3's pick for next week, A Fatal Grace. It is pretty short, so it feels like a pamphlet after Once and Future Witches. I'm probably about 40% through, and it's starting to pick up - the first few chapters were like being firehosed with fatphobia, which is thus far only marginally related to the main plot, so that did not put me in a generous mood toward the author - but I don't remember that being a major thing in the first one in the series, so I'm trying to keep an open mind.
QOTW: I'm not always up to date on what's coming soon, but a few that I've heard about that I'm looking forward to are Project Hail Mary, Once Upon a Broken Heart, Gilded, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, and Here's To Us.
I got lucky and was able to get my first Pfizer shot yesterday, since they opened up a mass vaccination site at the park-and-ride right near our house. Today, I feel tired, headache-y, and my arm hurts where I got that shot, but otherwise I don't feel too bad. Glad I took the day off from work, though.Last week I finished The Once and Future Witches, and I liked it a lot. It was a faster read than I was expecting for such a long book. I wasn't sure what other prompts to use it for, so it's my book from the TBR chosen at random. With "random" in quotation marks, I suppose. ;)
I'm currently reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January by the same author. So far I'm enjoying it, but it's a bit different from what I was expecting. I'm not the biggest fan of the cover art, so I'm using it for the ugliest cover prompt.
QOTW: I have a bunch I'm really looking forward to coming out (or just came out) this year: Soulstar, Fugitive Telemetry, From Little Tokyo, with Love, Project Hail Mary, both new Becky Chambers....
This year, I am trying to walk all the streets in my city (using Strava and CityStrides to track), so when someone recommended On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes, I thought I would give it a try. The author is a psychology professor who goes on different walks in New York City with different experts to see how they view things differently. I liked it but needed to read one chapter at a time spread out. My favorites were the typographer (you can estimate when businesses were established by the font on their signs) and geologist, who helped her notice sea creature fossils embedded in the stone materials of buildings. I also read My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, which was a book for my IRL book club. I was prepared to read it even if I didn't like it even though it had potential to be sad (grandmother dies is part of the blurb), because I needed a translation for book nerds challenge, but there was enough humor and interesting characters in it that it was fine. I can handle sad, just not everyone being miserable.
After those two, I wanted to read something I knew I would like, so did the next chronicles of St. Mary's, Lies, Damned Lies, and History. I love having series that I reliably enjoy.
For QOTW, I am now looking forward to the next Becki Chambers (thanks for heads up, Jennifer). Other 2021 books I have reserved at the library are Project Hail Mary, The Witness for the Dead (sequel to Goblin Emperor), Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo, and the next Veronica Speedwell.
My hold just came in on The Once and Future Witches, so that'll be on tap for me!This week I finished Vingt mille lieues sous les mers. I probably should have quit, but a. I kept waiting for an incident I was pretty sure I remembered, and which didn't appear until like 80% through, and b. I got kind of caught up in the "what's Captain Nemo's deal" thing, about which I remembered basically nothing.
It was kind of funny from a language perspective, in that I didn't know like half the words, but it wasn't so much a French issue as a general nautical vocabulary deficiency. Like, it was clear from context that "bâbord" and "tribord" were the sides of the ship, and you could tell me which was "port" and "starboard", but that would give me no additional information. I looked up "écueil" after it kept popping up, and it means "skerry", which is apparently a small, rocky island. I even looked up some of the fish, some of which must have been outdated or idiosyncratic names because I couldn't even find them, and even when it was "sea bream" or whatever, that doesn't tell me much.
Anyway, if you're interested in this book, I truly and sincerely recommend getting an abridged children's edition.
After that I needed something a little snappier, so I read Green for Danger, which I had seen recommended in the Golden Age Detection group. It was an interesting setting - a military hospital during WWII - and I liked the closed group of suspects and didn't want any of them to have done it. The detective character wasn't very interesting, though, and although he says fairly early that he knows who did it, he decides he has to basically harass all the suspects until the murderer confesses (without saying who it is, of course), so that part kind of dragged. I will admit that I absolutely should have seen the motive, but I absolutely did not, so good misdirection from the author there.
QOTW: I am stoked for Dead Dead Girls, which was on Goodreads' "mysteries by Black women" list and comes out in June. I feel like I've been into the 20s lately, possibly because it is the 20s, but also I guess hedonistic escapism? Anyway it sounds fun.
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A Guide to the Birds of East Africa - was sweet and lovely and I never would have picked it up on my own, so thank you Rebecca! I used it as a book recommended by someone else doing the challenge (I don't know if you're specifically doing the challenge, but I think it fits the spirit of the prompt either way).
The House in the Cerulean Sea - five stars on this one. Absolutely gorgeous setting and I fell fiercely in love with every single one of the characters. Used for a book about hope.
The Once and Future Witches - can't wait to discuss with you all. I loved it. I went with "book that gave you goosebumps" because I definitely had some goosebump moments.
After two gorgeous fantasies in a row I felt like I needed something completely different, so now I am reading The Evolution of Useful Things: How Everyday Artifacts-From Forks and Pins to Paper Clips and Zippers-Came to be as They are.. Someone had recommended it to me long ago and I happened to search for it on my library digital site and it was available, so I just started. So far it's interesting, but kind of dry - I would love to see what someone like Malcolm Gladwell could do with the same subject matter. But it's still fascinating to learn the history of how all these things changed into what they are today!
QOTW: I'm waiting anxiously for Leviathan Falls, the final book in the Expanse series. I can't wait to see how it all wraps up, there are SO many threads to tie together.
Back after who knows how many weeks of a dry spell. About 6. Now I know why placing holds at the library generally isn't for me. Because now I have three books that I've started and can't finished within 12 weeks if I wanted to!So my one finish is a physical book, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, a business strategy book I've been wanting to get around to for years. It was ok, but it's not aging terribly well. I have three post-it notes marking bits I found interesting, which is very few for me. Debating whether to use it for Book Nerds prompt "related to water" or "color in the title".
18/100, which GR cheerfully informs me is 13 books behind schedule LOL
Maybe I'll get a few graphic novels under my belt to get me back on track!
QoTW: I'm not waiting on anything new from a series, and I'm not super into the latest releases (see rant above!), so... I am looking forward to getting my mitts on The Echo Wife, which came out in December.
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In any case, my husband took out and read, and then gave to me as it is both due relatively soon and short (about 120 pages) a book about coasting schooners in Maine. We vacation often in the summer on a schooner in Maine. This is written from the industrial perspective, not the current-day hospitality industry. The book is Lost Maine Coastal Schooners: From Glory Days to Ghost Ships.
That interrupted my reading of The Brothers K which I am trying to finish before my daughter visits and wants it back.
That interrupted my reading of The Once and Future Witches which I was very much enjoying. That will have to go back to the library in a few weeks so I'll need to get it again and/or see if I want it on audiobook.
And speaking of audiobooks, I'm STILL listening to Babylon's Ashes. Probably less than 2 hours left. Clearly it is reaching the climax and these last several chapters is the climax from the varying POVs.
QOTW: I'm rarely on the bleeding edge of reading. The only thing I even know of is Project Hail Mary because I pre-ordered it as a gift to my husband. I will definitely read it after him.
Hello! Hope everyone is doing well and having a nice weekend.Since last check in I've had a few finishes -
Picked up Home, the second in a trilogy of novellas. It was nicely done, and an interesting continuation of the first book, but I remain sad that they are novellas rather than full length novels since it feels like there's a lot more detail to go into that just gets glossed over.
Next was The Hangman's Daughter, which I've had sitting in my kindle library forever. I really enjoyed this one, it's a fun historical fiction murder mystery and I liked the occasional sections done from the point of view of the baddies as a way to give little hints and clues about what was going on.
After that I read The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury after being tipped of about the Amazon world book day giveaway, and it was alright. A bit predictable/obvious as far as the plot goes, and some slightly annoying characters, but an easy read.
Finally, I ended up with my library hold for Klara and the Sun coming in, so was very excited to get stuck into that. Ended up reading it in one day, and very much enjoyed it. Really interesting having it narrated from the non-human point of view, especially with getting a feel for how an AI might actually perceive the world and process information. I'd like to have learned more about the society it was set in, but there's also something nice about just knowing what the narrator knows, as limited as that may be. It's left me thinking over some of the issues, so that's always a good thing.
QOTW: I pretty much never know what's coming out, and usually just stumble across things at the library eventually. However, using goodreads more has meant that I do see more of the new releases coming out. Klara and the Sun was actually one that I was excited about for this year, and I'm glad I got to read it sooner rather than later.
EPBOT Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
The Strange Journey of Alice Pendelbury (other topics)Klara and the Sun (other topics)
Home (other topics)
The Hangman's Daughter (other topics)
The Once and Future Witches (other topics)
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Got my first shot Saturday, makes me feel like there's some progress! Got a migraine after it, not sure if it was a usual migraine or one triggered by the shot. In any case felt pretty wiped out all last weekend and early this week, so didn't read as much as usual.
Finished:
Dawn - this was pretty good, not amazing. I'll still finish the series eventually. Counted for Popsugar Afrofutrism, Book Nerds one-word title, ATY book related to "in the beginning".
Currently reading:
The Once and Future Witches - got impatient and got this physically from the library, about half through. Hopefully can get some questions up next week! I'm liking it so far!
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars - audio book, I seriously only checked this out because Jennifer Hale is reading it. It's like Commander Shepard is reading me a story, and it's great. I'd heard that it was a bit lackluster, and I'm not really a Eragon fan so I went into it with pretty low expectations. I'm actually enjoying the story more than expected. I see a lot of sci fi nods, but that's pretty typical. I'm finding it pretty interesting, overall.
1Q84 - still plugging away.
QOTW:
Are there any books that either just came out this year or are coming out later this year that you're really excited about?
I really want to read The Galaxy, and the Ground Within which is pretty new, looking forward to the newest Murderbot book, I think Alecto the Ninth is due out at some point this year too. I got the ARC of Broken: In the Best Way by Jenny Lawson, and it just officially came out. I LOVED that one. I'm sure there's others, but that's what I can think of offhand!