Week 5 Check In

[Sheri]

Hi all,
Trying to get this in early while I have a lull! Little quieter this week, although got a lot of snow yesterday. Husband and I have alternated shoveling, went out 5 times to manage it all. (we were only clearing an inch or two at a time, probably got less than 8in total).

Book Club

Since we got a late start on book selection, I decided to just call it on the poll. It didn't look like the numbers had changed since i checked it a few days ago, and The Thursday Murder Club is far enough ahead I don't see 6 people swooping in and voting for the second choice in the next couple days. I set up a pre-reading post, if anyone wants to share their thoughts before getting started. Luckily I kind of suspected this would win, my hold just came in! I will hopefully get it read shortly and get up some questions.

This week I finished:

Alkarra Awakening - I like this series, someone in discord mentioned that the author was giving away free copies of the first book. When I grabbed it, I saw the whole series was only about 5 bucks so I just grabbed it all. Good decision!

Nightbitch - I don't even know how to feel about this! I had hoped it would be funny, but it wasn't really. It kind of reminded me of Black Swan (the movie) meets The Metamorphosis. It stirred up a lot of emotions, but I have a hard time saying i LIKED it. TW: graphic animal deaths. But it did point out a lot of pitfalls of being a modern American mother, with all the rage of the unseen work women do being discounted because it doesn't come with a paycheck. Honestly it really brought up a lot of the reasons I chose to remain child free.

Bettie Page & The Curse of the Banshee #1 - slowly trying to catch up with comics in between books. This is a fun one.

The Deep - I liked this quite a bit, was a tough read at times. Was a different take on mermaids than you usually see.

Currently reading:

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - still doing audio re-read. I've not been in as much of an audio book groove lately. Kind of goes in phases for me, earlier i was tearing through them. Now I'm having to remind myself to listen.

Nettle & Bone - I won an ARC from goodreads! I started it right away, really liking it so far.

QOTW:

Do you participate in specialized reading for specialized months like Black History Month?

I personally don't do it in an intentional way. I try to diversify my reading year round, not condensed into months. My books & brew is reading The Vanishing Half for February, but I finished it in January. I happened to read the Deep this week, but that wasn't planned. I'm a mood reader, and I use the library a lot. A lot of times what I'm reading is based on "well, this is what came up in the library right now". Maybe some people are good at stacking their holds, I am not! I was concerned if I'd get The Thursday Murder club in time for book club or if Id have to try to get it in person or something, because it said I had 13 weeks to wait. It just came up for me yesterday. I can't plan around variances like that!

[Shel]

Hi all,
Last week I finished Detransition, Baby and really appreciated the window into trans culture (the author is a trans woman). I learned a lot and it was also a great story. Vague spoiler - (view spoiler)[don't read it if you are put off by an ambiguous ending! (hide spoiler)]

I also read Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood, which was an absolutely fascinating memoir that I couldn't put down.

Currently - I just started The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu, reading with my other GR group. I've never read any of Liu's novel-length work before, but I am blown away by his short stories (The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories is a brilliant anthology if you're into that kind of thing).

Still reading The Throne of Fire with fifth grader and on to Be Careful What You Sniff For with first grader.

QOTW: I also am trying to diversify my reading in general but don't necessarily time my reads with specialized times.

[Jen W.]

Sheri, I'm jealous of your Nettle & Bone arc. :) I love Ursula Vernon/T. Kingfisher, so anxiously awaiting that one.

Finished last week:
Vespertine - 4 stars - really enjoyable YA story about a novice nun who accidentally winds up summoning an "evil" spirit to protect her convent. Used it for the Popsugar prompt of a book about or set in a nonpatriarchal society.

A Night to Remember - 3 stars - a fast, short nonfiction read about the Titanic. I had read a post about the Carpathia, the ship that came to the rescue of the Titanic survivors, and was curious to find out more. Read for a book featuring a man-made disaster prompt, since all of this would have been so avoidable.

Manga - How Do We Relationship?, Vol. 2 - this one's cute. For lack of any other prospects, a pair of lesbian college friends decide to date each other.

Currently reading:
The Duke Who Didn't - I'm really enjoying this so far. I love Milan's writing and characters.

QOTW: I actively diversify my reading, but the library doesn't always cooperate with scheduled reading during a particular month. I have several books by Black authors on my TBR for this year. I'm hoping I can get to at least one of them in February for a group read from another group.

[Sheri]

Jen, I only just got into her after a wizards guide to defensive baking, but I loved it! I eventually intend to get into her back catalogue. Also it took me a minute to realize you were same Jen and not new Jen with the updated profile pic 😂

[Jen W.]

Oops, sorry! :D I forgot I changed it from the pixel art picture.

My first experience with her work was Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine, which is basically two halves of the same story. I completely fell in love with the characters.

[Rebecca]

I hope everyone in the Landon belt is doing well! We're below it here so it's just raining.

The Five Red Herrings - This is not a good Dorothy Sayers book! It is set in Scotland, so Lord Peter is away from his ideal society milieu, and much of the dialogue is in a transcribed brogue. The plot is very alibi-centric, all about who could have gotten from here to there by which train at what time, and there's a long section in which various people set out theories of how each of the six suspects (see the title) could have done it, and they are of course all wrong. There were a couple of racial slurs dropped (although not directed and anyone specifically), and there was one minor character who seemed like he had to be an offensive stereotype but I wasn't entirely sure of what (Googling confirmed my suspicion that he was supposed to be Jewish). Mark this one for completionists only.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law - I mostly enjoyed this, but I have some issues with it. I think it was ill served by the author's one-word title shtick; it's just a book about human-wildlife conflict. I also got annoyed by how many times she mentioned that someone wouldn't talk to her; if it's a lead that the reader will wonder about, sure, but there were a lot. Also I noticed that when it was a pest control product manager she wanted to ask about glue traps, it was a snarky, "You won't believe this, but she didn't answer," but when it was Jane Goodall, "Efforts to communicate directly with her were unsuccessful."

QOTW: I do love a theme, and I mostly try to avoid long holds, so I will sometimes do this. This month kind of snuck up on me, though, so I don't have anything planned yet. (What is time?) I'll see what I can do.

[Trystan]

since last check-in, i finished This Old Homicide (it was in-progress at the last check-in), World's End, and the Kindly Ones.

I'm now reading Crowned and Molding, the next Fixer-Upper Mystery.

QotW: not on purpose. if a book I'm reading goes with a month, all the better. ;)

[Kathy]

Finally picked up my reading pace a bit-guess 8" of snow helps :). Finally finished Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View I really liked the premise of this short story collection and came back to the real book after running out of steam on the audio book last year. For the 40th anniversary of the first Star Wars, 40 authors wrote a short story from the point of view of a minor character. From the first to the last story they cover the whole movie. Some I really liked, but I got stalled a bit with all the stories of the people in the cantina. I think the other reason I didn't enjoy it as much as I expected was that for many minor characters, their story was about what happened right before they died, which made it sadder than the movie where most of the good guys live.
One of my goto palate refreshers was Wedding Bells, Magic Spells, the next Raine Benares. They are always fun escapes, and somehow the next one is always available at my library electronically. I also found out that Lisa Shearin has another series, the SPI files, and I enjoyed the first one of those. Billed as Men in Black but for supernatural creatures instead of aliens. The Grendel Affair is first one. Unfortunately not all are online, but I will track them down.
Klara and the Sun was my last finish, went pretty quick. I was intrigued enough by page 50 to keep going, and then I wanted to know how it was going to end, but didn't really like it. Future world where teens get Artificial Friends to make up for the lack of socialization caused by remote schooling.
QOTW I don't usually try to match my reading to them months, but happy if a coincidence works out.

[Susan]

@rebecca - I had a similar reaction to Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. I finished it at the end of December. It is my least favorite Mary Roach book (I've read 3). It just didn't grab me like the other two.

@kathy - Similarly that was my experience and opinion with Klara and the Sun. It definitely pulled me in, I read it quickly, I wanted to know the story, but I also kind of didn't like it.

[Susan]

Some of you might be interested in this free, virtual event. My PBS station is running an event with Colleen Hoover who is the author of one of our past book club selections. They run a monthly "Beyond the Page" series where they talk with an author. WGBH is one of the largest PBS stations in the country, producing shows like Nova, Arthur, Zoom, etc.

https://www.wgbh.org/events/beyond-th...

[Daisy]

I really lost my reading mojo midway through last year but I have finally got it back after bingeing the silly cosy mystery series The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren and now completely engrossed in Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (described well as Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale)

[Sheri]

Glad to see you back Daisy!