Week 18-19 Check in

[Susan]

I'll post this week. I just returned from a weekend trip so this is both Week 18 and 19 even if it is a few days later. How is everyone doing?

I actually do not have any finished for the past two weeks.

My in-progress books are House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family for neighborhood book club. I am super close to finishing. I'm not sure what to think of this book. The meta topic of French complicity in the Holocaust is very important. Some of the people in the author's family are interesting. Some are given a lot more attention than others.

My in-progress audiobook is The Kaiju Preservation Society. I'm loving this. I hope to finish this also this week as I am on chapter 24 of 29. I've been away and unable to walk alone so I didn't make much progress on it. Hopefully I'll also finish this one this week.

QOTW:
If you could say a sentence which the whole world could hear, what would you say?

I find the question interesting. But I don't have a good answer. My first inclination is something to the effect of "Live and let live." Or "Make your choices to have no regrets." But everyone is so different around the world that those feel small. I'll be interested to hear what others say.

[Susan]

And I finished House of Glass: The Story and Secrets of a Twentieth-Century Jewish Family a few hours later. I didn't realize how close I was to the end as there was a large section of acknowledgements.

[Sheri]

Hi all, sorry I didn't have a chance to post an update. I had a neurologist appointment where I reported that my new anti-migraine meds seemed to be working, just to be hit with a migraine that afternoon and then it lasted on and off for a week. So...that isn't ideal. I guess I'll give the meds another month or two, and then maybe make another appointment to reevaluate again, i don't think i want to wait another 6 months for my next follow up.

the last couple weeks I finished:

Kill the Farm Boy - i know a lot of people didn't really like this, but i thought it was alright. I think it's trying a little too hard to be Discworld, and doesn't quite have the easy humor. There's a difference between people who can easily tell a joke and people who are trying so hard to tell a joke, this felt a little bit like the latter. But I thought it had enough redeeming moments that I finished it, and I'd consider reading more eventually.

How Lucky - this was my books & brew book. I just thought it was ok. It was in a weird grey area of not exactly a thriller, not quite a mystery. There were parts i liked, but a lot of it was just not cup of tea. I think it was maybe the least we ever talked about a book at book club, too. Every one else seemed to like it, but there was nothing really amazing to talk about.

All Systems Red- been feeling crummy so been doing a murder bot relisten. I love murderbot.

Fevered Star - i was really looking forward to this one, but it fell a little flat for me. I think it had second book syndrome. Most of it felt like it was just setting things up for the final book of the trilogy. (I think it's a trilogy? i know there's going to be at least one more, I haven't heard anything about it being an ongoing series). I also get bored of politics in books, even if they're fantasy. Felt like there was just a lot of political grandstanding in this. I just was impatient wanting stuff to happen, and by the time stuff actually started to happen it was over with a "oh...i guess that all's going to happen in the next book". I'm hoping that means the next book will return to what i loved about the first one.

Sea of Tranquility - I liked this quite a bit. I wish i'd realized it was related to The Glass Hotel though, or I'd have tried to read it again, first. I still have mixed feelings about covid in current fiction, but at least this wasn't terribly bleak or disheartening to read, and it was pretty short. It was clearly a book the author was writing to sort of process her feelings of the past couple years.

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home - finished audio re-read. I really liked Mara Wilson's performance. Really good book if you like pirate adventure horror revenge stories.

Rogue Protocol, Artificial Condition. Exit Strategy - more murderbot audio re-reads

currently reading:

Book of Night - really liking this, should be able to finish it up today. I like authors who aren't afraid to write disaster women protagonists.

Network Effect - more murderbot re-read

QOTW: Hm. I always liked Neil Gaiman's quote "Make good art", but i'd maybe qualify it to just "Make art". Since I think Americans in particular have a hang up where if you're not "good" enough at an art form that you could make money doing it then you might as well not even bother. I think there's a great benefit to just...doing art. Dance, badly, sing badly, draw poorly. It's fine! You'll get better the more you do it. And even if you never get "good", who cares? Do it because it makes you happy or helps you express feelings or feels good. And I define art as whatever works for you. Baking, writing, sewing, knitting, cooking, arranging flowers, etc. Some form of creative expression.

[Shel]

Lots of good stuff for me in the past few weeks.

Fevered Star - I liked just as much if not more than the first book. I just love this setting.

Akata Woman - third book in the trilogy, and although it was good to spend more time with the characters, I didn't think it was quite as good as the first two.

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear - and I'm just realizing that I never posted to the discussion thread about it! Will go do that next.

Paola Santiago and the River of Tears - really engaging little middle grade/YA fantasy steeped in Mexican folklore. My son is doing a book report on it and wanted me to read it so I could help him out. Two words: chupacabra puppy. :)

The Serpent's Shadow - also with my son, finally finishing up the Kane Chronicles. He wants to continue on with the Trials of Apollo books but I'm making him take a break from Rick Riordan. I think I'm going to do Where the Red Fern Grows with him next, which is one of my favorite books of all time.

Under the Whispering Door - lovely book! I thought it was a little heavy handed with its Message, but it was still beautifully written with a cast of characters that I just adored. And I cried.

Now I'm almost finished with When the Sparrow Falls. It's one that I probably wouldn't have picked up on my own but my other group chose it for our May science fiction selection and I'm glad because I'm really enjoying it.

QOTW: Oooh, that's a tough one. I will have to think about that a bit. Something about respecting everyone's lived experience, maybe.

[Jen W.]

Hi guys! I'm almost on vacation! I'm off work for two weeks starting on Thursday, and flying down to Anaheim, CA on Saturday for a trip to Disneyland and a convention that was rescheduled from 2020 (Star Wars Celebration). I'm really looking forward to the time off. Nervous about the pandemic and the convention, but I'm fully vaxxed and I've got masks and will be wearing them anytime I'm indoors or crowded in with people. Hopefully, that will be enough.

I've had a few finishes since the last check-in:
Seasonal Fears - 4.5 stars - for the prompt, a different book by an author you read in 2021. This is a companion novel to Middlegame. I liked Middlegame better, but this was still really good, except that the ending felt very abrupt.

Year of the Reaper - 4.5 stars - for the prompt, a book by a Pacific Islander author. I had never heard of this author before, and that's a shame, because this was an excellent fantasy novel. It's shelved as YA but didn't read very YA to me at all. Probably because the main character was an 18-year-old man who had been through a lot before the story even began.

Comics & manga:
Huda F Are You?
Yona of the Dawn, Vol. 35
Skip·Beat!, Vol. 46
Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, Vol. 13

Currently reading:
Ballad & Dagger - I rearranged my prompts to put this one under a book that features two languages. So far it's really good.

QOTW: That's a tough question. I keep thinking just "be good to each other" or something.

I like your answer, Sheri. I think if more people were encouraged to creative pursuits without the end goal of turning them into a "side hustle" then the world would be a much better place.

[Rebecca]

I read more books than I thought I would, but some of them were short.

Out of the Shadow of a Giant: Hooke, Halley, and the Birth of Science - This book's premise is basically that Robert Hooke initially had the physical insights behind some of "Newton's laws" but Newton got the credit because he did the math (and was a prickly jerk about it). It felt like Halley got shoehorned in because he kind of mediated between Hooke and Newton; there wasn't as much about him. It was an entertaining read (I enjoyed the "choose your own adventure" English spelling in the quoted 17th-century texts) and a good reminder that the individual genius idea of science is not the whole story.

The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne - This worked pretty well to follow the above, as it's basically the same setting of gentleman natural philosophers (Halley was even mentioned). It's an entertaining if slightly ridiculous mystery in which everyone has secrets and we just go through them all one by one until we get to the murderer.

Rogue Protocol - Although I certainly don't dislike them, I am still not among the many who absolutely love Murderbot. I thought this one was slightly more entertaining than the previous, and I will eventually read the last free novella, but unless that one really surprises me I'll probably stop there.

The Marlow Murder Club - So I have been waiting to read this since I saw a pre-publication review from the UK in December 2020. It finally came out in the US this month and it is...fine. It's remarkably similar to The Thursday Murder Club, and not just in the title; if I didn't know the publication dates, I might suspect shenanigans, but I guess it's just one of those cultural zeitgeist things (like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell or whatever). Anyway if you liked that one, I think you'd enjoy this.

QOTW: It's hard not to think of silly things. I'd be tempted to do something like, "Listen!" which is technically a full sentence. It is solid advice, but would be pretty confusing if the entire world heard that and then nothing further.

[Trystan]

since last check-in, i finishe Have You Seen Luis Velez?

now I've started on my Han Solo Trilogy reread while i wait for books from the library. i finished the Paradise Snare, and am now reading The Hutt Gambit.

QotW: "Every person has worth and dignity."

[Susan]

@sheri - I just ordered Sea of Tranquility from my library but have not read The Glass Hotel. Should I return it and not read it until I do so? Or does it stand on its own?

Also I like your answer of "Make art". I've become a performance artist of sorts in my older years now. Mine is better than some and far worse than people who do it professionally but I do it for me because it is fun.

[Sheri]

Susan, I think you'll be fine. It just mentions some characters from the first one, and I wanted to remember their connections more. But if you don't know their connections at all, I don't think it'll bother you NOT knowing them. It was more the "vaguely remembering but not quite connecting" that was bothering me.