EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone!

Hope everyone's reading is going well!

I had a lackluster reading week this week. I spent most of it on The Blind Assassin . It was Easter weekend and I had house guests, and got roped into hosting dinner for Easter last second. But a lot of it was just that I really wasn't feeling it. I know I should probably just learn to let it go and leave books as DNF. But it had great reviews and it's Margaret Atwood so I kept plugging away waiting for it to improve. I guessed the big twist less than halfway through, so the ending was just kind of a letdown.

Last night once I finished, I rewarded myself by reading Adulthood Is a Myth which was recommended to me by my librarian friend. I'd been saving it for when I needed a break or was in a slump, so I figured now was a good time.

Currently i'm reading Injection, Vol. 2 which I'll probably finish at lunch. Taking a break with it, too. It's a good comic, about a virus that distorts reality and the people who created it.

A new library book just came up this morning so I'll start that next, Welcome to Night Vale. It'll be my book with multiple authors. I haven't gotten into the podcast, so hopefully I can still get something out of it. It looks like from the description it's more of a stand alone mystery in the universe.

I also realized that a book I read a few weeks ago, Heartache came out this year so I can move it to that prompt.

I'm now at 32/52

How's everyone else doing? (by everyone I'm looking at you Stephanie, since you're the main person who also posts ;) )

Hahaha! Well, I admire that you keep the tone inclusive, even though it's usually just you and I. I suspect we have a few lurkers that check in on the conversation periodically, so I'd like to believe we're not entirely alone. I enjoy my Friday morning check in with you, Sherri!

Margaret Atwood is hit or miss for me. Which feels like Heresy putting out in the world, as I'm a proud Canadian and she's a national treasure. In fact, let me go one step further and say there are works of hers that I really can't stand (I'm looking at you Surfacing). I'm actually a former high school English teacher and someone tried to convince me to teach this book once and I had to put my foot down and say no. For me, Surfacing represents Atwood's works that are too "in your face," unsubtle works with political messages that practically brow beat you as a reader. (Things I'm not supposed to say about an iconic piece of feminist literature, I know, but there is it). However, I LOVE The Handmaid's Tale and I'm so excited that it's coming out as a series (this week, I think). I think she's really at her best when she does distopian Sci-Fi as the separation from the "real" world makes her allegories much more palatable, at least for me. In fact, I have the MaddAddam trilogy on my list this year because I read Oryx and Crake years ago and absolutely loved it (it reminds me of Brave New World), so I'm re-reading that (book with a character's title in the name) as well as The Year of the Flood (book about an interesting woman) and MaddAddam (book set in two time periods), and I'm really looking forward to diving in to these!

But, enough about Margaret Atwood and the possibility that I will lose my citizenship because I don't love all of her books...Last week I managed to read TWO books! A Journey of the Heart (a book with travel) and A Hero's Tale (a book set in the wilderness). As I mentioned last week, these two books are part of a trilogy, and I read the first book last year. These are such lovely books--really some of my favourites I've read in quite some time, and I can't put my finger on why except to say that they are quiet books about the power of self-reflection, coming of age, and love and just really beautifully written. They're technically classified as "Lesbian fiction" and the main love stories do all occur between women, but they really focus more on the transformative power of love in such a way that I didn't even realize that these books would be categorized in that way. However, no one told my Kobo algorithms that, and now I have all sorts of suggestions for this genre and my husband is wondering what I've been reading, haha. At any rate, I would recommend these books to anyone who loves a book with good character development and a focus on relationships of all sorts.

I've moved on to Shadow of a Century: An Irish Love Story as my book with a subtitle. It's also a book set in two time periods, but I've already picked out one of the Atwood books for that. It's...okay. I can't say that I'm truly enjoying it as the author seems pretty inexperienced in terms of building consistent characters who act in a logical manner, but it's early times and I'm looking forward to seeing how the two narratives from different times eventually intersect. Also, it's a quick read that Kobo was giving away for free, so if I end up not enjoying it more, I guess I got what I paid for, heh.

So, that puts me at 16/40. Not bad, considering I didn't start the challenge until February!

Oh, good to know that about Surfacing. I'd actually put a request in for that at my library, because I wanted a book about women in the wilderness for that prompt. Surfacing came up when I was googling for titles. (It just seems like most wilderness books tend to be about men going off and roughing it. I just wanted something different than that) It sounds like maybe your choice is more what I'm looking for. Or at least one of the other options listed.

Also good to know about the Oryx and Crate because it was recommended to me, and I'm #1 on the waiting list for it. but after Blind Assassin, I've been feeling wary about it. Relieved that Nightvale came up first.

Hi! I'm a lurker here! I'm not doing any challenges and don't read at the rates you do. But I very much enjoy reading everything you're both writing.

Hi Susan! Glad you are enjoying following! :D and no worries, I know I read an abnormal amount.

Yay, Susan! Thanks for commenting and I'm glad are enjoying our book-based banter. :-) Have you read anything interesting lately?

Sherri, I have often wondered how the heck you read so much. I usually squeeze in a half hour over my breakfast and then a half hour at lunch (but not this week--work has been a gong show). I'm lucky if I can get in some time in the evening, but usually I fall asleep and wake up with a book or my Kobo snuggled on my pillow beside me. I'm going to try to squeeze in an hour tonight though--we'll see if I can stay up that long!

I work from home, so I don't have commutes or anything. So I generally end up with an hour or more in the morning, an hour at lunch, I read while my husband cooks and while we eat. )we chat other times). Plus at work a lot of times I end up having down time if I'm waiting for files to upload or things to load etc. plus I'm a fast reader, so that reading time is pretty productive. I also have no kids to take up time.

Hello, everyone :) I'm also a lurker who's been enjoying the conversation. I used to have hour-long lunch breaks and lots of downtime for reading, but I started a new job in February that has almost anihilated my customary reading time. Im slowly finding ways to sneak it back into my day (the goodreads # of books challenge compels me).

Re:Margaret Atwood - I also really appreciated The Handmaid's Tale, but everything else I've read has fallen flat. I'm entranced by her talent for stringing words together in beautiful ways, but the content is such a snore. I made it through The Blind Assassin, but Oryx & Crake was my breaking point. I know she vehemently swore it wasnt SF, but I'm sorry, Maggie, it was. And terrible SF at that. It was so busy hitting you over the head with the 'genetic tampering is bad!' message that there was no room left for a story or character developent, or anything to spark an iota of interest. To say I hated that book would be an understatement :)

This week's reading? Well, coincidentally, I read a fantastic example of near future SF done right - Parasite by Mira Grant. Not for the faint of heart, but very well written, genuinely creepy, and quite a thriller. Unfortunately, it ended with a pretty obvious reveal and a cliffhanger, so I'm going to have to get the next book in the series (Symbiont) to see where its all going.

Currently reading another Janet Evanovich book (Finger lickin' 15) and a really wonderful foodie memoir, Untangling my Chopsticks: A Culinary Sojourn in Kyoto.

Kristi, I just recently discovered Mira Grant too! I actually have been reading

Kristi, I also recently discovered Mira Grant, with Feed. It was the first Newsflesh book. I've been reading Seanan MacGuire for years, didn't realize she had an alter ego. I liked it a lot, but I think I need print for the rest. Hearing people read the difficult parts was upsetting, I want to be able to skim if necessary.

Oryx and crate is on my holds list, so I guess we'll see. If I can't get through it I'll accept she's just an author that I like exactly one book from.

Since I don't read enough to do this weekly, I'll post what I've read lately (which is 2017-ish). Due to FoE I've discovered Liane Moriarty and have finished Big Little Lies (totally before I ever heard it was going to be a movie/show) and The Husband's Secret. I enjoyed both of those a lot and expect to read more from her. I'm currently reading Good Omens I think recommended by one or both of Sheri and Stephanie, but not in the last week or so due to life happening. I also read Ready Player One for the FoE book club here. You've all probably read my opinion on that!

Non-fiction lately has been The Nature Fix by Florence Williams. That was a bit of preaching to the choir because I'm a big outdoors person. I also got most of the way through The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. I didn't finish because it eventually got a bit beyond my layman interest. But the first two-thirds are fascinating and worth reading. I also finished Unmentionables: The Victorian's Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage and Manners. That was entertaining.

I subscribe to a bunch of magazines so I have to periodically (like now) have to take time to get through them and get them read and recycled out of my house! So Good Omens is on hold for the moment until that pile is smaller.

Susan, hope you are enjoying good omens! I really love it, myself.

I think the general consensus for book club was unmentionables for the next book, so you're ahead of the game there!

Hello - Another lurker here who also enjoys the conversations. :) I'm still working my way through my 2016 reading challenge. It was 52 books - 26 that came across my Pinterest feed supplemented with 26 from the 2016 PopSugar challenge. I knew it was quite ambitious for me to do 52 books, but I also loved that it pushed me outside my reading comfort zone (primarily murder mystery fiction). I ended up making it through 25 last year and am set on finishing it this year. So far I've finished 10 books from the list +3 that don't fit in any of the categories I have left.

Currenlty I'm reading The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston. It doesn't fit into any category I have left, but I thought it sounded interesting. I'm about half way through and it's keeping my attention. Sometimes there is too much history presented, but overall I like it. Before that I read Ready Player One. I haven't posted my thoughts yet, mostly because I don't feel like I have insightful things to say. I digress. Before that I was reading a string of non-fiction related to the 1996 Mount Everest climbing tragedy (Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, The Climb by Anatoli Bourkeev, and After the Wind by Lou Kasischke). I find it fascinating that there are so many accounts written about the same event and that each of them brings such a different and unique perspective to what happened.

The Handmaid's Tale has been sitting on my bookshelf for a few years and has recently been recommened to me on two separate occassions. After the mentions here, I think that will be next for me.

Hi Sara, glad you enjoy the conversations!

That's cool that you kept with the challenge, even into this year!

And it's totally valid to read books that don't fit a challenge. The challenges are supposed to be fun, and to get you reading more. That doesn't happen if you start resenting the challenge because it's keeping you from reading something you really want to. :)

Also for the Ready Player One discussion, it's very informal. It's totally fine if you want to post something simple like "I liked/didn't like it because____". No worries about coming up with deep and meaningful insights!

Handmaid's Tale is really good, although can be a really uncomfortable read. Still worth doing, though.

Please don't let the Night Vale novel have any effect on the likelihood of you listening to the podcast. They are vastly different.

Genevieve, I actually started the pot cast before I even finished the book, haha. I like it so far, about 5 episodes in.

Wow--this thread has really exploded! :-) It's so great to hear from everyone, particularly about Atwood: it's validating my somewhat on-again, off-again relationship with her works, heh. I feel like we're going to have to have an Oryx and Crake thread so we can all battle it out there once Sheri has read it ;-). Kristi, I did not realize that Atwood said it wasn't science fiction. What the heck? It's science fiction through and through. I found it interesting that you feel about it the same way I do about Surfacing in terms of blatant messaging. I'm looking forward to tackling this book again with fresh eyes and about 10 years of new perspective since I last read it. Perhaps I won't like it as much this time around!

This thread is also making me feel the challenge to read some non-fiction. I still have about 10 prompts I haven't selected books for, so maybe I'll aim to have a couple of non-fiction in there (although I do have Trevor Noah's Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood on my list for a book written by a person I admire). I spend a good chunk of my day reading academic journal and books, so fiction is my escape, but this thread reminds me that there are lots of interesting non-fiction options out there, too.

I haven't posted to the Ready Player One Discussion. I read it too far ahead of the posting date and then kind of forgot about the thread. I'm going to check it out and add my thoughts sometimes this week.

I feel like there's a lot of sci-fi authors who claim their work isn't sci-fi for fear of being dismissed as genre writers. I know Ursula K Le Guin's struggled to not be lumped in with sci-fi genre writers, trying to have her works be seen as literature. Maybe it stems back from the pulp days where a lot of sci fi was about men with laser guns shooting aliens on the moon or whatever. So writers who want to be taken seriously try to distance themselves from the label?

Earlier I read Lizard Radio, and the author said they were surprised that some people labeled their work sci-fi. But it fit really well into the whole dystopian literature trend, followed a lot of the established tropes.

Other non-fiction I'm a fan of include the books by Michael Pollan. I've also pretty much read, cover-to-cover all of the Alton Brown books. His Good Eats series of 3 I read like novels rather than just a reference for cookbooks. After seeing Hamilton on Broadway last summer, I ate up Lin Manuel-Miranda's Hamilton: The Revolution. I also got about 1/3 of the way through Chernow's Hamilton biography. I stopped because I read before bed and it was too stimulating and was keeping me up.

Thank you for the recommendations, Susan. The last good non-fiction book I read was Salt: A World History, so I thinking about maybe going for Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World for my book about food, but I do love me some Alton Brown, so perhaps I'll check out one of his Good Eats books. Or I suppose I could read one for the "first book in a series you haven't read before" prompt if I want to do both! I had Divergent down for that, but it will keep for later.

I have Salt on the wait list at the library. Three more people and then I'll be reading it, too. :). I read Kurlansky's other fish book last year (Four Fish? I'm on mobile and can't check right now) and really enjoyed it. Very insightful and a quick, easy read to boot.