EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi all, sorry for the super late post. Been a busy week with costume prep and inktober and home renovations.

Still in re read mode and busy so I just finished Winds of Fate, Winds of Change and am currently reading Winds of Fury.

QOTW:

What other sorts of hobbies do we all have, when not reading?

I draw/paint, cross stitch, knit, and want to start needlefelting. Also play some video games and do fitness stuff, like group classes and running.

This week I finally *finished* my books. I finished listening to Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Loved listening to LMM narrate this.

I also finished reading The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul. I do not want to time travel back to the Middle Ages I can tell you that. I very much enjoyed this book. The first couple of chapters felt a little slow and repetitive. But after that I totally got into it. After the first few chapters, the author examined about 20 people, mostly Middle Ages in Europe, thought to possibly have been poisoned/murdered and examines what was recorded about their death, what autopsies of the time said and what modern knowledge can tell us about what really (or likely) happened. I found it fascinating. The book then ends with a couple short chapters on poison in the modern world, primarily focused on Russia/USSR as "Modern Day Medicis" in the realm of poison.

I have two other books from the library, I haven't decided what to read next. I'll let you know next week.

I am very much into circus arts, taking 2-4 classes per week. Just spent 10 hours over the weekend at a workshop weekend out of state, taking 5 2-hour classes in various circus arts. I am happy, tired and a bit sore. I love to cook. I walk a lot with my neighbor or alone if she's gone. I also take a lot of general fitness classes at my gym.

It's prime book fair season in my parts (both universities I attended, plus the local Lions' club) so I have a whole new TBR stack! So far, I polished off

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don't Have with People You Don't Like Doing Things You Don't Want to Do - I needed a quick audiobook that day.
Zen and the Art of Running: The Path to Making Peace with Your Pace - I'm nowhere near the author's level as a runner, so there were bits where I just couldn't relate.
Adulthood Is a Myth - A collection as quirky and wonderful as her strips. My ATY "from the GR Best Books of the Month lists" prompt.
Saga, Vol. 4 - Read to see what the fuss is about. Would definitely read more.
Quelque part entre les ombres - This book and the next I bought simply for the fabulous illustrations. Think film noir in the Zootopia universe.
Arctic-Nation
Slaughterhouse-Five - I figured this list needed a classic to anchor it. Glad I read it, but didn't bowl me over.
The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit - Another very quick read, just because I enjoy Seth Godin. This will get passed on to someone in a professional rut.
Last Chance to See - Simply because I adore Douglas Adams and I was once an Ecology student. It's a heartbreaking read on extinction and conservation work, particularly since there's a chapter on the Northern White Rhino, the last male of which died earlier this year. This was my Book Riot "book about nature" prompt.

As a result, I am one book away from completing both the ATY and Book Riot challenges. My next read is French classic Le Rouge et le Noir, which will fill both remaining prompts, "A book that scares/intimidates you" and "An assigned book you hated or did not finish". I'm revisiting high school French class with this one and I'm dreading its 825 pages already.

I have two prompts remaining on the alphabet soup challenge - K and X. I will probably find something for those and intersperse it between the slogs of Stendhal.

QOTW: I draw/paint, run (obstacle races in particular), and in the fall... attend book fairs and plan next year's reading challenges :D (ATY prompts are already out and pretty much penciled in!)

Ohh, I’ve always wanted to try circus stuff, but my upper body strength is poor, and my efforts to improve seem stymied by crummy shoulders. Went to the ninja gym a few times, I couldn’t hang on anything for more than 10 seconds.

The silks are so cool though!

I also like obstacle races, I’ve done warrior dash the last several years :)

I've done 3 obstacle courses in the last year (and ever). I did two Spartan Sprints (one clean, one the typical muddy one) and a Rugged Maniac. I liked the laid back feeling of the Rugged Maniac one compared to the Spartans. I am signed up for a Terrain Race in Miami in Feb. These are all 5ks. Obstacle courses are only okay to me. I do them because my circus friends do them. I don't seek them out on my own. And I don't run (nor does about half my circus friends)! Thankfully we can power-walk with the best of them so our obstacle teams end up low in the timings but distance is not really the problem! I've gone to a ninja gym a few times, but I have to be careful not to get injured, honestly.

For circus, I started with flying trapeze 10 years ago. It is often called the gateway drug to the rest of the circus arts and that is true for me. I train flying trapeze still, handstands and lyra (aerial hoop) primarily. They're my passions. I also do partern acro. Silks and other climbing arts inflame my elbow tendinitis so I avoid those.

Hello All,

I've finally got my reading groove back! In the two weeks since I last posted, I finished off Norwegian Wood (loved it! And it didn't have the shocking reveal I thought it would) as well as:

The Snow Child. I though this book was stunningly beautiful and would re-read it again and again. Was it magical realism? I'm not sure (although I'd like to believe it was), and that was part of its appeal for me. Along with the beautiful descriptions of nature and the insight shown in to the characters by the author. This one checks of my Popsugar prompt for a book with weather in the title.

High Fidelity: A book that was a best seller in the year you graduated high school (yes, I'm that old!). I had high hopes for this book, but the main character was just so thoroughly unlikeable that I didn't enjoy reading it. However, since unlike-ability was what the author was going for, I say well done! I could see why this book was such a hit back in the day (and still resonates with men now), but it wasn't my cup of tea. Or, to go with the mid-90s rhetoric, "not my bag, baby!"

Dark Harvest: Book related to Hallowe'en (and when did we star taking the apostrophe out of Hallowe'en, anyway? [Shakes fist at sky because that's how they did it in my day]). This book was bleh. A YA novel about a yearly hunt of a pumpkin-headed monster that comes alive on Hallowe'en and has be be killed by a boy 16-18 years old before it reaches the church or else! What's the else, you ask? Good question, the author never answered it. Nor did he specify why the age range for the would be pumpkin headed guy killers. And aside from overlooking such detail as these, the narrative voice was SO ANNOYING (yes, annoying enough to be worth of all caps.) Between excessive use of second voice and short, declarative senates, I felt like I was in one of those Old Spice ads, but set in a horror novel. "Look over there. You see a pumpkin monster. Now look back at me. Now look at the shelf. There's a gun on it. Now take the gun. Now look back at me. I'm the pumpkin monster."

This morning I got through the first chapter of my book with my favourite colour in the title: Riders of the Purple Sage. It's too early to really get a feel for it, but I like it so far, although it seems a bit melodramatic. We'll see!

So, Riders of the Purple Sage not include, I'm now at 44/50 for the Popsugar challenge and feeling confident that I'll finish before the end of the year. I also have meet my Good Reads challenge of 60 books in 2018! (Currently sitting at 62).

QOTW: When I'm not reading, I do have a few other crafts and hobbies I like to get up to. I make needle felted animals (mostly for QUACK), and I'm currently taking a landscaping design course just for interest and with the hopes of getting some major work done on our backyard. Which also relates to my hobby of gardening, and I do a bit of woodworking on the side, too. I also love to bake, but rarely have people to bake for, so that's been on the sidelines for a while.