EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone!

Combining check ins to end the year, I was just so busy with work/holiday prep last week I just had no time to write one up.

Hope those that celebrate had a nice Christmas, and that those that don't have been having a nice week :)

This week I finished:

The Assassin King - Woo finished this, can start the next two books that I haven't read, hopefully fitting them into challenges once the new year starts.

Blood Rites - finished listening to the audio book for this while working on all my Christmas cards.

Dragondrums - wanted something nice and easy to read on Christmas while I relaxed and enjoyed being done with family and frantic prep.

currently reading: Ancillary Mercy - I figured this would be hardest of my current library books out to fit into prompts next year so started on it now. Should finish it up before the new year starts.

QOTW:

Now that we're at the end of the year, what were your notable reads of the year? Anything surprise you?

I think The Golem and the Jinni was one of my surprises. It was a random book I pulled off the shelf at the library, because it was pretty. It had blue edged pages and a pretty blue and bronzy cover, and it sounded interesting enough that I was willing to try it. Ended up loving it!

I really loved Spinning Silver, although that wasn't a surprise so much since Uprooted by the same author is a fantastic book as well. I love a good fairy tale retelling, and this one was done really well.

I also really enjoyed Sourdough. it was an interesting book, didn't really fit into a particular genre. Not really sci fi, since most the technology is at elast within reasonable grasp soon, if not now. The sourdough starter seemed to have some sort of magical powers, but not really enough that'd I'd call the book magical realism. It was fun though, and I'm glad I read it.

Hope everyone has a fantastic new year, see you at the start of a new reading year!

Hello All,

Woot! I finally finished the popsugar challenge (approx. 10 minutes before posting this, heh). Here's how the end went, squeaking in with just 4.5 days left in the year.

When last I checked in, I was working on Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch as the book with two authors prompt. I had to temporarily put that on hold because the next book I had waiting in the wings got recalled and I only had three days to read it. And so I plunged headlong into For a Lost Soldier for the prompt of a book related to your ancestry. And what a surprise it turned out to be. I choose it because it takes place in Friesland (a rural province of the Netherlands) during WWII, which is exactly where my mom's family was living at the time, before they came to Canada. It takes place during liberation, and, since the Netherlands was liberated by Canadians, it seemed to check a lot of boxes on the ancestry prompt. So, I looked up its location at the university where I work and noticed it's housed in the Pride Library...hmmm. Turns out it's a fairly well-known novel published by the Gayman's Press about the sexual awakening of a boy who catches the eye of one of the soldiers. So, that was the surprise, but I've always said that these reading challenges are all about expanding my reading in the genres I don't usually pick up! There was a lot that I liked in this book: I've heard my uncles tell stories about living in Friesland during the war, and the Fries family in the book in many ways reminded me of my own, so it was fascinating to read the story from that perspective, particularly since there aren't exactly a lot of books published in English that are set in Friesland! I found the events between the boy and the solider very uncomfortable reading because much of the interaction between them reads more like child abuse than consent--it's narrated from the boy's perspective and he acknowledges this later in the book. So, those scenes were very difficult to read. The book did really challenge me to think about how men relate to each other in a way I haven't read in any other book, and I'm glad I read it.

After that, I picked up Good Omens again and finished it off. As I noted last check in, this was a re-read for me and I think I liked it even more this time around.

And for my final PopSugar book, I got started on the Discworld Series with The Colour of Magic. This was the book about a villan or antihero prompt. I'm hoping to make my way through the series in the next year or two, so I purposely put this one at the end of the challenge. It was . . . meh. But then, I've repeatedly heard that about the first few Discworld books and the Rincewind books in particular, so I'm happy to stick with them for a while longer. It was fun to read this right after Good Omens because I could definitely see Terry Pratchett's voice was coming through in Good Omens.

So, that's the PopSugar Challenge done! I've included my full list at the end of this post in case you're interested.

BUT that's not all! I also finished listening to Hollow City this past week as I was doing a lot of cleaning and cooking in preparation for hosting Christmas. I've moved on to the next book, Library of Souls, and continue to enjoy the series.

Next up on my list is Fire & Blood, which I have about a week to read before it goes back to the library. It's a good thing I'm off for a few more days because it's 700+ pages!

And now for the QOTW:
I'm going to pick through my list here and mention a few, and there are a few others that spring to mind that weren't on the list:

I was not expecting The Martian to be as entertaining as it was. I checked this out of the library, but loved it so much I ended up buying a copy. It was LOL funny and well-written at the same time. This would be one of my top vacation/beach reads to recommend to people.

I feel like this was the year that I discovered Neil Gaiman. I had read Good Omens last year, but delved in to several more of his books this year and I'm smitten. He's moved onto my list of favourite authors.

Middlesex: Just go and read this book, all! This one takes the prize for the character that made me care the most about his welfare. This novel is about a hermaphrodite discovering his body and sexuality and is set in Detroit, where Detroit is almost as important of a character as the narrator. I still sit and wonder how the rest of the narrator's life turned out and wish we could be Facebook friends so I could see how he's doing.

Beartown: I did not see this one coming: A book about sports? More like a book about how young men are conditioned by society to act in particular ways towards authority and women. This book haunted me for days, and I wish every high school student had to read it. I currently have the sequel, Us Against You, checked out and am going to read it after I finish Fire and Blood.

I laughed and cringed my way through Bridget Jones's Diary. I had seen the movie, but didn't "feel" Bridget the way I did reading the book. Pretty sure the author based parts of this book on me when I was in my 20s, haha.

I actually cried when I read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. This is another book I wish anyone who is remotely connected to medical or science ethics should have to read.

And from non-PopSugar reads, Binti: The Complete Trilogy was a particularly powerful read that has inspired me (along with Kindred, which I also read this year) to read more works by female science fiction writers. Ursula le Guin is high on my list of authors to explore this coming year, but I also want to read more by women of colour as I'm fascinated by how own story experiences are translated in to science fiction and fantasy.

Whew--long post! Thanks to everyone for the ongoing chats this year! Even though I'm not doing a challenge this year, I'll still post regularly and can't wait to see what everyone is reading. Welcome to our new members from the last few days, too! (And waves to those how read but don't post--you're great, too!)

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2018:
√1. A book made into a movie you've already seen The Martian
√2. True Crime In Cold Blood
√3. The next book in a series you started Dune Messiah
√4. A book involving a heist Six of Crows
√5. Nordic noir Last Rituals
√6. A novel based on a real person Wenjack
√7. A book set in a country that fascinates you Away
√8. A book with a time of day in the title Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
√9. A book about a villain or antihero The Color of Magic
√10. A book about death or grief The Graveyard Book
√ 11. A book with a female author who uses a male pseudonym The Silkworm
√12. A book with an LGBTQ+ protagonist Middlesex
√13. A book that is also a stage play or musical Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2
√14. A book by an author of a different ethnicity than you Uncomfortably Happily
√15. A book about feminism The Handmaid's Tale
√16. A book about mental health Turtles All the Way Down
√17. A book you borrowed or that was given to you as a gift Written in Red
√18. A book by two authors Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
√19. A book about or involving a sport Beartown
√20. A book by a local author Room (London, Ontario)
√21. A book with your favorite color in the title Riders of the Purple Sage
√22. A book with alliteration in the title Gone Girl
√23. A book about time travel Kindred
√24. A book with a weather element in the title The Snow Child
√25. A book set at sea Moby-Dick or, The Whale
√26. A book with an animal in the title The Essex Serpent
√ 27. A book set on a different planet Dune
√28. A book with song lyrics in the title Norwegian Wood
√29. A book about or set on Halloween Dark Harvest
√30. A book with characters who are twins The Marrow Thieves
√31. A book mentioned in another book Little Women, mentioned in This Side of Paradise
√32. A book from a celebrity book club March from the Richard and Judy Bookclub
√33. A childhood classic you've never read Mary Poppins
√34. A book that's published in 2018 Circe
√35. A past Goodreads Choice Awards winner The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013 Fantasy Winner)
√ 36. A book set in the decade you were born Bear
√37. A book you meant to read in 2017 but didn't get to The Bear and the Nightingale
√ 38. A book with an ugly cover Bridget Jones's Diary
√39. A book that involves a bookstore or library The Little Paris Bookshop
√40. Your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016, or 2017 POPSUGAR Reading Challenges: Birth of the Firebringer (2017--A book You Loved as a Child)

2018 Popsugar Advanced Reading Challenge

√1. A bestseller from the year you graduated high school High Fidelity (1995)
√2. A cyberpunk book A Scanner Darkly
√3. A book that was being read by a stranger in a public place Watership Down
√4. A book tied to your ancestry For a Lost Soldier
√5. A book with a fruit or vegetable in the title James and the Giant Peach
√6. An allegory Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
√7. A book by an author with the same first or last name as you Oil and Marble: A Novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo
√8. A microhistory The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
√9. A book about a problem facing society today The Golden House
√10. A book recommended by someone else taking the POPSUGAR Reading Challenge The Night Circus

This week I am still reading Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You by LMM. It is super fast, but mostly I'm putting it aside to stretch it out longer because each page has about a dozen words on it.

ETA: I finished LMM's book last night. The little quips are nice. But they don't really translate into a book so much. I can totally see how that little thing at the start and end of each day on Twitter was a little pep talk. But to read a hundred of them at a sitting lost something. While I follow LMM on Twitter, I don't use the site much so I haven't seen these at the start or end of my day via that mechanism.

I'm also still reading Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are and it keeps getting more fascinating the more I get into it. Seeing how he uses big data is so interesting. There are so many aspects of society he's looking at with it.

I'm still listening to The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter. I'll get more of it done this week because my neighbor is away. I am just over halfway. About 6 hours left.

Based on Stephanie's review I think I will have to go back to Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. I tried reading that a year or two ago and DNF before it was due back at the library. It did not pull me in at the time. But everyone seems to love it so much, I need to push myself further into it and see if I just didn't get to the good parts or what.

Looking back it surprises me that I read several books on disease, both fiction and non-fiction. They were all really interesting. One I got through my BOTM club selection set in Philadelphia during the Spanish flu pandemic, and other other two I randomly picked up from the library off the new book shelf just because they seemed interesting.

Way to go Stephanie on that Challenge list. Thank you for taking the time to write and link all of those books.

Two more finishes for me, which brings me to 101 for the year:
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal and Wrath. There are 4 days to go, and I'm thinking I can probably squeeze in 3 short novels by the time the ball drops to make it to 104, or 2 a week. Wish me luck!

This was my first year doing a reading challenge, and I wound up completing 5 :D I went into it determined to catch up to a number of classics I hadn't read. I also read many more memoirs than I would have guessed.

It was the year I discovered Neil Gaiman too. I have Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch on my list for next year.

I rediscovered Stephen King and George R R Martin and read more than twenty authors for the first time.

I guess my biggest surprise is just how much I enjoyed Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, but I listened to it on audiobook, so part of that may just be LMM magic. I'm also delighted to have discovered Jim Butcher and I'll definitely be reading more of him in the new year too.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have 3 more books to get through ;)

You're welcome, Susan. I just cut and pasted it from my PopSugar list :-).

There are people who don't care for Good Omens, so I'm no surprised to hear that you DNF it. It just hits the right not for me, humour-wise. I do a lot of snort-laughing while reading it. I Like it even more now that I can picture David Tennant and Michael Sheen in the two main roles!

Daniele, I've heard quite a few people say they loved the audio version of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe. My library only has the text version. Do you think it's still worth reading?

Stephanie,

I don't know how full your TBR for next year is already, but I recommend NK Jemisin as a woman author of color who writes sci fi/fantasy. Particularly her The Broken Earth series. It's a sort of hybrid genre book, there's magic but it's very geological-based magic so it feels kind of sci fi as well. The first book was good, but the trilogy got really good for book 2 and 3.

Ann Leckie also writes great sci-fi. I'm finishing up her Imperial Radch series. It sort of explores gender and what makes a person a person through the vehicle of an AI that is not human, but resides in a human body. It can get a little confusing because it uses "she" as the default pronoun, so I tend to envision everyone as women until someone uses a gendered title like "grandfather" and I realize that character was male. But the AI has very little concept of gender, so tends to only really acknowledge it if the situation needs it.

Also I'd say the story is pretty good for Aristotle and Dante Discover the Universe. I personally don't find that a good narrator makes up for a crappy story, I wouldn't have liked it if the narration was the only thing going for it.

Daniele I too loved Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe on audiobook. I agree with Sheri that LMM cannot overcome a bad book. It was a good book and LMM just made it better!

This also reminds me that I'd have to say this is the year I discovered audiobooks. We used to listen to books on tape (literally) for road trips when our kids were little. Given 3 kids, a total of 6 years apart we were quite adept at finding books that were great for adults and appropriate for them all. Missing those days!

In any case, they're now all in their 20s, and I rediscovered listening to books on my trip to Australia and now when I walk alone. I have you all to thank for that!

This year was a mix of trying a lot of new authors (many prompted by FoE Book Flood gifts) and rereading favorite series in order all the way through. Some of the new authors I particularly enjoyed were Andy Weir, NK Jemison, Shelly Adina, Patrick Rothfuss, Rysa Walker, and Melissa Caruso.

I reread my favorite authors frequently (and it puzzles me that I know so many people who rarely reread books). Series that I have reread this year are Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott, Elizabeth Peters' Vicky Bliss and Jackqueline Kirby, Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse, Lunar Chronicles, Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate, Barbara Paul's Opera Mysteries, and Scott Westerfield's Leviathan trilogy.

And I am DONE! My last three were short ones: Warrior of the Light, The Tao of Pooh, and Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, which was by far my favorite of the three.

That's 104 books for the year! I never dreamed that was possible when I first stumbled onto the Popsugar challenge in early January of last year. Bring on 2019!

My final count for the year was a total of 32 books, and 29 PopSugar challenges met.
This week I read A Wrinkle in Time and The Midnight Show Murders. I have White Houses and Number One Chinese Restaurant from the library right now, so those will be my first books I tackle in the new year.

This year I read quite a few books out of my typical comfort zone-The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers being the two that stand out the most. I really liked The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared and Artemis

My goal for 2019, is to finish the 2018 challenge, and to do as much of the 2019 challenge as possible. My book count goal was 25 this year, I am going to up it to 40 for 2019, since it will be a stretch.