EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone!

Late post again, hectic week. About to go run in the Warrior Dash so writing up a quick update!

This week I finished:

The Silver Metal Lover- ATY book related to an element. This was alright, didn't love it as much as some of her other work. Still enjoyable overall.

Sex Criminals, Vol. 5: Five-Fingered Discount - I know the series sounds goofy, and it is, but it really has a good story and goes into things like relationships, different kinds of sexuality, taking care of mental health and how it relates to relationship and sexual health, things like that.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup - ATY book with a mostly black cover, read harder book of nonviolent true crime. I picked this up at the library after Susan recommended it, it was so good! I had vaguely heard about the technology and thought it sounded so awesome, and was bummed when I later heard it was a scam. I hadn't really heard anything beyond that, though. Reading it was kind of horrifying, how easily they were able to fake all the levels of testing and approval and actually get a faulty product out for public use. I know every level in America is pretty seeded with corruption, but I guess I assumed that within the medical field it was mostly confined to charging way too much for life saving products and over-patenting everything so no one can make generic versions. Makes me wonder how many other things there are out there that aren't nearly as tested or approved as we think they are. The writing was also excellent, I have trouble with non fiction a lot of times because they get written too dryly. This felt more like a fast paced thriller.

Currently reading:

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine - I planned to use this for Reading Women's book about a woman with a mental illness, but i'm not entirely sure it'll fit now. It doesn't really make clear if Elanor has a diagnosed condition or is more the product of her upbringing. I guess I'll have to see when it's finished. Enjoying it alright so far.

QOTW:

When you recommend books, are you a blanket recommender or a tailored recommender?

I tend to tailor my recommendations very specifically to the person I'm recommending to. I guess part of it is I am always looking for people to talk books with, so I want to make sure the person actually reads what I recommend. I don't want people thinking I give bad recommendations because I told them to read something they didn't like! I feel bad if I strongly recommend something and they hate it.

Last week, I read a bunch of manga: Again!! 7, Again!! Vol. 8, Again!! 9, The Promised Neverland, Vol. 10, and I Hear the Sunspot: Theory of Happiness.

I finished The Sisters Mederos, which I really enjoyed. The worldbuilding is a lot like the world my partner and I are writing ourselves, so it's fun to see how someone else does a similar concept.

I liked it so much that I immediately got the sequel from the library, Fog Season. I might be enjoying it more than the first, since she's able to jump right in to the story without all the build up.

QOTW: I usually tailor my recommendations as much as I can, especially if someone has specific requests. There are certain books that I will recommend as often as I can, though. I agree, though, I feel bad when I recommend something that I loved and the person hates it.

I hope you had a blast at the Warrior Dash, Sheri!

I was hoping to complete the Hermione level of the Golden Trio challenge before my birthday, but I'm one and a half book short. Darn GoT books are so long! I also had to reassign one book to a different prompt to fit what I was reading.

Recent finishes include

Captain Harlock: The Classic Collection Vol. 1 for Godric / a book that represents Gryffindor values. My first cartoon crush, equal only to Spiderman <3 Also the first book I own that reads from back to front.

Cumulus, a quick graphic novel that I assigned to Charms / a book with a charming cover. The previous book in that slot, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, was reassigned to Lockhart / a book from a celebrity book club. Thanks to Reese Witherspoon for the save.

Every Tool's a Hammer: Life Is What You Make It for Flourish & Blotts / a book released in 2019. Adam Savage is as brillant in writing as he is on screen.

Currently over halfway through A Dance with Dragons, which will fill prompt Gringotts / a book with gold foiling. As much as I enjoy GoT, books 4 and 5 have been veritable slogs. I'll be glad to check this one off.

That leaves me with one prompt entirely unaddressed: Hogwarts, a History / a book that intimidates you. I didn't want to embark on another 800+ page epic (LotR, Les Misérables, In Search of Lost Time), so I'm aiming squarely at a book on a topic I find intimidating: Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help.

QOTW: I recommend very few books, actually, so I do tailor my recommendations to the person.

(Waxing poetic for a minute... ya'll knew this was coming!). 8:30am on November 30, 2018 was Alaska's big 7.1 earthquake. That evening, I was stuck home alone, the power was still out, the house was growing colder by the hour, my cell phone was nearly dead, and we were getting rocked by big aftershocks every twenty minutes- I needed a serious break from reality. Knowing that the library would probably be closed for awhile, I grabbed the first Wheel of Time book, The Eye of the World from my bookshelf, having long intended to give the series a full re-read. Now, eight months later, and after 15 books and just shy of 13,000 pages, I finished A Memory of Light and the end of the story of the Dragon Reborn and the Last Battle. It's been a long and wonderful ride, and every bit as fantastic as I'd hoped to revisit that world again! And with that, I've met my official reading goal for the year, too!

In other reading news: finally decided that my TBR pile was in major need of attention. So starting with the oldest items on the list, we've found ourselves with:

Run Program - Enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as I have with Scott Meyer's other books. I loved the concept of an AI paralleling human maturity in it's development, then running amok during the juvenile stage. Unfortunately the ending just didn't do it for me; it finished in a decent spot, but very abruptly and with no falling action to tie off the other character arcs, so after all the lead-up, it wasn't as satisfying as I'd hoped.

Year Zero - I'm about a quarter through it and so far it's tons of fun. It feels a lot like Ready Player One, but as a sci-fi love letter to 1970s and 80s music instead of video games, with a good dash of Douglas Adams thrown in. I'm not really a much of a music buff, but there are tons of other nostalgic nerdy references, too, wound around a tedious-sounding plot that is actually really entertaining. I hope it stays as strong as it has been!

Hubs is out of town on business right now, and I'm planning to whip up a quick cross stitch for his birthday while he's gone, likely while binge watching Galavant, so it will probably be a slow reading week.

QOTW- I tend to be pretty specific with my recommendations, largely because I love sharing my passion for certain books with people who I know are like-minded. Won't lie though, I'm a librarian, so that means having spent a good chunk of formal class time in learning how to do book recommendations well, so this kinda solidified the tendency. On that note, if your library gives you access to an online service called NoveList, definitely check it out! It's a whole search platform for finding book recommendations based on a bunch of different criteria, and it's a amazing resource!

At the last check-in, I was partway through Empress of All Seasons. The world building and characters were great, but it felt rushed and incomplete, like the author ran out of time and had to quickly put together a climax and ending. So it didn't really live up to my hopes, but I'm not sorry I read it.

I'm currently almost finished with Once & Future for IRL book club #2 - it is completely different from what I expected, but very good and a much more original take on the King Arthur story (which has never really been my favorite anyway) than I thought it would be.

Sheri, I hope you enjoyed Eleanor Oliphant as much as my book club did - it may have helped that none of us went into it with as firm of a goal as you did, though!

QOTW: There are some books that I will recommend to anyone because I think they appeal to fans of multiple genres or are just so amazing that I want everyone to read them. But beyond that, I do try to tailor suggestions to what people want, and I try to ask what they're looking for as clearly as possible. I've definitely recommended a few over the years that didn't turn out to be great fits for the people, but I think I've gotten better with practice. :)

Sheri - I am so glad that you enjoyed Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup. I agree that for non-fiction, it reads like a thriller. For me there was a lot of "you cannot make this stuff up".

For my own reading, I'm still listening to The Android's Dream. It has really gotten a lot better since my last update. The boring setup rapidly wrapped up and the story got nicely moving along. I am very much enjoying it now. I am a bit more than halfway through.

I am still reading Melinda Gates' The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. I've been busy lately so I haven't had a lot of time to finish up this book.

QOTW: There are a few books I'll recommend to anyone, Bad Blood and The Martian are two that immediately come to mind. But there are others that I'd only recommend to people I know are looking for a particular genre or people I know better. So, really, pretty similar to Megan.