EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone!

Hope everyone's various winter-holiday prep is going well! I'm in a bit of a crunch, not sure I got m christmas card to the printer fast enough, it'll be a bit of a squeeze. Come on post office, no delays!

This week I read:

Small Favor - audio re-read, finally finished

A Red-Rose Chain - last one I own, argh. I should have just bought the whole series, haha. But my powells basket was already very full and heavy and i wanted a variety.

Saga: Compendium One - I'd only read the first two trades of this before, I liked it but the rest were digital and i kept not geting around to loading my ipad up with them. Got them from humble bundle so have to actually hook ipad up to transfer. OMG it was so good, and I am very mad that it's not a finish series and that they are on hiatus while getting ready to write the next 54 issues. Argh! Also this book was SO HEAVY it could legit be a melee weapon. if you can lift it enough to get a good swing.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic Volume 17& My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Vol. 18 because I needed something light and fluffy after that emotional bomb.

finished up Elvira: The Shape of Elvira, along with a whole bunch of other random issues.

Currently reading:

A Gentleman in Moscow - next books & brew read. Just started so no real opinion yet

and The Mermaid's Voice Returns in This One, loved her other poetry i read so was excited that hoopla has hers.

QOTW:

Any book related gift giving in your future?

My book club did a book exchange instead of a proper meeting this week. I brought in the Night Circus, and we exchanged white elephant style. The woman who ended up with it was a fantasy fan so she was excited, I'm glad. I was worried that either it was too popular so everyone would have read it, or people would turn their nose up because fantasy. I ended up bringing home Tell the Wolves I'm Home. I picked it because i loved the cover and the title looked interesting. Not my usual jam, but the librarian is the one who brought it because she says everyone loves it. Looking forward to it!

I have The Starless Sea on my wishlist, because I'm just kinda assuming I'll love it and want a pretty copy of it. Otherwise I don't tend to encourage book gifts. i read so much that unless people are willing to research, chances are it either won't be my style, or I'll have read it. the FoE book flood is an exception because people in our group DO research and will look through goodreads and such haha.

I finished Consider Phlebas and was pretty meh about it. Has anyone here read it, because I'm dying to discuss how much I haaaaated the ending! ;)

I'm now sucked into Fool's Assassin and super excited to be back in that world. I can't recommend this series enough to fantasy fans, but you have to start with the Farseer trilogy (begins Assassin's Apprentice) and go from there.

Almost done reading The Graveyard Book to my kiddo and have to decide what to read with him next. I ordered A Hat Full of Sky for him for Chanukah, since he loved The Wee Free Men, but I think we'll need a new book to start well before he opens his Chanukah gifts, so I have to ponder my options!

I'm in a Star Wars state of mind this week, with the new movie coming out in a few days!

My finish this week was Black Spire, which is a tie-in to the new Disney Star Wars park. I enjoyed it a lot. The characters are fun.

Currently, I'm reading Resistance Reborn in preparation for the movie Thursday night. This is a prequel that is supposed to set up The Rise of Skywalker. I'm not too far into it yet but nice to see some familiar faces.

QOTW: I might get a couple of books, or maybe an Amazon gift card, for my partner's mom. She reads a lot, but it's mostly on Kindle these days, so I suspect the gift card would be better received. My partner mostly reads via audio anymore, so he might get an Audible gift card. So I guess that counts as book gift-giving, when so much of it is now digital. :)

Happy holidays, everyone! I am heading out tonight for a cruise tomorrow morning through next Saturday, then I'll be with my mom until the day after Christmas, so I'm not sure that I'll be checking in much between now and the end of the year - but I'm hoping for some reading time by the pool over the next few days!

At last check-in, I hadn't really hit my stride yet with The Widows - it definitely established took it's time getting going, but about halfway through the pace picked up and I really enjoyed the rest of it. I believe there is a sequel that just came out or is about to come out, so I'll have to look for that in the new year.

I then FINALLY got my copy of Doctor Sleep, which was IRL Book Club #1's November pick - but since I didn't get it in time, I read The Shining first. This one also took a few chapters to really get into the story, but I'm almost done now, and I think I enjoyed it even more than The Shining - which is saying something, because I really enjoyed that one.

QOTW: We're doing mostly the cruise and a few other activities in Florida for Christmas this year, but in the past I've gotten my mom subscription book boxes, which was fun, and when I'm at home for Christmas the family that usually comes over is very into giving and getting books (mostly non-fiction), so I keep a running list of titles that I think would be of interest to the folks in that branch. I love the idea of the book club exchange, and I'm definitely going to suggest that for next year with some of my groups!

Hi Gang! I have officially survived 2 weeks in Florida and the 9 hours of airplane time on either side of it (plus airport sitting). Not as much reading time as I'd hoped, but I still got a few things knocked out.

As expected, I blazed through Starsight, which I completely enjoyed. I'm not a huge fan of YA, but Brandon Sanderson seems to be less reliant on the usual YA tropes, making it a solid sci-fi read, just starring teenagers. It was very different in tone and setting than the first in the series, Skyward was, but the change really opened up an endless array of possibilities for where this series can go in the future.

Read The Glory of the Empress, which is the third in the Evagardian/Admiral series that I started last month. This was another solid and entertaining sci-fi story that I enjoyed, but I'm curious to see where and how it fits with the rest of the series. It's very intentionally numbers as #3 in the series, but switches from first to third-person narrative and is a whole separate set of characters from the first two in the series (as well as #4). I am very curious to see where this goes. I've just barely started the forth book, Innocence.

Caved and restarted Jack White's Camuloud Chronicles series, just for good measure. The Skystone is done and The Singing Sword is well underway. It's a retelling of the Arthur saga, but in the form of a historical fiction, set against the Roman withdraw from Britain as the empire crumbled. Aside from how insanely long it takes for The Skystone to get on its feet, this series is just as amazing as I remember it to be!

I've got a bunch of books queued up at the library for me, including The Starless Sea, so I've got some real estate to cover between now and the end of the year!

QOTW: I don't do too many books as gifts in general, but I've been doing so a lot with my Mom over the past few years, as she's a big reader. She's getting The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers for Christmas (after I read it, of course).