EPBOT Readers discussion
Reading check ins 2020
>
Week 32 Check in
date
newest »
newest »
I think I've missed a couple weeks, since time has lost all meaning this year. We just found out that we'll all be working from home for the rest of 2020, so I suspect that the passage of time will remain a nebulous concept. When I last checked in, I was finishing Big Red Tequila. It definitely ended more promisingly than it started, so I think the issue was more of the overly establishing style that is often an issue with first books in series. So I would definitely read another, but not right away.
I was also listening to The Sandman, which I'm still not finished with. Without drive time, audio books go slowly, but I did get through about 2/3 of it while working on a crafting project over the last couple weeks, so I'm finally getting to the home stretch. It is very expensively produced, with a full cast, sound effects, etc. - but it just doesn't do it for me as an audiobook. It hits different when you're hearing people scream and suffer than when it's pictures on a page, and (for me at least) makes you think a little too much about real life events that likely inspired parts of the story. But if you want to be able to say you've experienced every possible version, have at it.
In happier news, I read IRL Book Club #3's August pick, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories in like two days - I couldn't put it down. I'd heard the title story and Mono No Aware on Levar Burton Reads, and I'd read them elsewhere (Uncanny, maybe?), and I thought they were great at the time - but they're not even near the top of the ranking in this collection. It somehow hits every genre and makes you rethink your assumptions about it, plus making you reassess every relationship of any kind you've ever had. It's probably one of the best books I've ever read, and I'd recommend it to pretty much everyone.
After that, I needed to start getting ready for a family book club we're having in a couple weeks, having not even started the four book series to be discussed. I've finished the first, Love in Fire and Blood, and I'm about 1/3 of the way though the second Violent Delights: An Alma Jaramillo Mystery. The first was pretty good, and the second one is better, so I'm hopeful about the last two. They're kind of like cozies, but a little bit grittier, and the crimes aren't primarily murders, so that's a nice change of pace.
QOTW: In no particular order, my top books of the year so far are:
The Fifth Season
The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories
The Calculating Stars
The Starless Sea
Two Boys Kissing
The Power of One
Half of a Yellow Sun
Swipe Right for Murder
Britt-Marie Was Here
Ophelia
My first read this week was The Secrets of the Bastide Blanche. This is the seventh in its series, in which maybe half of each book is spent solving a mystery, and the other half is transparent Francophile armchair tourist pandering centered on Aix-en-Provence. I have found the others mostly enjoyable thus far, but this book was a bit of a departure in some ways, and I didn't like it as much. I'm not sure if it was just a poorer effort, or if I am getting tired of the food/wine/cigars/scenery stuff in general.Next up was the second item on my recent book order. This one was supposed to be a preorder, but the local book store sent it to me at least a week before it was supposed to come out. I didn't start reading it until the release date, though. It just seemed wrong.
This was another book by an internet astrophysicist, and the covers were both dark blue with gold lines. I guess this is the trend in summer 2020 astrophysics book design:
I follow @AstroKatie on Twitter, and I love her clear, thoughtful explanations. The End of Everything was informative and entertaining, and I recommend it to anyone interested in how we understand the universe.
QOTW: I have so much trouble picking favorite things in the best of circumstances, and the blurring effect of These Times might have affected my memory, but I don't think I've read any particularly amazing fiction this year. For nonfiction, I guess the most memorable would have to be Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy, because I can't believe I hadn't heard about it for so long. I mean, I can, because racism, but you know what I mean.
It's a milestone week in my house, reading-wise. As of mid-week, I've now equaled my book count for the entirely of last year. Being unemployed has definitely had an upside!Reading this week has been lots of material from my Fellows class. I've also been working through the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics, for some much-needed fluff reading to counter that and the drudgery that is resume writing. So far Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Search, Part 1 and Avatar: The Last Airbender: Smoke and Shadow, Part 1 have been my favorites. The others wind up being a bit preachy and "after school special" pointed for me to really love, plus I've found that I'm a huge fan of Zuko's character arc.
I finally have my copy of The Fifth Season in hand, and will get that started over the weekend.
QOTW- It's a weird year for that, since I've reread two of my absolute favorite series as comfort reading: The Lord of the Rings and The Stormlight Archive- so those would automatically have the top slots on the list. So here are a few things I've read that's been new that I've really loved:
The Way Of Kings Prime - this is the rough draft version of what would eventually become a drastically different finished The Way of Kings. I'm amazed that author Brandon Sanderson was willing to be so vulnerable as to release what he called a "colossal failure" to his fans, but I'm glad he did, because it's absolutely amazing for a failure. Plus it super fun to track what made the final version and how the details of the plot evolved during the writing process.
I wasn't a huge fan of Red Rising, but I'm glad I stuck it out and kept going, because Golden Son and Morning Star wound being amazing! While Red Rising felt like a bit of a knockoff, the other two were different and engrossing, both ending with delightful plot twists. Darrow is a fairly terrible person, but just has the most fascinating layers to his character, and Sevro even more so! The existing two books in the follow-up trilogy were good too, but not nearly so much.
On the non-fiction side of reading- The Lost Gutenberg and A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-18 were both a fascinating blend of history, religion, humanity, and book-geekery. I really loved both!
This has been a busy work week, but I did manage to get some reading done! I finished Twenties Girl, which was just okay. I wound up giving it three stars. The protagonist became a bit more likable, I thought, in the second half of the book, and I liked the resolution of the story. This was my Popsugar book with "twenty" in the title.
I also read Drowned Country, the follow-up novella to Silver in the Wood. I liked the first one better, I think, but this was still quite good.
I think next on my list, I'm going to start Queens of Geek, my Popsugar book with a pink cover. That's the last library ebook I have out right now, and then I can start The Fifth Season for the book club!
QOTW: In no real order, these are the stand-outs for me so far in 2020:
Paladin's Grace by T. Kingfisher
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh
Magic for Liars and Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
C.L. Polk's Kingston Cycle: Witchmark and Stormsong
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Two finishes this week, although neither fit in any of my remaining prompts for the One PHRC reading challenge, so I'm still officially at 47/60, even though I've read 51 books so far in 2020.The Zero Stone by Andre Norton, who always provides simple, fun sci-fi entertainment.
The second is so far out in left field, I had to *create* it here in Goodreads! It's Contes pour hydrocéphales adultes, a collection of short stories from the 70s. A skilled writer, but I don't understand what's going on. I picked up the book at a book fair based on its title alone, and back to the book fair it shall go, if ever such types of events resume (my two usual book fairs have both been cancelled this year :( )
QOTW: I feel I've been reading further off my beaten path this year, so all over the map. I'm always behind in terms of new releases and bestsellers, so my favourite reads of 2020 so far would include
- Home and The Night Masquerade
- Gone Girl
- The Handmaid's Tale
- The Birds
- The Fifth Season
Look at that - all women! Mind you, I have some Neil Gaiman and Stephen King lined up for other prompts, so the list will likely be more varied by year's end, but still!
Mod
I have then started the novella for the Expanse, 3.5 The Churn. This is Amos' backstory. So far it is kind of gritty because Amos comes from an ugly background. He's a complex character and I look forward to learning this.
I haven't had any visual reading book completions for a while. I'm catching up on magazines and whenever I chill, I end up walking and listening instead. So for now, for me, audiobooks are my reading.
QOTW: My favorite book on my list is Me so far this year. I can tell I need to get back to some non-fiction for a bit as well as some mindless romance novels in there. It'll be nice when the library is open again.
Mod
Not a lot of pleasure reading this past week as I've been slowly digesting We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom. It's a really important read and I want to give it my full attention.
Favorite reads of the year so far:
The Fifth Season
Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us
The Hate U Give
The Calculating Stars
Assassin's Fate
EPBOT Readers
Books mentioned in this topic
We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom (other topics)The Fifth Season (other topics)
The Churn (other topics)
Assassin's Fate (other topics)
Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Neil Gaiman (other topics)Stephen King (other topics)
Hope everyone is hanging in there!
Book club: I found some discussion questions online, so I went ahead and made a couple posts. I don't have a physical book to flip through, I'd hoped my copy would get here by now! So I'm just lumping it into some non-specific sections and tried to pick questions that were answerable early, answerable middle, and I'll do some another set for the end, as well as an overall post. I have a couple hours left on my audio book so I'll do the last posts after I finish.
This week I finished:
One Good Knight - re read for a break
Fortune's Fool - another re-read for a break
How to Be an Antiracist - Finally finished. It was a really important read, but hard for me to get through. I have trouble with nonfiction sometimes, it's hard for me to focus if there's not a narrative. I think I might have been better of listening to the audio book like I did Stamped from the Beginning. I think I'll try that for some of the other titles on my list.
Currently reading:
A Blade So Black - urban fantasy retelling of Alice in Wonderland, really liking it so far.
The Fifth Season - as I mentioned, couple hours left of the audiobook.
QOTW:
I'll just borrow from popsugar again: What are your best reads of the year so far?
For most memorable/enjoyable I'd say Gideon the Ninth and The City We Became. Both really excellent reads that I keep recommending to people and thinking about!
For important reads that i didn't necessarily "enjoy" I'd for sure say Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. So much important information that isn't taught in schools, very eye opening and sobering and anger inducing.