EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi everyone,

Lovely weather here, almost back to summery again! Only going to last another day or two, then back to typical fall. So enjoying it while I can!

I put a poll out for the next book selection, and sent out a message. Don't forget to vote!

This week I finished:

Lab Girl - I liked this, didn't know much about plants or the life of a research scientist. Was interesting to learn more about both! I'm using it for the fall reading challenge, book about nature.

Anxious People - actually went to the physical library to pick this up, as well as a couple impulse one. My library has a cool UV sanitizer in the lobby now! I loved this a lot. I've dealt with anxiety basically my whole life, I actually found it kind of reassuring to read about a bunch of other people dealing with their own struggles and the things it drives them to. (Hopefully does not drive me into an ill-conceived bank robbery -turned Hostage situation) I also found it delightfully funny at times.

Blood Stain, Volume 1 & Blood Stain, Volume 2 - been meaning to check this out for ages, it's pretty fun.

Currently Reading:

Blood Stain Volume 3 - continuing series, still enjoying

Nocturna - I finally got the audio book of this back, finishing up the last couple hours.

Harrow the Ninth - this was one of the others I grabbed. I adored Gideon the Ninth, was excited to get this one. Have to admit it's much slower going. The second person is a little disconcerting, and all the jumping around is confusing. I think I get what it's doing, but I'm hoping it becomes a bit more coherent as it goes on. It's a longish book to be this confusing for the whole time.

QOTW:
Drawing a blank on questions this week. So how about just giving some good news or something positive in your life? Feel like everyone could use some right now!

I'm looking forward to the Epbot Hocus Pocus movie night on discord tonight. And I'm having a good time with my drawlloween art & cross stitch patterns.

It's been lovely here too, except for a brief crazy thunderstorm on Wednesday that lasted about five minutes but was severe enough to cause power outages all over the area (we never lost power, but a lot of my students did...bet you can imagine how that went over with remote learning...).

Two finishes last week. One was New Kid, a ya graphic novel, that is going to be the focus of some activities that our entire middle school is doing around race, microaggressions, and stereotyping. I thought it was quite well done and accessible, and I'm really interested to hear what my students have to say about it.

Second read was one that someone here had mentioned a while ago and it sounded interesting so I made a note of it; Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed. It was posted as a freebie on our town's Buy Nothing facebook page, so I snapped it up. I think whoever mentioned it here hadn't liked it that much, but I really enjoyed it... although it definitely made me wonder what my therapist thinks of me!!

I'm now a few chapters into Greywalker by Kat Richardson, which was a gift from the last FOE Book Flood and I'm just getting around to it now. It hasn't totally grabbed me yet, but I'm not very far in so there's time!

QOTW: I've been taking guitar lessons on zoom; I had learned a few chords here and there over the years but never had any formal instruction. The scales and fingerings are slowly starting to become more automatic, and it feels good to be learning something new!

Last week I was like "prolly gonna read some Poe" and then suddenly the world was like "welp time for 'The Masque of the Red Death'".

First book this week hardly counts: I watched a little virtual talk with Rosemary Mosco and picked up Birding Is My Favorite Video Game: Cartoons about the Natural World From "Bird and Moon" from Hoopla. It was indeed just comics from Bird and Moon, so I'd read them all before. I did like the index of included species.

Kara's book club hasn't posted an October book yet, but my library has started a Black Lives Matter program and this month is The Bluest Eye. Someone probably should have made me read this sooner. It was a very powerful book, and I can't believe it was her first novel. I don't know that I'm going to make it to any of the virtual discussion groups, but I'm glad I read it.

Last this week was H is for Hawk. This was super hyped when it came out, but I never got around to it until now. Turns out now might have been the wrong time for a deep dive into someone's personal grief? Also I could have done with less psychoanalysis of T. H. White.

QOTW: I have a week of vacation! We are going to visit my in-laws. I'm somewhat anxious about being indoors with people, but they seem to have been taking the same precautions we have. Also they live at the beach, so the area is not very populous right now. We will probably have the nature trails and such to ourselves.

Rebecca, we decided to visit in laws at thanksgiving, I’m also a bit nervous. But I’ve not seen them since March and my husband had only gone once. Figure it’s safer than attempting any kind of big gathering on my side that’d involve 5+ households. And they are very cautious to, mostly. His dad is more into doing stuff, but at least is really good about masking. Nervous about his sister possibly joining since she’s a manager at wall mart, but I guess her store, at least, is being super cautious. If you even feel SLIGHTLY ill, whether or not it’s a symptom, you get sent home. And they’ve got decent Poe now I guess.

One finish for me this week: Beijing Payback, which I'm using for the Slytherin/Serpent/snake on the cover prompt. Fast-paced action, but it's the second book in a row where I wonder whether the audiobook would have been even better, because I'm not knowledgeable enough to properly "hear" Mandarin speech in my head. If you'd like Jet Li action movies with a YA protagonist, this may be the book for you.

57/60

QOTW: Last Saturday night, I got stupidly inspired and wondered whether FoE and the Escae Pod would enjoy a reading challenge of their own. So now I'm in the middle of building it, and it's been wonderful, since 2020 had apparently siphoned all the creativity out of me!

If you have favourite prompts you would like to see, please send them my way!

If you are interested, you should consider joining the FoE Bookbots Reading Challengers ( https://www.facebook.com/groups/13610... ), because I think that's the place that makes most sense to host it, and it's a tiny group so posts won't get swept away in a flood within minutes.

One finish for me this week: Winter Rose, which was my Popsugar book published in the 20th century. What a lyrical fever-dream of a book this was. It was basically a twist on the Tam Lin legend. I enjoyed it overall, but at times it was hard for me to maintain focus.

I think next up will be A Neon Darkness which I don't think fits any of my remaining prompts, but it came up on my library holds when I wasn't paying attention. I loved The Bright Sessions, so looking forward to it!

QOTW: Positives! I have two weeks off coming up in early November to look forward to, during which my partner and I are going to focus on NaNoWriMo.

I've also gotten really into this computer game called Hades, which is so much fun and a good de-stress mechanism after work. Also, the writing team for the game knows their Greek mythology which makes me so very happy as a mythology nerd. The music, the art, and the character designs are all phenomenal.

Shel, it was probably me that posted about Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, since I was not a fan - but pretty much everyone else I know that read it enjoyed it, so I'm glad it was a good read for you.

On the topic of things that other people have or haven't read...I'm gonna guess that nobody who read my check-in post last week had read Wyrms, since nobody found anything odd about my statement that it was a fun little adventure story. I was only about 1/3 of the way in at that point, and I am now finished, so I can confidently say that it might be the lifetime achievement winner of the "well, that took a turn" award for fastest transition from enjoyable to absolute batsh*t insanity. The first half (or even 3/4) really was fun - great characters, cool world-building, the whole getting the gang together for the quest vibe. But then...um...things took a turn. In a direction of the least sexy monster p*rn you could imagine. Even if, like me, you haven't spent a lot of time imagining such things. I was so busy laughing about the cheesiness of the cover that it did not occur to me that it depicted an actual scene that would occur in the book. With the girl being 15. So despite how much fun the first part is, I really can't recommend this one. Ya'll know that I'm not a total prude - but this was just gross, misogynistic, and creepy.

By the time I finished that, my hold was in for the next IRL book club #2 pick, Desert Heat. I'm just over halfway through, and it's definitely a quick read - but as I've discovered with other recent reads and re-reads of books from the 80's and 90's - it really makes you realize how much the world has changed in the last 30 years. I am 100% certain that if I had read this in 1993 when it came out, the pervasive sexism wouldn't have been as big an issue for me as it is now - not because I wasn't aware that sexism was a thing then, but just because even thought it doesn't always feel like it, we have come a long way in terms of the language and behavior that is considered acceptable in mainstream media. The other stuff, like how many plot points could now be easily resolved with the internet and/or mobile phones (let alone electronic payments and banking app alerts in the case of this particular story), I'm used to - but I have to say that it's actually helping with the hopelessness of the world right now to realize that positive change is possible.

I'm almost finished listening to The Flying Flamingo Sisters, which has been really fun and provides a total contrast since it's recent and for younger readers/listeners who probably couldn't wrap their minds around the assumptions and attitudes of the characters from 1993. :)

QOTW: Aside from the larger situation of the world, many good things are going on here. We got our outdoor Halloween decorations up yesterday, including the elusive inflatable skeleton unicorn, which we were finally able to get. We also watched an online fundraiser for the St. Paul library last night hosted by Mo Rocca (we don't live anywhere near St. Paul, we just love Mo) - and the Masked Singer is back! Also, the history museum has a drive in Halloween movie every Friday all month - so day to day life is actually not too bad.

Hello all-been away for awhile but saw this event and wanted to share since it's in the lead for next book club choice (last time I checked.) John Scalzi interviewing VE Schwab about her new book.You need to purchase the book from the store to participate, but if you were going to anyway, it's always nice to support a smaller bookstore. https://www.andersonsbookshop.com/eve...

That's cool! I'm just getting it in the library (My hold is actually almost up, should get it soon!) But really cool that theyr'e doing a virtual event