EPBOT Readers discussion

Hi Everyone,

I'll start a thread this week. This is Thanksgiving in the US this Thursday.

This week I have two finishes. First I finished listening to the 4th Thursday Murder Club book The Last Devil to Die. I just love these books and these characters. This one is rated over 4.5 on GR! The last audio chapter was an interview with the author where he hints at another one. I hope so. I have loved every one of these. They are not feeling formulaic to me nor are they predictable.

I also finished The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight for neighborhood book club. It was a memoir that kind of turned into a non-fiction reference of blind resources. It was less about the author's life and dealing with his diminishing sight and more about national organizations, accessibility resources, etc. It was pretty good but I'm just done with memoir books for a while.

I just got my first Kindle for my birthday and it finally arrived a month later. The new Murderbot book dropped this week. My husband recommended reading the last chapter of Network Effect as a refresher. Well, I discovered I never read that! So that is the first book I'm reading on my kindle.

I also started listening to Falling. The action certainly starts right away. I'm not that into thrillers so I'll see if I make it through this one or not. It is relatively short as an audiobook to there's that. I'm just kind of meh on it so far.

QOTW:
I don't have any ideas so I'll just ask, if you're in the US, what are your Thanksgiving plans?

We have our youngest (adult) child join us from out of state at a friend's house and the 5 of us have a Friendsgiving. We go for a long walk with their dog, have dinner that we all contribute to, play board games and then we come home. The next day we get our Christmas tree and decorate the house. Then Saturday we'll go to her house, help her get a small tree and set it up and decorate. It is faster and more fun to do it together in both places.

I am only working Tuesday this week! Today I am doing life admin stuff like laundry and booking appointments. (Book club report totally counts!)

The Vote Collectors: The True Story of the Scamsters, Politicians, and Preachers behind the Nation's Greatest Electoral Fraud - This is from two local journalists about the 2018 NC 9th congressional district election. I am not in the 9th, but at that time it included a portion of my city (including my workplace), so it was big news around here. The authors were reporting on the story as it happened, and are sometimes characters in the tale themselves, and they use a fairly colloquial tone that felt weird to me. They also try to weave in the racial history of voting issues in the state, but it's done in a non-chronological way that was occasionally confusing. I don't think this would be of general interest outside the area; Wilmington's Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy is a better history of post-Reconstruction disenfranchisement.

Stealing from Wizards: Volume 3: Kidnapping - The series continues to be wryly funny, creative, sensitive to social issues, not quite exactly my cup of tea, and a solid recommendation for the Potter-author-averse. I continue to be strongly in favor of their existence though not personally a super-fan.

QOTW: This is Year Two of my sister hosting. We're going up the day before this time to "help" (I'm not sure there will be much for us to do, but at least we won't be arriving mid-prep).

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate.

Finished:
Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree - 5 stars - I loved this as much as the first, if not a little more. The stakes were a little higher, and being a prequel, we get to see a younger Viv and some important events in her life.

The Siren, the Song, and the Spy by Maggie Tokuda-Hall - 3.75 stars rounded up - Overall, I enjoyed this sequel, it wrapped up a lot of the loose ends from the first book.

Comics & manga:
Something's Wrong With Us 17
Queen's Quality, Vol. 18
Cat + Gamer Volume 3
Skip and Loafer Vol. 8

Currently reading:
System Collapse by Martha Wells - I went to an author event last Thursday and got my hard copy signed.

Upcoming/Planned:
The Future by Naomi Alderman
A Winter in New York by Josie Silver

QOTW:
We're just staying home this year and having a quiet holiday with just the three of us (me and partner, plus partner's mom who we live with). As always, I will be making pumpkin pie the night before.

The day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday), we don't go out shopping, we spend the day putting up the Xmas trees and other holiday decorations, so we will do that on Friday.