Albany Public Library discussion

Hey There!
As Bon Jovi says, “Woah, we're halfway there” This week marks the halfway point in the Summer Reading Challenge. How is everyone feeling? Do you feel like you’ve read a good amount so far, or do you feel like taking a whole day to do nothing but just read? I mean, I always want to just read all day, but this week is about trying something new! I mostly read fiction, so maybe this week, I will branch out and read a nonfiction book about something I want to learn more about.

The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times
Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism
Educated
Listen To Your Vegetables: Italian-Inspired Recipes for Every Season
Random Acts of Medicine: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
The Creative Act: A Way of Being
The French Chef Cookbook
This Is the Honey

This week, we are aiming to have read 500 minutes, or 8 hours and 20 minutes so far. You still have plenty of time to read, so don’t stress about how much you have read so far!

Alternatively, if you have finished our challenge in half the time, you should email us and let us know so we can let the branches know to expect you to drop by for your tote bag. Our email is albanyreads@albanypubliclibrary.org be sure to include: email subject heading as GoodReads SRC 2025, your name, your GoodReads Account, and which branch you would like pick up your prize.

To Finish off this week's post why don’t you tell us about a new experience you have had this summer and your thoughts on your latest book.

Sorry to have dropped out of sight. I got sick, and it messed up my recording of books. Here is the list so far. A History of the Human Brain was interesting. Finches of Mars a fun SciFi book from Hoopla. Exodus was a series starter from Hoopla. Implacable I had gotten a while back from Audible. I really enjoy this series. Going In Deep also from Audible. And finally, Good Girl from Chirp. Too many audiobooks, but that is what I could do.

I both think I’ve read a good amount AND want to take a whole day to just read. 😂

I FINALLY have Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil in my queue and can’t wait to dive into it for my next book!

(Also I’ve already blown past 2k minutes … 🫢) Bury Our Bones is going to be book 7 of the challenge for me!

I also don't read a lot of non-fiction these days, so I'm looking forward to reading Craig Steven Wilder's Ebony & Ivy this week or next - it focuses on the role of race and slavery in the founding of American universities.

Happy to report I've finished my 1000 minutes (though not all my activities yet!). It was fun to measure by minutes this year since I hadn't really had a sense of how much time I spend reading. Turns out it is 8-10 hours per week in summer!

Paul wrote: "Sorry to have dropped out of sight. I got sick, and it messed up my recording of books. Here is the list so far. A History of the Human Brain was interesting. [book:Finches of Mars|..."
No worries this is summer reading, we understand that people have busy lives, but it sounds like you have had a full list of audio books you've tried from almost every platform. You are doing fantastic!

Jen wrote: "I both think I’ve read a good amount AND want to take a whole day to just read. 😂

I FINALLY have Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil in my queue and can’t wait to dive into it for my next book!

(..."

That is pretty exciting! I've heard really good things about that book. It's great when your next books is already picked out. Don't forget to stop by your branch to let them know about your summer reading accoplisment!

Elizabeth wrote: "I also don't read a lot of non-fiction these days, so I'm looking forward to reading Craig Steven Wilder's Ebony & Ivy this week or next - it focuses on the role of race and slavery in the founding..."

People are flying by the goals this summer. Non-fiction is always a bit different than fiction to read, some authors write non-fiction so well.

Progress report: I'm now most of the way there! I finished listening to Robot Visions (just under 17 hours), and I've done two of the four activities. There's a lot of overlap between themes and goals in what I've read so far, so to keep things interesting I'll divvy them up accordingly:

Indicator of 1,000 minutes read: Robot Visions
Build Your Book Community: (check out a book through Libby/Hoopla): ...technically all of them so far, except Heavyweight
Follow Your Fun (read what you want): Weirdo
Week 1: Judge a Book By its Cover: Sea Legs: A Graphic Novel
Week 2: Got (Fresh) Air?: Suki, Alone
Week 3: Travel Back in Time: Heavyweight: A Family Story of the Holocaust, Empire, and Memory
Week 4: Try Something New: Huda F Wants to Know?

Listening to The Sewing Girl's Tale, a nonfiction work. Usually a fantasy/fiction reader. Enjoying this snapshot of history of the US , NYS and in NYC. Many of the historical figures are referred to during the unfolding of this young girl's life. Interesting that the attitudes affecting women at the birth of this country are now reemerging as men center their political and social needs.

Hannah wrote: "Progress report: I'm now most of the way there! I finished listening to Robot Visions (just under 17 hours), and I've done two of the four activities. There's a lot of overlap betwe..."

Congratulations Hannah! Stop by your favorite library branch to pick up your prize!

I just finished Hare by Chloe Dalton and it was wonderful, plus I learned a lot about hares. Have been also trying to finish up The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Non-fiction quota nearly achieved!

My thoughts on a next book is by Jessica Rosenberg. She writes paranormal books.
My minutes for this week is 600.

I think the email is wrong. It originally was albanyreads@albanypubliclibrary.org
Which one is correct?

Christine wrote: "I think the email is wrong. It originally was albanyreads@albanypubliclibrary.org
Which one is correct?"

You had the correct email address. albanyreads@albanypubliclibrary.org

Sorry for the confusion!

Elizabeth wrote: "I just finished Hare by Chloe Dalton and it was wonderful, plus I learned a lot about hares. Have been also trying to finish up The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Non-fiction quota nearly..."

Woot! That is an accomplishment for sure! I'm reading Salt: A World History for my nonfiction book. It makes me totally rethink how I perceive my meals!

my something new this week is reading a play: Camino Real by Tennessee Williams. I also got the chance to go see it on stage in Williamstown, which was fun

I also wanted to read more nonfiction than normal (rarely) and as I am considering a career change I have read a few books this summer on music “This is Your Brain on Music”, “The World in Six Songs” and “I Heard There was a Secret Chord” as well as reread “How Music Works”.

Fascinating research on cognitive psychology as it relates to sound and music, evolution, and therapy. I recommend How Music Works as the most accessible and entertaining book, and “I Heard There was a Secret Chord” as the most up to date research.

Kinda want to just reas fantasy for the rest of the summer…

I have had a very good week. I guess I am getting healthier. Six more books read. Once He Sees an interesting FBI suspense thriller. Tamsin continues what I read sometime back. Evie is the next book. The Green Hills of Earth A fine story by Robert A. Heinlein that I did not read as a youth.Cherry this book adds to the series on this Queensland island. Orphans in the Sky is another book by Robert A. Heinlein I did not read as a youth. I have had fun getting to this point and think I have read twelve since the beginning of the summer reading challenge. I am currently reading another SciFi book To Be Taught, If Fortunate - so far so good, but it is very different from the Heinlein books.

I'm really back into my reading swing these past couple of weeks and grateful to this challenge for the extra boost to get there.
I just finished a cute little rom com (Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez) and have started Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I'm a little ahead of schedule and estimate 600 minutes read.

To be on theme, I'll be reading Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves by Nicola Twilley. Definitely outside of my usual read.

So I made my last post on this thread in a bit of a hurry and neglected to expand on things. In terms of recent new experiences that come to mind...it's perfectly indicative of how little I get out of the house, but I still enjoyed it: last month I went to my first virtual Pride parade! I've spent a lot of time in the past couple years plugged into The Elder Scrolls Online, but this was actually one of the few times I've joined in a major player-organized event (beyond just my guild's activities). I'm certainly glad I have a Steam Deck to play on now because this would have melted my laptop with the amount of players and colors and particle effects going on. We had quite a turnout! Met up with my guildmates and dozens and dozens of people made the trek down through one of the game's most scenic islands to culminate in a big sunset beach party where everyone got out their music and dance emotes. Just great vibes all around! And it was a fun excuse for my Wood Elf character to switch out her usual master cartographer's adventuring gear for a dancer's dress, feathery makeup, and giant rose tattoos.

Thoughts on my recent reads: Robot Visions was the latest in a trend I've had this year. Back in January thanks to my aforementioned newly-acquired Steam Deck, I finally got to actually play the 2018 video game Detroit: Become Human after spending years only being able to engage with it through fandom osmosis. We love these characters a lot, even though the overall story is basically "what if the old robots-gaining-sentience trope was used as part of a very poorly-executed civil rights metaphor?" So I wanted to go back and see how the original master did it, which led me to the audiobooks of Isaac Asimov's Robot series. I got through his core trilogy of The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn, plus I, Robot, and I picked Robot Visions for inclusion in my SRC partly due to the timing but also because it had the one short story featuring Elijah Bailey and R. Daneel from the novels (if anyone here has played DBH but never read Asimov, they're basically the original Hank and Connor). Robot Visions also includes a number of Asimov's essays that are worth reading for how interestingly some of them have aged, but also the short story "Galley Slave" that ends with an incredibly still-relevant conversation in this age of the plague of generative AI, regarding the "machines as tools to help artists vs. machines that replace artists" argument.

Heavyweight: A Family Story of the Holocaust, Empire, and Memory lived up to its title. Still surprises me that in the sphere of greyscale-biography-graphic-novels-about-the-holocaust I wound up reading this before Maus, but certainly still worth the read. Also a sobering reminder of the difference in tone and thematic complexity that tends to come with the jump between graphic novels for adults versus YA. Heavyweight offers no easy answers to its questions, and was something I felt needed to sit with me for a while after I finished it. Still recommended though, especially if you're interested in learning more about imperial and pre-war Germany.

Huda F Wants to Know? Ohhh I've been waiting for this one for months! I was planning to save it for the All Together Now With Your Family theme, but it fits Try Something New as well. This was a comparatively quick and light read (especially right off the heels of Heavyweight), even with its somber subject matter of mental health, divorce, and their related religious stigmas. To the right readers it will absolutely feel like a therapy session, and I mean that in the best way.

My planned Try Something New (for myself) is actually Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language since I'm not much of a nonfiction reader, but growing up as an internet native makes this particular subject fascinating to me.

(Sorry for the Wall of Text, I just had a lot to say this time :)

I am still reading the same book: Winter Sisters by Robin Oliveira, however, because of my circumstances of being pregnant and scheduled to have my baby earlier than my due date, I have also dived into What to Expect When You're Expecting. I am not usually a fan of non-fiction books; I like to read books that make me escape to something different than the normal daily activities, but this book is important for me right now. So my logged time will be for both books.