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Woo, actually got the check in up in a timely fashion!

Super busy week here, with all the home improvement going on. We have to have the new bedroom/bathroom/closet all painted by Monday, so we've been working on it every night. Have the first coat of primer on everything. Will hopefully a touch up second coat up tonight (catching any spots we missed/are too thin). Tomorrow starts real paint! If we can, might actually start flooring on Sunday! Woo!

I know i just updated Monday, so I'm trying to remember where I left off. I think what I finished is:

The Blight of Muirwood - popsugar's book set in an abbey. This finishes off Popsugar for me, woo! 1 down, 3 to go. I liked it really well, picked up the third book and hope to get to it soon.

The Martian - re read for my books & brew. it's still a good story, although I found it does kind of drag in some of the long sciency parts. Re-watched the movie as well, which I also really like.

I also read a bunch of comics to get caught up (spoiler: still not caught up).

Currently reading:

The Serpent of Venice - ATY book related to shakspeare, read harder humor book. Not really feeling this one as much as a lot of his other books. Not sure if I'm just not in the mood for it or what. Oh well, it's not awful, just not as entertaining.

QOTW:

Thanks Kathy, for sending in some questions!

Kathy's been looking into getting some custom Vans and was thinking about taking a picture of favorite books to get them printed on the shoes. If you were putting your favorite books on shoes, what ones would you put? How many would you include?

That's a fun idea! I'm an artist, I feel like I'd be more likely to try my hand at making a sort of illustrative print. Partially because I read a lot of my favorites multiple times, and my copies are not necessarily pretty any more. My copy of Black Swan's binding is all broken, edges are frayed, chunks falling out etc. So I'd probably want to have a good number that it could spread out and look like a print without the same book showing up 5 times visibly in the same area, if that makes sense. Eventually it'd have to repeat, but I'd want it big enough that they didn't repeat right next to each other. Hard to figure out a number without playing with the editor. I'm also a designer, so i'd probably spend a LONG time fussing with it.

That said I'd have to include some of my favorites, The Black Swan, The Night Circus, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Would have to probably think about it more for the rest, I read a lot of books and would have to really weigh which ones would make the cut. Probably do an entirely separate shoe for comics, maybe even do multiples. To cover marvel superheros, and then all the various image titles that might not blend in as well.

Or maybe i'd just want art that represented my favorites? Lots to think about!

I didn't finish anything new this week so far. I was sick earlier in the week and it made my eyes really tired, so I didn't read as much as I wanted to.

I'm still reading Beneath the Citadel by Destiny Soria. I'm enjoying it so far, but I'm only about 1/3 of the way through it. I like the characters, it's a fun mix of personalities and I like the team dynamics. Interested to see where it goes.

QOTW: I honestly don't know if I'd put images of books, per se, on shoes, but maybe some kind of symbolism or representation from each book/series. Like commissioned fan art of some favorite characters, or some prominent item (ie Dresden's necklace from the Dresden Files, for example).

I'm terrible and I would totally cheat and put my own characters on there, if only because I love them so much and I really want to share them with the world.

Jen, I don't think there's anything wrong with that :) Custom characters on shoes would be cool!

I've missed a couple weeks of check-ins, but that's probably for the best, because I was stuck on the same book for most of it....

When I last checked in, I was reading the delightful Hocus Pocus & The All New Sequel for IRL book club #2 - I really enjoyed it, and I hope the slight teaser at the end for another installment means that there will be another. It really captures the fun tone of the movie.

Then I went back to working my way through those books that IRL book club #2 read before I joined, which led me to Guilty Pleasures. You know how people sometimes say about a great book that they couldn't put it down? Well, this was one I couldn't pick up - every time I would normally read, I always found something else I urgently needed to be doing. This is apparently the first installment in a popular series, but it feels like a mashup of poorly written fanfiction and a PG-13 version of Cinemax After Dark. Too many indistinguishable characters, a "plot" that mostly served as setup for action sequences (both kids of action...)...if anyone here has read this series and enjoyed it, I would love to hear what happens later that makes it better.

I'm nothing if not hard-headed, though - plus, I knew whatever I read after that would seem like the revealed word - so I continued in my historical journey through IRL book club #2 with Prey. I had never read anything by Michael Crichton, because I am not a fan of the Jurassic movies and assumed that his books would be just mindless action sequences. As most of you probably already know, I was very wrong. I loved the level of research that went into this book, and it blows my mind that he was able to put this story out 20+ years ago when most people still don't understand nanotech now. I will definitely be checking out more of his books in the future - I'm sorry I didn't give them a chance earlier!

I'm now almost finished with the past book club picks, but I'm reading the second one they ever read, The Girl With All the Gifts. I'm only a couple chapters in, but it's very intriguing so far.

QOTW: I'm hesitant to say Harry Potter, because there are so many Harry Potter shoes already out there. I love the Hocus Pocus aesthetic, so maybe something along those lines. I would definitely go for shoes that are based on a character or setting over actual images of books on the shoes, because I think it would be hard to read the detail.

Then there is that awkward moment when all of your perfectly staggered and scheduled library holds show up on the same day- all 1200 pages worth...

Since I have reading that now needs to happen on a book-return deadline (yes, I know that I can technically renew them, but where's the fun in that??), The Gathering Storm is on the back burner for a week or two. I do really love the author switch in this series. By the last two or three books, Jordan was really starting to drag his writing a bit, and I love the fresh breath of air that Sanderson's writing style injects. We're three books from the end of the series, and it really feels like things have finally started to get moving.

Finished Darkness on the Edge of Town, which is the second official Stranger Things backstory novel- this time exploring Hopper's past. If you like a good murder/detective mystery, it definitely seemed to be a great story; unfortunately this particular genre is totally not my thing. I was a bit disappointed that there was no tie to the events in the series, or even what we already know about Hopper's past. Really the story could have been about anyone, and nothing connected it to Stranger Things in the way that the first novel did so well. I'm hoping season 3 gives us the surrounding puzzle pieces for this story to somehow click into the cannon.

I'm about halfway through An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, which is Chris Hadfield's autobiography. I'm a space and science geek, so this is just, plain, fun stuff. Hubs and I are planning to go to Johnson Space Center when we're in Florida this winter, so this is one of several astronaut memoirs that I'm planning to read before we go. (yes, I am that person, who gives themselves a preparatory reading list before vacation). My only critique is that given Hadfield's personality when doing interviews, I was hoping that his lightheartedness would carry into his writing a bit. Nope, so far he is dead serious about it. Still an amazing and fun glimpse at astronaut-hood though!

QOTW- I am admittedly practical and boring about my shoes, and not really much into novelty footwear that will just get dirty and worn (especially since my shoes have to deal with near constant snow, slush, and mud for 7 months of the year). Can we put it on a tote bag instead???? I'd love to have bags for many of my favorite series, especially one for Lord of the Rings with the original cover art motifs. I've already got a Harry Potter one that I love. But can I get one for Firefly, too, please?!?!

Sheri, it just feels a little egotistical to me. :)

Megan, I read some of the Anita Blake books about 20 years ago, when they were new. I'm not really a fan even though I enjoyed the first few at the time. The consensus is that they actually got worse as the series went along, not better. Later on, the books became all about the sex. I haven't read one in years.

Finished Searching for Sylvie Lee. It was well-written but a bit heavy emotionally.

I recently started Lost Roses but am not sure I can finish before it’s due back at the library (I can’t renew when there’s a waiting list).

I used to be a big Anita Blake fan back in the day, but it was probably 20 some years ago when I got into that. (I cringed a little typing that, since when are things I remember 20 years ago?) at the time I think I was probably into the naughtiness of it all, combined with the paranormal murder mystery stuff. But even back then, Narcissus In Chains is where it all went down hill. That book is where the focus shifted from “sexy stuff happens around this crime� to “this crime sure is getting in the way of all the sex we’re trying to have�. Also as I’ve gotten more aware of my media, the relationships now seem incredibly problematic to me, particularly in the later books. I don’t even attempt to keep up with the series now, even for nostalgia.

Two finishes this week:

A Feast for Crows for the Hermione/book over 500 pages prompt. I thought this one dragged on horribly compared to the third. I know a lot of fans of the books were saying it had been a stupid idea to cut out the Dorne subplot from the show. Unless it picks up significantly in book 5, I really don't see what it would have added.

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry for the Astronomy/book with a star on the cover (or in this case, many). Short but very, very dense, even for a "popular science" book.

Now I really need something short and fluffy to enjoy before anything else. Maybe a couple of the Tank Girl graphic novels I never got around to... speaking of which, I would LOVE Tank Girl shoes, although I think Doc Martens would be more appropriate :D

This week I've started rereading Harry Potter from the beginning; will probably try to get through them all over the summer. I have just started the second Veronica Speedwell-I am really enjoying this character, and think she was a recommendation from FoE.

I am glad I suggested the books on shoes question because your ideas have helped my think more about my future shoe purchase. I will probably pick my favorites to represetn all of these authors: Gail Carriger, Elizabeth Peters, John Scalzi, Margaret Maron, Charlaine Harris, JK Rowling, Carol Nelson Douglas, and Marissa Meyer. I'm sure I will share on FoE once I go ahead with my purchase.

Sheri wrote: "Jen, I don't think there's anything wrong with that :) Custom characters on shoes would be cool!"

I first realized you could do the custom Vans from pictures when John Scalzi posted his shoes. He wrote some of the short stories that were in the Love, Death, and Robots series, so had graphics of those characters put on his shoes. Seems like a great idea to me.

Thank you, Jen and Sheri for your responses on the Anita Blake series - if that was the best of them, the idea that there are dozens of sequels of declining quality, and that people are actually buying them instead of the many better written books out there, is even more depressing! As you point out, though, I might not have judged it so harshly 20 years ago when I was at a different point in my life and hadn’t read as many other things - but reading it now was certainly an experience!

I had a similar experience with Kim Harrison's "The Hallows" books. Dead Witch Walking was one of the first urban fantasy books I came across. I read the first one over a decade ago, and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I gushed about it to anyone who would listen. I've read dozens of urban fantasy books in the meantime, so when I went to make some room on my bookshelf and weed out the Hallows books, I re-read Dead Witch Walking. I was surprised at how "meh" it seemed this time around. Same with the Kelly Armstrong books that I had heard so many great things about. Maybe the Anita Blake books, and their contemporaries, were just a product of their time? Because I sure liked them back then, but now? I happily cleared all of 'em off my bookshelf.

Kristi, that could be! I still enjoy the Hallows. But I used to LOVE Kelley Armstrong’s women of the otherworld series. The last couple times I tried to re read one though, I kept losing interest. Also I got through Kerri Arthur’s Riley Johnson series once and liked it ok, but absolutely couldn’t get through it again.