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Hi all, getting a post up early for a change! Taking tomorrow off work for Good Friday, will probably be baking a small batch of easter rolls, and a little carrot cake for Sunday.

Also Michigan seems to be playing an April Fools joke with the weather, snowing today.

This week I finished:

The Island of Sea Women - this was interesting, well researched, good historical fiction. I liked it pretty well, although I feel like the author didn't really get me emotionally invested. Used for popsugar book with three generations, book nerds related to water, around the year book related to the past, and read harder historical fiction with a PoC protagonist.

Nothing to See Here- next book for books & brew, should be interesting to talk about. I liked it, it was weird. Using it for posugar magical realism, ATY book with a negative in the title, book nerds odd couple/pairing.

Interior Chinatown - good book, really made me think about what it's like to be Asian American in this country, but in a humorous way. Used for booknerds BIPOC author, ATY monochromatic cover.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - audio re-read just for fun.

Currently reading:

The Gilded Ones - really enjoying so far. Interesting worldbuilding, looking forward to see where it's going.

1Q84 - no real progress.

QOTW:

How do you decide what to read next? This can include things like hold strategies for the library.

I tend to be a mood reader, but I also do a lot of library holds. So sometimes get dumped with something I don't really feel like reading, but don't want to wait for again so push through. But if I don't have a library one queued up, I'll scroll through my kindle or wander in front of my shelves to see if anything jumps out, or go down my prompt list for reading challenges to see if anything I have already works. A lot of times I try to be strategic with library holds. If I do want to read it, but not yet I'll try to make note of it, and put it on hold later.

Happy "don't believe anything you read on the internet" day! (Aka April Fools' Day) It's also baseball opening day, which makes me happy as a sports fan. We don't really celebrate Easter, but we were talking about dyeing some hard-boiled eggs just for the heck of it this weekend.

Just one finish for me this week: As the Shadow Rises which was my Popsugar free (library) book from your TBR list. Since most of my books come from the library, I used this prompt as a free space to fit in something else I wanted to read. I like this sequel better than the first book, and it's got me really looking forward to the third. I think the first book was more set up, and there's a lot of that to do with five main POV characters. In the sequel, she was able to get more quickly into the story and relationship-building.

I'm just starting Rule of Wolves. Originally, this was going to be my book published in 2021, but then I saw the length (almost 600 pages) and moved it into the longest book on my TBR prompt. I'm not far enough in yet to have an opinion, but I've been looking forward to this one for awhile, and the library gave it to me on release day, so I'm not arguing. :D

QOTW: I'm mainly a mood reader and an active library hold patron as well. I have a spreadsheet for my Popsugar prompts with first and second choices, and I liberally use that spreadsheet plus the library system's suspend hold/deliver later features to try and tailor my reading to my mood and my challenge prompts.

I also try to leave myself intentional library gaps and not take out too many at a time, so I can also fit in owned/non-library books as well. I read about a book a week, maybe two if they're on the shorter side, so I have to take my pace into account when getting holds out.

This unfortunately has one negative side effect: our library holds are capped at 20, and I am almost always full up because when one book comes off hold, I add another to my hold list almost immediately. Part of what I'm using this year's advanced Popsugar prompts (the TBR ones) to do it to hopefully clean out my hold list a little!

Not a lot of reading time for me this week. I am about a quarter of the way into A Desolation Called Peace, which I'll use for the published in 2021 prompt. It's been a crazy week (had to do my high school recommendations for my 8th graders AND my term grades AND it's Passover) so I've not had much mental energy for it. I absolutely loved the first book so I've got faith that I will love it when I can actually get myself absorbed in the story.

QOTW: A combination of library holds, book club reads (here and my other GR group), and what I'm in the mood for. Also the occasional middle grade read to keep up with what the kiddo is consuming.

I'm still plodding along at my snail's pace of 2021 reading - I did finish Lone Wolf in time for IRL book club #2's meetup, and it was a really good one for discussion - I'd definitely recommend it for anyone whose book club is looking for something that will generate engagement.

I'm now about 1/3 of the way through Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe for IRL book club #3. I've seen the movie, of course, but that feels like a lifetime ago - and the book just isn't grabbing me for some reason. The jumping back and forth in time thing just isn't doing it for me in this case - but it also might just be one that is more enjoyable if you read it all at once instead of in small snippets like I'm doing.

QOTW: My reading is mostly dictated by book clubs - in the long ago days of last year and before, I would also read things that caught my attention in between, but at the pace I'm reading now, I can barely keep up! I like that it gets me reading a variety of subjects, authors, genres, etc., though, so no complaints. :)

I am 50% for my reading goal for the year but I set mine low hoping to blast it out of the water... it's a strategy. LOL

This week I finished The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar. It's pretty substantial considering he only lived to be 33. I fell in love with "We Wear the Mask" in a high school textbook, but it isn't super representative; most of the work was more Romantic-inspired, featuring dead lovers, personifications of Love and Death, lots of nature imagery, and such. His dialect poems are certainly distinctive, although the author apparently had a complex relationship with them, and so does the modern reader; they do clearly show skilled craft, and I enjoyed the collection. I appreciated that there were many about food, but as a matter of personal taste I am really drawn to the short 'n' snarky ones, such as this sick burn entitled "To a Captious Critic":
Dear critic, who my lightness so deplores,
Would I might study to be prince of bores,
Right wisely would I rule that dull estate�
But, sir, I may not, till you abdicate.

QOTW: I try to kind of rotate through genres, so I don't just read six mystery novels in a row. A big part of my normal book selection is just wandering through the stacks at the library, so it's been an adjustment this year figuring out how to select reads remotely and do more advance planning. I rarely did holds and usually just waited for the hype to die down. I'm not sure whether I'll go back to that or not.

I feel like I'm slogging through a lot of really long books and not making much progress, but Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ tells me I did have two finishes last week, so YAY.
More Than a Woman. This was a little more real and less laugh-out-loud funny than "How to be a Woman," but it was still insightful, amusing, and relatable. There are some heavy themes, so not exactly an escapist read, but definitely worth the time if you appreciate British humour and feminist musings.

Armistice. This is book 2 in the Amberlough Dossier series. It's a lot of geopolitical stuff, but took a deeper dive into some of the more interesting characters from book 1, so that was nice. Donnelly seems determined to make these characters suffer, so it's not big on happy themes, but still very intriguing and well written. I'm about halfway through the third book now.

QOTW: My reading is generally mood-based, but I'm also making a concerted effort to read and clear out my home book surplus, so I try to make sure I'm reading at least one or two of my existing stash amidst the various library offerings. The Friends of the Library just had a big online sale, and I promised myself I'd get rid of an equal # of old books before bringing any new ones in, but thanks to a run of library holds coming in (and real doorstoppers at that), I'm a bit behind on that goal.

I got sick of tearing apart my shelves to find books (I have two full rows on every shelf, so the rear rows are hidden from view), and took a weekend day to inventory everything and put the titles/locations in a spreadsheet. Now, when I want to find something truly random to read, I'll ask my friends for a number between 1 and however many are on the spreadsheet and add the book in that row to my "read next" pile. If anyone wants to play along here, there are currently 712 entries on my spreadsheet :)

I have completely and utterly fallen off the wagon since mid-March!

- I was working on Dune after my hold came in. I got about 10% in and having a hard time. My loan expired and now I'd be 20th in line in I put another hold on. Leaving it for now.

- I tried listening to a business audiobook and gave up once the author started telling us about a particular graph being "up, up, down, up, down, down". I actually have the physical book, so I'll probably get around to it.

- A couple of days ago, a library hold came in on a book I have zero recollection about. Let's see if it gets me out of my funk!

QOTW: Like Rebecca, I try not to get into genre ruts, and I'm trying to sprinkle in more business books this year. I don't usually place many holds, so those always come along as a surprise. Overall, I am definitely a mood reader, except very early in the year, when I want to get rid of prompts I don't like, and very late in the year, when I only have a select few left to complete.

Daniele, the audio version of the graph just made me laugh so hard I started crying - I used to work with a guy who would sit in meetings describing the charts he spent all day unnecessarily making, and I keep picturing him happily listening to that and drawing along..... In one of my book clubs, it's pretty evenly split between people who almost always listen to audio and people who almost always read the printed/ebook version, and we have definitely learned that some books lend themselves more easily to audio than others. If anyone can think of a heavily format/graphic-dependent novel, I would love to suggest it for that group, so suggestions are welcome. :)

This week I finished The Lost Art of Mixing which is the sequel to The School of Essential Ingredients. Although I liked the story and read it rapidly, which is not my norm, I only rated it 3 stars. The reason is that this book left a lot of loose ends that seemed more poor editing or poor story planning instead of setting up for a third book. I thought it was going to be deeper on a few of the characters from the first book, but it turned out to continue to be broad with some random, minor characters.

I could just say "Ditto" here for my typical 2nd paragraph. Still listening to Babylon's Ashes. Now about halfway.

My hold came in for 3 different books, two related non-fiction and this group's book club. Given its heft and length, I just started The Once and Future Witches. I'm going to use that in the Nerds > 500 pages category because I have no other books planned that are that large. The two non-fiction will wait.

QOTW: Like many of you I'm definitely a mood reader and library holds. But I put on hold what I'm in the mood for next. I rotate between fiction and non-fiction. And I'll scan down my TBR list and see what sounds interesting. That trend gets interrupted every once in a while by the FOE book club choice.

Minor rant: I wish GR had a notes item that I could edit. I really wish I could annotate or tag a book on my Want-To-Read list with where I heard about it. I know I can make bookshelves, but that is 1. work and a lot of effort and 2. not really how I want to organize and 3. annoying to maintain.

this week i finished This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism - it might have been a little dusty in my room when i was reading certain parts of it, and other parts made me angry.

i'm currently reading Klara and the Sun - good stuff so far! i want to learn more about the world he's created too!

QOTW: what to read next? i have a list of upcoming books in the various series i read, and most of those books i get from the library. i also listen to NPR at various times of the day, and sometimes they'll do book reviews, which is where i heard about Klara and the Sun, This Is How You Lose the Time War, and Leave the World Behind, and others, i'm sure.

i also have my huge reread list (the Han Solo Trilogy, my Sidney Sheldon books, Illium & Olympos, Harry Potter, and all the Sue Grafton Alphabet mysteries).

how do i decide what gets read? if I've borrowed it from the library, they get read in due-date order. when i actually don't have any library books, then i work on my reread pile. i do have three books i own that i'll be reading as well - Travel Light, The Alienist, and a copy of The Three Musketeers. this time when i have no library books that i'm waiting for, i'll start with Travel Light, and then see what happens.

mostly though, it's random based on what's available to pick up from the library when XD

Posted late last week so only new finish is The Left-Handed Booksellers of London. Really enjoyed it-been awhile since I've had something good enough to stay up past bedtime.

I have a pretty steady stream of libray holds. Every time I see something here or elsewhere that catches my eye I put it on my list. We can freeze holds if I get too many at once, which is nice. I am usually a one book at a time person, but if I'm reading nonfiction, or something i'm not crazy about (about a third of my IRL book club choices), I will read something else at the same time. I am also an avid rereader, so try fit in a reread of a favorite, or a new book by a favorite author, pretty regularly. Slowly getting through the books I own, trying to cut down to only 4 and 5 star favorites.

@Megan, I'll admit it gave me a good giggle too, probably making me look like a giant dork while on a solo walk! And because I was laughing, I promptly missed whatever the narrator said for the next minute or so.

@Susan, I 100% agree. I just got a hold in for a book I have no recollection of!

Nothing much to report this week. Still reading and enjoying Girl, Woman, Other. Finally picked up Circe after many recommendations. I'd kind of been putting it off for some reason, but not sure why. So far, it's turning out to be my kind of book.

QOTW: I'm very much a mood reader. Which can lead to me getting into reading slumps (going through one currently), or going through phases of reading lots of a particular genre, but I don't mind that too much. Reading is for fun for me, and sometimes you just need a certain type of book.

I only occasionally put things on hold at the library, but usually only if there's a really long waiting list and I'm very keen to get to it in the current year. Otherwise, I put a lot of stuff on my library wish list and just browse through to see what's available and takes my fancy at any given time. Usually that works well enough, but I think I could do with something to give me more of a push when I'm in one of those don't feel like anything kind of periods.

This is my first year doing a challenge, but so far it's not affecting my choices very much - that may change as I get towards the end of the prompts!

@marina this year is my first challenge too. I also find it is not affecting my choices because usually I only look at the categories when I'm done to see what it might fit. I'm not looking at them ahead of time and choosing to fill something. Maybe that's not the challenge spirit but it is how I'm rolling.