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Hi all!

Had a calmer week this week. No crisis, no massive gatherings etc. Temp also dropped a bit to nice 70s-low 80's, rather than pushing 90 or above.

This week I finished:

Tall, Dark & Hungry- fluffy read for a brain break


The Traitor Baru Cormorant - finally finished this. I ended up not loving it in the end, although I fully say it's a me thing, not a book thing. I think it was well written, i just got bogged down in all the politics and maneuvering, and I didn't like the ending. I don't think I'll be continuing the series. It kinda reminds me of Game of Thrones,and one of the reasons I didn't like GoT was way too much political maneuvering. Counted for popsugar something broken on the cover, and book nerds book with a brain.

Dryad, Vol. 2- getting caught up on some comics. This one's alright, not as good as Rat Queens but not bad.

The Last Witch: Fear & Fire - this is a fun series, nice art and a cute plot. Looking forward to continuing.

With the Fire on High - I liked this quite a bit, nice easy read. I read it for popsugar book set in a restaurant but i dont think it really fits. there were a few short scenes in an actual restaurant, but not enough that i think it qualifies as being SET in a restaurant. But I read it in good faith, it was on the listopia for the prompt. Counting it for now, but i'll circle back later if I feel ambitious. Also counted for book nerds last name I wasn't sure how to pronounce (someone in the group gave me pronunciation, and I could have looked it up but I figure that applies to basically any name. I was going by "i couldn't look on it and immediately know"), and Reading WOmen YA book by a Latine author.

Mirka Andolfo's Mercy: The Fair Lady, the Frost, and the Fiend & Mirka Andolfo's Mercy, Volume 2: The Mine, the Memories and the Mortality - not sure why this is two vol since it's only 6 issues and one plot arc. Money probably. But anyhow, I really loved this. Great art, very creepy, interesting story. Looks like there's a sequel coming out later this year, looking forward to it.



QOTW:

I'll spin off from last weeks, do you track or organize your reading in other ways than good reads?

I keep a series of spreadsheets. I have one for total reading that i use to keep track of some things goodreads doesn't really have data for, like diversity of the authors I read, format (audio book, digital, paperback etc) and whether I own it or borrowed. I'm sure i could tag things in good reads but there's not really a way to organize the shelves, and I already have a ton with all the various series and genres. I also have a spreadsheet for each challenge to keep track of what i'm using for each prompt, and notes as to how it fits. Sometimes it's obvious, other times it's not and I'm forgetful.

Glad things were calmer for you, Sheri!

Last week we went a movie in the theater for the first time in over a year. It was actually a little bit anxiety-inducing at first, sitting inside with other people, but it was a lot of fun. It's also nice to have a little bit more "normalcy" back, I guess.

No finishes this week, but I'm still working through Black Sun. I'm using it for the Popsugar oxymoron in the title prompt, even though that's probably a borderline one. The book is good so far, but I have to remember to actually look at the dates in each chapter header. Usually I skim past those, but in this book, the timeline jumps around enough that I can't always figure it out from context.

QOTW: The only other tracking I do is my challenge spreadsheet where I keep a list of the book I intend to read for each prompt, plus usually an alternate in case the first book is unavailable or turns out to be a DNF for me. Otherwise, I rely on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to track everything else. Especially for manga - I am always looking up in Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ which volume I was up to!

Thanks Jennifer! I used Black Sun for my oxymoron prompt too. I think it's valid, a sun is a star that emits light, black is generally the absence of light, so I think it works. I really loved that book, hope you end up liking it!

I loved Black Sun, too - I had the ebook through Libby, and I thought the dates at the beginnings of the chapters were super obvious - but I've spoken with several people since I read it who had the paper book or purchased the kindle edition and said that they were not nearly as obvious there. So you're not alone, Susan! :)

Since I checked in so late last week, all I've done since then is finish The Shadow of the Wind. I was at a slow part when I last checked in, but it picked up shortly thereafter, and the slowness was likely intentional with the pacing of what happened next. I will definitely seek out the rest of the series - I really enjoyed it. I don't get the big deal about it being set in Barcelona, though - there's even a walking tour route in the back. I love Barcelona, and I remember when I was there in 2016 there were tours themed to the book - but the setting didn't really seem central to the story to me. Maybe because my definition of "central" is Rivers of London where the city and its features are literally characters, but this one was more along the lines of a book set in New York where they mention the Empire State Building from time to time. But as long as you don't go in expecting a travel guide (I didn't - the guide at the end just surprised me), I highly recommend it.

I just started rereading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings for IRL book club #3 - I suspect this will be another one that I will enjoy much more now than back in the day when I was forced to read it multiple times for school. I found the new edition with the Oprah intro on Libby - I couldn't bring myself to reopen my old copy since I will forever associate that design and font with unpleasant school-related reading (for anyone not in school in the 80s and 90s - that was pretty much the standard cover design for paperbacks from the time computer design was invented until 30 years later when people figured out how to use it). The new edition with the simplified dove on the cover fits the book so much better.

QOTW: I am not organized when it comes to keeping track of books - I don't really have a system other than memory and (for the past few years) Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. My IRL book clubs do have albums in their Facebook groups with the covers of all the books they've read, so I do have that, too. I do, however, keep track of authors that I like or have been recommended. I find BookBub works the best for me with that - and then I also know when their books go on sale, are up for preorder, are released, etc.

Glad to hear things are settled Sheri. I am going away for a family reunion vacation soon in northern NY. I will get to see my 92 year old mother and so much extended family. My son and his wife, who live in Oregon, are coming. I haven't seen them since their wedding night in Nov 2019. So excited!

@sheri, if you need another book set in a restaurant, I found The School of Essential Ingredients a comfortable read.

Anyway, I am still working my way through Project Hail Mary. I am more than halfway and still really enjoying it. So much of the great stuff from The Martian is also in this book (as in the science and problem solving).

I finished Strange Dogs. (I may have commented on last week's thread that I finished too, I don't remember.) It was a short audiobook for me and is a novella for The Expanse, 6.5. It was an interesting story on its own that ended in a somewhat unsatisfying way. I know it gives backstory to things coming up in later novels but it did not wrap up the end to entirely stand on its own.

I then started a Scalzi audiobook that I didn't realize was a short story, The Sagan Diary. I also didn't realize it was book 2.5 of Old Man's War which I have not read. He said it at the beginning of the audiobook and I did choose to listen to it anyway but I probably would have enjoyed it more with that backstory. Maybe I'll re-listen if/when I finish Old Man's War. It was only 90 minutes long.

I am now starting Scalzi's Agent to the Stars on audiobook but I am unlikely to make any progress while on vacation surrounded by family I rarely see.

QOTW: I do nothing else other than GR which is a recent tracking method for me. Prior to that I did nothing at all.

Not much reading for me this week - it's the last gasp of the school year and I am F R I E D. At last check-in I had just finished The Priory of the Orange Tree, and since then I have read a whopping four chapters of Remnant Population. I am liking it, I'm just so brain dead at the moment that I can't seem to muster up energy to read and have been playing a lot of mindless phone games instead. I am in school until Wednesday next week and ooooh I can't wait.

I am also almost finished with The House of Hades with the kiddo and we have The Blood of Olympus ready and waiting for us next.

QOTW:
Just goodreads! Before GR I used to keep track on bibliophil.org, which I'm not sure still exists (I just tried opening the site but it stalled for a while and timed out, so I'm guessing not).

My finish since the last check-in is Project Hail Mary, which I loved. Probably the first book this year that kept me up past bedtime. Smart, funny, touching, and interesting. I think Andy Weir just became an author that I will pre-order the next release from. That list is pretty limited, and includes John Scalzi, Charlaine Harris, Gail Carriger, and Katherine Addison.
QOTW:
Just goodreads until this year, when I added the book nerds spreadsheet. Actually finding that fun (#Spreadsheets4Ever), as I've customized the original to focus on stuff I want to track and color coded by genre. The other time I kept track of reading was in 5th grade-I still have the notebook logging titles, authors, and ratings of the 256 books I read that year.

I am taking the first part of next week off, and I am definitely ready for that. In-laws are coming to visit, which will be the first time anyone has stayed at our place in a year and a half.

Bodies from the Library 2: Forgotten Stories of Mystery and Suspense by the Queens of Crime and other Masters of Golden Age Detection: I had read the first one of these, and I think my review was "there might be a reason these were forgotten", but this one had a Dorothy Sayers, so here we are. That story was good, but many of these were not so much "stories of mystery" as "stories by people who also wrote mysteries". The fourth one comes out this year and I can only imagine it's got Agatha Christie's shopping list or something. I'm not going to say I won't read any more of them, but I probably shouldn't.

Stand on the Sky: I saw this on A Mighty Girl and it sounded like the sort of thing I would have loved in my Jean Craighead George/Scott O'Dell/Jim Kjelgaard youth. And indeed, it combined "girl wants to do Boy Thing" with "special wild animal relationship" and I would've eaten it up. It's written by a white lady from Canada, but she clearly did a lot of research, including going to Mongolia to stay with a Kazakh family, and I don't think it is likely to have taken the place of a Kazakh author writing middle grade fiction for an English-speaking audience, so I think I'm OK with it.

QOTW: I used to use LibraryThing, but it seemed like Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ was increasingly where it was at (including this group), so I've converted. I am also doing the book nerds spreadsheet, but I haven't been keeping up with that regularly, basically going in when I remember and looking at Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to see what I need to add.
I did track reading at various times in school, but I think most of that has been lost. I found one or two sheets in a file box of stuff my parents kept, which is how I know that I once read something called An Occasional Cow.

i finished Are You Afraid of the Dark by Sidney Sheldon, and so my Sheldon re-read is all done!!

I'm now reading the Alienist - I'm still at the beginning, but it's rather interesting that the narrator/main character is NOT the character the series is named for. goodreads lists it as the "Dr. Laszlo Kreizler Series"... and I've yet to meet Dr. Kreizler "in person." it's .... interesting!

QOTW - nope, just goodreads. before goodreads, I kept a list on google docs, and that's how I was able to have my goodreads shelves go back to 2008 even though I joined goodreads in 2014 XD

Hello! I've not checked in for a while now, sorry. Will try to get back on the wagon again =)

This week I've just been reading the Shades of Magic trilogy - finished A Darker Shade of Magic and A Gathering of Shadows, and just started A Conjuring of Light today. Very much enjoying the series so far, though I think the first book was better than the second overall.

QOTW - I don't really track or organise my reading other than goodreads, which is a fairly recent thing for me but I'm glad that I have it now. Prior to that, I would sometimes look through my library loans history to try to find things, but even though the vast majority of my reading is from the library, that system obviously has its limits. This is my first year doing a challenge, so I have the book nerds spreadsheet as well, which I do like. I don't really see myself getting much more organised in the future, to be honest, but you never know!

let's see, my husband and I have been zooming through The Lost Fleet books by Jack Campbell on audio the last few weeks. we finished two of them this week. the audiobooks are short between 10 and 12 hours, and the series is a bit pulpy.

I finished reading an awesome graphic novel this week Photographic the Life of Graciela Iturbide. She is an amazing Mexican photographer who has been shooting black and white photos since the seventies.

I'm currently working on few books atm. Dragons of a lost Star a huge Dragonlance book which is my at home read as it's too big to carry on my commute.

Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfield is my current lunch time book. nice fluffy chick lit.

and hubby and I just started the next Lost Fleet book Guardian by Jack Campbell. it pulpy fun space opera science fiction.

QOTW: I also track a few places. Here on goodreads, I keep a handwritten books read each month list in my daily journal, and some friends from another online group have a shared spreadsheet we track on after setting yearly goals. I'm aiming for 150 this year after missing my goal of 175 last year.