Book a Week 2021 - BW1: Infinite Sky Reading Adventure

[Robin M]

 

 

“Smell the sea and feel the sky, Let your soul and spirit fly.” – Van Morrison

 Happy New Year, my lovelies!  I'm excited this year since our armchair travels are taking us around, over, and across the world again as we fly above the seven seas, through the infinite, clear blue sky on the good ship Pumdeg Dau o Lyfrau airship, for another round of read 52 books in 52 weeks.  We'll be taking advantage of Hermione Granger's Time Turner,  Well's Time machine as well as Doctor Who's Tardis, all without upsetting the space time continuum of course, in our travels to go hither, thither, and yon.  

The goal is simple. Read 52 books and how you get there is entirely up to you. You can even set your own goal if you like. Read what you want, explore and dive into those longer books, engage your mind and soul and don't worry. Do your best, challenge yourself and you may be surprised to discover how many books you end up reading.

Our Fictional Librarians as well as the Daughters of Mnemosyne will be our guides this year, mixing fact and fiction, the old with the new, the magical with the technological, and the arts with the sciences.  If you are joining us for the first time, we have a number of challenges to entice you, including 52 Books Bingo with 20 bonus squares and side trips roaming the old Roman roads of England, exploring the Nobel prize winners of Literature, diving into the greats with Susan Wise Bauer's Well Educated Mind, or take a Mind Voyage through fantasy and science Fiction.  Plus the Dame Agatha Christie would like your assistance in solving a murder or two.  

All our annual and perpetual challenges as well as weekly or seasonal mini challenges are optional and meant to tickle your reading taste buds. Which generally results in having fun, getting lost (in a good way) following rabbit trails and an ever expanding list of books to read.  

We're going to dive right in and begin our adventure with Librarian Madam Irma Pince who will help you jump into the magical world of  Harry Potter, created by J.K. Rowling.

There are a variety of ways to complete this challenge with plenty of rabbit trails. Read a book with one or more of the following (but not limited to) and have fun exploring:

·         Spell out the first and/or last name of the character's name - one book per letter from the title on the cover

·         Spell out the first and/or last name of the author - one book per letter 

·         Read one or more books in the series.

·         Read any book written by the author

·         Follow in a character's footsteps and read a book set in the country or time period of the story.

·         Follow in the author's footsteps and read a book set in their place or time of birth.

·         Read a book with the first or last name of the character or author in the title

Our first book week will run through Saturday, January 9th.  

Grab your backpacks, scarves and goggles, a good pair of walking shoes and climb aboard and settle in for the ride. Please share your reading plans for 2021 and/or your reading wrap up for 2020 or tell us the books you are currently reading.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts and sharing our reading journey!  

  ~Cheers to a wonderful new reading year!

 

 

Link to 2020 week 52

Visit  52 Books in 52 Weeks where you can find all the information on the annual, mini and perpetual challenges, as well as share your book reviews with other readers  around the globe.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Robin M

[Robin M]

Happy New Year! 

I'm starting off the year in the 12th Century with the first book in Sharon Kay Penman's Plantagenet series - When Christ and His Saints Slept. 

Also the memoir - And Then There were Nuns: Adventures in a Cloistered Life by Jane Christmas which so far is humorous as well as enlightening. 

Plus Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process edited by Joe Fossler. A collection in which authors talk about the one book, book passage, one author, poet, etc who hit them the hardest or  affected their life.  Today's reading by Elizabeth Gilbert who writes in praise of stubborn gladness and introduced me to poet Jack Gilbert.

I like his quote:  "We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubborness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world."

Since it's become a BAW tradition to start off the year with Haruki Murakami, Killing Commendatore is also on my nightstand.

ETA:  Pulled out Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to reread this month.  

I'll post my 2020 reading round up in a bit.

😘

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Robin M
can't spell worth beans this morning.

[Junie]

Happy New Year!

I met my challenge last year of not re-reading anything (except for the Bible).  So, I finished the year with 120 new-to-me books!!

While I enjoyed that challenge, it's just not practical to do it two years in a row.  There are some books that I need to re-read in order to help dd16 and dd14 through high school literature.

I was struggling this morning to decide what to read first, so I started in Genesis. 🙂

Many of my books are currently boxed up because dh is painting our bedroom and everything is kind of in a kerfuffle.  🙂  I'm using this as an opportunity to re-arrange some of my bookshelves.  

Dd16 got the Harry Potter movies for Christmas.  We haven't read all of the books, so that's probably something that I should get working on.   I read some of the series a very long time ago.  So now I have to figure out which kid has The Sorcerer's Stone so that I can get started...

 

[Robin M]

This year I read 111 books which included 10 Nonfiction and 101 fiction. My intent to read from my physical shelves went by the way side and I ended up reading  38 physical, while my Ipad and I were joined at the hip and read 70 Ebooks.  I did manage to listen to 3 audiobooks. I think my son and I also listened to 2 or 3 star wars books which I forgot to list. Statwise, 53 female, 15, and 25 were new to me authors.

I made progress this year with my Wheel of Time read by Robert Jordan and finished #11, 12, and 13.  Oh my gosh, # 13 Towers of Midnight brought so many answers and so many characters back together again and I’m looking forward to reading the last book soon.  It may have taken me a few years reading only one or two books a year, but it’s been worth it.  Great series.

I really enjoyed my 10 x 10 reads immersing myself in dragons, space operas, fantasy, and science fiction, delving into romance and mysteries as well as a few historical fiction reads.   

New to me authors and stories that blew me away this year with their unique worlds, interesting characters and intriguing story lines with themes of discrimination and classism, good versus evil,  mythology, and  cultural differences were:   

Alix Harrow: Ten Thousand Doors of January

Deborah Harkness: A Discovery of Witches

Kim Michelle Richardson:  Bookwoman of Troublesome Creek

Michelle Diener: Dark Horse - #1 - 4  Class 5

Samantha Shannon:  Priory of the Orange Tree

TJ Klune:   The House in the Cerulean Sea

All were entertaining as well as heartwarming

Which one made you giggle, weep, dance, or sing?  Book Woman of Troublesome Creek as well as The House in the Cerulean Sea made me weep.  A.J Jacob's It's All Relative made me laugh.  Two space opera series had all the feels:  Michelle Diener’s Class 5 space opera as well as Becky Chambers Wayfarers.

Made you want to dive in and live in their world?   The space operas definitely.   

Which book would you like to revisit?   Too many to list as I am a fast reader so sometimes I’ll speed through a story because I want to know what happened, then immediately reread at a much slower pace to take in all the details. Every Nora Roberts book written probably.  Also  Faith Hunter is one of my favorite authors and when Junkyard Cats came out in audio, I listened to it twice and was really pleased when the ebook was released which I also read twice. 

Which book would you recommend everyone read?  I fell in love with the characters in the  House in the Cerulean Sea.

 

Edited January 1, 2021 by Robin M

[marbel]

Good morning and happy new year! 

I'm starting 2021 with the latest Tana French novel, The Searcher.  She has been my most consistently-loved novelist for the past few years. 

And once again I'm obsessing over War and Peace, as I have wanted to read it for a long time but end up unable to choose a translation. I had a cheap edition (I think translated by Constance Garnett) which annoyed me; I don't remember why.  I don't know why WaP seems so intimidating; I have read many long books: Les Miserables is quite possibly my favorite book ever; The Count of Monte Cristo;  and 2 of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives, at the urging of my son who adores them. I don't know if it will prove to be the hardest, will have to finally read it to find out. I suspect Stormlight Archives will prove to have been the hardest, as I found them confusing and uninteresting. Kind of refreshing to admit I don't like epic fantasy and just step away from that genre!  Anyway, if anyone has thoughts on WaP translations, pass them on! 

I'm still working on reading goals. I have set my Goodreads goal to 20 as I have found a higher number leads to more easy reads so I can keep my number up. I want to focus on slowing down, reading more nonfiction and reading more deeply this year. One goal I know is to read all of food/history writer Bee Wilson's books, staring with The Hive: the Story of the Honeybee and Us. (Which are not terribly deep but I have had them on my list for a long time.)

[mumto2]

Thank you @Robin M for all the wonderful plans for 2021!

I really enjoy the rituals I have developed for starting a fresh year of reading. I filled out my paper book journal a couple of nights ago which now consists of my plans for Bingo etc......all done in Frixion pen so I can erase!😉. I set my Goodreads shelves up for 2021. Most importantly I finished my book in progress so I could start 2021 fresh. I also have my note page set up for tracking Brit Tripping and challenges......I think I might enjoy the planning portion too much!

My last book of 2020 was a contemporary romance called Mistletoe and Mr. Right. It was a gentle way to finish a not very gentle year. A comforting fluffy book with a moose and a hedgehog appearing......the romantic lead made his pet hedgehog custom furniture for her house (ok cage) ❤️ No explicit scenes in this series if anyone is interested.

Since joining BaW I have developed a habit of reading something by Murakami to start my new year off. Before BaW I had never even heard of Murakami so having a new year ritual that includes reading a book that is normally in the magical realism genre by a Japanese author just shows how much BaW expanded my reading habits. Thank you Robin!  My Murakami will likely be the first book be the first finished book of the new year although my tradition doesn’t require it. 
 

 Last year I decided to divide my favorite 1Q84 up (it’s around 1000 pages) and save the rest for this year. Well......at some point yesterday I decided 2021 really desperately needed a fresh new Murakami so I looked around overdrive and checked out South of the Border, West of the Sun. 🙂

[LaughingCat]

Wow Junie! I don't think I could go a whole year without a re-read!

For 2021,  I was actually thinking I might try to start a challenge this year of re-reading everything I own (although it might be a multi-year challenge).    My other thought was to work on clearing out my TBR shelf -- which I guess in some ways are opposite challenges  😄

Just finished Nora Roberts' Chronicles of the One trilogy on the recommendation of my DH -  apparently Nora is his new favorite author  (which I know some here will agree with ).  Unfortunately I did not care for it that much 😞

For my last year's reading, most memorable (and likely to be re-read) would be: 

Martha Well's Network Effect -- looking forward to her next effort coming this year.  

Megan Wheeler Turner's Return of the Thief.  The 3rd book in the series remains my favorite (The King of Attolia -- a many times re-read), but this last book was right up there, ending the series strong.  For those just starting this series, I personally didn't care as much for the first book (which actually I have found true of many Newberry Award/Honor books it's sad to say).  

 

[Robin M]

10 hours ago, Junie said:

Happy New Year!

I met my challenge last year of not re-reading anything (except for the Bible).  So, I finished the year with 120 new-to-me books!!

While I enjoyed that challenge, it's just not practical to do it two years in a row.  There are some books that I need to re-read in order to help dd16 and dd14 through high school literature.

I was struggling this morning to decide what to read first, so I started in Genesis. 🙂

Many of my books are currently boxed up because dh is painting our bedroom and everything is kind of in a kerfuffle.  🙂  I'm using this as an opportunity to re-arrange some of my bookshelves.  

Dd16 got the Harry Potter movies for Christmas.  We haven't read all of the books, so that's probably something that I should get working on.   I read some of the series a very long time ago.  So now I have to figure out which kid has The Sorcerer's Stone so that I can get started...

 

Well done!  Wow, no rereads must have been hard.  I love rereading my books.  Yep, Genesis is good.   I like reading the book before watching a movie and my son likes watching the movie before reading the book.  So he watched the movies prior to reading the last half of the series.  As long as he's read the first one and now knows who the characters are and the plot of the story, he shouldn't have a hard time following the movies. They do follow pretty closely with a just a few minor deviations.  

8 hours ago, marbel said:

Good morning and happy new year! 

I'm starting 2021 with the latest Tana French novel, The Searcher.  She has been my most consistently-loved novelist for the past few years. 

And once again I'm obsessing over War and Peace, as I have wanted to read it for a long time but end up unable to choose a translation. I had a cheap edition (I think translated by Constance Garnett) which annoyed me; I don't remember why.  I don't know why WaP seems so intimidating; I have read many long books: Les Miserables is quite possibly my favorite book ever; The Count of Monte Cristo;  and 2 of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives, at the urging of my son who adores them. I don't know if it will prove to be the hardest, will have to finally read it to find out. I suspect Stormlight Archives will prove to have been the hardest, as I found them confusing and uninteresting. Kind of refreshing to admit I don't like epic fantasy and just step away from that genre!  Anyway, if anyone has thoughts on WaP translations, pass them on! 

I'm still working on reading goals. I have set my Goodreads goal to 20 as I have found a higher number leads to more easy reads so I can keep my number up. I want to focus on slowing down, reading more nonfiction and reading more deeply this year. One goal I know is to read all of food/history writer Bee Wilson's books, staring with The Hive: the Story of the Honeybee and Us. (Which are not terribly deep but I have had them on my list for a long time.)

I read this one, the Anthony Briggs translation which for me was perfect and totally enjoyed the story.   I have yet to read Les Miserables though.

5 hours ago, mumto2 said:

Thank you @Robin M for all the wonderful plans for 2021!

I really enjoy the rituals I have developed for starting a fresh year of reading. I filled out my paper book journal a couple of nights ago which now consists of my plans for Bingo etc......all done in Frixion pen so I can erase!😉. I set my Goodreads shelves up for 2021. Most importantly I finished my book in progress so I could start 2021 fresh. I also have my note page set up for tracking Brit Tripping and challenges......I think I might enjoy the planning portion too much!

My last book of 2020 was a contemporary romance called Mistletoe and Mr. Right. It was a gentle way to finish a not very gentle year. A comforting fluffy book with a moose and a hedgehog appearing......the romantic lead made his pet hedgehog custom furniture for her house (ok cage) ❤️ No explicit scenes in this series if anyone is interested.

Since joining BaW I have developed a habit of reading something by Murakami to start my new year off. Before BaW I had never even heard of Murakami so having a new year ritual that includes reading a book that is normally in the magical realism genre by a Japanese author just shows how much BaW expanded my reading habits. Thank you Robin!  My Murakami will likely be the first book be the first finished book of the new year although my tradition doesn’t require it. 
 

 Last year I decided to divide my favorite 1Q84 up (it’s around 1000 pages) and save the rest for this year. Well......at some point yesterday I decided 2021 really desperately needed a fresh new Murakami so I looked around overdrive and checked out South of the Border, West of the Sun. 🙂

My pleasure and you're welcome.  I never did get to Killing Commendatore last year so this month I'll dive in.  How far did you get in 1Q84?  Oh, a Frixion Pen. I need one. Off to look on Amazon. 

18 minutes ago, LaughingCat said:

Wow Junie! I don't think I could go a whole year without a re-read!

For 2021,  I was actually thinking I might try to start a challenge this year of re-reading everything I own (although it might be a multi-year challenge).    My other thought was to work on clearing out my TBR shelf -- which I guess in some ways are opposite challenges  😄

Just finished Nora Roberts' Chronicles of the One trilogy on the recommendation of my DH -  apparently Nora is his new favorite author  (which I know some here will agree with ).  Unfortunately I did not care for it that much 😞

For my last year's reading, most memorable (and likely to be re-read) would be: 

Martha Well's Network Effect -- looking forward to her next effort coming this year.  

Megan Wheeler Turner's Return of the Thief.  The 3rd book in the series remains my favorite (The King of Attolia -- a many times re-read), but this last book was right up there, ending the series strong.  For those just starting this series, I personally didn't care as much for the first book (which actually I have found true of many Newberry Award/Honor books it's sad to say).  

 

Yes, rereading everything would be a multi year challenge. I think it's Karen who suggested between every new book, read an old one.  I love Nora and have been reading her books for years.  Chronicles of the one isn't her best and different from many of her other trilogies.  I currently listening  to Key of Light which I've read before.  I enjoy rereading her books.   I finally read the first book in Well's Murderbot series and enjoyed it. Just wished it was longer. I'm tempted to read the rest of the series but they're so short.   I added Wheeler's The Thief to my stacks last week. 

[Ali in OR]

I'm starting off 2021 with my last two library books from the November tsunami from my hold list, The Vanishing Half and Pale Rider about the 1918 influenza pandemic. That will probably take a couple of weeks. Then I hope to read books 2 and 3 of The Bear and the Nightingale trilogy, perhaps also starting either Caste or The Warmth of Other Suns simultaneously. No reading goals other than to always have a book going.

[Robin M]

Quote

@Seasider tooI want to reply well to this thread, I just need a day or two to slow down and breathe first - hope you won’t close it up with tomorrow starting the new year,

Hugs! I traditionally start the new thread on the first of the year.  This year is more mellow than past years so no rush and you won't get lost in the crush.  Take your time, slow down and breath and join us when you are ready. 😘

[Kareni]

3 hours ago, LaughingCat said:

Just finished Nora Roberts' Chronicles of the One trilogy on the recommendation of my DH -  apparently Nora is his new favorite author  (which I know some here will agree with ).  Unfortunately I did not care for it that much 😞

It's not my favorite of her books/series either, so you're in good company!

 

3 hours ago, LaughingCat said:

Megan Wheeler Turner's Return of the Thief.  The 3rd book in the series remains my favorite (The King of Attolia -- a many times re-read), but this last book was right up there, ending the series strong.  For those just starting this series, I personally didn't care as much for the first book (which actually I have found true of many Newberry Award/Honor books it's sad to say).  

My daughter was recently horrified to learn that I'd not read this series. Perhaps this year....

 

12 hours ago, Junie said:

I met my challenge last year of not re-reading anything...

I'm another who could not imagine going a year without rereading so kudos to you! I am currently rereading an old favorite.

Regards,

Kareni

[Jane Elliot]

On 1/1/2021 at 10:19 AM, marbel said:

And once again I'm obsessing over War and Peace, as I have wanted to read it for a long time but end up unable to choose a translation. I had a cheap edition (I think translated by Constance Garnett) which annoyed me; I don't remember why.  

Hi Margaret, I used to post here a lot, but haven't for years. Every once in a while, I pop in for some reading inspiration. I had been wanting to read W&P for as long as I can remember and dabbled in Constance Garnett's translation a bit, but finally committed myself in Jan 2020 with the Maude translation. I got all the way through Book 1, then started all over again at the beginning with the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation when some of the Center for Lit crew chose it for their How to Eat an Elephant podcast. What a difference! The Pevear translation is much more enjoyable for some reason, and reading along with the podcast has been really fun. They read at such a slow pace that it would be simple to catch up with them. W&P was just the right book for me in 2020. Somehow reading about how horrible things were in the past gives me perspective for the present. In Breaking Bread with the Dead, Alan Jacobs talked about reading old books to foster "personal density" -- sorry can't quote because I lent the book out. But I can see how that is working for me with W&P. Anyway, I'm no expert, but I personally found the Pevear much more enjoyable.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Jane Elliot

[mumto2]

My Murakami is done for the year. I really liked South of the Border, West of the Sun while I was reading it. On the surface the book didn’t “do” much and I am not even positive what was real and what wasn’t. It was probably about the consequences of guilt....... 

I started one of those best seller type thrillers called The Last Flight by Julie Clark.  I wanted to know how in today’s world one could switch flight with someone and get away with it......I now know and the answer was stupidly easy! Two desperate women on the run from bad situations switch flights and identity’s at JFK......unfortunately/fortunately one of the planes crashes. It’s a duel storyline where I detest one of the characters so I may abandon it.

I also started listening to Christopher Paolini’s(Eragon) To Sleep in a Sea of Stars which seems to be great. It is completely different than Eragon as it’s science fiction......scary alien technology is happening. 😉 I discovered it’s 32 hours long and I wasn’t expecting that! Lot’s of quilting needs to happen as it’s due in 6 days! I actually think I can finish it thanks to 2x speed.........

[UnsinkableKristen]

22 hours ago, marbel said:

And once again I'm obsessing over War and Peace, as I have wanted to read it for a long time but end up unable to choose a translation. I had a cheap edition (I think translated by Constance Garnett) which annoyed me; I don't remember why.  I don't know why WaP seems so intimidating; I have read many long books: Les Miserables is quite possibly my favorite book ever; The Count of Monte Cristo;  and 2 of Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives, at the urging of my son who adores them. I don't know if it will prove to be the hardest, will have to finally read it to find out. I suspect Stormlight Archives will prove to have been the hardest, as I found them confusing and uninteresting. Kind of refreshing to admit I don't like epic fantasy and just step away from that genre!  Anyway, if anyone has thoughts on WaP translations, pass them on!

 

1 hour ago, Jane Elliot said:

Hi Margaret, I used to post here a lot, but haven't for years. Every once in a while, I pop in for some reading inspiration. I had been wanting to read W&P for as long as I can remember and dabbled in Constance Garnett's translation a bit, but finally committed myself in Jan 2020 with the Maude translation. I got all the way through Book 1, then started all over again at the beginning with the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation when some of the Center for Lit crew chose it for their How to Eat an Elephant podcast. What a difference! The Pevear translation is much more enjoyable for some reason, and reading along with the podcast has been really fun. They read at such a slow pace that it would be simple to catch up with them. W&P was just the right book for me in 2020. Somehow reading about how horrible things were in the past gives me perspective for the present. In Breaking Bread with the Dead, Alan Jacobs talked about reading old books to foster "personal density" -- sorry can't quote because I lent the book out. But I can see how that is working for me with W&P. Anyway, I'm no expert, but I personally found the Pevear much more enjoyable.

Luann (a Goodreads friend)

I haven't posted for a long time, either!  But I second the Pevear/Volokhonsky recommendation.  I tried the Kropotkin translation, but realized it was abridged. The writing is beautiful, but I didn't want to miss anything, so I switched.  I finished W&P in May of 2020 and I agree that it was just the right book for the year.  It felt like an actual life changing experience, honestly.  Fair warning, I read it with a friend and we both felt serious ennui afterwards.  It was difficult to read anything else for quite a few months.  I almost want to read it again this year, but I'll let it sit a bit before I pick it back up. 

I'm starting my year of reading with A Court of Wings and Ruin, it's the third in a series by Sarah J. Maas.  I'm not usually a fantasy reader (is this considered fantasy?) but I needed something new and fun and this series has been the perfect fit for the break.  I'm hoping to read wide and new this year.  I may make an arbitrary number goal, but mostly I want to step out of my box and read things that I wouldn't usually.  Last year felt so cloistered and I find myself needing to shake things up. 

[marbel]

Thank you @Jane Elliotand @UnsinkableKristen!  Super helpful and inspiring comments!

[AmandaVT]

This is not the first time I've joined a BaW thread. I always end up not returning because I feel badly if I haven't posted each week. This year, one of my resolutions is to not let "perfect be the enemy of the good", which to me means, working out a few times a week instead of daily is better than skipping it. And I'll add that not adding to the thread as much as I feel is "good" is still ok and I'll let myself jump in and out as I'm able if that's ok? 

This week I read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I've been a friend of his on Twitter for years, since he wrote his first book, I think. But for some reason, this is the first book of his I've read and I loved it. There were no great surprises in it or anything, but it was lovely.

[Robin M]

Finished reading the memoir, And Then There Were Nuns by Jane Christmas which was quite good.  She had a fiancée who knew her well and was full of patience.  Perhaps because he's known her so long, it's the reason he waited for her to decide what she wanted to do with her life.  For she had a life long desire to become a nun. A cloistered one at that.  She desired spending her days in contemplation and prayer, listening to God.  Or so she thought. 

Little did she realize that falling into silence and routine would awaken the trauma of a past sexual assault, buried so deep, it'd became part of her soul and she needed to face it and work out the pain of the past.  As Jane battled her personal demons and tried to fit into the life of a cloistered community, she learned quite a bit about herself.  

While developing a closer relationship with God, she learned about the needs within a religious community, the differences between the Anglican and Catholic church and what religion and faith really mean.   The cloistered convents guest houses and cells (bedrooms) reflected the beauty or ugliness of each, a visual representation of each religion.   The Anglican nuns were open and nonjudgmental versus the Catholic who were strict, by the book, and not open to allowing a divorced woman become a nun.  

Jane learned she couldn't fit into anyone's box. Her story is one of faith, forgiveness, friendship, redemption, and trust.  Add in church politics, history, the needs and wants of the religious community which made for a very interesting story indeed  And Then There Were Nuns is full of inspiration, humor, tears, and well worth reading.   Plus she fell in like with the writings of my favorite monk,  Thomas Merton.  References to Ludolph of Saxony, a German theologian, C.K. Chesterton, and  provide plenty of rabbit trails of thought.  

 

Edited January 2, 2021 by Robin M

[Robin M]

14 hours ago, Ali in OR said:

I'm starting off 2021 with my last two library books from the November tsunami from my hold list, The Vanishing Half and Pale Rider about the 1918 influenza pandemic. That will probably take a couple of weeks. Then I hope to read books 2 and 3 of The Bear and the Nightingale trilogy, perhaps also starting either Caste or The Warmth of Other Suns simultaneously. No reading goals other than to always have a book going.

The Vanishing Half sounds interesting and look forward to hearing what you think about it.   I'm going to dive into the Bear and Nightingale trilogy at some point this year. 

2 hours ago, Jane Elliot said:

Hi Margaret, I used to post here a lot, but haven't for years. Every once in a while, I pop in for some reading inspiration. I had been wanting to read W&P for as long as I can remember and dabbled in Constance Garnett's translation a bit, but finally committed myself in Jan 2020 with the Maude translation. I got all the way through Book 1, then started all over again at the beginning with the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation when some of the Center for Lit crew chose it for their How to Eat an Elephant podcast. What a difference! The Pevear translation is much more enjoyable for some reason, and reading along with the podcast has been really fun. They read at such a slow pace that it would be simple to catch up with them. W&P was just the right book for me in 2020. Somehow reading about how horrible things were in the past gives me perspective for the present. In Breaking Bread with the Dead, Alan Jacobs talked about reading old books to foster "personal density" -- sorry can't quote because I lent the book out. But I can see how that is working for me with W&P. Anyway, I'm no expert, but I personally found the Pevear much more enjoyable.

Luann (a Goodreads friend)

Hi Luann!!!  Thank you for linking to the Center for Lit. Great website and have bookmarked.  

1 hour ago, mumto2 said:

My Murakami is done for the year. I really liked South of the Border, West of the Sun while I was reading it. On the surface the book didn’t “do” much and I am not even positive what was real and what wasn’t. It was probably about the consequences of guilt....... 

I started one of those best seller type thrillers called The Last Flight by Julie Clark.  I wanted to know how in today’s world one could switch flight with someone and get away with it......I now know and the answer was stupidly easy! Two desperate women on the run from bad situations switch flights and identity’s at JFK......unfortunately/fortunately one of the planes crashes. It’s a duel storyline where I detest one of the characters so I may abandon it.

I also started listening to Christopher Paolini’s(Eragon) To Sleep in a Sea of Stars which seems to be great. It is completely different than Eragon as it’s science fiction......scary alien technology is happening. 😉 I discovered it’s 32 hours long and I wasn’t expecting that! Lot’s of quilting needs to happen as it’s due in 6 days! I actually think I can finish it thanks to 2x speed.........

I almost got To Sleep in a Sea of Stars but didn't for some reason. It's on my wishlist for later in the year.  Does 2x speed make the narrator sound like a chipmunk or just reading really fast?  

1 hour ago, UnsinkableKristen said:

I haven't posted for a long time, either!  But I second the Pevear/Volokhonsky recommendation.  I tried the Kropotkin translation, but realized it was abridged. The writing is beautiful, but I didn't want to miss anything, so I switched.  I finished W&P in May of 2020 and I agree that it was just the right book for the year.  It felt like an actual life changing experience, honestly.  Fair warning, I read it with a friend and we both felt serious ennui afterwards.  It was difficult to read anything else for quite a few months.  I almost want to read it again this year, but I'll let it sit a bit before I pick it back up. 

I'm starting my year of reading with A Court of Wings and Ruin, it's the third in a series by Sarah J. Maas.  I'm not usually a fantasy reader (is this considered fantasy?) but I needed something new and fun and this series has been the perfect fit for the break.  I'm hoping to read wide and new this year.  I may make an arbitrary number goal, but mostly I want to step out of my box and read things that I wouldn't usually.  Last year felt so cloistered and I find myself needing to shake things up. 

Maas's Court of Thorns and Roses series looks good. It would be considered fantasy since has faeries and set in a magical land. 

35 minutes ago, AmandaVT said:

This is not the first time I've joined a BaW thread. I always end up not returning because I feel badly if I haven't posted each week. This year, one of my resolutions is to not let "perfect be the enemy of the good", which to me means, working out a few times a week instead of daily is better than skipping it. And I'll add that not adding to the thread as much as I feel is "good" is still ok and I'll let myself jump in and out as I'm able if that's ok? 

This week I read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I've been a friend of his on Twitter for years, since he wrote his first book, I think. But for some reason, this is the first book of his I've read and I loved it. There were no great surprises in it or anything, but it was lovely.

Hi Amanda! Good to see you and I like your resolution. Please don't feel bad about not posting every week.  Lurk as much as you want and keep it casual, jump in and out when ever you like, as often or as little as you want.  That's so neat that you have a connection to Matt Haig.  His book is on my virtual shelves.  I've discovered quite a few authors through Twitter and Facebook. So much fun following them. 

[mumto2]

26 minutes ago, Robin M said:

I almost got To Sleep in a Sea of Stars but didn't for some reason. It's on my wishlist for later in the year.  Does 2x speed make the narrator sound like a chipmunk or just reading really fast?  

My hubby would say chipmunks but Dd and I would tell you it’s the only way we can approach the speed we read at.  I am not a huge fan of being read to......I much prefer to be the reader.  The only think I can say is try it, I suspect you might like it😉.......for heavily accented I only do 1.5 speed.

[Negin]

Kindle book on sale today. Has anyone here read this? The reviews seem to be quite polarized. I'm not sure if I should get it or not. 

[Kareni]

4 hours ago, Jane Elliot said:

I used to post here a lot, but haven't for years. Every once in a while, I pop in for some reading inspiration.

 

3 hours ago, UnsinkableKristen said:

I haven't posted for a long time, either!

 

2 hours ago, AmandaVT said:

This is not the first time I've joined a BaW thread..

Welcome back to you all!

Regards,

Kareni

[Kareni]

42 minutes ago, negin said:

Kindle book on sale today. Has anyone here read this? The reviews seem to be quite polarized. I'm not sure if I should get it or not. 

I searched and see that several here have read American Dirt. Feelings here also varied. @Dreamergal, @-M-, @Ali in OR, @Lady Florida.

Regards,

Kareni

[Ali in OR]

46 minutes ago, negin said:

Kindle book on sale today. Has anyone here read this? The reviews seem to be quite polarized. I'm not sure if I should get it or not. 

I read this a couple of weeks ago for our book club and it's one of my top five fiction books of 2020. In talking to my sister (who also ranked it one of her top books of 2020), I guess one issue some have with it is that the author is not Mexican but is writing about Mexican characters in Mexico. She is married to a Mexican immigrant and I remember reading in her afterword I think that she corresponded with a Latinx professor at I think UCSD wondering about this issue--is she not the right voice to write this story (lots of Mexican drug cartel and corruption in the story plus just the lives of Mexican characters and their thoughts and feelings), but she received only encouragement--the more voices the better. Anyway, I found it to be a page-turner, well-written, no glaring instances of it being obviously written by an American. I had also read Lost Children Archive earlier in the year which dealt with some similar issues (La Bestia) but found American Dirt to be much more readable and a better fit for me. I would recommend it.

[LaughingCat]

6 hours ago, AmandaVT said:

This is not the first time I've joined a BaW thread. I always end up not returning because I feel badly if I haven't posted each week. This year, one of my resolutions is to not let "perfect be the enemy of the good", which to me means, working out a few times a week instead of daily is better than skipping it. And I'll add that not adding to the thread as much as I feel is "good" is still ok and I'll let myself jump in and out as I'm able if that's ok? 

This week I read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I've been a friend of his on Twitter for years, since he wrote his first book, I think. But for some reason, this is the first book of his I've read and I loved it. There were no great surprises in it or anything, but it was lovely.

I pop in and out all year without worrying about it --  I must admit I treat it like a backyard bbq where I'm super distracted by something else (kids probably 😆)  but still jump in to my friends convo as I can.  Hopefully this year I'll be able to read BaW more often because it is so worth it for all the great recs I've gotten over the years plus BaW'ers have gotten me to try a bunch of books I would have never even looked at 🧡💛💚💙  

[Negin]

12 hours ago, Kareni said:

I searched and see that several here have read American Dirt. Feelings here also varied. @Dreamergal, @-M-, @Ali in OR, @Lady Florida.

Regards,

Kareni

 

12 hours ago, Ali in OR said:

I read this a couple of weeks ago for our book club and it's one of my top five fiction books of 2020. In talking to my sister (who also ranked it one of her top books of 2020), 

 

11 hours ago, Dreamergal said:

 

I have attached my review. I am one of the polarizing voices. It felt fake to me.

Thank you all so much. This is very helpful!

[Negin]

I read Stitches: A Memoir - 4 Stars - I read this graphic memoir in one sitting. David Small’s childhood and family life were horrifying to say the least. Not to sound smug or self-righteous, but it’s parents like these that have me wondering. Honestly, some people should seriously consider whether they’re emotionally and mentally prepared before considering marriage and/or children. At the very least, I wish that they would put some thought into these major decisions. Some people shouldn’t be parents. Although reading this was emotionally draining, I’m glad that I did. This is the type of book that has remained with me.

[SanDiegoMom]

Ok, encouraged by @LaughingCat and @AmandaVT I am going to post not and just do my best to keep up! I tried last year to follow along without posting, so that if I couldn't keep up I wouldn't have committed to anything:). Now I am willing to try and just do my best!

I am almost done with How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, which discusses the difference between the classical view of emotion (as emotions being universal and we all feel them and show them the same way) vs constructed emotion (that our bodies experience emotion differently based on our past experiences and our cultures, and there is no one way to express emotion).  It is very interesting.  I have learned a lot about the interoceptive network in the brain which helps us budget our energy needs for any given occasion, and intercepts the signals our bodies give (hunger, cold, etc).  I have two kids with middling to poor interception so it's somewhat relevant! 

I am going to try to alternate fiction with non fiction every week and next week will start the Golden Compass Series.  I read the first one a long time ago but never got through all of them! Then I will head back to The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World by Steven Johnson.  I can't wait!

My husband is reading along but he loves his Blinkist app (it summarizes books in a 15 minute "blink" and tried to get those to count. Ha! No way.  He'll probably hit the target anyway -- he reads a ton.   

[-M-]

On 1/2/2021 at 2:23 PM, Kareni said:

I searched and see that several here have read American Dirt. Feelings here also varied. @Dreamergal, @-M-, @Ali in OR, @Lady Florida.

Regards,

Kareni

It was, of course, maligned because many thought that Cummins was not the person equipped to write that story. I had purchased and read the book before I learned about the controversy, so my uninformed opinion was, It’s a pageturner that educated me about an aspect of immigration experience about which I had no knowledge. Was it perfect? No. Was it wildly overwritten in places? Yeah. Did earn keeper status in my personal library? No. Am I glad I read it? Yes.

Edited January 3, 2021 by -M-

[Lady Florida.]

I panicked because it's Sunday and I meant to post my wrap-up in this thread. Then I thought I remembered from past years that started near a Sunday that the thread goes until the following week. If not, I'll just copy and paste this post to the new thread later today.

I finished two books in the last few days of 2020, bringing my total for the year to 70 books. Those two were Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope and a short but very enjoyable novel called Last Night at the Lobster, by Stewart O'Nan. The Trollope novel took me a long time to finish. It was very slow, which is saying a lot because all of his books are slow lol. I liked it, and since it was the first in the Palliser novels I do plan to read the rest of the series, but not right away. The other book was recommended to me and was perfect (nice and short) to finish out the year. It's set in a Red Lobster near a mall, on Christmas Eve and is the last day before corporate shuts that one down. There's also a snowstorm. Everything is seen through the view of the manager of the restaurant. Some of the employees will be going with him to a nearby Olive Garden, and the parent company (Darden when the book was written) gave him the choice of who to bring and who will be laid off. It was recommended by a friend, and I really enjoyed it. Anyone who has ever worked in food service, even for a summer, will recognize these characters, both the workers and the customers. 

I'm currently still listening to The Mirror and the Light, and have just over 9 hours left in the audio book. 

As I've said before I'm stingy with stars, though I started to rate genre fiction after @mumto2gave me a nudge. I read or listened to a lot of fluff not just because of the pandemic but also due to our move. I listened to several Agatha Raisin books while painting the old house or clearing out clutter, and at night I just read fluff because I was tired. I still managed a few good books and narrowed down my best of 2020 to just a few. 

Favorite fiction:
The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich - I read this because I wanted to read more by Native American authors and more than a few websites recommended her books. I ended up loving it. Well written character books will always get me, and this one had a number of great characters. It has a good plot that keeps the story moving but it's really the characters that made it a five star read for me. 
Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernadine Evaristo This was last year's Booker Prize co-winner (shared with Margaret Atwood for The Testaments, a book that didn't deserve a Booker imo). It reads like a bunch of short stories though there's some overlap of characters, then comes together beautifully at the end.

Honorable mention: The Goblin Emperor - This book has been recommended by BaW'ers for years and I finally decided to give it a shot. I loved it! I can't believe I waited so long to read it. Well, actually I can since it's not a genre I normally read, but sometimes reading outside my preferred genres is how I find books that never would have crossed my path. 

Favorite nonfiction:
Blowout, by Rachel Maddow - I don't usually like it when authors read their own books but she talks for a living. The book itself was eye opening, well researched, and she did a great job narrating it.
The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin -  I shouldn't have been as struck by how little has changed since he wrote this but I was. Other than the obvious things that dated the book, so much of what he said could have been said by an African American today, and I guess it was said in Between the World and Me. I read that one several years ago but it seems my privilege kept me from truly listening.

 

A few others I enjoyed are:
--Sarum: The Novel of England
--The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
--Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
 

I don't ever have "worst of" books because I abandon books with abandon. 😂 Seriously though, I have no problem abandoning a book I truly dislike. There were two that disappointed me though. They weren't bad enough to not finish but I was expecting more from them.

--Oh, Florida!: How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country - I thought this would have more humor and thought it would be more of a love letter to our crazy state. It was pretty dry except for a few parts. 
--The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales - This too was dry but I also didn't realize how old it was. I didn't pay attention to when it was published (1985) or the fact that it was never updated. So much of what we know about mental health is different and it just sounds so wrong when reading the anecdotes. 

 

 

[Kareni]

4 hours ago, SanDiegoMom said:

Ok, encouraged by @LaughingCat and @AmandaVT I am going to post not and just do my best to keep up! I tried last year to follow along without posting, so that if I couldn't keep up I wouldn't have committed to anything:). Now I am willing to try and just do my best!

Welcome! I look forward to hearing more about what you are reading.

Regards,

Kareni

[Robin M]

Welcome to all the newbies and returnee’s. Looking forward to hearing about your reads! 🥂😘

@SeasiderWait!!! I want to recap here! Sorry I am so slooooowwwwww😂

Pulling seasider over from the old thread. time to say hello to 2021.  😉

“My last completed book of 2020 was Bonhoeffer by Metaxes. It took me a long time to get through that book, I finally resorted to audio, determined to finish it before year end. Mission accomplished. That was #64. 
 

My favorites of the year were:

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet (Jamie Ford)

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion (Fannie Flagg, a favorite author of mine)

Linesman, Confluence, Alliance (trilogy, SK Dunstall)

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend (Matthew Dicks)

Love Does, Everybody Always, Dream Big (not a series, but all 3 by Bob Goff) 

The Other Bennett Sister (Janice Harlow)

I enjoyed two things in particular that I consider comfort reads - good diversions from crummy world issues. First was the Mrs Pollifax series which I will continue in 2021. Also, thanks to @Kareniand her faithful alerts about kindle freebies, I read a number of regency romances, which I don’t think I’ve done since probably high school. Definite escapism! I did balance them with some nonfiction titles that expanded my worldview and tested some of my long held patterns of thought (Hillbilly Elegy, Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Vanishing Half, Jesus and John Wayne). 
 

I always count the forums as one huge tome, with a lotta chapters, so that gives me 65 titles for the year. I don’t really think I’ll read that many again in 2021, those of you who read more truly amaze me. However, I know that with intent, 52 is certainly doable!
 

Ok, ready to jump to the first week of the new year. Thanks, Robin, for keeping this going!”

See, that wasn’t so bad, was it.  😘

Edited January 3, 2021 by Robin M
wires crossed

[Kareni]

2 hours ago, Seasider too said:

My favorites of the year were:

...

Linesman, Confluence, Alliance (trilogy, SK Dunstall)

...

 Also, thanks to @Kareniand her faithful alerts about kindle freebies, I read a number of regency romances, which I don’t think I’ve done since probably high school. Definite escapism!

I'm glad to see that the Linesman books landed on your favorites list. They are definitely among my favorite books!

And you are quite welcome for the Kindle freebies. I'm glad that some brought you pleasure.

1 hour ago, Seasider too said:

I have to add The Goblin Emperor to my favorites of 2020 list!

How could I have forgotten that one?!!

#goblinemperorforpresident2024

And another of my favorites!

Regards,

Kareni

[Lady Florida.]

3 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernadine Evaristo This was last year's Booker Prize co-winner

Yes 'I'm quoting myself but only to point out that this is my first old year/new year oops of 2021. It was 2019's winner. Last year was 2020. 😄 

 

1 hour ago, Seasider too said:

I have to add The Goblin Emperor to my favorites of 2020 list!

How could I have forgotten that one?!!

21 minutes ago, Kareni said:

And another of my favorites!

I have to say @Kareni, you're really the main reason I read The Goblin Emperor. You've been singing its praises for years. I should have listened to you sooner. 🙂❤️ 

 

[Kareni]

3 minutes ago, Lady Florida. said:

I have to say @Kareni, you're really the main reason I read The Goblin Emperor. You've been singing its praises for years. I should have listened to you sooner. 🙂❤️ 

Well, in that case, let me sing you another song ~

🎶 🎶 🎶  🎶 🎶 Linesman by S. K. Dunstall  🎶 🎶  🎶

Regards,

Kareni

[Ottakee]

I just finished My Name Is Mary SutterSutter as an audio book.  I really enjoyed it.   The story of a young lady wanting to become at surgeon during the Civil War.

[Lady Florida.]

I don't know if we had a 2021 goals thread but if we did I missed it. If you have upcoming plans for one @Robin M I apologize for jumping the gun.

Considering all that 2020 was I didn't do to badly with my reading goals. I planned to work on my personal Shakespeare challenge by finishing the poems and sonnets, and reading 10 plays. I didn't finish the sonnets but I finished the poems and read 9 plays. I wanted to read the first two Palliser novels (Trollope) and I read the first one so that's not bad. The rest of my 2020 goals aren't worth mentioning. 😄 

This year I have several books I specifically want to listen to, and my long term (all year long if necessary) read will be A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. That was in last year's goals but once the pandemic hit I wasn't in the mood for it. The only book I plan to reread this year is Anna Karenina, and ds gave me a copy for Christmas. It's not a special copy, just a paperback, but it's the one I wanted.

Every year I plan to get to books on my TBR list and then other books come along (Squirrel!) so I don't get to them. This year I decided to try a new, more fun way of doing it. I saw something online about making a TBR jar and there were a number of ways to pretty-up the jar. I was feeling the need to create, and both my crochet supplies and sewing machine and supplies are still in bins stacked in the spare room of our new house. This helped alleviate my "create something" craving. I put names of the books I want to read on slips of paper and added them to the jar, and instead of just folding the slips of paper I decided to make origami stars. They're not as easy to make as they look lol. After a while I got tired of starting over and included the sad looking ones as well as the good ones. I color coded fiction, nonfiction, and Audible books in my account that I bought with credits and still haven't listened to. 

I'm a mood reader, so my goals and plans still leave me plenty of room to learn of a book I want to read and start reading it without worrying that it will interfere with my goal completion. Also, I'm going to put 52 books in the Goodreads challenge just so they'll leave me alone. I don't like number challenges but this will make GR happy. All last year I kept getting notices that it wasn't too late to join the challenge. My 52 books goal will keep them off my back lol.

So... my currently reading list if you made it this far -

Lady Chatterly's Lover - I started this during Banned Books Week 2020 but couldn't get into it. I was told that if I persevered it would get better, so instead of abandoning it I added it to my GR shelf of books to finish another time (another goal of 2021 is to finish some of those books). It's starting to get better so I'm glad I didn't give it up. I can understand why it was scandalous at the time, but now I see that there's also so much more to it. It's not just about an unfulfilled woman but about the changes in the UK after WWI, and it's about class inequality.

A People's History of the United States - see above. 

Murder on Mulberry Bend - #5 in the Gaslight Mysteries and because I need fluff bedtime reading.

Light in August - The fiction book I pulled out of my TBR jar. This will be my 3rd try for this book and my 6th or 7th try with Faulkner. It's his last chance to convince me he's an author I should read. So far he's not doing a good job. 

Catch and Kill, Ronan Farrow - the nonfiction book I pulled out my TBR jar.

I didn't pull an audio book star out of the jar because I'm still listening to The Mirror and the Light. My plan with the jar is to pull a star each out for fiction, nonfiction, and audio at the end of the previous month. These are all books I either own or are readily available at my library but I don't want to wait until the new month starts just in case there's a wait at the library. 

Here are some photos of my jar and stars. I'm including the sorry looking stars too just to keep it real. 😄 

 

 

 

[Lady Florida.]

That jar looks big for the amount of stars in it but I couldn't find the size I wanted. The only other sizes they had at Michaels were either tiny or way too big. I didn't want to run to a bunch of stores since I'm still limiting my trips out in public, so I just took what I could get.

[AnneGG]

I’m new to this side of the WTM forums. I’ll be trying for 52 books in 52 weeks. 
 

I’ve read Glory Road by Lauren Denton and Katie in Waiting by Erynn Mangum since New Year’s Day. Glory Road wasn’t anything special IMO. Katie in Waiting was a short and sweet Christian fiction that actually feels like Christian fiction. I think fans of Robin Jones Gunn would enjoy Erynn Mangum. 

Plans for Jan reads:

A Haven for Her Heart by Susan Anne Mason

Hope’s Highest Mountain by Misty Beller

Finish For the Children’s Sake and a Joyce Meyer book I’ve been milking. 

[marbel]

@Lady Florida.I like your jar of stars!  What a fun idea.

I finished my first book of 2021: The Searcher by Tana French. I had been anticipating this one since publication was announced. I have loved all of her books thus far, but this one is quite different and, I'm sorry to say, a bit of a let-down for me. I'll still snap up her next book though. 

I'm trying to get a better mix of fiction and nonfiction (the past few years I have read almost no nonfiction at all) so I am starting The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel. I'm sure I will veer into some fluff though; I always do! 

[Miss Tick]

18 minutes ago, marbel said:

I finished my first book of 2021: The Searcher by Tana French. I had been anticipating this one since publication was announced. I have loved all of her books thus far, but this one is quite different and, I'm sorry to say, a bit of a let-down for me. I'll still snap up her next book though. 

This was my last book of 2020 and I totally agree with every word. 🙂

[Kareni]

2 hours ago, AnneGG said:

I’m new to this side of the WTM forums. I’ll be trying for 52 books in 52 weeks. 

Welcome, AnneGG! 

I look forward to hearing about your reading no matter the number of books. Some read 52, some read more, some read less.

Regards,

Kareni

[Granny_Weatherwax]

On 1/2/2021 at 11:14 AM, AmandaVT said:

This is not the first time I've joined a BaW thread. I always end up not returning because I feel badly if I haven't posted each week. This year, one of my resolutions is to not let "perfect be the enemy of the good", which to me means, working out a few times a week instead of daily is better than skipping it. And I'll add that not adding to the thread as much as I feel is "good" is still ok and I'll let myself jump in and out as I'm able if that's ok? 

This week I read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I've been a friend of his on Twitter for years, since he wrote his first book, I think. But for some reason, this is the first book of his I've read and I loved it. There were no great surprises in it or anything, but it was lovely.

Pop in, please. I don't post every week or every month. I follow some BAWs on Goodreads and hope they keep posting there.

[Robin M]

On 1/2/2021 at 1:23 PM, Dreamergal said:

I hope to finish the Commonwealth countries first (former British colonies) the year. But I will not box myself in rigidly.

Commonwealth countries.

https://thecommonwealth.org/member-countries

The most angst I have is what book to choose. This has been the most useful so far to start and look.

https://abookandahug.com/read-around-the-world/

I am starting with Australia.

 

Thank you for introducing me to the commonwealth countries. I had no idea they existed. 

11 hours ago, SanDiegoMom said:

Ok, encouraged by @LaughingCat and @AmandaVT I am going to post not and just do my best to keep up! I tried last year to follow along without posting, so that if I couldn't keep up I wouldn't have committed to anything:). Now I am willing to try and just do my best!

I am almost done with How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett, which discusses the difference between the classical view of emotion (as emotions being universal and we all feel them and show them the same way) vs constructed emotion (that our bodies experience emotion differently based on our past experiences and our cultures, and there is no one way to express emotion).  It is very interesting.  I have learned a lot about the interoceptive network in the brain which helps us budget our energy needs for any given occasion, and intercepts the signals our bodies give (hunger, cold, etc).  I have two kids with middling to poor interception so it's somewhat relevant! 

I am going to try to alternate fiction with non fiction every week and next week will start the Golden Compass Series.  I read the first one a long time ago but never got through all of them! Then I will head back to The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How it Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World by Steven Johnson.  I can't wait!

My husband is reading along but he loves his Blinkist app (it summarizes books in a 15 minute "blink" and tried to get those to count. Ha! No way.  He'll probably hit the target anyway -- he reads a ton.   

Glad you decided to join in. Post as much or as little as you want.  Barrett's book sounds quite interesting and will have to check it out.  I think I'm going to go the same route and try to read one nonfiction book for every fiction.  I may attempt a to z non fiction and see how far I get. I love that your husband is reading along.  Mine reads all nonfiction.  

7 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

I panicked because it's Sunday and I meant to post my wrap-up in this thread. Then I thought I remembered from past years that started near a Sunday that the thread goes until the following week. If not, I'll just copy and paste this post to the new thread later today.

I finished two books in the last few days of 2020, bringing my total for the year to 70 books. Those two were Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope and a short but very enjoyable novel called Last Night at the Lobster, by Stewart O'Nan. The Trollope novel took me a long time to finish. It was very slow, which is saying a lot because all of his books are slow lol. I liked it, and since it was the first in the Palliser novels I do plan to read the rest of the series, but not right away. The other book was recommended to me and was perfect (nice and short) to finish out the year. It's set in a Red Lobster near a mall, on Christmas Eve and is the last day before corporate shuts that one down. There's also a snowstorm. Everything is seen through the view of the manager of the restaurant. Some of the employees will be going with him to a nearby Olive Garden, and the parent company (Darden when the book was written) gave him the choice of who to bring and who will be laid off. It was recommended by a friend, and I really enjoyed it. Anyone who has ever worked in food service, even for a summer, will recognize these characters, both the workers and the customers. 

I'm currently still listening to The Mirror and the Light, and have just over 9 hours left in the audio book. 

As I've said before I'm stingy with stars, though I started to rate genre fiction after @mumto2gave me a nudge. I read or listened to a lot of fluff not just because of the pandemic but also due to our move. I listened to several Agatha Raisin books while painting the old house or clearing out clutter, and at night I just read fluff because I was tired. I still managed a few good books and narrowed down my best of 2020 to just a few. 

Favorite fiction:
The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich - I read this because I wanted to read more by Native American authors and more than a few websites recommended her books. I ended up loving it. Well written character books will always get me, and this one had a number of great characters. It has a good plot that keeps the story moving but it's really the characters that made it a five star read for me. 
Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernadine Evaristo This was last year's Booker Prize co-winner (shared with Margaret Atwood for The Testaments, a book that didn't deserve a Booker imo). It reads like a bunch of short stories though there's some overlap of characters, then comes together beautifully at the end.

Honorable mention: The Goblin Emperor - This book has been recommended by BaW'ers for years and I finally decided to give it a shot. I loved it! I can't believe I waited so long to read it. Well, actually I can since it's not a genre I normally read, but sometimes reading outside my preferred genres is how I find books that never would have crossed my path. 

Favorite nonfiction:
Blowout, by Rachel Maddow - I don't usually like it when authors read their own books but she talks for a living. The book itself was eye opening, well researched, and she did a great job narrating it.
The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin -  I shouldn't have been as struck by how little has changed since he wrote this but I was. Other than the obvious things that dated the book, so much of what he said could have been said by an African American today, and I guess it was said in Between the World and Me. I read that one several years ago but it seems my privilege kept me from truly listening.

 

A few others I enjoyed are:
--Sarum: The Novel of England
--The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War
--Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World
 

I don't ever have "worst of" books because I abandon books with abandon. 😂 Seriously though, I have no problem abandoning a book I truly dislike. There were two that disappointed me though. They weren't bad enough to not finish but I was expecting more from them.

--Oh, Florida!: How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country - I thought this would have more humor and thought it would be more of a love letter to our crazy state. It was pretty dry except for a few parts. 
--The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales - This too was dry but I also didn't realize how old it was. I didn't pay attention to when it was published (1985) or the fact that it was never updated. So much of what we know about mental health is different and it just sounds so wrong when reading the anecdotes. 

 

 

This will be an extra long week carrying over to the 9th.   All very interesting and intriguing books. I'm going to have to read trollope soon.

3 hours ago, Ottakee said:

I just finished My Name Is Mary SutterSutter as an audio book.  I really enjoyed it.   The story of a young lady wanting to become at surgeon during the Civil War.

Oh my, that does sound good.  

3 hours ago, Lady Florida. said:

I don't know if we had a 2021 goals thread but if we did I missed it. If you have upcoming plans for one @Robin M I apologize for jumping the gun.

Considering all that 2020 was I didn't do to badly with my reading goals. I planned to work on my personal Shakespeare challenge by finishing the poems and sonnets, and reading 10 plays. I didn't finish the sonnets but I finished the poems and read 9 plays. I wanted to read the first two Palliser novels (Trollope) and I read the first one so that's not bad. The rest of my 2020 goals aren't worth mentioning. 😄 

This year I have several books I specifically want to listen to, and my long term (all year long if necessary) read will be A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. That was in last year's goals but once the pandemic hit I wasn't in the mood for it. The only book I plan to reread this year is Anna Karenina, and ds gave me a copy for Christmas. It's not a special copy, just a paperback, but it's the one I wanted.

Every year I plan to get to books on my TBR list and then other books come along (Squirrel!) so I don't get to them. This year I decided to try a new, more fun way of doing it. I saw something online about making a TBR jar and there were a number of ways to pretty-up the jar. I was feeling the need to create, and both my crochet supplies and sewing machine and supplies are still in bins stacked in the spare room of our new house. This helped alleviate my "create something" craving. I put names of the books I want to read on slips of paper and added them to the jar, and instead of just folding the slips of paper I decided to make origami stars. They're not as easy to make as they look lol. After a while I got tired of starting over and included the sad looking ones as well as the good ones. I color coded fiction, nonfiction, and Audible books in my account that I bought with credits and still haven't listened to. 

I'm a mood reader, so my goals and plans still leave me plenty of room to learn of a book I want to read and start reading it without worrying that it will interfere with my goal completion. Also, I'm going to put 52 books in the Goodreads challenge just so they'll leave me alone. I don't like number challenges but this will make GR happy. All last year I kept getting notices that it wasn't too late to join the challenge. My 52 books goal will keep them off my back lol.

So... my currently reading list if you made it this far -

Lady Chatterly's Lover - I started this during Banned Books Week 2020 but couldn't get into it. I was told that if I persevered it would get better, so instead of abandoning it I added it to my GR shelf of books to finish another time (another goal of 2021 is to finish some of those books). It's starting to get better so I'm glad I didn't give it up. I can understand why it was scandalous at the time, but now I see that there's also so much more to it. It's not just about an unfulfilled woman but about the changes in the UK after WWI, and it's about class inequality.

A People's History of the United States - see above. 

Murder on Mulberry Bend - #5 in the Gaslight Mysteries and because I need fluff bedtime reading.

Light in August - The fiction book I pulled out of my TBR jar. This will be my 3rd try for this book and my 6th or 7th try with Faulkner. It's his last chance to convince me he's an author I should read. So far he's not doing a good job. 

Catch and Kill, Ronan Farrow - the nonfiction book I pulled out my TBR jar.

I didn't pull an audio book star out of the jar because I'm still listening to The Mirror and the Light. My plan with the jar is to pull a star each out for fiction, nonfiction, and audio at the end of the previous month. These are all books I either own or are readily available at my library but I don't want to wait until the new month starts just in case there's a wait at the library. 

Here are some photos of my jar and stars. I'm including the sorry looking stars too just to keep it real. 😄 

 

Nope, you didn't mess up. This week is a catch all thread with wrap ups and new goals so no problem.   Squirrel.  Yep that was my issue as well. Something else always came along to distract me.  I love your reading Jars and the origami stars.  So creative!

3 hours ago, AnneGG said:

I’m new to this side of the WTM forums. I’ll be trying for 52 books in 52 weeks. 
 

I’ve read Glory Road by Lauren Denton and Katie in Waiting by Erynn Mangum since New Year’s Day. Glory Road wasn’t anything special IMO. Katie in Waiting was a short and sweet Christian fiction that actually feels like Christian fiction. I think fans of Robin Jones Gunn would enjoy Erynn Mangum. 

Plans for Jan reads:

A Haven for Her Heart by Susan Anne Mason

Hope’s Highest Mountain by Misty Beller

Finish For the Children’s Sake and a Joyce Meyer book I’ve been milking. 

Welcome Anne and looking forward to hearing about your reads. Added Glory Road to my want list. 

2 hours ago, marbel said:

@Lady Florida.I like your jar of stars!  What a fun idea.

I finished my first book of 2021: The Searcher by Tana French. I had been anticipating this one since publication was announced. I have loved all of her books thus far, but this one is quite different and, I'm sorry to say, a bit of a let-down for me. I'll still snap up her next book though. 

I'm trying to get a better mix of fiction and nonfiction (the past few years I have read almost no nonfiction at all) so I am starting The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World by Virginia Postrel. I'm sure I will veer into some fluff though; I always do! 

I read a couple of Tana French books and will have to get back into them again. I like her writing! 

[Robin M]

20 minutes ago, The Accidental Coach said:

Pop in, please. I don't post every week or every month. I follow some BAWs on Goodreads and hope they keep posting there.

 

@AnneGGYep, if everyone wants to share their goodreads.   Lot of us are on Goodreads and mine is here.  And @Mumto2 and @aggieamy have a massive amount of books bookmarked for the Brit Trip perpetual challenge.  Good resources.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

Happy New Year, BAWrs!

My TBR list grew by 6 books after reading this thread. I need to stop listening to you all ( just kidding) because my reading plans never come to fruition - I always read something other than what I have planned and then give up on the plans altogether and just read whatever happens to catch my eye.

My plans for 2021 are

-to read a Haruki Murakami in the first quarter. I never would have read HM without this group.
-read one Charles Dickens book
-make headway on reading my two volume Charles Dickens biography. I made a wonderful reading plan for 2019 in my bullet journal and never finished it.
-read the Witches series from Terry Pratchett
-read the print books currently stacked on my nightstand. Some of these are books my family members have recommended and are not books I would have selected for myself.
-continue the no spend reading challenge I began in 2019. This was a challenge someone (Robin, I think) began here and I jumped on board. It has been fun finding my reads through the library, little free libraries, and from other people.

I know there are other things I want to do (like participate in the Bingo challenge) so I'll see.

--
My first book of 2021 was The Silent Patient. It was recommended to me by my sister and was free as an audiobook on Libby. I liked it and was fully engrossed until the last 45 mins. The ending was not believable and required the reader to disregard some large loopholes and inconsistencies. 

--

My son was thrilled to receive The Wheel of Time series. My DGD also gave him two books and he read those first before diving into WOT. He's well into the first book and has begun writing a commentary via text.

It seemed we all received books this year. My DH bought me a book about the 100 books which influenced David Bowie. Oh yeah, that's what I knew I wanted to incorporate into my 2021 reading plans - read at least 4 books from that list. I went through it and have only read 3 of the books David cited so it's going to be a hefty multi year task for me to get through them all. Then again, it will take me just as long to complete my/our David Bowie collection on vinyl.

My best book gift was also from DH. He gifted me a signed first edition (UK printing) Terry Pratchett. This could be the gateway to a serious addiction.

I apologize for the ramble. I'm simply excited for the new year of reading.

Edited January 4, 2021 by The Accidental Coach

[Lady Florida.]

34 minutes ago, The Accidental Coach said:

Happy New Year, BAWrs!

My TBR list grew by 6 books after reading this thread. I need to stop listening ot you all ( just kidding)

This thread is dangerous that way. 😂

Those look like great goals, and achievable ones.

[Kareni]

The first book I finished this year was a reread. My husband and I were talking about this series on New Year's Eve thus my interest was piqued. 

Written In Red (A Novel of the Others Book 1) by Anne Bishop

"Enter the world of the Others in the first novel in New York Times bestselling author Anne Bishop’s thrilling fantasy series: a place where unearthly entities—vampires and shape-shifters among them—rule the Earth and prey on the human race.

As a cassandra sangue, or blood prophet, Meg Corbyn can see the future when her skin is cut—a gift that feels more like a curse. Meg’s Controller keeps her enslaved so he can have full access to her visions. But when she escapes, the only safe place Meg can hide is at the Lakeside Courtyard—a business district operated by the Others.

Shape-shifter Simon Wolfgard is reluctant to hire the stranger who inquires about the Human Liaison job. First, he senses she’s keeping a secret, and second, she doesn’t smell like human prey. Yet a stronger instinct propels him to give Meg the job. And when he learns the truth about Meg and that she’s wanted by the government, he’ll have to decide if she’s worth the fight between humans and the Others that will surely follow."

I do like this series!

Regards,

Kareni

[VickiMNE]

Popping in to say Happy New Year and Good Reading! 

Over here in Montenegro, we are still in holiday mode as Christmas is celebrated on Jan. 7th.....  Waiting til all the holiday activities are over to post my own list of the Best of 2020 🙂 even as I am furiously scribbling down new titles to explore from your posts for the coming year.....

This near-freebie kindle book just popped into my email for those who might be interested:  Don't Overthink It  written by the Anne Bogel of the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog.....  

[Negin]

Kindle books on sale. 

Short Stories/Horror/Fiction - this one isn't really a sale. It's a very short read. 

Humor/Self-Help/Inspirational

Self-Help/Memoir

Business/Self-Help

      

 

 

[Kareni]

Currently free for Kindle readers ~

The Handfasters (Lowland Romance Book 1) by Helen Susan Swift

I enjoyed this: Cake A Love Story: A Cake Series Novel

Bound by a Dragon (The Dragon Archives Book 1)

by Linda K. Hopkins 

 

Unmasking Miss Appleby (Baleful Godmother Historical Romance Series Book 1)

by Emily Larkin 

 

The Hanover Square Affair (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Book 1)

by Ashley Gardner

Regards,

Kareni