RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

[olivermoss]

It's Wednesday y'all, how goes the reading? Are the TBR lists getting shorter or longer?

Comments

[matsushima]

I finished Bear Season by Gemma Fairclough in three days but I was pretty bummed out by it. It just didn't live up to expectations.

I've got We Used to Live Here and A Good House for Children out next so hopefully those are scarier!

[olivermoss]

We Used to Live Here is also on my TBR. I hope to get to it soon, but I also have a lot I hope to get to soon.

[pauraque]

I just finished re-reading A Wizard of Earthsea and should probably get on some of these library books.

My TBR list is getting shorter! I culled it a bunch at the beginning of the year and am trying hard not to add to it unless it's something really compelling. Life is too short to read books I'm only mildly interested in, is my new motto.

[olivermoss]

Yay for shortening the list! I do hope you find lots of compelling reads, though!

[barbaratp]

Estou relendo um livro brasileiro que havia conhecido na infância e adolescência. Com só 158 páginas estou me contendo para não terminar ele em um único dia e conseguir aproveitar a estória aos poucos de forma tranquila desfrutando de cada página como toda boa leitura merece.

[olivermoss]

I read Gender Queer for next month's book club. I think the comics format was a really good way to express a lot of eir story. It was a mix of very relatable and the opposite of relatable for me. I'm looking forward to putting it in a little free library after the club meeting.

I've just barely started Malum Discordiae by Ashlyn Drewek. I put it aside to read Gender Queer.

For my current audiobook it's Children of the Night by Mercedes Lackey. So far, way better than Burning Water. A lot of amusing retconning going on. Still some, um, yikes moments when talking about Romani people.

[greetingsfrommaars]

hmm I think I will strategically choose not to look at the length of my TBR list... but I'm almost halfway through Robert Macfarlane's Underland: A Deep Time Journey! in a section about catacombs and urban subterranean passages.

[olivermoss]

Ooh, catacombs and urban tunnels sound cool!

[greetingsfrommaars]

it's very interesting! part of it is the writer describing his own experiences where friends led him on trips into unofficial/unsanctioned urban tunnel networks, which is somewhere between really cool and really scary.

[screechfox]

Ooh, that's going on my wishlist, that sounds really interesting!

[volkameria]

I finished The Grim Steeper by Gretchen Rue - cozy mysteries are hit or miss for me, but she's pretty good and her books have all been solid 4/5s. I also recently finished The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi which was fantastic!

Haven't decided what to read next, but my TBR is getting shorter. I've been in a fluffy or familiar mood, so been mostly reading fanfic or series I already know. Might do Among the Mad (Maisie Dobbs #6) or another cozy mystery. I'm also tempted to see just what on earth Bridgerton is all about, I have the first 3 on loan from Libby as an anthology.

[wearing_tearing]

Oooohh, that Gretchen Rue series sounds right up my alley!

[cornerofmadness]

Disco Witches of Fire Island and A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer

[petrea_mitchell]

I went through the two Crossroads Adventures gamebooks set on Pern, and... I have really liked Jody Lynn Nye's work as a novelist, but novelist style doesn't work for gamebooks. There are sections that go on for pages and pages with no choices at all, and long stretches where you don't get to make any deliberate choices, just roll some dice and see what happens.

I'm now making my way through Chronicles of Majipoor and wondering how no one warned me that this famous planetary romance setting is so much about the treatment of Native Americans by the US.

[zenigotchas]

More Sonic The Comic (super close to reaching issue 70), I'm enjoying the comic lore. Also started listening to the audiobook version of Beyond Good and Evil, which I'm finding to be fun.

[silversea]

Very slow reading, since I'm traveling at the moment. I finished Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao, and it was okay.

Currently reading The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennet, which I'm enjoying much more.

[screechfox]

Read both Ancillary Mercy and the Headley translation of Beowulf.

Now I'm on But the Ships are Sailing- Sailing by Chiyono Sugimoto Kiyooka, a memoir of moments in her life in post-WW2 Japan. Honestly, wouldn't recommend trying to track down a copy unless you're A) very into post-WW2 Japan, or B) very into the life and times of the author's mother, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto (which is the category I'm in, and why I spent, uh, about £100 on it). I'm just over halfway through and if it were any other book, I would probably DNF.

I've also just started Edge of Destiny, a novel set in the universe of the Guild Wars games.

My physical books TBR is about breaking even: I've read eight books this year and bought seven!

[olivermoss]

Your TBR list has balance!

The three Guild Wars novels are on my TBR list (and I really thing ANet is missing a trick by not having audiobooks of them. A lot of GW2 peeps like to listen to lore while they play. I know they gave permission to WoodenPotatoes to read them for this channel ages ago, but afaik that never happened)

[screechfox]

It does have balance! My bookshelves, maybe not! :D

I read the first one of the GW2 books a few years ago - Ghosts of Ascalon. Fun in a predictable sort of way, and really rewarding with little bits of lore. I'm enjoying Edge of Destiny even more so far, just because it's more connected to the GW2 main plot. (And again, lore. Although the sylvari are slightly odd in them, since they were written pre-the sylvari redesign to be proper plant people. It still works, just occasional references to their hair!)

It would be really nice if there were audiobooks of them; I definitely agree about listening to lore when playing, and I've also found it a really good podcast game in the past. I guess they were published before the audiobook boom of Audible and all that.

[olivermoss]

I haven't read any of the GW2 books yet. I picked them up in December, because it seemed like a lot of people who play were reading them. Didn't get around to them yet. I've heard good things, though.

[drawnecromancy]

Hii, I haven't been here in a bit ! ...it's Thursday because I still manage to miss the Wednesday posts.
I've gotten my TBR slightly shorter by finishing up history books I borrowed to the library - I'm now about to dive in Mira Grant's Deadline (second book of the Feed trilogy). I had really enjoyed the first book, so I can't wait to see how this one goes !

[quillpunk]

I have read almost nothing in January, but I did read Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, which was very fun! :D

[valoise]

I'd never read any Agatha Christie outside of her Poirot stories, so I picked up a copy of Why Didn't They Ask Evans?. In the early part of the book the banter between Frankie and Bobby was great and it felt like they worked well together. Unfortunately, much of the book had them working separately on their own investigations in a plot that so poorly realized that it took a 7-page letter from the murderer to Frankie at the end to explain how and why the murders were committed.

I watched A Complete Unknown over the weekend which inspired me to look for a Bob Dylan biography. There are tons of them out there, but I wanted something that focused more on the music than than the man. I/m reading Bob Dylan FAQ by Bruce Pollack listening to relevant music with each chapter as I go along. Pollack spends a lot of time covering the NYC scene in the early 60s to provide context to Dylan's early career. This is going to take awhile since I'm doing it as a combo reading/listening to music experience.

[wearing_tearing]

I just started reading The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt and looking at the data regarding socmed and the decline of children and teen's mental health is already incredibly upsetting.

My TBR grew way too much during the last months of 2024 so now I'm tackling it! I've read 7 physical books so far, and I will donate 1 of them (Can't Spell Treason Without Tea).

[ilyena_sylph]

I caught Covid week before last, so my brain entirely shut off on new media or media that required anything of me, so it's been re-listens of old favorites and podcasts.

Lirael by Nix, the Silmarillion by JRRT, a bunch of youtube recordings of Brett Deveraux's history essays.

[lassarina]

Oh, longer, definitely. But today after work I finally get to start Onyx Storm so I'm excited to lose all sense of time and place outside the book. XD

[olivermoss]

I don't know what Onyx Storm is about, but I've heard people talking about being excited for it! Hope it's awesome :)

[lassarina]

It was incredible (I definitely stuffed the entire thing into my eyeballs in 8 hours last night.) tl;dr the series is about elite military forces who telepathically bond to dragons and are in a desperate war against terrible things. Also a really, really hot romance. If that sounds like your jam, I recommend the first book (Fourth Wing) with the caveat that it is definitely full of sex and violence.

[pedanther]

Still about halfway through the Tim Powers collection.

I had a few days where the weather was getting to me and I didn't have the brainpower for Powers, so I picked up something I thought I could I could read a bit here and there on such days, and now I seem to be exclusively reading that instead, whoops.

[mistressofmuses]

Pretty sure the TBR list is somehow still growing as I discover even more books I'd forgotten to include.

But this month I knocked out six physical books, which is a whole lot more than I've typically managed in a month!