November Group Read: Ready, Steady, Read!

[glinda]

Alright, so that was an overwhelmingly positive response so let's do the thing.

Checkins will be on Wednesdays except for the final one which will be a Thursday! As ever, there are no penalties for checkin in late, missing a check-in or not making your target. It's all about encouraging each other to read more than we would have otherwise. If you've got a list or a target, feel free to share it in the comments below! And most importantly - have fun!

Comments

[glinda]

So my target for this year is to read 4 books that I've started and not finished. I've made a preliminary list but you can absolutley guarantee that I'll think of something else I should have added to it the moment I hit post so it may well be subject to change.

Leviathon, or The Whale - Philip Hoare
Black and British - David Olusoga
The Starless Sea - Erin Morgenstern
The Lost Future of Pepperharrow - Natasha Pulley
Record of a Spaceborn Few - Becky Chambers
His Bloody Project - Graeme Macrae Burnet
Paradise Lost - John Milton
Gideon The Ninth - Tamsyn Muir
The Sundance Kids - James Mottram
The Poppy War - RF Kaung

[peaceful_sands]

I've read The Starless Sea and Record of a Spaceborn Few. I really like Becky Chambers' books. Pretty sure I read most if not all of Paradise Lost when I was at university many many years ago.

[glinda]

I've been looking forward to them both! I really love Becky Chambers' books too, unfortunately I started Record of a Spaceborn Few early in the first lockdown and it took the brunt of my pandemic brain inability to read fiction, and I bounced off it hard knowing full well it was me not the book! :/ (I've got The Galaxy and the Ground Within on my shelf too, but I daren't start it until I've got over my thing with Spaceborn Few first.)

[angledge]

If you like audiobooks, Gideon the Ninth is EXCELLENTLY narrated by Moira Quirk.

[peaceful_sands]

I'm going to start out by saying I need to finish :

The Plea by Steve Cavanagh
The Broken Kingdoms by N K Jemisin
The Lost Present by Mark McClure
Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

Next up would be a selection of:

Shift by Hugh Howey
The Cactus by Sarah Heywood
The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying up by Marie Kondo
Embers in the Wind by LW Greenwood
Cloud Runner by Vance Huxley
The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore (this is a library loan expected to arrive mid-month).

This covers a range of audio, physical and ebooks and with the exception of the library audio book which is currently due mid-month there isn't a particular order of priority. I want to enjoy my reading but also get through as many as possible as I'm trying to reduce the waiting to be read pile (and even up the balance of incoming books for the year!)

[glinda]

Oooh Soul Music! That's a nice mix of mediums to keep you going whichever mode you take a notion for over the month!

[kalloway]

While I, as usual, have The Shelf, this month is going to be more about sorting the shelf and seeing what's on it. There's also a chance of re/reading the whole of Heaven Official's Blessing before the final book comes out. I've enjoyed the series but stalled out in Book 6, so maybe a refresher will get me going again.

[glinda]

Good luck with your Shelf! I made a valiant attempt at clearing out my own shelf of doom at the end of September, so a significant portion of my own list is currently a pile on the floor beside my computer.

[kalloway]

Thank you! I've been through the 'pile on floor'/'pile on sofa'/'pile on floor'-cycle like three times over the last month. Hopefully I can get all the piles under control, but if nothing else, I'll take the shelf having actual TBRs on it and not just stuff I haven't found a place for yet.

[starandrea]

My goal for the month was going to be one graded reader each week, and I vaguely expected this to mean four books in a particular mystery series. But it turns out I only have three books left in the series, and also there's five months in November, so I substituted two biographies I've had for a year and haven't touched :)

Chinese Breeze: 电脑公司的秘密
Chinese Breeze: 两件红衬衫
Chinese Breeze: 好狗维克
Chinese Biographies: 周杰伦
Chinese Biographies: 郎朗

[glinda]

Oooh that looks a very organised challenge plan!

[mekare]

I‘d like to finish 2 books this month, any of the following list:

Ken Mogi - Ikigai
Xu Lei - Deadly Desert Winds
Elena Ferrante - My Brilliant Friend
Anuk Arudpragasam - A Passage North

My goal for the entire year was set to 20 published fiction/nonfiction books, 13 of which I‘ve managed so far. I‘ll scale it down to 18 because there is no way I can reach that target now. It was the first time trying a challenge like that, so I definitely know now to not overestimate my reading time.

[glinda]

That looks like a sensible goal to set!

[fred_mouse]

This will be my third month signed up at thestoryinside, and I've only finished one of the books picked for me--all of which are on my 2023 reading wishlist! So, my minimum goal is to finish at least one book from each month's set. The stretch goal is to read all three from at least one month.

The five I have now are

• Sorrowland - Rivers Solomon
• The Sinister Booksellers of Bath - Garth Nix
• The Gilded Ones - Namina Forna
• All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages - Saundra Mitchell
• Gender Identity and Sexuality in Current Fantasy and Science Fiction - Francesca T. Barbini

Three of these are 'in progress'.

And, just to have too many goals - my 'currently reading' list is sitting at over 30, and I'd like to pick up and finish enough of the ones that haven't been touched in ages that I get that under 30.

[glinda]

Oooh that does sound like a fun challenge, good luck with that!

[angledge]

I'm late to the challenge, & have a vague goal - I want to read at least two books giving history/background on the Israel/Palestine conflict. I've got a list of possibilities, but would welcome recommendations.