November Group Read: Check-in The Second

[glinda]

We're (almost) half way through the month now and how are we getting on? Procrastinating wildly? Reading everything except what we intended to? Forging ahead and putting everyone else to shame?!

*waves pompoms enthusiastically*

Check in below with your triumphs and tribulations. Celebrate the achievements big and small, whether you got through a whole book or merely made a start on a book that's been taunting you for ages.

Comments

[glinda]

I finished my first book of the challenge, Leviathon by Philip Hoare and have made a start of two books from my pile. I only read the introduction of The Sundance Kids but I've read 60 pages of The Starless Sea - I'd hoped to finish the first part of the book (110 pages) but real life has been conspiring against me so I'm just pleased I've managed to read as much as I did.

[peaceful_sands]

Well done on your accomplishments and sorry that life is conspiring against you getting the time to read.

[starandrea]

Yay! *\o/* Congratulations on finishing a book and starting two more!

[autumndaze]

I've read up through chapter 248 of "Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint" the novel, I finished "The Murderbot Diaries: System Collapse" this morning, and I'm about 19% of the way through "Dark Heir" by C.S. Pacat, so I'm making decent progress this month.

[glinda]

Excellent progress, well done!

[autumndaze]

Thanks :D

[peaceful_sands]

Well done on how far you've got. Did you enjoy the latest Murderbot title - I've not long finished listening to the fifth in the series 'Network Effect' and am loving the series.

[peaceful_sands]

I finished 'Persuasion', 'Life-Changing Magic of Tidying up' and 'The Last Party'. I made progress on 'Embers in the Wind' and 'The Woman They could not Silence' which came in early from the library. I've also received 'Her Majesty's Royal Coven' which is another early arrival from the library. I wasn't expecting it until the 29th or 30th, so hadn't put it on my list for this month, I will probably start it at soon as I finish the first library loan. I've also started 'Troublemaker' by Leah Rimini.

[glinda]

You are fairly zooming through your books, well done!

[taichara]

I got a few more indie/zine rpgs read, but have swerved into other subjects, like a book on the catacomb saints and a new one of low-key-fantastical buildings/house layouts.

Also gone back to read Dungeons & Dragons 3e books for the first time in years, which I at least partially blame on my increasing annoyance/frustration with the indie material --

[glinda]

Oooh, perhaps not what you originally intended to read but both of those new subjects sound fascinating!

[krait]

Doing pretty well on my reread of The Persian Boy by Mary Renault; it's my falling-asleep reading and I'm about 2/3 to 3/4 done.

After that, I'm hoping there will still be time to get my hands on the newest CJ Cherryh novel through the library, and tackle it. :)

[glinda]

Excellent progress there, keep up the good work!

Oooh hopefully the new book will arrive promptly enough to be enjoyed this month!

[mekare]

I‘ve managed about an hour in the audio book of Julia Cameron‘s The Artist‘s Way, which I had started earlier in the year.

[glinda]

Well done, that’s good progress.

[mekare]

Audiobooks are easier for me at the moment, since I can do other stuff at the same time.

[starandrea]

I've heard good things about that book! I think most of my immediate family read it at one point, although I'm pretty sure I did not. I definitely see the title and think "oh that's a good book," though, so they must have liked it :) I'd be interested to hear what you think of it if you feel like sharing!

[mekare]

I had also heard good things about it! I‘m not even halfway through, but there were some definite thoughts in there that I needed at the moment. It does lean very heavily towards spirituality, so if that isn‘t your thing, be warned. The basic premise is that there is a Great Creator/God/spiritual force that you can tap into. I haven‘t really done the exercises in it, so far I‘ m just listening (and writing pages every morning is not feasible for me right now). A lot of them do sound very helpful though.
Let me know if you have any more questions!

[kalloway]

I did, in fact, finish up Hikaru no Go! I had utterly mis-osmosed some plot stuff and the big ending thing I was avoiding wasn't even in there! (Ha!)

Instead of what's next on The Shelf, I'm going to quickly read (4 volumes) Pretear, which has shared a shelf with HikaGo these long years. (Then I can dust!)

[glinda]

Yay! Go you! And yay for the ending being better than you’d feared!

Also extra yay for clearing another shelf so it can be dusted and presumably repurposed!

[kalloway]

Yeah, I'm still baffled to how I had the ending so wrong. Something to laugh over in the future.

While I may rearrange as I sort other things, I'm actually going to keep HikaGo for the time being. So just dusting and maybe a slightly-nicer arrangement of knickknacks along the edge. (Or no knickknacks! I'm trying to cut back on those, too!)

[starandrea]

I finished a second graded reader (a fictional story about finding one's ancestral home at the bottom of a lake) and started a third. (I can't tell yet if the third one is about a romantic threesome, which I didn't know was encouraged in Chinese popular fiction, or just one person in love with two people who "has to decide." I did read the last chapter first just to make sure it didn't end tragically, and all of the characters do survive! One of them goes back to the US at the end, though, so maybe that's considered a resolution.)

I also went back and slogged through the rest of the biography I started, just because it annoyed me to leave it unfinished, but I don't think I got much out of it :)

Oh! And I've started rereading Mo Dao Zu Shi on LingQ, which is a long term project for sure but so far very entertaining ♥

[illariy]

Sounds like you made some decent progress, yay! I didn't know this about Chinese popular fiction either, let us know if you find out more on how the book goes ;-)

[fred_mouse]

Just looked back at the last check in to see where I was at, and lo! but apparently I forgot. Which means I get to report on two weeks worth of achievements!

I've finished four books this month, two of which had been on the 'currently reading' list for some time. My currently reading is now at 29, so I've achieved the minimal goal of 'less than 30'. Of these, I'm most pleased with having got the non-fiction book about Australian history and present bushfires back out of the library, and actually read the whole thing this time. I still think that it needed a good edit for readability, but the information is important.

In terms of the other goal, which is to have read at least one book from each of three lists, I'm where I started, having finished one from one list. However! I finished up work on Thursday, and getting everything handed over was taking significant time and energy (I worked multiple evenings attempting to tidy things up), so I hope I have more energy for reading for the next two weeks. I have an interstate trip to complicate matters, because I don't particularly want to be carrying multiple physical books with me.

I guess that means I should focus on the physical books now. Picking the three that have been on the currently reading list for the longest, this week I want to finish one of A Diasporic Mythography: Myth, Legend and Memory in the Literature of the Indian Diaspora, The Flaw of Averages: Why We Underestimate Risk in the Face of Uncertainty, or This All Come Back Now

[illariy]

Wow, four books finished this month so far, that is impressive! :D

Also very cool that you got your currently reading under 30.

Best wishes for progressing on the three selected books for the week!

[fred_mouse]

Thank you! Note that the 'finishing' doesn't include 'starting' for two of the books :) And I've had a bit of quiet reading time, which has been wonderful. Taking advantage of it while I have it.

[illariy]

Oh, yay, the pompoms! :D

I have good news to report on both fronts: I started and then finished that new book I had taken on for coursework and even typed up some notes and sent them to my partner, notes which I myself also can use later now, phew.

Then I overcame my procrastinatory nature a bit and read some more on that book I have been putting off for months, "Big Brother". I read about an hour and about 80 pages and am now in the second part of the book. I also was too curious and glimpsed at the ending and now I have to read the rest because what I saw intrigued me, hehe. I am on page 200 of 373. My goal is now to finish it this month. We shall see.

[fred_mouse]

Fabulous progress! Good job on keeping focus on the coursework book, and having time to do some discretionary reading as well.

[illariy]

Yeah, it was a great week for reading. I may have some exciting news this week, too, if I keep the current reading pace ;-)

Hope your reading this week meets your goals and is fun to do! :-)

[fred_mouse]

Hope the exciting news did in fact happen!

[illariy]

It did! Here is the comment on the new community post. Spoiler: I finished that novel!

[starandrea]

You're amazing! Congratulations on doing both coursework and non-coursework reading; that's some serious inspiration! ♥

[illariy]

Thank you so much, that cheers me up to hear! I hope your reading this week goes well. :-)

[starandrea]

Thank you, your comment honestly cheered me up too! ♥ Happy reading!

[cactus_rs]

Look at all these comments here, well done everyone!

I finally finished a library book I've had out for, like, two months now. Or more technically two library books—Dix heures et demie du soir en été and then the Swedish translation, so I could read the French, check my comprehension with the Swedish, and then read the French again. So really I read the book three separate times. Oy.

[starandrea]

That's so great; I love the reading-a-translation strategy. I hope the book held up through all three readings!

[glinda]

Oh! Well done! That's a clever trick for improving your reading comprehension and also must be quite a relief to be done now!