November Group Read: Check-in The Third

[glinda]

It's the end of week three of the challenge, how goes it for all of you? Hope you've all had a better reading week than I have, mine really doesn't bear close scrutiny! (I had toothache, and then antibiotics, it was not condusive to concentrating.)

Are we starting to flag a bit as November grinds on or have we triumphs to share? Anyone defeat a book that's been taunting them for long and weary? Share your reading triumphs and disasters in the comments below.

Comments

[autumndaze]

I think I'm going good! I started and finished a book yesterday ("Heaven Official's Blessing" volume 8). And I'm still plowing through "Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint". It's just a very long book lol But I'm 51% of the way through 551 chapters, so that's something XD

[mekare]

I have Heaven‘s Official Blessing on my to read pile. Did you enjoy it? It‘s so long, so quite a commitment.

[autumndaze]

I read it before the official English translation came out, and liked it a lot even then, and I greatly enjoyed my reread as the official English translation released. I've written five fanfics for it and have more planned (one I wrote after finishing my reread and plan to post today or tomorrow), am following the donghua, and have a ton of merch for it, so yeah, I like TGCF a lot XD It's a long story but worth it in my opinion, and I read long books often enough (for instance, TGCF is 244 chapters, but the book I'm reading right now, ORV, is 551, and 2Ha, which I'm also reading, is longer than that).

If you read in English, the English translation is also complete as of two days ago, so it's a good time to get into it. If you're still hesitant, I'd recommend watching the donghua, since by and large it's a very good adaptation, and that's what inspired me to finish the book in the first place. It's not my favorite of MXTX's works (that's SVSSS) but I love it all the same, and it's one of my favorite danmei. The characters are wonderful, it's funny and angsty, and it's a story that benefits from rereads, too. I wish you luck if you try it!

[mekare]

Thank you for the detailed reply!

[illariy]

Whee, startng and finishing a book yesterday, I am impressed! \o/

Wow, I have never heard of "Omniscient reader's viewpoint" before but that is one long book! :O Seems you have made a lot of progress with it, too.

[peaceful_sands]

I came across Heaven's Official Blessing in a bookshop a couple of weeks ago for the first time and was very tempted - the worry was how heavy it was going to be as I was away from home at the time and whether I'd be able to get hold of the rest of the series if I liked it. I'm heading back to the same area next weekend, so may have to try to revisit (and keep other acquisitions to a minimum).

[autumndaze]

I hope you enjoy it if you try it! It's also available as an ebook if you read those!

[satsuma]

I have *finally* finished Omniscent Readers Viewpoint….which I claimed to be almost done with back in mid-October

In my defense, a lot happens in the last 750 pages 😅

[mekare]

Congratulations! That is a lot of pages.

[satsuma]

Haha yeah! It was a overall a fun read but I really feel like I deserve to add like, five books to my annual count here instead of one

[peaceful_sands]

Well done on finishing and glad you enjoyed it.

[illariy]

This entry here is the first I hear of this book but wow, what a huge tome! Congrats to you for finishing it. :D

[satsuma]

Haha yes I started it before the current reading challenge, so I don’t think I’ve mentioned it here! ORV is a Korean webnovel, which is a good place to find looooong books if you ever want to just get lost in a plot for several aeons—I grew up reading scifi which can run pretty long by American standards but even that’s got nothing on these 😆

[illariy]

Ooooh, a looong story to sink our teeth into sounds amazing! I mainly love SF, too. Well, an urban fantasy and super hero stories. I wonder if there is any Korean SF, urban fantasy or superhero webnovels? Do you by chance know of any that fit those genres?

I have only ever read one webnovel, and that is the famous Worm by wildbow. There is a sequel, Ward, which I hope to read eventually after I am done with my huge pile of physical unread books, aha. "Worm" is finished for sure and I think, by now "Ward" is finished, too. When I first found the universe, "Ward" was still in progress.

[taichara]

Still wandered off from zines and the like; finished a book of fantastical houses, and one on the catacomb saints, then went full-steam into rereading my collection of 3e Dungeons & Dragons sourcebooks and have chewed through about a half-dozen of them so far. (and now a 3e game may be brewing, lol)

Just acquired a lovely thing by title of Death Rituals, Social Order and the Archaeology of Immortality in the Ancient World, though, so probably another subject swerve upcoming --

[illariy]

That's a lot of book finishing, I am impressed! :O :D

That inspires me after finishing a book today and one last week, to keep going and keep my reading streak alive so thank you for that!

I look forward to your next update, that Death Rituals book sounds intriguing.

[taichara]

Being fair a lot of it was rereading :3;; But I'm glad it helped ~

It's about to hit the crazy holiday times at work but I'm hoping to at least make some headway in the rituals book --

[illariy]

Best wishes for the holiday craze at work, then and I do hope you can fit in some reading time on the Rituals book. :-)

[peaceful_sands]

The ones you did finish sound particularly interesting about the houses and saints. Well done on all of your reading though.

[taichara]

Thank ye kindly ~

[mekare]

I did manage about 20 minutes more of my audio book, but we‘ve been sick here for a while, so I‘m glad I did even that little bit.

[illariy]

That is some lovely progress there! And I wish you a speedy recovery and much time to rest and relax in the meantime. :-)

[peaceful_sands]

Sorry to hear you've not been well and hope you are on the mend now.

[kalloway]

I ended up buying an entire box of (library discard) manga from a friend for $10 and a Transformers toy, so I've been reading a bunch of random stuff. Not good for my Shelf, but interesting to have some fresh 'surprise' input instead of stuff I've been staring at for ages.

[illariy]

Wow, that is a great deal of manga for very little money, what a steal!

I love that you have a capital S Shelf. ♥ Yes, I know what you mean about getting in some "fresh blood", it does revive the game. And reading is still reading and your box of goodies sounds like so much fun!

P.S.: I adore your icon.

[kalloway]

I think it ended up being about 30 volumes, in all. So far, one series is a keeper, another can get passed along, and I'm just starting on a third. (I think there's at least parts of five total.)

Thanks! The Kim Mitchell song haunts me on a regular basis, so I have a terrible giggle every time the random button coughs up the icon. ^^;;

[illariy]

Sounds like the box is a win overall. I personally think it is great that not all books are keepers because then, the storage needed for all of them would soon reach an exorbitant space requirement. XD

[satsuma]

Ah I love the serendipity of rifling through those kinds of boxes! I hope you found a few good reads you wouldn’t have otherwise checked out :)

[kalloway]

One (two-volume) series is a keeper, another will get passed along. I'm onto the third series now so we'll see how it goes. There's definitely nothing in here I would have read otherwise, so it's fun even if it ends up being mostly duds.

[peaceful_sands]

Oh exciting! That sounds like a great bargain.

[kalloway]

Oh for sure! We definitely both won.

[illariy]

Folks, I've done it, I've finished a book! :O

On Tuesday (I think or Monday), then yesterday and today, I spent a total of 1.75 hours reading and finally got to the very end of "Big Brother" by Lionel Shriver. The novel ended up really grabbing me. I still like the only other book by her that I've read, "We need to talk about Kevin" (a mother's perspective on her son becoming an amok shooter at his school) a lot better but this was decent in the end. And I am so glad I stuck with it, yay! :D

I have selected the next book to read, "Machines like me" by Ian McEwan but I am not sure when I am going to start it as I have a lot of studying to do as well as job applications to write.

[peaceful_sands]

Well done on finishing the book and great that you've enjoyed it *even more important*. Good luck with your studying and applications.

[illariy]

Yes, I am so happy I stuck with the book, it really paid off in the end.

Thank you so much for the good wishes, much appreciated! :-)

[peaceful_sands]

Since last week, I finished 'The Woman They Could Not Silence' and 'Troublemaker' and I abandoned both 'Embers in the Wind' and 'Her Majesty's Royal Coven' both of which weren't working for me at present. I also finished 'The Cactus' and 'Dragonflight'.

I'm still reading 'Soul Music' (p. 132 out of 431) and also reading 'Cloud Runner' (p. 19 out of 327) and am now listening to 'Tigana'. I need to put a bit more of concerted effort into Soul Music and Cloud Runner as they were on my original list for the month. Because I ended up listening to Tigana, I'm not sure that I'm going to get to 'Shift' which was the other one on my original list at the beginning of the month as Tigana, which wasn't on the list, is about 25 hours long and I only started it yesterday, so I guess it depends how much I can listen to while doing other things.

[fred_mouse]

I think I've finished one more, abandoned one, and started one that was on the 'to read this month' pile. I'm cautiously optimistic about meeting my minimum reading goal for the month.

[illariy]

Yay, a lot of progress in all directions! While you abandoned one, at least you did make that decision and it is now firmly off the to-read pile - on less book to read, hehe!

Best wishes for indeed making your minimum reading goal for this month. If not, well, life is busy and books are patient. ;-)