November Group Read: Check-in the First!

[glinda]

The first week of the challenge has reached it’s conclusion. Time to share with the class your triumphs and tribulations. Finish a book? Make a start on something that you've been meaning to get round to for ages? Made absolutely excellent progress due to stress/comfort reading in the face of current events? Launch something across the room it's so very much not your thing? Get completely distracted by another challenge or project and forgot you were meant to be doing this until you saw this post? (Or is that just me?!)

Successes and failures in the comments below!

Comments

[taichara]

Read the four issues of PICO-8 Zine and also Game Development With PICO-8, despite this week going a thousand directions of pear-shaped. (and started a coding tutorial!)

Have made progress in the Dungeon Master's Guide but that's definitely larger and slower.


Have also started getting distracted by a weaving book and a few other zines and given things if keeps me occupied at all sure they can come for the ride --

[fred_mouse]

*\o/*

[glinda]

Well done! Excellent work on what sounds like a busy week!

[fred_mouse]

I apparently forgot to actually write my goal on the last post, so I've gone and made a note of what the actual goal was -- to finish 8 books. Given I finished two, I'm counting myself as on track.

Finished:

• All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens Throughout the Ages - ed. Saundra Mitchell. Anthology of mostly historical, all queer, mostly romance short stories.
• The Dead In Their Vaulted Arches - Alan Bradley

Progressed

• The Atlas Six - Olivie Blake
• My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante

Added to the list:

• The Between - Tananarive Due (started this week)
• The Souls of Black Folk - WEB Du Bois (started about a year ago; I found the reading notes - about 8% done)

Abandoned:

• The House on Nantucket - Jessie Newton

[glinda]

Excellent progress on a variety of different fronts there!

[fred_mouse]

<3

[taichara]

\o/

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

My two reading projects:

Inspector Rebus #14 (A Question of Blood) which I am making progress on (I'm onto Day 2. There are 7 days and 4-5 chapter per Day).

I wanted to read more of Stanley Ellin's short stories (ones I haven't read before). I've only managed 1 so far but I do have the anthology downloaded.

ETA: I finished the book I'd been saving for my vacation (on my vacation) the English translation of Seishi Yokomizo's The Little Sparrow Murders and finally finished the last few pages of a Nero Wolfe collection of three novellas: Three Doors to Death when I got back from vacation (Tuesday).

[luvbarryfefe]

I'll admit it. I got distracted by other reading challenges and put this one on the back burner. I haven't started the group read YET but I am planning to start - or should I say, pick up where I left off - on Run, Rose, Run tonight. The chapters are short so hopefully I can get a lot of reading done :)

Everyone else, keep up the good work!

[kalloway]

No progress/concentration for the book I've intended to read, but read a bunch of single-volume manga here and there. ^^;;

[wearing_tearing]

Unexpectedly made some great progress!

- Finished The Fury of the Gods by John Gwynne; it was a fantastic wrap up to the trilogy.
- Finished Cytonic by Brandon Sanderson which... was fine and very odd.
- Also got my first nonfic read down for Nonfiction November Challenge: Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz! She goes into detail about her experience being part of a religious cult while being on One Tree Hill.

[tamsin]

Started and abandoned one book because of sexist writing.
Read two murder mysteries. Both were okay, but I'm not going to read them again so they can leave the house.

[illariy]

That really sucks about the sexist writing. :-(

Yay for finishing two murder mysteries! And in my life, it is very good to find a book that can leave the house. Is it the same in yours? If yes, congratulations on finding 2 declutter-ready books! :D

[illariy]

trigger warnings: suicide, collapse, climate change

Minor success: I have reached almost 50% in my current read, "Termination Shock" by Neal Stephenson. I am enjoying the story (thriller about climate change, major character: the Netherlands queen) so far but a stumbling block is that the queen goes by Saskia and that is also the name of a close friend of mine who killed herself last year. It is hard for me to read her name that often even though the queen is a very different person. It is also not that easy to read about the changes climate change has brought in that near-future world. Especially if I think about people who aren't as privileged as the Netherlands queen and maybe can't afford one of those Earthsuits etc.

My original goal was to finish this book and start another, yet unspecified one. But as I was sick from 1 till 7 November, I am behind schedule and am going to settle for finishing this current read.