Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

December is here! It’s the final month of the challenge. Wherever you are in your challenge I hope you have found this community of readers, and the Popsugar challenge, to be a motivator in making your reading life fantastic!

It’s getting cold here. The meteorologists here were calling for a slight chance of snow on Friday, but that forecast seems to have disappeared. Still, the cold temperatures are enough to make me snuggle under my favorite blanket with a book and a warm drink!

On to this week’s reading check-in!

Book finished:
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas – if you haven’t read this yet, RUN don’t walk to your nearest bookstore and pick up a copy! Or better yet, use an audible credit to get the audiobook. It was a fantastic narration. I was going to save it for next year's "problem facing society" prompt, but I didn't wait :) It would definitely work for that prompt though!

Currently reading:
Letters from Father Christmas by J. R. R. Tolkien


Question of the week:

What are your top five best books you read in 2017?

In no particular order:
The Hate U Give
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
This is How It Always Is
Bury Your Dead
At Home in the World

I have a confession to make...I've pretty much given up on finishing this challenge :( I've been in a reading rut for a long time and I didn't feel like forcing myself to read books that weren't 100% interesting to me.

This week I finished:

The Complete Persepolis: loved it!
The World's Shortest Stories
Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination: nice, quick read and could fill a few prompts
Big Mushy Happy Lump: loved it!

As you can see, I've been reading short books that I can get through quickly in hopes that it will motivate me into reading more!

I am currently reading Big Little Lies which I am totally engrossed in right now! I am so excited to pick it up again today and to watch the show once I finish the book!

QOTW:

In no particular order: (Some of these I can't believe are from this year! It feels so long ago!!)
Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir
The Hate U Give
It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War
A Game of Thrones
Adulthood Is a Myth/Big Mushy Happy Lump (I know, I cheated)

I finished one book - a reread of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Every time I reread this I'm amazed of how different it is from the movie.

Then I started The Call of the Wild trying to wrap up some of these loose ends on the challenge. I'm not sure I'll finish. These last few I have left I'm not really interested in, hence why they are the last categories. I'll try to see what the shortest books I can find are and maybe that way I can finish up. And I still have the letter X for the a-z challenge too.

QOTW I read a lot of great things. Of course I'm enjoying my reread of Harry Potter Collection. I also enjoyed The Undomestic Goddess, Juniper Lemon's Happiness Index, The Hate U Give, A Dog's Purpose, and The Book Thief.

Good morning! It just started snowing as I walked into work. I live in one of the snowiest parts of the continental USA, so this is not our first snowfall of the season, but it's the first for December!

I finished two books this week, and I loved both of them:
* Uprooted by Naomi Novik. This is a Slavic-myth-inspired fantasy story, and I loved how the magic worked in this world. I hope Novik writes more like this! (I wasn't crazy about His Majesty's Dragon, so I was taking a chance reading this, and I'm glad I did.)
* The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore - this was a microhistory and a narrative non-fiction book about the people involved in creating Wonder Woman, and how they were involved in and inspired by the women's rights movement of the early 20th century, and Margaret Sanger's push to make birth control legal and available in the US, and also about the invention of the lie detector! I found this to be fascinating and well-written. I've been reading a lot (well, "a lot" for me) of non-fiction recently, and I'm happy to say that I've been loving most of the books. I've got two more non-fiction books in progress right now and I'm enjoying both (Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI & The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks)

QOTW
LOL oh you jest, expecting me to choose just five?!?! Hahahahahahahahahaha ...

I've got a bookshelf labeled "all time favorites" and I've added eight books to it so far in 2017. And there have been plenty more FANTASTIC reads this year (including The Hate U Give)! In order that I've read them:
1. Running by Cara Hoffman
2. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
3. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson
4. Faithful Place by Tana French
5. The Mark of the Horse Lord by Rosemary Sutcliff (this was a re-read of a childhood favorite for this Challenge, so maybe it's a ringer)
6. Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
7. The Last Place You Look by Kristen Lepionka
8. She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper

Still way more into cross-stitching than reading right now - I loved seeing all of us come out of the woodwork last time I mentioned it! Right now I'm making holiday presents from Feminist Icon Cross-Stitch: 30 Daring Designs to Celebrate Strong Women to send out to friends.

Finished

- Fast-Food Sonnets - I used this for Read Harder's prompt of "a book set less than 100 miles from your location." They were fine - some good, some less so - BUT they helped me finish the challenge! 24/24 for Read Harder.
- Uncle Harold's Maxwell House Haggadah - I actually read this week before last and forgot about it, but I loved it! Very moving poems that fit the Popsugar prompt of "a book about a holiday other than Christmas." Now at 39/40 for this challenge.
- Reading People: How Seeing the World through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything - Disappointing for me, but at least the audiobook helped some boring tasks pass a bit faster. Didn't use this one for a challenge.

(I also finished Elements of Style: Designing a Home a Life and I Brake for Yard Sales: High Style - Low Budget, but they're mostly pictures.)

In Progress

I'm working on an ARC of Alyssa Cole's A Princess in Theory (which is cute AF - romance readers, you will definitely want to pick this one up!) and the audiobook of Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History (perfect for making data entry go faster, ha). I'm also reading The Butcher's Hook, but in the way that "reading" means "I read the first chapter several days ago and will probably continue reading it at some point."

DNF

I made it about 5 minutes into the audiobook of And Then There Were None before the anti-Semitic slurs kicked me right out.

QOTW

I was really happy to find a few absolute five-star reads this year! My favorites:

1. Lincoln in the Bardo
2. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (from 2014)
3. Exit West
4. Anything Is Possible
5. Public Relations

Foggy and frosty morning here. Perfect morning to curl up in bed with a good book and some cocoa, but I have to go to work instead. Sad face...

This week I finished Artemis and Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life, and also read Prince Caspian and Lieutenant Terry's Christmas Fudge. I was a readin' fool, haha... "Artemis" was excellent, if not QUITE as good as his last book "The Martian," and the rest of the books were pretty good as well. Had to get in at least one Christmas-oriented book this month with the last one...

QOTW:

Oh geez, this is hard... If I have to narrow it down to five, they'd be, in no particular order:

1. Artemis
2. The Handmaid's Tale
3. In the Night Garden and In the Cities of Coin and Spice (these really are one LONG book and not two separate books, since they tie so closely together)
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
5. The Night Ocean

Runners-up:

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Look Who's Back
Made You Up
Eliza and Her Monsters
Lilith's Brood
The Witch's Boy
Pax
I Am Princess X
John Dies at the End

...yeah, I love a LOT of books. And read an eclectic mix...

This week looks like a big reading week for me, but as most of the books I read were for young people and only took a couple hours the week isn't that impressive. I read:
Effie Starr Zook Has One More Question
Halfway Normal
Patina
The House of Silk and
Animal Farm (I know I was supposes to read this ages ago, but I never had the opportunity.)

QOTW:
The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World
The Alice Network
The Hate U Give
All the Light We Cannot See
then I couldn't decide between The Invention of Wings, Scythe, or Beneath a Scarlet Sky

Hello, it's pretty chilly here and this weekend we can finally expect a little snow!

Didn't finish a book this week, been kinda taking a break after finishing this challenge. I did start rereading Harry Potter again, but in Spanish this time. That's going extremely slow as I am not nearly as good at reading in Spanish as I thought I was. Also started The Bat but haven't gotten very far at all.

QOTW:
1. Harry Potter Boxset
2. The Dark Tower
3. Station Eleven
4. Desperation
5. Wolves of the Calla

Books finished; The Silmarillion A slow read, but I'm really glad I finally finished it AND it was my last book for the regular part of the challenge. Yay!

Books reading: Sapphique Taking a break with a lighter book before I jump into Bleak House and see if I can make through the advanced challenge as well!

QOTW:
I had 32 five star books I read this year, so trying to narrow them down to just five...

Eve in Exile and the Restoration of Femininity
Hunted
A Place of Healing: Wrestling with the Mysteries of Suffering, Pain, and God's Sovereignty
The Paper Magician
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

I do have to also give a shout out to Wonder as one of those books everyone should read, even if it didn't quite make it into my top five favorite reads this year. And I did really enjoy my re-read of A Little Princess as well.

Bonjour,

All of you with snow, you are very Lucky. I can't wait!

I am still in the middle of rereading all the Harry Potter. I forgot many détails and they are still as good now as the first (or second) time's around.

Seeing all the answers to the QOTW I guess I shoul read The Hate U Give for next year challenge. Any categories it would fit?

QOTW:
In no particular order:

1- Fool's Quest
2- Saga, Vol. 1
3- House of Suns
4- Shades of Grey
5- 84, Charing Cross Road

Happy December!
I have also given up on finishing, I'm too far behind. My plan is to keep working on it and any that I don't finish by the end of the year I'll allow myself to finish in January and double them up with next years prompts (example; I meant to read Alias Grace for a book by someone you admire but if I don't finish then I'll read it in January and also count it for a book I meant to read in 2017 but didn't or whatever)
This week I finished My Sweet Audrina by VC Andrews... this was not an author or genre I read in my youth. I don't even know what to think lol

I did finish the children's lit challenge though and am looking forward to that one next year too!

QOTW
In no particular order, and definitely not the only books I loved. It was hard to choose! I noticed I at least considered most of the books that I read with the monthly group reads and 3 ended up here.

1) the Winter People
2) The Hate U Give
3) Ella Minnow Pea
4) Station Eleven
5) The Bear and the Nightingale

It is so cold in Dallas today! I can hear the wind blowing outside (the “feels like” temperature is 28), so I am going to stay indoors today and run my errands tomorrow. And to think I ran my air conditioner on Monday because it was 85!

I’ve got 2 more prompts to knock off this month and 6 more for my Around the Year challenge. I’ll definitely finish PopSugar, and I’ll come close for AtY. It all depends on how much reading time I get during the last 2 weeks of the month.

This week I finished:
Into the Water by Paula Hawkins. The first third of this book was really hard to follow. It was written in several different POV’s, which were hard to keep straight. The second half was better, but overall I was disappointed in this one.

Behind Her Eyes by Sarah Pinborough. I’m not sure how to describe this one without giving too much away. It alternates between 2 of the POV involved in the love triangle as well as flashes back to the past every few chapters. It was a real page turner that I couldn’t put down, but it was also like a horrible accident that you just can’t help staring at.

Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes. This was completely ridiculous, with some of the least self-aware characters ever written, but it was something I could read with plenty of distractions. This is like Sex and the City on steroids, with the Upper East Side 20-somethings only caring about labels, parties and having a fiancé (but not caring if they actually get married). I know there are people like this but it was awful and infuriating to read. I should have DNF, but since it was a fast read I powered through (and sort of skimmed the last 75 pages).


I am currently reading:
The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark T. Sullivan
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot – I should finish this one today.
The Dry by Jane Harper

QOTW: It is hard to narrow it down to 5! I feel like I read a dozen fantastic reads this year. In no particular order:
Exit West
The Hate U Give
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
The Mothers
I See You

Fannie wrote: "Seeing all the answers to the QOTW I guess I shoul read The Hate U Give for next year challenge. Any categories it would fit? ..."

Absolutely it would fit as a "problem facing society" today if you are doing the advanced challenge! Also would work for a book by an author of a different ethnicity than you. it also just won a Goodreads Choice award so it would fit that one too!

Anne wrote: "QOTW:
The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World
The Alice Network
The Hate U Give
All the Light We Cannot See
then I couldn't decide between The Invention of Wings, Scythe, or Beneath a Scarlet Sky.."

The Alice Network would have been #6 on my list had I kept going! So good!

Nadine wrote: "Uprooted by Naomi Novik. This is a Slavic-myth-inspired fantasy story, and I loved how the magic worked in this world. I hope Novik writes more like this!"

Two of my coworkers have recommended this one to me. Maybe I need to work it in next year. Any ideas on where it would fit?

Raquel wrote: "I do have to also give a shout out to Wonder as one of those books everyone should read..."

Yes, such a great book! My daughter read it for her summer reading this year, and her class went to see the movie which was awesome :)

Sara wrote: "Nadine wrote: "Uprooted by Naomi Novik. This is a Slavic-myth-inspired fantasy story, and I loved how the magic worked in this world. I hope Novik writes more like this!"

Two of my coworkers have recommended this one to me. Maybe I need to work it in next year. Any ideas on where it would fit? ..."

To my shock, it doesn't really fit most of the categories!!! (Unless the author is local to you?). So ... your choices are either "a book you meant to read in 2017" or "a book recommended by another Challenge reader" (I hereby recommend it!!!) or "a prompt from past Challenges" ("a book involving magic") - those three categories are all basically "wild cards" anyway.

I have finished the main challenge, and am 4 books away from finishing the Advanced.

Currently reading
Alex's Wake: A Voyage of Betrayal and a Journey of Remembrance (Immigrant or Refuge)
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (Family Member Term in the Title).

I have the books picked out for the last two prompts, so I'm confident that I will finish!

QOTW:

Lock In
Love Is a Mix Tape
Our Man in Havana
Lab Girl
The Hate U Give
Sourdough
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
White Fang
Tuesdays at the Castle
Psycho
A Monster Calls
11/22/63

Could not narrow them down to 5.

I have 4 books left! I will probably finish this year if I can knock out this cold because I feel like most of the time I just want to sleep. I haven't even got out the Christmas decorations yet. Hopefully this weekend I will get into the Christmas spirit.

I finished Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church for a book with "a day of the week in the title".

I started Spooky Oregon: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore for a book I bought on a trip.

QoTW:
The Winter People
The Woman in Cabin 10
The Hate U Give
Emily of New Moon
Candle in the Darkness

Wonder was great as well- I highly recommended it.

This week has been crazy with work -- a lot of 3AM nights. I'm traveling by train tomorrow, so I hope to catch up on sleep and reading then.

I'm still currently working on The Man of Legends -- I just reached the twist of the book (around 60% of the way through) and it's starting to do a bit too much. It's about a man who has lived for millenia, and at this point, he's influenced every person known to man in some way or another -- Mark Twain, Mary Shelley, even Jesus himself. The story started strong, but it just needs to do less. My goal is to power through the rest of this tomorrow on the train. It's interesting enough of a premise; it just feels like the author is doing too much, but I am interested in seeing the book through.

That said, I have 7 prompts remaining in the challenge. Once I finish this book (for the holiday other than Christmas prompt, since it takes place over NYE & New Year's), I'll have 6 left that I think I can blast through before the end of the year. I have some books picked out for the prompts that I'm excited about and work should slow down a bit next week.

QOTW: This is a hard one!! I've read several fantastic books this year.
The top 5 or so fiction novels would have to be:
- The Rules of Magic
- The Nightingale
- Station Eleven
- A Man Called Ove
- A Million Junes

And for non-fiction:
- One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter
- We Are Never Meeting In Real Life
- What Happened
- The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir
- The Diary of a Young Girl

(I couldn't pick just 5... ;) oops!)

Hi, everyone --

Eek! I didn't finish any books this week, in a bit of a reading slump. I want to get started on next year's books and not finish this year's...

I did do a little reading, on nothing for the challenge. Started, and am loving, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Really good!

Question of the Week

So hard to choose!!! I finally narrowed it down to five:

It's What I Do: A Photographer's Life of Love and War
Lab Girl
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge
The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates

Wow, just noticed that these are all nonfiction, but I joined the challenges to read more fiction! So, I would add these fiction if I had to choose only among those:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Moonglow
Nutshell
Sweet Tooth
Hag-Seed

Hello from Cleveland! We've finally gotten that bitter, winter cold, though no snow as of yet. It's crazy that we *just* lost most of our leaves - what a strange fall.

It's odd not to have any challenge books to share this week! I'm excited that my book club chose THUG for our January book, because I wouldn't have picked it up otherwise. I'm hoping I'll get through the hold list for the audiobook in time. (Ugh, why won't Overdrive tell you when copies are due?!)

QOTW: I've read 20 5* books so far this year! I'll cheat and do fiction/nonfiction too, because it's so hard to choose:
The Count of Monte Cristo
The Moor's Account
Cloud Atlas
A Closed and Common Orbit
My Cousin Rachel

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
Not My Father's Son
Gironimo! Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy
Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria and Iraq

Hello from the snottiest house in Colorado, if not the world. Maddie being sick has done nothing good for my reading time - and she wakes a lot at night to fuss, so I’m super tired and tend to just fall asleep. But, I’ve finally started making some progress.

Someone here mentioned the Serial app and I started a reread of Wuthering Heights on it, just to see how I felt about a slow read of only 10-20 minute chunks of a book a day. Turns out it’s really working for me, so I’m now also slowly proceeding through Persian Letters. It will finish up in the last days of December, so my challenge will be stretching to fit the entire year. But, I’m steadily working through a prompt and that makes me happy.

I’m also reading Grand Hotel, though I had just started it when I realized that my book club was this past Tuesday and I hadn’t even started The Library at Mount Char, so I switched to that and managed to get a quarter of it read before the meeting, so now I have both of those on kindle to finish off.

I borrowed a physical copy of The Legend of Wonder Woman (2015-) #1 from the library and am about halfway through. It will be my book that became a movie - it’s not the sole inspiration for Wonder Woman, clearly, but I don’t particularly care at this point in the year! Enough has been similar that I’m okay with using it.

That leaves me with the non-Christmas holiday Book. I took out some Kwanzaa and Hanukkah books to read to the girls and it may be that those will be what I use to fill the last prompt, though I had another book in mind and maybe I’ll get to it.

The only book I finished all week was the audio of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, which was really fascinating. I look forward to his next book sometime in 2018. I also started Between Shades of Gray on audio because Maddie goes to sleep more quickly if I’m listening to an audio while I nurse her.

QOTW:

The War that Saved My Life
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
Nimona - the Audio version
Saga, Vol. 1 - volumes 1-3 so far
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics
The Fifth Season
Kindred
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

It was impossible to get down to just five!

I finished two challenge books this week: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and Americanah, bringing me to 44/52. I am currently on my last work trip of the year and, thankfully, the rest of Dec is nice and quiet so I'm feeling good about my ability to finish the remaining challenge books.

QOTW: Coincidentally, one of the books I finished this week lands in my top five for the year:
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Underground Railroad
Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
Holding the Man

I finished my "book written by an author who uses a pseudonym"

Indulgence in Death

This means I'm finished with the regular portion of the challenge and I have just one more to finish and I"m completely done.

Already have my list for next year and eager to start on that, but I keep reminding myself that I have to finish this year first.

QOTW

1. The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World - never had a book move me like this one did

2. Dear Committee Members - I couldn't stop laughing

3. Catharsis - in fact I used all three books in the series so far for the challenge because I loved the first book

4. Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain - I enjoyed this one so much I read all the books so far in the series too.

5. Amish Vampires in Space This one completely surprised me given the title. I have recommended it to others.

6. From a Certain Point of View - come on - STAR WARS!!!

7. What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions

I too could not narrow it down to just 5.

BRRRRRRR!!!! It finally got really cold in my neck of the woods. Yesterday we had 30s to 40s and drizzle rain ALL day. It would have been perfect reading weather, but instead I ended up napping mist of the day away.

Finished
Hunting Prince Dracula - not a challenge book
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - book about food
I enjoyed this one about as much as I enjoy any nonfiction book. It was good, and I ended up giving it 3 ★

Challenge status
39/40 regular challenge
12/12 advanced challenge

Currently (and future) reading
Nevernight - not a challenge book
Godsgrave - not a challenge book
Caraval - a book you bought on a trip


QotW
A couple of my favorite reads this year were rereads, so I decided to leave those out.

1. Letters from Skye
2. Ghosts
3. Lord of Shadows
4. By Your Side
5. A Court of Wings and Ruin

Thegirlintheafternoon wrote: "Still way more into cross-stitching than reading right now - I loved seeing all of us come out of the woodwork last time I mentioned it! Right now I'm making holiday presents from [book:Feminist Ic..."

HAH! I wish I had more time to stitch! And read! I have a copy of Feminist Icons and I just love that you are already stitching from it. In late 2016/early 2017 I cross stitched - one over one - two pieces to be made into a very small pillow ornament - 'Nasty Woman' set in a floral medallion and 'Nevertheless, She Persisted' inside a Greek key border. Now to just make it into the pillow...

Once the last of my house guests leave next week, I'm setting up a work table again so I can finish the beading on Mirabilia's Winter Queen -- my needlework goal for this year is to actually finish it -- 20 years after I started it.

Winter teases us with a few low temps then it soars up again. However, NYC is looking mighty fine all decorated and lit for the holidays.

I'm finished with challenge, and it's a good thing given how little time I am finding to read right now. I am reading a really marvelous and timely book by Jeanette Winterson - Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days. A collection of short stories alternating with essay memoirs around food, family and friends (Ruth Rendell's Red Cabbage essay alone worth reading the book!), it is a very different Christmas read. The stories themselves run the gamut from gothic and ghostly to sweet and charming. I am loving it. I'm reading it in ebook from NYPL, but already added it to my wish list to buy in print.

QOTW: No way were there just 5 this year - I had a really good reading year!

My top reads not already mentioned:

Magpie Murders
The Book of Emma Reyes: A Memoir
Season of Migration to the North
Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir
Peacock & Vine: On William Morris and Mariano Fortuny
The Sellout
Merry Christmas, Mr. Baxter

And those already mentioned:
The Hate U Give
Station Eleven
The Bear and the Nightingale
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Good afternoon! Work once again pulled me from my desk on a Thursday morning which throws me off my check-in game.

I finished two long-term in-progress reads this week:
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (book I bought on a trip) and Emily of New Moon (book with a cat on the cover).

While traveling, I busted out the massive tome that is The Heart's Invisible Furies (book that takes place over a character's lifespan) and holy heck was it great.

Finally, I turned to my Kindle for a romance read and went with A Study in Scoundrels, which was perfectly charming.

Currently reading:
The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend

QOTW:
The Hate U Give (to echo everyone, which is correct).
The Bookshop on the Corner
Coming Home
The Dry
Turtles All the Way Down

(Although The Heart's Invisible Furies could easily bump someone off this list.)

Morning from the very sunny and hot centre of the great State of New South Wales, Australia.

I haven’t finished any books this week. I’ve been traveling around a lot on planes and in cars. I’ve been reading Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Taking it slow though because it’s supposed to be my book for the two authors prompt for next year. I may have to stop and take it up again after the new year. I’ve also been reading Redshirts on my ereader. I bought 9 new books when I went to the state capital, Sydney, earlier this week. We don’t have any bookshops left out here in the sticks and I had to stop myself from buying any more because I ran out of space in our small bags. Instead of trapesing all around the city spending money on rubbish I then spent a lot of time sitting in cafes with a pot of tea reading Good Omens and giggling.
Driving 600km tomorrow to the coast so I have to find an audiobook for my husband and I to listen to on the way. I have a number of them I just have to transfer them to a thumb drive to be able to stick in the car.

Hubby is still reading The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time. The other night he said that he’d stop reading it and find something else but he’s still persisting with it. Don’t know if it’s just because he’s stubborn or he’s starting to like it.

QOTW
Best books I’ve read in 2017 eh....
Harry Potter series. Every time I read them I discover new things.
And even though I haven’t quite finished them Sleeping Beauties and The Girl with All the Gifts are amazing. The Girl is very intense and rather draining. In a good way.

I’ve only just got back into reading in the last couple of months so I don’t have a long list. The others I’ve read are just forgettable light fluff or mass produced crime stuff by James Patterson. I do enjoy a good James Patterson though.

Can’t wait until after the new year when I can get into my challenge books.

Margaret wrote: "I only found this challenge and the group late in November, ..."

Welcome, Margaret! I joined the group well into the year a couple of years ago. Even if you start at the beginning of the year, there's no pressure to complete the challenge. I found it a great way to read more (and more diversely) and a wonderful place to get recommendations.

Greetings from San Francisco!

This week I finally read Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, a book that has been on my tbr list since I saw Patton Oswalt on his book tour in 2011. On a friend's recommendation I read The Girl with All the Gifts -- which was more in the horror genre than I expected! I kept telling me friend that she tricked me, but it turns out that I quite enjoyed the book. I also read one comic, M.F.K.: Book One that I found by checking out the 2018 Emerald City Comic Con guest list.

Since I am on a funny person memoir kick and because it keep appearing as I did my research for the 2018 challenge, I just started Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling.

QOTW
I read both novels & comics, so I have two 5 star lists. I must say that leaving books off feels a little like picking my favorite children, but here goes...

NOVELS
- The Night Circus
- The Color Purple
- The Fire Next Time
- A Closed and Common Orbit
- The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama's Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian

And an honorable mention to a book that I didn't know anything about, except that it filled a prompt for an author who died in 2016, but was surprisingly wonderful: Mama Day

COMICS
- Kim & Kim Vol. 1
- Pashmina
- Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me
- Your Black Friend
- The Best We Could Do

And an honorable mention for a younger reader book that just made me smile, Space Battle Lunchtime, Volume 1: Lights, Camera, Snacktion!

(Ok, so I snuck in an extra book for each category.)

Eujean2 wrote: "And an honorable mention to a book that I didn't know anything about, except that it filled a prompt for an author who died in 2016, but was surprisingly wonderful: Mama Day..."

I'm so glad to hear it! A friend has been recommending this to me, and having really liked Hag-Seed (also a Tempest adaptation), I've been thinking about giving Mama Day a try. Now I have two recommendations for it!

This week I finished You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain in audiobook form (liked but not loved it) and The Girl with All the Gifts which I liked very much.

I am still slowly plugging along on a book from last week - that never happens! End of the year doldrums, maybe. I’m also excited for the new year and books I am saving for January,

I have given a LOT of 5 star ratings this year (30 so far), so narrowing down to the top 5 is hard!

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
The Song of Achilles
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
The Arrival

Finally getting around to posting. I was going to earlier, but I stole away from my desk to hit our local bookshop and buy Jólabókaflóð gifts for the kids. (We're not Icelandic, but we already had a tradition of PJs on Christmas Eve, so I added books and chocolate!)

I got How to Cake It: A Cakebook for my 14yo and The Truth About Stacey for my 9yo. And I was weak and bought Haunted Nights for myself!

But I'm trying to be disciplined and keep pushing through The Ceremonies. It's good, but it was reeeeeaaal slow there for a while. Now it's picking up with some interpersonal drama and more on the creepy plot.

QOTW:

This was incredibly hard, but if I exclude re-reads, I can manage:
1. Lovecraft Country
2. A Man Called Ove
3. We Have Always Lived in the Castle
4. Kindred
5. Spill Zone

Honorable mention to Meddling Kids, and Lifetime Achievement awards to The Time Machine and Persuasion

Great shivering kneecaps, Batman! It's cold! My "feels like" temp is 26 and the sky is clear. I have many blankets right now.

I finished three non-prompt books this week.

The Secret Keepers - a middle-grade adventure which was fine but I really just wanted to finish so I could read

The Hate U Give which was fantastic.

After than I went with Mousenet: When Mice Do More than Point and Click. It's a cute middle-grade book about mice who want tiny computers, and also climate change. (Not that the mice want climate change. Mice know better than that.)


QOTW:

The Sellout
The Hate U Give
Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters
Kindred
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Ready Player One
Lily and the Octopus

As I was tied up reading a (very raw) draft of a 1000-page epic my cousin wrote (don't ask ...) for a while, I only managed to finish two books in that period:

Styx and Stones
Book 7 in a series of cozy English mysteries featuring The Honourable Daisy Dalrymple, impoverished noblesse and hard-working journalist in the Roaring Twenties who has a penchant for stumbling over dead bodies and the like. I enjoy the Daisy Dalrymple books mainly for the likeable heroine, the colourful setting, and the pleasant atmosphere. As mystery/detective novels, they unfortunately fall short of the mark. The cases usually drag on and there is no real hunt for clues or anything, often the case is simply solved because the murderer confesses or is caught in the act, and motives and solutions do leave a lot to be desired.

Ausradiert
Thriller with an urban fantasy touch by a German author. A nice read, but nothing overly special.

QOTW:
My favorite books so far this year in order of reading:
The Clockwork Angel trilogy (prequel to the Mortal Instruments series and almost better than it)
The Caius ist ein Dummkopf trilogy (a re-read from my childhood, and it's lost none of its appeal)
Ready Player One (boy did I enjoy that one!)
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (unusual and very well-written)
Schatten (the perfect thriller, fourth in a series by my favorite Austrian author)
Der Joker (I Am the Messenger) (What a strange and absolutely charming book!)
Das Seehaus (The Lake House) (quite possibly Kate Morton's best so far)
Es war einmal Aleppo (YA book dealing with the German refugee crisis 2015 from the perspective of a 17-year-old girl and her family. Sensitive, heartbreaking, honest. I would make this required reading in schools!)
The Hotel New Hampshire (The characters! The quirkiness! The writing!)

Hello readers! I'm loving this cold weather--it finally feels like the Christmas season.

This week I finished: The Girl in the Tower, which was one of my favorite books of the year. This one just came out on Dec. 5th.

Also finished Peace Child: An Unforgettable Story of Primitive Jungle Treachery in the 20th Century and Carnegie's Maid.

Currently reading The Music Shop and Winter Street

My top five books for 2017 are:

The Girl in the Tower
Nancy Wake
Before We Were Yours
The Marsh King's Daughter
Ready Player One

Hi everyone,

It's super cold here in Michigan, and we got a bit of snow. Looks like winter's fully here to stay now, after a bit of teasing warm ups.

I finished The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror which was ok. I'm finding that I don't love his Pine Grove stories, as much as I like his other work.

I spent the rest of the week getting caught up on various ongoing comic titles and clearing stuff off my ipad. Read Wynonna Earp and Wynonna Earp: Yeti Wars which were not very good. I was really glad that I hadn't read them before the show came out or I'd never have watched it. Also read Wynonna Earp Volume 1: Homecoming which also was just so so. It was in theory based off the show, the character designs and naming reflected it, but the characters didn't really act the way they do in the show, and a bunch of new ones were introduced. It also wasn't clearly placed within the show's timeline.

I also read Xena: Warrior Princess, Volume 1: All Roads which was ok, but I hadn't really watched the show enough to really grasp what was going on.

I read Babyteeth Volume 1 which is kind of creepy and horrifying, but I'll probably continue on.

QOTW:

My favorite this year was probably The Stone Sky the whole trilogy was good, but this one really wrapped it up and was amazing.

Kushiel's Dart

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

Code Name Verity

I did it! I finally finished If We Were Villains! It was good, and I think worth the struggle for me to get through, but at this point I'm just glad to be done. I just wasn't in the mood for a thriller. Now I can indulge in some comfort reads because that's what I want right now.

QOTW: Ignoring rereads, here are my top 5:

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
Bellweather Rhapsody
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
The Night Circus

I've read a lot of great books this year so I could easily list a top 20 if you'd let me.

It's been finals week at the university so reading took a back seat to writing and grading exams. I did get a few things read

Ghost Gone Wild, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files: Ghoul Goblin デビルズライン 4 Devil's Line 4 & 文豪ストレイドッグス 4 Bungō Stray Dogs 4


QOTW - Ooo good one.

When Falcons Fall
Grave Errors
文豪ストレイドッグス 1 Bungō Stray Dogs 1
Noragami, Band 1
Blue Exorcist, Vol. 1
The Ancient Magus' Bride, Vol. 1
Jackaby
Kept Tears
The Guns Above
The Eterna Files
Deathwish
Blackwing
Invictus
Fish and Ghosts
The Gilded Scarab

I finished my last book if the challenge today - yay! a book to help with my career. As a teacher, when I started a new job earlier in in the year, I was given a copy of Making Every Lesson Count by Tharby and Allison. Practical ideas for teaching. So pleases to have finished and have really enjoyed some of the books I have read this year 😃

This week I finished for the challenge:
My Name Is Lucy Barton which I'm counting for 2016 best seller. I know it was highly acclaimed that year, so that is good enough for me.
Only the Names Remain: The Cherokees and The Trail of Tears about the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation. My daughter and I are counting this for story about immigrant or refugee since they were very much like refugees who are forced away from their home.
A Grain of Rice which I read to my 6 year old and for the prompt Cat on the Cover.

My top 5 books this year were:
The Hate U Give
My Name Is Lucy Barton
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
Wonder
Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

I finished this week! 52/52 books in a year. I have to admit, I didn't think I'd make it. But I did with a couple of weeks to spare.

I finished Voyager by Diana Gabaldon. I just love this series so far. I'm trying to read one a year and already have book #4 slotted in the 2018 challenge. But first I must watch season 3 once it comes out on Netflix.

I am really excited about most of the books I chose for the 2018 challenge. Anyone else??

QotW:
Here are 5 of my favorites this year:
A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

After about four weeks of reading, I finally finished Wolf Hall! Excellent book. It's the book I bought on a trip.

I've started Emily of New Moon for the cat on the cover. After that will be Hamilton: The Revolution as I play fast and loose with the book that takes place over a character's life span. (This is actually about the play, but the play is about Alexander Hamilton's life, and at this point, I am beyond caring about it.)

After that, I am done with the challenge.

Question of the week:

What are your top five best books you read in 2017?

The Hate U Give
The Bees
Fangirl
The Mermaid's Daughter
Wolf Hall

I finally finished the challenge!! Last book was Outlander - which I read for book over 800 pages. Enjoyable but I felt the story overall was too drawn out for me.

Also completed reading two other books this week, both non prompts:

Catching a Serial Killer: My hunt for murderer Christopher Halliwell and After You.

Today I started on my next read which is No Safe House by Linwood Barclay. Pre-loved paperback I found at a local charity shop.

QOTW: Top 5 books I read in 2017 (could have listed so many more of my 5* reads from this year!):

1. The Martian
2. The Dry
3. Station Eleven
4. The One-in-a-Million Boy
5. Life of Pi

First of December and the first snow fell. It is still freezing outside.
After picking two books from the travel section in my library lately I gave Tim Moores Travels with my donkey a go. To make it short I didn't overly enjoy it. Maybe because I read Harpe Kerkelings book who is a German comedian taking the same trip and this was much better, maybe because I read it in German and the jokes went missing by translation. I finished it but that took some willpower...

QOTW

I didn't read that much this year and then mainly comfort rereads., because I got to read so much scientific stuff for my PhD thesis... So the only one that really cached me and was a new one to me was Wild by Sheryl Strayed.

Since I missed last week's check-in, I'm including two weeks' worth of updates. I finished up the last two prompts I needed to complete for the BookRiot Read Harder Challenge, so I'm officially done with both of the challenges I attempted this year. Looking forward to participating in both again next year :-D

Between 11/24 and 12/7, I finished (thanks to being on vacation for part of this time, which gave me lots of reading time :)):
* Nothing is Impossible: Further Problems of Dr Sam Hawthorne (used for BR challenge)
* Someday, Someday, Maybe (for Dec book club selection)
* Acid Row
* Black Water Rising
* Bridget Jones's Baby: The Diaries
* The Killer Next Door
* Say Nothing
* The Tomb in Seville (for the last BR prompt I needed to complete :-D)
* Dare Me

I'm currently reading Dark Places.

QotW:
My Overall Top Five Reads for 2017 (in no particular order):
* Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
* Glass Houses by Louise Penny
* Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
* Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
* Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

My Top Five PopSugar Challenge Reads (in no particular order):
* Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
* The Trespasser by Tana French
* Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
* Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
* Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

I FINISHED! https://theninethrealm.blogspot.com/2...

In week 49, I finished two books. Both of them tick off challenge tasks, but I'm pretty sure I won't be finishing the challenge this year.

I'm counting I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban for "a book about an immigrant or refugee." I am glad I finally read this. It's terrifying and uplifting, and I would definitely recommend it to pretty much anybody. (I think there are age-appropriate editions for younger readers.)

I'm using On The Wings Of A Butterfly: A Story About Life And Death for "a book that takes place over a character's life span." No, it doesn't quite qualify, but I'm so frickin' tired of reading books that *should* qualify but then turn out not to, that I'm calling it good for this year. Man, oh, man, how I hated this prompt! The book was okay, I guess. It felt very stilted and more than a little kitschy to me, but it's a kiddie book, so ymmv.

QotW: I may end up changing my top reads around before I make my final decisions on January 1st -- yes, I read *during* the NYE party -- but here is my current Top Five for 2017 (in no particular order):
Afterparty by Daryl Gregory
A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Baking With Kafka by Tom Gauld