Murphy Remembers She Knows How To Read

I'm just gonna do this my own special way, being that this is LT and people here are like that. So far this year has been a busy reading year, not a _challenging_ reading year. I have fallen victim to the Light novel and manga/manhua, which run in series and which suit my current state of mind. I'll just list those by their titles instead of all the individual books.

I'll read better books later.

So far this year:

My Happy Marriage 1-2
Thousand Autumns 1-2-3
The Dragon God's Betrothed 1-2
Crimson Spell 1-2-3-4-5
The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (manga and novels)1, 1-2-3-4
On Writing
Dead Man's Hand
The Spectre and the Servant Make a Contract 1
Married to the Dragon God 1-2
Mighty Quill
Legends and Lattes
The Apothecary Diaries 1-2
Demon's Embrace 1-2-3
XXXSecret
Therapy 1-2-3

So, 33 books, more or less. Not bad. More than I've read in quite a while.

I'm also working my way through essays in The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction and The Big Book of Science Fiction, for a class.

My goal is, as it is every year, to resist the lure of New Books to finish reading the books I have markers stuck in (there's a pile of those, me being a moody reader among other things). I especially want to finish Iain Bank's The Player of Games.

Hi Sherry - you may also be interested in the ROOTs (reading our own tomes) group for those books that seem to be laying around. I've found it encouraging to try and make a dent in the 200+ books I seem to have accumulated!
Happy reading!
https://www.librarything.fr/ngroups/24198/2024-ROOT-Challenge

Thanks, Cecilturtle! I'll take a look :)

Welcome to the 75ers!

>4 drneutron: Much thanks :)

Welcome to the lovely 75ers, have a nice stay!

Welcome, Sherri!

I like the picture on your profile.
Is it your dog having enough of giving attention to books instead of him?

I loved Legends and Lattes. Do you plan on reading the Bookshops and Bone dust prequel?

>7 FAMeulstee: Hah! That's Zeus, back when he was my emotional support/service dog, dutifully guarding my pile while I roamed the used book store. He's elderly now, but he's still a wonderful dog.

>8 elorin: I have it on the top of the pile, ready to go as soon as I fulfill my promise to myself to finish 1 dang book I've already started! I'm the worst for starting a book, getting interrupted or hitting a tension point or whatever, sticking in a marker, and then being summoned away by yet another book.

34 -- The Apothecary Diaries v 3.

I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying the whole "light novel" thing. I've been delving into Chinese sf and fantasy authors the last couple of years, and these, while often not the best written or carefully translated works around, somehow manage to grab my admittedly short attention span lately. This particular book, though, is sort of wearing me on this particular series, as I'm getting a little bored with the characters -- they are interesting, and they have opportunities for growth and change, but they are rather strictly 'controlled' -- just not allowed to grow. This doesn't do much for me.

Welcome to the group Sherry.

Welcome to the group Sherry! You can visit my thread if ya want, and you can call me Owl!

Thanks to all for the welcomes. I have but a single request -- my first name is spelled with an "i" S H E R R I (it's a thing with people who share this name -- it has a number of spellings!) But ya'll can call me Murphy as much as you like :)

I'll share a story -- in the long ago last century, when I was but a wee lass, my 4th grade class had 4 girls with the same name, all spelled differently (and one girl in the 5th grade). We had Sherry, Sherri, Shari, Cheri, and Sheri. Our teacher numbered us. :)

First, I'm trying to work out the conversational conventions in this group, because all groups have them and I am sometimes a bit blind to them. Second, things seem pretty relaxed around here, so I'm going to dive in and hope for not being wrong. (Mental illness, such fun!)

OK, confession time. I have pulled down all the books in which I've stuck a marker (with an eye to the books on my e-reader as well). It's embarrassingly tall, this stack of books. And I have reasons. Sometimes it's just because I get sleepy, and when I go to read, some other hussy of a book calls to me, distracts me, and gets me going down another reading path. Sometimes, because I have an anxiety disorder, I will get to a point of tension in a book and have to stop to let that wear off. Sometimes it takes a long while to wear off. I've paused books for years, but another oddity is that I don't seem to forget where I am in a book. I can pick it up, read the pages where the marker is, and be right back in the book, usually reading through to the end.

And sometimes it's just mood. I'll be very happy with a particular book and then something in my brain flicks a switch and I want to read something else.

So, to get myself to FINISH A DAMN BOOK, I am posting the list here, as well as making a change in my collections to make myself accountable.

_Vampire Hunter D (novel, v.1)_ finished!
If On a Winter's Night A Traveler
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
Broken Angels
The Night Dalia
The Martian
Over the Woodward Wall
Game of Cages
Anne of Green Gables
When Gravity Fails
Grave Sight
The Speed of Dark
Transformation
Worldwar: In The Balance
2am At the Cat's Pajamas
The Diamond Age
Babel
Mort (reread)
Yendi (reread)
The Black Tides of Heaven
The Pale-eyed Mage
Raven
Moon over Soho
A College of Magics
For the Wolf
The Woman Who Smashed Codes
The Battle for North Africa
Sand Talk
Jane Austen, The Secret Radical
The Witcher
Strange Practice
The Invisible Library
Face of Glass

And I found a couple more that I'd put next to what is supposed to be my reading chair, but is really a bed for my cats and dogs.

Six Wakes
The Player of Games

Just a few, eh? None of them have hit the "I don't care about this anymore" wall, since I'm not a member of the Must Finish The Book club -- too many books to read to spend time on anything I'm not enjoying or getting money/a grade to read. So, if anyone wants to yell out for me finishing one of these sooner rather than later, let me know!

>13 Owltherian: I took you up on the invite. Wow! I'll be plucking recommendations from your lists!

That’s quite a list! Quality, not quantity, I mean. Because you’re not alone in having a stack of in-progress reads. 😀

>17 drneutron: I snuck a look at your library listing ;)

I vacillate so much between different kinds of books, prompted by some invisible librarian in my head, I guess -- trying to read "good" books, but not wanting to think so hard so much of the time. Right now I'm prepping for a foray back into academia with a test run class on SF literature, and I'm delving into essays about the genre, which is very interesting and reading I can do, but when I'm not, I want things that don't test me so much.

Well, I snagged 2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas as my first selection from my pile, and after only a couple chapters I remember why I had to pause. This book is written like a dense poem. It's delicious, but it's rich and complex and requires a lot of digestion. I've learned a new word (always a positive), but I already feel so full. I'll have to keep this book as something to nibble on -- too much at a time could cause a brain ache.

>16 Murphy-Jacobs: Alright, hope you like the ones you pick from my list!

>15 Murphy-Jacobs: I loved Anne of Green Gables when I was younger, I am probably due for a re-read.

Mort was so fun!

Re: spelling your name: Mine is Robyn and I get irritated when it's spelled wrong, especially by those who had to have seen it written before they used it. I definitely empathize.

>21 elorin: I didn't read Anne of Green Gables when I was the "right" age for it, and as an adult I find it a bit...trying. Not that I don't reread stuff I read as a kid. I have a deep and abiding love for many of those books -- Noel Streatfield's Thursday's Child is still worth reading, as are the Henry Reed books, among others. Henry Reed is dated -- heck, it was a bit dated when I first read them -- but they are still clever and enjoyable. Another that I can reread with joy is Gone Away Lake.

Mort IS fun, and I loved it the first time. This time I just...got distracted. Also, as one of my quirks is a tendency to react when I think other people are about to be embarrassed/are embarrassed, I just hit a point in the book when I can tell something really embarrassing is about to happen. I've not read ALL the Discworld books, but when that's my mood, I'll read a handful at a time.

>22 Murphy-Jacobs: Sherri I think the last time I read Anne of Green Gables I was about 20. I remember Anne being trying. LOL
Discworld is a passion for me. I started a reread in January and I am starting on the Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents this week. There's a group read here in the 75ers of the witches books (May is Witches Abroad) - they read the Death books last year.

I read the first 9 books back when that's almost as many as there were, and then, as I do, wandered off. I revisit the Witch and Death books and I've promised myself I will read the rest of them (once I clear some books OUT). Have you seen the Hogfather miniseries? It's marvelous. We watch it at least once a year and it never gets old.

>24 Murphy-Jacobs: I actually haven't seen the Hogfather miniseries, it's on the list though. Watched a documentary about Terry and and the orangutans, and the Amazing Maurice, and a troll bridge thing recently.

Hornblower would be a good one, Sherri, as we are doing a War Room Challenge and this month is the Napoleonic Wars in feature.

>26 PaulCranswick: Ok, I can manage that. I started the Aubrey & Maturin books some years back and intend to read those. In my head, Captain Wentworth (from Jane Austen's Persuasion sailed with them.

Hey! I finished a book from that list! Vampire Hunter D, which has been lying around for I can't tell you how long. It wasn't a great read, and it did not scratch the light novel/manga itch I have. I have seen the anime several times, and the sequel, but I don't think I will read any more in this series. It was dry and ... just didn't work for me as I hoped it would.

>14 Murphy-Jacobs: Whoops sorry Sherri and sorry again for the super late reply.

>29 Owltherian: You're all good :)

Well, here's a dilemma. I'm now over halfway through Mr. Midshipman Hornblower and I'm not enjoying it, at least not the depiction of war in this section. The casual attitude toward death, the "boy's own adventure" tone, are starting to grate on my nerves. I started out liking the protagonist, and I still sort of do, but I can also see him turning into the sort of person I would not like to know, which is a product of the historic period in which he is situated and possibly the biases of his author.

So, do I want to surrender the book and the series, just pause it for a while (again) to read something else on my very long list, or muscle through to the end because this might be a temporary dip in the book and the things I liked could be in later sections. Each chapter is, more or less, a short story, connected but not interlinked deeply one to the other, so that's possible.

Opinions?

Book 30 -- more Manga! as a palate cleaner for my Hornblower distaste.

Old-fashioned Cupcake was a sweet slice of life romance with actual adults (instead of the usual highschool/college characters). It should stand up to rereadings.

>31 Murphy-Jacobs: If each chapter is a short story I would give up on the current story and try the next one.

In my opinion life is too short to force yourself to read something you aren't enjoying, especially if you don't have a motivation other than completionism.

>33 elorin: elorin, I agree with that. I just know I'm a moody reader and my moods change. There was stuff I did like in the earlier parts of the book, which is why I kept reading, and why I'm indecisive about it.

I'm giving it another day, will try a few more pages, and if I still don't like it, it will go into the abandoned pile along with the rest of the series.

>32 Murphy-Jacobs: That seems like a fun and cute manga to read

>35 Owltherian: I read both books, and I keep going back to them. They charm me, and the second one has a lovely set of watercolor images of the characters and scenes (I really like watercolor art). The visual language of manga fascinates me, as it is a symbol system from another culture and language, and so it's challenging but interesting, and symbols have always been interesting to me. It's also unusual to run into romance manga that actually has adults in it (and a remarkable lack of squick or overly cutsie moments). I haven't read a ton of manga, mostly because a lot of it just leaves me cold because either it is aimed at a much younger reader with attitudes and expectations with which I no longer or never did identify, it wanders into what I find unpleasant, or it gets overly cute with a sense of humor that doesn't work for me. So when I find something I like, I _really_ like it :)

And when the manga is derived from a light novel, it's even better :) I'm eying a few of those now, and I'm already addicted to one called "The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter", which is a variation on the "isekai" or a character being transported into a fantasy or alternative world (sometimes into a novel they were reading, which reminds me of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books like The Eyre Affair). I like being able to read the text as well as the manga, since that lets me more easily grasp the visual part of the manga. Well, that, and a lot of time on TV Tropes! There's a lot of information on manga and anime there.

>36 Murphy-Jacobs: Oh wow that seems very intresting, I'll have to find it sometime.

I just realized -- in the way that I do, long after I should have -- that I didn't give any introduction of myself to the group. Sorry about that. I tend to be cautious about talking about myself, not because I'm worried that someone will do something with my information, but because I tend to go on too long and say too much. So, I tend to err on the side of caution, which ends often with not saying anything at all.

I'm 59 (yikes! How did that happen?) and live with my husband, my mom-in-law, 9 indoor cats and three Standard Poodles in a huge, old house in the middle of Topeka. We came here 4 years ago after a 12 year stint in Clemson, SC, where my husband was first a grad student and then a teacher at Clemson U. It wasn't a good 12 years, shall we say? Before that, we lived in Florida, in and around Orlando, which is my hometown. Yes, I'm older than Disney World.

I have a problem with clinical depression, anxiety, and there's a chance I am neuro-divergent or possibly on the Autism spectrum (my doctors feel that, at my age, there's not much point in seeking a firm diagnosis. Sheesh.) I'm on proper medication, I've done all kinds of therapy, and in general I'm just more weird than crazy, but I reserve the right to claim my crazy is acting up. That's what I call it, to make sense to myself.

I've been a reader all my life. I don't remember learning how to read, but it was well before I started school, and books have been my companions as far as I can remember. I have more memories of people from books than from nearly anything else. I read whatever interests me, without much regard for the niceties of genre classification, and right now we are trying to build an actual library in our house (two sets of shelves down, several more to go, and yes, I will post photos), which will mean being able to more completely catalogue my collection. The majority of my books have lived in boxes for the past 17 years, which is REALLY IRRITATING.

Anyway, I'm pretty chatty if you get me started, so you are warned.

I’m a Clemson grad - PhD in physics in 2005 (went back after working for a while). The Son is also a Clemson grad - Computer Science and English in 2012.

>39 drneutron: The hubs was working on a PhD in Rhetoric, but in his last year he had a pretty bad motorcycle accident, and after a year of recovery, and learning to hate teaching (well, not teaching, but academic politics and admin f**kery) he decided to surrender that career and return to his first vocation of printing technology, which is how we ended up in the Midwest. Clemson is beautiful in a lot of ways (the botanical garden was sooo fabulous, even after the severe storms one summer took out parts of it) but I really don't miss SC. I hope we eventually either get to NC (Asheville area, where I spent time growing up) or Maine.

Oldest cat -- Caliban -- went on the last trip to the vet this morning. He was elderly and not doing well at all, and I've been preparing for it for a bit, so after a few tears (wiped onto the back of other cats and dogs) I'm pretty much ok. But I thought I should memorialize him, as he was a special boy who cost me a lot of blood to transform from feral to lazy housecat.

You have my sympathy. It's never easy, even when expected.

>41 Murphy-Jacobs: Sad to read that. Condolences because our pets are a part of our family too aren't they?
Don't give up entirely on Hornblower is my advice but you may feel the need to skim on occasions!

>43 PaulCranswick: Thank you. Yes, they are all the children I have. I haven't surrendered Hornblower yet, just taking a break with something else I've been anticipating. There's still good stuff in Forester's tale!

>42 ReneeMarie: Thank you. It's the price of love, isn't it?

GNU to Caliban. Long may he live in fond memories.

>45 elorin: Thank you, elorin.

I have, it seems, miscounted my books. I keep a list in my physical book journal (anyone else still so analog as to keep a book journal on...paper? In a notebook? Hopelessly archaic!) and there I've counted 37 books plus the one I finished last night, so that's 38....

Gah, I don't even think my tag for this year is on all the books I've actually read this year. But it's a rainy day, perfect for fixing all that.

ANYWAY...

Finished the first of the two volume Golden Terrace last night. Historic romance with a ton of twisty politics and maybe some fictionalization. No wuxia, no one flies standing on a sword, but a fair bit of interesting stuff about China. Fu Shen, illustrious general protecting the northern border of Great Zhou, has been targeted for assassination by the increasingly paranoid Emperor, but survived -- only to be forced into an arranged marriage with the Emperor's Sword, his Imperial Investigator Yan Xiaohan. All the world thinks these two men hate each other, but are loyal to Great Zhou and the Emperor. Fu Shen survives the attempt, but his legs are crippled, seemingly forever, so that the army he commands can now be controlled by the Emperor.

But that's just the surface. Fu Shen and Yan Xiaohan have a history of love and betrayal between them, and there's a great conspiracy against the Emperor boiling up, carefully hidden, but visible to these two.

I love a good slow burn romance, and I love strong characters. I enjoy historical detail, too. All of them combine in this book, which really worked for me. I kept being surprised. The usual tropes got messed with. I kept teasing myself with it, wanting the book to last a while and wanting to finish it all right away.

Caveats -- this is a translation, but a good one. Dialogue attribution is very different in translated Chinese fiction from what most English language readers find normal, and that takes a bit of adjustment. Pronouns tended to get a bit tangled here and there. Other than that, I thought the prose flowed nicely, occasionally quite beautifully.

So, now I feel fortified to take another run at Mr. Midshipman Hornblower.

>47 Murphy-Jacobs: I've never tracked *what I own* on paper. And LT is my first try at digital.

On paper I do track what I've read, and have done that since 2010. It's on loose paper, so I'll be transferring it to a notebook soon. Don't want to use LT for that.

I use a mini-legal pad In a padfolio to keep track of my life. Some of the pages are labeled "library" for things I may want to read but not own. And those I plan to put in a collection in my LT account so I can get rid of a 4' stack of mini-legal pads.

So, yes, still a lot of paper in my life...

Thanks for chatting over on my thread! I though I'd return the favor.

>15 Murphy-Jacobs: Of the books on your started-not-finished list, I've enjoyed The Martian, Anne of Green Gables, and Mort. I read everything of L.M. Montgomery's that I could get my hands on as a child, so I don't have any distance or perspective on her works, though as an adult I can at least see how she might not be everyone's cup of tea.

>40 Murphy-Jacobs: I also spent some of my growing-up years in Asheville (ages 1-6, for me), and have many fond memories of it. I've visited the area a few times as an adult, and the mountains feel "right" to me in a way that other landscapes don't.

>41 Murphy-Jacobs: I am sorry for your loss. Caliban is a great name for a cat, especially one that started out as a feral.

>49 foggidawn: Thanks! Make yourself at home :)

I was more Little House than Anne as a kid, and then I discovered Andre Norton, space ships, and Star Trek, and off I went.

My mother's family was and is all around Asheville -- Black Mountain in particular, although the years have driven wedges into the cracks of a very large family and I don't know anyone anymore. But, yes, the mountains there feel "right" to me, and always have, so that's where I'd prefer to spend my last years, if fate works out.

All my indoor cats are named for Shakespearian characters -- makes it easy. So far, we've had Othello, Titania, Ophelia, Petruchio (well, he was Pooty), Benedict, Beatrice, Caliban, Horatio, Miranda, Oberon, Puck, Antonio and Leonato (they are littermates and bonded, and those are the only 2 brothers in Shakespeare I could find who didn't want to kill each other). Outdoor cats get color or personality names, and dogs derive from Mythology -- we have Zeus, Apollo, and Artemis. I one day want a grey Maine Coon, because I love Maine Coons (Oberon is one), so I can name him/her Prospero/Prospera (I loved Helen Mirren in the movie of The Tempest).

>50 Murphy-Jacobs: Orlando and Oliver don't hate each other through ALL of As You Like It.

>51 ReneeMarie: True, true. I'll save that pair :) Tony and Leo are just such a pair of cuddlers ;)