Bout of Books 20

Another Bout of Books is sweeping through the book blogosphere and I’m infected! 😀

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda at On a Book Bender and Kelly at Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins at 12:01 a.m. Monday, August 21, and runs through 11:59 p.m. Sunday, August 27, in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 20 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. — From the Bout of Books team

Bout of Books is one of my favorite readathons because of how laid back it is. As with all the readathons I participate in, I always make a TBR that I never follow and always do a post (this one) announcing my intent to participate but never join in any social media events/challenges (I don’t have time for all that). I’m also usually on vacation when the summer Bout of Books rolls around, but I’m working this time. 😦

My goals this time are pretty much the same that I made for Bout of Books 19. Hopefully, I’ll actually accomplish the last goal this time. As for what I’ll read, most of the books will be counted toward the Reading Quest readathon, August 13 to September 10. I’ll also probably use this readathon to reread some comics so I can read the new-to-me issues for the Reading Quest (rereads don’t count for the quest).

Goals

Read comics.

Read everyday.

Read at home and before bed. No electronics.

Books

Currently reading

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

The Iliad by Homer, trans. by Robert Fagles

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

TBR

Lady Mechanika, Vol. 1 by Joe Benitez (illus.) [reread]

Saga, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan, illus. by Fiona Staples [reread]

Saga, Vol. 2 by Brian K. Vaughan, illus. by Fiona Staples [reread]

Saga, Vol. 3 by Brian K. Vaughan, illus. by Fiona Staples [reread]

The Wingsnatchers by Sarah Jean Horwitz

That’s it. I might read all or none of these. We’ll find out at the end.

Weekend Reads #76: Tome Topple Readathon Wrap-up

Weekend Reads is a weekly post in which I discuss a variety of topics and mention the books I plan to read on the weekend.

For this weekend’s post, I’ll report on my progress for the Tome Topple Readathon, which was held August 4 – 17. The purpose of readathon is to encourage folks to read the longer books on their shelves, i.e. books over 500 pages. I decided to join the fun because this readathon is more than a week long and because I wanted to see if I could rise to the challenge.

I did. And it was a —

SUCCESS!! 😀

I am proud of myself for completing several tomes during this readathon and meeting most of the goals. (I celebrated by partying.) 😆

In classic Zezee fashion, I read 1.5 of the books on my TBR. I constantly prove to myself that TBRs are ineffective for me, but do I listen to myself? No. (Obviously, or I would’ve read what I told myself to read!)

Here is the TBR I created:

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki by Mamoru Hosoda, illus. by Yuu

Isle of Blood by Rick Yancey

The Iliad by Homer, trans. by Robert Fagles

And here’s what I read:

The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks

The first in the Night Angel Trilogy, The Way of Shadows is about a guild rat who becomes an assassin. I enjoyed the story so much that I consumed its 645 pages in 4 days (I was interrupted by trival things like work and basic living routines).

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (illus.)

An illustrated children’s book about an orphan boy who maintains the clocks of a busy Paris train station while fixing an automaton in his free time. I’d forgotten that I had this checked out from the library, which is why I failed to include it on my TBR. I read it in a day.

Wolf Children: Ame & Yuki by Mamoru Hosoda, illus. by Yu

A beautifully illustrated manga about a human woman who raises her wolf children (they’re half wolf: have wolf ears and can change into a wolf) on her own. This story was sweet and another quick read I completed in a day.

The Iliad by Homer, trans. by Robert Fagles

The epic poem about the siege of Troy. This isn’t as I expected. The story is interesting (Achilles and Agammenon are fucking cry babies!), but the writing isn’t as poetic as I thought it would be. I was eager to read it because I enjoyed how Jason and the Argonauts by Apollonius of Rhodes was written and appreciated how it was translated, done by Aaron Poochigian. I thought this would be similar. I’m still reading it, by the way.

As for the challenges, here are what I completed:

Challenges

Read more than 1 tome

Along with the four books above, I also completed Eldest by Christopher Paolini and dipped into Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen, but I decided not to count either as part of the readathon because I’d already read much of Eldest by the time the readathon started and wasn’t committed to Queen of the Tearling.

Read a graphic novel (over 500 pages!)

Wolf Children

Read a tome that is part of a series

The Way of Shadows

Buddy read a tome

Read an adult novel

The Way of Shadows

The Iliad

Well, that’s it for this round of Tome Topple.

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What I’m reading:

The Reading Quest readathon, August 13 to September 10, is in full swing, so the books listed here are being read for it. As you can see, a few weren’t included in my TBR. By the way, the Bout of Books readathon starts tomorrow (August 21 – 27) so some of these books will be read for it too. I shall, of course, post a TBR. 😀

This weekend’s books:

The Iliad by Homer, illus. by Robert Fagles

Going good so far, but the writing is dry so I’m not always eager to return to it.

Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames

It’s got my interest. The state that these heroes are in makes me wonder if their quest, which they haven’t started yet, will be a success. They remind me of Cazaril, probably because they are all veterans. I realize that I prefer these sort of protagonists in fantasy novels: older, experienced, realistic about their capabilities, and a touch sarcastic.

Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

I like how this is narrated, but the story is a little dry so far. Actually, my reading experienced is overshadowed by the hype surrounding Pratchett’s talent. I keep expecting to be wowwed and I haven’t yet. I just want the hype out of my head so I can simply appreciate the story as it is.

So, that’s what I’m doing.

What y’all up to?

“Sick” by Christa Wojciechowski

I read this one out of curiosity.

Lilyn over at SciFi and Scary read and reviewed it last year. She was so repulsed by the story that she was conflicted on how to write the review. My curiosity was instantly perked. It made we wonder why she had such a strong reaction to the story and if I would react the same too. But after reading, I understood.

Amazon summary:

A woman sacrifices everything to care for her husband whose chronic illness can’t be diagnosed. Susan Branch’s life revolves around the care of her charming and inscrutable husband John, a man born into wealth and prestige who lost his family’s fortune when his mysterious chronic illnesses left him bedridden. Together they live a decrepit existence beholden to the current owners of his family’s former estate.

After years of devoting herself to John’s care, Susan is worn out and frustrated. Yet she is determined to scrape together whatever resources she can to keep John comfortable and happy. This includes stealing Demerol from the doctor’s office where she works to feed John’s ever-increasing need for pain medication. As John’s condition continues to puzzle doctors, Susan begins to notice strange objects appearing around her house. Ever wary of creepy Old Pete, the groundskeeper, Susan decides to confront the elderly man and put an end to his snooping for good.

“Normal” by Warren Ellis

The cover made me to pick this up.

I’d seen it on a previous visit to the library. Thinking it to be a horror novel, I avoided it. On another visit, the cover again caught my interest and curious, I read the synopsis on the back. “Sci-fi,” I thought. “Pweh!” I don’t like sci-fi and sometimes the concepts discussed scare me more than the horror novels. Again, I didn’t bother to check out the book.

But the third time I saw it on the shelf, I was again curious, sci-fi or not, and decided to just read the first sentence:

“Hand over the entire internet now and nobody gets hurt,” she said, aiming the toothbrush at the nurse like an evil magic wand.

Since then I was hooked and hardly put the book down until I was done.

Languishing in the Spam Folder of Doom

A Plea for Release From Spam Jail

I’ve been outcasted from your blogs. For some reason, WordPress has seen fit to mark me as spam. I do not know why this is. It’s not as if I’ve peppered people with comments recently. I’ve barely had time to draft posts much less comment on other blogs. But now that I have time to comment, no one sees what I submit. It’s irritating and now my sunny Sunday is overcasted by the pall of the Spam dungeon.

Since I don’t know what caused my imprisonment, I don’t know how to break out or how to fix it. I could send notes to folks asking them to check their Spam folders, but to do so for each blog I visit would be time consuming. So, if you all don’t mind, could you please check your Spam folders and unblock me? Chances are if I liked one of your posts recently, then I probably commented on it too.

Z

Weekend Reads #75: My Poor Vocab

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to sit, think, and draft a Weekend Reads post, a weekly post in which I discuss a variety of topics and mention the books I plan to read on the weekend.

This weekend’s topic is from one of Sara LeTourneau’s Weekly Writer Wisdom posts:

How do you encourage the expansion of your vocabulary and the maturation of your writing style? For example, do you look up definitions of words you’ve never heard of before? Or “collect” words by writing them in a journal? Do you use writing prompts or exercises as a means of stretching your “language muscles”? What other thoughts or ideas does this quote bring to mind?

Days of the Week Book Tag

Hello everyone:

Life has been surprisingly busy lately. A whole week has passed since I last posted something or read someone’s blog post. My hope was that August would be a bit slower, allowing me to catch up on here, but that hasn’t happened. However reading-wise, all is good. I’m participating in Tome Topple, which is going on right now, and have completed 1 tome so far.

Since it’s been a while since I posted something, I’ve decided to do a book tag! My plan was to do the Days of the Week Book Tag that I found on a blog back in June, but it seems that the blog was deleted so I googled the tag and found various versions of it. So, in classic Zezee fashion, I shall do them all! 😆

Starting with this tag created by Tera at Adventures Between Pages:

Secret Book Sunday

What book or series do you secretly love that you don’t always tell people?

I don’t think I have any books for this. I talk about all the books I read on here and review everything as well. I guess the only thing that fits this is that I sometimes read funny adult-content webcomics, like Oglaf, which I never mention on here because I sometimes discuss kids books and putting those two together don’t fit.

Mash-up Monday

Which two books or series do you think would be cool if they were mashed up as one book or series?

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey