Holy (hot and humid) hell, it's June. It's June and I'm back to the grind after a whirlwind two weeks of conferences (one for work, then Book Expo the following week). I've got a boat load of day-job work on my plate, and a stack of galleys from BEA calling my name, quite a few July book review deadlines coming up, and several meetings scheduled for this week.
And yet, staring down what feels like a never-ending to-do list, I am incredibly energized. Both conferences--the work one and the book one--have me jazzed about the enthusiasm and passion that so many people in so many industries bring to their work. I'm starting the week with a clean house (and a new sofa that finally makes me feel like I have a grown-up living room!), and I'm going into this Monday with the goal of whole-assing one thing at a time.
In the name of said whole-assing, I'm focusing my reading this week on finishing up the partially finished books that have been lingering for weeks on end: Drums of Autumn on audio (25% through the 44+ hours of narration!), Cloud Atlas (for the readalong that ended over a month ago) and At Hawthorne Time (out in July; reading for a deadline next weekend). I also finished The Star Side of Bird Hill this weekend on the train home from NYC, which I adored.
More extensive posts to come on the BEA show as a whole and the books I'm most excited about. In the meantime, here's a great recap of the Blogger Con panel I did with Amanda from Book Riot (moderating), Emily from Books, the Universe and Everything, and Melody from Melody and Words. I know learned a ton from my fellow panelists and am excited to implement a few new ideas in this space.
Bring it on, June.
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What are you reading this week?
So great meeting you last week! Glad you had a nice train trip home - the train is one of my favorite places to read!
ReplyDeleteGirl, I'm still working my way through Cloud Atlas as well...
ReplyDeleteI wasn't very impressed by Cuckoo's Calling. Maybe I should have listened to the audiobook.
ReplyDeletePS. Since I probably haven't mentioned it: I love the new (newish? life has been a bit chaotic lately) haircut!
ReplyDeleteGreat seeing you at BEA. I left feeling energized too! Let's see how long it lasts... :)
ReplyDeleteI love the percentage counter on ebooks and audiobooks, but I think that for some books (no matter how great they are), you should just not be reminded how long they are.
ReplyDeleteI did the mistake of rereading the first 7 Outlander books using the Kindle bundle version. When I bought it, it seemed like a great deal since it was so much cheaper than buying the individaul books, or ship all the hardcovers half way around the world. Turned out to be the worst idea ever. I would read for days without the percentage bar moving and it was quite discouraging. I had to keep reminding myself it was just because the entire thing was over 8000 pages, but I still think it would have been faster for me to read the individual books (even though technically, it would have been the same number of pages).
I'm on the waitlist for Re Jane and am both nervous and excited about it. I'm also very sad I missed Matt Fraction's Sex Criminals, I will be changing that forthwith.
ReplyDeleteI adore the Galbraith books. They remind me of Harry Potter with all of the thought she puts into character and plot development. The only downside is that the wait between books still feels like an eternity, although she definitely publishes these quicker than the Potters. ;-)
ReplyDeleteAlso, again, so great seeing you last week at BEA! Let me know when you're up again, because I owe you lunch!
UGH. YES. It is somewhat daunting when I listen to this book for 3 hours in the car on the way to/from a meeting (lots of traffic around DC) and realize the percentage went up a teensy amount. I can't imagine how much worse that would feel in an 8,000 page collected edition... though I bet that was significantly cheaper!
ReplyDeleteI'm finding the fourth book a bit of a slog--I want to find out what happens with Claire's daughter, but it keeps flipping back to North Carolina and building a cabin and slooooowly figuring out what Claire and Jamie will do. Maybe I'm just a bit burnt out. Tell me it's worth continuing?
Good to see you as well! I'm trying to harness that energy into a few BEA-related posts... still hasn't happened, though.
ReplyDeleteHa! This makes me feel so much better.
ReplyDeleteAh! It was so great to meet you as well. And yes, I love train reading! Especially on the quiet car. The quiet car is my idea of travel heaven.
ReplyDeleteYes! Maybe that's what I loved so much about them. I think I would have enjoyed even if I hadn't know they were JK books when I picked them up, though to be fair, the likelihood of my reading them without knowing they were her books was fairly slim. I'm still waiting for my hold on the second one so the wait isn't killing me--yet!
ReplyDeleteSo good to see you as well!
Re Jane wasn't quite what I expected, but I enjoyed it. The best parts, in my opinion, were the parts where Park diverged from the original story. It's heavy on the "Dear Reader" mentions, but otherwise I enjoyed it! AND GO READ SEX CRIMINALS RIGHT NOW.
ReplyDeleteThe narration was excellent, which I think helped. It was slow at times but I loved listening to his voice!
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks! It's new-ish--about a month or so? I got bored ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt's remarkable to me how different Harry Potter, Cuckoo's Calling and Casual Vacancy are--and yet how they all seem vaguely familiar to me at the same time. Farin mentioned above that Rowling builds characters a certain way and maybe that's what feels so Rowling-esque to me. Have you read the other Cormoran Strike books?
ReplyDeleteThanks! The panel was really fun to do, though I had mixed feelings about Blogger Con overall (surprise, surprise). Star Side of Bird Hill was good--caught me up by the middle and I raced through the second half.
ReplyDeleteAnd I STILL can't wait to get to The Shore! I'm sounding like a broken record with that statement...
I'd like to think I would have picked them up without knowing, because they're the sorts of mysteries that I love, but it definitely would have taken me longer to find them.
ReplyDeleteYes, exactly. I don't think I'd have turned them down once encountered, but I hadn't heard of them until the pen name was revealed.
ReplyDeleteIt is definitely worth continuing! I thought Voyager and Drums of Autumn was a bit slow. It picks up again in the next book.
ReplyDeleteOo, I'm looking forward to hearing more about The Star Side of Bird Hill. I've seen it on a bunch of lists of books I should be excited about for the summer, but I haven't heard a ton else about it.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I'm half-assing everything these days- running in one direction then another. Thankfully, I have wise bloggers like you to let me know how great Star Side is, so I will start it now instead of waiting!
ReplyDeleteI'm reading The Household Spirit and while I'm enjoying the prose I'm not sure where it's going. Kind of odd...
Maybe I'll add that to my audio-list for when I run out of other books to listen to.
ReplyDelete