Next Book + What Worked W/ Station Eternity

[latespring]

Hello all!

Thank you to greenet for the reminder that we don't have our next book picked or scheduled.

Here's the post for us to discuss our next books (if you have a book you'd like to read, suggest 1-3 in the comments and I'll make a poll for them next week) + talk about our experiences with Station Eternity (both the book itself if you have any more thoughts on that, and also how the schedule/check ins were) if you have any thoughts.

I was thinking we could pick out two or three books this time, given that we now have one book under our belt.

Twig volunteered at one point to run a book, so in that spirit let me know if you'd be interested in running a book (posting discussions, etc) at some point. I'm also perfectly happy to keep running them! Additionally, feel free as always to link this comm to anyone you'd like.

Looking forward to hearing from you all!

Comments

Book reading wishes

[greenet]

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov

(Middlemarch by George Eliot for a total change of pace. 🤣)

Experience reading Station Eternity

[greenet]

My number one takeaway is that I will read that type of book in one go. It was also a very easily read book. So it would have to be a different type of book for me to take breaks and consider what I'm reading.

This is also why I didn't really comment until the last post!

For me, the timespan between starting the book read and the end discussion was a little long considering the length and type of book. Idk how others feel about that ofc!

For questions, I'm interested in characters, world building, the author's story telling techniques and use of language. Are there any interesting concepts in the story and how are they dealt with or explored? I like it when authors have interesting takes on the relationships people* have with each other and like to talk about that!

*for people read also: robot, animal, sentient flower, etc.

ETA: and thank you for running this! It's a new experience for me and it's been fun to see what everyone else thought of the book!

Re: Experience reading Station Eternity

[latespring]

ooooh good to know! yeah I ended up reading it (or trying to) pretty much all in one go, so the longer timeframe wasn't much help to me either

Re: Book reading wishes

[littlerhymes]

Listen I would read Middlemarch again it's so good!

Re: Book reading wishes

[stoplight]

adding another vote for middlemarch... i've been meaning to get to it for a while now!

[littlerhymes]

We had some good nominations last time, maybe we can add some of those again into the shortlist? I do agree with nominating Black Water Sister and Some Desperate Glory again. And Saint of Bright Doors...

I think 1 month is a good amount of time to read a book and discuss it, with maybe a halfway checkpoint to see how people are going?

[latespring]

I'd love to read Saint of Bright Doors, I keep staring at it in my library holds!

[tullycat]

These books won last poll, so I'll throw them in as options again:
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang
Stay True by Hua Hsu
Bitter Medicine by Mia Tsai
The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng (this only got 2 votes last time but I still really want to read it 🥹)

I DNFed the last book, but that was an issue with the book + my reading brain the last few months, not you. Maybe it's easier to have one post for everyone's live reactions as they read - pop assures me we can spoiler tag in comments - so we could just warn "spoilers up to chapter 9 [spoiler here]" and then have a discussion post at the end.

For me personally, once I start a book I will usually finish it in a week or two, so if the final discussion is months away, I generally don't start reading until a few weeks before the deadline. So a shorter timeline works for me.

[littlerhymes]

Confirming spoiler tags do work!

spoiler under here

ok just testing

[glitteryv]

Re nominations: I concurr with the multiple suggestions of Black Water Sister and I'm also seconding the nomination of Bitter Medicine.

As for the first book experience: Once again, I do agree with everyone else in shortening the schedule to one month. Personally, I'm not a super fan of mid-check ins. In the case of Station Eleven, I remember having to 🤐 abt several things since the mid-check in post only covered up to a specific chapter. And, by the time the final post went up, I felt so much time had gone by that the points had become vaguer than expected. So, for me a good time period would be Book Announcement post and (one month later) Discussion post.

[greenet]

Just wanted to note that I love Station Eleven!! It's so good.

[latespring]

oooh noted, thank you!!

[bookishdagger]

I’m seeing other people nominating Middlemarch in the comments—I’ve never read it but I’d like to! So I’m seconding (or thirding etc) that nomination

I also agree that the timespan was a bit long? I didn’t pick up the book until a few weeks before our final discussion because I knew I would forget too much otherwise. On the other hand I know people read at different paces and I don’t want to force people to conform to how I read.

[latespring]

I've never read it either and never heard of it before, but I'd be down to read it!

also yeah I did something similar with the book-- though I never actually ended up finishing it

[poppyseedheart]

I didn't get to join in for the Station Eternity read (only ended up being able to access the audiobook and my brain was not vibing with that format) but I wanted to reaffirm that I am down to run a book! And agree that I am down to read Black Water Sister or Middlemarch for our next book if that's where most of the votes seem to be [eye emoji]. I'm also a fan of having a central discussion post where people can spoiler reactions — it reminds me a bit of Storygraph's buddy read function, which I dearly love.

[latespring]

perfect, noted!! also yeah I'd love to read Black Water Sister, putting together a little poll now!