The Book Nook
 

HELLO BOOK SEEKERS!

Real quick update for everyone - we are slowly working on rebuilding the threads lost in this forum in the recent cyber attack. Two major threads were unforutnately lost in this attack - the Reading Goals thread, and the 2022 Book Seekers Reading Challenge.

For the reading goals, the mods have decided that we will start fresh in 2023 and create a new Reading Goals thread EVERY YEAR to help everyone track their reading progress a bit easier in the future.

The Book Seekers Reading Challenge IS being rebuilt and will be reposted shortly. We have old drafts of the challenge, it's just a matter of putting it all back together again! Once it is live simply remake your post in there and update your post accordingly ^_^

Omg! I just saw a preview to A Man called Otto, based on the book A Man called Ove. I can't wait to see this.

I saw the trailer for it yesterday and it was SO good, I absolutely cannot wait for it to come out! My husband is not a reader but A Man Called Ove spoke to him so much that for the first team in literal Y E A R S he read a book. I can't wait to take him to see the film! The fact it's Tom Hanks playing Otto too :loved:

I know, I saw it yesterday as well! I think it comes out Christmas day, Tom Hanks is going to be so good at this role.

I know we lost our thread for Rebecca, but I just finished it and I'm sad we lost the BOTM thread because man I have thoughts! Is there another book after that because how do they end it like that without another book, please tell me there is another book?

Thank you all for working so hard :)

I'm glad you ended up liking it and finishing it, because I like it so much! There isn't another book to follow up on Rebecca by the same author, but there are some books out there by OTHER authors who wrote their own sequel after the book entered public domain. I'd be interested in whether or not those are any good...

I found one of them and tried to get it on Libby but it wasn't available. I am going to look for it in other places I think.

We should make another thread to discuss this cause mannnnn that ending !!! :whaa: :whaa: It took me awhile to get into it, I feel like ... But once I got into it ... I just wanted to know how it ended !!! Also did I see there was a Netflix about it? Did you watch it? Did they maybe offer an alternative ending for it?? I'm curious lol

You're able to make new threads for book discussions at any time! Any time you have a book you want to talk about, but you don't want to nominate it for BotM for any reason or in this case, the old one was deleted thanks to hackers lololol feel free to submit it!

There IS a movie on Netflix that stars Armie Hammer and Lily James. I really liked it - gorgeous costumes and scenery - but it doesn't have an alternate ending, as far as I remember. So if you're looking for a different outcome, that won't make you happy.

HIYA GUYS! A few quick things!

1. You have until January 31st to update your Book Seeker Challenge post from 2022 before we start tallying up the points and awarding prizes!

2. We're looking for more nominations for Book of the Moment! Be sure you check out this thread of what we're looking for in our nominations and how to go about submitting your books.

Thank you for saying something. I hadn't even realized that my progress had been lost in the great darkness of the hack.

Hello lovely Book Seekers!

As you probably have noticed, we haven't updated BOTM in a while. We as a mod team have been working behind the scenes to try and figure out ways to spice up BOTM since we've had some low activity when it comes to our last few selections. A new book and discussion will be up soon. In the meantime, keep on chugging along with your reading goals and the Reading Challenge for 2023! We LOVE seeing all the amazing progress you're making and finding new recommendations from all the books y'all are reading!

As always if you have any suggestions for our next Book of the Moment please PM the Book Club mods (all three of us, please!) or anything you'd like to see in general with the forum, feel free to PM us or drop a suggestion in here!

Hello friends! Anyone want to discuss their progress on their TBS reading challenge or their other goals? Need suggestions for prompts or to get out of reading slumps? Discovered any new genres that you're into at the moment or found your way back to reading after a while?

I'm only just catching up on my yearly reading goal myself and have been doing a few rereads of old favourites (Percy Jackson and Hunger Games, to be specific) which have woken up the book loving monster inside me (and, come to think of it, the writer monster inside of me too) again. Big recommend if anyone is in a reading slump. Comfort reads/old faves help me along every time.

But also I'm halfway through a few books that are either very long and difficult to stick with (but not uninteresting) or very dull and dense and for no good reason I am too stubborn to give up on them :mellow: Anyone else have that problem or are you more than willing to DNF a book?

I set a goal for 50 and surpassed that this month! I think reading a few old favourites (t'was also Percy Jackson - what can I say, you inspired me) helped me get there, though. Hopefully I won't fall out of the reading love anytime soon - but I'm not expecting to read another 50 books in the second half of the year :lol: Going to focus on TBS reading challenge because even though I've read a lot, it's been a lot of easy-read detective series (needed when I was both working AND studying, I didn't have the energy for much else) and they haven't fit into a lot of categories on that!

I used to be super unwilling to give up on a book - especially if I wanted to love it and/or people were obsessed (Girl on the Train was one of them for me, did NOT enjoy but forced myself through to see if I could understand the hype) but now I'm just too lazy. There's always a part of me that wants to continue, but there's too many books and too little time. There are some where I take a break, though - if they're particularly long and tough going but I'm enjoying them (often happens with non-fiction for me), or I feel like I'm not in the right headspace, I'll wait until I'm ready to continue.

I really love having direction and challenges for finding melt reads throughout the year, so this year I had started off with the goal of completing three different reading challenges and a goal of 50 books. It didn't take long though for all the prompts to make reading start to feel more like a chore and not something I love to do, so a few months ago I ditched all but TBS (my fave) and I'm learning to just love reading again! I found some Greek mythology re-tellings, which are always a fave for me to jumpstart, and I have finally actually started my FIRST read through of Percy Jackson! This has been a fun one already, not just because of the content and storytelling but my kids actually were interested by the cover and requested that we read it together so now we've started a new bed time ritual of a chapter a night. Which presents it's own difficulty of not reading ahead, but it's also really special to experience this with them so I'm refraining!

As for giving up on books, I used to be deadset against but in recent years I'm more open to doing so if the book is poorly written or super uninteresting. If it's something that I think is an important message or theme, I'll take a break and return to it later if I'm struggling but otherwise... Like Laura said, there are just so many other books!

I would love to see some suggestions though for some of y'all's favorites! What's been your latest obsession series??

Oh, I'd love to get some suggestions too. I added reading suggestions from SS friends to my challenge this year, and what I've read so far have been some of my favorite reads so far that I would never have thought to pick up on my own. But I don't have enough recs left to make my goal, so gimme gimme.

As for abandoning books, I don't do it lightly, but I'm with Chellie - if it's just frustrating to read or poorly written, I'll give up on it. I don't give up on books that are hard to read because it's a new genre or a challenging subject, since there's growth there, but I've left a few behind otherwise.

Felix, I've tried to reread some old favorites this year, and sometimes that's a win and sometimes I realize that the book did NOT stand up to the test of time (which is disappointing). But I agree that it's nice to revisit an old friend.

Recently I've been more on the bandwagon of 'If I don't like it, JUST STOP READING IT' and man, is it liberating. My OCD type A personality NEVER used to like stopping books. I would always suffer through it but I've found that it just makes me resent reading as a whole if I'm miserable. Usually the only reason I quit a book is if I really do NOT vibe with the writing style (don't hate me but I recently had to do this with Love, Theoretically which I know a lot of people are loving but like, I couldn't stand the main character and quit 30 pages in >___<) or the story is just not entertaining me at all and even the promise of things possibly picking up in later challenges just can't make me keep going.

How is everyone doing on the their goals?! I'm happy to announce I've already crushed my goal for the year (which I did not expect TBH considering how poorly I did last year)

It's hard for me, since I've always seen giving up on a book as a sort of personal failure. But I just don't have the time anymore to keep reading books that I'm either not enjoying or learning from, so I'm learning to just... put it down.

Tis spooky season!! I've been trying to get in the holiday spirit by reading some more thrillers/mysteries. Does anyone have books in these genres or are spoooooky that they'd recommend? I just finished reading The Fear by Natasha Preston and am looking for a new one to work on!

the reading challenge for 2024 has just been launched!

also, a heads up that the 2023 challenge thread will stay open for another week or so for people to update with their final reads if they managed to get them done on time. those who like to keep their reading logs can do so in the Reading Goals thread, but I'd also be interested in hearing people talk through their reading goals here as well

I love being an inspiration, especially if that inspiration was in conjunction with my fav percy jackson



as for suggestions, I'm afraid I'm so bad with suggestions and recommendations for so many reasons. I'm still looking for a series or standalone to become my entire personality. at best I like the books I read, but don't love them, and the ones I always go back to are those which are pretty popular already (like Percy Jackson, the A Song of Ice and Fire series, etc).

this year I think I'll go through and see what other TBS challengers have rated high and give those books a read, plus watch some booktube videos and see where they lead me. because I know there must be some new books out there that I'll love, if only I can find them. then I can come back and recommend them.

(also regarding my DNF saga, I've still not managed to officially DNF a book but I have allowed myself to skim through chapters, as long as I'm confident about what's happened in the parts I sped through, which is a big step for me :lol:)

I am not typically a book girlie. I used to be an avid reader when I was younger but real life got in my way and I haven’t read for ages. I do have a kindle sat around though ready to be filled up and I am going to give this book challenge a go as well as a cruise in April that is calling for a decent reading session.

With that being said, I’d love some recommendations for books to read as I have no idea where to start. The only genre I’m not really into is romance but anything else I’m willing to give a shot.

My book recs!
 

Cozy Mysteries: I really enjoy the Cupcake Bakery Mystery series by Jenn McKinlay (Book 1 is Sprinkle With Murder)
My favorite cozy series so far only has three books but they were great: Cape Cod Foodie Mysteries by Amy Pershing (Book 1 is A Side of Murder)

Mysteries:
All the Janice Hallett books I have read have been great - they are standalone but all told in unique ways like through e-mails or voice recordings.
The Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman - LOVE!

Fiction - magical realism:
Both books by Isabel Canas
Gods of Jade & Shadow by Silvia Moreno Garcia

Fantasy:
Shadow & Bone Trilogy and rest of the grishaverse by Leigh Bardugo

Fiction - fun (could make great cruise reads):
Mr. & Mrs. American Pie by Juliet McDaniel
The Guncle by Steven Rowley

Fiction:
Weyward by Emilia Hart
The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain
The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff
Every book by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Every book by Fredrik Backman


I guess I got a little carried away there but hopefully you find something that catches your interest in there!