Feel free to join in and ask questions, poke me and give me accountability, chip in with your experiences. I’m game. If something’s out of bounds, I’ll try to just say so proactively.
I am very frank about my physical and mental health, particularly the latter. That means I’m usually happy to answer questions that others might consider impertinent or TMI… but I’ll let you know if it crosses the boundary.
Useful things to know:
I do a goal for every book I read. This is so I finish the books I start. The goals always have a rate of 5/day and an autoratchet to 1 day of safety, because that’s a perfect line between “small enough that I’ll always be able to do it” and “big enough to have the chance of hooking me back into reading this specific book”. I’d typically read at least a hundred pages a day, so these goals are very consciously tiny .
I currently make a goal for every book I buy/receive to review. This combines an idea of @dreev’s about beeminding using everything you buy, and a method I was using to keep my new books in my easily-distractible mind. I was piling my books on a chair so they were inconvenient and I had to interact with them every day… and it was working wonders for helping me read them in a timely manner. But it doesn’t work with ebooks. Happily, I interact with all my Beeminder goals every day (even if just to collapse them and say “don’t need to do this every day”) so now these goals can stand in for that!
/stopbyseven - This goal is for making sure that work stops by 7pm. I don’t just mean work-work, I mean my Beeminder goals. All deadlines must be met by 7pm, close the tab, it’s time to chill. For now the rate is 4/week while I check how viable it is. I’ve decided that this is really my New Year’s resolution: figure out how to make time for all the stuff I’m trying to force into happening to happen naturally, like it used to. So this is my first attempt at getting there, with the same principle as I had for my /clockoff and /slackoff goals of trying to find the levers that make things possible (a la Beeminding the Right Thing).
/thelastremnant - I was in danger of wandering off and never finishing my replay of this game, so now I have a goal to do a bit each day.
/moremoneychallenge - This goal has a $0 pledge cap, since it’s about saving money. It’s to help me keep track graphically of my progress for YNAB’s More Money Challenge. I initially set a goal that’s way too high, but I’ve fixed that now.
Changes to existing goals:
I decided to do a bit of a clean-up for the New Year, moving some of my goals to be tasks on Habitica instead. My heuristic here was to clean out goals which aren’t currently critical, so my dashboard is a bit more streamlined. I’ve kept some goals that might sound like they fit that bill because I know what happens when I don’t beemind them, namely /inboxzeroes and /tabzeroes. I feel like they are still mostly possible no matter what’s going on, and neglecting them leads to more overwhelm than keeping them ticking over. Some of the archived goals may come back if it turns out to be a similar situation!
/focusmate - I’ve dialled this goal even lower for a bit, while I’m trying to figure out how to get the best out of it – it feels like if I use it for the most routine stuff, it becomes a bit too commonplace. So now it’s at 5/week.
/earning - I’ve re-calculated the minimum I can earn per week, changed the rate, and ratcheted the graph down. I’m hoping to use it as originally intended, to show me the trend and when I’m earning enough, and remind me that I can have breaks.
/litsyupdate - This goal came to an end, after successfully making me post to Litsy every day in 2021. It’s an experiment that I found useful, but also very narrowing – sure, it meant I kept participating on Litsy to make my own posts, but then I rarely did anything else.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/thehistoryofmagic - Changed this to be a standard reading goal! It’s slow going so far, but interesting, even if I don’t agree that ancient peoples painting animals on cave walls is necessarily a sign they were exploring spiritual connections with said animals, and such arguments.
/materiallives - On the “one out, one in” policy, I’ve added this goal for reading Serena Dyer’s Material Lives, a book about 18th century women through the lens of things they made. It’s a flat-forever goal for now.
/murderafterchristmas - I thought I’d better get to this one while it was seasonal, and promptly devoured it. It got a bit overly convoluted and annoying in the end, but I enjoyed it for the most part.
/flowersforthesea - I finished this on the same day I created the goal, in the end. I got Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn as an ARC, but it wasn’t my thing – too much body horror.
/psalmforthewildbuilt - I got Becky Chambers’ latest novella as an ARC, and finally read it now. It didn’t take me long! Enjoyable, though not my favourite of her works.
/fateoftheninth - A book I got for Christmas which tries to work out, through comparing inscriptions, what happened to the IX Hispana, a Roman legion which seems to have been destroyed/disbanded at some point. Dry, but interesting to me. Finished and archived!
Other comments:
Well, happy new year! Here’s hoping it’s good for us all.
/clockoff - This week has been a killer, with tons of emails. I messed up and didn’t pay proper attention.
New goals:
N/a; there may not be any for a while, at least until the new year rush is over in the Beeminder inbox! I am thinking about a goal to maybe incrementally get me taking walks outside again… but we’ll see.
Changes to existing goals:
N/a, I think!
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/tdir2_rising - Finished and archived! I loved it as much as ever, but I think it needs to go away in a cupboard (metaphorically) for a while so I can see it fresh next time I read.
/tdir3_greenwitch - Started up a goal for the third book right away!
/thedarknessoutsideus - Started this and finished it in the same week. It less of a romance than originally advertised, but enjoyable as a mystery/thriller.
/gearbreakers - New flat-forever goal for a book I got for Christmas, replacing the flat-forever goal that got started up for The Darkness Outside Us! This looks like a lot of fun, big mechs etc. Funnily enough, I got it from a friend on like… Christmas Eve, but also gifted a copy to my sister.
/thecouncillor - A flat-forever goal which has become a regular reading goal! This is a book I’m reading for a challenge, but I’ve only just started, so no thoughts yet.
/albertentwistle - Aaand another flat-forever goal to replace the one that got started up for The Councillor. This book is about a postman and that’s most of what I know. A possibility to review on the Postcrossing blog!
Other comments:
My /stopbyseven goal is going reasonably well, and I think it does what I want it to do. It’s surprisingly restful to just… be done with everything and have the evenings all to myself. It seems to result in more reading than I would otherwise have done!
I may increase the rate on /pileminding since I’m going like the clappers at the moment. On the other hand, I don’t expect it to last…
I’ve been meaning to ask for a while: that “megadueby” table you mentioned in the gratitude thread, is that something that is shareable? I think I’d find that really useful too. Once upon a time I suggested a “load more” link in the “Amounts Due By Day” table on the Statistics tab of goals to TPTB… Just extending it to 10 or 14 days would make a lot of difference already.
An area I’ll be working on this year is pre-planning some of my goals, where instead of doing multiple small chunks every day, I’d do less larger chunks every few days. That’s what the dueby stats would be really useful for. I’ll probably end up building something to help with that. And I’ll keep further philosophising about my goals on my own thread.
@ianminds If @adamwolf is cool with me sharing his work, I’m happy to throw up a public version you can poke! It’s just a spreadsheet on Google Sheets that calculates for a fairly simple graph with just one kink in it, but you’d probably be able to adapt it for your goals.
/pileminding - I enabled @narthur’s autodialler and force-ran it even though the goal isn’t old enough yet. I set an upper rate of 3/week, just in case. It’s now set my rate to 1.27 books per week, for a start, so let’s see how this goes.
/stopbyseven - The concept works well, and it’s physically possible, so I’ve set the rate to 6/week now (with 1 day a week allowed for unforeseen circumstances).
/earning - Since I just got this month’s pay, I’ve ratcheted this back down. I plan to do this every month so I can see real-time my progress (the line of my data) vs my needs (the bright red line).
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/strangebeastsofchina - Started up this goal… and have already finished the book. I didn’t love it, alas; it wasn’t quite what I expected, and I found it both unclear (when it came to following the exact relationships between characters in one of the stories) and that it was too obvious about its themes.
/ww2_wallflower - New flat-forever goal for reading one of my Christmas books, replacing the goal that got started up! It’s technically the second in a series, but they’re kind of episodic – so I hear, anyway.
/thehistoryofmagic - Finished! I found it super reductive: basically any practice we don’t understand from the past is considered to be magic, instead of realising that historic and modern humans are pretty similar so there’s a high likelihood someone just got tattooed with a tiger (or whatever) because they think tigers are cool, rather than for shamanistic reasons… But I also enjoyed the read, when it stuck to the archaeology and textual evidence.
/tdir3_greenwitch - Finished! Not my favourite of the trilogy, but it has a beautiful chapter under the sea and a character who deserves more attention is prominent, so I enjoy it.
/tdir4_thegreyking - Getting started on my reread of the next book in the sequence.
/moneytruestory - Started this goal from the backlog! I’m inhaling it so far, it’s very breezy.
/immunejourney - Another flat-forever goal replacing a started backlog goal! This is a beautifully produced book that will tell me mostly stuff I already know. That’s still valuable, though, because watching other people communicate science effectively helps hone what I do, plus the refresher is helpful, and the illustrations here are bold and colourful and the most likely way I, a profoundly non-visual person (you say “imagine an apple” and I imagine something more like the word “apple”, a concept without an image or sensory information strongly attached), will learn from example to draw and depict these complex systems.
Other comments:
Nothing right now, I think! I’ll get a public version of the megadueby spreadsheet up soon, but right now it’s time to end my day and read.
That link should let you view the spreadsheet I’m working with. It doesn’t auto-update from Beeminder or anything, so when I want to get the updated totals, I have to put in my current amount here:
So when I took that screenshot I was at 64 hours, 21 minutes total on this graph. (Holy crap I’m only halfway there, arrghhh.)
The graph has only ever had one rate change, and the table has almost the entire history of the graph’s rate except the initial two-week flat spot.
/thecouncillor - Fascinating book, I was just too tired to read that day.
New goals:
N/a, though I may make some goals for Anki reviews soon!
Changes to existing goals:
/fastfood - I’ve lowered the rate on this since me and my wife are agreed to reduce our dependence on getting takeout because we’re tired/not doing well mentally. It’s not disallowed entirely, and I’m not ratcheting away my buffer… but we want to step it down a bit after getting in the habit when we were both quite unwell.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/moneytruestory - Finished and archived! Very quick read. It explained things well, but it’s very much aimed at light reading and I wouldn’t use it to form my opinions.
/materiallives - Started this up from being a flat-forever goal! It’s fascinating so far, all about the lives and material output of four 18th century women and what that revealed about them. I’ve finished the book, so this will get archived soon.
/hiddenhands - A new flat-forever goal for a book that seems right up my alley, about manuscripts and their makers.
/theabsolutebook - Started this up from being a longterm flat-forever goal. It starts off like a thriller and takes a left turn into fairyland, pretty much literally. I’m curious where it’s going.
/thestrangertimes - A new flat-forever goal to replace The Absolute Book in the list! Basically, what if a paranormal newspaper found that some of the stuff it reports is, in fact, terrifyingly real.
/humankind - This is a book I originally received as an ARC, so, I’m long overdue to read it… and it just kinda tickled my fancy when I browsed my Netgalley backlog for non-fiction. So far, racing through.
/test_anki - This is half a test goal and half real, for something me and Adam are looking into, but also for the cards I’m using to learn key concepts from my courses. The test_ prefix lets me, as a workerbee, admin my own goal (the only way that’s possible), which is needed for the test. It’s also $0 for now… but it’ll probably become a real goal soon.
Changes to existing goals:
/inhaler - I don’t have an inhaler to take right now, so I stuck a break in this one.
/tody - I’ll be away next week, so this has a bit of a break while I’m away and a bit more while I catch up.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/gh1_silverinthewood - This was a reread of a novella, so in the event it only took me a day. I liked it, but I like the sequel more.
/tdir4_thegreyking - Finished! Probably my favourite of the series, deeply rooted in Wales and a Welsh Arthur.
/immunejourney - Started this up and finished it this week. I think it’s great, a really accessible introduction to the immune system that taught me a few things, and it’s beautifully illustrated.
/humankind - I finished this in two days flat. It’s a very good exploration of why certain studies don’t necessarily mean what we usually think they mean for human nature, and of why actually humans are a pretty darn cooperative species.
/seaisnotmadeofwater - Flat-forever goal for this one, a book about the creatures that live in the sea!
Notes:
Think I might derail one of my reading goals again tonight, because I haven’t been in the mood to read at all. Which is a very odd situation for me to be in, but I go with it. It’s worth the $5 to derail but not force myself, if it happens.
/test_anki - Many, because I didn’t account for not doing any flashcards while I was away. Oops. Luckily still at $0.
/footstepsofalexander - I was late to enter data and thus derailed, but it was my own stupid fault, so I let it stand.
New goals:
N/a
Changes to existing goals:
/moremoneychallenge - All done! I met my goal. Here comes my new fancy office chair!
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/footstepsofalexander - This is one of the books I’d owned without finishing the longest… until now. It’s a bit dry, actually; the accompanying TV series was probably better.
/theseaisnotmadeofwater - Started as a new flat-forever goal, but actually started up already. It’s waxing lyrical about how amazing sea-creatures are, and it’s kind of making me get it.
/agrippina - A new flat-forever goal for Emma Southon’s biography of Agrippina, since I found her book on murder in ancient Rome fascinating.
/theabsolutebook - Finished! I was, in the end, very ambivalent about it – I finished it, but also found it slow and opaque.
/thecouncillor - Also finished! I loved it so much; I think fans of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart etc would like it (in terms of the politics and worldbuilding, more than anything; the sex/romance is less explicit and less central).
/ahistoryofcaerphilly - Borrowed this from my grandma’s shelves and had to read this real quick!
/hellionswaltz - Starting this up since I started reading it during my holiday! So far, it promises to be fun, since one of the main characters is running a scam on a jerk.
Notes:
There is actually a book I didn’t create a reading goal for, and I’m trying not to be obsessive about it and make one now just to keep the record complete. Oof. Actually. There’s two. Arrghhh. Yes. Hm. Anyway.
I’ve been away all this week, and now I have lots to catch up on. I didn’t enter many breaks for my goals, so I’ve fallen behind on some. Yikes.
I love reading about Project Bookminder! I get a lot of book recs from your posts, I hope you don’t mind! One cool thing I thought of is that now that you’re setting flat-forever goals, you have a record of how long something has been “waiting on the shelf” before you start it. Have you noticed a correlation between how long you wait to start and how much you eventually enjoy the book? If so, is it stronger or weaker than you would have predicted?
I have a couple of recent examples where I enjoyed the book very much despite them hanging around on my list for a long time (The Councillor, Money, Humankind – the latter wasn’t a goal before I started it, but had been hanging around since a few months before the book was released), so I’d say I’m not seeing a correlation at the moment. The Absolute Book hung around a while and I didn’t love it, despite it being by an author I usually enjoy… but I think that would’ve been the case even if I read it right away.
However, what I do notice is how reluctant I am to start books that have waited that long. I’m currently using a game on Litsy called BookSpin to prompt me to read some of my backlog (not all of my choices are ones I already have Beeminder goals for, but most are), and I really drag my feet about starting books that have been hanging around too long. E.g. I’ve started Hench solely because of BookSpin, and kind of groaned when that was the number that came out of the hat… even though I remember being super enthusiastic when I actually bought the book, and it still sounds like it’s right up my street!
So I think there’s definitely something going on where if it shuffles to the back of my list, I’m way less likely to pick it up, and the blurb is no longer appealing enough to get me excited – that whole thing we’ve discussed before where the human brain rationalises past decisions and downgrades the desirability of something we have not chosen.
But the good news is that with a solid prompt to read the book, I can enjoy it very much (I was close to giving The Councillor 5/5 stars, for instance; my review is pretty enthusiastic).
Oh, that’s cool. I do the bookspin too. Though I’ve been including books I don’t own yet but want to buy on my list as well, which stops me from buying all of them when I don’t have the time (or enthusiam) to read all of them.
/test_anki - I think I have a solid idea of how this works and what my rate should be, so possibly I should make this a real goal soon. At $0, I just let it derail. Oops.
New goals:
/feedback-backlog - This goal returns again! While training new workerbees and handling the new year/Focusmate-related rush, I got behind on categorising feedback… and it’s almost time for me to do another report for the rest of the team, so I should catch up! I’ve picked a rate that’s slightly higher than the daily average number of emails we tagged with “feedback”, so I should be able to keep pace with new feedback too. I hope. I’m not good at working out that kind of thing, so I might not be right, but I can adjust it as I go along.
Changes to existing goals:
N/a, as far as I remember!
Project Bookminder:
/gh2_drownedcountry - For reading the second book in Emily Tesh’s duology. Or rereading, more accurately. I ate it up, so this goal was both started and finished this week. It’s a stronger book than the first in some ways – it provides the real happy ending, instead of a happy-for-now with obvious cracks in it.
/wyldinghall - This book stuck in my head, so I decided to give it a reread. Creepy, but only mildly so, more mysterious than anything. Gets almost a bit too blatant at the end… anyway, it was a quick reread!
/chalice - Robin McKinley’s Chalice is a lovely book that I read regularly as a comfort-read, so I sped through it.
/hench - Got started up for a challenge on Litsy! I’m enjoying it more than I expected, and irritated I let it languish on my list so long…
/somethingfabulous - This goal is for reading Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall, and replaces the goal for Hench on my backlog.
/crossedskis - A British Library Crime Classic that I’d been saving up for when I needed a comfort read that wasn’t a reread. It’s by Carol Carnac, another penname of E.C.R. Lorac, who always writes solid mysteries about people who are mostly (apart from the criminal) decent. I’m enjoying it, and will probably finish it today!
Notes:
I’m having trouble with asthma, anaemia and anxiety at the moment, which is not fun.
/seaisnotmadeofwater - This book isn’t entirely grabbing my attention – the sciency bits are good, the musings on the beauty of nature less so. So I let it derail to get a break from it.
/hench - I just didn’t want to read that day, IIRC!
/thelastremnant - I lost my week of buffer, and felt like I was constantly struggling to play enough to keep the goal happy. For some reason, it having a week of buffer feels very psychologically important for me. So I even ratcheted this to make it derail sooner, so I could take the derailment and get back to having buffer.
/bsupport - I lowered the goal to 28 hours/week temporarily while I’m catching up with my studies a bit. I’ll probably exceed 28, but I struggled to hit 30.
/dailyweight - The pledge is no longer capped at $0, because I feel I’ve got the hang of things and my buffer is appropriate. I’ve actually hit a weight plateau, so I might lower my goal a bit in future, but it’s still ready to have an actual pledge.
/pileminding - The problem with this having a lot of buffer and having its rate automatically adjusted by @narthur’s autodialler is that it’s getting dialled really, really low when I have a couple of weeks of not reading much. Which is what I want, really – I want it to be able to respond in time to me not being in the mood to read – but I had so much buffer that the goal would simply never have teeth. I’m experimenting with ratcheting/autoratcheting here.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/theblindbarber - Started this one up, since it’s the DoubleSpin pick for the Litsy challenge I’m doing.
/feverseason - Replacing the book I just started up, this one’s a new flat-forever goal! This book is a history of a particular outbreak of yellow fever, so I’m keen to get to it soon.
/hench - All finished. Mostly fun, except for the body horror in the last 50 pages.
/hellionswaltz - All finished! Fun, but focuses more on the con than the romance, I think.
/crossedskis - Finished! Very much what you would expect of a Golden Age crime novel, but that’s exactly what I wanted, so very satisfying.
Notes:
Oof, survived another week. No other thoughts… I think?
/2022reading - It’s been a while since I tried to have an overall reading goal for the year, but StoryGraph tempted me to it… and I’m struggling to keep up, so I thought I’d give having a Beeminder goal for it a little try. I’m starting with plenty of buffer, but it’s going to require I read about a book a day, so, meep. We’ll see if it keeps feeling OK, this time.
Changes to existing goals:
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/te4_cibolaburn - Now I’m onto the new-to-me books of the Expanse series! I ideally need to finish this before the end of the month to win a challenge, oops. So today I tweaked the settings to try and get me on track for that.
/built - This is a flat-forever goal to replace the one for Cibola Burn, for reading Built by Roma Agrawal. Looks like a fascinating discussion of how various buildings/structures work.
/gildedwolves - This one hasn’t been set up as a standard reading goal, but instead with an end-date and end-total, because I want to finish it before the Habitica challenge for it ends. I know it’s got magic, banter and a heist story. Sooo in.
/theblindbarber - Finished and archived. It continued my neverending streak of not liking John Dickson Carr’s books, ahaha. I keep hoping…
/wf2_commonorbit - This is for rereading the second book in Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer series. I need to finish by the end of the month to have a chance at getting a bingo in my Litsy reading challenge, so it’s a steep slope.
Notes:
Nothing else comes to mind! Technically I need another book to get a bingo on the Litsy challenge, but the book is Ancillary Justice which I can probably inhale in a single day.
/ir1_ancillaryjustice - In the wild race to finish a bingo on Litsy, I set this to a super steep slope and missed it on one day. I made the final goal, though!
/dailyweight - Some health problems in the past couple of weeks led to this (any further detail is off-limits; this is one of the rare occasions where I’m not willing to talk about it).
New goals:
N/a, except reading goals.
Changes to existing goals:
/focusmate - I took a bit of a break from Focusmate this week because of camera issues, so I’ve added a bit of a break for next week.
Project Bookminder:
Most new goals are “flat-forever” goals. Flat-forever goal = a goal made to remind me that I have this book and want to read it someday, with a rate of 0; standard reading goal = rate of 5/day, autoratchet to 1 day of safety. All reading goals have public datapoints with daily comments describing how I’m getting along with the book… or not even starting it, if the goal is still flat-forever!
/janesmith - This book bacome a regular reading goal! I had to guess at which book might be picked off my BookSpin list from the Litsy challenge I do, and this was the nearest book… It wasn’t the right number, but ah well – I’ve already finished it and got a headstart on a bingo for this month’s challenge!
/aesopsanimals - This is the backlog book that replaces The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith on the list, a book by a zoologist which takes a look at how good Aesop’s fables were at observing animal natures.
/ir1_ancillaryjustice - Finished my reread! And I did it just in time to finish off a bingo in the Litsy challenge I do. Still love this trilogy a lot. I’m not making a new goal for the second book yet, since I have an overwhelming number of books already and I already have it on my Litsy BookSpin list – that’ll serve as my commitment device for now!
/te4_cibolaburn - Same here, I’ve put Nemesis Games on my BookSpin list. I hear it’s explosive (whereas this book felt a bit… self-contained), so I’m intrigued. But also scared.
/gildedwolves - I finished this in time! I enjoyed it okay, but I’m not sold on the series and I’m not looking to read the second one yet.
wf2_commonorbit - And another speed-read for the sake of Litsy, but I barely needed it: I adore this book. It was a reread.
/wf3_spacebornfew - The third book of the Wayfarers series promptly came up as my BookSpin book for this month, so I’ve thrown myself into it gladly. Not my favourite of the series, but enjoyable.
Notes:
I’m finding /pileminding a little bit challenging now I have an auto-ratchet and the autodialer! Which is probably what I want. Feels a bit precarious, though; I dropped quite close to the line last week while busy trying to meet my BookSpinBingo challenge. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.
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I get a lot of book recs from your posts, I hope you don’t mind! One cool thing I thought of is that now that you’re setting flat-forever goals, you have a record of how long something has been “waiting on the shelf” before you start it. Have you noticed a correlation between how long you wait to start and how much you eventually enjoy the book? If so, is it stronger or weaker than you would have predicted?