Favorites, Goals, Quarterly Check-In | Q1 2024
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- Опубліковано 29 чер 2024
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Behind this great woman (Merphy) stands another great woman (Lynn)
Ayyy shoutout to Lynn!
Lynn is amazing!
Who is Lynn
She is one of the mods for the discord channel and the person who manages Merphy's spreadsheet. She does a lot of great work for the channel and Merphy's community.@@arcanethink
😂
if you like graphs i think you could like Storygraph as an alternative to Goodreads! as the name says it gives you graph options for your reading stats, it's fun! well done on sticking to your goals 🥳 i'm really excited to pick up 'A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking' after hearing you talk about it, seems more up my alley than i'd think! sidenote, literally checking every week for that Gideon the Ninth reading vlog 😅
There were a couple of favorites in this quarter.
1. Sky's End by Marc J Gregson
2. A Battle of Past and Present by Sharayah Maurice
3. Assassin's Quest by Robin Hobb
4. The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson.
It's my first time reading Mistborn, and I also just finished with the farseer trilogy and it was amazing. Can't wait to read The Hero of Ages.
I also added House of open wounds to my TBR from your video. Tainted Cup was already on my wishlist.
I think lots of books have good mysteries in them. The question is if a book dwells on the mystery and tries to solve it.
I don't particularly think the Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is a mystery because the protagonist is not trying to actively solve the mystery. There is a mystery in the book, but the protagonist just wants to get back to baking, not find out why there was a body in the bakery.
However, Murder on the Orient Express is ALL about who killed the victim. Poirot actively looks for information to the who, what, where, when, why and how of the murder. The world is confined to the train until the issue is resolved.
This might be what you are noticing with all the books with mysteries in them. They might be more of the former (a question that might get answered as the characters go about their daily lives) and less of the latter (a question that must be answered at all cost before the characters can proceed with their lives).
Oh I had to read Chess Story for German class in like 8th or 9th grade, I honestly was not expecting to ever hear about it again!
My Top 5 so far this year:
1)«Imperium» by Robert Harris (Historical Fiction about the Roman Politician Cicero)
2)«Når landet mørknar» (Approximately «When The Land Darkens») by Tore Kvæven (Historical Fiction set during the 13th Century Norse Settlement of Greenland, winner of the Norwegian Brage Prize for Best Norwegian Novel in 2018)
3)«The Last Light of the Sun» by Guy Gavriel Kay (Fantasy inspired by the Viking Great Heathen Army and King Alfred the Good)
4)«Brother Red» by Adrian Selby (Grimdark Fantasy, standalone «midquel» to «Snakewood» & «The Winter Road»)
5)«Stonehenge» by Bernard Cornwell (Historical Fiction about the Creation of Stonehenge during the Late Neolithic Period)
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is one of my favourite books and I am so happy to see so many people love it! Minor Mage and Illuminations are pretty good too!
"Confusion" is another well known work by Zweig that might interest you, It tells the story of a student and his friendship with a professor. I also loved "Chess Story" and this is the next one I will read by him.
11:07 The Bees have a bone to pick with Merphy XD
I am reading The Tainted Cup at the moment and IT IS SO GOOD! I am in love with this world. And I do care about the mystery and the detective work, so even better for me!
It's one of my favourite read of the year! I hope you'll continue to enjoy it!
Your hype for Area X makes me want to reread that series! Will probably add it as a summer read 😎
Love this format too! My top 3 books of the quarter were Jade Legacy, Nettle & Bone, and Tower of Dawn from the Throne of Glass series.
Your check-ins are so fun to watch :)
Loved this video / format, think the quarterly wrap-up works really well - especially with the goals and awards!
My goal for this year is to read one nonfiction book a month and I’m keeping up with it! I also love participating in the Reddit fantasy bingo and I’m excited for that to reset on April 1st. I agree about the world of The Tainted Cup- biopunk is *amazing* and I need MORE.
Omg, for Chess Story a great comp title would be The Star Rover by Jack London! It's about a man in solitary confinement who gets tortured by straightjacket, and in order to survive he transports his consciousness into his past lifetimes where he's French nobility, boy fleeing religious persecution in 19th century America, English sailor stranded in medieval Korea, ect.
This was a good reminder to check in on my own goal progress so far. I’m pretty happy with how I’m doing! I wanted to have sequels be 40-50% of my reading and I’m currently sitting at 47%. And I wanted to reduce my owned TBR: in the middle of a few right now but I’ll be down 3 once I’m done. Hope we both continue to do well next quarter!
You get a ⭐️
I’ve been hearing great things about The Tainted Cup! Really want to get to it soon 😊
Looks like a very successful first quarter! I have checked a few things off my goal list this year already too
1) Great video! I love the reading badges idea and the goals that you’ve set.
2) I want to thank you!! Your channel was a primary motivation to start reading again. I’m a reader by nature but I hadn’t read a full book for 4 years after graduating college (due to burnout) but your videos got me back into reading fiction again and I’ve read 8 books in the last few months! A big jump from 0 books!
3) Lies of Locke Lamora is next up on my TBR! 😁
Your work brought the reader in me back- thank you!!
That’s amazing!!! I love to hear you’re loving reading again ❤ and I really hope you love my boys Locke and Jean!
It's been a VERY long time since I read it, so my memories are very vague, but I do remember absolutely loving Zweig's "Beware of Pity". Added "The Tainted Cup" to my TBR, sounds so cool!
Marianna! I miss your book reviews...
Can't wait for your Discworld moving picture review :)
My goals, like yours, was to finish a series this year... In which have continued reading and making progress with one... but then started two more I actually am on a good roll to finish them this year though!
Man, if only Rothfuss, Lynch and Martin had that same goal...
My top 3:
The Sword of Kaigen
Nettle & Bone
Letters to the Lost
I've had a pretty good reading quarter. I also love A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking and Chess Story. I also just finished Mistborn Era 1 and can't decide which I love more Well of Ascension or Hero of Ages. For my book club I had to read The Midnight Library and really loved it because it made me reflect on all the different paths my life could have taken.
Merphy - I feel like the Semiosis Duology by Sue Burke might be something you would enjoy! It definitely fits into bio-fiction, despite the description of it sounding like traditional sci-fi.
I knew City of Last Chances was going to be one of my top books of 2023 when I read it in January, then I read House of Open Wounds this past December: House of Open Wounds is incredible. To say that I'm excited about and anticipating the next book in the series, Days of Shattered Faith (following the necromancers!) is an understatement!
My top three of this quarter (not including re-reads): Bleak Seasons by Glen Cook, The Iliad (Emily Wilson's translation) by Homer, and Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake.
stefan zweig is one of my favorite authors and my favorite books by him (besides chess) are confusion, a letter from an unknown woman and burning secret. confusion in particular is on my top 5 books of all time list. i wouldn't recommend going into his long fiction just yet - short stories and novellas are where he really shines!
Yo Lynn if you ever read this...I kindly ask you to monitor the SPRING CHALLENGE as well and KUDOS for being Merphy's virtual book assistant/hall monitor/data entry specialist/shadow keeper...
Monitor the spring challenge?
6:29 and really my comment about you being Merphy's shadow lady is correct!?
Top three this quarter: Paladin of Souls (and The Curse of Chalion) by Lois McMaster Bujold, Master Assassins by Robert V. S. Redick, Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock. Honestly, I’ve mostly read Lois McMaster Bjold this quarter, pocked up The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls then bought another 9 by books by her very rapidly… falling in love with a new author is the best!
I really like the idea of making a point to pick up more from the authors of your top books for the quarter. I'm stealing that.
It’s yours!
My top three from the first quarter (it's so hard to rank them but I'll try):
1. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
2. Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold
3. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
zweig wrote a book called decisive moments in history, a short sotry collecion about diffrent famous ( or sometimes infamous) moments in history. Very interested read
My Stefan Zweig recommendation is Fouche (I've also seen it listed as Joseph Fouche: Portrait of a Politician). It's about one of the people involved in the era of the French revolution and packed with all the history around that time. If you are at all interested in that, definitely pick that one! It's been many years since I read it but I loved it.
I love the Southern Reach trilogy but I love the Borne trilogy even more!
Both Beware of Pity and The World of Yesterday are two of my all time favorite books. They are best works of Zweig in my opinion. I'd also recommend his short stories, particularly AMOK and Letter from an Unknown Woman.
I adore Amok!!!!! And Letter from Unknown woman is also golden!
@@gayanegasparyan4137 Same! They deserve more hype for sure.
I think my top 3 books for Q1 are People We Meet on Vacation, The Tainted Cup, and The Kind Worth Killing.
I wasn't a fan of Eight Perfect Murders or Every Vow You Break and I DNFed Nine Lives. So Peter Swanson was on the chopping block for me. But I decided to read his most popular book before I wrote him off, and wholly crap, it was my first 5-star book of the whole year. 🎉🥳I'm currently reading The Kind Worth Saving, and I'm loving it.
I needed to read some of the romance on my TBR, so I started with Emily Henry. I gave People We Meet on Vacation a 5-star. I also read Beach Read and gave it a 4.5 star. So I guess I love Emily Henrty's books too. Which is good, because I also have Book Lovers and Happy Place to read. I grew bored of reading romance near the middle of February so I didn't read as much romance as I was hoping to, but it's fine.
As for The Tainted Cup, I got this one from NetGalley, and now I need to buy a physical copy so I can annotate it. I have an itch to reread this one. My original rating was a 4 star, but after thinking about it for 2 1/2 months, I'm thinking about just giving it a 5 star.
I'm also currently reading Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb. I started this in January and am still trying to finish it. It's one of those books where I'm enjoying it while I'm reading it, but as soon as I put it down, I forget about it.
In Q2, I want to focus on the thrillers and horror books on my TBR. Exciting.
If you’re interested more in Stefan Zweig , Beware of Pity is an excellent novel with very deep thematic discussions and interesting character work, I’ll be interested in what you think. Also he has amazing novellas. “Amok” is my favourite and considered his best work! Very powerful!
I haven’t read Chess Story, but it sounds like you may like the manga Hikaru no Go! I’m about halfway through and loving it so far (and I know nothing about Go)
I read and loved "Letter from another woman" from Stefan Zweig earlier this year, it is a short novella which on paper didn't check a lot of my usual boxes so it was a very good surprise!
It's actually called Letter From an Unknown Woman. Amazing story.
@@andrewmalone2911 thank you for reconfirming, I read it in German and should have double checked the English title!
Rewards for Best Hook/Intriguing: The most bazaar fantasy I have read or in this case listened to is Vita Norsta by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko. I had a free 2 for 1 credit from audible and picked it up cause it had great reviews but I knew nothing about it other than it is supposed to be a fantasy(it is and its a mystery) but man this was a wild ride. In the first 2 chapters I thought it was going to turn into a 50 shades of Grey book and had to relook up what genre it was lol but no. I couldn't stop listening to it to find out what in the world was going on! and when you find out its such an intriguing concept.
I am enjoying the book “A wizard guide to defensive Baking” I like a good mystery story.
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman is probably my favourite Stefan Zweig novella. The writing is to empathetic an so vivid. And generally the novella is my favourite genre for Zweig. He is very good at getting straight to the heart of a story.
Ooh, I really want to read the Southern Reach Trilogy. I'm really curious now that you've liked it so much.
I had GREAT reads this quarter, so it's kinda hard for me to choose a favourite. The highlights were:
- Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History - R.F. Kuang
- Toll the Hounds - M:BotF #08, by Steven Erikson
- Starless Sea - Erin Morgenstern
I can't choose between Babel and Toll the Hounds. I really really loved both of them.
Also, I'm curious about how Reaper's Gale is going/went for you. Haven't seen you mention reading it anywhere this year, but a video about it is coming in the next wednesday, so I'm kinda dreading that you DNFd it, lol
I didn’t DNF! I finished it a couple weeks ago. I’m recording the review for it this week, and it should be out next week!
@@merphynapierreviews great to know, thanks! I really look forward to watching the video!
My TBR is expanding again...
Children of Time is really, really good and also quite very different. I highly recommend as an Adrian Tchaikovsky book. The trilogy it is a part of won the most recent Hugo for best completed series (although due to the general controversy around the ballots for the Hugo Tchaikovsky wishes to retract his win). But he's won other awards for this series too including the Arthur C Clarke award for the first book Children of Time.
I loved Children of Time!
Merphy will you read Attack on Titan? I've heard the setting of The Tainted Cup to be very much Attack on Titan inspired.
Also if you love plant setting, i think you will love Fool Night, it's a plant horror sci-fi manga. It's great!
Oh The Tainted Cup is like AoT? I’m interested now!!!!
💕💕💕
Do you plan on taking a look at the 3 body problem Netflix adaptation?
Guns of the Dawn ❤
What's going on with Reaper's Gale? I could understand someone stalling out on that book, or needing time post-read to process it.. but it's odd that there have been no mentions of it for over a month now.
She just finished it about a week ago.
Recording the review for it this week, review will be out next week!
🧡📚🧡📚🧡📚🧡
Merphy questioning herself in the video. The check in’s new goal: Is Merphy really liking the things she says she does? 😁
Personally, i just want a reaction series to ATLA.
I have a load of Avatar content. Are you wanted to know my thoughts on the LA? or just Avatar in general? All the avatar stuff is on the manga channel since Avatar is closer to anime than it is to books
Story goal wise for me: spend the upcoming summer to start a story board for a new homebrew DnD campaign
This goal is worthy. Well met.
So she isn't going to read prachetts guard series anytime soon :(
Yes she is, she's decided to finish off the City Watch series next. Jingo is being read in April
Are you going to continue ascendence of bookworm
Yes, the plan is to do Part 2 in the next quarter reads (April to June)
Thanks for clarifying @@Lynn-CA
@@harshgarg1448 the plan has changed again. It will be picked up again once Part 2 is completed in manga form.
Ana de Armas talks about books