Amberfly Reads Roots 2018

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Amberfly Reads Roots 2018

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1Amberfly
Editado: Dic 28, 2017, 3:35 pm

It's been another year and the Roots keep cropping up, so I'm here to read and track them again. 2018 will be my fifth(!) year with the challenge, and my goal is tentatively set at 40.

A Root, to me, is any unread book that I own prior to January 1, 2018. Rereads and library books don't count, but everything else does. I read a good number of comics and manga in addition to regular books, and I do count them for the challenge, but I count them strangely: a series, regardless of length, counts as one Root. Standalone comics also count as one Root. I usually post everything I read to the thread, Roots and otherwise, but only Roots go on the ticker.

Speaking of which, here's my ticker:



Roots completed are listed in the second post and non-Roots in the third. Happy reading!

2Amberfly
Editado: Sep 26, 2018, 10:05 pm

Roots read in 2018:
1. Hinges: comic, 3 volumes, bought 2017
2. Mars: manga, 2 volumes read (15 total), bought 2017
3. Don Quixote: novel, bought 2014
4. Gate 7: manga, 2 volumes read (4 total), bought 2017
5. Frostflower and Thorn: novel, bought 2017
6. Kokoro: novel, bought 2017
7. Waters Luminous and Deep: short story collection, bought 2015
8. The Last Continent: novel, bought 2017
9. Babbit: novel, bought 2017
10. Clover: manga omnibus, bought 2017
11. Oil!: novel, bought 2017
12. The Stone Sky, novel, bought 2017
13. Catch-22: novel, bought 2017
14. The Legend of Chun Hyang: manga (standalone), bought 2017
15. Racing Classics: short fiction, bought 2016
16. Four Classic Ghostly Tales: short fiction, bought 2015
17. Selected Translations 1948-1968: poetry, bought 2014
18. Threads of Time: manhwa/manga, 2 volumes read (11 total), bought 2017
19. Bleach vol. 71: manga, bought 2017
20. Flood Song: poetry, bought 2016
21. Silent Mobius: manga, 1 volume read (12 total), bought 2017
22. Imajica: novel, bought 2017
23. The Song of Roland (trans. Frederick Goldin: poetry, bought 2014
24. City of the Sorcerers: novel, bought 2014
25. Wild Com.: manga (standalone), bought 2017
26. The Mirror Empire: novel, bought 2016
27. The Circus of Dr. Lao: short stories, bought 2014
28. Tsubasa: Those With Wings: manga, 1 volume read (6 total), bought 2017
29. Descending Stories vol. 3-4: manga, ongoing, bought 2017
30. The Golden Cat: novel, bought 2016
31. The Dark Tower: novel, bought 2017
32. The Wind Through the Keyhole: short stories, bought 2017
33. The Bone Doll's Twin: novel, bought 2014
34. Lost Gods: novel, bought 2017
35. Summit of the Gods: manga, 5 volumes, bought 2017
36. The Queen's Bed: nonfiction, bought 2017
37. Of Human Bondage, fiction, bought 2017
38. Otherworld Barbara: manga, bought 2017
39. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: fiction, bought 2016
40. The Infinite Future: fiction, bought 2017
41. Yotsuba&!: manga, 1 volume (10 total), bought 2017
42. Tales of Zestiria: manga, 1 volume (4 total), bought 2017
43. Drug and Drop: manga, 2 volumes, bought 2017
44. Coming of Age: memoir (excerpt, Penguin 60s), bought 2015

3Amberfly
Editado: mayo 20, 2018, 3:13 pm

Non-Roots read in 2018
1. A Guide to Hopi Katsina Dolls, new arrival
2. The Eyre Affair, new arrival
3. Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Vol. 1, new arrival
4. Furiously Happy, new arrival
5. Binti, new arrival
6. The Fate of the Tearling, new arrival
7. A Bride's Story v.8 and v.9, new arrival
8. Binti: Home, new arrival
9. Binti: The Night Masquerade, new arrival
10. 5 Centimeters Per Second, new arrival
11. Orange: future, new arrival
12. RG Veda omnibus v. 1-2, reread
13. Tropic of the Sea, new arrival
14. Nichijou volumes 1-6, library
15. Princess Jellyfish volumes 6-7, library
16. Bleach vol. 72, new arrival
17. Fruits Basket v. 1, library
18. The Free Country: A Tale of the Children's Crusade, library
19. Angel/Dust, library
20. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, library
21. The Heiress and the Chauffeur v.1, library
22. Imperial Woman, new arrival
23. Wolf's Rain v.1-2, library
24. Gunsmith Cats omnibus 1, library
25. Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, library
26. Ichiro, library
27. The Handmaid's Tale, new arrival
28. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, new arrival
29. Darkmans, new arrival

4Familyhistorian
Dic 26, 2017, 9:36 pm

Good luck with your ROOTing in 2018!

5Tess_W
Dic 26, 2017, 10:18 pm

Have fun rooting!

6rabbitprincess
Dic 26, 2017, 11:10 pm

Welcome back and good luck!

7connie53
Dic 27, 2017, 3:33 am

Welcome back and Happy ROOTing. Amberfly!

8Jackie_K
Dic 27, 2017, 1:45 pm

Welcome back from me too!

9cyderry
Dic 27, 2017, 3:56 pm

Glad you're with us again!

10Amberfly
Dic 28, 2017, 3:31 pm

Thanks, everyone! I'm hoping to be more consistent with my posts than last year, but we'll see.

11floremolla
Dic 29, 2017, 9:36 am

Welcome back and happy ROOTing!

12avanders
Dic 29, 2017, 3:57 pm

Hi! Good luck w/ your 2018 Goals!
I'll be stopping by to say Hi when I can :)

13Henrik_Madsen
Dic 31, 2017, 11:44 am

Welcome back and good luck!

14connie53
Ene 1, 2018, 3:28 am



Happy New Year, Amberfly!

15FAMeulstee
Ene 1, 2018, 3:08 pm

Happy reading in 2018!

16Amberfly
Ene 2, 2018, 8:45 pm

Thanks, guys! Happy new year to you all as well!

I'm about halfway through my first Root of the year, an adaptation of The Arabian Nights: The marvels and wonders of the thousand and one nights (touchstone to the edition I own). I started it a few days ago, planning for it to be either the last Root of 2017 or the first of 2018. It's one of the older Roots in my collection; I bought it the year I joined LT. It'll be nice to finally call it read.

17MissWatson
Ene 4, 2018, 10:13 am

Happy reading 2018!

18Amberfly
Ene 9, 2018, 12:13 pm

Hm, this whole "post more this year" thing isn't off to a great start, is it? Let's see if we can fix that.

I'm still working on The Arabian Nights and have slowed down with it considerably. For whatever reason I blew through the first 1/3 of the book and completely stopped it at almost exactly the halfway point. Sometimes this happens to me with works of this type, with lots of interconnected stories, but I don't know why. I plan to get back to it but I'm not sure when.

I've been reading Christmas acquisitions for the last week and have finished several, some comics and some regular novels. Most of these don't count as Roots:

A Guide to Hopi Katsina Dolls: Very interesting, and I learned a lot, but I wish it were longer; it's only about fifty pages. I would've liked more about the cultural importance of various different katsinas. The book had some of that but focused, like its title, on the art side of things.

The Eyre Affair: I really wanted to like this one, but I didn't. I gave it up after about a hundred pages. Scattered ideas, cool stuff picked up and dropped almost immediately, and I couldn't feel any curiosity or connection with the characters. Not good.

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card, Vol. 1: I loved this to itty bitty pieces, the only bad thing being that I have to wait till February for the next volume.

Hinges (touchstone to the first volume; there are three): This one's a Root! I bought the last book on my trip to Flagstaff last October and finally got my hands on the others. It's a really cool setting, very steampunk with most of the main characters being clockwork dolls. My only criticism is that it's pretty light on the text; the author does a great job conveying things without words, and the art is beautiful, but personally I like more to actually read in my graphic novels. That, and I would have liked more in-depth explanations about how this world works and why one particular character does what they do.

That's it for now. I have three more Christmas purchases waiting for me, and those will likely be my next reads. I'm thinking of it as Root prevention. After that it's back to the stacks for more Roots.

19Jackie_K
Ene 9, 2018, 1:16 pm

How interesting, I'm currently reading The Eyre Affair and loving it! Different strokes for different folks and all that! (particularly interesting as fiction doesn't usually do it for me so much).

I hope your next reads are more to your taste!

20Amberfly
Ene 10, 2018, 7:06 pm

>19 Jackie_K: That is interesting. Based on reviews and word of mouth I'm definitely in the minority on this one. Fiction is the bulk of what I read, and by all accounts I should have loved it--from the summaries it sounds exactly like my kind of thing. Different strokes indeed.

21Amberfly
Editado: Ene 13, 2018, 5:48 pm

I've got no finished Roots to post about, but I have read two new books (Christmas purchases) and made a dent in the next Root.

Furiously Happy, a non-Root that I loved. I've followed the author's blog for a long time but only just recently picked up her books. I love her somewhat askew way of looking at things.

Binti, a non-Root that I also loved. My only complaint is that there wasn't enough of it XD. Can't wait to get my hands on the sequels.

And the Root, a much denser tome that's been in my collection for nearly four years, Don Quixote. There are too many editions for me to get the right touchstone, but the translation I have is by Peter Motteux. I have no idea what made me choose this one to read now. And unbeknownst to me, four years ago I accidentally bought a handsome secondhand hardcover that has had six pages neatly and methodically torn out. I found a scanned copy online to read the missing pages, but really. Why do people do these things? Anyway, I'm about 1/4 of the way in now, but it is dense so I don't expect I'll finish it for a while, maybe a week or two.

22floremolla
Ene 13, 2018, 7:04 pm

>21 Amberfly: well done on ‘ROOT prevention’ with the two new books and for tackling DQ - I read it last year (a mix of free ebook and purchased audio). Overall I found it very entertaining and was glad I made the effort - it’s such a cultural touchstone. At least now when references to it crop up I know what they mean.

What a shame about the missing pages - it makes you wonder ‘why?’ - could be a good premise for a mystery novel!

23Amberfly
Ene 18, 2018, 3:02 pm

>22 floremolla: I never thought of it that way, but it could make a good premise. Shame I never got the hang of writing fiction!

I'm still working on Don Quixote. I'm at about the halfway point and finding it rather repetitive. I'm wondering if the plot will ever actually go anywhere, or if, like our hero, it will just wander around and never accomplish anything. I haven't given up, but it is slow going.

I also tackled (and finished) one shorter Root, the first two volumes of the manga series Mars. This is a shojo romance series, which I tend to like, but it's not working so well for me and it's fifteen volumes long. I only have the first two, the library doesn't carry them, and I don't know if it's worth it to buy all those volumes. Has anyone else read this? Does it suddenly turn amazing later?

24Tess_W
Ene 19, 2018, 2:06 pm

>23 Amberfly: I abandoned DQ after 90 pages because I couldn't find a plot! Hope you make it through!

25Amberfly
Editado: Ene 22, 2018, 5:46 pm

>24 Tess_W: If I'm completely honest, I haven't picked it up in a week, in which time I've read several other things. I think I'm going to call it quits too. But halfway through is more than enough to count it as a Root.

I've finished a couple of other things this weekend as well:

The Fate of the Tearling, another Christmas acquisition. I loved the first two books, and I loved most of this one up until the last two or three chapters. Unfortunately I really hated the ending, and looking at the LT reviews that seems like a common reaction. Oh well.

Gate 7, volumes one and two of a four-part manga series. These count as Roots since I bought them last year, and I'm liking them more than I expected. I'm looking forward to the other volumes.

And I have started my next Root, Frostflower and Thorn. I don't know how well this one's going to work out, but at least it's short.

26connie53
Ene 23, 2018, 11:54 am

>25 Amberfly: Oh my, That's just the Tearling book I need to read to finish the series. I'm curious about the ending you hated.

27Amberfly
Ene 24, 2018, 8:57 pm

>26 connie53: Well, looking at the reviews my reaction was common but not universal. Some folks seem to have loved it, and it did tie up the loose ends, but not in a way that I found satisfactory. I really don't think I can say any more without spoiling it, so extremely spoiler-y, frustrated ranting is under the tags.

In short, the ending involves using time travel to rewrite the kingdom's entire history for a completely different present, essentially a utopia. Everyone's lives are objectively better but Kelsea is the only one who remembers the old timeline, and the other characters are off living totally separate lives where they've never met one another. First off, it strains the imagination that in three hundred years no one has come along to upset this utopia train. The message I got from it is that it just takes one or two people working, like, really hard for a few years and then all our problems will be fixed forever. Second, to me the fact that no one remembers the original timeline invalidates all the world-building, characterization, and relationship development that we spent three books getting to know. It's almost as bad as having the whole thing be a dream. I felt like I wasted my time getting to know all those people, only for the author to say "It doesn't matter, none of them exist anyway." It borders on insulting to me, to elicit this much investment and end it like that. It completely wrecks the suspension of disbelief by reminding me I'm reading fiction. Third, it's consistently mentioned that we have to deal with the consequences of our actions, and for people with power those consequences may cost innocent people their lives. Rewriting history means that Kelsea doesn't have to deal with those consequences at all. Yes, she's sad and lonely at the end, but it doesn't feel like enough compared to her choices to end human trafficking (inciting a war), call out hypocrisy in the church (inciting riots), make a literal deal with the devil, etc. I wanted to see her cope with the political and practical ramifications of those things as a ruler, and she never does.

I think the author wrote herself into a corner, doubled down on the dark and gritty stuff too often, and then couldn't resolve it in any way that made sense. I was so upset I doubt I'll ever try this author again.


I didn't intend to go on so long, and there's still more I could say, but that sums it up. Essentially I feel like the ending presents major structural and thematic problems, and that it doesn't fit well with the rest of the series.

28Amberfly
Ene 25, 2018, 3:20 pm

I have more Roots to add!

I gave up on Frostflower and Thorn after about 50 pages. I had high hopes for it because I really liked Karr's other novel, Idylls of the Queen, that I read for a previous Root challenge. However, Thorn proved way too unlikable a protagonist for me, and Frostflower wasn't interesting enough on her own to make up for it. The unlikable protagonist trope really does not work for me; it never has.

I also finished Kokoro, a much more literary pick that sadly also didn't work for me. I feel like a lot of it went over my head. It was interesting, and some of the metaphors are beautiful, but too introspective to be truly engaging, at least for my personal taste.

I'm trying a new method of choosing books that I hope will keep the "what to read next?" indecision at bay. I've grouped my Roots by date acquired (month + year) and I'm planning to move through them in batches, starting in December 2017 and moving backwards chronologically from there. Some months have a lot of books, some have only one. I have no idea if this will work out long-term, but I've gotten through almost all of the 12/17 Roots. It's no sillier than the many other schemes I've tried over the years, anyway.

29rabbitprincess
Ene 25, 2018, 6:29 pm

>28 Amberfly: Sounds like a good plan! Hope it works out for you.

30MissWatson
Ene 26, 2018, 4:04 am

>28 Amberfly: Interesting concept. I hope you find some truly good books there that work for you.

31floremolla
Ene 26, 2018, 12:58 pm

>28 Amberfly: good luck with that, hope it works out - I didn't adopt a scheme but set some goals and it's helping to direct my reading although, it being early in the year, I'm still able to cherry-pick the ones I'm quite confident I'll like!

32connie53
Ene 26, 2018, 1:54 pm

>27 Amberfly: dodging that spoiler!

33Amberfly
Ene 27, 2018, 10:54 am

>29 rabbitprincess: and >30 MissWatson: Thanks, me too!

>31 floremolla: That's the same spot I'm in. This plan means I started with the stuff I bought last December, which is so recent that I still have most of the enthusiasm for reading the book that I had when I bought it. It might be different when I get further back, but progress is progress.

>32 connie53: Probably a smart choice! =) When you get to it, I hope you like it better than I did.

34floremolla
Editado: Ene 27, 2018, 2:21 pm

>33 Amberfly: yes, progress is progress! I’ve even adopted the position that reading new books is ‘ROOT prevention’. It’s all reading and I’m just delighted to have rediscovered my reading mojo after many years in the doldrums (sorry - bad attack of the mixed metaphors there!)

35Amberfly
Ene 28, 2018, 8:00 pm

>34 floremolla: Some metaphors are best enjoyed tossed, like a salad =)
Glad you've got your mojo back! Personally, I never feel quite right when I don't have a good book going.

I have read another Root, Waters Luminous and Deep, selected using a complicated part of my new Root plan. The next chronological Root didn't appeal to me right away, so I took the month, January, and went to the earliest January I had a Root catalogued for. That month (Jan. 2015) had one Root listed, and this was it. I loved Pierce's work as a teen, and it turns out I still do! This one was full of fun, fairytale-like stories, and I have no idea why I waited three years to read it.

The next chronological Root (the one I skipped to read Waters) is a Discworld book, The Last Continent. I've started it but I think I'm not in a Pratchett kind of mood just now. His works are almost always worth it though, so we'll see how it goes.

36Amberfly
Ene 30, 2018, 3:13 pm

I finished The Last Continent today. Not my favorite Discworld novel, but not bad. It started slowly but was fine once I got into it. And that's the last of the December purchases! Yay!

Next I have a choice to make. I can continue with Root prevention by reading the two shorter scifi works I bought this month, or I can jump into the next-most-recent batch of Roots from August 2017, which are mostly on the more literary end of the spectrum. I'm leaning towards the latter but we'll see.

37connie53
Feb 1, 2018, 12:49 pm

Good luck choosing, Amberfly.

38Amberfly
Feb 4, 2018, 10:59 am

I had trouble choosing! And it was an unexpectedly busy week, with a not-entirely-welcome relative visiting. But I've finally settled on Babbit as my next Root. It took a bit for me to get into it, and I read some non-Root manga first, but I'm getting along with it nicely now.

The manga was the second half of Gate 7, which I mentioned earlier in the thread. I'm somewhat disappointed because I thought this was a complete four-volume series, but the fourth volume ends in the middle of the story. Google says it's been on hiatus since 2013. I don't know if I'd have bothered reading it if I knew that.

39connie53
Feb 4, 2018, 12:24 pm

>38 Amberfly: I hate it when that happens, Amberfly. Why won't they finish series, even if they are nor successful with readers? There are always people that get disappointed this way.

40Amberfly
Feb 10, 2018, 11:49 pm

>39 connie53: I hate it too. So disappointing to not be able to read the end. I've personally noticed it more often in comics than in other books, but I'm not sure why that's the case. Maybe because they tend to have so many installments?

I finished Root #9 today, Babbit. I struggled to get into this one more than I expected to after loving Kingsblood Royal so much last year. I think it was the unlikable main character; deliberately unlikable narrators are not a trope that works for me. However, I was surprised at how uncomfortably relevant the satire felt for a book written nearly a hundred years ago. The same was true of KR, and I'm hoping it will hold true for the other Sinclair Lewis works I have in my TBR. I'll be getting to those soon, but not quite yet.

I also did a little Root prevention, reading one of my new manga purchases, volume 8 of A Bride's Story. I love this series to pieces, but my library stopped buying them after #7, and it's far too good a series to leave off like that.

I'm about to finish another manga Root, probably tomorrow, and then it's a little more Root prevention with my new purchases. August 2017 (the month I'm picking Roots from currently) had a lot of literary purchases, so I want to take little breaks in between some of the heavier fare.

41Amberfly
Feb 12, 2018, 11:05 pm

Things have been busy!

I finished Root #10 yesterday. Clover is a four-volume manga (I have the omnibus) that I bought sometime last year and I have no idea why I waited so long to get to it. It was wonderful and I wish there were more volumes for me to read. It's complex and beautiful (art and story both) and steampunk/cyberpunk and I loved it.

I also read v.9 of A Bride's Story (not a Root but a good read) and am now sad that I have to wait for more volumes to be released.

And finally, I read Binti: Home (also not a Root) yesterday and enjoyed it just as much as the first one, read last month. It's really different from most of the fantasy I've read, and I'm very much looking forward to the third book.

I haven't fully decided whether to read another Root next (probably Main Street, another Sinclair Lewis) or the next Binti book. This is my favorite kind of problem to have; there are no bad choices =)

42Amberfly
Editado: Mar 6, 2018, 6:14 pm

Hello again. I've been too busy and too scattered lately to get much reading done, as may be evidenced by the more than two weeks elapsed since my last post. I've been moving for the second time in a year, and I've had no internet access for the last week. Even now there's no access at the house; I'm posting from the library.

Here's the past two weeks' reading:
Binti: The Night Masquerade, the last in the trilogy, was just as awesome as I was hoping it would be. I really have to seek out the author's other work when I get the chance. Too recent to be a Root, alas.

5 Centimeters per Second, a manga, was much more interesting than I expected. I thought it would be a straightforward teen romance but it's a lot more complex than that, dealing with how the past shapes us as we go forward, and how life doesn't work the same way stories do. It was bittersweet and beautiful. Also too recent to be a Root.

Orange: future, another manga, was less satisfying than I hoped. It's a sequel to the much more interesting Orange I read last year, but it doesn't have the same depth or suspense that the original did. It may get better, but I don't think I'll be continuing it if there are more. Another too recent for Rooting; there's a theme here.

Oil!, a Root at last! And I loved it! This is the first of Upton Sinclair works that I've read, and the only one I own, but I'll definitely be reading more in the future. I bought this at a library sale last August, and reading it is in keeping with my plan to read my Roots reverse-chronologically, but in hindsight I wish I hadn't bought so many pieces of "literary" fiction at the time. It's heavy stuff, and even when it's this good it slows down my progress!

43Amberfly
Mar 4, 2018, 4:58 pm

Another Root down! #12 was The Stone Sky, last in the Broken Earth trilogy, and I loved it almost as much as the first one. Wonderful series all around, the only downside being that now I have to find something to read next that doesn't feel flat in comparison.

44Amberfly
Mar 8, 2018, 5:32 pm

With the internet still down at home (I'm writing from the library again), I'm getting more reading done. Silver lining, right? Over the last four days I've read:

Tropic of the Sea, a manga I didn't really expect to like as much as I did. It had just the right mix of fantastical elements and a distinct setting that I often look for in manga. Not a Root, though; I bought it in February.

RG Veda, omnibuses #1 and #2, another manga. This one was a reread; I wanted to revisit the series before the last omnibus came out at the end of this month. The publisher thwarted me by pushing back the release date (for the fourth or fifth time) until the end of May. But it was worth revisiting anyway; it's a complex world with a lot of players who all want different (often contradictory) outcomes.

And Root #13, Catch-22, another from that library sale last August. I didn't actually finish this one, but I read almost half of it before giving up, so it counts. Not really my kind of book. I wonder if it's one of those "you had to be there when it was new/you had to live through it" kind of books, that resonate less well outside their time period. Who knows.

45Amberfly
Mar 10, 2018, 11:30 pm

I have a few more books to post, now that I have home internet access again. It's a relief after two full weeks without it!

The Legend of Chun Hyang, a single-volume manga and Root #14. According to the introductory pages it's a loose adaptation of a Korean folktale. It was a decent read, worthwhile if you're a big Clamp fan, but I have the distinct feeling that the manga was intended to be longer than it is. It can stand alone well enough, but there are questions set up in the last chapter that feel as if they're leading into further installments that don't exist.

Racing Classics, Root #15. I bought this primarily because it was part of the Penguin 60s line, little bite-sized books I collect when I stumble across them. It's been a long while since I read anything about horses or racing specifically, since the horse phase I went through in my preteens, and although this is a very different kind of story from the "girl meets horse" ones I was so fond of, it was kind of nice to get into that setting again.

Finally, Nichijou is a ten-volume manga series I've been borrowing from the library for the last week or two. I've read six of them but I'm not sure I'll read the last four. They are funny but they have no overarching plot to keep my interest up. We'll see.

46connie53
Mar 11, 2018, 5:08 am

Are you settling in comfortably in your new home? It must be nice to have internet again and not have to go to the library.

47rabbitprincess
Mar 11, 2018, 10:31 am

Hurray for internet at home!

48Amberfly
Mar 11, 2018, 4:14 pm

>46 connie53: and >47 rabbitprincess: Hurray indeed. It was a royal pain in the backside to have it out for so long. There are a lot of good reasons to hang out at the library, but "my internet providers are lazy idiots" is not one of them! Settling in just fine, thank you. I didn't want to move right now, but it went smoother than it might have.

I read another Root, Four Classic Ghostly Tales, which I breezed through much more quickly than I expected. With rare exceptions I've never hit it off particularly well with straight-up ghost stories, but this collection makes me think I may have just been reading the wrong ones. The Beckoning Fair One in particular reminded me of that atmospheric old favorite, The Haunting of Hill House. The rest of the collection was worth it just for that one.

49Amberfly
Mar 13, 2018, 4:11 pm

Two more Roots down:

Selected Translations 1948-1968 by W.S. Merwin, a book of poetry I bought way back in 2014, when my Root problem first began. In all honesty I don't remember why I bought this. I think I recognized Merwin's name from some poetry anthology I'd read before, but I can't actually be sure. I like poetry well enough but most of this volume didn't really speak to me so I'll probably be passing it on.

Threads of Time volumes one and two, a manhwa (like manga, but Korean instead of Japanese in origin) that I bought sometime last year. It's got an interesting premise: a modern teenage boy who slips into a coma and wakes up in another body in the time of Ghengis Khan. Something about it isn't working for me, though; it's got no emotional punch and the main character isn't very likeable. I might pick up the other volumes (there are eleven total) if I stumble across them, but I probably won't go out of my way to find them. Has anyone else here read these? Do they get better?

This brings me to 18 Roots read out of my goal of 40--almost halfway through, and it's only mid-March! I'm thinking of revising my goal upwards if things continue at this pace, or I won't have anything to work towards in the fall.

50rabbitprincess
Mar 13, 2018, 7:30 pm

>49 Amberfly: You're doing very well with your goal!

51Amberfly
Mar 17, 2018, 7:16 pm

>50 rabbitprincess: Thank you! I think it's all the comics that piled up at the end of last year. I decided to count them, because they're unread books and I own them, but they're such fast reads I feel like they're artificially inflating my total. I probably need to revise it to reflect that.

Speaking of which, I have been a very busy bee among the bookshelves. I've added five(!) new Roots read to my ticker:

Bleach vol. 71, bought in November. I love this series to bits. No idea why this one sat so long on the shelf.

Silent Mobius vol. 1, bought in October. This is a scifi action manga. I'm not totally hooked based on this volume alone, but I am interested enough to find the next few.

Flood Song, a poetry collection bought in 2016, on a trip to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ. I'm actually not quite sure what to make of this one. I can't even say whether I liked it or not. I tend to like my poetry a little more straightforward and less surreal than this, and yet.

Imajica, a novel I bought last summer at a library sale. I didn't finish this one. I should have loved this book. Demons! Assassins! Interdimensional magic! But I don't. I've been trying to read this doorstop on and off for more than a week and only made it sixty pages in. It's a struggle to make myself pick it up again, and that's not what reading is for. But I tried, so it counts.

The Song of Roland, translated by Frederick Goldin and bought in 2014. I can't actually remember why I bought this. I think it was shortly after I read Beowulf for the first time, and I was in a "yay epic poetry!" mood, but I can't be certain. Anyway, this was another didn't-finish book. I seem to recall trying and failing this one once before, with a different translator, maybe? I won't be trying it again.

And finally, a couple of library comics, volumes 6 and 7 of Princess Jellyfish. I thought #7 was going to be the last one, but after the very obvious not-conclusion I found out there are two more that aren't out yet in English. That provoked a dual reaction, both "yay, there are more!" and "boo, I have to wait!"

With these Roots done, my TBR is below 130 for the first time in two or three years. That feels like more concrete, significant progress than the number on the ticker. It's also prompting me to want to set a higher goal for the year. It's below 130 now, in March. Could I get it below 100 by December? Tempting thought. =)

52connie53
Mar 18, 2018, 3:58 am

>51 Amberfly: Below 130! I wish that for my TBR pile! good luck trying to get it below 100!

53MissWatson
Mar 18, 2018, 12:30 pm

Good progress on your TBR, congrats!

54Amberfly
Mar 19, 2018, 12:05 am

>52 connie53: Thanks! At its peak it was around 170, but I'm going to try an bring it even lower.

>53 MissWatson: Thanks! Progress feels great!

I tried and tossed another Root, City of the Sorcerers. I was hoping for a light fun fantasy, but no luck. This author never met an adjective she didn't like. Almost every sentence had one or two superfluous descriptors. I bought it back in 2014, but it really wasn't worth keeping around so long.

I decided to go for it and raise my goal from 40 to 65, to account for all the fast comic reads and to get the TBR below 100. Probably nobody but me is interested in how I got that number (XD), but I added the number of Roots I'd already read this year (24), the number of still-unread Root comics in my collection (14), and the number of non-comic Roots I'd have to read to get the TBR to 99 (27). Thus, 65. It's the highest Root goal I've set since I started doing the challenge, but I've also got more comic Roots than any other year. This also means I'll have to read all the new books I buy this year before they can become Roots. I've already been doing that, but it's an extra incentive to stick with it!

55rabbitprincess
Mar 19, 2018, 5:23 pm

>54 Amberfly: Good luck with the increased goal! :D

56avanders
Mar 22, 2018, 11:50 am

Hello!! Just dropping by. It has just been TOO long. But I'm happy to see you're doing so well with your ROOTing! Life for me has been a bit crazy these past couple months, but maybe in the couple months to come, it'll calm down ;)

57Amberfly
Mar 23, 2018, 10:00 pm

>55 rabbitprincess: Thanks! I think I'll need it ;)

>56 avanders: Hi! My life has also been...less than relaxing, shall we say. Good to see you around again!

Well, I've made lots of attempts since my last post, but I haven't got much progress to show for it.

Only one Root done, a standalone manga called Wild Com., bought sometime last year. I bought this one used, on a whim, and I wasn't really expecting to like it very much. It's a collection of three shorter stories. The first story (the title one) was 'meh', but the middle one was awesome and the last one pretty good. I definitely want to try the author's other work now.

I bought and read Bleach vol. 72, and I got The Free Country: A Tale of the Children's Crusade from the library. Liked the former, was 'meh' on the latter. I didn't realize it was a crossover when I chose it, and that might have played into my reaction. If I were familiar with more of the characters from the different series I might've liked it better. I also tried the manga Fruits Basket from the library and wow is that not my kind of story. Glad I didn't spend money on it.

Finally, I started another mostly-text Root, The Mirror Empire. It's a doorstopper, and after about 100 pages...I kind of hate it. I really wanted to like this book, but I don't know if I'll finish it. In the meantime I have a boatload of comics out from the library, so there's a good chance I'll be busy with those for a while before I get back to Roots.

58Amberfly
Mar 25, 2018, 5:49 pm

Two more Roots have been completed. I gave up on The Mirror Empire after about 150 pages. As I mentioned in my last post, I really wanted to like this one, but I couldn't bring myself to care for the characters (except one that I utterly hated) and the social commentary was a little too on-the-nose even for my taste. I also read the short story collection The Circus of Dr. Lao, which was pretty good in places but not spectacular. It's been on the shelf since 2014, so it's nice to finally have gotten to it.

On the comics front, I've read three: Angel/Dust (good, but I wish the characters' relationships had been a little more fleshed out), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (good, but I'd like to see the movie at some point; the manga was based on it), and The Heiress and the Chauffeur (really didn't like this one at all).

I seem to be having a streak of mediocre reads, or good reads that are very very short. I hope I can break that soon; it's getting frustrating not being able to settle to anything good for more than a day.

59MissWatson
Editado: Mar 26, 2018, 3:55 am

Good luck that you'll find a truly great read soon!

60Amberfly
Mar 27, 2018, 4:55 pm

>59 MissWatson: Thanks =)

I've read a couple more Root manga, and started a new text Root. The text one is The Golden Cat. I'm not far enough into it yet to make a judgement, but so far so good.

I've finished Root #28, the first volume of Tsubasa: Those With Wings. It's a six-part series but I think I'll skip the others. The "romance" between the two leads sets my teeth on edge. It's treated as funny but I just can't see it as anything but creepy. It's too bad, because I liked almost everything else about the first volume, but that subplot is too prevalent to ignore.

Root #29 is also done. It was volumes 3 and 4 of the manga Descending Stories. I started reading this series last year and it has yet to disappoint me. Can't wait to get my hands on #5.

61connie53
Mar 31, 2018, 6:21 am

>54 Amberfly: I love the way you calculated till you came to 65! And you are on your way to reaching that number real well.

62Amberfly
Editado: Mar 31, 2018, 2:16 pm

>61 connie53: Thanks! It'd be great if I could keep up this rate of progress all year, but I don't want to set my hopes too high =)

I finished Root #30 today, the novel The Golden Cat. I bought this in 2016, around the time my favorite bookstore went out of business. It was a decent read for the "high fantasy with animals" sub-genre (a la Watership Down), but not the best I've encountered. Some subplots dragged, and several of the action sequences were confusing. It often wasn't clear what was actually happening. But I did read it all the way to the end, and that's more than can be said for a lot of books I've tried lately.

Next on the agenda is a new acquisition, Imperial Woman, before I get back to Roots. I'm also still working on the huge stack of comics I took out of the library a week ago. Most have turned out to be duds, but there were a few good ones in the mix, and I still have several to go before they're due back.

63Amberfly
Abr 6, 2018, 12:26 pm

Well, I don't have any new Roots to talk about, but I have been reading. I finished Imperial Woman, my new acquisition. I always like Pearl S. Buck and this one was no exception, but it's not my favorite of her works. Still glad I read it, but now it's back to Roots!

I've also read a number of not-Root comics, some good and some not:

Wolf's Rain, a two-volume manga that really wasn't my cup of tea, though it should have been.

Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip v.1, which was adorable. My mom tried to find Moomin books for me when I was really young, but they were out of print and it was the mid-90s, before we had internet access at home to search them up used. It was nice to get the chance to check them out at last, and I can see why she wanted them for me.

Gunsmith Cats omnibus v.1, a well-written series but too much of the techie gun specs stuff went over my head. It's kind of a shame but I felt that that put too much of a barrier between the characters and me.

Ichiro, a single-volume western comic that I really liked. It's about a Japanese-American boy who has to leave Brooklyn, where he's grown up, to stay with his grandfather in Japan for a while. While there, he meets a shape-shifting tanuki and they both get drawn into a long-standing political war between the Shinto gods. There's a lot of mythology and history but it never gets that preachy tone that educational comics so often have, at least in my experience. Very good.

I also started Summit of the Gods v.2, which is a Root comic, but I'm not done with it yet. I haven't chosen another novel Root, but undoubtedly I will soon.

64Amberfly
Abr 13, 2018, 9:38 pm

It has been a very busy week but I have only one Root to show for it. I'm still working on Summit of the Gods (finished v.2, v.3 is in the mail, and I can count them as Roots when I finish v.4).

But! I read The Dark Tower this week, the last book in the series of the same name, and given the page count on that one I don't feel too bad about the speed. It was a fitting end to the series, and not the one I expected. My behavior with this series has been really weird; I actually read about 300 pages of this last book months ago, totally list interest and read other things, and picked it up again this week to read the other 700 pages with no refreshing of memory necessary. I've never done that with any other book. I'm now reading the inter-quel, The Wind Through the Keyhole, also a Root, and I expect to finish it very soon. These have been page-turners and I suspect I'll want to reread them to see all the stuff I missed the first time, because I know there were things.

I also made a day trip to Las Vegas this week and bought an embarrassing number of books. I was very very naughty. But I live in a small town with almost no bookstores (our only large one, and the only one that sold new books, closed about two years ago), and most of the new stuff is comics and manga that I'll tear through quickly, so I don't feel too bad. I'm a little worried about erasing all the progress I've made trying to get the TBR below 100, but at the rate I've been going hopefully it won't be too hard to get back to where I was.

65connie53
Abr 16, 2018, 1:54 am

Hi, Amberfly. I share your feelings regarding the Donkere toren series. I loved those books and read them in the past couple of years.

And how many books did you buy? Just curious!

66lilisin
Abr 16, 2018, 2:23 am

>64 Amberfly:

I'm very much enjoying Summit of the Gods as well. I hadn't realized it'd been translated into English. Or are you reading it in French? I don't get the impression you're reading these in Japanese but...

67Amberfly
Abr 16, 2018, 11:49 am

>65 connie53: Final count was fifteen. Six fiction and nine manga. I rarely buy that many at once, but I excuse myself that most of them were used (only two new) and thus more budget-friendly. I have many excuses, and I also have fifteen new books. =)

>66 lilisin: I'm reading it in English; I don't know any others well enough to read them. I don't think the publisher (Ponent Mon) is particularly well-known in the US where I am; I'd never heard of them before buying this title. Summit of the Gods is pretty far outside the genres I normally read, so I'm very pleased to be enjoying it so much.

Root news: I finished The Wind Through the Keyhole the other day. It was a page-turner and a good addition to the series, but not a vital one; it didn't really add anything but a little backstory. I'm currently stringing along with two other Roots, The Queen's Bed (a rare nonfiction Root) and Legends 1 (which I chose because it has a Dark Tower story in it). And two or three manga that I'll post about when I finish them. My Root total is currently sitting at 32, just shy of halfway for the year.

68connie53
Abr 20, 2018, 2:08 am

>67 Amberfly: LOL. That's a real good excuse.

69Amberfly
mayo 3, 2018, 4:26 pm

>68 connie53: It's my favorite excuse!

It's been a very busy two weeks, with little time for reading or Roots. I started a new job and am flirting with a new hobby, and they are taking up all my time and energy. But I have read two Roots:

The Bone Doll's Twin, owned since 2014. I really liked this one and flew through it pretty quickly once I got past the first couple of chapters, and I was delighted to find out that it's the first of a trilogy. I don't own the others yet, but I can't wait to read them.

Lost Gods, bought in 2017. I've always enjoyed Brom's work before, especially Krampus the Yule Lord, but this one was a bit of a disappointment. It wasn't bad, exactly, but I didn't have much drive to pick it up again once I'd set it down, and the characters failed to resonate with me the way that I hoped they would. A lot of gray morality in this one; very few characters were all good or all bad, and the ones I liked most didn't make it to the end. I feel like I've been reading it for a month, not two weeks.

Next up...I'm not really sure. On the comics front I have allowed myself to be distracted by a reread of Bleach (helping my enthusiasm but not my Root totals) and I have a lot of new acquisitions I'm eager to try out. What with the new job soaking up my time, I'm not sure when I'll get back to Rooting.

70Jackie_K
mayo 4, 2018, 7:01 am

>69 Amberfly: Congratulations on your new job, I hope you settle in there soon and find space for rediscovering the reading mojo!

71floremolla
mayo 5, 2018, 10:51 am

>69 Amberfly: congratulations on the new job and hope the new hobby turns out well!

72connie53
Editado: Oct 5, 2018, 3:07 am

>69 Amberfly: Ha, a new job and a new hobby. Congrats on that.

I liked De verborgen prinses too. And I did read the whole trilogy. All good ones!

73Amberfly
Sep 20, 2018, 9:31 pm

I think it's time for a comeback, don't you? At about four months long, I think this has been the longest hiatus I've ever taken from the Root group, and I see from other people's threads that I have missed a lot of things. But all things must end, including hiatuses, and thus here I am again.

In life news, the job came out well enough for the time being (certainly preferable to the seven months of unemployment that preceded it) and I still work there, though I hope to find something better in the future. Perhaps next year. The new hobby didn't work out so well, but that's the nature of hobbies--sometimes they are duds, just like books.

In Root news, I admit I haven't been keeping very careful track of things. I did a major Root purge less than a month ago, in which I got rid of about fifty unread books, approximately 1/3 of my TBR collection. Some were books I'd wanted to read at purchase but had lost all interest in over the intervening months or years. Others were books I'd attempted to read once and given up, judging that I might have a more positive reaction in the future. A lot were cheap paperback classics picked up for a dollar; sometimes I had multiple works by the same author, in which case I mostly chose one to keep and sent the rest to the library sale. The classics were weeded the most harshly, because it's easier to find another copy of A Tale of Two Cities if I change my mind than to find another copy of some semi-obscure scifi title. It had gotten to the point that I was paralyzed with indecision whenever I needed something new to read, and that's not a happy state to be in every week. Things are much more manageable now, with the TBR collection sitting at 95 and just over a quarter of those having been bought this year.

As I said above, I haven't been keeping much track of my reading since I left here in May, but this is the best recollection I can make:
-Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, catalogued in 2016 but acquired sometime earlier than that. I enjoyed this more than I expected but thought it went on too long.
-Hidden Warrior and The Oracle's Queen, bought earlier this year. I loved these to pieces and I'm eager to read more of the author's work.
-The Infinite Future, an ARC acquired from the library's free shelf sometime in 2017. This was weirdly fascinating, much better than I expected it to be, but parts (including the abrupt ending) were frustrating as well. This would probably benefit from rereads.
-The Silver Eyes, The Twisted Ones, and The Fourth Closet, tie-in novels from the video game series Five Nights at Freddy's. These served to remind me why I never read tie-in fiction. I love the games but they made for really terrible novels.
-Silent Mobius, a manga series I mentioned earlier in the thread. I bought most of the series this year and I really quite enjoyed them. Sadly they are out of print and the last volume is prohibitively expensive, so I haven't been able to finish it yet.
-RG Veda omnibus v.3, another manga series that I was finally able to see the end of after the publisher delayed this volume for over a year. I must say it was worth it, though.
-Opus, an unfinished manga that I loved, about an artist's characters interfering in the plot he's writing for them. Oddly the fact that it's unfinished (the author passed away before he could complete it) adds to the metatextual nature of the story rather than detracting from it. Bought this year.
-The Bonesetter's Daughter, another fine Amy Tan novel, though not my favorite.
-Drug and Drop, another unfinished manga. Sensing a theme here, perhaps?
-Yotsuba&!, more manga but this one was bought at the end of last year. I didn't care for it much at first, but by the end of the first volume it had grown on me. At some point I'll buy the rest.
-Tales of Zestiria, a manga based on a game, bought sometime last year. Didn't care for this one, won't be reading the others.
-Red River, a historical fantasy romance manga. I really wanted to like this one but after two volumes it just wasn't working for me. I don't plan to finish it.
-Princess Jellyfish, the final volume in a series I started last year. This was a library book, and an enjoyable read right through to the end. I was sad to see it end, even if it was a happy ending.

The thing is, given how many Roots I got rid of unread and how many TBR books have been bought this year (not counted as Roots by the criteria I've always used before), I'm not sure how I want to count these for my ticker, or how to count what I read next. Five of them should definitely count because they were acquired before this year, and one definitely doesn't count because it was a library book, but I'm not sure what to do with the other eleven and this post is already way too long. Maybe I should just reassess what counts and what doesn't, even if it throws off my totals for the year? I don't know. Maybe my long, boring shift at work tomorrow will yield some answers.

74rabbitprincess
Sep 21, 2018, 3:06 am

I would say count the ones you purged, especially the unread ones, because it takes real willpower to let those go!

Also, welcome back :)

75MissWatson
Sep 21, 2018, 4:31 am

Welcome back! And by all means count the discards, because it is such a hard decision to let them go. I find myself in agreement with your selection criteria: replacing classics is so easy nowadays with freely available ebooks. But those authors fallen out of fashion and no longer available, those are treasures to keep.

76Amberfly
Sep 21, 2018, 12:31 pm

It's nice to be back!

The thing with the purged books is this: if I count them all, I'd hit my goal right now. I only need 27 Roots to hit the goal, and I gave away about 50 unread books. Not all of them were Roots, but most were. I have never hit a Root goal this early in the year and it would feel weird, lol. I think that going forward, I might revise what I count as a Root from "what I owned before January 1" to "what I own now", because my priority has shifted to actually clearing the shelves rather than clearing just the older stuff. But I haven't decided yet.

I won't lie, it wasn't an easy thing to get rid of so many. I did pull one or two back out of the giveaway pile before hauling them off to the library, and I did buy one new one last week, but that's negligible in comparison. There's actually space on the shelves now! So when I move books out of the "unread" shelves and onto the "read" ones, there's somewhere to put them! It's amazing!

On the ease of replacing purged classics: It's not even just free ebooks, because I don't read ebooks very often. But I can walk into any thrift store or Friends of the Library sale in the country and have a good chance of finding three or four paperback classics I've never read, usually in good shape and for less than a dollar each. But there are some authors that you rarely see in those settings, either because they are obscure or because they are very popular and people snap them up quickly, and those ones didn't get purged. =)

77connie53
Oct 5, 2018, 3:08 am

Welcome back.

78rabbitprincess
Oct 5, 2018, 5:42 pm

>76 Amberfly: What is this "shelf space" of which you speak? :) I'm even running out of space at my parents' place, because they keep buying books too!!

79Familyhistorian
Oct 5, 2018, 11:29 pm

>76 Amberfly: The dilemma of how to count your purged books is a good problem to have. Must be nice to have shelf space free.