Tag: Orilium Readathon

Orilium Reading Wrap-up (aka What I Read in April)

~ EMM

I read TEN books in April!!! I also finished all my Orilium subjects, plus did a few extra that may or may not help me if I decide to try a for a new career path in August (during the Orilium Autumn Equinox Readathon)!

Here’s everything (fiction) I read that fit one of the Orilium Readathon prompts:

  • The Last Ride to Love by Kearney Wentworth (Astronomy) — This is a super cute short story written by a friend of mine. It was previously part of an anthology, but now it’s been released as a stand-alone story that will eventually link to her forth-coming contemporary romance series featuring rugby players!
  • Even Though I Knew the End by C. L. Polk (Inscription) — I really enjoyed this novella. The world-building is really rich and immersive for such a short book.
  • A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas (Psionics & Divination) — This wasn’t my favorite of the Lady Sherlock books, but I always enjoy these stories because I really love the characters. The murder mystery was pretty good, too.
  • This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede (Lore) — The strength of this book is really in its two main characters and their love story. I really wanted to like it more because of that, but the side characters were not that interesting, and I wanted a lot more from the world-building than what I got. It was good, but ultimately kind of disappointing for me. I probably won’t read the companion novel.
  • Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries (Art of Illusion) by Heather Fawcett — This book, on the other hand, was excellent. It had the kind of fae and fairies that I prefer (think Enchantment of Ravens), crossed with a main character that reminded me a lot of Veronica Speedwell. Definitely recommend this one.
  • Reclaim Your Author Career: Using the Enneagram to build your strategy, unlock deeper purpose, and celebrate your career by Claire Taylor (Conjuration) — Not much to say about this one except that it managed to explain “theme” in a way that finally made it make sense to me. I’m still not sure which enneagram I am, but the parts about how to use the core fear and desire of each personality type in your writing were very interesting.
  • What the Hex by Alexis Daria (Elemental Studies) — I really enjoyed this cute novella about a witch returning to her island home for her sister’s wedding and having to team up with her former high school nemesis to fight off a demon who has possessed the groom. A fast, fun read!

I also read some others that didn’t fit any of the prompts:

  • Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative by Austin Kleon — I read this for fun as a distraction to keep me from checking social media while I tried to “digital detox” this month. The short sections made it work really well as a replacement for “bored” scrolling of Instagram and the like.
  • Atomic Habits by James Clear — I listened to this one on audiobook. I kind of hate self-help books because they tend to be very repetitive, and this was not an exception to that rule. However, I feel like the concept of “habits” is one of those things that gets watered down so much through pop-productivity media (like the BuJo community, for example), that a lot of the science gets lost. Sure, habit trackers are great, but habit trackers alone aren’t going to help you build or change your habits. This book explains how to build (or break) habits in a really helpful way (if you can get past the “basic bro” examples).
  • Dragonholder: The Life and Dreams of Anne McCaffrey by Todd McCaffrey — This is less of a biography and more of a rambling blog post in book form. I picked it up because one of the pieces of advice in Steal Like an Artist is to read biographies of your favorite authors (or people who influence your creative work). In that regard, this was interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for…

Ultimately, I think I read so much in April because I was limiting my computer/phone use to only necessary stuff. This was because I read Digital Minimalism in March and wanted to give his digital detox a try. It’s kind of shocking how much more time you have when you’re not checking email, Discord, and social media on repeat. I have relaxed my restrictions a bit now that April is over, but not by much. We’ll see if that leads to more books read in May as well.

What I’m really hoping my attempts at digital minimalism will lead to is more focused writing time. One of the reasons I gravitated toward that book (after reading Deep Work) was because I was realizing that nearly every time I context switch, I get pulled into a distraction loop checking all the things before I can settle back down and get back to work (if I ever get back to work). This leads to me getting an hour or so of solid writing in the morning and then struggling to get back into it after I take a break. Not ideal. So, I’m learning and playing with process to try to figure out what works for me.

That said, I’ve had a lot of (mostly legitimate and irl) distractions in my life over the past few months. In general, I’m feeling really scattered. So, taking a break from all the online noise is really nice.

How did your readathon go (if you participated)?

Orilium Spring Equinox TBR

~ EMM

I know we’re already a week into April, and I’m only now sorting out my TBR for the Orilium Spring Equinox, but I’m still participating! It took me a while to get myself organized because I was visiting friends and family last week, and I didn’t have any time for reading. But I’m back now, and I’ve got my plan together, so it’s time to hit the books!

Before I get into my TBR for April’s readathon, let’s recap how my “Year in Aeldia” is going…

You may remember that I decided to use this Magical Readathon challenge to work my way through my backlog of Fairyloot special edition hardcovers. So far, I’m doing pretty well. I just finished the March prompt to read a book over 500 pages. Yes, I technically finished reading it in April, but I’m still counting it because my end of March travel plans messed up my schedule more than I anticipated.

Now that that’s done, I can officially start the April readathon!

I decided to focus on the subjects I need to advance to the next level in my Story Weaver calling. Mostly this decision was based on the fact that I’m starting late, and I only need four courses for that calling.

Here’s what’s on my TBR:

  • Art of Illusion –> match clothes color to cover color –> This is a pretty flexible prompt, and I want to get in at least one Fairyloot hardcover this month. So, I’m going with Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. The dust jacket on my copy is cream, but I prefer to read without the dust jacket. The naked hardcover is purple, which is a bit harder to match given that my wardrobe is mostly grey and black. But I do have one purple long sleeve shirt and one purple t-shirt I can wear while reading this book. If I’m feeling extra, I’ll try to find an appropriately cream colored sweater to wear over my purple shirt (you know, like a dust jacket, get it?).
  • Inscription –> book from your highest shelf –> The highest shelf on my bookcase is reserved my favorite books, and I don’t really want to do a re-read of any of those, so I’m interpreting this prompt as the book I most recently hauled, which was an option given in the video that went over all the prompts. I just downloaded Even Though We Knew the End by C. L. Polk to buddy read with friends, so that’s going to be my book for this course.
  • Lore –> book with a map –> I was a little worried about this one because I feel like a lot of books that have maps are also tomes, and I don’t have time for another tome this month. After browsing the first pages of several books on my Kindle, I realized that This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede, which has been hanging out near the top of my TBR for a while now, has a map!
  • Psionics & Divination –> book with clouds on the cover or in the title –> The most recent addition to the Lady Sherlock series is one of my highly anticipated 2023 releases. It just came out in March, and it has clouds on the cover! So, I’ll be reading A Tempest at Sea by Sherry Thomas for this course.

If I have time, I may try to squeeze in a few other courses to see if I can qualify for any of the other callings in August. I have several books I’d like to read this month that didn’t make it onto my official TBR. Almost all of them will fit with a prompt for one of the other subjects. Either that, or I’m going to at least start the Alchemy side quest. It’s just a matter of how much time I have for reading in April.

Are you participating in the Orilium Readathon this month? Either way, let me know in the comments what you’re reading in April!

August Orilium Readathon Reading Wrap-up

~ EMM ~ 2 Comments

I’m a little sad that the Orilium Autumn Equinox Readathon is over. But, the readathon really got me reading more than I might otherwise have in August! I finished all my required reading for my calling, and I even finished a couple of quests!

My month started off strong. I finished three novellas in the first week. Then I caught the evil plague and really wasn’t feeling up to reading for a few days. When I was finally feeling like I had enough focus to read again, I decided to jump back in with the childhood favorite re-read prompt. It turned out to be an excellent way to ease back into my TBR. After that, I just kept on reading, and finished almost everything on my TBR!

Here’s a recap of my course prompts:

Inscription

O Level: Read a childhood favorite –> An Acceptable Time by Madeline L’Engle — Oof. Well, I remember what I loved about this book (basically the grandparents’ indoor pool is still #goals), but there was also quite a bit of cringe. Just going to shelve this under “did not age well” and moving on….

Lore

O Level: Book with colors similar to my country’s flag –> A Spindle Splintered by Alix Harrow — A nice twist on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. I liked it.

Q Level: Story featuring betrayal –> Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire — Another solid addition to the series. I liked this, but I the ending felt off to me based on the themes in the rest of the book. Or maybe it just ended too abruptly?

D Level: Book with a desert setting –> Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri — Both main characters suffer a lot of really awful abuse throughout most of this book, which was hard to read. But the magic and the world-building was really cool, and once the plot got moving, the second half was great.

Psionics & Divination

O Level: Story featuring time travel –> Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield — This had a lot of similarities to This is How You Lose the Time War, which I didn’t expect. I think TiHYLtTW did it better, but this was good, and if you liked one you might also like the other.

Q Level: Book with the same word in title as your last read –> The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente — I liked this more than I thought I would. It’s an interesting take on the post-apocalyptic genre, and I liked what it had to say (the grass is not always greener and returning to “normal” should not be the obvious and automatic goal) and how it said it (the POV character voice).

I also finished my buddy read quest (She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan, which was excellent). And I finished the morally grey characters quest (Fireheart Tiger by Aliette de Bodard, cool story that felt more like a snippet than a complete novella).

I started The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen, but only got about halfway through it before bed last night. I finished it today, so I can report that I loved this book. But, I can’t count it for the “Amphibian Wranglers” quest (author name starts with B or F) because I technically didn’t finish it before the end of the Readathon. So, I guess it counts toward September, but I’m including it here anyway because you should definitely read it if you like fantasy romance. Especially if you like T. Kingfisher’s fantasy romance books.

Speaking of September… I am putting a few finishing touches on my reading journal set-up and planning to participate in another readathon. More on that tomorrow (probably).

How was your readathon adventure in August? Did you finish your prompts and achieve your calling? Or did you prioritize questing instead?

August Reading Journal Set-Up and Orilium Readathon TBR

~ EMM

It’s time! The Orilium Readathon is back in August for the Autumn Equinox session, which means my August reading journal set-up got done early this month!

If you want the full flip through and discussion of which books ended up on my TBR and why, check out the video linked below.

If you don’t want to watch the video, here’s a sample of what one of my TBR pages looks like:

Originally, I’d planned to finish the rest of the Hugo finalists for best novel and best novella in July and August. Last month, I mentioned that I was going to try to get through some of the novellas in July. However, once I remembered that the Autumn Equinox edition of the Orilium Readathon was coming, I thought it might be better to focus on the best novel finalists and save the novellas for the readathon. I just hoped that I could make them match up with the prompts I needed to complete in order to achieve my Story Weaver calling.

I have six levels across three courses that I need to complete in order to achieve Story Weaver, and I have five novellas and one novel I need to read to complete my Hugo finalist project. I managed to do a pretty good job getting the two aligned, but I did have to add a few non-finalist books to make it work. I think I’ll be able to fit the other two in under one of the readathon quests.

Here’s what I have planned:

  • Inscription
    • O Level: Read a childhood favorite –> An Acceptable Time by Madeline L’Engle — This was the first book that came to mind when I read this prompt. I debated using this one for the time travel prompt, but I don’t want to do two re-reads in a month when I have a lot of other new-to-me books I want to get through.
  • Lore
    • O Level: Book with colors similar to my country’s flag –> A Spindle Splintered by Alix Harrow — This is one of the books I need to read for my Hugo finalist project, and it happened to have red, white, and blue on the cover. So I’m using it for this prompt.
    • Q Level: Story featuring betrayal –> Across the Green Grass Fields by Seanan McGuire — This is another Hugo finalist that I wanted to get onto my TBR this month. I am going off the synopsis for this one, which made it sound like there was a friend betrayal as part of the setup for this story. If I’m wrong, oh well, I need to read it anyway, and I’ll pick something else that better fits this prompt.
    • D Level: Book with a desert setting –> Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri — I have been meaning to read this book for a while. So, when none of the Hugo finalists looked like they’d work for this prompt, I decided to go with this option. I’m pretty confident that I will enjoy it. The only risk is that it will make me want to immediately read the second book, and I don’t have that one on my Kindle (yet).
  • Psionics & Divination
    • O Level: Story featuring time travel –> Alice Payne Arrives by Kate Heartfield — None of the Hugo finalists fit this prompt, and I really REALLY struggled to find something I wanted to read that did fit. I am really picky about time travel books. In general, I don’t like them. The ones I can think of that I like are all more multiverse than time travel (except for An Acceptable Time, oh the irony). I did some browsing and found a few books that I might like to read, but this was the only one that was both short and available at my library. It was not my top choice (that was Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel), but I’m putting my trust in the magic of the Tor.com novella. They haven’t failed me yet. Let’s hope that trend continues.
    • D Level: Book with the same word in title as your last read –> The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente — This one is going to be mostly about timing. In order for this book to work (which I need to read for my Hugo finalist project), I need to read it directly after Across the Green Grass Fields. Yes, I’m using “the” as my same word.

There are also quests that you can get points for in this readathon. I talk about my plans for those more in my set-up video. Based on the first set of open-to-everyone quest prompts, I think I should be able to get points for most, if not all, of the other Hugo finalist books I want to read this month, AND earn some extra points for the Mind Walker guild.

Let me know in the comments if you’re participating in the Orilium Readathon in August and what’s on your TBR.