6
votes
Tildes Book Club - How is it going with A House With Good Bones?
I'm going to finish this weekend. We will discuss in the second half of next week.
I'm going to finish this weekend. We will discuss in the second half of next week.
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I have a platelet donation scheduled for tomorrow. The donation takes about two hours, during which time I can't use either of my arms.
The chairs have TVs mounted in front of them and you can watch Netflix while donating, but I don't love watching something unless I'm exercising. So, this time I'm going to try reading!
I bought a tablet arm mount to hold my ereader, and a page-turner ring that'll let me click through pages wirelessly.
There's a chance I won't be able to use it. My donation site is pretty strict about protocols (this is a good thing!) so they might veto using the tablet mount. I'm hoping they let me use it though, as that means I'll get two full, uninterrupted hours to kick off A House with Good Bones tomorrow.
I can't check my phone even if I want to because I'm literally not allowed to move my arms, so it's the ideal environment to immerse my brain into a book! Honestly, if they allow me to do my reading setup, I'll probably donate platelets more often.
Also, I intended to finish People's Future but petered out after 16 stories. There's a part of me that thinks I'll still go back to it despite not picking it up in over two weeks. After all, that's one advantage of short story anthologies -- you can pause them and not lose out like you do with other books. I don't like leaving things unfinished, and I did genuinely like some of the stories in it, so it feels worth returning to.
On the other hand, there's a part of me that says that if I haven't felt compelled to pick it up in two weeks, then it's time to move on and read something I actually do want to read. I have some travel coming up soon which should give me some more uninterrupted reading time, so I might finish it off then, either in one go or by reading a story or two in between other things.
Update: I am now halfway through the book! The platelet donation site was fine with my ereader setup.
The person who did my intake is the manager of the place and she was mostly just curious about how it worked, so I showed her how I could turn pages using the ring and didn't have to be holding the ereader. She double checked the mount to make sure it was secure and wouldn't fall on me or anything. Then I had two hours to just sit and read.
The only issue I had was that my text size was a touch too small for my liking given that the device is further from my face than normal, but next time I'll know to increase the font size before I get locked in.
After the donation, while I was enjoying my complimentary snacks, another donor who was in a chair a few away from me also asked me about the setup. I ran through the same show-and-tell, and he seemed excited to get one for his next donation.
All told it went great, and this makes me even more eager to donate platelets. Reading made the time go by MUCH quicker than Netflix.
Was the ring scroll process smooth? I've seen those and have considered it but also wasn't sure how well they worked
I bought two of them.
The first one was this model. It worked, but I think it did so by simulating a touch on the screen. As such, a visible cursor would slide across the screen each time I turned the page which I found distracting and did not like.
I then bought a different one. The Amazon listing for the one I bought no longer exists, but I found a similar (probably the same) one on Amazon.ca just so you can see what it looks like. This one works perfectly. Forward and back turn pages seamlessly and as expected. No annoying cursor.
I intended to return the original ring I bought, but now I literally can't find it so, lesson learned: keep track of these things!
Also, I originally wanted the ring just for platelet donations, but I've started using it with my regular reading and genuinely love it. I lie down, plop my ereader on a tablet pillow on my stomach, then put my arms wherever they feel most comfortable in that moment. At my sides? Behind my head? Petting my dog? All valid options! I genuinely didn't realize how much more comfortable and freeing it is to not have to hold the ereader.
The only downsides are:
I'll qualify all of the above with letting you know that my ereader setup is quite unusual. I'm using a BOOX Page with the BookFusion app which is why I had to gamble a bit on which rings would work with my device in the first place (reviews are almost entirely for Kindle devices). I definitely recommend checking reviews or the subreddit for your specific hardware/software to see if you can narrow down which ones will work well with it.
Overall though, I enthusiastically recommend it! I talked about it with some fellow readers I work with and got lots of "oh my gosh that sounds amazing" and "I'm buying one right now" type comments.
I don't have a separate e-reader currently, just my phone but I was actually thinking about it just for situations where my hands are full or I have my earbuds in for noise cancelling and want to control things without pulling my phone out, etc. I'm thinking about knitting while reading, even on my computer, and not needing to turn pages.
Tiktok advertises them for scrolling too which is where I'd seen them first.
But I appreciate the rundown, it helps me get a sense of what might be effective for me!
Ah, I think you're in luck then! Most seem to be designed for phones first.
We finished it on a mini road trip on Tuesday. Really enjoyed the humor and the characterization. Looking forward to the discussion!
I'm pretty close to done. I wasn't sure how well I'd be able to tolerate the horror, but I've found the parts that have made me feel tense haven't been too bad and have passed quickly enough that I've been able to keep focus on the story.
This read must be close to the most in-sync I've been with a book club read schedule. Most I end up reading super early or super late.
I'm gonna skip this one, I don't like horror in general and I found A Sorceress Comes to Call unbelievably boring so I'm especially not super eager to read more T. Kingfisher horror
(and also my tbr is crazy long atm)
in reparation for my skipping this book, I will offer the recommendation of A Song of Legends Lost by M.H. Ayinde which I read this week and is almost certainly gonna be one of my 5 favorite books of the year and also my favorite debut. Incredible new epic fantasy
My hero. I'm also skipping this book, but I didn't have an alternative lined up. Gonna give A Song of Legends Lost a shot!
oooh yay I hope you love it!!! I've been gushing about this book to everyone for the past week!!!
I'm 58% through. So far I'm finding the story pretty straight-forward and the horror pretty tame. Major mom energy for sure (don't mean that as a bad thing). Hoping for at least one good twist.
My partner and I read this one and have finished it! Looking forward to the discussion, I haven't participated before.
Welcome. Let me know if you want to be added to the ping list for future nomination and voting, schedule reminders, book discussions etc.
My partner is already on the ping list so no need :)
I am on chapter 4. The reason that I am behind is that I had a chaotic weekend with family visiting and being out for most of the weekend. But I will get it done in time for the discussion.
Just started it tonight during a lull at the wedding and am at chapter four. So far the horror has yet to really kick in, but it seems like there will be a good balance of humor at least. I'm getting a kick out of some of the internal monologue so far, so I'm already enjoying it!
I finished it last week and enjoyed the story! I needed a light palette cleanser after some of the heavy books we have read recently.