Bookish Bingo Finale, Audiobook Month Finale, & Miscellaneous Updates

Bookish Bingo

This challenge is Bookish Bingo hosted by the ladies at Great Imaginations and changes every three months. This board encompassed April, May, and June. When I participate starting next month, I’ll try to be more focused… or not… I knew I wouldn’t read all the books that I chose for the challenge, but it did a fair job with helping me clear some of these books out the way. I did mange to make BINGO diagonally with the following books.

Dark Contemporary
Unravel by Calia Read
Tiara’s Rating: 2.5 of 5 stars – “Beautifully written for sure. Handled some very sensitive triggers in a way that didn’t make me completely rage. Still left me feeling a bit meh about it, though. HUGE TRIGGER WARNING ON THIS!”

Rain or Storm in Title
Storm Siren by Mary Weber
Rating: 3 of 5 stars – “A story with a great premise and interesting story that was soured for me by the overwhelming romance portion of the story. My full review here!“

Freebie
Absolutely True Lies by Rachel Stuhler
Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars – “I found the main character very likable and the romance well enough until they introduced one element. The ending left me a little WTF about the story because it made it very convoluted and had me asking why would you go through ALL this? My full review here!”

Thieves, Assassins, Pirates
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
Rating: 4 of 5 stars – “This was a very interesting science-fiction/historical fiction/alternate history read that featured characters like Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Hooke as their dabbling, and often feuding, in Natural Philosophy made way for the sciences we know today. A conflicted Puritan and Natural Philosopher is called back to England to help smooth things over with Newton and Gottfried Leibniz.”

Illustrated Cover
The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells
Rating: 5 of 5 stars – “Excellent read! Highly recommended for people looking for something different in the fantasy genre, especially as far as the characters and societal mores are concerned. My full review here!“

June Audiobook Count

As you know (or didn’t know) June was Audiobook Month. Earlier in the month I wrote a post about it as well as my own history with audiobooks.  Coinciding with Audiobook Month was our 2nd Quarter Update for the 2015 Audiobook Challenge. We also talked about some of the new narrators we discovered as a follow up to our original post about our favorite narrators. Also, Wendy interviewed one of our favorite narrators, Simon Vance. Finally, all my reads outside of the ARCs and some comics I read this month were audiobooks, and here’s my final tally. Overall tally for the challenge is 37. I might just make Marathoner for the Audiobook Challenge.

Non-Book Miscellany

Believe it or not, after all these books (and my work-related project), I still had time to do some other things in my spare time that I enjoy. Music is a no brainer. I can pretty much listen to music any time while I’m reading, writing, whatever. I’m just starting S4 of Mad Men. My boss has been trying to get me to watch it for years. We’re super turbonerds in this house, so we like wrestling. I think The Monday Night Wars is one of the most interesting eras in wrestling, and that was the era I really started watching it (late-90’s/early-00’s). Peaky Blinders is a great underrated Netflix show centered around a crime family in 1920s Birmingham, England, starring Cillian Murphy. They’re called the Peaky Blinders because they keep razors stitched in their hats and go for the eyes when they use them. If you were a fan of Boardwalk Empire, as I was, then this will likely be satisfying as well.  Coincidentally, Helen McCrory stars in both Peaky Blinders (Aunt Polly) and this season’s Penny Dreadful (Madame Kali). Lastly, I am slowly playing through The Witcher 3. It’s suffered a bit due to lack of attention because it’s sandwiched between reading, life, and my work stuff. I swear to God, I am going to learn to say “no” to ARCs. I’m almost there, Geralt. Just hold on I’m coming home.

Watching

Listening

Playing

The Witcher 3 (PC)

Let’s see how the next month goes as the summer heats up and we start taking our family trips!