Galaxies and Goddesses: A Sci-Fi & Fantasy Bookcast

Reading Goals Intro
[00:00:00]
Andrea: I am Andrea.
Elizabeth: And I'm Elizabeth.
Andrea: Join us as we chat about sci-fi and fantasy books and beyond
Elizabeth: Looking for a little escape from reality? So are we.
Andrea: Welcome to Galaxies and Goddesses!
Elizabeth: On this week's episode, we'll be checking in on our reading goals for the year and talking about how we set those goals.
Andrea: Along with how we decide what to read and what influences our reading mood.
Elizabeth: Also, let's not forget about checking in on our book Bingo Status.
Andrea: Yes. We'll also talk a little bit about our Galaxies and Goddesses book bingo updates. Let's get started!
Andrea: So, Elizabeth, do you set reading [00:01:00] goals for the year? At the beginning of the year, do you have a number or some sort of a way?
Elizabeth: No. I really don't. My goal is always just gonna be to read as many books as I possibly can.
Andrea: Okay.
Elizabeth: It's always gonna be different from year to year, right? You have like different things going on in your life, opportunities to read. Interest in read, motivation.
Elizabeth: So, you know, just basically my goal is always read as many as I can.
Andrea: That's probably a healthy approach to it, because I feel like when you get into Instagram and the bookstagram world, there's so many people that read like over a hundred books a year, and that just seems so overwhelming and so unachievable to me.
Elizabeth: I've actually only ever done that once in my life, and that was when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda. And that's because I had endless amounts of time to read. I forget how how many I read in a year. It was like, maybe like 110 or something. That's like basically what I was able to do consistently.
Elizabeth: And I read a lot by candlelight. 'cause, you know,
Andrea: Wow.
Elizabeth: on like [00:02:00] electricity was there or it wasn't. If it was there, cool. But if not, I had some nice lamps, but otherwise, if not, then I had like a solar powered lamp that I'd always try to keep charged and then that would run out and then I'd use candles. But that's like. you can do when you, when you don't have electricities, you can read books. And a lot of travel time where I was reading books, but otherwise I've never been able to do that much.
Andrea: Well, I set a goal this year for 36 books.
Elizabeth: How did you get to 36?
Andrea: My logic there, I did have a kind of formula for it, right? Between the book club books and then a personal book of my own, it's about three books a month, right? So if I stay consistent with that, then
Elizabeth: 36.
Andrea: 36.
Andrea: I have three different book clubs, but two of them don't meet every month. So, kind of alternating between those books. And it's still really hard.
Andrea: Sometimes I don't necessarily wanna read the book club book but, but I feel pressure to.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah.
Andrea: [00:03:00] so
Andrea: But I really like being in the book clubs and being exposed to books I wouldn't necessarily pick for myself. And finding out about new books or genres I might not normally read.
Elizabeth: As long as it’s a good book. Sometimes, then when you read the bad books that you had to read for book club, it's like a little infuriating that you'd waste your time on that. You wouldn't have read it anyway. Yeah, yeah.
Elizabeth: I currently am at 31 books this year that I have finished.
Andrea: Oh nice.
Elizabeth: last year and I read 67 the year before that.
Andrea: Oh wow.
Elizabeth: yeah
Andrea: So you do track it. You said you just try to get as many as you can, but you do sound like you track it. How do you track it?
Elizabeth: always done that. I only started to do that a couple years ago. Oh. 'cause a large part of that reason why I got to 67 that year That's right. Is 'cause I had a lot of time. I wasn't working for like half the year, so I had a lot to read. I decided to just kind of start tracking one day.
Elizabeth: That was maybe sort of at the [00:04:00] start of that break in work that I was like, I'm just gonna see how many I read. Is it necessarily a competition between myself and myself?
Elizabeth: I suppose. At this rate, it seems like, could beat last year. Yeah. Do, I try to make that as a goal now. I don't know, we'll see how it goes, but to like not be too hard on myself if it's my own competition. But yeah, if that'd be fun, if I could read more than I did last year.
Andrea: For a long time, I tracked it in this journal that I had from high school where when I finished a book, I would write down the book and my rating on it. I have one outta 10, my personal one to 10 scale. At the end of the year, I'd write down my 10 top memories for the year.
Andrea: Like things I enjoyed. So then I had a little record of the books I read and the things I did that I enjoyed. And that was kind of nice to have for a long time. But then I started getting into Goodreads, and I've had my Goodreads account for a really long time, which is why it's hard to [00:05:00] change to a new system because I kind of, I have this weird loyalty to like, oh, I've, I've been on Goodreads for 10 plus years and I don't wanna lose it.
Andrea: But you can export all the books that you've read and bring that over to other platforms. StoryGraph is another really popular way to track books and you can import your Goodreads list to StoryGraph. So I did that. It has different types of statistics that it shows you and it's not owned by Amazon, which is why a lot of people kind of support StoryGraph, I think.
Elizabeth: Wait, cause Goodreads is owned by Amazon?
Andrea: Yes, yes.
Elizabeth: I didn’t know that.
Andrea: So when you get all the ads that pop up for, oh, buy this book on Amazon,
Elizabeth: Oh yeah.
Andrea: like, that's partly why. Part of the reason Goodreads is so popular is because it has a big network and you get to see what a lot of people are reading and they have some cool features where you can compare books.
Elizabeth: [00:06:00] Sort of an economy of scale.
Andrea: Right.
Elizabeth: If most of the people who use that app, it's hard to switch different one.
Andrea: People say that they're like a mood reader. I'm like, I don't know what the opposite of a mood reader is. Being very methodical maybe? Mood reader versus what?
Elizabeth: Reading a book because you're in the mood for it?
Andrea: Mm-hmm.
Elizabeth: Is that what you're saying?
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: But then often reading similar books within that mood ?
Andrea: Oh, I thought it was like, "I just feel like reading this book and I can't explain why. I like the cover and it feels like that'd be fun to read" versus having a list. “Oh, all these books are on my TBR, but I'm choosing to read something that just, I bought a, the bookstore yesterday because I'm in the mood for it,”
Elizabeth: Sure. Yeah. I feel like there's so much that goes into the book that gets read next in my life though . So I just took a big trip and so then. Traveling with books like, 'cause I never wanna read on a screen. I will absolutely never read on a Kindle or a screen. [00:07:00] Always a book with pages. And I'll always carry the book. I will carry the books. I will pick up new books. I will personally carry the books. So it's easy to take kind of old copies of the travel size, for lack of a better term, kind of mass produced travel size copy of a book, especially if it's really old one.
Elizabeth: And then I don't feel a lot of qualms of just leaving it. So if there's gonna be some travel, then I'll take that kind of a book. Or sometimes if I've like borrowed a book from somebody and they want it back quickly, then you may need to read the book soon. Same with library book. So always trying to read library books first to be able to take 'em back i'm, I've tried to read a lot of those books off of the, I don't know how many times I'm, I'm probably gonna say it every time and on every episode. The New York Times People's Choice Hundred Best Books of the 21st Century as well as the Critics Choice a Hundred Best Books of the 21st Century. 'Cause I have a lot of those books on the shelf and so I'm just trying to focus on a lot of those.
Andrea: This is a perfect episode to talk about that though, because how do you decide to read from that list versus reading something [00:08:00] you were excited to find at a little free library?
Elizabeth: Well, sometimes I throw those in there too.
Elizabeth: Because reading this list, especially the People's Choice list, there are so many books that I have read on that list and the ones that are on that list are all really good books. Like I agree with every single one of them. So then it's like, well, these other books must be good too. And it's absolutely playing out.
Elizabeth: Currently I'm reading Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. That was maybe on both of the lists actually. And then it was turned into that show on Hulu that came out recently. The subtitle is Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. and it's about the Troubles and the IRA and Jerry Adams and Dolores Price and her sister Marian Price. And they went on a Hunger Strike and, oh my gosh. It's just such a great show. This book has been on my radar for a while. I think I originally saw it on a staff pick shelf in Ouray, Colorado, like tiny, [00:09:00] little mountain town, cute little independent bookstore and I was like, "that looks really interesting".
Elizabeth: This is before I then proceeded to move to Ireland and live in Ireland for a year and a half. And now I'm back from Ireland. So then the show was really good and then it's on these lists and it's like, oh my God. So I just borrowed it from a friend, actually here in town.
Elizabeth: And I think she needs it back 'cause she's can give it to her mom. And so it's like, well I have to read it now. And oh my gosh, it's so good. And like, I've been to Belfast a couple of times. I know the city pretty well. I've taken the black taxi tour around Belfast. And yeah, it's written so well nonfiction, but sometimes there's nonfiction that is written just like fiction and often make a really good book. And it's one of those, yeah, so .
Elizabeth: All of the other books on that list because I keep trying to knock 'em off and everyone that I'm reading recently, they're all good. Bel Canto by Anne Patchett. I'm a little disappointed in the epilogue. There shouldn't have been an epilogue. That's all I'll say. If you could just like read it and then don't read the epilogue.
Andrea: Did it change like the way the whole book was?
Elizabeth: It’s just kind of smarmy [00:10:00] it.
Elizabeth: It would've ended really well if it had just ended in no epilogue. ,
Andrea: I thought she republished it recently or like there was a version. Yeah, I feel like there was something special about Bel Canto. There's an annotated edition I guess that came out recently.
Elizabeth: Yeah, so I read that recently. Excellent. So another off of maybe both lists.
Elizabeth: I'm eyeing the Wolf Hall trilogy by Hillary Mantel. Off of both of those lists,
Andrea: I think I have Wolf Hall. I haven't read it. So there, there's a lot of books that I was supposed to read that for book club and then never got.
Elizabeth: Oops.
Andrea: That does influence my reading. If I know based on the book club date that I can't go I become less likely to read that book, even if I bought the book intending to read it.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: I track stuff on Goodreads and StoryGraph. I also started trying out Fable. It's a little bit like they're trying to get people to read more on their phones and like have a book club on your phone, which I'm not really into, so I'm just tracking it for [00:11:00] fun on there.
Andrea: But then I feel like it becomes this chore to track it in all these different places. So I have a folder on my phone for tracking all of the books I'm reading with Goodreads and StoryGraph and Fable. And then I have an actual journal that I bought two years ago that has space for a hundred books that you can write the name of the book and then you write how you heard about it and your favorite quote and some things about it.
Andrea: It's actually called My Reading Life and it doesn't have an author because it's a journal, but it was created by Anne Bogle and she has like her own podcast called “What Should I Read Next?” I like the journal because it had a lot of motivational quotes and lists.
Andrea: So it's like, oh, if you wanna read a mystery here's a list of books that fit that genre. I'd maybe read one book off of each of these lists. So I'm like, okay, that's kind of cool. It gives you other ideas of what to read without having to go [00:12:00] online and search for it.
Andrea: I'm a little bit over halfway through the hundred and I know I'm gonna finish it at some point , so I was looking into other reading trackers and I came across this really cute company on Instagram. It's called the Book Sisters. And we have a promo code. It's our first promo code.
Andrea: So if you buy something from the book-sisters.com and you use the promo code, GALAXY15, that's G A-L-A-X-Y 15, GALAXY15, then you will get 15% off your entire order. And it's good for one month after this episode airs, which is kind of exciting. I haven't bought anything from them yet, but they looked really cute and I know I'm gonna need a new tracker at some point.
Andrea: So I will probably use the code myself. I thought that was cool that [00:13:00] we could share this shop. They're on Instagram @thebooksistershop, and then they're also on Instagram as the caffeinated book sisters. So I hope people go and check them out! They have some really cute items on their shop with trackers and reading journals and stickers.
Elizabeth: Cool.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I have been just keeping a list on my Google Drive and that's it. That's where I started it a few years ago.
Andrea: You had a color system, right? You had red and black.
Elizabeth: That's a different list.
Elizabeth: yeah, so I have the list of like, the books that I've read, and then I have the list of book recommendations. It all kind of started when, I was in school and one of like the secretary, administrative person, we talked a bunch about books and at one point she was like you should give me a list like of what books you would recommend to somebody.
Elizabeth: And I was like, okay, sure. So then I went and asked my sister and my mom. We were sitting down, it was like, Thanksgiving, we were just hanging out, you know, on our holiday and just like, all right. I've had my computer out, ready to start typing [00:14:00] book titles. Just go, just like start yelling out good book titles.
Elizabeth: And I started writing 'em down. Many of which were ones that I had already read as well and agreed. Some they maybe said if I had read them and was like, eh, maybe I didn't necessarily include it. Or, I've also included books of my own that I've added to the list. Some of the books I haven't read at all.
Elizabeth: And that was the color system. So the color system is if they're in red on this one list and I haven't read 'em yet. As I read them over time, sometimes those are books too. That'll be like, oh, that's a title that's on my shelf, that's on this list that I should read. You know, random times that those books would come up too.
Elizabeth: sometimes if I read it and I'm like, eh, it was kinda lame, then I'll just remove it from the list.
Elizabeth: But then you have, given me some titles as well. So I've added those to the list, including the same system of if they're in red, I haven't read them yet. Yeah, it's a good list actually.
Elizabeth: I think. Split it up into fiction and nonfiction. Within the fiction, like young adult versus science fiction fantasy. Totally Say Nothing will immediately be going on that list under the nonfiction section. It's like fantastic, fantastic book. Really good show. And they're different enough.
Elizabeth: The [00:15:00] show kind of gets into some parts of the book that are not really discussed in tons of detail, but they make for really good television. At one point the Price Sisters like. One of the IRA members was in jail, and he gets sick and they have to take him to the hospital, so they bust him out of the hospital. It's maybe barely even a couple of sentences or a paragraph or something in the book, but they turn it into a big sequence and it's great in the show. But then the book goes into so much more of Northern Irish history, Irish history, British Irish relations. That you don't get in the show as much, yeah, it's great.
Elizabeth: So I just have these lists in my Google Drive of the lists the books I've read and the books that I would recommend.
Andrea: Well, I think the next topic is Galaxies and Goddesses Book Bingo.
Andrea: It's on Instagram and you can print out the image.
Elizabeth: It has to be since May 23rd?
Andrea: May 23rd. Yes.
Elizabeth: It's always gonna count , the day that you finish the book. Right.
Andrea: correct.
Elizabeth: Oh, you only get to use one title per, don't you?
Andrea: [00:16:00] Yes.
Andrea: Sometimes it's not just what I'm in the mood for, but what can I read that will check off a box on something like Summer Book Bingo.
Andrea: So, Seattle Public Library and our Galaxies and Goddesses book Bingo both have "Has flowers on the cover". That was just a coincidence. I didn't know they were gonna have that on theirs, but it's also on ours. If there's a lot that could fill that one.
Elizabeth: Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. . I just recently read, I bought this to support the Ukrainian military. They had this funny little book sale in Lutsk, this one weekend, and they had some books in English.
Elizabeth: Anyway, I've zipped through this pretty quickly. Yeah. November nine.
Andrea: Colleen Hoover
Elizabeth: yeah. . That's first person point of view.
Andrea: So right now I only have three books filled in for my book Bingo in two different directions. So I need at least three more books, which I think I'll, I'll get that done in the next month or two.
Andrea: For Epistolary novel, that's what I use The Moonday Letters for. The other book I've read recently was Rachel [00:17:00] Gilligs new book, The Knight and The Moth. I put that for published this year. And then. I recently read The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches, by Sangu Mandanna. I've used that for the witches or warlocks square.
Andrea: Which I was just thinking that witches or warlocks being like a female versus male magic user, but apparently warlocks has a negative connotation, like it's an evil male magic user, and I didn't intend that. Like warlocks are inherently evil and I didn't know that when I made it.
Elizabeth: and only male wielders of magic?
Andrea: yes. Whereas witches could be good or bad, but warlocks are just bad men, apparently. Yeah. So otherwise they would be a wizard. Like a warlock or a wizard. Maybe it depends on the specific author’s [00:18:00] world building, but that's kind of the general take is that
Elizabeth: oh.
Andrea: Yeah, warlocks are evil. Wizards are not necessarily evil, but also men. So
Elizabeth: But can be evil.
Andrea: You could have an evil wizard. Yes.
Elizabeth: Hmm. All right. Little bit of fantasy semantics.
Andrea: Maybe it's just a little bit of a tangent. Sorry. But I mean, if I wanted to be more accurate, maybe it should have been "witches or wizards" instead of "witches or warlocks". So they could both be ambiguously morally gray.
Elizabeth: Hmm,
Andrea: that would've been a better, more accurate title for that box with what I intended.
Andrea: That's okay.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Elizabeth: So I recently read it wasn't that great, but where did I even get it? I think maybe the book sale at Fort Missoula. I bought this old copy, travel size mass produced copy of All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. Their book about their investigation while they worked to the [00:19:00] Washington Post . I saw it maybe last year. Yeah. Last fall at the sale. And it was like, yeah, okay, sure. Just thinking about no man is above the law, including the President.
Elizabeth: And another time in our history, not all that long ago that when that happened again. Anyway, I read it and it's kind of dense and there's just so many names and it's hard to keep track of all the names of all the people that are involved and oh my gosh. But it was, I suppose in its own slight way interesting read . Nonfiction obviously. I totally read that outside. I read that on the Polish border. So I recently went to Ukraine, war torn western Ukraine, to go see my friend's wedding, and it was really fun and I had a great time. Anyway, on the way back I was reading that book and I was standing outside at the Polish border, waiting to get back on the bus .
Andrea: That's a very memorable, like I was reading this book and this place outside.
Elizabeth: Yeah,
Andrea: Very strong memory.
Elizabeth: Standing up actually it also happened very recently, So these are all books since May 23rd.
Elizabeth: I also recently read How To Read a [00:20:00] Book. It was actually while I was in Seattle. My sister brought it with her. It's got a cute, cozy little cover. You love the cover.
Andrea: Is it a novella? Is it short?
Elizabeth: No, I wouldn't call it short.
Andrea: Honestly, I was thinking that might be a good way to check off more of these boxes is just to read a bunch of novellas.
Elizabeth: Ooh, I could do that one. Read with a friend. Well, my sister, she counts as a friend, right? I'm friendly.
Andrea: Yeah.
Elizabeth: with my sister. Okay. So I could count How to Read a Book 'cause she read it and then I read it immediately after her. And then Moonday Letters could be epistolary novel. All The President's Men read outside.
Andrea: It sounds like you're making progress, you're also not quite there. Maybe the next couple months, we'll do a wrap up episode of a bingo and maybe we'll both have a bingo by then.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: That'll be the goal.
Andrea: I mentioned that I read The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches and the main character's name is Mika Moon. So I thought it could fit with [00:21:00] our moon theme. And it was really cute. It's like a cozy fantasy that takes place in England.
Andrea: Maybe not our next read, but we'll read it definitely at some point in the future.
Andrea: Going back to that New York Times Best 100 books of the 21st Century they did have that interactive online list where you could.
Elizabeth: Oh, yeah yeah yea.
Andrea: Check off how many you had, we went through that a while ago, but I was impressed that you had read 22 of that 100 best.
Andrea: I mean, that's pretty good. You've probably increased that by now.
Elizabeth: This website was just for the Critic's Choice, but not for the Reader's Choice. I went back and looked at it.
Elizabeth: Actually I think it's on Instagram that I sent the Instagram page to you. It was posted on 7/28 of 24. Okay. Yeah, gimme one second. I've read 56.
Andrea: I also went through it and I've read 20. 20 of the Reader's Choice.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: You've more than doubled me, but I think it's because I read [00:22:00] more specifically fantasy and sci-fi and I think you read a little bit more of the
Elizabeth: of like
Andrea: general.
Elizabeth: the other things.
Andrea: General, yes. All of the other things that's my defense.
Elizabeth: The Fifth Season is on here,
Andrea: Yes.
Elizabeth: Thanks to you for sending it to me in the mail.
Andrea: Station 11 by
Elizabeth: Harry
Andrea: St. John Mendel.
Elizabeth: One
Andrea: Circe by Madeline Miller is on here.
Elizabeth: of Achilles,
Andrea: I've read some of the generally well-known ones, like Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus.
Elizabeth: I just gave you Pachinko by Min Jin Lee and Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides you to read at some point. You know, so like books that you'll get to eventually.
Elizabeth: Yes.
Elizabeth: Every single one of these books that I have read on list are fantastic. I'm looking at now number 15, The Road. That book was it's very gray. I dunno if I'd call that one. Fantastic. Okay, so maybe not every single one of them, however, most of the ones that are on here.
Andrea: Most of them.
Elizabeth: Yeah. 'cause then Say Nothing is number 29 on this list. ' I think the [00:23:00] last time you could check since you have the New York Times, account, you could open up that list. the Critic's Choice, and see if Bel Canto and Middlesex are on that list, and then if that's the case, then yeah, you know, it says I've read 22, then that would be, now I've read 24.
Andrea: And I just wanna, I guess, add to this that I enjoy tracking because I like data and I like the organization of all these things. It's not meant to make anyone feel pressure to read more. It's just personally enjoy it. Right.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: Almost like a gamification of like, oh, how many challenges can we do? How many little stickers can I get? It's just meant to be fun and not be any extra pressure.
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Andrea: all in good fun.
Elizabeth: For sure. Well, and to know for myself that for the most part, the books that are on those lists are very good books. So using that as a great way to also sort of guide my own reading, I. Oh yeah. 'cause I'm looking, Exit West is on the Critic's Choice List, but it's not on the Reader's Choice List.
Elizabeth: And that [00:24:00] I would disagree with. Exit West is an excellent book. It's such a good book that deserves to be on the Reader's Choice List. They just haven't read it. It's funny that these lists are slightly different. On my shelf I have A Brief History of Seven Killings by Martin Jones. I think that's on that Critic's Choice List, but not on the Reader's Choice List.
Andrea: Thank you for sharing all of your nerdy reading stats with me, Elizabeth, and all of our listeners.
Elizabeth: I don't think I could set the entire goal of reading that entire list by the end of the year. But if I were to make goals, if I were more of the goal type setting person, that is a great place to start. Maybe I could set the goal to like, of all the ones that I have on my shelf to read all of those by the end of the year.
Andrea: Or even reading every other book that you read is from that list. That way you're chipping away at it, but you still get to read other books for variety or books that people recommend.
Elizabeth: for sure.
Elizabeth: That's what I've been doing, honestly. The last book off that list was Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and that was a couple weeks ago. And then I've read a couple more books [00:25:00] since then. Yeah, traveling and got to read, you know, like four books in the last two weeks is great. And so yeah. So then now back to that list and, also 'cause I gotta get this book back to my friend. So it's great all sorts of reasons to pressure me to read this book and it's fantastic. Oh, again, oh my gosh.
Elizabeth: Unfortunately that concludes this week's episode. We've reached the end of another cosmic journey on Galaxies and Goddesses.
Andrea: Don't worry, the adventure never. Really ends. There are always more stories to explore and let's be honest, more bookish tangents for us to go on.
Elizabeth: But hey, that's part of the fun. If love today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave, review, and use our promo code GALAXY15 at book-sisters.com for a 15% discount on your order. And that is GALAXY all caps 15.
Andrea: Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll be discussing When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi.
Elizabeth: And in the meantime, keep your mind fueled by the magic of stories.
Andrea: And never stop chasing the world's waiting for you between the pages. Thanks everyone!
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