I hope you enjoy Red Mars! It is very much hard sci-fi, but I love the ideas it explores with creating a colony on Mars. I will warn though, if you continue the series, there's one scene in Green Mars you will want to skip (I'll see if I can figure out where it is if you get to that one).

@@Coffee_and_a_Book ok thanks

A lot of times I prefer fitting in books as I read them rather than planning them out ahead of time, but that doesn't make for very interesting TBR videos 😆 And I'm starting to think I should have done one book per prompt on my Fall Scavenger Hunt, because I'm already done with the scavenger hunt part 😅 I just need to finish the activities. I forgot about Victober until I filmed my TBR video. I've missed participating in it the last couple of years, so I need to figure out at least one book to read for it. I'm really excited to hear everyone's thoughts on Spurgeon! I've seen so many great quotes by him on IG, and I can only assume a full book of his thoughts will be even better.

I understand forgetting things in a video but it's already edited 🤣 I've done that several times! I've heard a lot of good things about that Amanda Flower series. I need to try Crime and Poetry one of these days. Looking forward to hearing what you think about your October picks!

I hope you do too!

I'm hoping it's good! I need to find the fairy tale it's based on first though 😆

Yes, they're so nice! I know some people don't like them, but I'm a sucker for them.

Oh, that sounds like a very different story from what I had heard. My interest is piqued a bit more now!

That's kind of what it looked like the pronunciation would be, but I wasn't sure. And yes, Gaelic has so many interesting pronunciations!

Thankfully, I don't tend to have problems with a large cast of characters. It's only the characters you see once then they don't show up again for 300 pages that I have problems with. I'm excited to have the Night Trilogy bind up, but yes, very hard stories. I'm nervous to read Day after how hard hitting Dawn was.

@@Coffee_and_a_Book I like Middlemarch♥️ it’s just a town of drama - reminds me of a deeper/ more expanded Cranford by Gaskell 🤗 Elliott’s writing is fantastic.

I'm going to try to get to Gathering Blue this month. If I like it enough, I may try to finish the series by November, so we'll see!

I'm not familiar with the fairy tale. I'll read that before I pick up the book, but I'm excited about Six Crimson Cranes too!

I may try that. I'll probably have to tandem read because I've learned I struggle to picture the characters and locations while listening to audio until I get far enough into the story to know them better. But I'll try to read some more of it at some point to see if I like it any better.

@@Coffee_and_a_Book I immersion read the Antiquary earlier this year and it was perfect!

Thank you! I forgot to look it up after I did my bookshelf tour.

I'd never heard of Twilight. I had to go look that up because all I could think of was the Stephanie Meyer book 😆 Clearly not the same thing! I will have to look for that one after I read Day. I knew there would be some of you that would be happy to see Middlemarch!

​@@Coffee_and_a_BookI've got read it myself but I'm planning on January unless my mood changes.😅

I'm hoping it's good. I mean, it's long enough to pack in a lot of good information, so hopefully it doesn't let me down.

I know, and I wanted to like it. I may try to read more because there's a couple of you who were disappointed by this 😅

It's a very interesting series, and I hope you enjoy it if you do pick it up!

I've heard people say they liked The Letter Tree more than Beyond Ivy Walls, but at this point I'm really starting to think these Christian romance books just aren't for me (or maybe it's just romance in general). That or my expectations are just too high, especially for Christian fiction 🤷‍♀️ I hope you enjoy East of Eden! It can be hard to read, but there's so much depth to it.

@@Coffee_and_a_Book I like romance as a genre, in particular Christian because it's clean. But some are better than others for sure, and I don't personally find Rachel Fordham to be in that number.

If you lived close enough, I would just loan them to you 😆 For me, I think it's worth it. I'll likely re-read at least the first three books (definitely books 2 and 3, but since I don't remember book 1 as well, I'd probably re-read it to). And if you can't get them at the library, I would definitely say it's worth it (especially since you like Agatha Christie so much).

I would agree. I liked the surprise answer at the end (and the epilogue broke my heart 😥), but I didn't feel like the story flowed as well as the others did.

Thank you! Yes, Mere Christianity is one I will be re-reading in the future. I know I didn't get everything out of it the first time. If I re-read East of Eden, it will be a few (or maybe several) years before I do. I can't go through all of that again any time soon 😅

I hope you enjoy them! Murderbot's interactions with one of the new characters in book 3 was a lot of fun to read.

@@Coffee_and_a_BookLooking forward to it! I absolutely loved ART in book 2.

It's definitely not one to read in a hurry. So much to take away from it. It's one I will be re-reading in the future for sure.

It's a great winter read! I probably won't re-read it this December, but I may next year.

I think it gradually went uphill for me through book 3, then book 4 was slightly back downhill as far as my enjoyment. I don't know if I'll like everything about the series, but I'll just take it one book at a time and see how it goes.

Yes! It's the sign of a truly great writer when the characters' choices and lives are so frustrating, detestable, and heartbreaking, but you still leave the story feeling like not all is lost.

I somehow still didn't cry, but oh did it hurt! How can one word wrench your heart like that?

That's a good word for it! And I understand that problem completely 😆

That's awesome! Being an interpreter would be a great job to have. I've watched a few of the Lifeprint videos. He's fun to learn from!

Thanks! It always feels like we don't do as much as other people when it comes to read alouds, but I don't want to read books my kids aren't ready for either. It's no fun for them or me. I just wish there were more books like The Snow Queen! It looks like The Nutcracker is done in the same edition, so I'm hoping they release more over time.

I like speed games, but I'm really not good at them 😅 I've only played Azul once (may buy that one at some point), but I've never heard to Clue Conspiracy. I'll have to look into that one! I tried doing some language learning on Duolingo, but I figured out pretty quick that I need to do that with something else, like an actual book on learning the language or something. Duolingo just doesn't teach the rules, and the rules really help me figure things out until they start to come naturally. It's too bad that Duolingo doesn't offer ASL though. If I knew of a good way to practice ASL with other people, I would happily set something up. I haven't seen Celtic Woman in concert yet, but I've seen Celtic Thunder 3 times (2 of those were on the same tour, just a couple days apart 😆)

@@Coffee_and_a_Book Clue Conspiracy is SO fun! It is somewhat a mix between Clue and Mafia. Yes, I feel like Duolingo is good for basic words and phrases, but not as much for serious language learning. I have briefly checked out Busuu and I like the approach they have so far, but I haven't spent as much time with it yet to know for sure how well it works. I want to try it more though! SO fun!! My parents are huge Celtic Thunder fans as well and I went to a concert with them years ago. Back when George was still in the group. George was my favorite. 💔

@@BonnieNicoleWrites Ooh, now I'm even more intrigued by Clue Conspiracy! I'll have to check out Busuu. I've never heard of that one before. Ryan's my favorite, but I miss George so much 😭 The first concert I went to was Colm's first tour with the group. I'm pretty sure George was still there at all 3 concerts. It was such a shock when he passed.

​@@Coffee_and_a_Book That's so fun you were there for Colm's first tour! It was definitely a shock when George passed. :(

We love Dominion! We have most of the expansions (though only 3 of the boxes are upstairs because we just don't have the room to store all of them on the bookshelf). Yay, another clarinet player! And Japanese seems like it would be such a fun language to learn, though also difficult with having to learn the writing as well. I've heard so many good things about Project Hail Mary, it's definitely one I want to get to. I've heard of Castle Panic and have thought about buying it a few times, but I've never heard of Camel Up. I'll have to check that one out, thanks!

Thanks! If nothing else, my hope was to find other things in common with the people who watch my videos.

I only started liking coffee initially because of the bottled frappuccinos. I bought one on a band trip in high school and really liked it. Then I tried one a few months later and didn't care for it, but I knew I liked it the first time so I kept drinking it until it tasted good 😆 I very much pushed myself to acquire a taste for it, though even now I can only drink it with sugar and creamer. I cannot do black at all!

There's no outright sexual content in any of the ones I mentioned, though Gurren Lagann and Trigun do have what they call "fan service" (which generally means some scantily clad females depicted that way just for the male viewers). Arte, Snow White with the Red Hair, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, and Fairy Tail are all clean (from what I can remember) as far as language and they're lighter on the violence (Fairy Tail's is more fighting with magic too). I would not recommend Fate/Zero for teens as one of the characters is extremely deranged in a violent way. Fate/Stay Night, Afterlost, and Sword Art Online do have more violence in them (Fate/Stay Night especially), though SAO is more along the lines of Fairy Tale as far as there isn't much in the way of blood and gore, but the characters fight with swords and other weapons.

@@Coffee_and_a_Book thank you for this information!

I do too! My immediate family does, but my husband does not. My mother-in-law might, and one of his brother's enjoys some, but most of them don't seem to.

It's such a well-told story, but a very hard read (emotionally speaking). These characters go through so much!

It is, I love it! There's also The Nutcracker in this edition (I discovered it when I was on Amazon to get the link for The Snow Queen), and I'm probably going to get that one in December.

I thought I remembered a fair amount because I have a tendency to think about the signs for words as I listen to music, but then I actually try to sign and my hands don't want to cooperate 😆 I'm really enjoying doing ASL with my kids in school to get me back into practice. I don't know how to make it work, but if you'd want to sign together for practice, I'd be up for that.

I haven't played more than once or twice since 2020. I keep telling myself I'm going to, but then don't. If I had a piano at home, I would definitely play that. I just need to have my husband get an instrument out and play with me so I'm not playing by myself 😅

I also played flute and oboe for half a semester each in college (as part of one of my music major classes). I definitely did better on flute, and I admire anyone who can make oboe sound really good. It sounds so pretty when played well, but not when I play it 😅 If you do pick any of them up again, I'd love to hear you play!

I like them sometimes as a nice break from the harder games, but yes I want games that challenge me too! We recently bought The Lord of the Rings card game, and oh boy, is that game hard (mostly hard to win, but there's also a lot to it).

My husband doesn't play at all, but my family has always enjoyed playing trivia games. I would love to do a trivia night at a restaurant, but I never have enough people living close enough to team up with me.

It's such a good story, and I'm disappointed with what Disney did with it.

I figured you'd be happy to see that one on the list!

Yep, I understand that!

It is! And I just found out The Nutcracker is also available in the same edition, so I may be buying that one this winter.

Wow, what are the odds? But there really is something to be said for getting married at a younger age.