Outread Aubrey! Challenge discussion

The book that Amazing Grace was based off of (also called Amazing Grace) is really good as well, and it helps to understand the movie better. :) Plus, it has much more of Wilberforce's spiritual journey, which Apted purposely cut out.

Duly noted, Zoe. I'll have to look into that.

*chuckles at Miriam*

I have not ever read so little in such a long stretch of time - not since I learned to read, I don't think. I honestly have read more than one complete book all year! *hangs head* And I don't think I'll have much more time for a few more weeks. I think I'm having withdrawals now. :p

Poor Rebekah! (Pat of sympathy) I hope your schedule clears soon. :)

:( I'm sorry, Rebekah. Are you still writing a lot? But! Will you be able to catch up in a few weeks?

Zoe wrote: "The book that Amazing Grace was based off of (also called Amazing Grace) is really good as well, and it helps to understand the movie better. :) Plus, it has much more of Wilberforce's spiritual jo..."

Who wrote it? I want to read it once I'm done with this book.

Mikayla: It's by Eric Metaxas.

Zoe wrote: "Mikayla: It's by Eric Metaxas."

Thank you!

I am reading Scaramouche (finally). It is quite good so far.

Speaking of Sabatini books, I have read nearly all of his. The later ones were more masterfully written, but I think I liked the plots in his earlier ones best. The neat thing is that all of them were based more or less on real men and historic events!

Hmm, I think reading The Bell Jar when in a fairly precarious mental state was a bad idea. Mainly because I spent the entire thing feeling like my brain had been typed up and printed out in book form for everyone to read and couldn't understand how Sylvia Plath / Esther Greenwood could think like that when I always thought I was the only one who saw things in that way. That was mental.

And now I'm scared that I might be depressed if that's how depressed people think because that is literally my outlook on life. Er....

So now I'm reading The End of Mr. Y.

Hannah wrote: "Speaking of Sabatini books, I have read nearly all of his. The later ones were more masterfully written, but I think I liked the plots in his earlier ones best. The neat thing is that all of them..."
Which are his later ones versus early ones? Which ones would you recommend? I've already read
Captain Blood (have you seen the Errol Flynn movie of that story?) and now I'm working on Scaramouche.

Last day of February! Be sure you've added all the books you've read so far this year to your challenge shelf so you can get credited for them. Bonus points for reading any of my books or, this month only, Grace Pennington's Firmament: Radialloy!

I'm reading Kingdoms Call by Chuck Black.

I'm done Goose Girl, so now I'm going to work my way through Hobbes's Leviathan, since I'm still waiting for Machiavelli and Locke to get in at the library.

Il Prince is excellent, but very long winded

Finished and reviewed Jane's Fame last night. Now I'm going to read Never, and start some more poetry—Byron's Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage.

Mikayla wrote: "I'm reading Kingdoms Call by Chuck Black."

Good book, that.

Hannah wrote: "Poor Rebekah! (Pat of sympathy) I hope your schedule clears soon. :)"

Thanks, Hannah. :)

Aubrey Hansen: ":( I'm sorry, Rebekah. Are you still writing a lot? But! Will you be able to catch up in a few weeks? "

I'm still trying to write a lot. I'm almost done with this book, then I *hoping* that I'll have more reading time while editing. Hopefully I can catch up in March?

Sounds like a plan to me. :D Congrats (a wee bit early) on finishing writing another book! I share your excitement and relief. :)

Leah wrote: "Hannah wrote: "Speaking of Sabatini books, I have read nearly all of his. The later ones were more masterfully written, but I think I liked the plots in his earlier ones best. The neat thing is t..."

Some of his first books, which he termed "the sins of my literary nonage", were from his early, pre-Scaramouche works, and my favorites among those are "The Gates of Doom" and "The Shame of Motley".
From the Scaramouche era, into the 1920s, I particularly loved:
Mistress Wilding
St. Martin's Summer
Fortune's Fool
The Strolling Saint
Bellarion
Bardelys the Magnificent
The Carolinian
The Hounds of God
Captain Blood
...there are more...
Afterward, in the 1930s, his style was still more polished, but in a couple of books it was plain that his characters had mistresses, even though they did marry them in the end; but I never can bond with a book in quite the same way when I don't fully respect the hero.

Thanks for the suggestions, Hannah! I will definitely be looking into those at some point, especially since I can probably get them free on Kindle.

Of late, in addition to finishing the collection of Charles Williams plays (which, among other things, demonstrate that Williams had some very strange ideas) and Imager, the second-to-last of the books we were lent about a month ago, I've found that a couple of Pride and Prejudice fanfics I liked enough to download into my personal ebook collection have been published and are thus listed here, so I've been rereading them to be able to honestly add them to my "Outread Aubrey" "shelf" (as well as for the delight of rereading them, of course).

I just finished "Rim O' The World" by B. M. Bower. It was a really good Western...four stars.

I'm reading the Isle of Arcrea by Nicole Sagar. Its really good so far.

Good morning, everyone! What are you plans for the month of March?

My minimum goal for this month is to get to 45 books; my ideal, challenge-myself-goal is to get to 57, give or take a few, which is approximately 1/3 of my yearly goal of 170. (I have a bizarre reason for that bizarre number, btw...) Note, however, that those totals include manga, which I'm not counting for Outread Aubrey, so don't panic--my Outread Aubrey shelf isn't going to jump from 10 to 57 in one month. ;)

Although it's already up to 13, because I got around to adding some books I'd formatted earlier in the year. Also I've started reading through some of the random stuff I have hiding on my Kindle, like Sanctity of Life, which is a series of articles Katie Daniels republished as an ebook. I'd actually written the foreword for it ages ago and all but forgot about it... so I reread that.

For a longer book, I'm working through Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No, to Take Control of Your Life, which is one of those books where you get a creepy feeling while reading it... a creepy feeling that the author was talking about you specifically when he wrote it... Very helpful. Also I am reminded that I do not read enough nonfic...

By the way, there will be a giveaway for March--it just hasn't been decided yet. ;)

I just started Catch-22 -- loving it so far. I've got two other books on hold at the library (1984 and White Teeth), so I'll be reading those, obviously. Also thinking of working my way through all the books on my shelves that I've been ignoring. But no set number because I've found when I tell myself to read a certain number of books, I end up enjoying it less. So just to read as many books as possible :D

I've also promised a friend I'll read and comment on his novel, so I'll be doing that, which may take up some of my time. And I want to finally finish the book on Medieval England that I've been reading for ages, though I'm keeping it as a 20-pages-a-day kind of thing rather than a proper reading book as it's not the sort of thing you read cover to cover in one go!

I'm basically working my way through our school's reading list. I've improved how many of them I've read, but I guess I still have a way to go...

Aubrey wrote: "Good morning, everyone! What are you plans for the month of March?"

Reread The Far West, as it's the topic for our Mythopoeic Society meeting this Saturday. I'm also rereading The Background of Passion Music (as it's quite short, and I thoroughly enjoyed it the last time I read it). Beyond that, I want to get through a lot of the books I have labeled "TBD" in my LibraryThing catalog, so I can decide to keep them on my physical shelves or get them out of my room. (It'd be nice to finish my read-through of Peter's Angel, but the idea I'll be able to finish that in less than a month looks dubious at best.)

I should mention that if I can keep to my plan (we'll see), my second-annual "Review of Recent Books" post on my blog will be this Saturday, including brief reviews of most of the books I've mentioned reading so far this year.

Y'all are making yourselves nicely occupied. Excellent. :D

(As eager as I am to receive the full of your thoughts on Peter's Angel, Jon, that is, as we've both agreed, not something to be rushed. *smiles*)

I want to finish reading Scaramouche and The Abolitionist, and I'm toying with the idea of tackling Les Misérables this month.

I Love The Abolitionist! I listened to the Radio Drama of Les Miserables and it was rely good.

I'm enjoying "The Abolitionist" so far too! And, yes!, the Radio Drama of Les Mis is awesome.

I've got a stack of library books from a faraway library that I need to read...

Faraway library?

Rochester. They're not part of the SELCO system so they're more difficult to return.

Ahh. I know how that is... *frequents two library systems*

Not impossible though! I just don't want to have to renew them or pay fines on them... I already owe the library about $20 in fines as it is.

Finished Boundaries. It was phenomenal. Exactly what I needed. I highly recommend it: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Now I should really read through this book series (starting with Violet's Hidden Doubts) before they come due. I have the entire series checked out, and some of the volumes have come from faraway libraries, so renewing them or checking them out again later could get complicated...

Aubrey wrote: "Sounds like a plan to me. :D Congrats (a wee bit early) on finishing writing another book! I share your excitement and relief. :)"

Thanks, Aubrey! :)

Finished The Hobbit, but didn't update because I was on a trip to Wisconsin.

Just started Doctor Zhivago.

Hey, hold it! You were on a trip to Wisconsin and didn't visit ME? For shame! ;) *teasing*

*just realized she hasn't been adding nonfiction books* Well, that explains why I haven't been reading as much; I don't count nonfiction. *rolls eyes*

We were on a time-table.
And at the end, it felt like we fell off the edge of the Earth, we were so far North.

I didn't get any reading done, though, unfortunately.

Aubrey wrote: "Hey, hold it! You were on a trip to Wisconsin and didn't visit ME? For shame! ;) *teasing*"

My thoughts exactly!

Ohh, fine. But next time, got that? ;) *still teasing... mostly*

Well, you can definitely count nonfic, Renna, if you read the entire book. Add it!

Read Free Four: Tobias Tells the Story today, which was an interesting little "short story." The author rewrote one of the scenes from her novel in an alternate character's POV and released it as an ebook, which is a nifty idea, I think. Only problem is, it makes me wish for a version of the novel written entirely from Four's perspective... ah well.

I'll be living in Wisconsin for a couple of months. Just.... no car. So, maybe.

Oh, that's right, I think you told me that. Well, message me when you move and maybe we can work something out. :D

Just read The Silver Shawl: A Mrs. Meade Mystery, a quaint little novella by our very own Elisabeth Grace Foley, which I had acquired but regrettably not read until now.

Yeah. It'll be at the end of next January when I go to the school. No visitors, though.

Aw, that could put a damper on things. Ah well. We'll see what happens. :)