The Book Vipers discussion

Latest Update:

Memoir Or Biography - Sean Yates: It's All About the Bike: My Autobiography - Sean Yates READ
A Book Received As A Present - The Time Keeper - Mitch Albom READ
Science Fiction Or Fact - Bad Pharma - Ben Goldacre READ
Free Choice - Wait: The Art and Science of Delay - Frank Partnoy READ
A Book Of Poems - Dart - Alice Oswald READ
Your Favourite Genre - Silt Road: The Story of a Lost River by Charles Rangeley-Wilson READ
A Travel Book - Journey Into Cyprus - Colin Thubron READ
A Book Still On Your Shelf After 10 Years - The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker
Richard And Judy Recommended This One! - The Girl who fell From the Sky - Simon Mawer READ
A Classic - The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham READ
Non Fiction - Scarp: In Search of London's Outer Limits - Nick Papadimitriou READ
An Award Winner - Dark Eden - Chris Beckett READ
Free Choice - Move Along, Please: Land's End to John O'Groats by Local Bus - Mark Mason READ
History: Novel Or Non Fiction - The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Alison Weir READ
The Author Shares Your Name - The Beating of His Wings by Paul Hoffman
A Bestseller - A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini READ
Translated Into English - Consolations of the Forest - Sylvain Tesson READ
A Genre You Avoid - The Sea Change - Joanna Rossiter READ
A Friends Recommendation Stoner by John Edward Williams READ
A New Author - Ecko Rising by Danie Ware READ
A Book Picked Because Of The Cover - Holloway by Robert Macfarlane READ
Free Choice - Four Fields by Tim Dee READ
A Book From A Small Publisher - The Lives of Tao - Wesley Chu READ
An Old Favourite - Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
Crime: Novel Or True Crime - The Mafia: The First 100 Years by William Balsamo

Wow, you're doing well! I keep getting sidetracked by books that aren't on my magic square...

Me too Aisling

Aisling wrote: "Wow, you're doing well! I keep getting sidetracked by books that aren't on my magic square..."

Thanks Aisling. I get very distracted by other books!

Yeah I get easily distract.....oooh a butterfly....

Have completed my original challenge. Decided to go onto full square. Wish me luck....8 books to go!

Good luck and hope you don't get too many distractions.

Go for it Pat

Good luck Pat!

Haha Jason

21 down, 4 to go...

✔✔✔✔✔
✔✔✔✔✔
✔✔✔-✔
✔--✔✔
✔✔-✔✔

✔(Mem/Bio) The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
✔(Present) Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger By Ken Perenyi
✔(SciFi) Scarlet By Marissa Meyer
✔(Free Choice) How to Eat a Cupcake by Meg Donohue
✔(Poems) Old Possum's Tale of Practical Cats By T.S. Eliot
✔(Fave Genre) Divergent by Veronica Roth
✔(Travel) Angelina Jolie’s: Notes From My Travels By Angelina Jolie
✔(On Shelf After 10 Years) Motherless Daughters By Hope Edelman
✔(R&J Recommended) The Fault in Our Stars By John Green
✔(Classic) To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee
✔(Non Fiction) A Year of Biblical Womanhood By Rachel Held Evans
✔(Award Winner) The Giver By Lois Lowry
✔(Free Choice) Angelology By Danielle Trussoni
(History/NF) Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII By David Starkey
✔(Author Shares Name) Trail of Crumbs By Kim Sunee
✔(Bestseller) The One and Only Ivan By Katherine Applegate
(Translated Into English) The Solitude of Prime Numbers By Paolo Giordano
(Genre Avoid-Politics) Liberty and Tyranny By Mark Levin
✔(Friend Recommended) The Red Tent By Anita Diamant
✔(New Author) A Life in Men By Gina Frangello
✔(Like Cover) Hollow City By Ransom Riggs
✔(Free Choice) The Bells By Richard Harvell
(Small Pub) Cobweb Bride By Vera Nazarian
✔(Old Fave) Charlotte’s Web By E. B. White
✔(Crime Novel) Guilt By Association By Marcia Clark

Well done Kim

Paul wrote: "Well done Kim"

Thanks, Paul!

Finished the challenge last night. My final list was:

Memoir or Biog: Shackleton: The Antarctic Challenge
Received as present: The Daylight Gate
Science Fiction or Fact: The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
Free Choice: The Dumas Club
Poems: Beowulf: An Illustrated Edition
Fave Genre: Sacred Treason
Travel Book: South Col: One Man's Adventure on the Ascent of Everest 1953
Still on shelf after 10 yrs unread: Fat Hen
R&J recommended: The Never List
A Classic: Catch-22
Non-fiction: Walden
An Award Winner: Pure
Free Choice: The Lost Ships of Robert Ballard: An Unforgettable Underwater Tour by the World's Leading Deep-Sea Explorer
History novel or non-fiction: The Immortal Dinner: A Famous Evening of Genius and Laughter in Literary London, 1817
Author shares name: To Kill a Mockingbird
A Bestseller: The Sword Of Shannara
Translated into English: Crime and Punishment
A Genre you Avoid: Coming Home for Christmas
A Friend's recommendation: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
A New Author: Wilderness
Picked because of Cover: The Thirteenth Tale
Free Choice: The English Civil War At First Hand
Small Publisher: The Small Hand
An Old favourite: Our Man in Havana
Crime Novel or True Crime: Jar City

Well done Catherine!

Thank you Cathy :)

Well done Catherine!

Well done Catherine, which was your favourite book from the list?

Brilliant well done

I have four to go.

Thank you guys.:)

Jason I'm going to have to be boring and say it was my old favourite choice. But of all the others which were new reads to me, I'd say it was the new author choice.

166 people are doing this challenge. Good luck to everyone still reading. :D Well done to everyone who has finished and Ra ra ra to everyone who with 5 or less books to read, has the end in their sights!

Would appreciate some feedback on the challenges that we have run this year. Comments can be posted here

I'll try this, just to see how many squares I could fill:

Memoir or Biography - Madame: Minna Craucherin levoton elämä ("Minna Craucher's restless life")
Favourite Genre - Kellari ("Cellar", historical mystery, my favourite light reading)
Non-Fiction - Mannerheimin kuriiri - Kirill Pushkareffin arvoituksellinen elämä ("Mannerheim's courier - Kirill Pushkareff's mysterious life")
Best seller - Outlander
Book picked because of cover - (not only because of the cover, though)
Book received as present - ??? (Does BookCrossing books count? :-P)
Travel book - Compartment No. 6
Award winner - Not Before Sundown
Translated into English - Arsène Lupin in the Teeth of the Tiger
Free Choice - Apteeker Melchior ja Oleviste mõistatus ("Apothecary Melchior and the mystery of St. Olaf's Church")
Science Fiction/Fact - Nope...
Book still on shelf for 10 years - The Picture of Dorian Gray (Almost anyway...)
Free choice - There Were Many Horses
Genre You Avoid - Can You Keep a Secret? (chick lit, not finished yet)
Book from a small publisher - The Rabbit Back Literature Society (I think...)
Free choice - Whose Body?
Richard & Judy recommendation - No idea...
History novel/non-fiction - Totuus Virosta, Latviasta ja Liettuasta (The Truth about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania)
Friend's Recommendation - Myöhempien aikojen pyhiä ("Latter Day Saints", sort of...)
Old Favourite - Tiina etsii juuriaan ("Tiina looks for her roots")
Book of poems - ???
Classic - The Phantom of the Opera
Author shares your name - ?
New author - Nälkävuosi (I think...)
Crime novel/true crime - First Cut

Well, 16-17, not bad I guess. Most of the books have been translated to or from some language, so...

Richard and Judy are talk show hosts who also run a book club. their website is here: http://richardandjudy.whsmith.co.uk and there is another book list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...
Authors called Derek : http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/sea...

I am doing this challenge and must spend some time checking off the books I have read. I am, however, having a problem finding something written by an author with the same name...any suggestions?

try these Gail: http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/sea...

Hi Derek I read The Universe Versus Alex Woods from their list, it was really good.

Hmm.. I had my reading planned for this year already and it didn't include a travel book (and I really shouldn't start a longer one now). But I had to return some library books and there was one by Olavi Paavolainen available that I have been meaning to read for years. Or it's more like a collection of essays and a travel journal combined, about Germany in 1936, where he also witnessed the Nürnberg Rally. It does look very interesting.

It would fit into my "theme" this year: I've already read a biography about his one-time mistress, who also blackmailed him and was later murdered, a prison diary of one of his older female friends (or was she more than that?), a well-known playwright and a successful businesswoman, later also his boss, when she was sentenced for treason during the war (a trailer for the movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MHFX...), and two books by his (former?) friend and a colleague in the propaganda department during the wars (one of the characters in the novel was based on the blackmailer).

Small circles... You start reading one book and end up reading a few more. I could even list more people and books, both biographies and novels, connected to them.

My reading planning goes out the window every time I walk in a library Tytti

Tytti, that's what I love about reading, especially biography and history - that it leads you onto other, interconnected, paths. And I really like it when 'real' characters pop up in fiction too. I just read Life After Life for this challenge, in which Hitler and Eva Braun feature, and history is rewritten (or possibly not, depending how you read the book).
I don't think any of us will ever get to the end of our TBR lists!

Can anyone explain the magic square theory to me? Sorry, I'm a newbie

Cathy, I'm not actually a fan of real people in fiction, unless they are minor characters or somehow very well written. That Minna Craucher was just so "different" and known by many authors that she was used as an inspriration. Though not as a real person, just a character with a different name. For some reason even Time wrote about her murder at the time: http://content.time.com/time/magazine... (It's very unlikely that she ever was a spy, it was just one of her stories... She actually started her "career" as a prostitute and/or a thief.) The "boss lady", Hella Wuolijoki appears also in Professor Martens' Departure. I actually also found one of her books from the library swap cart.

That whole era is just so interesting and complicated, in the book about Kirill Pushkareff the author also mentions Sidney Reilly's death. Then again, my great-uncle would have been asked if he wanted to do the same, to cross the Soviet border in secret and do some spying for NATO (because they didn't have better ways to do it yet and we had men with experience), if he hadn't been injured badly and lost limbs at the end of the war. One of his friends did it and got paid well. It's funny to read a book and then see you own home village or nearby small town mentioned as a meeting place for spies. One actually lived there and used his business as a cover. But I digress, again...

Dora, Dora is about the visit that Albert Speer did to Lapland during the Christmas 1943, I don't really know how I liked that book, even though I guess much of it is true, I just don't know exactly what.

Paul, mine went even before that, mainly because of this MS. :-P

Seraphina, maybe someone who speaks English as the first language will, it's easier that way...

Me too Paul.

Seraphina wrote: "Can anyone explain the magic square theory to me? Sorry, I'm a newbie"

This is the challenge that people are talking about Seraphina:

https://www.goodreads.com/challenges/...

Thanks Paul :)

I've got four squares left to do - I've done my magic square as a spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/...

(I still have to catalogue some of them and also tag them with 'magic square challenge')

Oh, and I included some books I'd read earlier this year, before I'd heard about this challenge - I assumed it's okay so long as I've read them this year? If not, I can change them.

Ice one Gail. So close to the end.

Gail wrote: Oh, and I included some books I'd read earlier this year, before I'd heard about this challenge - I assumed it's okay so long as I've read them this year? If not, I can change them. ..."

That is fine Gail

3 left

3 to go and I had to change 2 choices or I would never make it.


✔(Mem/Bio) The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
✔(Present) Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger By Ken Perenyi
✔(SciFi) Scarlet By Marissa Meyer
✔(Free Choice) How to Eat a Cupcake by Meg Donohue
✔(Poems) Old Possum's Tale of Practical Cats By T.S. Eliot
✔(Fave Genre) Divergent by Veronica Roth
✔(Travel) Angelina Jolie’s: Notes From My Travels By Angelina Jolie
✔(On Shelf After 10 Years) Motherless Daughters By Hope Edelman
✔(R&J Recommended) The Fault in Our Stars By John Green
✔(Classic) To Kill A Mockingbird By Harper Lee
✔(Non Fiction) A Year of Biblical Womanhood By Rachel Held Evans
✔(Award Winner) The Giver By Lois Lowry
✔(Free Choice) Angelology By Danielle Trussoni
✔(History/NF) Unbroken By Laura Hillenbrand
✔(Author Shares Name) Trail of Crumbs By Kim Sunee
✔(Bestseller) The One and Only Ivan By Katherine Applegate
(Translated Into English) The Solitude of Prime Numbers By Paolo Giordano
(Genre Avoid-Politics) Liberty and Tyranny By Mark Levin
✔(Friend Recommended) The Red Tent By Anita Diamant
✔(New Author) A Life in Men By Gina Frangello
✔(Like Cover) Hollow City By Ransom Riggs
✔(Free Choice) The Bells By Richard Harvell
(Small Pub) Life is a Circus Run by a Platypus By Allison Hawn
✔(Old Fave) Charlotte’s Web By E. B. White
✔(Crime Novel) Guilt By Association By Marcia Clark

Kim I know the feeling

So many books, so little time...

I don't think I'll be able to finish this challenge, because there are books I'm really excited to read and they will take precedence over the ones on my square!

Thank goodness for audio books on my commute because I'm having a hard time sitting still for long to read a regular book. I've been so busy lately with other things that I've had to cut back on the number of books I'll read this year.

Audio books are great aren't they? I use them on my commute. Lately if I have to go on a long drive, alone, whilst at work I take my iPad with me too, for the audiobooks. Also, when doing ironing.

Pat wrote: "Audio books are great aren't they? I use them on my commute. Lately if I have to go on a long drive, alone, whilst at work I take my iPad with me too, for the audiobooks. Also, when doing ironing."

They are, Pat! I take mine into work, too, and listen sometimes while working on the computer. Some people say they wouldn't be able to concentrate, but I don't seem to have that problem...especially if the story is a good one and the narration is engaging. =D

I wanted to do all 25 books but have only managed to do 24 :( The small publisher is the one that I don't think I've managed, because I tend to read on the Kindle and don't really know who publishes the books I read.

Biography - Is It Just Me?
Present - School Fail: Hilarious Howlers from School
Science Fiction - Oryx and Crake
Free - Bloodmagic
Poems - 101 PO'ed Poems: Frustrations in Free Verse

Favourite Genre - Bloodfire
Travel book - The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures
10 Years - Lord Foul's Bane
R & J - Apple Tree Yard
Classic - Lord of the Flies

Non-fiction - The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism
Award winner - The Blind Assassin
Free Choice - Blood Politics
History - Burial Rites
Shares name - Forged by Greed

Bestseller - A Thousand Splendid Suns
Translated - The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
Genre I avoid - Ninety Eight
Friend's reccomendation - The Handmaid's Tale
New Author - Splintered

Cover - First Grave on the Right
Free - Bloodrage
Small publisher - ??
Old favourite - Dragonflight
Crime novel - Real Murders

I've really enjoyed doing this challenge. I've read a load of books that I wouldn't normally have read. Some were brilliant, others not my cup of tea, but I can't wait for the next challenge. I'm just disappointed that I haven't managed to do all 25.

I'd pop Dire Straits (Bo Blackman #1) by Helen Harper on as the small publisher Joanne

Woohoo! If you have found my small publisher for me then I've done the whole square! Dire Straits it is.

Fab Joanne