All About Books discussion

I didn't fare too well last year, and swore I wouldn't have any goals this year - just read whatever jumps into my hands. But the temptation to create lists is just too great. So I'm crazy. I'm outlining another pyramid scheme, and although titles can go in more than one category, I shall never come close to completing this. But it's fun anyway.

12 Books: Daytimer's Book Club - Finished 11
My real life monthly book club. We have a food/cooking theme this year.

Read:
1. How to Eat Fried Worms - 1/20 3 stars
2. Where'd You Go, Bernadette - 2/1 4 stars
3. The Rosie Project - 2/29 4 stars
4. State of Wonder - 4/11 3 stars
5. The Hundred-Foot Journey - 5/10 3 stars
6. The Kitchen House - 6/5 4 stars
7. The Tall Pine Polka - DNF (no fault of the book, just didn't have time and life goes on...)
8. The Boston Girl - 8/2 4 stars
9. Kitchens of the Great Midwest
10. The Martian
11. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
12. A Deadly Grind

11 Books: Oldest TBR
I picked two books (or three where I couldn't decide...) from the first twelve pages of my Goodreads To Read lists.

Read:

Selections:
The Long Walk Home OR Thirteenth Night
A Game of Thrones OR Sing Them Home
The Bronze Horseman OR Juliet
A Rose for the Crown OR His Majesty's Dragon
The Cold Light of Mourning OR Night Birds' Reign
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (reread) OR Outlander (reread)
Sea Witch OR The Rose of York: Love & War
Never Buried OR The Island House OR A Discovery of Witches
The Crown in the Heather OR The Lord Is My Shepherd
The Whale Road OR A Million Tears OR The Gift of Flame
11/22/63 OR Mariana
Awen: Powys/Mercia, Offa's Dyke, Canu Heledd, 793-796 Ad OR Song at Dawn

10 Books: from my Next in Series book shelf

Read:
1. Wars of the Roses #2: Margaret of Anjou 4 stars.
2. Birder Murder Mystery #2: A Pitying of Doves - DNF

Selections:
Cormoran Strike series #3Career of Evil
Somershill Manor #2: The Butcher Bird
Mitford series: Come Rain or Come Shine
Wars of the Roses #3: Bloodline
Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #3: Library of Souls
Shetland Island #2: White Nights
Red Sparrow #2: Palace of Treason
Flavia De Luce #5: Speaking from Among the Bones
Lucy Morgan #2: His Dark Lady
No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency #4: The Kalahari Typing School for Men
Amanda Brown #2: The Headhunter's Daughter: A Mystery
44 Scotland Street #7: Bertie Plays the Blues
Outlander #8: Written in My Own Heart's Blood
Wilderness #6: The Endless Forest
Simon and Elizabeth #2: Poison, Your Grace
Morland Dynasty #2: The Dark Rose

9 Books: Rereads

Read:
1. Wish You Were Here - 2/10 4 stars
2. Rest in Pieces - 2/23 5 stars
3. Murder at Monticello - 3/28 4 stars
4. Pay Dirt - 5/19 4 stars
5. Murder, She Meowed - 7/7 3 stars
6. Murder on the Prowl

Selections:
Vinzi: A Story of the Swiss Alps
Watership Down
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Outlander
Niccolò Rising
Mrs. Murphy series by Rita Mae Brown
Aunt Dimity series by Nancy Atherton

8 Books: Leftovers from Old Themes
Previous themes included Pride & Prejudice, Moby Dick, Wives titles, Tudor titles, and last year's Bird titles.

Read:

Selections:
Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer
The Twentieth Wife
The River Wife
Murder at Hatfield House
Venus in Winter
The Tudor Secret
The Art of Fielding
Railsea
The Rathbones
The Plover
The Swan Gondola
The Sparrow

7 Books: Music Theme

Read:

Selections:
Appassionata
2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas
Music & Silence
Bel Canto
Mozart's Sister
Vivaldi's Virgins
Orfeo
The Gold Bug Variations
The Cellist of Sarajevo
Quartet for the End of Time: A Novel
The Mirrored World
Sleeping with Schubert

6 Books: Wales/Welsh/Arthurian

Read:

Selections:
The Cold Light of Mourning
Night Birds' Reign
Eve Green
Resistance
The Welsh Girl
Sing Them Home
The Kingmaking

5 Books: Dropped but Intend to Finish

Read:

Selections:
Wolf Hall
Hounded
The Fall of Atlantis
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Pillars of the Earth
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
And Ladies of the Club
Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer

4 Books: Mark Twain Mini-theme

Read:

Selections:
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Finn
Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise
Life on the Mississippi
Show Boat

3 Books: Costa/Whitbread Awards - Changed to Walter Scott Prize nominees - Finished 3

Read:
The Destiny Waltz 1-18 DNF though I gave it over 200 pages. 2 stars maybe. Just not very interesting.
Mercian Hymns 1-18 Interesting. More than meets the eye.
The Glass Room

Selections:
A God in Ruins

2 Books: Canongate Myth series

Read:

Selections:
A Short History of Myth
The Penelopiad

1 Book: Classic

Selection:
The Odyssey

Here's another challenge I think I can incorporate:

1. a book published this year (2016)

2. a book you can finish in a day: How to Eat Fried Worms

3. a book you've been meaning to read

4. a book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller

5. a book you should have read in school

6. a book chosen for you by a relative or BFF

7. a book published before you were born (1954 or earlier)

8. a banned book

9. a book you previously abandoned

10. a book you own but have never read

11. a book that intimidates you - Odyssey {Annotated & Illustrated}

12. a book you've already read at least once - Wish You Were Here and Rest in Pieces

wow! That is a great and very full challenge. Good luck!!

The Goodreads group "Reading the Chunksters" is doing a group read of The Odyssey this month, soooooo I've taken the plunge and started it now. Probably the one I was dreading the most and now it'll be one of the first finished!

I've weighed the merits of various translations, but free is good. The translation by Samuel Butler is online with a study guide here: http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/od... so that's the one I'm reading. Very readable so far - I'm pleasantly surprised! Maybe later I will try an audiobook of a more poetic translation.

I like your challenge, some great books there.

Laurel wrote: "The Goodreads group "Reading the Chunksters" is doing a group read of The Odyssey this month, soooooo I've taken the plunge and started it now. Probably the one I was dreading the most and now it'l..."

I read this back in high school and didn't find it too terribly difficult. Nothing like the James Joyce Ulysses! I hope that you end up enjoying it more than you expected to :)

Thanks, Leslie. Of course, I'm reading it in prep for Ulysses... and The Penelopiad which is on my list...

Laurel wrote: "I didn't fare too well last year, and swore I wouldn't have any goals this year - just read whatever jumps into my hands. But the temptation to create lists is just too great. "

Lol, I had the same idea but then I would have felt like "naked" without challenges :D

Haha Dely, exactly!

Another challenge I'll try to incorporate: another group is doing a monthly "color" challenge, and I'll keep track of it here also...

January: GOLD -Read 1/20 3 stars
February: RED - Read 2/29 4 stars
July: ORANGE
August: BLACK

Edited message #11 above. I am abandoning the Costa/Whitbread Awards and changing it to the Walter Scott Prize nominees.

Yes, I'm way behind with updating my own thread, but I've added 10 books to read for a presentation at the Minnesota Library Association annual conference in October. I've done the Reader's Advisory fiction panel for a couple of years. This year I decided to be on the non-fiction panel. We have 5 speakers each doing 10 books on a theme of their choice in one hour - hence the title 50 in 60 Non-fiction.

My topic is Blood and Roses: Life in Medieval England and my 10 titles are...
1. The Demon's Brood: A History of the Plantagenet Dynasty
Read 2. The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, The Power Behind Five English Thrones - 5 stars
3. Eleanor de Montfort: A Rebel Countess in Medieval England
4. A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain
5. 1381: The Year of the Peasants' Revolt
6. The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors
7. Blood & Roses: the Paston Family and the Wars of the Roses
8. Blood Sisters: The Women Behind The War Of The Roses
9. Red Roses: Blanche of Gaunt to Margaret Beaufort
10. Richard III: A Ruler and his Reputation