2025 Reading Challenge discussion

Cassandra wrote: "It's interesting reading all of your reactions!

Paul, I didn't realize The Old Man and the Sea was short enough to read in a day, and now I'm intrigued by your description.

I'm about..."

I'm not sure when I realised it myself, but yes! I read it in two sittings today on the way back and forth from college, which would put it at about an hour or an hour and a half or so I think. Definitely no more than two hours.

I'm fairly sure my description of it doesn't come close to the reality of it at all, but it does give me the impression of being one of those Great American Things (it's got a Pulitzer Prize and all), and even better I feel like it's short enough that it wouldn't feel like that bad a time sink for people who end up not liking it (which is absolutely possible and completely understandable). Not to mention you can use it for bonus points in the I Spy challenge ;) which to be fair is part of the reason I (finally?) picked it up this year. :)

I just finished my original book for this challenge - Not Like My Mother: Becoming a Sane Parent After Growing Up in a Crazy Family. I've owned this book on my Nook for a long time, and paid no attention to it. I actually thought it was going to be one of those funny books (like S##t my Dad Says, perhaps). To my surprise, it was a very insightful self-help book about dealing this emotional wounds from childhood and becoming a fully-functioning adult.

I've just finished "Bartleby the Scrivener" which is 68 pages in Turkish. This was a great challenge. I enjoyed a lot! Thanks!

I have just finished my book: which I have been meaning to re-read for a long time.
(★★★★)

I completed the challenge! Started and finished UnStrung today. It turned out to be even shorter than I thought it was.

This morning I finished my book Longevità


I really want to thank the mod because this challenge allows me to read a beautiful and interesting book about science, aging and life.

All done with A Darker Shade of Magic!

I finished Candide today. A witty satire of religion, royalty and Leibniz' theory of optimism. It got it bit too silly and repetitive for me. Three stars.

Finished Fight Club

Finished Silently and Very Fast. Loved it ... So beautiful, just stunning really in depth.

Due to personal reasons I did not manage to make this challenge... I am a bit behind my readings, hopefully March will be a better month for me.

I finished Silently and Very Fast. It was beautiful. I'm so glad I read it, thanks to this challenge!

I read my book today and I enjoyed it but I was just getting to know the characters when it finished. Some great descriptions of Cannes and the Menton lemon festival.

Finished Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture and What We Can Do about It. Loved it --- great way to end the month.

Finished Enid Blyton's story 'The Enchanted Wood'. Just in the nick of time as its almost midnight!

I finished Silently and Very Fast and am kind of speechless. It was like being in a dream, it was tender. I'm going to have to gather my thoughts.

Thanks for the challenge! And thanks for the suggestion of Silently and Very Fast . I NEVER would have chosen that on my own, and I am so glad I read it!

Suzanne, I feel the same way! It's one of my all-time favorite things I've ever read, because of the way it made me feel. I can tell I will be thinking about it for quite a while.

Thanks go to Kara for the suggestion of Silently and Very Fast!

I didn't realize until I was finished with the book that it's the same author who wrote The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making... That's jumping to the top of my to-read list.

Finished Maus 2. Awesome novel, 5 stars.

Started and finished today The Loss of the S.S. Titanic: Its Story and Its Lessons.

Cassandra wrote: "Suzanne, I feel the same way! It's one of my all-time favorite things I've ever read, because of the way it made me feel. I can tell I will be thinking about it for quite a while.

Thanks go to Kar..."

I didn't realize until I noticed on the authors website that she was the author of another book I put on my TBR list this year, Radiance ! I will be definitely motivated to put that up to the top of the list now!

I picked a supershort book, "We Should All Be Feminists" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A scant 48 pages, but great "nutritious" food for thought.
Read on Feb 24th.

I did read We Should All Be Feminists - I read it on Saturday because I knew today would be crazy. Excellent read and extremely quick - I highly recommend!

I managed to read The Time Keeper all in one day today.

I think Mitch Albom has done better, but this was very good, and its message is important: Don't get so worried about time that you forget to use it wisely and appreciate the beauty of each day.

I think I did okay on that point today, as did everyone who participated in this challenge!

Finished my bonus book, 88-page memoir The Boy in the Mirror by Tom Preston, which was released last fall. Except for the "afterward," it's told in the second-person, and it's so very vivid...it's four months in a hospital undergoing the most aggressive chemotherapy in existence, the patient being Preston who, at 21, was suddenly diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma. I tell you, I feel drained after reading it. It was a fast read, but certainly not an "easy" read, if you follow. Wow.

Update: I was planning on reading Coraline today, and posted about it last night. There ended up being a work event that lasted much longer than I expected today, so I didn't have a chance to even start yet! So I guess I should be taken off the list...it's too bad though, since I would have finished in time if I had realized earlier that the challenge lasted a week. I misread it and thought I had to read today!

I ended up with Silently and Very Fast as well, and I'm very glad I did. What an amazing story! Thanks to Kara for suggesting it; it was not really on my radar. Now I'm looking forward to the other Valente books on my TBR with serious anticipation.

Finished my book The Letter, took just over a day but a lovely book

Considering how universally well-received Silently and Very Fast seems to be at the moment, I just thought I would mention/remind people that The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making was actually a previous Group Read, so it counts for the ongoing quarterly challenge :) I haven't read it (or Silently) yet, mind, but I'm definitely hoping to do so before March ends!

Book finished! I read it last night, which was nice. I took my evening to do nothing but read. What a great use of an extra day.

I enjoyed Island of the Blue Dolphins, but it didn't really speak to me. I understand why it won a Newbery, though!

I ended up having no time to read yesterday. I (rather naïve) expected yesterday to be open and free for reading, so I planned to read my choice in one sitting, but Things (tm) came up. Ah, well. I still enjoyed reading though everyone's comments on their books!

Congratulations for everyone who finished their chosen book! To those that didn't get a chance, I hope you do enjoy your book when you get to it. :)

This was such a fun challenge, and I loved hearing about everyone's reactions to their books!

Finished my book today! Unfortunately, only managed to squeeze in half an hour of reading time yesterday, so I had to carry on today. Really enjoyed this challenge!!

I didn't sign up in advance but I read Anna Quindlen's A Short Guide to a Happy Life.

I didn't get my chosen book listed in time, but I read The Call of the Wild yesterday to participate in the challenge.

Very nice, Lynn! I need to read The Call of the Wild. I don't think I ever did when I was younger.

I finished The Pearl today. I almost read it all on 2/29, but I fell asleep and left about 25 pages for today.

I finished my book Dodger of the Dials just in time on the 29th :-)

I did finish Suspended Sentences: Three Novellas by Patrick Modiano for the challenge. It was a very good book, and I'll be reading more by this Nobel Prize winning author.

Reenah wrote: "Just finished Candide by Voltaire"

I really liked Candide when I read it my freshman year of university.

I finished They Exist. I really enjoyed it and immediately started on the next book in the Creatus series. I'm glad Book Bub dropped it into my email the other day. Now, as if I need prodding, I'm going back through the topic and picking new books that sound interesting!

Janet wrote: "I finished Candide today. A witty satire of religion, royalty and Leibniz' theory of optimism. It got it bit too silly and repetitive for me. Three stars."

I also read Candide! I gave it two stars. I appreciate the satirical criticism, but, like you said, it gets silly and repetitive.
(I notice that I rate books more strictly when I read them for myself/for fun than when I had to read them back in school/at uni.)

Paul - I'm so glad you enjoyed "The Old Man and The Sea" even if some of it seemed to be "lost in translation", for you, as it were. I do recall that was one of my initial issues with the book, now that you mention it - the prose seemed a little "alien" to me initially, but in the end I got caught up in the story and it didn't jar at all for me. I wonder whether Hemingway was aiming to portray his protagonist as a simple, yet complex man, and if his speech was a way of indicating this?

Catherine - I'm so sorry that I missed your number for me - I didn't check the site for a few days so didn't see your message until now. But I need something else to read now, so I thought I'd pick out Number 39 in my shelf at home - and I've wound up with a Dostoyevsky omnibus!! It has "Crime And Punishment" (which I've been wanting to read forever but haven't felt I was smart enough to!) "The Gambler" and "Notes From The Underground" in it - none of which I have read. So I'm going to try it - and use it for my Modern Miss Darcy Challenge under "a book that intimidates you" because it certainly fits that bill lol! So thanks for that!!

Catty wrote: "Paul - I'm so glad you enjoyed "The Old Man and The Sea" even if some of it seemed to be "lost in translation", for you, as it were. I do recall that was one of my initial issues with the book, now..."

It wasn't so much the prose for me as it was the dialogue, but I'll agree that it was a bit strange at the start, though I did get into it eventually. Never quite got used to Santiago talking to himself though, even if I get that it was a device to reveal some of Santiago to us. I do think you're right that he was trying to portray him as simple but complex, mind - I delved into Hemingway a bit after and people like to talk a lot about his iceberg theory or something like that, where he keeps it simple on the surface and leaves the complex underneath, which makes sense, but even without that I now think that he really was creating a type of respectful and charged version of a person, someone who's content to fish and likes his baseball and someone who gets on well with Manolin and knows his stuff, but also someone capable of great beauty and understanding and passion too, all at the same time, and there's no contradiction in there at all, because that's what people are like. Or at least I like to think that's what they're like. :)

I finally finished Silently and Very Fast last night. I had intended to read it all on Sunday, but didn't give myself quite enough time, so ended up reading it over three days.

It was pretty fascinating! Not "easy" reading, for sure, but very interesting and thought-provoking.

You know - that was the one thing I kind of did "get" in the book and in Santiago's characterisation Paul - though I think it's because I talk to myself (my animals, and various inanimate objects, and...) all the time - I'm sure I got it off my Nana lol! But you are spot on about Santiago as a manifestation of Hemingway's "iceberg theory" - in fact I'd forgotten about that until you mentioned it. I reckon I was about your age when I studied him - and that was a long time ago now!

Now that I think about it more Catty - I think I might have thought this somewhat at the time and forgotten, though it may be something I picked up afterwards or even before - Santiago talking to himself does make some kind of sense to me. I can take it as him trying to fill the silence that you can get out in the middle of nothing and everything, maybe to stave off feelings of loneliness or possibly inadequacy.

But as well as that it's not impossible either that there's an idea of him communing with the wild as it were. Certainly he spoke to the fish and the sharks a lot. So when I think about in those terms it works for me. In fact, it might just have been that the way he spoke was a little unusual for me again, as well as the way he moved from speaking internally to externally and back. Although, saying that, I completely get why he didn't talk to himself in his head the whole time.

"Filling the spaces" - that's a great way of looking at it Paul! It's awesome that a book so small could contain so many perspectives, themes and variations as each person experiences it, and I reckon that's what makes great literature.
Andrew and Ecem - how did you go with your challenges?

Laura and Chelsea - how did you go with The Time Machine?

I read the short little book I was planning

I'm so sorry to be this late. I really did plan on checking in on the 1st, but this week got away from me.

Congratulations all. We had about 85 people sign up! I'm glad you all liked this challenge and look for our next one day challenge in April.

CMac wrote: "Message 171 I'll read Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

Didn't complete it. Carrying this little book around with me for days now! Argh.