Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Hi all!

Currently at 12/50.

Finished Reading
-Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things - 16. A book about mental illness. This was an easy and enjoyable read. Dealing with anxiety myself, I felt like I could relate to several aspects of this book.

-Outlander - 23. A book about time travel. I loved this book, and I'm very excited to start the second novel in this series. And now I can start binge watching Season 1 of the show :)

Currently Reading
-Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder - 6. A novel based on a real person.
-Dragonfly in Amber - 21. A book with your favorite color in the title.

QOTW:
I really enjoyed Animal Farm when I was a freshman.

Not a ton of progress for me this week. I picked up Trust Me by Victoria Caputo for the local author prompt and to read as a break from Negroland. The former is unfortunately one of the worst books I’ve read in a very long time and the later is still proving to be a very dense book to read. This is the first time since finishing school that I’m reading two books at a time and I’m surprisingly not hating it as much I thought I was going to. I’m determined to not leave any books unfinished!!

QOTW:
In grade school, I loved reading The Great Gatsby and it’s still one of my favorite books! In college, my favorite assigned book was Everyone Leaves.

Elizabeth wrote: "IWell, I am an ELA teacher, so I was a little disheartened by how many people didn't like or even remember their assigned reading! I don't actually assign whole class novels anymore - I let students choose their own - so I guess I get it a little bit..."

The main reason I don't remember is that I can't distinguish any longer (40 to 45 years later) what were class assigned reading and what I read on my own. I was a prolific reader and even self-assigned a lot of classic literature (i.e. Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens, Austen, Bronte) not included in my school work. I remember vividly the stuff I hated - The Old Man and the Sea comes to mind. Things you really disliked tend to stick with you longer, I believe.

This QOTW is better suited perhaps to those closer to the days of their assigned reading??

I can't believe it is the first week in March.

I finished This Side of Paradise ( book that mentions another book) and
Their Fathers' God (local author)

This week my plan is to read
The Handmaid's Tale(group read and a book about feminism)
Girl in the Blue Coat ( book with my favorite color in title)

QOTW: In high school I remember reading The Fall of the House of Usher. We watched a public broadcast movie with the book. It brought the book to life.
In college, my English teacher loved William Faulkner. We read a lot of Faulkner that semester. My favorite The Sound and the Fury

Elizabeth wrote: "QOTW:
Well, I am an ELA teacher, so I was a little disheartened by how many people didn't like or even remember their assigned reading!"

Well don't feel too bad, for some of us it feels like (or maybe it was - I'm not telling!) a long time ago, and for some of us we just read that much for fun lol. The only book I remember hating was The Scarlet Letter, most of the books I had to have liked or loved - I just can't remember what was assigned and what I read for fun.

Writing from a freezing 70 in Arizona. Sending less cold wishes to all who are in the snow.

Completed:
A Feast for Crows Which I read for #6 the next book in a series I started. I watched the first couple seasons of the GOT show, but the books are just mindblowing with the little tasty bits not in there.

Timeline Read for #26 time travel. This book was really good. It flowed so well. The characters had archeologist and physicist. The book was just interesting to "see" the developments and how the things we are discovering and misconceptions about the past were incorporated into the book.

Currently:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo #8 Nordic Noir just trying to play catchup on this one. So far in the first 6 chapters...meh. But it helps that I can picture the oh so handsome Daniel Craig from the movie I don't really remember from years ago. Hahaha.

QOTW
I loved To Kill a Mockingbird and then in 7th grade, I was assigned A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver. These series to me are still my favorites of all time and I don't care how old I will get they will always be.

The past week I finished book for the challenge:
Homegoing which I used for "a book by an author of a different ethnicity than you"

I'm currently reading Seabiscuit: An American Legend book involving sport
Eating Pomegranates: A Memoir of Mothers, Daughters, and the BRCA Gene for book with fruit in title

QOTW: The most memorable things I read in High School were The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings, The Lottery and The Taming of the Shrew. I wouldn't say that they were my 'favourites' but I've never forgotten them.

I got through a fair amount in the last two weeks!

Completed: 10/50

Bonfire by Krysten Ritter for Advanced prompt #3, a book I saw a stranger reading in public. HIGHLY recommend, especially if you like twisty mystery-thrillers.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer for prompt 40. The sequel to Annihilation. Still weird and dreamy, but a bit more plot and character driven.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell for prompt 30, a book with characters who are twins. Um, I cried a lot reading this because I related so well to both Cath and Wren for very different reasons. Great book.

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman for advanced prompt 4, a book tied to my ancestry. Eh. It was fine, I liked it, but the hype surrounding it was way too over the top for what the book actually was.

The Uploaded by Ferrett Steinmetz for advanced prompt 2, a cyberpunk book. I loved it! Great concept and excellent execution!

QOTW: A lot of our required reading was pretty boring, but two stuck with me. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn remains a permanent fave, and I can't count the number of times I've read it. I loved Ender's Game (and its sequels and spinoffs) at the time, but now know how awful OSC is as a person and don't read them any more. But as a teenager I thought they were great sci-fi books.

Waiting for a big storm to hit and hoping I make it home from work before it does as my driver's side windshield wiper recently broke. Could be exciting!

I finished two books this week:

Only Child - Prompt #28 (song lyrics in title). Published early February prior to the Florida school shooting, but I read it after the shooting. The narrator is a 6-year-old boy and his interpretation of events that unfold from his school's mass shooting. It was really interesting and I recommend it as long as the subject matter doesn't bother you too much. Someone further up mentioned that they hated the phrase "crisscross applesauce," and although I had never heard it before, it was used too many times and was annoying. But 6-year-old phrasing can be annoying, so I guess it fits.

The Sound of Gravel: A Memoir - Advanced Prompt #4 (book tied to ancestry). The book is about the LeBaron polygamist sect in Mexico, written by a woman who grew up there. Many of my ancestors were Mormon polygamists back in the 1800s, and although the practice stopped for the main church back in the late 1800s-early 1900s, I imagine some of the horrors of that practice now occurred back then. Women and children really pay a price. Interesting read.

11/52

QOTW: It's been a long time since I was in school, but there are books that stick with you. From elementary school it was Johnny Tremain and Where the Red Fern Grows. Middle school was The Outsiders (re-read last year) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, high school was The Great Gatsby and Julius Caesar (I can still recite part of the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech that we had to memorize).

I had a productive week since I fully finished 5 books, although to be fair, they were all YA or short books. Here's what I read:

- The Elite for my book where a character goes by a higher, honorific, or professional title for my ATY Top Picks personal challenge
- The One as the next book in a series I started for PopSugar
- The Addams Family: An Evilution for my book about a topic that already interests me for Modern Mrs. Darcy
- Who R U Really? for a book with punctuation in the title for Goodreads Around the Year
- How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You for a one-sitting book for Book Riot

QOTW:
I wasn't a huge fan of any of my required reading until I took a children's lit class in university, and a fairy tales class in college. Unless you count The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Charlotte's Web, which were read to us in early elementary school.

If I had to pick one assigned reading I enjoyed, I'd probably pick The Kite Runner, which I read for 11th grade English. It was refreshing to read something a little more recent, and it was generally a great book.

From my children's lit class, I loved getting to re-read Harry Potter, Little Women, and The Secret Garden but those were all already favourites.

: "Elizabeth wrote: "IWell, I am an ELA teacher, so I was a little disheartened by how many people didn't like or even remember their assigned reading! I don't actually assign whole class novels anymo..."

I’ve been trying to reconstruct. From elementary school, I can only recall The Phantom Tollbooth and Bridge to Terabithia.

Grade 9: Twelfth Night. To Kill a Mockingbird. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. A book where a Canadian teen who is in a China during the Tianamen Square massacre gets involved in smuggling out film of the incident, no recollection of title.

Grade 10: The Taming of the Shrew. Who Has Seen the Wind. A project where we all picked our own author and read three books by them (Dostoyevsky). We also had to pick our own book of short stories, I read something by Scott Fitzgerald.

Grade 11: Romeo and Juliet. Lord of the Flies. Heart of Darkness. A project where we had to read a book about love, I was away and got stuck with the last remaining choice, Tess of the Durbervilles, which I skipped most of the middle of.

Grade 12: MacBeth. A play where they put a teacher on trial for teaching Darwin. The Handmaid’s Tale. Obasan. Project where we had to pick a genre and read several - Mine was dystopias, I recall Brave New World, Walden Two, and 1984.

OAC: Hamlet. Individual essay project, Mine was on creativity and mental health: Like Water For Chocolate, The Passion, something by Ondaatje?

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz was in there somewhere too.

I recall reading The Little Prince and The Stranger in French OACs as well. The first was something we all read together and the second I read for my oral exam. I took both of the French OACs offered, so I must have read considerably more than that, but I don’t remember.

I was a Classics student in university, so I’ve read and translated bits and pieces of all the Greek plays and epics and many but fewer Roman works. I recall a boom on Ghandi for comparative religions and Gullivers Travels and The Prince for a history seminar, but overall I recall fewer university books, maybe because I was reading so many so quickly.

Hello all! I was very skeptical about my ability to complete the challenge in a year as I am a very slow reader, but I appear to be on track to finish by December! Hopefully I will be able to sustain my current pace.

This week I finished Where'd You Go, Bernadette, which I quite enjoyed! As a Seattle native I love reading books set in my home town. It has also inspired me to want to visit Antarctica one day! I am using this book for the "book with song lyrics in the title" prompt.

Also this week I rekindled my love for audiobooks. I had stopped listening for a while because I couldn't find any interesting ones on Overdrive. I think that I have come out of my rut though! This week I listed to Me Before You during my commute and I can now check off the prompt "a book turned into a movie that you have already seen."

Have a great week!

Hi everyone!! Had a lovely foot of snow today and once again spent much of the day shoveling. I'm supposed to fly from an even snowier city on Sunday morning so hopefully things clear up a bit by then. This has been my worst week of reading this year, I think. I made very little progress on the books I am currently reading, even though I was enjoying them before this week.

Current reads:
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America: I saw Dr. Kendi speak at the college where my sister teaches this week! That was a real highlight. He's an outstanding speaker. On the other hand, I haven't made much progress in the book this week.

Wuthering Heights: Letting myself take this one slow because feeling the pressure to read classics all of the time was what stopped me from reading for fun. I love how every character is terrible, though.

Finished:
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: I loved this book! I can't believe it took me so long to get around to reading it. Coates' writing is so evocative and compelling. I loved it.

Wonder Woman, Volume 5: Flesh: I've been working through this series slowly and am glad it hasn't jumped the shark yet, but I just saw the art for book 7 and will 100% be stopping after book 6.

QotW:
I'm surprised so many people don't remember what they read in school. Both the good and the bad have stuck with me a bit over ten years after graduating, but they were mostly classics. I think there's a lot to be said about the fact that most Important Works of literature from 200 or even 75 years ago don't really resonate with most teenagers, or aren't being taught in a way that resonates. My favorites were Macbeth, Madame Bovary, Holes, and Hamlet. The least favorite really gives me a lot to choose from for this year's read harder challenge. The ones that stand out are The Great Gatsby, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, and The Scarlet Letter.

I read 4 books this week but couldn't use any of them for this challenge.

1. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
2. This Heart of Mine by C.C. Hunter
3. The Valentine's Arrangement by Kelsie Leverich
4. Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard

QOTW: I didn't read much of the required reading in school. I don't remember liking the bits and pieces of stuff I read back then but looking back now there are several that I think I would like. One of my goals this year is to read more classics.

Katie wrote: "I'm surprised so many people don't remember what they read in school. Both the good and the bad have stuck with me a bit over ten years after graduating"

Many of us graduated before you were born, and have had decades of more important things to think about than what book someone told us to read in 1978. Some things just don't stick around that long.

I have been sick that last like two weeks so I didn't get any reading done, so I'm still sitting at 3 out of 50 for the challenge (11 total books this year so far counting the graphic novels I've read).

I honestly don't remember many books read in school and don't think many were ever actually assigned. The only book I remember reading in high school I got to pick and I can't remember why I choose the book, I think maybe bc I had seen the movie and wanted to read it, but it was Sphere by Michael Crichton and from the moment I've read that book he had become my absolute favorite writer. I used to own almost his entire bibliography till I lost then to homelessness, but I'm slowly rebuilding the collection.

This week I finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane on audio. I loved this book. I wonder if this had everything to do with Neil Gaiman's narration, or if I would have loved it just as much in print. I am not sure if this book will fit into this challenge, but it will work for AtY.

I also read The Snowman. I was not wowed by it. I have liked other Nordic Noir much more. I had already fulfilled that prompt and the weather prompt, so I will just use this for AtY also.

Currently Reading
The Cuban Affair for book by a local author. Nelson DeMille lives a few towns from me. He many be the most famous author from Long Island. A predictable choice, but he is the closest.

Listening to The Amulet of Samarkand. I've only been listening to audiobooks for a few weeks, and this is the longest so far at over 13 hours. We'll see how it goes.

The Romanovs: 1613-1918

QOTW
I've spent some time thinking about assigned books I hated because of the Read Harder challenge. Decided to reread The Little Prince for that. Some books I like were Of Mice and Men and all the Shakespeare.

It's been pretty foggy and definitely not the nicest of weather here in old Hong Kong, but that's meant I can get more books read Cheers to that!

QOTW: I was the kid who loved (or tried to love) all the assigned reading materials in school. I can almost remember the complete run-down, and that was nigh 16 years ago. If I had to go with my favorite assigned reading, it might be a toss-up between Pride & Prejudice, The Giver, and The Diary of Anne Frank. I enjoyed these books for vastly different reasons. I had fabulous lit teachers in grades 11 & 12, so I remember the most from them.

I was an English major in uni, so I read so much my brain likely burst. I had to take a Young Adult Lit class for my education degree, and in one semester read something like 25ish books of the YA persuasion. But of all the books I did read (and maybe some I pecked at just for quizzes' sake) I have to say that The Canterbury Tales, In the Lake of the Woods, First They Killed My Father, and Giants in the Earth stand out to me.

My favorite books to assign to students were The Hunger Games, The Giver, and The Outsiders. They eat these books up, and there are so many themes and ideas to explore in each.

This week:

I finished the beastly Outlander between listening to it on Audible to/from work and also reading a hard copy. For 850 pages, it was a rousing tale, very suitable for the time-travel prompt. If you want a historical fiction book with time-travel and a heady sprinkle of romance and all sorts of Highland canoodling and hi-jinx, then look no further!

I also read Coraline for the prompt of a best-selling book when I graduated high school. It's also a book on the Battle of the Books list for middle school students, which I co-run with our school librarians. I tried to pepper my list with as many of those as possible so I can quiz my students on them. I'm having bad dreams about the button eyes of the "other" family and also the "other mother's" clicking nails on her *ahem* severed hand. Gross and too spidery for my liking!

For this week:

Finishing up The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time very soon for the prompt of a book turned into a play/musical. I like it very much, but being sucked in to Outlander for most of the week, I didn't get a chance to finish it yet.

Sheltering Rain - this is Jojo Moyes first book, I've heard. I also found it in our school's library, and it fit the prompt of having a weather element in the title. It also takes place in 1950s Hong Kong for part of it, so that's a bonus since I love to read about HK.

A Night Divided for the prompt with a time of day in the title. I found this on our secondary school's library shelf, and I had to admit, I'm a history nut who loves to read about WWII and its aftermath. After a visit to Berlin last year, I am craving more information about the Cold War and the Berlin Wall. This YA historical fiction novel seems to fit that bill, plus the prompt.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families - I'm making slow but steady progress in it. It's very weighty and saddening, as it should be, but I find that every few chapters I must stop and pick up something else. True crime it absolutely is, and in danger of happening in yet another place.

The Canterbury Tales stand out as a horrible thing for me. We spent most of one of our 2 final years translating the Wife of Baths Prologue and Tale from the old English to modern English. Boy did I hate it.

Mike wrote: "I have finished no books this week. I'm afraid The Handmaid's Tale has me stalled and is sucking the will to read out of me. Time to take a break from it for now.

Also, I am still wor..."

Yay I am not the only one who doesn't love Handmaid.

Hello from Brisbane. Snow sounds amazing! It is eight at night here with a temperature of twenty six degrees Celsius (which is fine) but a humidity of %80, which means I am dripping as though I have just stepped out of the shower. I am a tiny bit over it right now.

This week I finished which I loved. It was meant to be for a title with my favourite colour, but would also work for cyberpunk or for antihero. We'll see.

I don't remember any books I loved as set reading after second grade. I remember being forced to read Lord of the Flies, which I loathed at the time and I stand by that opinion.

Kristen wrote: "Hello,

I haven't posted anything for a while, between busy season at work (I'm an auditor in a public accounting firm) and reading War and Peace, I haven't been able to finish anything.

But final..."

Kirsten, congratulations on finishing War and Peace!

Despite the snow (as others have said, it's been so cold and snowy here in the UK!), which makes for perfect reading weather, I've had a really slow reading week. I am still reading Call Me by Your Name and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, both of which I started last week. The only thing I have finished is a graphic novel, Saga, Vol. 1 for a book set on another planet.

I have a busy week coming up so probably won't finish many books this week either, but I'm starting to be okay with allowing myself to read a bit less!

Chrissi wrote: "It's been pretty foggy and definitely not the nicest of weather here in old Hong Kong, but that's meant I can get more books read Cheers to that!

QOTW: I was the kid who loved (or tried to love) a..."

If you like to read books set in Hong Kong AND you like to read books set during WWII, then I highly recommend The Piano Teacher, which is both!

Johanne wrote: "Norse Mythology on audiobook, for "tied to your ancestry". I really liked it, once I got used to the pronunciation differing from what I´m used to. I knew the myths, but read them a loooong time ago and Neil Gaiman is a great narrator, and did a really good job of retelling them...."

Ha ha... I had the same with the pronunciaiton. I thought I was the only one. But he really is good at telling the stories. I really liked it too.

It´s my first check-in here. Last week I finished only one book and from the 1st January I finished 9 books, but only six for reading challenge. And what did I read last week?

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers for the prompt microhistory.

I prefered another books, but there was a problem, our library did not offer them. This book was fourth in my list for this prompt and it was so good, finally.


QOTW: I liked Notre-Dame de Paris: Tome 1 and Quo Vadis

For this check-in period, I:

Finished
* ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen; I'm using this FirstReads Kindle win for "a book that's published in 2018";
* ⭐️⭐️⭐️ In Farleigh Field by Rhys Bowen, which didn't fit any of my unfinished prompts. I read it since it was nominated for an Agatha;
* ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Harlem Charade by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley, which didn't fit any of my unfinished prompts; I read it since it was nominated for an Agatha;
* ⭐️⭐️⭐️ A Cajun Christmas Killing by Ellen Byron, which didn't fit any of my unfinished prompts; I read it since it was nominated for an Agatha. It has twins in it, if someone's looking for a cozy with twins; and,
* ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (really closer to 4.5) The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books by Martin Edwards, which didn't fit any of my unfinished prompts; I read it since it was nominated for an Agatha. In addition to the 100 titles he profiles, there are additional titles sprinkled throughout the chapters and a really excellent reference bibliography at the end.

Am Currently Reading
* Pleasantville by Attica Locke, which doesn't look like it will fit any of my unfinished prompts yet, but maybe something will come up in the plot.

Will Be Reading As Soon As I Pick It Up From The Library Later Today
* An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, which will work for "a book from a celebrity book club" since it was recently named as an Oprah Book Club pick! I'd put my name on the waiting list before that happened based on early reviews alone and am really excited to dive into it!

I may also pick up my book club's pick for March (The Heist by Daniel Silva), which I'll be using for "a book involving a heist." It's in the title, after all :)

This brings my totals to 14/40 and 2/10.

QotW:
What was your favorite assigned reading book in school? The first assigned book that I remember loving is Animal Farm by George Orwell, which I read in seventh grade. For high school, I'd say it was a tie amongst The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. I took a ton of literature classes in college for my major and loved so many of those reads. If I had to pick just one as my college favorite, I'd go with the original Spanish version of The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende.

Hello! I'm lucky, we are far enough in on the US East Coast that all we got was some rain and slightly colder temps.

Books I finished this week:

I finished several this week! All are audiobooks and were very interesting, plus some were fairly short.

1. Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson This was the 'previous Goodreads Award Winner' prompt. I really liked the way Larson involved the reader in the people he was writing about. Just enough facts to be interesting but not overwhelming. I also liked that he included the POV of the U-boat crew.

2. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry This book was for the 'book by two authors' prompt. Vincent Bugliosi was the prosecutor for the Manson trials, so had true first hand accounts of all that happened at the trial and also a lot of info about the crimes and how the evidence was gathered. Curt Gentry, I think, helped him shape the book into novel form. He is a published author in his own right, so I thought the book should count.

3. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson This one wasn't for the challenge, but I had heard of H.H Holmes before and Dead Wake, so decided to listen to this one also. It seemed like it was more about building the 1894 World's Fair that it was about Holmes, but I still found it a very interesting read.

QOTW:
I think it would be To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee We were assigned this to read in my senior year of high school. I read it then and found it interesting. It wasn't until I reread it years later that I understood some of the references and saw the deeper meanings of the book.

Kristen wrote: "But finally, I have FINISHED War and Peace!!!!!

I started reading it back in November, and although I've read other 1000+ page books in a lot less time before, this one just took me forever to get through. I found it pretty interesting, except some of the war sections, and the 2nd epilogue. "

The 2nd epilogue is an abomination. :-)
My #1 desert island book. What translation did you read?

My favourite assigned book in school that stuck with me was reading ‘Where the red fern grows’. I was in grade 7, but still remember the whole book and how it made me feel. Always wanted to get myself some coon hounds when I grew up, but went with huskies instead. :)

Hello everyone, I’ve not checked in for a few weeks.

Since I last posted I’ve finished:

Career of Evil which I’m using for next book in a series you’ve already started. I’ve loved this series although found the character of Robyn quite irritating in this one.

The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer - this was really well researched with lots of historical detail, the story wasn’t exactly a ‘mystery’ though and, once the trial was over there was nothing new to find out yet still over half the book left. It was interesting to learn more about Broadmoor and how it was run, but the case itself kind of runs out of steam.

Just One Damned Thing After Another for my book about time travel. Apologies to any fans of this series but I thought it was dreadful, only finished it to tick off the prompt.

Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters - using this for the allegory prompt. I enjoyed this but didn’t find it quite as amazing as some reviews made out.

The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life - borrowed this from my aunt whilst staying with her, never heard of the author - a Polish journalist who has spent many years living in and writing about Africa (other parts of the world too). This book focuses on Africa’s interior and is a series of vignettes really, looking at countries I know not much about such as Liberia, Uganda, Ghana, Chad (and many others), about the ‘average’ poor African, tribalism, belief, the post-colonial world, war, politics, the human spirit - so much, and all beautifully written. Would definitely recommend this book.

So I’m 12/50

QOTW - English was my favourite at school, I never had my head out of a book anyway, so I loved most of the assigned texts. I think the first Shakespeare plays we touched were A Midsummer Nights Dream and Romeo and Juliet, and they were both obviously taught well as they instilled me with a love of Shakespeare. I loved Carrie’s War and Goodnight Mr Tom which we read in Year 7, so when I was 11. When older - doing English A-Levels, we covered the Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin, which I utterly loved and still do.

This week I finished 2 more books for the challenge (and a couple not) bringing me to just 10/20. We are finally having winter hit here in Idaho USA and I promised to take my daughter sledding today.
I finished #32-celebrity book club (Reese Witherspoon) This is the Story of a Happy Marriage🌟🌟🌟1/2
and #9, villan or antihero I counted The Last Mrs Parrish, 🌟🌟🌟🌟 since almost half was told from the perspective of the villan.
I'm also a chapter away from the book with an animal in the title, that I guess I'll talk about next week.
QOTW
I don't remember many assigned books in high school, in AP English we got to pick our own, so they weren't assigned. The only one I can remember was To Kill A Mockingbird. I do love that book, but read Go set a watchman recently and hated it. I know it's real life and whatever, but it ruined the characters for me.

poshpenny wrote: "Everywhere else I've lived had regular earthquakes, fires, floods, mudslides, hurricanes, wild animal attacks......"

WOW! So this is an ongoing joke that the most dangerous animal we have ( in Denmark) is the 'Killer snail' translated directly. It eats our cabbage ;-) Actually I am kinda afraid of the seagulls near me as we feed them so well they are huge...
We had an earthquake about 10 years ago. As I live close to the airport I thought it was just a big lowflying airplane... I guess I don't have anything to complain about :-)

This week I reached 19/52.

Now for the weather report. This week it was freezing cold in Copenhagen. Wednesday it was -6C (21F) but due to a strong siberean wind the chill factor made it feel like -18C (-1F) the next day a bit warmer -16C (3F). Then it started to snow which thankfully brought the temperature up to -7C (20F). All I could think was 'Welcome to Spring time'... due to chill factor it was actually colder here than in Anchorage, Alaska.

My late update this week is due to my fingers only just starting to defrost ;-)

I read:
The Sword of Summer My first Rick Riordan but definitely not my last. I loved this book so much fun.

One for the Money

The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession Didn't know this was a book. Seen the movie several times so had to read the book as soon as I found out about it. You don't have to be a bird lover to read it but if you are you will love this book. I am not a bird enthusiast and still enjoyed it. Besides I have an ongoing 'Around the world' and '50 states' book challenge going so this book especially helped with the states. I just love books where they travel. They even go to Tortuga in it.

I am currently reading:
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
American Gods

I needed an audiobook so put on 'American gods'. However I found out that those two books are to similar in genre and writing style so I can't switch between them as I usually can with books. They have to be different genres or at least very different in writing style for me to keep them separat. So had to put 'Good omens' on hold untill I finish 'American gods'. First time I encountered this problem.

QOTW: We didn't really have assigned books in school.

This week I finished Emerald Green, the third book in the Ruby Red YA time travel trilogy. I thought the first two books were a lot of fun, but this book lost me at the ending which was a disappointment. Not sure if I'll count it for the challenge.

QOTW
My favorite required reading from elementary school was Charlotte's Web, from middle school - Fahrenheit 451, and from high school - A Tale of Two Cities

QOTW:
My favorite assigned reading was back in 9th grade and it was Ethan Frome . I still love that book and still love the sledding scene. I loved it because I had never been so shocked by a non-event, you know? The inferring I had to do. The irony....sigh.

This week I read two books. The first was your favorite Popsugar reading prompt from previous years. I chose a prompt from 2015: "A book you mother loves." My mother sent me some books last week and kept talking to me about The Other Einstein. I don't think I loved it the way she had, but it was a good read.

My second book was Spoiled Brats: Stories. I LOVED this collection of stories and don't usually read them (unless it's David Sedaris). This book was for the prompt, "A book that was being read by a stranger in a public place." I saw someone reading this on a NYC bus and they were laughing while they were reading, so I went for it. While I was reading it, I was doing the same--just in private. Simon Rich is our new James Thurber. Funny: Like Ethan Frome, I first read Thurber in 9th grade, too!

Nadine wrote: "Chrissi wrote: "It's been pretty foggy and definitely not the nicest of weather here in old Hong Kong, but that's meant I can get more books read Cheers to that!

QOTW: I was the kid who loved (or ..."

I read that awhile ago before I moved to Hong Kong and now have a much better appreciation of the setting and the characters in the novel. I'm reading another one of her books - The Expatriates - right now! I agree - The Piano Teacher was pretty great.

Anabell wrote: "poshpenny wrote: "Everywhere else I've lived had regular earthquakes, fires, floods, mudslides, hurricanes, wild animal attacks......"

WOW! So this is an ongoing joke that the most dangerous anima..."

I've thought about this since I live in a tornado risk area--just about every area of the country has some kind of disaster risk, and I think I'd rather have tornadoes than any of the other options. I didn't even grow up in the midwest, but I guess I've lived here long enough that I feel like I understand tornadoes or something. I can't imagine living in a place that has a high threat of forest fires--now that sounds terrifying!

I grew up with the threat of fire. We had a really bad bushfire that came up to our back fence a few years ago. Fire is my greatest fear but there’s no way I’d move to somewhere there were tornadoes. I’ve been around earthquakes and floods too. Still rather all of them compared to tornadoes.

Hi everyone! I'm catching up with two weeks of updates as missed last week's check in. I've read three books, with only one counting towards a challenge prompt.

Completed:
Artemis by Andy Weir - a good plot but I didn't enjoy this as much as Weir's previous book The Martian. Gave it 3 stars. Read for prompt 'book set on a different planet' (no. 27 of standard challenge).

Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf - a nice easy read and read in a couple of days. A sweet little story, not sure if I'd rush to watch the movie.

My James by Ralph Bulger - a harrowing non fiction read about the murder of a two year old toddler in Liverpool, England in 1993 by 2 ten year old boys who abducted him from a shopping centre. The author is his father and vividly recounts how the horrors unfolded and the murderers subsequent convictions.

Currently reading:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - this has been on my TBR list for literally years so I'm happy to finally be reading it! About a third of the way through and like Fitzgerald's writing style. I've chosen this for the prompt 'a book with alliteration in the title' (no.22 of standard challenge).

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin - only just getting into this one and interesting plot premise. Can't wait to see how it unfolds. I've chosen this for the prompt 'A book that's published in 2018' (no. 34 of standard challenge).

QOTW:
My favourite assigned reading in high school was Iain Bank's The Wasp Factory. It was so well written and could imagine all of the scenes. I often return to re reading it.

Total prompts completed: 10/50
Total books read in 2018: 13/50

poshpenny wrote: "Katie wrote: "I'm surprised so many people don't remember what they read in school. Both the good and the bad have stuck with me a bit over ten years after graduating"

Many of us graduated before ..."
I don't know. I'm pretty ancient but still remember lots of books from childhood/teens. Just reread Macbeth for the first time in 30 years and could still recite huge chunks. My memory does annoy childhood friends though and I struggle to reread anything as by page 3 I remember the whole book.

Jacqueline wrote: "I grew up with the threat of fire. We had a really bad bushfire that came up to our back fence a few years ago. Fire is my greatest fear but there’s no way I’d move to somewhere there were tornadoe..."

You in Aus? Bush fire sounds so. You missed the sharks, Crocs, snakes and spiders and cyclones to go with the fires and floods. And the odd willy willy to blow you off the road. But it is gorgeous and never boring.

Yeah Jen I live in Aus. Beside the Blue Mountains. Sometimes. I live between Armidale (our farm and last place we worked), Scotts Head (beach house near father in law so I can look after him), Lithgow (my parents that’s now mine) and Warren (where we rent because Hubby works out here).

Lithgow is full of spiders and snakes as well as the fires. The last big one in the blue mountains, “the State Mine Fire”, started right behind me. It was scary. Oh and there was a baby brown snake in the undie department of the local Target. Ladies undies so we can’t make one eyed trouser snake jokes unfortunately. Armidale is spiders and snakes. Scotts Head is sharks and brown snakes and earthquakes lately. And Warren is willy willies and snakes. 5 foot brown ones right beside the back door aren’t my idea of fun. And we can’t forget the drop bears hahaha Thankfully I don’t live too close to cyclones.

Jacqueline wrote: "Yeah Jen I live in Aus. Beside the Blue Mountains. Sometimes. I live between Armidale (our farm and last place we worked), Scotts Head (beach house near father in law so I can look after him), Lith..."

Okay I shall never complain about the cold again as long as I don't have to worry about those things... I have no idea what a 'Willy willies' is though?

Raquel wrote: "just about every area of the country has some kind of disaster risk, and I think I'd rather have tornadoes than any of the other options...."

I'm north of Syracuse, and our big natural disaster is ... snow. It seems like the least deadly of all of them, to me! Yeah, we get snowed in now and then, and sometimes we lose power, and yes it's cold (but not as cold as Minnesota!), but municipalities are ready for the snow and it gets plowed away in good time. We are too far inland to be hit with hurricanes (we just get the edges, high winds, rain, but nothing deadly), and I guess too hilly to get big tornadoes (we just get little ones), and I don't even feel the earthquakes, and since it snows or rains all the time we rarely have flooding (I know that seems ass-backwards, but it's not! The topography is already well-suited to handling large amounts of precipitation, so it readily soaks into the ground and gets whisked away in rivers and dumped into the Great Lakes. We do have localized flooding every spring when the snow melts, but that's expected, so while it sucks for people on the edge of the flood zones when there's a bad year, it's not deadly.) And even though it's on the edge of rural here, we do not have wolves or black bears or cougars, so the deadliest animals are coyotes, rattlesnakes, and skunks! (And rabid animals, of course. And ticks, and mosquitoes ...) I can handle that. Also, I've NEVER seen a rattlesnake in my yard; the only snakes I've seen are garter snakes and black water snakes.

* I just googled to check on where the rattlesnakes live, and sure enough the copperheads and timber rattlesnakes are only in the southern parts of NY, not up here . Buuuuttt... the third type of rattlesnake in NY is the Massasauga rattlesnake:

"One of three venomous snakes in New York. The massasauga, which is listed as "endangered," is found in only two locations, both large wetlands. One is located northeast of Syracuse in the Cicero Swamp area ..." LOL guess what is directly across the street??? hahahah yes the Cicero Swamp ... it's okay, I generally avoid that area, not because of snakes but because of mosquitoes. They are terrible here. Thanks, swamp!

Jacqueline wrote: "Yeah Jen I live in Aus. Beside the Blue Mountains. Sometimes. I live between Armidale (our farm and last place we worked), Scotts Head (beach house near father in law so I can look after him), Lith..."

I'm in the top end most of the time so we have everything that can kill you except great whites (but we do have tiger sharks instead and obviously lots of crocs- in fact some numpty filled the school reception with them last year and even made it to the news in UK). Life is an adventure when you can even get dead from gardening (Melioidosis) or end up with ross river or dengue fever from mozzies or avoid the crocs and be killed by a banded sea snake, Irukandji or Portuguese man-o-war. Great wreck diving though.

Life interrupted, so I fell a little behind in my reading. That said I finished 2 books this week.
The Firebird - a book with an animal in the title. This was a bit too slow for me. I’ve read other Kearney books that were more engaging. 3/5.

The Heist- a book about a heist. It’s been about 10 years since I last read Silva, having felt like the last one I read (Moscow Rules) was phoned in. I listen to this one - and really enjoyed it. Started out as an art heist and ended up with a banking heist. My only issue is the resolution was not believable. I think it after all the work done on the operation, the resolution should have been more satisfying.

QTW- My favorite assigned book in high school was To Kill a Mockingbird

I'm so jealous of some of the books you were assigned for class! I blame our school board for supporting censorship. We were never going to be allowed to read To Kill a Mockingbird or Catch-22 or The Catcher in the Rye. Even the non-controversial books we read were often redacted. Our teachers used a black Sharpie to cross out sections of the books. As a librarian now, I look back and am appalled that was allowed to happen.

College was better, of course. I loved my class on Zen literature and The Three-Cornered World will always be a favorite of mine. I liked King Lear and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Surprisingly, I really loved Billy Budd, Sailor so maybe I'd be one of the rare people to like Moby Dick. Volpone sparked my love for villains/anti-heroes. Mosca was my Loki long before I'd even heard of Marvel's Loki. We studied a lot of poets that I love to this day: Frost, Yeats and Keats (even though I always get them confused), Marlowe's and Shakespeare's sonnets, Blake. Not to mention Thoughts from Walden Pond which changed my life philosophy. I went through an intense dark phase after reading The Cask of Amontillado which led to me reading Anne Rice's entire Vampire Chronicles in a month and Mayfair Witches series the next month.

I did not read Frankenstein when it was assigned, but I plan to at some point. My hatred of The Scarlet Letter is so great that it blots out otherwise fond memories of English class. Clearly, that's what happened the first time I answered the QOTW!

Nadine wrote: "I just googled to check on where the rattlesnakes live, and sure enough the copperheads and timber rattlesnakes are only in the southern parts of NY, not up here."

I grew up in the Hudson Valley (kind of in between Kingston and Woodstock) and yes, I encountered a number of copperheads as a kid... as well as a lot of harmless snakes (black snakes, garter snakes, milk snakes, and the like). While I would definitely say the area was pretty free of natural disasters - no fires, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, or tornadoes (hey, we didn't even get as much snow as you guys get in Syracuse) - I didn't enjoy the snake thing. I have a phobia of snakes to begin with, so coming across so many, harmless or not, always freaked me out!!

Heather wrote: "... Even the non-controversial books we read were often redacted. Our teachers used a black Sharpie to cross out sections of the books. ..."

whoa. where did you go to school?? that's horrifying!

I don't understand why people are so afraid to introduce ideas to kids.