All About Books discussion

I'm going to call this a plan this year instead of a challenge. I'm not looking to increase the amount I read - it remains fairly consistent at about a book a week ~ 48-52 books. I have some ideas for new categories for 2015, but except for the 12 books in my f2f bookclub I am not going to set numbers. I always end up reading more random titles anyway and I don't want to have my reading so tied up that I can't fit in a BOM that appeals to me. Outlining some ideas below, but these may get changed. I also will not link books until I have read them.

Daytimer's book club - 12 books
I don't have my list at home, so I'll correct this later. I pick the books for the group, so I should be able to remember them, just not sure of the order. I've added a "theme" to our list this year. Not all books fit the theme, but a number of them do. I have not told the group what the theme is - that is for them (and you) to discover.

January: The Great Gatsby - Jan. 9, 3 stars
February: Me Before You - Jan. 29, 4 stars
March: The Chaperone - Sept. 2015, 4 stars
April: Year of Wonders - April 17, 4 stars
May: The Goldfinch - April 26, 4 stars
June: The Light Between Oceans
July: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
August: Life After Life
September: Orphan Train - Nov. 2015, 5 stars
October: I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban - Sept. 2015, 5 stars
November: The House at Riverton - Nov. 2015, 4 stars
December: The Other Typist - Nov. 2015, 5 stars

Authors and series new to me:

Brock Clarke
Rose Tremain
David Mitchell
*Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch
Deborah Harkness
Game of Thrones
Robertson Davies
William T. Vollmann
James Rollins
Halldor Laxness
Lev Grossman
Station Eleven
Richard Powers
Michel Faber
Mary Doria Russell
Paullina Simons
Sandra Gulland
Jacqueline Carey
Jacqueline Winspear
Helen Hollick
Neal Stephenson
Patrick Rothfuss
A.S. Byatt
Nancy Bilyeau
Richard Flanagan
Robin Hobb
M.K. Hume
Robert Low
David Liss
Jo Walton
Iain Pears
Alice Thomas Ellis

Leftovers - books that I've started at one time or another but didn't finish and still want to read "someday." Also a few childhood books that I meant to reread this year and didn't finish.

Pillars of the Earth
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hounded
And Ladies of the Club (may finish in 2014)
Autobiography of Henry VIII
War and Peace
Wolf Hall
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
The Fall of Atlantis
Yankee Doodle
Vinzi
Watership Down
Shardik
Maia

Music - a "new" theme this year:

Music & Silence
Bel Canto
Mozart's Sister
Orfeo
2 A.M. At the Cat's Pajamas
Appassionata
Vivaldi's Virgins
The Cellist of Sarajevo
Sleeping With Schubert
The Mirrored World
The Gold Bug Variations
The Lost Stradivarius
Quartet for the End of Time
Chamber Music

Selections from The National Reading Group Month lists:

The Other Typist - Nov. 2015, 5 stars
Life After Life - Aug. 2015, 5 stars
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte
The House on Fortune Street
While I'm Falling
Out Stealing Horses
The Blessings of the Animals
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
When God Was a Rabbit
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
The Dovekeepers
The Orchardist
The Snow Child
The House Girl
Under the Wide and Starry Sky
The Good Lord Bird
Burial Rites

Read or reread all of Dorothy Dunnett, starting with

Niccolo Rising
The Spring of the Ram
Race of Scorpions

Book of the Month reads here and in other groups

The Canongate Myth Series:

A Short History of Myth
The Penelopiad
Weight
The Helmet of Horror
Lion's Honey
Dream Angus
Girl Meets Boy
Binu and the Great Wall
Where Three Roads Meet
The Fire Gospel
Orphans of Eldorado
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Ragnarok

Welsh or Arthurian books:

The Cold Light of Mourning
Eve Green
The Resistance
Night Bird's Reign
The Welsh Girl
The Winter Witch - read March 24, 4 stars
The Killing Way
The Hawk and the Wolf
The Kingmaking
Un Noson Dywyll (reading in Welsh)

I like you called it a plan and not a challenge. It gives you much more freedom in reading and it is less anxious. Good luck also to you!

I really liked both Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer and The Cellist of Sarajevo. Lots of books planned! Have fun.

Good luck with your challenge Laurel. A few I have read and enjoyed and lots that I have never heard of! :)

I have read about half of Ahab's Wife and did really like it. Unfortunately, it got interrupted due to other projects and really haven't been free to come back to it. I'll probably start it over now it's been so long. This is why I really want to go easy on the challenges next year!

Good luck Laurel, I see a few on here that I have read and really enjoyed.

Moby Dick project - one of my ongoing themes.

Why Read Moby-Dick? - read in 2012
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale - read in 2012
The Nautical Chart - read in 2012
Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them - read in 2013
Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick - read in 2013
The Secret of Lost Things - read in 2013
Ahab's Bride - read in 2013
Tigers in Red Weather - read in 2013
Moby Clique - read in 2013
Ahab's Wife
The Art of Fielding
Movement of the Stars
The Watery Part of the World
Railsea
We, The Drowned
The Rathbones
The Passages of H.M.
The Whale
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
The Snow Whale
The Handsome Sailor
The Night Inspector
The Solitude of Thomas Cave
The Widow's War
The Boundless Deep
Genoa
Call Me Ahab
Green Shadows, White Whale
Lucchesi and the Whale
Two Guys Read Moby Dick
The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld

The [Fill-in-the-Blank] Wife - another ongoing theme

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story - read in 2008
A Reliable Wife - read in 2011
The Time Traveler's Wife - read in 2012
The Sixth Wife - 2014
The Shoemaker's Wife - 2014
The Crane Wife - 2014
The Anatomist's Wife - 2014
The Silent Wife - 2014
The Traitor's Wife: The Woman Behind Benedict Arnold and the Plan to Betray America - 2014
The Headmaster's Wife - 2014
The Witch Doctor's Wife - 2014
The Aviator's Wife - 2014
The Lightkeeper's Wife - 2014
Ahab's Wife
The Twentieth Wife
The Fugitive Wife
The River Wife
The Lost Wife
The Soldier's Wife
The Paris Wife
The Tiger's Wife
The Kitchen God's Wife
Mr. Emerson's Wife
The Emancipator's Wife
The Seal Wife
The Heretic's Wife
The Antelope Wife
The Pilot's Wife
The Boleyn Wife
The Handfasted Wife
The Rebel Wife
The Sailor's Wife
An Inconvenient Wife
The Chocolatier's Wife
The Bishop's Wife'
The Silversmith's Wife
An Unseemly Wife

Here is my Pyramid Challenge (updated for 2015) - these are ongoing (not meant to be completed in one year)

15 books - Bird theme (see message #24)

14 books - Around the World
India - The Twentieth Wife
Asia - The Ghost Bride or The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
U.S. - The River Wife
Canada -
Central Amer. -
S.A. - Obsession
Africa - The Witch Doctor's Wife - read in 2014
Africa - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - read in 2014
Aust./N.Z. - The Lightkeeper's Wife - read in 2014
Oceania -
Polar - The Fugitive Wife or The Seal Wife
Maritime - The Sailor's Wife
Europe - Niccolo Rising
Russia/East. Eur. - Red Sparrow - March 2015

13 books - Canongate Myth series (see message #9)

12 books - Daytimer's book club (see message #2)

11 books - NRG lists (see message #6)

10 books - Music theme (see message #5)

9 books - Online book of the month reads and readalongs (see message #8)

8 books - Unfinished books (see message #4)

7 books - New authors (see message #3)

6 books - Old theme leftovers (see message #16 and 17)

5 books - Childhood rereads (message #4)

4 books - Welsh or Arthurian fiction (message #10)

3 books - Dorothy Dunnett (House of Niccolo) (message #7)

2 books - Non-fiction
The Plantagenets
The Isles: A History
Who Murdered Chaucer?
Decoding the Celts
Vanished Kingdoms
The Princess Who Ate People

1 book - Welsh language (continuing from 2014)
Un Noson Dywyll

Good luck Laurel! So many excellent books on your list.

I have read another book by the author of The Solitude of Thomas Cave: A Novel, so I have that as a book I want to read too. I really liked Painter of Silence. Good writer. Your wife challenge is fun.

Thanks, Sandy. I may have to add that one. Of course I'm not actually going to read ALL of these, but these are the lists I'm drawing from.

My completed plan is now posted (see message #18)

Can't resist adding one more theme: Birds. Been thinking about this one for awhile too along with the Music theme.

The Cuckoo's Calling - read Feb. 2015
Red Sparrow - March 2015
The Goldfinch - April 2015
Boy, Snow, Bird
All the Birds, Singing
The Good Lord Bird
The Lovebird
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
The Plover
The Nightingale
H is for Hawk - read April 2015
Birdsong
Birds Without Wings
The Gravity of Birds
The Hummingbird's Daughter
The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar
The Hummingbird House
The Sparrow
Peregrine
Hawk Quest
The Owl of the Durotriges
The Silver Falcon
Flight of the Sparrow
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa
Eagle in the Snow
Still Life With Woodpecker
At Swim-Two-Birds
White Ravens
Raven Black
Black Swan Green
Stormbird
Dreaming the Eagle
The Eagle and the Raven
Bird in Hand
Owls Do Cry
When Hoopoes Go To Heaven
The Swan Gondola

Already read:
The Crane Wife - read in 2014
The Plague of Doves - 2011
To Kill a Mockingbird - 2010
The Swallow and the Hummingbird - 2009
Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos, Murder With Puffins, Murder With Peacocks - 2007

Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl is very good!!!! . Birds without wings is great and good as an audiobook narrated by John Lee.

There are some other good ones there too, like The Hummingbird's Daughter and The Goldfinch, which I didn't think I would like but did. :0)

The Owl Who Liked Sitting on Caesar is on my lists.

I am going to check out some of the others. Thanks.

The Nightingale...by who?

There is also Sparrow by Giovanni Verga. Very short but intense.

I actually didn't note the author, but looking at the options it must be Nightingale by David Farland.

...or On wings of eagles by Ken Follett if you want action :)
Great theme!

Thanks, Dely. And that reminds me of The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell.

Oh and there is also A Guide to the Birds of East Africa. It is NOT a bird guide as I assumed for ages as all my friends read it!

Thanks for the author, Laurel. Now I can check it out.

Thanks Chrissie. Just added it.

I hope you enjoy Drayson's book. It's good, but Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl is much better. Wesley will stay with me forever.

Glad I could help.

I think I have solidified my Reading Plan for 2015, so here it is and I will add links as I read them. For my ongoing challenges (and I keep adding new authors to message 3 above) I have a growing list of 335 books on my 2015 TBR list, so I've randomized this by choosing every 15th book on the list, and hope to read at least 12 of those:

Daytimer's Book Club: 12 books
January: The Great Gatsby - finished Jan. 9
February: Me Before You - finished Jan. 29
March: The Chaperone
April: Year of Wonders - finished April 17
May: The Goldfinch - finished April 26 (also Bird challenge)
June: The Light Between Oceans
July: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (also NRGM challenge)
August: Life After Life (also NRGM challenge)
September: Orphan Train
October: I Am Malala
November: The House at Riverton
December: The Other Typist (also NRGM challenge)

Ongoing Challenges: 12 books
The Bronze Horseman (new author)
Song at Dawn (new author and Welsh)
The Handfasted Wife (Wife challenge)
The Little Friend (new author)
The Echo Maker (new author)
A Short History of Myth (Canongate series)
The Children's Book (new author and Shamrocks and Stones list)
The Lotus Eaters (NRGM challenge)
The Soldier's Wife (NRGM challenge and the Wife challenge)
Equal of the Sun (NRMG challenge)
David (NRGM challenge)
All the Light We Cannot See (NRGM challenge)
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (NRGM challenge)
The Twentieth Wife (Wife challenge)
The Kingmaking (Arthurian list)
The Cuckoo's Calling (Birds challenge) - read Feb. 2015
Red Sparrow (Birds challenge) - March 2015
Decoding the Celts (Non-fiction list)
Birdsong (Birds challenge and Welsh)
The Thing With Feathers (Birds challenge and non-fiction list)
2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas (Music challenge)
Wonderland (Music challenge)
A Conspiracy of Paper (new author)
The Winter Witch - Welsh
Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction - sequels 12 + 2

Started but never finished: 12 books
1. Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer (Moby Dick project and Wife challenge)
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
3. The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
4. The Pillars of the Earth (previous Daytimer's read)
5. Wolf Hall (previous Daytimer's read)
6. Niccolò Rising (reread and Shamrocks and Stones list)
7. Hounded
8. The Fall of Atlantis
9. The Amber Spyglass (will also have to reread the first two of the trilogy...)
10. Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe
11. Pride and Prejudice: The Scenes Jane Austen Never Wrote (concurrently rereading P&P)
12. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
--------------
Alternates:
1. War and Peace
2. Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia

Random reads, including BOM picks and readalongs: 12 books
1. Miracle and Other Christmas Stories - read Jan. 29
2. Longbourn - read Feb.
3. The Silkworm - March
4. H is for Hawk - April
And Ladies of the Club
Ulysses
Yankee Doodle (reread)
Vinzi (reread)
Watership Down (reread)

2015 Bingo Challenge:

1A) A book with more than 500 pages: The Goldfinch
1B) A forgotten classic:
1C) A book that became a movie: The Great Gatsby
1D) A book published this year: H is for Hawk
1E) A book with a number in the title:

2A) A book written by someone under 30:
2B) A book with non-human characters:
2C) A funny book:
2D) A book by a female author: The Silkworm J.K Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith
2E) A book with a mystery: The Cuckoo's Calling

3A) A book with a one word title: Longbourn
3B) A book of short stories: Miracle and Other Christmas Stories
3C) FREE CHOICE: Red Sparrow
3D) A book set on a different continent: The Winter Witch
3E) A book of non-fiction:

4A) The first book by a favourite author:
4B) A book you heard about online:
4C) A bestselling book: Me Before You
4D) A book based on a true story: Year of Wonders
4E) A book at the bottom of you TBR pile:

5A) A book your friend loves:
5B) A book that scares you:
5C) A book that is more than 10 years old:
5D) The second book in a series:
5E) A book with a blue cover:

XOXXO
OOOXX
XXXXO
OOXXO
OOOOO

Laurel wrote: "Daytimer's book club - 12 books
I don't have my list at home, so I'll correct this later. I pick the books for the group, so I should be able to remember them, just not sure of the order. I've adde..."

I like this list Laurel...I've read some of these and most are on my tbr list, maybe not for this year, but still...thanks for sharing - I also like your list of new series and authors, to you...great idea.

Laurel wrote: "Selections from The National Reading Group Month lists:

The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte
The House on Fortune Street
While I'm Falling
Out Stealing Horses
The Blessings of the Animals
The Pa..."

The Dovekeepers; The Snow Child and Burial Rites were all excellent reads, in my humble opinion - I hope you enjoy them!

Laurel wrote: "Leftovers - books that I've started at one time or another but didn't finish and still want to read "someday." Also a few childhood books that I meant to reread this year and didn't finish.

Pillar..."


LOVE this list!

Thanks, Janice. Unfortunately, the unfinished books are mostly chunksters, which is why they never got finished...

Typical - I am spending more time thinking about and organizing my reading than reading actual books! I've decided I want to incorporate some mini-challenges into the mix of time periods and countries - that is, pick a couple of time periods and a few countries to focus on over the year. I was going to say "quarterly" challenges, but I don't know if I'm that organized. So I'm not assigning these to any particular three months, and hopefully these will be books already on my list, so that I'm not actually adding any books. I know that the Daytimer's is reading several books set in the 1920s (since I created the list for the group) as a mini-theme. My other time period will be the Napoleonic Wars. As for countries (and a state/province), these are not written in stone, but this is where I am at right now:

Mini-challenges for 2015:

1920s:
The Great Gatsby - read Jan. 2015
The Chaperone
The House at Riverton
The Other Typist

Napoleonic Wars:
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
War and Peace
His Majesty's Dragons
Napoleon's Pyramids

Iceland:
Independent People
Burial Rites
Last Rituals
something by Olaf Olafsson

New Zealand:
Cloud Atlas
The Colour
The Luminaries

Belgium:
Cloud Atlas
The Courage Consort
Niccolo Rising

Nebraska:
Sing Them Home
The Echo Maker
To Be Sung Underwater
The Swan Gondola

I see that you have Niccolo Rising down for one of your Belgium books. Are you planning on reading the whole Niccolo series this year? Sooo tempting :D

Probably not the whole series, but I'd like to read at least 2 or 3 of them.

I did read a couple of them a long time ago, and got so mad I quit. But I've always meant to come back to them, and I promised myself I would read them all before I reread The Lymond series (which I ADORE).

Laurel wrote: "I did read a couple of them a long time ago, and got so mad I quit. But I've always meant to come back to them, and I promised myself I would read them all before I reread The Lymond series (which ..."

?? I like the Niccolo series even more than the Lymond one... I am again so tempted to reread them this year but I am trying to limit my rereading. With so many books I have never read on my to-read list, it is hard to make time to reread these days :(

I haven't kept up very well the last few months, and I don't want to take the time to add links now. But here is a rough summary of how I did.

Total of 50 books, which is the most since I've been keeping track, BUT 10 of those were Chi's Sweet Home, a children's graphic novel series. So really only 40 books - a bit lower than usual.

Daytimer's Book Club - Read 11 of 12

New authors - only managed one on my list, But overall, 26 books were new to me authors.

Leftovers - None

Music theme - None yet.

Titles from the National Reading Group Month lists - 2

Canongate list - None yet

Bird theme - 7