All About Books discussion

So Long a Letter was really good! I've read it this summer and enjoyed it. It was short but intense and moving.
I also liked a lot Kafka on the Shore and I hope you will enjoy it too.

Very nice! I especially like the Shakespeare challenge.
I've heard great things about The Hundred-year-old who...and than disappeared.

I read Ordinary People this year and gave it to a friend to read so that we could discuss it. Very powerful and thought provoking. My favourite Tim Winton (of the ones I've read) is The Riders, I found it also very discussible, have you read it?

Excellent! Enjoy!

Great challenge Ian!

I like the genres theme, great challenge

Ian, I too have read Tim Winton's Cloudstreet. Dysfunctional families Australian style are the best words I can use to depict this book. The setting is Perth and the time period is 1944-1964. The end of the war and the hard times that followed determine the setting. Good book, but you have to be wanting to read about a dysfunctional family!

If you want to add a book for Nebraska, after reading the book you will WANT to spend time there! I highly recommend Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps. The author was a National Poet Laureate. Not a book of poetry, but you can tell the author is a poet. Boy can he write. (Great cover on the book!)

Hope you enjoy your challenge.

Great challenge Ian. I'm aiming to read some different genres next year as well, I have Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? on my list for this, so I'll keep an eye out to see what you think of it too.

I espy several books that I would be happy to read as well (esp. in #4 and 5).

Good variety :)

I had trouble with Antarctica on a previous All Around the World challenge and still haven't read anything from this continent. However, I believe that The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is partly set there and I've heard good things about it, plus it won the Pullitzer Prize. Otherwise the only books I can think of deal with the Antarctic expeditions and race for the South pole.

I've read one not long ago set in the Artic but Antarctica, no idea.

Here is what I have for Antarctica: At the Mountains of Madness (horror novella); Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival at the South Pole (nonfiction, memoir); The Atlantis Gene (thriller, only partly set in Antarctica)

I'm currently reading The Lightkeeper's Wife by Karen Viggers. Not quite set in Antarctica. It takes place mostly in Tasmania and is about an elderly woman and her son, who is haunted by events during a year spent in Antarctica. So there are flashbacks. Don't know if that is enough to count, but I'm counting it as mine anyway! Also haven't read enough yet to say if I'd recommend it or not, but thought I'd mention it...

Glad you found one that you like for Antarctica.

Great start to your challenge :)

Some fantastic books on that list of what you're reading Ian and a great mix of different sorts of books too!

Ian wrote: "Looking for help with which Shakespeare play to read this month. The Winter's Tale was great, now to something else"

Do you have a preference regarding tragedy versus comedy versus history?

Here are my first thoughts:
For a tragedy, try Titus Andronicus
For a comedy, either The Taming of the Shrew or A Midsummer Night's Dream
For a history, either Julius Caesar or Henry V

I'd go for either Macbeth or Hamlet. I notice they're both on your list, and they're both really exiting! I reread Hamlet last month and gave it 5*. Here's my review. Maybe his best play?

Thanks for mentioning Titus Andronicus Leslie and Ian, though, as I haven't read that one and will add it to my to-read shelf!