The Seasonal Reading Challenge discussion

Reading I'll Scream Later for #10.6 task. Marlee Matlin won Academy Award for her role in "Children of a Lesser God". This is reminding me why I seldom read autobiographies - I end up learning more about the author's private life than I ever wanted to know!

"I finished "The Secret River" and still working on "The Book Thief"

I'm reading The Titan's Curse, 3rd in the Percy Jackson series. It's ok. I'm a little tired of this series, but my daughter has been bugging me to read this, so I am. I love the IDEA of this series, but the basic premise of every book is that Percy has no idea what is going on, but everyone around him knows what is going on. Why don't they just tell him, so he knows what he is doing? The books would still be really fun adventure stories, but without the annoyance factor.

I'm reading Three Cups of Tea & The Grapes of Wrath.

Ashley, maybe that's my problem about Percy Jackson - his ignorance was understandable at first, but when they kept sending him out to do things and not telling him what he needed to know, he did get annoying. All I know is that I was more interested in Grover the satyr than in Percy having to deal with the tantrums and fighting among the gods. Although, I do have to admit I'm kinda interested in seeing that 600th floor of the Empire State Building!

Grover is a lot of fun! Have you seen the movie? He's great in the movie also.

I'm trying to get through some of my depressing reading choices so I can relax and enjoy some lighter reading next month. Just finished The Handmaid's Tale before reading I'll Scream Later, and followed it right up with One Second After - I'm at the halfway point there, and things just keep getting more intense.

I finished "The Book Thief"

I finished "Mirror, Mirror On The Wall"

I'm on the last chapters of One Second After

I'm going to need something light next - maybe Georgette Heyer's Charity Girl, or a Queen Betsy story

I am reading "Remembrance" by Theresa Breslin.

Well, I finished One Second After, and read my Queen Betsy book for something light (not sure if/where I can use it, as it was a library book and technically not on my TBR for Leora's task), but it was lots of fun. Also read Born in Shame (Born In trilogy #3) and loved it - great end to the trilogy, and this one I can use for Leora's task.

Now reading Die Trying for the 2nd book in Stephanie's task

BJ Rose wrote: "Well, I finished One Second After, and read my Queen Betsy book for something light (not sure if/where I can use it, as it was a library book and technically not on my TBR for Leora..."

Did you like Killing Floor? Lee Child is one of my favorites- I'm counting down the days until 61 Hours: A Reacher Novel

Dlmrose wrote: "Did you like Killing Floor? Lee Child is one of my favorites- I'm counting down the days until 61 Hours: A Reacher Novel "

I did indeed! It was nonstop action and really kept me glued to it. I'm not (yet?) getting that feel for Die Trying, but I'm less than 100 pp. into it. My husband really likes them, and the advantage to coming to them late is that we don't have to wait for any for quite a while!

I need to hunker down and finish some books. Lately I've been flitting from one to the other and starting new ones.
The books I'm currently reading are:
The Bronze Horseman, which is not great....hardly good. I'm pretty sure I know how it'll end...and I mean the series; not this individual book. It's very transparent. Sadly, it could have been a good story but the author can't make it real. It comes across as choppy, childish and furthering the storyline has "too easy" solutions just pop up out of nowhere,
Dracula, which is sitting by my bedside where I read a few pages a day. It's well written but slow in action,
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, which I'm really enjoying. It's a story of a 60 year old man who has a stroke and loses the memory of his life from it. He remembers the information from what he's read over the years but nothing personal. The book is his journey to regain his past.
Fool, which is starting to pick up now. It started slow, which was a bit of a disappointment.

Since my last posting in this thread, I have finished all three books I was reading and also finished Soulless, the first book in the Parasol Protectorate series. I have since moved onto the second in the series, Changeless, for the "Fabulous firsts..." task. I am also finishing The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory and Spring Awakening for the second and first half, respectively, of other tasks.

I'm plugging along verrrrry slowly this challenge. I just haven't had much reading time this spring! Right now I'm reading The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt, the second part of a two-book task I'd really like to finish before I run out of time. I'm not far enough into it yet to know whether or not I like it, though.

I'm getting ready to start Gone with the Wind. I read it fifty years ago and felt so decadent reading it! Since then I've seen the movie and watched the hilarious Carol Burnett send-up, so we'll see what I think this time around.

I finally started Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I am so excited!

I started The Hunger Games today. I may or may not also get a start on Fang tonight.

I've started reading My Antonia as part of Task 20.5.
My Antonia is a book I had to read in University for an English course and I absolutely hated it. I don't even think I finished it. In the last Challenge, I read another Willa Cather book (trepidly) and enjoyed it so I thought I'd give My Antonia another try after all these years.

I also started Great Expectations. It was mentioned in The Eyre Affair and I'm using these two books for that task (30.5??). I'm quite surprised at how humerous Dickens is! I keep chuckling out loud at these randomly placed one-liners throughout the text.

I have now finished all three books I mentioned in my last posting in this thread, and moved on to Highland Fling for the second part of a task-- it's a fast read. I am also on Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor: Being the First Jane Austen Mystery for the first part of the 50-point task and Little Women and Werewolves for the second part of another task.

Listening to Speaker for the Dead for #10.8 and reading Bitten for the journalist task.

Started Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter this morning and hoping to start on Fang tonight for 5.9.

Just finished The Goose Girl for the 50 point task. And started Alice I Have Been for the Birth and renewal task.

I am reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver for 5.2. I just barely found this group and think this sounds like a lot of fun! I'm also reading Savvy by Ingrid Law.

I finished Maisie Dobbs and I started Chronicles of Avonlea today.

I finally finished "Family Tree" and continuing with "Chronicles of "Avonlea"

I am chugging through Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. So far it is my favorite book by him.

Finished William McKinley and still working on Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Still haven't started Fang.

I'll be finishing Blankets today. It's a coming-of-age graphic memoir. In this tale, Craig and his brother are from a religious family and are tormented by bullies in the school system (no connection between the two facts). There's a love interest in his teens that shows how two young people can be drawn apart due to the stresses within their individual lives.

I'll then be starting Evil at Heart, the third Gretchen Lowell book. I'm looking forward to reading this one. It'll be my lunch-time-at-work book.

And I'm continuing with Great Expectations at home.

I am reading "The Golden Compass". I am so glad I joined this challenge because I've had the book sitting on my bookshelf for a while and I was hesitant to read it. But now I am enjoying it very much!

Finished Resistance this morning. I as still reading Alice I Have Been and am hoping to finish tonight or tomorrow morning. I have the later shift tomorrow so an extra hour to read in the morning Yeah!!

I finished "Chronicles of Avonlea" and started "The Pale Horse" by Agatha Christie.

I just finished The Maze Runner & LOVED it!
Now I'm off to read Dragonfly in Amber.

Started Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon--And the Journey of a Generation by Sheila Weller who is an award-winning magazine journalist (Glamour, Vanity Fair, New York) if anyone's still looking for a book for 10.5.

It's long (527 pp) but fascinating.

I started the Jane Austen Book Club on audio.

Finished Enna Burning for 20.6. Now reading A Christmas Carol/The Chimes/The Cricket on the Hearth. I am reading The Chimes and Cricket on the Hearth for 30.6.

I'm rereading the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's been a few years and it's always been one of my great loves so I'm enjoying being back in Middle-earth. I'm currently on The Return of the King.

I am on a horror spree and reading eyes of prey by hoffman and dead letters by Tom Piccirilli i am going to read the historian this book club choice and pair it up with dracula which i have not read yet and vampire lestat

Working on Melissa's Task #25.10 with Three Men in a Boat and then To Say Nothing of the Dog

I've been a big fan of science fiction since my (misspent) youth, but this year I decided to go to The LOCUS Index to SF Awards, and read the award winners I never got to in my early days...

Of course, this was also in the middle of a couple of series (Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mysteries, Clive Cussler...) that I am trying to finish...

And now I've discovered The Seasonal Reading Challenge...

Soooooo... here are the (library) books I'm trying to clean off my nightstand just now:
* Naval Operations Analysis [work, for a professional certificate:]
* The Darwin Awards Next Evolution: Chlorinating the Gene Pool (Darwin Awards, #5) [tripped over @ library:]
* The Host (audio) [Least-icky Romance (I'm a guy). Rolled "Romance" on the dice for 50.1:]
* Secrets of the Vine: Breaking Through to Abundance [A winter Sunday School assignment I never managed to finish.:]
* Sports Illustrated Monday Morning Quarterback: A fully caffeinated guide to everything you need to know about the NFL [about time I learned something about football... AND, I was on a trivia kick in January.:]
* Fancies and Goodnights [short stories by John Collier, my standing SF/Fantasy catch-up. Won the International Fantasy Award in 1952.:]

Whew!

I finished "The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

Mike I'm a "list" person as well and have just come across the Edgar Awards list for 2010 that were given out in April and now I am working through that list starting with the winnner in the best mystery novel category which is The Last Child by John Hart . I am also working through a list of books that made it to #1 on the NY Times list and am reading A Day Late and a Dollar Short by Terry McMillan which was #1 for 3 weeks in February 2001. I love lists because it gives me a sense of order in my reading.

I finished "The Jane Austen Book Club" and I started "prophecy of the Sisters" last night.

I finished Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell and am now starting Twisted by Andrea Kane

I just finished Edward Kennedy's True Compass (which was excellent) and am reading The Candy Bombers about the Berlin Airlift.

I got my copy of Dead In The Family so I started reading that yesterday and still working on Prophecy of the Sisters?

I'm reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at the moment, it's taking me quite a long time to read, and the business part of the book is quite dull.

Well, since I last posted in this thread, I finished the three books I mentioned, as well as Daddy Long Legs for task 25.3. Now, I am onto:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for task 20.6--and it's going fast!
Miss Marjoribanks for task 5.10
The Deception of the Emerald Ring for the first half of task 15.4

Then I will move onto my final books for this season's challenge:


Rasputin's Daughter for the second half of the 50-point task
A Long Fatal Love Chase for the second half of task 15.4
Mythology for task 25.7
An Education for task 10.6