Erin and Vinay host a Facebook group that sets up two 4-month reading challenges with competitions each year. Participants are required to read ten books in the four months of each challenge. The most recent BCBE has run from July 1st and ends October 31st. I believe the next one will run January to April 2021. I always complete this far too late to win any prizes, so I’d don’t even bother to tally my score. This is really great fun! #bookchallengebyerin

FREEBIE (min 200 pages): The High Rise in Fort Fierce by Paul Carlucci

Paul Carlucci is a Canadian author (who seems to go to great pains to disguise that fact) of mostly, if not completely, short stories.

High Rise is a collection of linked short stories that reveal a novel’s plot by the end of the book. Somewhere, I heard that Fort Fierce is modeled on Fort McMurry in northern Alberta, and home of a lot of Atlantic Canadians – so, of course, I had to read it.

It’s one of those books that you want to read again from the beginning – but I had to return it to the library. It’s rather brilliant, really. 4 stars

 
STARTS WITH “S”: So Big by Edna Ferber

So Big is a modern classic – and the winner of the 1924 Pulitzer Prize. It’s billed as the story of Selina Peake DeJong, but was really about her son Dirk, a nobody from a little truck farm in south Chicago who made it big. Wikipedia says it was modeled on a real-life woman.

I agree with Ferber who said of it: “It had no plot at all, as book plots go”, and further remarked that “it was a story of the triumph of failure.” 4 stars

 
Title has a PREPOSITION: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
4½ stars

 
ODD NUMBER in a series: Shadow Dancing by Julie Mulhern #7 Country Club Murders

This delightful murder mystery series is set in 1971 Kansas City. Despite the fact that I really don’t like romance in my murder mysteries and that Ellison Russel would probably snub me if we ever met, I can’t help but like her and root for her relationship with the handsome homicide detective (whom the author has styled on Steve McQueen).

All of the book titles in the Country Club Murders series are based on songs from the era, and the covers are all of the same design. Especially if you are of a certain age, you just have to try it. 4½ stars

 
SET IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY: Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry
4 stars

 

FEMALE POLICE Protagonist: The Birdwatcher by William Shaw #1 DS Alexandra Cupidi

It would take a lot for me to continue in a police procedural series and, even though I thought Cupidi was well-drawn and absolutely believable, this didn’t have it. The plot had just a few too many coincidences. 3½ stars

 

IMMIGRANT Main Character: Barnacle Love by Anthony de Sa

Five years ago, I found de Sa’s first book Kicking the Sky to be “heartbreaking and very human”, and I really wanted to like Barnacle Love as much. I just didn’t.

Like Carlucci’s Fort Fierce, this is a book of linked short stories, telling in chronological order the story of a Portuguese fisherman washed up in a storm on the shores of rural Newfoundland in the 1950s. Eventually, the family gets to Toronto, where the kids ride their bikes in the alley, as they did in Kicking the Sky.

De Sa, who is second generation Portuguese seems to draw heavily on his own family and their experience. 3½ stars

 
Title contains “THING”: Anything for Billy by Larry McMurtry

3½ stars

 
Book has an OCTOBER CONNECTION: Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins-Reid

(October 13th is National No Bra Day. Really.)
Enough said?
3½ stars

 
CITY, TOWN, VILLAGE etc. in title: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Oh – I’ve been wanting to read this for years, and now I can add it to Nonfiction November.

You all probably know that it’s about the 1893 Chicago’s World’s Fair AND about the completely mad serial killer H.H. Holmes and his World’s Fair hotel. It was riveting.

And I was so surprised to learn that the first Ferris wheel was steam-powered (duh) AND had whole rail cars where today we have one seat.

Also: I thought the “White City” was Chicago but it actually was a term applied to the main portion of the World’s Fair. 4½ stars

 

I may have made a mistake in how I entered this and might not even qualify – but it was fun anyway. Does anything look interesting to you?

 

P.S. Some of the links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

As I mentioned in my last post, Bookish Beck’s variation on Phyllis Rose’s The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading is for any set of four books in a row on my own shelf. I decided to choose from the books on my fiction shelves, filed by author surname. The letter M was my first dip.

The first book I tackled was Such a Long Journey which was Rohinton Mistry’s first book, published in 1991 and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, which was won that year by The Famished Road by Ben Okri. Mistry had published two short story collections prior to this first novel, but it was the magnificent A Fine Balance that catapulted him to fame in 1995.

Such a Long Journey is classic Mistry: straightforward in plot development, but taking the time to build the settings, as well as the characters. Mistry is a genius in drawing us pictures of everyday 20th-century India. We can feel Gustad’s frustrations, his fears – and his loyalties to old friends that embroil him unwittingly in dangerous activities. It was important for us to realize the corner that Gustad was in and that, despite the questionable nature of the deliveries he has to make, we are fully on his side.

I have also read Mistry’s third novel Family Matters, and recommend any of Mistry’s fiction to anyone interested in late twentieth century India. A Fine Balance appears on my list of all-time favourites. His marvelous writing talent is on in display in all of his books, although the circumstances of A Fine Balance (during the Troubles and Indira Gandhi) make it the most powerful of the three.
4 stars

 

Anything for Billy is the first of author Larry McMurtry’s books that I’ve read. I seldom hear much about it so I assume it wasn’t his best or, at least, his most popular. The book is fiction, based loosely (very loosely) on the last few days of the life of Henry McCarty aka William Bonney aka Billy the Kid. Billy was killed in a shoot-out at the age of 21, and that much remains the same in this book. But everything else is changed and/or imagined. Since we know how the whole mess ends, it’s almost painful to watch Billy swagger toward this death.

The narrator of Anything for Billy is spinning a yarn for us. It’s a yarn that is likely pretty accurate about the Wild West, but it’s just a yarn. 3½ stars

I have more books by McMurtry on my shelves and will definitely read them.

 
I had a choice of three books that W.O. Mitchell wrote and chose Jake and the Kid.

According to Wikipedia:

“An author of novels, short stories, and plays, Mitchell is best known for his 1947 novel, Who Has Seen The Wind, which has sold close to a million copies in North America . . and later a collection of short stories in 1961, Jake and the Kid which subsequently won the Stephen Leacock Award.”

Also, according to Wikipedia, I was really wrong in a previous post when I said ´My bet is that in the prairie provinces, the stories [in the Star Weekly] were by W.O. Mitchell.’ These stories were actually radio broadcasts of a series of the same name, which aired on CBC Radio between 1950 and 1956.

Mitchell grew up in Saskatchewan and most of his stories reflect a boy’s experiences growing up on the prairies. As I said in that earlier post, I’m keeping this book ‘forever’. 5 stars
 

And finally, there was The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet by David Mitchell. This novel won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize regional prize (South Asia and Europe); was long listed for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, was one of Time Magazine’s “Best Books of the Year” (#4 Fiction), was a Globe & Mail best book, and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. It was shortlisted for the 2011 Walter Scott Prize. It’s also my brilliant cousin’s (well, one of my brilliant cousins) favourite book so I approached it with some degree of trepidation, fearing that in my ignorance of the finer points of literature, I wouldn’t properly appreciate it.

The amount of research that had to have gone into The Thousand Autumns is phenomenal. Not only did Mitchell have to authentically create the Dutch East Indies trading post of 1799, and also Japan (not limited to the port of Nagasaki) of that time but, as well, the complicated relationships that the Japanese had with any foreigner to their land.

In the Reading Guide at the end of the book, Mitchell posits that historical fiction endures in popularity because “it delivers a stereo narrative: from one speaker comes the treble of the novel’s own plot while the other plays the bass of history’s plot.” Mitchell seems to have done a masterful job of all of these details and the book is fascinating for the window it opens onto the land and the time. It plays the treble and the bass equally well, and blends them into a harmonious whole.

The only complaint I have is the ending that seemed rushed to me – although at nearly 500 pages the story was probably long enough as it stands. 4½ stars

 
Now I have an empty space on my book shelf that I’m actually quite proud of and, surprisingly, have no urge to fill again. What about you? Would you want to get more books to fill that empty space?

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

I’m always looking for a way to attack the unread books on my own shelves, so when Rebecca at Bookish Beck decided to host a new type of challenge, I decided to try it.

Her project is inspired by Phyllis Rose’s The Shelf –from LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading for which Rose picked a shelf of the New York Society Library and after some housekeeping, read all the books on it. Rebecca’s is a variation for any set of four books in a row on my own shelf. See Bookish Beck for more details.

It was a lot of fun choosing the books to read and a great satisfaction in having an empty space on my shelf. I think I’ll probably play again with another letter.

I started with Such a Long Journey which was Rohinton Mistry’s first book. I was able to read it because of the Faber Firsts series which celebrated Faber’s 80th birthday and brought to light the first published novels of a variety of acclaimed authors. Some were the book that made their career and reputation; others, like Journey are not so well known. In 2009, there was a faberfirsts.com website but Norton blocked me from visiting today, telling me that it is a “known dangerous webpage”. I’ve never seen that message before, so Norton must have run into something.

I wasn’t able to find the cover that I have on my edition so this will have to do.

For those of you interested in such things, here is the list of Faber Firsts provided on the cover of Such a Long Journey:

William Golding Lord of the Flies
P.D. James Cover Her Face
John McGahern The Barracks
Sylvia Plath The Bell Jar
Peter Carey Bliss
Kazuo Ishiguro A Pale View of the Hills
Paul Auster The New York Trilogy
Orhan Pamuk The White Castle
Hanif Kureishi The Buddha of Suburbia
Rohinton Mistry Such a Long Journey

 
#4BooksinaRow

I’ll cover the other three books in this challenge in my next post. Have you read any of these “first books”? How did it compare to the author’s later works?
 

P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog.

As I’ve told you before, I haven’t officially entered any book challenges since 2012, when I entered 63 of them. You read that right: sixty-three challenges. As you might guess, that burned me out of reading lists for a while.

But, from time to time, I do challenge myself: to themed reading months, to the What’s in a Name? challenge now hosted by The Worm Hole, and to Semi-Charmed winter & summer challenges. All of these have the common element of introducing me to books I might have left languishing on the shelf, while being creative and fun.

 

 

It’s time now to announce that I’m entering the Winter 2016 edition of Semi-Charmed Book Challenge.

 

 

 

The challenge will run from November 1, 2016, to January 31, 2017. I’ve copied the criteria below. I have no idea at this time what books I will use to meet the requirements of the 10 point brand new release or either of the 30 point categories, and I’m open to suggestions.

 
Challenge Categories:
5 points: Freebie! Read any book that is at least 150 pages long.

10 points: Read a 2016 finalist (longlist or shortlist) for one of the following literary prizes: National Book Award, Man Booker or Man Booker International.

10 points: Read a brand-new release (something published between November 1, 2016, and January 31, 2017).

15 points: Read a book by an author of a different race or religion than you.

15 points: Read a book featuring a main character who is of a different race or religion than you.

20 points: Read a modern retelling of a classic

25 points: Read a book with an alcoholic beverage (neat or cocktail) in the title.

30 points: Read a book with a character that shares your first or last name.

30 points: Read two books: a nonfiction book and a fiction book with which it connects. (I must finish both books to get the 30 points! No partial points will be awarded.)

40 points: Read two books: one by an author whose first name is the same as the last name of the author of the other book. The shared name must be spelled exactly the same, no variations. (I must finish both books to get the 40 points! No partial points will be awarded.)

Do you have any suggestions for me, especially in my ‘problem’ categories?

 

Well, I’ve finished the Semi-Charmed’s Summer 2016 Challenge. Not in time to be in any of the winning spots, but well before the August 31st deadline. Here are the books I read:

 

Categories:
5 points: Freebie! Read any book that is at least 150 pages long. Lost Luggage by Jordi Punti

10 points: Read a collection of short stories or essays.
The Body in the Library edited by Rex Collings

10 points: Read an adult fiction book written by an author who normally writes books for children.
Kiss the Joy As It Flies by Sheree Fitch

15 points: Read a book set in Appalachia.
Appalachian Daughter by Mary Jane Salyers

15 points: Don’t judge a book by its cover! Read a book with a cover you personally find unappealing.
Ocean City Lowdown by Kim Kash

20 points: Read a book that you have previously only seen the film (movie) of. Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum

25 points: Read a book with a punny title. The title can be a play on another book title, movie title or a common expression. MacDeath by Cindy Brown

30 points: Read a micro-history.
Frozen in Time:Unlocking the Secrets of the Franklin Expedition by Owen Beattie and John Geiger

30 points: Read one book with a good word in the title, and one with a bad word.
Sea to SKY by R.E. Donald
The Gray & GUILTY Sea by Scott William Carter

40 points: Read two books that contain the same word in the title, but once in the singular and once in the plural.
Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes
The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

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This year, I’m doing something I’ve been meaning to do for years: joining the Canadian Reading Challenge.

Hosted by John at the Book Mine Set, the goal is to read at least 13 Canadian books between July 1st (Canada Day) and June 30th. John tries to read a book from each province and territory (hence 13 books) but, although I’ll try to mix it up, I’m not committing to that.

The kicker of this challenge is that not only do I have to read the books, but I have to review them online. So I have another incentive to get my blog caught up with my 2014 and 2015 reading.

This year marks the 10th year of the challenge: a milestone. Within the digits of the logo are logos from the past 9 editions.

Have a look at the challenge—join us if you’re brave. I’m always ready to help with suggestions for reading, especially in Atlantic Canada.

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I’m joining in an annual link-up hosted by Jo at The Book Jotter.

Now that we are halfway through the year, I quickly share the books I’ve read in those first 6 months: 6 books in each of 6 categories. The categories can be ones that Jo suggests or ones I choose myself.

There’s time until the end of July to join in, if you’d like to share the books you’ve read: 6 in 6.

Six first in a mystery series
Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake
The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan
The Dirty Book Murder by Thomas Shawver
MacDeath by Cindy Brown
In Dog We Trust by Neil S. Plakcy
Butterfly Boy by Mary Hiker

Six from the Non-fiction shelf
Sheetpan Suppers by Molly Gilbert
Edwardian Cooking: the Unofficial Downton Abbey Cookbook by Larry Edwards
Eat It Later by Michael Alvear
The Shelf by Phyllis Rose
Wildflower by Drew Barrymore
Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ by Guiliana Enders

Six authors I’ve read before
The Funeral Makers by Cathie Pelletier
Black Diamond by Martin Walker
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
Clouds in My Coffee by Julie McIvern
Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan
Swann by Carol Shields

Six authors new to me
Nate in Venice by Richard Russo
The Meadow by James Galvin
Landline by Rainbow Rowell
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
Nuts in May by Cornelia Skinner

Six books I received from the LibraryThing members’ giveaway
Public Garden Penny by Daniel Kelley
Hunter’s Daughter by Nowick Gray
How to Raise a Good Kid by Starbuck O’Dwyer
Writer’s Block by Julian Padowicz
Abandoned Dreams by Rod Raglan
Falling Problem by Andrew Stanek

Six books that were left over
Lost Luggage by Jordi Punti
All the Light we Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Hotel Angeline by 36 Seattle authors, edited by Garth Stein
Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowley
The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

 

I haven’t officially entered any book challenges since 2012, when I entered 63 of them. You read that right: sixty-three challenges. As you might guess, that burned me out of reading lists for a while.

But, from time to time, I do challenge myself: to themed reading months, to the What’s in a Name? challenge now hosted by The Worm Hole, and to Semi-Charmed winter & summer challenges. All of these have the common element of introducing me to books I might have left languishing on the shelf, while being creative and fun.

So it’s about time that I made it official: this year I’m formally entering Semi-Charmed’s Summer 2016 Challenge. I’ve copied the criteria to the end of this post. I have no idea at this time what books I will use to meet the requirements of each category, and I’m open to suggestions.

 

Categories:
5 points: Freebie! Read any book that is at least 150 pages long.
10 points: Read a collection of short stories or essays. They may all be written by the same author, or the book may be an anthology from different writers; your choice!
10 points: Read an adult fiction book written by an author who normally writes books for children.
15 points: Read a book set in Appalachia.
15 points: Don’t judge a book by its cover! Read a book with a cover you personally find unappealing.
20 points: Read a book that you have previously only seen the film (movie) of.
25 points: Read a book with a punny title. The title can be a play on another book title, movie title or a common expression.
30 points: Read a microhistory.
30 points: Read one book with a good word in the title, and one with a bad word. Note: This category is reeeeeeeally open-ended! Maybe you like turtles, so The Pearl that Broke Its Shell is a title with a “good” word. Similarly, the “bad” word could be a swear word or a literally negative word like “not” or “none,” or it could just be something you don’t like. Have fun with it! (Remember, you must read both books to get 30 points; this category is not worth 15 points per book.)
40 points: Read two books that contain the same word in the title, but once in the singular and once in the plural. (Remember, you must read both books to get 40 points; this category is not worth 20 points per book.)

Do you have any suggestions for me?

I’m sure there’s no question in your mind right now that I was out of my mind when I signed up for so many reading challenges in 2012. Here are the final three wrap-ups, including my overall count.

* * * * * * * * *

Briana over at The Book Vixen challenged readers to Outdo Themselves and read more books in 2012 than they did in 2011.

In 2011, I read 123 books; GoodReads tells me that was a total of 35,860 pages. Wow.

So this year was a scramble. I topped 2011 in number of books read in 2012 – 139 –

SUCCESS!

but not in total pages read (final count not in yet, but it’s not close).

* * * * * * * * *

Wow – I had psyched myself into taking on a 100+ book challenge in 2012, but when sign-up time came I could find only this one hosted by Amy at My Overstuffed Bookshelf. Amy challenged us to read at least 150 books in 2012. I took a deep breath and joined.

FAILURE!

Alas, while my 139 total was enough to top 2011, it fell a few books short of this new goal.

This is the only challenge page where I’ve listed all of the books I read last year, in the order in which I read them. I will be putting up pages in a week or two with alpha by author, and ratings by genre.

* * * * * * * * *

And now – drumroll, please – the results of the 63 reading challenges I took on this year for the Reading Challenge Addict challenge.

The challenge sign-up page lists all of the challenges and a “COMPLETED” or “FAILED TO COMPLETE” status.

The final count: a success in 48 of the 63 challenges, and a failure in the other 15.

That gives me

SUCCESS!

in the Reading Challenge Addict Challenge (follow?) in which I had pledged to complete at least 16 challenges.

* * * * * * * * *

Phew! I’m not doing that again.

A few of the shorter challenges I entered in 2012 are unique and are left now to be tied up in this mixed bad entry. Tomorrow I’ll post the overall and final reading challenge results for the year.

* * * * * * * * *

I’ve always liked time travel stories and sometimes fantasize about being able to transport myself back through my life to give my teenage self some advice (would I have even listened?) or visiting with my grandparents when they were young.

So I simply had to sign up for the Time Travel Reading Challenge hosted by Laura at Library of of Clean Reads. I entered at the Surprise Trip level that required me to read 1 -3 time travel books

SUCCESS!

1. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

2. A Dog’s Journey by W. Bruce Cameron

* * * * * * * * *

The idea of the The Birth Year Reading Challenge is to discover books that were published the year you were born, or in the birth year of someone special to you.

I really couldn’t get excited about anything published in my birth year, so I decided to do an Honors Challenge and read books published in 1973 – the year my beautiful baby girl came into the world. (Love you, Jen!)

SUCCESS!

A Prairie Boy’s Winter by William Kurelek

Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

* * * * * * * * *

To stretch myself in 2012, I decided to join the Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge, created by Elizabeth at The Devoted Eclectic. I went in ‘casual’ this year at the ‘Stella’ level of 3 books and ‘dabbled’ in more than one genre. I have technical

SUCCESS!

because the challenge was counted in books although I had wanted to count by authors. By that standard, I just plain ran out of time and have to decide whether I’m going to put Transit of Venus in my January reading pile, or return it to the library unread.

1. The Secret River by Kate Grenville

2. Searching for the Secret River by Kate Grenville

3. Bush Studies by Barbara Baynton

* * * * * * * * *

The concept of seeing how my non-fiction reading relates to novels is a fun idea, so I was intrigued by The Truth in Fiction Challenge, hosted by Amanda over at The Fig and Thistle.

The goal of the challenge was to read a specified number of book pairs that were comprised of one fiction book and one related non-fiction book. Amanda encouraged us to think outside of the box; the non-fiction book could also be journals, letters, memoirs, etc…. The pairs didn’t need to be exact matches, although there should be an easily detectable common thread.

The catch: Instead of individual reviews, after each book pair I had to write a joint review. And this is where I

FAILED!

this mission.

I had a lot of fun pairing up my books:

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler with Mordecai: The Life & Times by Charles Foran

A Small Furry Prayer by Steven Kotler with A Dog’s Journey by W. Bruce Cameron

The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard with 419 by Will Ferguson

Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck with 11/22/63 by Stephen King

BUT the only joint review I posted was about the first pair I read:

1. The Secret River and Searching for the Secret River, both by Kate Grenville

* * * * * * * * *

That’s it for the odds and ends. Thanks for hanging in with me.

I love mysteries!So it should have been a cinch to finish the four mystery reading challenges I entered in 2012. Instead, I am batting .500.

Bev at My Reader’s Block is a great fan of mysteries published before 1960, as am I. These are the dime novels my dad read and that I cut my reading teeth on. For 2012, she offered a variety of ways to meet her Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge and I took on the Lethal Location theme.

FAILURE!

I am dismayed that I did not complete this but there are a couple of mitigating factors: I had trouble locating a number of my original picks, AND somewhere through the year, I lost sight of the ‘prior to 1960’ stipulation and read at least two books by a vintage author published too late.

Here’s what I managed:

1. The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham (1929)

2. Murder at Hazelmoor by Agatha Christie (1931)

3. The Cape Cod Tavern Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1934)

4. Halfway House by Ellery Queen (1936)

5. Death at the President’s Lodging by Michael Innes (1936)

* * * * * * * *

Last year when I compiled my year list of books I read in 2011, I was astounded at the number of mysteries I’d consumed: about 35% of my reading. That, combined with the fact that I had already signed up for the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge, made Cruisin’ through the Cozies, hosted by Yvonne at Socrates’ Book Reviews an easy fit.

I wasn’t going to enter at the Super Sleuth level but after compiling those stats, I thought it would be a piece of cake to read 13 or more cozy mysteries in 2012. And I was right!

SUCCESS!

For the complete list of the 19 qualifying titles, please see my sign-up page.

* * * * * * * *

The Smooth Criminals 2012 Challenge, hosted by Ben at Dead End Follies is a mystery reading challenge with an edge. Participants were required to read books in each of the following categories. For those unfamiliar with the tougher mysteries, the distinctions between genres can be fine. One of Ben’s goals was to make us do some research – and that’s what I did.

FAILURE!

I had the books – I just ran out of time.

To see the great categories – and their definitions – and what I read and what I intended to read, please visit my sign-up page.

* * * * * * * *

To complete the second annual Criminal Plots Reading Challenge, I had to read six books, one to fit into each of the following categories.

SUCCESS!

1. Book published at least 10 years ago: Crime at the Black Dudley by Margery Allingham

2. Book written by an author from the state/province/etc. where I live: Murder: a Crafty Business by Lila Phillips of Truro, Nova Scotia

3. Book written by an author using a pen name: The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn, a pseudonym used by Peter Abrahams

4. Crime novel whose protagonist is the opposite gender of the author: I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Flavia deLuce) by Alan Bradley

5. A stand-alone novel written by an author who writes at least one series: Murder at Hazelmoor by Agatha Christie

6. Novel with a weapon in the title: Sign of the Broken Sword by G.K. Chesterton

* * * * * * * *

Just a few more to wrap up and I can get on with my life…

I took on a couple of major category challenges in 2012, requiring me to read 12 & 13 different categories respectively. There were only eight overlapping categories, though, so I ended up reading books for 17 different genres: eight non-fiction and nine fiction.

For the Library Thing 12 in ’12 group, I needed to pick any twelve categories and the books to fit them.

SUCCESS!

But why didn’t I just pick 12 of the 13 in the next challenge? Simple: I had posted my sign-up, publicly declaring my picks before I found the Mixing It Up Challenge. Honour kept me locked to them.

The five non-fiction and seven fiction categories I chose, and the books I read to fulfill them are list on my sign-up page.

* * * * * * * *

Ellie, who hosted the Mixing It Up Challenge at her blog Musings of a Bookshop Girl determined the categories. She set out 16 types of books, and the challenge levels.

I decided to skip the horror, romance, & manga groups and entered at the Two-Tier Cake level, needing to complete 13 categories.

SUCCESS!

To see the 7 non-fiction and six fiction categories that I completed, and the books I did it with, please visit my sign-up page.

This is the time of year when all the “best of” lists are being published by everybody from bloggers to newspapers to booksellers. Last year at this time, I saw so-o-o-o many books that I’d missed in my 2011 reading, so I was glad to find a couple of challenges that allowed me to read only books published in 2011.

I’d wanted to get on track to reading more literary fiction, so the Reading the Award Winners Book Challenge, hosted by Girl XoXo seemed good. Books could be winners of any major book award and I was allowed to read books from different categories of the same award.

Only catch: they had to be the prize-winners in 2011. I tried really challenging myself and reading only Canadian award winners, so I’m entered at only the Silver level, requiring me to get six to nine 2011 champs under my belt.

SUCCESS!

even though I managed to make just four of the six Canadian award winners:

1. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyen: 2011 winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize
The Giller Prize is an annual literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English.

2. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes: 2011 winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
The Man Booker Prize is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe.

3. Practical Jean by Trevor Cole: winner of the 2011 Stepehen Leacock Medal for Humour
The Stephen Leacock Award is an annual literary award presented to the best work of humorous literature in English by a Canadian writer.

4. Moon Over Manifest by Claire Vanderpoole: winner of the 2011 John Newbery Medal
The Newbery Medal is awarded each year to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.

5. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt: winner of the 2011 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction
The Governor-General’s Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields.

6. Mordecai: The Life & Times by Charles Foran: winner of the 2011 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction
The Governor-General’s Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields.

* * * * * * *

Cassandra over at Wickedly Delicious Tales hosted the 2012 Amazon Best Books of 2011 Reading Challenge. I entered this at the Novice level which required me to choose five books from the editors’ list.

So this should have been a shoe-in – wouldn’t my award winners be on the Amazon list? Not so much. Despite that, I claim

SUCCESS!

Here’s the Amazon list.

My five included only The Sisters Brothers and The Sense of an Ending from the Reading the Award Winners Book Challenge (above) plus:

3. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

4. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

5. The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

* * * * * * *

Still with me? I’m nearly through wrapping-up the 2012 challenges. I promise.

THE SHORT

Collections of short stories aren’t eligible for a lot of reading challenges so even though I had a large one on my 2012 Bucket List and another in mind for a prize-winners challenge, I couldn’t count them for anything else. When I saw The 2012 Short Story Reading Challenge, hosted by Laura over at Library of Clean Reads, I knew I was in.

I entered at the Tell Me a Story level of 1 – 3 books, and until I counted up my for this list, I thought I had flunked (I read neither of the books that I had intended). But I got in some short story reading after all this year, so count a

SUCCESS!

1. My Financial Career & Other Follies by Stephen Leacock

2. The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

3. African Love Stories edited by Ama Ata Aidoo

4. QBI: Queen’s Bureau of Investigation by Ellery Queen

5. The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

6. The Museum of Dr. Moses by Joyce Carol Oates

7. The Beggar’s Garden by Michael Christie

8. Bush Studies by Barbara Baynton

* * * * * * *

Now this can be confusing, so pay attention. The Short Story Challenge above required me to read entire collections of short stories.

But the Short Story Reading Challenge hosted by Dead Book Darling asked me to read 12 individual short stories.

How, you may ask, could I possibly have completed seven collections but have not recorded twelve individual stories, thus chalking up a

FAILURE!

I had intended to read and to blog about my qualifying short stories – and to feature work by twelve different authors. I certainly did read the needed number of authors, but after March, I fell asleep at the keyboard. Here’s what I did do:

1. A Lesson on the Links by Stephen Leacock
2. The Landlady by Roald Dahl
3. The $64 Tomato by William Alexander

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

THE LONG
I had a couple of l-o-n-g books on my bucket list this year so I thought I may as well get credit for them. Oddly enough, I didn’t complete the reading of my bucket list – but I did have success on all of these BIG book challenges.

Birgit at the Book Garden hosted the Tea and Books Reading Challenge for 2012, inspired by C.S. Lewis’ words: “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”

To honour the spirit of those words, Birgit threw down the gauntlet: to settle in with a large cup of tea, because in this challenge I had to read … wait for it … books with more than 700 pages. I entered this one at the Chamomile Lover level and committed to reading two such books.

Although I didn’t finish both of the books I had planned to read, I nevertheless had

SUCCESS!

with the following four books:

1. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth 1488 pages

2. 11/22/63 by Stephen King 849 pages

3. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 764 pages

4. Mordecai: His Life & Times by Charles Foran 717 pages (in progress)

* * * * * * *

The Chunkster Reading Challenge intrigued me from the get-go.

A chunkster is 450 pages or more of ADULT literature, whether non-fiction or fiction. No audio or e-books were allowed but this year for the first time, essay, poetry, and short story collections were permitted.

I’m went in at the Chubby Chunkster level, that required me to read four books. I’m claiming

SUCCESS!

with the following five books:

1. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth 1488 pages

2. 11/22/63 by Stephen King 849 pages

3. Mordecai: His Life & Times by Charles Foran 717 pages (in progress)

4. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston 608 pages

5. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie 552 pages

* * * * * * *

Darlene. who blogs over at Darlene’s Book Nook loves audio books – they’re the perfect way for her to fit reading in with her active ‘mom’ lifestyle. In 2012 she wanted to listen to some longer books, but couldn’t find a “big book” challenge that allowed her audio books. So she designed The Mammoth Book 2012 Reading Challenge.

This challenge allows books of all formats, including audio books and ebooks. The regular-bound format equivalent of any title must be a minimum of 450 pages.

Since I was already participating in the Chunkster Reading Challenge, I thought this would be a good fit for me. I’m entered at Level 2, and committed to read four mammoth-sized books.

Since I can include the five books listed above in the Chunkster Challenge, I have

SUCCESS!

even before I add these ebooks:

6. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 764 pages

7. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 626 pages

8. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 544 pages

And that’s the wrap-up for today.

I entered a couple of different A-Z (that’s EH – ZED for me, as a Canuck) in 2012.

The object of Lindsey’s A-Z Reading Challenge was to read a book with a title starting with each letter of the alphabet. Since most letters were already covered in my existing 2012 reading list, this seemed like a good fit.

In the spirit of Canuck-ism, I tried to fill as many slots as possible with books either by Canadian authors, or set in Canada. I managed to do so with 17 of the 26 – or 65%.

The letter I had to scramble to fill at the eleventh hour? ‘K’ – go figure!

SUCCESS

To see my full list, you’ll have to visit my sign-up page for this challenge.

* * * * * * * * * *

I joined a second A-Z challenge over at Strawberry Splash Reviews. I called this my ‘Double Whammy‘ as Kristen required not only that I read books with titles that start with the letters of the alphabet, but also I had to read books by authors whose last name start with A to Z.
The most difficult author slot to fill? The letter ‘I’.

SUCCESS

To add to the fun, I tried not to use any books on both lists. (Exceptions: The Sister Brothers by Patrick DeWitt and The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart.)

Despite that restriction that winnowed my list, I managed to fill 12 of the 26 slots with Canadian authors.

Again, for the full list see my challenge sign-up page.

At the beginning of this year (it seems so long ago), our four-year-old grandson and his mom were living with us. Steven and I tried to have reading time every day so I entered a couple of challenges that are out of the ordinary for me.

The Illustrated Year Picture Book Reading Challenge encouraged me to include Steven’s reaction to the books we read in my reviews. As far as possible, I have done that.

I entered this at Level 1 which required me to read just 12 books over the course of the year. I’m happy to report

SUCCESS!

1. Giraffe & Bird written and illustrated by Rebecca Bender
2. I Want My Hat Back written and illustrated by Jon Klassen
3. Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? written & illustrated by Susan A. Shen
4. Madeline written & illustrated by Ludwig Bemelmans
5. Fuddles written & illustrated by Frans Vischer
6. A Few Blocks written & illustrated by Cybele Young
7. Horton Hears a Who written & illustrated by Theodore Seuss (aka Dr. Seuss)
8. Gimme Jimmy written & illustrated by Sherrill S. Cannon
9. Dog in Boots written by Greg Gormley; illustrated by Robert Angaramo
10. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom written by Bill Martin Jr; illustrated by John Archambault
11. Harry, the Dirty Dog written by Gene Zion; illustrated by Margaret Bloy Graham
12. There Were Monkeys in My Kitchen written by Sheree Fitch; illustrated by Sydney Smith
13. The Market Square Dog written by James Herriot; illustrated by Ruth Brown
14. One Winter Night written by Jennifer Lloyd; illustrated by Lynn Ray
15. Curious George written by Margaret Ray; illustrated by H.A. Rey
16. Eloise written by Kay Thompson; illustrated by Hilary Knight
17. Coyote Sings to the Moon written by Thomas King; illustrated by Johnny Wales

And some non-children’s picture books:
18. Griffin & Sabine written and illustrated by Nick Bantock
19. Sabine’s Notebook written and illustrated by Nick Bantock
20. The Golden Mean written and illustrated by Nick Bantock

* * * * * * * *

On the heels of the Picture Book Challenge and my goal never to say “no” to the request from my grandson for a story, came The 3660 Minute Reading Challenge, hosted by Mommy Wants To Read.

The challenge was “to spend 10 minutes every single day reading to our children. Since this year is a leap year there are 366 days hence 3660 minutes. The goal is to promote reading, increase imagination, foster a love of words, bolster comprehension skills, and spend quality time with the children in our lives.”

HUGE FAILURE!

Unfortunately, Steven & his mom moved unexpectedly to Vancouver at the end of January and our reading time was curtailed. For the first couple of weeks, I tried reading to him on the phone but there were always too many distractions for him.

For the year, I recorded an abysmal 380 minutes spent reading to him.

* * * * * * * *

Next is the Award Winning Reads Challenge. The Awards referred to are the Newbery Medal for children’s literature and the Printz Award for Young Adult lit. I don’t usually pick up YA or children’s literature on purpose but every time I’ve read an award winner on these lists, I’ve been impressed. So I entered this challenge, pledging to read four award-winning books.

SUCCESS!

All of these are Newbery Medal winners, and three of the four were delightful!

1. Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright 1939 (read in Dec 2012)
2. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George 1973
3. Holes by Louis Sachar 1999
4. Moon Over Manifest by Claire Vanderpoole 2011

For several years now, Gilion at Rose City Reader has been hosting the Battle of the Prizes – both British and American. I’ve been meaning to hop on quite a few times and finally did for 2012.

The British version pitted winners of the English Man Booker Prize against winners of the Scottish James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

To meet the goal, I needed to read one book that won both of those awards; a book that won the Booker Prize, and another that has won the James Tait Black Prize. That’s a total of three books.

I’m happy to report

SUCCESS!

with these three books:

Man Booker Prize winner:
The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner:
Men at Arms by Evelyn Waugh

Double Winner:
Midnight’s Children

Based on this selection, I prefer winners of the James Tait Memorial Prize, but it’s really much too limited a sample to decide.

* * * * *

The American version of the battle contrasts the winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Literaure and the National Book Award.

Since I had no interest in reading any of the double winners that I’ve not read, I chose the ‘b’ option: to read two winners of each prize.

SUCCESS!

Pulitzer Prize winners:
1. The Bridge of San Luis Rey By Thornton Wilder (1928)
2. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (1953) (read Dec 2012)

National Book Award winners:
1. Three Junes by Julia Glass (2002)
2. The Echo Maker by Richard Powers (2006) (read Dec 2012)

Again, this is really a very small sample and I realize that I’m comparing literature from different eras, but I’m not crazy about the National winners. They seem to tend toward popular, rather than literary, fiction.

This is one of the challenges of which I am most proud of completing this year.

Like Judith over at Leeswammes’ Blog, who hosted this challenge, I have a wishlist (what book blogger doesn’t?) My wishlist is a virtual pile of books, that I would like to own or at least read. I keep my list on an Excel spreadsheet and add to it faster than I’ll ever be able to read from it: currently it has 2,165 titles on it. (That’s up from 662 a year ago. That will tell you how unrealistic the list is.)

Nonetheless, in order to make a dent in it, I signed up for Judith’s Wishlist Challenge. It required me to read 12 books (one for every month of the year) that I’d like to read, but didn’t already have on my shelves. The title MUST have been on my wish list before January 1, 2012, so I decided to commit to 12 titles last January. And, as a bonus to myself, all of the titles (but one) are fiction and all are by Canadian authors.

I read eleven of the originally listed twelve, replacing one title with another qualifying one, so I count this as a huge

SUCCESS!

especially given my self-imposed Canadian-content rule.

1. Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyen

2. The Calling by Inger Ash Wolfe

3. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

4. A Recipe for Bees by Gail Anderson-Dergatz

5. Practical Jean by Trevor Cole

6. Twenty-Six by Leo McKay, Jr.

7. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

8. The Beggar’s Garden by Michael Christie

9. The Birth House by Ami McKay

10. Mr. Sandman by Barbara Gowdy (read Dec 2012)

11. Joyner’s Dream by Sylvia Tyson The Underpainter by Jane Urquhart (read Dec 2012)

12. Mordecai: His Life and Times by Charles Foran (in progress)

* * * * *

The Bucket List Challenge, hosted by Jamie over at The Eclectic Bookshelf, while sounding somewhat similar (to read a list of books that I’ve wanted to read – most for years – but haven’t gotten around to) was different in that I composed this list my own TBR stacks, aligning it more with my TBR Challenges than with the Wishlist Challenge (above).

Like most of my TBR challenges, this one also ended in

FAILURE!

I entered at the “Mid-Sized Sedan” level of only 8 books but hubris led me to think that I could make three of those 8 chunksters. I did finish A Suitable Boy which is one of the longest novels in the English language, but fell short with the two other monsters noted below.

1. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

2. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

3. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler

4. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

5. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn

6. Memoirs by Pierre Elliott Trudeau

7. London by Edward Rutherford

8. Collected Stories by Carol Shields

There are always so many shiny ‘new’ authors out there, just as there are alluring unread books. But since I’ve met so many writers over the years whose other books I’d like to try, it’s always a challenge each year to balance out: Old friends? New friends? The devil you know? The devil you don’t know? A bird in the hand? Two in the bush? You get the idea.

Since I knew I’d be reading new-to-me authors this year anyway, I signed up for the New Authors Reading Challenge at the middle level, committing to read 25 books from authors whom I had not read before.

SUCCESS!

In fact, I tallied 71 to date, with just over a week left in the year. To see who I met this year, please visit my original sign-up page for this challenge.

* * * * *

The Seconds Reading Challenge encouraged me to go back for seconds of authors that I’d read only once.

The great thing about this challenge is that it wasn’t just for my second in a series books, but the second time I’d read any suthor. That is, I could include series and stand-alones. But – it was only for seconds, not thirds and so on. For that reason, I entered at the Just a Spoonful level and promised to read just 3 books that are 2nds.

I did better than I anticipated so I have another

SUCCESS!

You’ll notice some authors that are also on the New-to-Me Authors list (above) but that is, of course, because I read both my first and second book by that author in 2012.

SERIES:
1. Bantock, Nick: Sabine’s Notebook (2nd in the Griffin & Sabine trilogy)

2. Cameron, W. Bruce: A Dog’s Journey (Sequel to A Dog’s Purpose)

3. Taylor, Phoebe Atwood: The Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern (4th in the Asey Mayo series, but only the 2nd that I’ve read)

STAND-ALONES
4. Grenville, Kate: Searching for the Secret River

5. Norman, Dave: White River Junctions

6. Collins, Wilkie: The Moonstone

7. Richler, Mordecai: The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

8. King, Stephen: 11/22/63

9. Johnston, Wayne: The Divine Ryans

10. Montgomery, Lucy Maud: Kilmeny of the Orchard

11. Oates, Joyce Carol: The Museum of Dr. Moses

12. McKay, Ami: The Birth House

* * * * *

And, finally, the I Want More Reading Challenge was a gimme: the challenge here was to read ‘seconds’, but only stand-alones qualified.

The list is the same as it was for the Seconds Challenge (above) minus, of course, the series books. I went in at the Never Too Late level of 2 – 4 books, so I have one more

SUCCESS!

* * * * *

So:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat; his wife could no lean.
So between them both, they licked the platter clean.

It would seem that between the New Authors Challenge and the Seconds Challenge, I would Have listed all the books that I read this year. But I still need to include those that were 3rd, 4th (or more) times with an author – and that didn’t count for either of these.

Since I knew that I wanted to reread Jane Eyre, Walden and The Moonstone in 2012, the reading challenges for classics intrigued – and I entered four of them, with rather poor results.

Let me start my recap with my sole

SUCCESS!

– the tremendously popular Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Sarah Reads Too Much.

Here are Sarah’s nine categories of classics, and my results:

Any 19th Century Classic
WALDEN by Henry David Thoreau

Any 20th Century Classic
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN by G.K. Chesterton

Reread a classic of my choice
LITTLE WOMEN by Louisa May Alcott

A Classic Play
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM by William Shakespeare

Classic Mystery/Horror/Crime Fiction
THE MOONSTONE by Wilkie Collins

Classic Romance
JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte

Classic that has been translated from its original language to mine
THE STRANGER by Albert Camus

Classic Award Winner
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway (read in December 2012) Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Literature 1953

Classic set in a country that I (realistically speaking) will not visit during my lifetime
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder (set in Peru)

* * * * *

I didn’t do so well, though, on the also popular Classics Challenge over at November’s Autumn. To distinguish this challenge from the one above, I dubbed this dare The Classics Challenge with a Twist – the twist being that on the 4th of each month Katherine posted a prompt for a discussion of whatever classic I happened to be reading.

I had to read seven classics and I crossed over a few titles on my list for the first classics challenge. You can see the list on the sign-up page for this ‘twist’.

Despite the fact that I did read the seven required books, I posted discussions on only two: Uncle Tom’s Cabin in January, and Walden in February. Overall, I must admit:

FAILURE!

* * * * *

The Classic Double Challenge hosted by Melissa at One Librarian’s Book Reviews encouraged me to read one older book (classic) and a newer book that related to the older one in some way.

I’m opted in at the Medium level, which required me to read two sets of related books.

FAILURE!

Unless I’ve missed a connection somewhere, I managed to get in only one set of doubles:

JANE EYRE and
THE FLIGHT OF GEMMA HARDY

* * * * *

And last, but not least, I wanted some structure and discussion to delve into the bard and so signed up for Reading Shakespeare: A Play a Month Challenge that Risa over at Breadcrumbs Reads started in January. You can see the entire “play-list” on my sign-up page.

Unfortunately, personal issues made it necessary for Risa to drop the group early in the year and we all just fell apart without her – at least, I did. I managed to read the first two but the rest is a

FAILURE!

January – A Midsummer Night’s Dream

February – MacBeth