Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Foodies Read Challenge 2015

My final challenge for 2015 is Foodies Read.


Foodies Read 2015

I'm taking part at the Pastry Chef level, which is 4-8 books.

1. Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson (1/18/2015)
2. The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen by Jacques Pepin (1/27/2015)
3. My Last Supper by Melanie Dunea (4/25/2015) 

Historical Fiction 2015



One of the challenges that wasn't set up yet when I was looking before Christmas was the Historical Fiction Challenge, so I was glad to find it today.

I am going to take part at the Renaissance Reader Level, which is 10 books.

1. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fanny Flagg (1/22/2015)
2. One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters (2/3/2015)
3. Some Luck by Jane Smiley (2/17/2015)
4. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson (2/28/2015)
5. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (3/21/2015)
6.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (3/31/2015)
7.  Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (4/8/2015)
8.  A Fall of Marigolds by Susan Meissner  (4/19/2015)
9. The Gods of Gotham by Lindsay Fay (4/24/2015)
10. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (4/28/2015)

Dystopia 2015

I was so glad to find that this challenge was being repeated.



I'll be taking part at the Rebel Level, which is 7-12 books.

1. The Maze Runner by James Dashner (1/20/2015)
2. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (3/1/2015)

Thursday, January 1, 2015

2014 end report was: Still to read this year

Because of surgery on both hands, I'm taking the lazy way out on the post. I finished all but two challenges. The Arthurian challenge and my very own Friends Challenge. I read 119 books this year, and when my hands are a little better I will do a round up of the best/worst/most memorable, etc.

To finish my various challenges, I still have some reading to do. (With updates as of 10/10)

I need to read a graphic novel.
-- a book in which the protagonist changes forms. (HELP!) (At least now I have some ideas!)
-- two one more historical fiction works.
-- at least nine (NINE EIGHT SEVEN SIX FiveFOUR Three Two
ks from my TBR pile. I may be reevaluating some of those.
-- four three two one more books from my Friends challenge.
-- a couple one more vintage mysteries.
-- three two one cozy mystery.
--two one work of Arthurian literature.
-- one more foodie book.

My reading has been lazy this summer. I've read quite a few books, but not much that I've had to think about at all. Time to get back to some challenging reading.


Thursday, December 4, 2014

Another made up challenge

After looking at the top books of 2014 as determined by the users of Goodreads, I decided to challenge myself to read five of the top books from any five categories.

So these are the books I'm reading:
1. Landline by Rainbow Rowell (Best Fiction) (1/28/2015) 4/5 stars
2. All the Light We Cannot See (Best Historical Fiction) (3/21/2015) 5/5 Stars
3. The Martian by Andy Weir  (Best Science Fiction) (1/2015) 4/5 stars
4. The Romanov Sisters (Best History/Biography)
5. We Were Liars (YA Fiction) (1/2015) 4/5 stars

Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (4/8/2015) 4/5 stars

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Updated TBR pile for 2015

2015 Version of my TBR list.

These are books that I own, either paper copies or on my Kindle, that I have had for at least a year. This list always grows faster than I can read them, but I hope to make a good dent in 2015.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
North and South by Gaskell
Law and Gospel by CFW Walther
Churchill by Paul Johnson
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther
Dead Souls by Gogol
The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
Immortal Wife by Irving Stone
The Great Shame by Thomas Keaneally
Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer
1491 by Charles C. Mann
The House of Morgan
The First Tycoon
The Fate of Africa
The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire

Courage and Consequence
Known and Unknown
Decision Points by George W. Bush
Statecraft by Margaret Thatcher
Theodore Rex (or any of the Teddy Roosevelt books by Morris)

Wodehouse: A Life
John Adams by David McCullough
Thunderstruck by Erik Larsen
A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer by Diana Preston
Don Quixote
Anything Goes by Theodore Dalrymple 
The Examined Life by ""
Second Opinion by  "   "
The Policeman and the Brothel by  "  "
The Economics of Freedom by Bastiat
Typhoon by Joseph Conrad
She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
The Shoemaker's Wife by Trigiani
Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman
The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo
Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
An Account of Egypt by Herodotus
The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katherine Green
Evelina by Fanny Burney
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
The Wedding Gift by Marlen Suyapa Bodden
Containment by Christian Cantrell
Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
Summer by Edith Wharton
 The Oregon Trail: Sketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain Life by Frances Parkman
A Journal of the Plague year by Daniel Defoe
Shoeless Joe by Kinsella
Catherine the Great by Robert Massie
The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
Nicholas and Alexandra by Massie
River of Doubt
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The Things They Carried
The President and the Assasin
Lost States
How the States Got their Shapes
Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible
Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson
Ethan Frome
Sixpence in Her Shoe
Faust by Goethe
The Dark Monk by Oliver Potzsch
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The Path to Tyranny by Michael Newton
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
Happy Days Were Here Again by WF Buckley, Jr.
Never Dies the Dream by Margaret Landon
The Child From the Sea by Elizabeth Goudge
Natural Law: A Lutheran Reappraisal
Women Pastors?
Brunelleschi's Dome
The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
Any Narnia aside from TLTWaTW
Land and Property Research in the United States
Venezia by Tessa Kiros
Mrs. Dalloway
The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry
Broke by Glenn Beck
Cowards by Glenn Beck
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan
The Dragon Reborn "
The Shadow Rising "
The Fires of Heaven "
Lord of Chaos " etc, etc, etc.
Dust by Hugh Howey
Shift by Hugh Howey
The Courts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny
Trumps of Doom by "  "
Blood of Amber by  "  "
Signs of Chaos by    "  "
Knight of Shadows by "  "
Prince of Chaos  by  "  "
Agatha H and the Airship City
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Watership Down
History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding
The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough
Parallel Roads: Lost on Route 66 by Dennis Higgins
All Seated on the Ground by Connie Willis
No Name by Wilkie Collins
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
Island of the Swans by Ciji Ware
Hotel Angeline: A Novel in 36 Voices
Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
Towards yesterday by Paul Jones
The Mine by John Heldt
The Time Traveler's Apprentice by Kelly Grant
Ishmael, or in the Depths By Emma Southworth
Danielle Kidnapped by John Silviera
Daybreak by Ingolfsson
The Gauguin Connection by Estelle Ryan
The Sea beggars by Cecelia Holland
Beautiful Day by Elin Hildebrand
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Anthem by Ayn Rand
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
Salt
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The Time Traveler's Guide to medieval England
Everything's Eventual by Stephen King
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
A Voyage Long and Strange
The Good, the Bad, and the Mad
Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims
Gregor books 3,4,5
The Art of the Commonplace

2015 Reading Challenges

It's that time again! For me, the time of the year when I pick the next year's reading challenges is reminiscent of a new school year or picking new classes. I love thinking about what I'm going to read next year! I don't let my challenges rule me, but I do let them nudge me sometimes. And most of the time the books are well worth it.

I don't know how much reading I'll do in 2015, since I am starting a new business in January, and have two sons getting married, but I am going to proceed with my challenges, and see how it ends up. I also have several ongoing challenges, including my Filling in the Gaps challenge, which ends in December 2015.

Here are the challenges I am doing this coming year:
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