Beat the Backlist Challenge

My goal: Read 30 books from my TBR pile that have been sitting on my shelf for awhile. I’ve listed the first fifteen I plan on reading first. Once one book is finished I will add another on the end as I have literally hundreds of TBRs.

The books are as follows:

  1. Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
  2. Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
  3. A Sense of the Infinite by Hillary T Smith\
  4. The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
  5. We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson
  6. Daughters Unto Devils by Aamy Lukavics
  7. The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna
  8. Girl Defective by Simmone Howell
  9. Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
  10. Afterworlds by Scott Westerfield
  11. Say What You Will by Camme McGovern
  12. Red Joan by Jennie Rooney
  13. Ask the Passengers by A.S King
  14. Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot
  15. The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan
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Reading Project January-February Kelley Armstrong

I love Kelley Armstrong. I met her before I loved her writing, before I’d read a single word and she was a warm, friendly person. I wish I could meet her now to tell her that I’ve tried to read every word she’s written and it’s still an ongoing project for me, and that the world’s she’s created are amazing.

And thus, my reading project for January, February and possibly March even begins.

I am going to read the Otherworld series in chronological order. It doesn’t seem hard right? Except I’m including the novella’s and short stories as well.

That is, at current count, 61 different pieces of writing, novels, short stories and novellas included.

It has resulted in Otherworld Nights, Men of the Otherworld and Tales of the Otherworld appearing as follows: IMG_3932

This is going to be a very interesting project, and will hopefully lend more depth to the stories I’ve loved for a while. In a way it will be nice to be reintroduced to the characters who have always felt a little bit like friends, or dysfunctional family members.

Review: The Storied Life of A.J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

the storied life

Pardon my French.

But this book, this fucking book. It’s beautiful. Just one word. Beauty.

The writing wove itself around me, bringing back memories of childhood spent in the stacks of my old library, of an old bookstore run by an older woman who genuinely cared about what people were reading and the impression it left behind.

I remember the way a mom and pop bookstore smelt, long gone from the area I currently live in and the one I lived in for 26 years, up until a few months ago. This book brought back memories of the heavy scent of paper, of dust, and the feeling of pages under my fingertips, even as I enjoyed the ebook I wished for a physical copy.

It was gorgeously written, and a tribute to readers, as well as writers and the emotions evoke within us. This book reminds me of time spent with friends, talking over books, gushing over what we were reading.

Those moments have come few and far between but I’m thinking maybe, next week, I might go to my local book club.

After all, some of the best ways to get to know people involve books, don’t they?

Review: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

frankenstein

When I was eighteen or nineteen do you know what I was doing?

Not crafting a masterpiece of literature while spending time with my soulmate. I believe I was actually freaking out over college applications coming in.

Mary Shelley was fast working on something that would leave her a master of a genre, perhaps one of the foremost writers of the gothic horror movement.

She was writing about humanity in a way that was horrific, in a way that would make every reader consider how they react to people, what they would do if they could harness the power of God and “how on earth a woman could come up with such a plot?”

In the company of her husband, Percy, and none other than Lord Byron himself Shelley would later say that the plot came to her when she lay her head down to sleep. However I doubt she would realize until much later the impact that this novel would have in later years. How it would continuously be in print, and would spurn on continuous re-writes, movie adaptaions, TV adaptations, halloween costumes, comics, jokes, drawings…

But there’s a reason it lasts and it lies in the beauty of the writing. The well formed, elegant prose, guaranteed to enrapture and capture the reader, the slow unraveling of the story and the very question of what it means to be human. Of what it means to have power.

It is also to see, given context how this book may have ended up banned, though I will never agree with banning any book. But the author in question was not only female, but wrote about someone taking in the power of God, of creating life without married reproduction.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves a classic, or anyone who loves a scientific spurned horror tale. Or just anyone.

Reading Challenges 2015

I have decided to participate in a few reading challenges this year.

The first being the Banned Books Challenge at the level of Trouble-Maker, reading 3-5 banned books.

banned books

The second challenge will be the Women Challenge at level 2 reading 6-15 books by a female author.

women3

The third challenge is the Diversity Challenge, in which I will read 7-12 books.

diversity

So readers, how will you be challenging yourself in 2015?
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