Sunday, December 3, 2017

Looking Ahead: 2018 Beat the Backlist Challenge

Welcome, welcome! I'm indulging myself in a well earned reward of dark chocolate and a hot cuppa joe this afternoon since I just completed my second rough draft of the final essay for my ENG101 course and submitted it for review to the online tutoring site. The tutors have been such a godsend. I love my teacher--she's super nice but absolutely zero help in regards to any type of feedback or actual instructional guidance. Perhaps kids today come out of high school well versed in creating MLA style essays, but it's been forever and a day since I graced any high school halls and even then we never covered MLA in any way, shape, or form, so I am utterly lost when it comes to proper citation. Thankfully, I have the online tutors giving me a hand to figuring it all out and getting everything properly cited and organized. Still, it's a bit overwhelming and stressful, so I'm glad to have this second draft done and off for review. Gimme da chocolat!!

And, meanwhile, December has descended, like it or not, and I've begun to wrap up my reading goals for 2017 and have begun looking ahead to upcoming challenges for 2018. Since my biggest need/want/concern is to lessen the number of books I have on hand to read, I've chosen the NovelKnight's Beat the Backlist Challenge to take front seat for the new year. With 183 books TBR, I honestly cannot justify buying any new books without putting some serious dents into what's already overcrowding my shelves.

I've started a 2018 Beat the Backlist shelf on my Goodreads page. It's only got the first four titles of what I'm planning to scratch off my current on hand list but I will update it as I shelve more books as I go along next year. I'm also intending to do another A to Z challenge, both titles and authors again, since that was a fun extra twist to this year. Not great pics, but these are the bookmarks I made for tracking my reading this year--I'll have to make more for 2018 (in all that extra free time I have!!)


L to R: back of A to Z, back of Books I've Read 2017, and More for 2017

My current TBR (actual on hand...and why I can't buy any new books) List:



1.        Abolition of Man-Lewis
3.        Amber Spyglass-Pullman
5.        Anthem-Rand
6.        Awakening-Chopin
7.        Barkskins-Proulx
8.        Beloved-Toni Morrison
9.        Barnaby Ridge-Dickens
10.      Beautiful and the Damned-Fitzgerald
11.      Bell Jar-Platt
12.      Big Little Lies-Moriarty
13.      Black Earth-Snyder
14.      Blade Itself-Abercrombie
16.      Blinding Knife-Weeks
17.      Blood of Flowers-Amirrezani
18.      Blood Mirror-Weeks
19.      Book of Laughter and Forgetting-Kundera
20.      Booth’s Sister-Singer
21.      Born on a Blue Day-Tammet
22.      Bridget Jones’ Diary-Fielding
23.      Broken Eye-Weeks
24.      Broken Sword-Anderson
25.      Brothers Karamazov-Dostoyevsky
26.      Caliban’s War-Corey
28.      Canterbury Tales-Chaucer
29.      Catch 22-Heller
31.      Columbine-Cullen
32.      Corelli’s Mandolin-de Bernieres
33.      Count of Monte Christo-Dumas
34.      Crime and Punishment-Dostoyevsky
36.      Dark Elf Trilogy-Salvatore
37.      David Copperfield-Dickens
38.      Dawn of the Dragons-Owen
39.      Deathnote 2-Ohba
40.      Divine Comedy-Aligheri
41.      Don Quioxte-Cervantes
42.      Dornby & Son-Dickens
43.      Dracula-Stoker
44.      Dragon’s Path-Abraham
45.      Dreams of Distant Shores-McKillip
46.      Dreamsongs-Martin
47.      Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde-Stevenson
48.      Eat Pray Love-Gilbert
49.      Edgar and Lucy-Lodato
50.      Empire Falls-Russo
51.      English Patient-Ondaatje
52.      Etched In Sand-Calcaterra
53.      A Fine Balance-Mistry
54.      First They Killed My Father-Ung
55.      Five Days at Memorial-Fink
56.      Four Loves-Lewis
57.      Game of Thrones-Martin
58.      Germinal-Zola
59.      Gilded Cage-James
60.      Girl with a Pearl Earring-Chevalier
61.      Giselle’s Bucket List-Watt
63.      Go Tell it on the Mountain-Baldwin
65.      Great Divorce-Lewis
66.      Great Expectations-Dickens
67.      Grief Observed-Lewis
68.      Hamilton-Chernow
69.      Hamlet-Shakespeare
70.      Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World-Murakami
71.      Hard Times-Dickens
72.      Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
73.      Head Full of Ghosts-Tremblay
74.      Heart of Darkness-Conrad
75.      Hero of the Empire-Millard
76.      Homegoing-Gyasi
77.      Horns-Hill
78.      Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet
80.      Invisible Man-Ellison
81.      In Search of Lost Time-Proust
82.      Joy Luck Club-Tan
83.      Jude the Obscure-Hardy
84.      Kiterunner-Hosseini
85.      Kushiel’s Dart-Carey
86.      Leonardo da Vinci-Isaacson
87.      Little Dorit-Dickens
88.      Lincoln in the Bardo-Saunders
89.      Little Prince-St Exupery
90.      Little Women-Alcott
91.      Lord of the Flies-Golding
92.      Love-Morrison
93.      Love in the Time of Cholera-Marquez
95.      A Man Called Ove-Backman
96.      Man in the High Castle-Dick
97.      March-Doctorow
98.      Martin Chuzzlewit-Dickens
99.      Memoirs of a Geisha-Golden
100.   Mere Christianity-Lewis
101.   Metamorphosis-Kafka
102.   Middlemarch-Eliot
104.   Miracles-Lewis
105.   Mistborn-Sanderson
106.   Moon and Sixpence-Maugham
107.   Mystery of Edwin Drood-Dickens
108.   Name of the Rose-Eco
110.   Native Son-Wright
111.   Nicholas Nickleby-Dickens
112.   Night Angel-Weeks
113.   Old Curiosity Shop-Dickens
114.   One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest-Kesey
115.   One Hundred Years of Solitude-Marquez
116.   Orphan Train-Kline
117.   Oryx and Crake-Atwood
118.   Our Mutual Friend-Dickens
119.   Paper Menagerie-Liu
120.   Pickwick Papers-Dickens
121.   Picture of Dorian Gray-Wilde
122.   Pillars of the Earth-Follett
123.   Possession-Byatt
124.   Prayer for Owen Meany-Irving
125.   The Prince-Machiavelli
126.   Princes of Ireland-Rutherford
127.   Problem of Pain-Lewis
128.   Rainbow-Lawrence
129.   Ravensbruck-Helm
130.   Reader-Schlink
131.   Regeneration-Barker
132.   Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve-Greenblatt
133.   Romeo and Juliet-Shakespeare
134.   Road to Jonestown-Guinn
135.   Robinson Crusoe-DeFoe
136.   Sarum-Rutherford
137.   Scarlet Letter-Hawthorne
138.   Schindler’s List-Keneally
139.   Screwtape Letters-Lewis
141.   A Separate Peace-Knowles
142.   Septimus Heap-Sage
143.   Setting Free the Kites-George
144.   Shadow of the Wind-Zafon
145.   Shipping News-Proulx
146.   Siddhartha-Hesse
147.   Silent Corner-Koontz
148.   Sing, Unburied Sing-Ward
149.   Sisi-Pataki
150.   Sister Carrie-Dreiser
152.   Sons and Soldiers-Henderson
153.   Strangeness in my Mind-Pamuk
154.   The Stranger-Camus
155.   A Stranger in a Strange Land-Heinlein
156.   Strange Weather-Hill
157.   Subtle Knife-Pullman
158.   A Suitable Boy-Vikram
159.   Summer Before the War-Simonson
160.   Sun Also Rises-Hemingway
161.   Sybil-Disraeli
162.   Tale of Two Cities-Dickens
163.   Tenant of Wildfell Hall-Bronte
165.   Things They Carried-OBrien
166.   Thirty-Nine Steps-Buchanan
167.   Three Men in a Boat-Jerome
168.   Three Muskateers-Dumas
169.   Tiger’s Daugher-Rivera
170.   Tom Jones-Fielding
171.   A Tree Grows in Brooklyn-Smith
172.   Turn of the Screw-James
173.   Turning Angels-Isles
174.   Uncle Tom’s Cabin-Stowe
175.   Up From Slavery-Washington
177.   Vinegar Hill-Ansay
178.   Warded Man-Brett #1
179.   Warmth of Other Suns-Wilkerson
181.   Weird-Martin
182.   World Without End-Follett
183.   Zola-McColum
 
(Color code: Blue-paperback, Green-Nook, Black-Kindle, and highlighted-ARC)
 
Whew! Crazy, no? Lots of great stuff on there to read and I know it's gonna be a great year ahead, so--I'm gearing up! Let's do this!! What's on your list to read for 2018?
 



 

Sunday, November 19, 2017

Happy Holidays

Well, this year has flown by incredibly fast. Thanksgiving is just a few short days away which means Christmas will follow promptly on its heels--we dare not blink an eye! So, I know I have sadly neglected my little blog here. I've had a super busy year with work and school and life--there's just always something or someone vying for my time or attention. But I promised to catch you all up to date on my 2017 Reading Challenge...I just looked back at the last post of where I'd left off...yikes! Twenty-five books later...I've been reading my little heart out this year!! Oh my...I can't possibly recap twenty-five books, but maybe the highlights?

I finished my A to Z Challenge and am already lining books up to do another A to Z for next year, both authors and titles again. I guess the best thing about this type of challenge, it helped me to open up to new authors and genres. Of course, that also led to discovering authors I didn't like. Such is the reading life. Some of my favorite surprises were Geraldine March's Year of Wonders, Just Mercy by Bryan Stephenson, and Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.

It's not likely that I'll make it to my goal of seventy-five books for the year. I'm at sixty and that's pretty darn good, especially with a month and a half (almost) left to 2017. I could maybe hit seventy? Maybe...I'm currently reading Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann--it's got me head over heels. It's gorgeously written, the characters are wrapped tight around my heart, I've already sat sobbing this morning, not even a hundred pages in...Just loving this book and ordered another of McCann's, Zoli, for my A to Z for next year (a girl's gotta look ahead, right?)

However...I had promised myself, after realizing I'd hit 200 books on my On Hand list, that I would NOT buy any new books until I'd read twenty first...I am only human and I am completely addicted to books. Okay, I also bought Paul Tremblay's Head Full of Ghosts (it was only $1.99 for my brand new Kindle Voyage this morning...too good of a deal to let slip) What's a girl to do, right? So, I'm forging ahead toward the end of the year with full intention to beat my backlist or at least put a decent dent in it before we start off the new year...I will try to be more accountable for not ADDING to the backlist--my goal is to read 10% of my on hand titles before buying any new books. Then another ten percent, and so on...It's something to aim for anyways!

Books I'm hoping to finish before the end of the year:
  • White Tiger by Adiga
  • Dante's Divine Comedy
  • The Old Man and the Sea-Hemingway
  • A Christmas Carol--which I always read for Christmas
  • Anne of Green Gables, which I also hear is a Christmas story?
  • Germinal by Zola, though I'm likely to just get this one started, but then it will be my Z author for next year's A to Z!
What's on your reading list for the end of the year? Are you looking forward to any new reading challenges for 2018? Keep those reading lights on! Have a wonderful holiday season!!

Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Paper Versus E-Books

Hello Reader Friends! I know it's been quite a while since I've had time to post. Life has been more than a little crazy this year and then I started back to school this fall, while still working full time, and so free time is even more scarce than ever. I'm taking an evening college writing course one night a week and have just finished my second required essay. And since it has a reading theme, I thought it might be fun to share here as well! I will try to catch everyone up on the year's reading challenge (A to Z and 52+ Books have both been completed with plenty of time to spare...) But for now, I hope you enjoy my Paper Versus E-reader essay. And, stay tuned for more to come...


Print Versus E-books

I love books. I love books so much, I got a job working in a bookstore. And doing so has greatly increased the volume of books that I own. I love seeing them all lined up neatly and alphabetically on my bookshelves. Big books, skinny books, pretty books, scary books, art books, writing books, all kinds of beautiful, glorious books. They all make my soul happy. I also own a couple of e-readers, both a Nook and a Kindle (because no one should be limited in their reading venues) and I’ve got a slew of titles stashed on each of those as well. But I continually get customers in the store questioning me about whether our Barnes and Noble is going to close like so many other bookstores because e-books are so popular--yet here they’d stand in front of me buying a stack of paper books…Are print books endangered? I decided to take a poll.

I launched a quick survey on social media asking friends to vote for their favorite source of reading entertainment: Did they favor paper books or e-books, and why? It was a resounding win for paper books! Only one person out of more than twenty preferred e-books to paper. This gentleman enjoyed reading on his phone, in the bathroom-a little TMI. But every other respondent claimed paper books as the clear favorite for several different reasons.

Most of the folks who answered my survey seem to want the tactile experience of holding paper books. Feeling the heft of the weight in their hands, turning physical pages, and watching their actual progress through the book as they read. Many expressed a love for the smell of books, and the ability to highlight quotes and annotate in paper books. Reading a paper page is gentler on the eyes than the glare of a screen. Paper books don’t have a battery to charge so they’re always ready to be enjoyed. The best reason was being able to share your books with friends.

There is also lots of research showcasing the many benefits of reading paper books as opposed to e-readers. One website, Uproxx.com, presents an article supporting print over e-books. It quotes research findings that reading on a screen at night can have adverse effects on your ability to fall asleep, keeping you awake longer and inevitably leaving you feeling more tired and less rested the next day. It also suggests children learn better with print books, as devices can be a distracting deterrent to younger, shorter attention spans. And even more seasoned readers retain information better from printed pages since our eyes, often irritated by screen glare, tend to skim quickly over a digital page but read much slower and more thoroughly with paper books.

On the other hand, there are some great advantages to e-readers. As someone who has moved multiple times, it can be very costly—and exhausting—to move a lot of physical books. They’re heavy. They take up a great deal of space. They need the occasional dusting and protection from mold and damp. But e-readers have the amazing advantage of infinite cloud storage. People can own literally thousands of books, stored light as a feather in a single device. And you can have each one of those titles available at the simple touch of a finger, wherever you are, whenever you want. That’s genius.

E-readers are also a good deal sturdier than paper books. I read constantly and toting paper books in my bag often leads to bent pages or scratched and dented covers. I’ll admit I’m also a bit of a messy eater and always seem to splash a little of whatever I’m eating onto the pages that I’m reading. I have a gorgeous, leather bound illustrated copy of Game of Thrones that I won’t even allow myself to read because I know I’ll wreck it with a splotch of soup or splash of coffee. But if I spill a little on my e-reader screen, a simple quick wipe erases any sloppy dribble, no damage done. The day is saved! And contrary to one of my survey poller’s opinions, it’s quite easy to highlight and save notes in your e-reader. No, you can’t do a quick flip through the pages, looking for a pretty colored highlight or a bright bit of post-it, but it’s super simple to search saved quotes and comments. It just takes time getting used to doing it electronically.

There is one final development in e-reading that has swept me off my bookish feet. Amazon has created the Kindle in Motion. I’m talking about animated books! This is going to change the face of reading forever. Jim Kay, artist and illustrator for J.K. Rowling’s beloved Harry Potter series, has had his beautiful artwork literally come to life in Amazon’s animated version of the Sorcerer’s Stone. If you’re at all familiar with Jim’s gorgeous renderings in the first three of Rowling’s cherished series, you will fall head over heels seeing the incredible illustrations magically move right on the page! Amazon also offers several other animated books with their Kindle in Motion and I’m extremely excited to see the direction these e-books will undoubtedly grow!

So, are print books in any danger of disappearing? Certainly not. E-commerce may eventually make our beloved bookstores a thing of the past if we’re not careful, but e-books by no means will ever replace our desire to hold, feel, traverse, sniff, scribble in, and share our precious paper books. Read on, dear friends. Read on.

Monday, June 12, 2017

Hello Summer

Summer weather is finally here--hot and sticky, in the nineties this week. Thank goodness for a/c! I'll be hibernating indoors if anyone is looking for me--not a fan of the summer heat or the yellow coating of pollen everywhere you turn. But, with a crazy stressful week ahead, I thought I'd take a moment to update the Summer Reading Progress before life slips into the insane lane.

I wasn't terribly impressed with my last two picks: Bruce Cameron's A Dog's Purpose and Frank Herbert's Dune. Dog's Purpose read more like juvenile, empty fluff for me. A dog's reincarnation into different lives and situations and the things he'd learned each life...Maybe it had some good potential there, it just didn't grab me. Then Dune...SciFi has never been my favorite genre (although I really love James Corey's Expanse series) Dune is so devoid of anything emotional to make you care two wits about anything that's going on in the book. That one also fell flat for me.

 
This week I began Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island and fell head over heels. Bill's writing reminds me somewhat of Dave Barry, maybe not as silly, but just enough humor to make me smile and giggle and I really need that right now! There's so much on my plate with life at the moment, this little escape into his crazy escapade through England has been the perfect pick me up this week. I love his writing so much, I've downloaded samples of everything else he's written into my nook for future reading. Love him!!

That only leaves two more books for the initial challenge and I'm adding a couple more for the extended challenge (a 2017 bestseller, plus another for extra credit) so stay tuned for those. And I've already pulled the remaining books together to finish my A to Z Challenge:

 
I'm definitely excited to begin this bunch and then...who knows? I really want to reread Game of Thrones and the rest of the Song of Ice and Fire series, but I'm also thinking I may reread Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth and World Without End before his new addition to this series, Column of Fire, comes out in September...So many books, so little time...

I've also cut myself off from buying any new books for the time being. Michael's surgery bills are rolling in, Tucker's surgery is on Thursday, the expense of school is looming for the fall...I've fallen so far short of trimming my backlist this year that I'm holding myself more accountable for the remainder of the year to stem any buying until I've made a significant reduction in my crammed bookshelf population. At least until some new coupons roll through...shhhhh!!

How's your summer reading going? Leave a comment below--I'd love to hear from you!

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Welcome June!

I don't think I've ever been so glad to see a month pass as I am this morning to put May behind us. We started the month with Michael being rushed to Hasbro Children's Hospital for emergency surgery the day before Ashlee's wedding (which is our only shining point to the month--she was breathtaking, the ceremony sweetly sublime, the groom grinning ear to ear, Dad fit to burst with pride...perfection!) Then to finish out the month, we had a cancer scare for my big Boxer mix, Tucker. I sat on pins and needles all of yesterday waiting to hear from the vet's office with his test results, which thankfully have turned out to be not anywhere near as devastating as I was first led to believe. Communication, people!! Makes all the difference in the world!!! Tucker may not be completely out of the water just yet, but for the results that are in so far, it looks more like a UTI, not a tumor. So fingers crossed and prayers issuing upward--we should have a more definite answer early next week. And good riddance May!!!

Considering I hadn't intended to begin our summer reading challenge until this week for Memorial Day, coworkers jumped right in and started early, and May has at least been a good month of reading anyway. I finished A Little Life by Yanagihara which is a beautiful but devastating, heart wrenching read. You know going in you're bound to have your heart and soul ripped out, thrown on the ground, stomped and utterly shredded--but well worth every exquisitely written word. It's kind of like watching the Walking Dead--you know it's going to be horrific, you're well aware it's going to tear you up, but you can't not watch, then you're so glad you did because it's so well done. That's A Little Life. Read it.

Next was my very first introduction into manga with Death Note Vol 1. It's the story of a death god who is bored with existence, so drops his Death Notebook into the human world, where it's discovered and put to use to kill death row criminals in an effort to clean up the world...at first.

 
For someone who thought manga were simply fat comic books, I was pleasantly surprised at how well written this book is--I was completely sucked into the story line and can't wait to carry on with the rest of the series to find out what happens with these characters. I passed it on to Michael who's also enjoying it (he's reading!! That's the greatest gift, ever!!)
 
Next, for my history selection, I read Candice Millard's River of Doubt which chronicles Theodore Roosevelt's adventure into the Amazon to discover, and put on the map, a new river that nearly cost him and most of the expedition's lives during this terrifying trek through uncharted jungle.
 
 
It struck me at first as an early century Jackass circa 1912, as these idiot men planned so poorly for this trip. But how they fought to survive and see each other through to the end is quite remarkable and awe inspiring. I was given new respect for these crazy, reckless men who braved all and lived to tell the tale.
 
After that followed the autobiography, A Chance in the World by Steve Pemberton, which has been fairly popular at our store since it's a story of a local boy, abandoned as a young child and separated from his siblings, who grew up neglected and abused in the foster care system and managed to track down the remains of his birth family.
 
 
Another sad orphan story, but I still enjoyed recognizing local street names and familiar places--this one at least has a happier ending than Little Life, so...give it a chance!
 
Next up was my mystery selection, Into the Woods by Tana French. I don't typically read mystery books but I've heard so many great recommendations about Tana, I had to give this one a shot.
 
 
Winner of the Edgar Award, it pulled me right in and had me guessing whodunit the whole time. Creepy, twisted, with a shocking reveal at the end, Into the Woods is everything you'd dream of in a good mystery.
 
Finally, I'm currently on the Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, a German forester who endeavors to show how trees communicate and nurture each other and their living environment.
 
 
It's a quick, fascinating read that makes you want to go out and hug all the trees in your yard and neighborhood, then go for a hike and try to listen to the trees talking...Yeah, it really does!
 
Which leaves me more than halfway done with my extended reading challenge (add another genre and a bestseller for 2017) and considering I should completely finish the entire challenge by the end of June, I'm already looking forward to what I'll read next when I'm all done...Back to the backlist and my A to Z challenges!!
 
How is your summer reading challenge coming along?

Sunday, May 7, 2017

Summer Reading Challenge Week One--The Fun Has Begun!

Officially, I didn't plan to begin until Memorial Day but a couple coworkers jumped the gun on me and started early--I couldn't let them get too great of a lead and, hence, we begin...This also extends our twelve weeks to sixteen weeks and as a few of the books are rather long the extra time will help to get us through all of them by the end of summer (I'm also planning to read sixteen books--so I definitely will need that extra time!!)

I began with my classic choice of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I'm sure I had to read this back in high school (maybe?) I could be wrong...It's a super bizarre book--even crazier when you take into context when it was actually written, back in 1931. Everyone is drugged, brainwashed, actually fabricated and manipulated into believing they are happy and all is right with the world. Individuality is obliterated--anyone who exhibits the slightest interest in self faces exile. Religion is twisted, worshipping Ford (materialism) rather than an actual God. Not my favorite. Weird ending, too.

 
Next up, for the horror genre, I read Joe Hill's NOS4A2. I loved it--such a scary, creepy ride and I especially loved all his little nods to some of his and his father's (Stephen King) other characters and novels. Super fun and wild--Christmas will never be the same...Definitely looking forward to reading more of Joe's work!


After that madness, I devoured A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab in a blink of two days. I simply could not put it down! Fantasy has always been my favorite genre and I'm so excited to have another great series to dig into! Schwab's characters and world development are fantastic--sucked me right in! It's great to have fantasy series to recommend for fellow fans of Game of Thrones and the Kingkiller Chronicles while we wait for Mr. Martin and Mr. Rothfuss to get off the pot and put out their next books!


I started Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life for my literary fiction pick on Thursday and life got sucked into some crazy retrograde Mercury thing--ended up in Hasbro's Children's Hospital in Rhode Island for emergency surgery for my son the day before his sister's long awaited wedding. I couldn't focus much on the book and somehow read and reread the same five pages I don't know how many times waiting anxiously for doctors and surgery then recovery...He made it through just fine, thank heavens, wedding went off without a hitch, and life, I hope, should be back to normal once more and I can wrap my brain around this new book. Oh, life, never a dull moment...


 
So, if you're playing along and have started reading, leave a comment, let me know where you're at and what you think of the challenge! I also have more trackers to share if anyone is interested, just pop me a quick email with address information and I'll be glad to zip those out in the mail!


Happy Reading!

Random Journal Reunion

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