Author: Geoff W

Reading my way through life.
The Classics Club

The Classics Club: One Year Check-In

Geoff W

I was really hoping to time my one year check-in for The Classics Club for the exact date, but that just didn’t work out. I forgot I’d joined as early as I did. (I may have joined a little later, but I’ve set my end date as March 8, 2012.)

I’ve really enjoyed participating in the club and even though I’m right on track 20/100 books read I am starting to wonder if I can keep up the pace for the next four years. I managed to squeeze in with my twentieth novel this month (thus the late post), so I’m right on schedule, but long-term I’m not sure if I want to continue to dedicate a third of my reading to Classics. Who knows though, mostly I’ve only read older classics, maybe it’s time I take a break and read some of the newer classics from my list or re-read a few favorites? Any one else go through this sort of thing already?

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ARC, Books

Book 183: 50 Shades of Gay – Jeffery Self

Geoff W

When I saw the title of this book I clearly had to read it, mostly because at a party in December my friend Caroline was talking about 50 Shades of Gray and accidentally said this title and we both were like YES.

I have not read, nor do I intend to read, the original, but from what I’ve quickly researched they are pretty similar. I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and received no compensation for my honest response.

This was not a bad book, don’t get me wrong it wasn’t a great literary achievement either, but it wasn’t bad. I had a few issues with it, but I appreciated the refreshing writing style of the author and the tongue-in-cheek comments and countless pop-culture references that made me smile and or question why I’ve the social skills/knowledge of an 80-year-old southern woman.

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Books

Book 182: The Mysteries of Udolpho – Anne Radcliffe

Geoff W

WordPress decided to move this post to the trash bin and I, assuming it was duplicate draft, permanently deleted it. The first three paragraphs are verbatim as I was able to recover them via caching, however after that is a poor substitute of what I spoke about previously.

I had to add this to my Classics Club list because of its reference in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. I wish I would’ve spaced things to read Northanger Abbey immediately before or after, but I didn’t and I’m sure I will enjoy it just as much when I next read it.

The Mysteries of Udolpho counts for every challenge I’m currently participating in. It is first and foremost the 20th book in my Classics Club list and signifies my 1/5th completion (right at the year mark, so keep an eye out for a longer post later this week)! In addition it counts for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge, Back to the Classics Challenge and through a bit of questionable math as a bonus book for my Tea and Books Reading Challenge (the physical copies average out to 666 pages).

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Updates

February 2013 Recap

Geoff W

2013 02-24 Snowy NightThis month flew by! I can’t believe how fast the month went and that it’s already March! The coolest thing this month was experiencing my very first BLIZZARD! If you want to see an awesome post with the dogs I live with click here. We’ve gotten a lot of snow off and on this month, but still not as much as the winter of 2010/11. To the right is a lovely picture I took Sunday night (Feb 24). Most of the snow is now gone after two solid days of rain.

On a random note I’ve made a couple of changes to my blog. I’ve added a few different ways of looking at the books I’ve read in the past. It’s no longer just by year, but you can now see by author and by series. I hope they are helpful to you, the readers, but mostly they’re there for me (assuming I remember to keep them updated).

In addition I realized when an author contacted me yesterday that I’ve had some pretty cool things happen since I started this blog so I created a sort of YAY ME! page which you can see here. I’ve called it ‘They Like Me, They Really Like Me!’ from that infamous Sally Field’s Oscar acceptance speech. I’m sure there are things missing, like my first ARC, and I hope there are more to come, but I thought it was kind of neat looking back. It’s amazing how social media has leveled the playing field between authors and readers.

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Books

Book 181: The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3) – Rick Riordan

Geoff W

I can’t wait for the next in this series to come out!

When it does, I’m going to re-read the first three all over again because there were so many details I only vaguely recalled AND their just fun reads! (Although this might not happen as The House of Hades‘ scheduled publication is August 2013, but I hope to get the chance!)

From what I do recall from the first two books, this is definitely more action packed and definitely not lacking. However, in the end it was just as much a tease as the others. For the entire book I held out hope that some of the major plot lines of the series would be wrapped up, but only one of them was (which was definitely nice). I was, however, very glad that the seven demigods from the prophecy were finally together and the teen angst in the book definitely added to the plot (although I’ve yet to read an author who does teen angst as well as J.K. Rowling).

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