Tag: Reading

2012 Challenges

Tea & Books Reading Challenge 2012 – COMPLETE!

Geoff W

The Tea & Books Reading Challenge, hosted by Birgit at The Book Garden, was a great idea and an awesome experience.  You can find out more about the challenge by clicking any of the above links, or reading my original sign up post here.

I originally signed up for the Earl grey Aficionado level (six books) but upgraded to the Sencha Connoisseur after I quickly plowed through George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. For my upgrade I originally planned on adding Anna Karenina and Ulysses.  I did end up reading Anna Karenina, but decided to wait on Ulysses and instead substituted Doctor Zhivago which I planned on reading for another challenge.

If I have one piece of advice for this challenge in the future.  Definitely break up the books! And make sure to see if your books come with convenient stopping points.  Martin’s series was emotionally demanding and exhausting. I read the first three back-to-back and then took a break.  The two Russian novels were also demanding and incredibly tedious (and totally worth the read), but they came with convenient stopping points in ‘books’ within the novels.

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Reading Events

The Literary Others – October Reading Event

Geoff W

After looking at what I have left to read in 2012 and shuffling my reading list about (it pays to be ahead :-D), I have decided to join Room Beam Reader’s October event, The Literary Others.

As he mentions, October is LGBT History month (in the US; it’s in February in the UK) and I have quite a few LGBT novels, authors and galleys on my to-be-read list for 2012 and figured I might as well shift them around to fit into October. It should be fun as I have a degree in Gender Studies and have done my fair share or research on LGBT novels, plays and authors.

I’ve also decided as part of this event that I am going to host my first giveaway! It will be later in the month and will be relatively simple like an Amazon gift card or a book from the Book Depository, but I haven’t decided on the constraints or the books.

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Updates

Lunchbreak Interlude IX

Geoff W

This past weekend my sister and I flew down to North Carolina to surprise our mom for her birthday. And it was hilarious – my mom saw me screamed and then cried, and then realized my sister was there too, screamed and cried again. It was a good surprise and a good trip down. It was an incredibly fast trip, but it was relaxing to get out of the city for a day and see family, even if the travel was a bit stressful.

One of the advantages of going home, aside from seeing family, was that I got to raid my book boxes I have stored at my mom’s house. Unfortunately, I could not find my copy of Wuthering Heights, but that’s okay because I bought a beautiful compilation version of it, Jane Eyre and Agnes Grey a few months ago. However, I did find a stack of books to bring back and was sorely tempted to bring my entire box of Harry Potter books back! (But I restrained myself to 11—and one awesome pamphlet.)

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Meme, The Classics Club

The Classics Club – September 2012 Meme

Geoff W

Those jokers over at The Classics Club sure have a sense of humor.

They want us to “Pick a classic someone else in the club has read from our big review list. Link to their review and offer a quote from their post describing their reaction to the book. What about their post makes you excited to read that classic in particular?”

Not asking for much are they?  Hold on a sec while I go read the 375 posted reviews as of writing this (I’m sure there will be more by time I post this.)  But all kidding aside, I think this is a great idea! I think the moderators made an astute decision to further build a community around this challenge.  I’ve already been tagged in two post, thanks Missy at Honeybee’s Attic and Athena at aquatique, and this meme pushes me to reach out and read new reviewers.

I enjoy reading the plethora of The Classics Club reviews out there, I mean my RSS feed has increased by at least 50% since the challenge started, but I settled on Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (my response 5/13). I chose this for two reasons: my next book is Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote and I will eventually read Breakfast at Tiffany’s as part of The Classics Club.

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Updates

August Recap 2012

Geoff W

Even though I only read seven books this month, I had a relatively productive month. I finished my re-read of Harry Potter with Books Five, Six and Seven, and I’m glad I did. It was a much needed reprieve from work and life and the stress of the challenges I chose to do this year! (And I know you’re all dying to know – I’m making awesome progress in Lego Harry Potter 😀 I’ve already completed Years 1-4 and am about 50% of the way through 5-7. If you’ve ever played one of the Lego franchise games you know that’s not as simple as it sounds.) In addition I read an AWESOME NetGalley from Algonquin Books due out in October, The Art Forger, and ticked a few more books off my challenges!

In other cool book news, I hope everyone has seen this article in The Atlantic Wire about what type of book reader you are. I’m definitely somewhere between quite a few of them! (The Hate Reader, The Chronological Reader and the Bookophile, among others.)

Challenge Progress
The major change came when I decided to push James Joyce’s Ulysses off until next year. I tacked it on to my Tea and Books Reading Challenge at the last-minute, but realized that I already had another 700+ page book on my Back to the Classics Challenge, Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, so I’m going with it instead.

  • Mount TBR Reading Challenge
    • Monthly Progress: 3 books
    • Overall Progress – 21/25 (84%)
  • Back to the Classics Challenge
    • Monthly Progress: 0 books
    • Overall Progress – 5/9 (56%)
  • Tea and Books Reading Challenge
    • Monthly Progress: 0 books
    • Overall Progress – 7/8 (89%)
  • The Classics Club
    • Monthly Progress: 2 books
    • Overall Progress – 11/100 (11%)