Wrapping up the What's in a Name reading challenge

I always have fun doing the What's in a Name reading challenge, and this year was no exception. I signed up for it on July 28, and it took me just under two weeks to read and review the first five books - and 2 1/2 months to find, read and review the sixth and last book.

I posted my first review on August 1, the day after I finished it, and the last one I posted on October 22, two days after I finished it.

The books and categories were, in order of reviewing:

A building. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones.
An alliterative title. Dr. Mütter's Marvels by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz.
A compass direction. West With the Night by Beryl Markham.
An item or items of cutlery. A Knife at the Opera by Susannah Stacey.
The letter X in the title. Alexandria by Nich Bantock.
A number in numbers in the title. 1968 by Mark Kurlansky.

The genres were not as varied as they have sometimes been, with two fantasies, two biographies, a history book and a mystery. Even some of the sub-genres overlap, with each other and the main genres: Both fantasies are also love stories, one of the biographies is also a history book and one of the fantasy books is also a mystery, and the other fantasy book and the mystery also have thriller elements in them.

As for reading enjoyment, the order goes like this, from most to least enjoyable:
Howl's Moving Castle - West With the Night - Alexandria - Dr. Mütter's Marvels - 1968- A Knife at the Opera.

Of the six, I only want to reread for first two. I am keeping those, and also Alexandria, because it's a work of art, plus if I ever get my hands on the other two books in the trilogy, I want to be able to read them all in the right order.

Comments

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...

Reading in Reykjavík

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