Reading in Reykjavík

This is the sixth and final challenge book, the type of house. The choice was limited - there were very few books in my TBR+1 pile that had any kind of abode in the title, let alone a type of house, so I ended up choosing the common, generic word. This literary novel, shortlisted for the Booker the year after it was published, is the story of two cousins, one French, the other half-English, half-French, who grow up in a big house in a small village in France in the 1950s. One of them returns to the house after 20 years in a convent and family secrets and lies are uncovered and events in the village explained as the story plunges back into their childhoods. This is a beautifully written little book, full of descriptions of everyday things loaded with symbolism and metaphor. The story it tells is that of a typical love-hate relationship between two cousins, one who is special and another who longs to be. The narrative is full of twists and hints about dark deeds and while some plot p...

No sooner hand I finished the previous review when I picked up the next book in the challenge and read it through in a single sitting. It was that fascinating and that good. This is my fifth and second-to-last book of the challenge, the creepy crawly (a snail), and the only one so far that has not been on my TBR list. Just to be clear, the TBR books are the ones I have owned for over a year.  The reason I didn't choose a TBR book for this category was simple: I only have one unread book about creepy-crawlies that fits the plus-one-year rule, and it's a reference book as thick as a telephone directory that I have no intention of reading from cover to cover.  The author was struck by a mysterious illness while on holiday in Europe and the outcome was a debilitating condition that made her an invalid. Stuck in a cycle of slight recoveries and violent relapses, she was bound to her bed when a friend brought her a pot of wild violets and a forest snail. She began observing...

My fourth What's in a Name challenge book was this delightful short novel, the first in a series of (I think) 5 books that have also been used as the basis for a television series. The challenge category is # 6, the something you'd find on a calendar , that of course being the month of May. Cedric Carlton, a clerk from the Internal Revenue office arrives at the Larkin family farm to find out why Pa Larkin hasn't filed his taxes. He meets the Larkins' oldest daughter, Mariette, and falls in love with her at first sight, which comes in useful for Pa, who clearly has no intention to pay his taxes and uses Cedric's infatuation with Mariette to dodge all questions about the matter. Cedric, renamed Charley by Pa, quickly forgets why he came and takes sick leave in order to stay with the family and be near Mariette, who seems quite interested in him too. This is one of those lovely novels in which a formula as old as literature is used to good effect to tell an en...

This is the third What's in a Name challenge book I finish, the topographical feature , that of course being a marsh . This means I am halfway there, and one more TBR book down. The Marsh Arabs is a travelogue that, along with another travelogue by the same author, Arabian Sands , often appears on lists of best travel books and classics of the genre. It's easy to see why. The style is straightforward and no-nonsense, yet never dry or boring and it was refreshing for a change to read a travelogue by someone who knew exactly who he was and what he was doing, rather than the more common "searching for meaning and/or identity" travelogue so common today. In 1951 to 58 Wilfred Thesiger spent several months of each year in the marshes of southern Iraq, getting to know the inhabitants, their way of life and customs. He seems to have travelled to this particular area in search of people who were not yet too modernised to have lost all connection with their past and ...

As a regular visitor to this blog will have noticed, I have not been very active lately. This is because of many things that have combined to make me disinterested in posting reviews and writing about books. However, I would like to become more active and to that end I decided to join a reading challenge and pledge to blog about the books I read for that challenge to give me a little boost.  I mentioned back in January that I would probably just do my personal TBR challenge this year and if I were to do or join any other challenges, it would be somehting small that could fit within the TBR challenge, and I decided on the perfect mini-challenge for that: the What's in a Name challenge run by Beth Fish Reads . The challenge is, in the words of the challenge mistress:  "Between January 1 and December 31, 2012, read one book in each of the following categories: A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title: Black Hills, Purgatory Ridge, Emily of ...

Travelogues are my very favourite genre, but I also like to read other genres, both fiction and non-fiction, that feature locations that are well described and important for the story. If I know the location I can picture it in my mind. If not, I can imagine it and dream of visiting it some day (or make plans to avoid it all cost). Here are some challenges dedicated to countries, areas and continents around the world, starting small and ending big. I found so many challenges with this one theme that I decided to dedicate a special post to them. As before, you can click on either the link or the badge to be taken to the sign-up page. First up is the Ireland Reading Challenge , hosted by Carrie of Books and Movies . This challenge runs from January 1 to November 30, 2012. I did not see a deadline for signing up. There are 4 levels. Crossovers and re-reads are allowed. The challenge is to read "Any book written by an Irish author, set in Ireland, or involving Irish hi...

Next up in the challenges list is types of books . These are books defined by something other than their subject matter. I have found challenges for listening to audio books, reading free e-books, long books, library books, translations and books of short stories. I am not counting short stories as a genre because they can be about anything as long as they are collection of short stories. This reminds me of a challenge I thought up and was going to host in 2012. I was going to call it The Long and the Short of it . It was meant to be a challenge to read books under 150 pages and over 450 pages long. Level 1 was to be 3 long and 6 short ones, level 2 was to be 6 long books and 12 short ones, and level 3 was to encompass 12 long books and 26 short ones. An extreme level was to be offered, with 12 long books and 52 short ones but as you'll know if you stop by here regularly, I got fed up with restrictive challenges and decided to take it easy in 2012. I am putting this idea out here...

Last time I covered genre challenges, and now it's time for some theme challenges. As in the earlier posts, you can click either on the link or badge for each challenge to go to the sign-up page. First one I am seriously considering joining: The fifth What's in a Name challenge , hosted by Beth Fish Reads . I finished it last year and have a mind to join again this year. It runs throughout 2012 and you must read six books, each of which has a particular type of thing in the title (see the host site for a list). You can join at any time. Any one book can only be entered in one category. Overlapping with other challenges is permitted, you need not make a list beforehand and you need not read the books in the order the categories are given in. This is a very popular challenge: When I wrote this, 179 people had already signed up. The Library of Clean Reads is hosting a Time Travel Reading Challenge . It's a year-long challenge and you can join at any time....

I had originally written a considerably longer intro and worked on the list for a good half hour, but despite the periodic autosaving Blogger still managed to eat the original post. So here it is, with a much shorter intro, and as for you, Blogger: If this happens one more time I am taking all my blogs and migrating them somewhere else. I own books on many diverse subjects, both fiction and non-fiction, and like to read in many genres. Apropos of this, here are some genre challenges being offered by and for book bloggers in 2012: Clicking on the link or the badge will take you to the sign-up pages for the respective challenges. Yvonne of Socrates' Book Review Blog is hosting the Cruisin' thru the Cozies Reading Challenge .  The challenge runs all year long, and no sign-up deadline is given. The challenge is to read cosy mysteries and there are three levels. Books need not be chosen in advance, crossovers with other challenges are allowed and you don't need to ha...

I said in an earlier post that I was only going to do one big reading challenge in 2012, the already ongoing  TBR (read or cull) challenge. I also said I might consider some smaller challenges that could be done alongside the big one. The thought was to maybe find a couple of challenges to help me choose books within the TBR challenge, rather than ones that would necessitate going outside it for reading material. With that in mind I have been looking at what challenges the members of the book blogging community have come up with for 2012. However, I haven't just been looking at challenges that will suit my criteria, but also reading challenges in general, perhaps in the subconscious hope that I might find a really fantastic one to tempt me. I thought it appropriate to first take a look at bloggers who are inviting others to join their TBR challenges, because, as everyone knows, misery loves company ;-) Click on the links provided or on the challenge badge - either will take yo...

I am doing quite well so far in the reading challenges for this year. I have finished 3 Top Mystery Challenge books, which puts me right on schedule. I have finished 4 out of the 6 books in the What’s in a Name challenge and have the remaining two lined up and am already reading one of them. In the Read-a-myth challenge and Gothic Reading challenge I have not yet read any books, but I am reading my first Gothic book and have the two mythology books lined up. It is the TBR challenge I am proudest of. Two weekends ago I met the goal of my TBR reading challenge for 2011: to get the number of TBR books in my stack below 850. This was cause for celebration, because I don't think I have ever finished a reading challenge so quickly. I only did this partially by reading. I have finished 11 TBR books this year, which alone would not have been enough to reach the desired goal. However, the rules were that the reduction of the TBR list could be done by reading or by culling. What I di...

As my regular readers may know, I considered a number of reading challenges for 2011. In the end I decided to do two year-long ones with numerous books: my very own Top Mysteries and TBR challenges. I am stepping up the TBR challenge with the goal of reducing my TBR stack to below 850 books before the end of the year. The rules are, as before, that the stack can be reduced by reading and by culling and the books allowed for the challenge are the many, many books I have accumulated over the years but never read, provided I have owned them for more than a year. Furthermore, I will be unable to do this unless I cut down even more on my book buying. I plan to focus especially on non-fiction and on further reducing the number of my unread short story collections. In the Top Mysteries Challenge I am planning to read 2 books per month, averaged over the year. I will also continue the Frankfurter Büchmesse Challenge until the book fair starts in October. Additionally, I’ll take part i...

Here are the fifth and sixth reading challenges I am considering. To read more about a challenge, just click on the image and you will be taken to the originating website. This one is to choose a minimum of three themes to read up on, with an increasing number of books in each level, plus a couple of other rules. I'm thinking that it could be combined with the mythology challenge I mentioned in my last post in this series. OR, I could participate in this one, where the originating blogger has already decided which 6 themes will be used:

Here are the third and fourth reading challenges I am considering. To read more about a challenge, just click on the image and you will be taken to the originating website. This one is all about mythology, both fiction and non-fiction, with some specific rules. There are prizes to be won for participating in this one. Mythology and folktales were my favourite reading material from childhood and well into my my twenties. I already have several TBR books on the subject, so I could easily combine this one with the TBR challenge, which I will be continuing next year. --- This one is simply to read a certain number of Gothic novels, choosing from 4 levels: I found myself reading a number of novels with Gothic themes this year, so why not make them a challenge for next year?

Created by Teddy and Wendy, two bloggers who love reading challenges, A Novel Challenge is a blog all about just that. They collect reading challenges and book-related events together in one place to make it easier for others to find challenges. They don't steal the challenges - they merely let people know they exist and direct those who are interested in participating to the sign-up pages.

I am always on the lookout for new and exciting reading challenges. In the coming weeks I will be presenting some I have come across that I especially like. I haven't decided if I am going to participate in any of them in 2011, but I will be considering it. To read more about the challenge, just click on the image and you will be taken to the originating website. This one is very simple: You challenge yourself to read more books in 2011 than you did in 2010. It is hosted by the Book Vixen, who is also hosting three other challenges in 2011, of which I might do one: Men in Uniform (she plans to read romances for that one, but there is noting in the rules that forbids other genres). I don't think I will be participating in this one. I read so much anyway that I don't need to push myself further, unless I decide to go for 200 books next year, which could easily happen considering the challenge I am setting myself for 2011 (more on that later). --- This one is to rea...

This one can actually be incorporated into the TBR challenge and the 52 Icelandic books challenge, but it’s still a challenge. I learned of it through Petrona : The challenge was made by the Mystery Reader Cafe group on Yahoo, which I have promptly joined and am just beginning to explore. The rules go like this: 1. Read a mystery with the word "murder" in the title 2. Read a mystery set in your region 3. Read a mystery that has been on your shelf for at least a year 4. Read a mystery from a "new to you" author Each book should be different. I already have books lined up that fulfil all these points. The “murder” one might be Dorothy L. Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise or any of a number of other books I have with that word in the title. The “set in your region” will be Tími Nornarinnar by Icelandic author, journalist and critic Árni Þórarinsson. It has been translated into German and French and probably more languages, and I heard somewhere it was going to be publish...

I came across an interesting challenge in a book column on the Wall Street Journal website: save money by reading a book that you own but have never read , through the Guardian books blog , via BookNinja's blog . I think it's excellent advice. Although I am still not suffering much from the local financial crisis, I know that in the coming months my mortgage payments are going to go up, and necessities are already getting more expensive, leaving me with less play money. Therefore I am going to take up the challenge and try to make inroads on my TBR stack instead of buying more books. It's no hardship, considering that I own around 4-500 books I have not read and have a library TBR list of several hundred more. However, I will continue to mooch and give away books, at least until postage gets prohibitive.

I surpassed last year's monthly average a bit this month, with 18 books, a total of 4645 pages. Two were rereads. Most were less than 300 pages long and could be read in under 3 hours. I have not been much interested in reading long books lately, but now I intend to try to finish the first part of the Gormenghast trilogy, which is about 400 pages of small type, by the end of the month. Another long book I have started reading is Wilkie Collins' classic novel The Woman in White , which is about 650 pages in the Oxford World's Classics edition, so I don't expect to read quite as many books this month, but just as many pages. I have many partially read books strewn around my apartment and I think I should try to make an effort to finish some of them so I can either put them in my permanent collection or donate them back to the charity shop where I got them. I just finished one that I started reading in 2005 and feel very proud of myself, but I need to do more, so I have re...

Year published: 1995 Genre: Fiction, short stories Setting & time: USA (and Mexico), mostly the south, 1940s to 1990s This is my fifth and final read for the From the Stacks challenge. Ellen Gilchrist has been writing short stories about the indomitable Rhoda Manning for most of her career as a writer and the stories in this book are collected from previous short story collections, with excerpts from one novel. They are arranged in chronological order so that they form a collection of sketches of Rhoda's life from the age of 10 until she is a grandmother in her fifties. The stories are not always consistent with details of Rhoda's family and the chronology of her life, which is probably due to the fact that the stories were written over a period of 15 years and were never meant to be read together. Of the stories, the ones I found the most entertaining were the ones about Rhoda's childhood and teens. She has a spirit of rebelliousness and a streak of independence a...