2014 Challenges - The Half-way Point

The end of June was half way through the year so it seems like a good time to check in and see how I am doing with my various reading challenges and projects.

• I successfully completed the 7th Annual Canadian Book Challenge (which ended on June 30) by reading 13 books set in Canada or by Canadian authors. I will be joining in on the 8th Canadian Book Challenge, but haven't written my sign-up post yet. 
• I have read 56 of the 101 books (55%) I pledged to read this year on GoodReads.
• For the Postal Reading Challenge I have read 3 of the 4 books I committed to. I have several more "letter" books on my reading pile so I may upgrade my level on that one.
• I have read 5 out of 6 books in the What's In a Name Challenge. I still need to find (and read) a book with a reference to time in the title. 
• I have read 6 of the 12 books I committed to for the TBR Pile Challenge. I realized that a lot of the books I pulled from my shelves for this challenge have been sitting there for so long because they are long, or seem depressing, or both. This challenge is becoming more difficult as work my way through the less daunting titles in the list.
• For the Foodies Read 2014 Challenge I signed up to read 9-13 books (what was I thinking!?) I have read 6 so far. I need to find more foodie books and actually read them. I have had several checked out of the library this year that went back unread because I wasn't in the mood for them. 
• I have read 5 titles from my Classics Club list since the beginning of the year. I have read 19/50 since I began the project. I will be half-way through my time on that project in March 2015, so I'm in good shape with that one.

Overall I feel like I am on track with my reading challenges and am enjoying most of what I am reading for these projects.
How are you doing on your 2014 reading projects?

Review: Next Life Might be Kinder

Next Life Might Be Kinder by Howard Norman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found the ending of this book unsatisfactory. It didn't feel like a conclusion so much as just a stop. Aside from that I thought the book was well written and the story was compelling. The story is set in Nova Scotia (Halifax and in a beach community an hour away) and the narrative switches back and forth between the present and about a year previous.
One of the characters in the novel is a librarian whom I found charming. I am often very annoyed by the way librarians are depicted in books, but this one was good. Here is how she describes her life:

"Born in Anglo Tignish, Prince Edward Island. My mother and father were living there for a few years. But I grew up mostly in Kentville. Up through high school. Then off to study library science in Montreal. Then an early marriage. Then an early end to it. Ha-ha! Then assistant libraran in Bridgewater. Then fed up with Bridgewater. Then searched the job listings and up popped Port Medway." (p.174)

On the next page she quotes Robertson Davies so I had to like her.

Norman is an American, but he wrote with great affection about Maritime Canada and there was a lot of scenery (and birds) described in some detail. I hadn't read anything by him before, but would definitely read more of his work.

This book counts toward the Canadian Book Challenge 7.

Neuromancer

Neuromancer by William Gibson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a book where characters interact through virtual reality and chase people through cyberspace. They plug microsofts (basically apps) into themselves and the world is a matrix of code. None of this is particularly impressive except that this novel was written in 1984. Neuromancer was included in the Literary Review of Canada 100 Most Important books which calls it "the template for an entire genre of cyberpunk science fiction." Gibson (in a short story that preceded this novel) coined the term cyberspace. He also calls the "real world" of his novel "the sprawl" which I thought was a great term for it. 
Besides the amazing vision of what the computer would become this story is a thrilling chase by a damaged but ultimately appealing guy who is trying to figure out, along with the reader, what is going on in the situation he has found himself in. There are passages of great descriptive writing in the novel. This one really struck me as the place he describes is so familiar:

"... reminded Case of deserted early morning shopping centers he'd known as  a teenager, low-density places where the small hours brought a fitful stillnesss, a kind of numb expectancy, a tension that left you watching insects swarm around caged bulbs above the entrance of darkened shops. Fringe places, just past the borders of the Sprawl, too far from the all-night click and shudder of the hot core. There was that same sense of being surrounded by the sleeping inhabitants of a waking world he had no interest in visiting or knowing, of dull business temporarily suspended, of futility and repetition soon to wake again." (p.206-7)

I really enjoyed this book and would have given it 5 stars except that there are some parts at the beginning where it is really hard to figure out what is going on and that made it a bit tough to get into the flow of the story. This book is on my Classics Club list and counts toward the Canadian Books Challenge 7. 

2014 Reading Challenges Progress Report: March

I am working on 5 reading challenges this year, in addition to my goal of reading 101 books overall. So far I am a bit behind on some challenges and on track for others. Since I have most of the year left I think I am doing OK.

For the Postal Reading Challenge 2014 I committed to reading 4 books during 2014. I am part way through the first one, a volume of Letters from Edna St. Vincent Millay. I am enjoying it, but as it is my 'read at lunchtime' book at my office it is going to be a while yet before it is finished.

The What's in a Name 2014 challenge was originally 5 books, of which I had finished one with The Once and Future King. A sixth (optional) category has been added which is A book with a school subject in the title (algebra, physics, spells and potions, cooking, etc.) 

For Foodies Read 2014 I committed to reading 9-13 books, which I am now feeling may have been overly ambitious. I have read 2 so far, both cookbooks. I have several more foodie titles requested from the library so I may get on track with this challenge.

I have finished one book, The Cat's Table, from my list of 12 for the 2014 TBR Pile Challenge and am about half-way through a second book (a collection of short stories).

I am ahead of schedule for finishing 13 Canadian books by Canada Day (July 1, 2014) for the Canadian Book Challenge 7. I have read 11 so far.

Review: The Dead in their Vaulted Arches

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
by Alan Bradley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have really enjoyed this series, and this book was no exception. The character of Flavia de Luce is wonderfully written and the book is filled with sly philosophical observations which is part of the fun of reading this series. This installment didn't have a mystery to be solved in the same way that earlier books did, and there was a distinct spy novel element to it that had not been part of the earlier books to this great an extent. The series seems to be turning in an entirely new direction, but the characters are so intriguing that I'm excited to follow along.

This book, because the author is Canadian, counts toward the Canadian Book Challenge.

Review: The Cat's Table

The Cat's Table
by Michael Ondaatje
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The writing in this novel was spare and elegant and the depiction of life on a ship in the 1950s through the eyes of a young boy (now grown) was captivating. About three-quarters of the way thought Ondaatje shifts focus from the events on the ship to things that happen later in the boy's life. I didn't think this part of the novel worked as well. The voice of the boy was very familiar by that point and the more sophisticated/cynical view of the man was jarring to me.
There were some great lines in the novel:

"So we came to understand that small and important thing, that our lives could be large with interesting strangers who would pass us without any personal involvement." (p. 129)
"... we improved as well as damaged each other" (someone talking about their spouse, p. 138)

Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka (the setting of his novel Anil's Ghost, which I loved) , but he lives in Toronto. There is also a tiny bit of this story that is set in British Columbia. I am counting this book toward the Canadian Book Challenge and it is one of the books from my pile for the 2014 TBR pile challenge.

Review: A Tale for the Time Being

A Tale for the Time Being
by Ruth Ozeki
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The characters in this novel were interesting, and the way the various stories are woven together is well done, but I thought the resolution of the various stories was a bit of a bait-and-switch on the author's part. I also found the footnotes added to the diary entries really off-putting at the beginning of the book. I got used to them, and after a while you find out why they are there, but the idea that I was reading a teenager's diary and it had footnotes seemed ridiculous. About half-way through the book the point-of-view moves briefly to an animal which seemed really out of place and bizarre. (Why would a wild animal know the names of towns and rivers and be able to recognize a pulp mill?)  Luckily it was a brief bit after which the narrative got back on track.

There are basically 3 people's stories intertwined here: Ruth, a middle-aged woman living with her husband on an island off the Pacific coast of Canada; Nao, a teenager living in Tokyo with her family; and a Japanese pilot during WWII. I found all of the stories interesting, but the way they were interconnected strained credibility and ultimately (something of a spoiler coming!) they are resolved by either magic or quantum mechanics (depending on which of several proposed theories you believe).

The descriptions of places were really well done, I felt like I was in the various locations. There is also a sly humor to Ozeki's writing. Here is an example:

"The island where Ruth and Oliver lived was named for a famous Spanish conquistador, who overthrew the Aztec empire. Although he never made it up as far north as his eponymous isle, his men did, which  is why the inlets and sounds of coastal British Columbia are scattered with the name of famous Spanish mass murderers. But in spite of its sanguinary name, theirs was a relatively benign and happy little isle. For two months out of the year, it was a gemlike paradise, overflowing with carefree summer people with yachts and vacation homes, and happy hippie farmers raising organic veggies and bare-bottomed babies. There were yoga teachers, body workers, and healers in every modality, drummers and shamans and gurus galore. For two months out of the year the sun shone.
But when the tourists and the summer people left, the blue skies clouded over and the island bared its teeth, revealing its churlish side. The days grew short and the nights grew long, and for the next ten months, it rained. The locals who lived there year-round liked it this way." (p. 141-2)

 There were some really good lines scattered throughout the novel. One of my favorites was, "How had she become a woman who worried about wolves and cougars eating her husband? She had no answer." (p, 172) I love how the universal "how did I get here?" is so specific and rather surreal for the speaker who is a NYC girl.

Despite the issues I had with it this is a novel well worth reading. This book counts toward the Canadian Book Challenge.

Review: No. 9 Belmont Square

No. 9 Belmont Square by Margaret Erskine

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a good solid mystery novel. The characters were interesting, the crime and its solution were dealt with fairly by the author and there was enough of a puzzle to it to keep the pages turning. I would definitely read more by Margaret Erskine.

This book was my chosen prize for completing 16+ books in the 2013 Vintage Mysteries Challenge. (Thanks Bev!) I chose this book because I had never read this author and because it counts towards the Canadian Book Challenge. Margaret Erskine, not to be confused with Lady Margaret Erskine, was born in Ontario. There is an excellent profile of her on Femmes Fatales.

Review: MaddAddam

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This trilogy, which includes Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, was amazing. Considered on its own this final book was good. It began with a very short recap of what had happened in the first two books which bugged me. The first two books in this trilogy are complex and layered and pulling out the plot points into a few summary paragraphs flattened them in a way that I disliked. 
This book also took a while to get going, there was a lot of looking back and reminiscing before any new events happened.Once things finally got moving the mixing of elements from the first and second books with this new action made this volume more like the earlier ones which was good. The various loose ends are all dealt with in this book, some more to my satisfaction than others. 

This book counts toward the Canadian Book Challenge 7.

2014 Reading Projects

I am not making any reading resolutions for 2014, but I do have some projects I have committed to which I will be working on during the new year. 

Canadian Book Challenge 7
I have finished 6 of the 13 books I need to read for this before July 1, 2014. I also have a big pile of Canadian books waiting to be read and am nearly finished with MaddAdam which will count toward this challenge. So far so good with this one. I need to finish one Canadian book each month to stay on track.

Classics Club
I have read 14 of the 50 books I committed to reading for this by September 2017. If I read 6 more books from my list by September 2014 I will be where I need to be to finish by the deadline. I decided to read the King Arthur books from the list this year, so The Once and Future King, Mists of Avalon, and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court are on deck. There is also a set of monthly themes planned by the Club for 2014 and I may dip into those during the year. The 2nd annual CC Readathon is Saturday and I am looking forward to starting my King Arthur project then.

Reading Challenges for 2014

• On Goodreads I committed to reading 101 books during the year. This was the same number I challenged myself to read in 2013 and it seems like a good number for me so I am sticking with it.
• I signed up for What's in a Name 7 which is being hosted at The Worm Hole. I will need to read 5 books (not overlapping with other challenges) for this. 
• I committed to reading 4 books (postcard level) for the Postal Challenge hosted at Indextrious Reader.
• I ended 2013 with more books (30+) on my Foodie to-read list than I started with, even though I completed the challenge. I have signed up for the 2014 Foodies Read Challenge and committed to reading 9-13 books (sous-chef level). On a related note, I hope to do more cooking-the-books postings about cookbooks from my collection this year. 
• I am going to read 12 books from my shelves this year for the 2014 TBR Pile Challenge hosted at Roof Beam Reader.

This should be a good year! 

Review: Raphael's Riddle

Raphael's Riddle by Karen Kelloway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an excellent adventure story about a young girl who is transported into the 3rd century where she meets the man who will become Saint Nicholas. The mixing of history and adventure through the eyes of a modern young girl is very well crafted here. A Midsummer Night's Dream is also woven into the story in a clever way.
Karen Kelloway lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia so this book counts toward the Canadian Book Challenge.

Review: The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood
by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved how this story wove itself in and out of the story of Oryx and Crake. The focus of this novel is the people who call themselves God's Gardeners, who were in the main book but were more peripheral to the story. Many of the characters from the first book appear here as well, but this time they are on the edges of the story. The dystopia Atwood has created is background here and the individual people who are trying to sort out their paths in this weird world are the center of the story. There is also a bit of a thriller element to the book.
Overall a fabulous book and I can't wait to read book 3.
This book counts toward the 7th Canadian Book Challenge.

Challenge Update - October 2013

Since July 1st I have read 4 books for the Canadian Book Challenge 7, so I am on track with 1 per month. I need to read two books one month to hit the goal of 13, but mostly one book per month will suffice.  I have a good sized pile of Canadian books (thanks Lisa!) waiting to be read, plus there are 2 more books in the MaddAddam trilogy that I must read now that I finished Oryx and Crake. Also my friend Rob pointed out this cool list of Canadian authors.

Tea and Books Challenge: The book I am working on for this is 1,076 pages (not counting indices or the notes which I read as I go along). I have  484 pages to go which should be doable in 2 months. The book is a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt which is very well written and keeps my attention. The tough part is that the book is too heavy to carry around with me or to read in bed. It is a good thing I only signed on for 2 books.

For the colorful reading challenge I have 2 books left to read, so if I read 1 in November and 1 in December I will complete this challenge.

In my first year of Classics Club (Sept. to August) I finished 10 books from my list. My goal for that project is to read 10-12 titles from that list each year so I did fine for year 1. Since the beginning of September I have read Something Wicked This Way Comes, Agnes Grey, and To the Lighthouse, so I am a little bit ahead at this point for year 2.

I need to read one more book for What's in a Name. Something with a "party or celebration" in the title. Recommendations would be welcome.

I am a few books ahead of schedule (at 88%) with my Goodreads goal of 101 books in 2013 and have read at least the minimum number of books committed to for my other 2013 challenges.

Review: How the Light Gets In

How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This might not be quite 5 stars, but 4 stars didn't seem like enough so there you are. Penny has taken us back to Three Pines and pulled together the many threads she left laying through the series. I am sad to report that this book really feels like an ending to the series. I didn't read the advance press on this book (because having read and liked the first 8 novels I was definitely reading this one) or I would have known it was going to wrap things up. If you read this novel, which I highly recommend, don't expect to put it down once you get into the last 100ish pages.

"It had snowed day and night since Constance had arrived in Three Pines. Having lived in Montreal all her adult life, she'd forgotten snow could be quite so beautiful. Snow, in her experience, was something that neede to be removed. It was a chore that fell from the sky." p. 6

This book counts toward the Canadian Book Challenge 7. Louise Penny lives in Canada and the novel is set in Quebec.

Review: Griffin & Sabine Trilogy

Griffin and Sabine by Nick Bantock
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved the way this book was put together, the images on the postcards and envelopes (and even the stamps) were wonderful and having some of the correspondence be letters in envelopes made the experience of reading the book like finding treasures in an attic.The story of Griffin and Sabine was odd. I found Griffin's behavior quite bizarre, but perhaps it will be explained in a reasonable way by the end of the trilogy.

Sabine's Notebook by Nick Bantock
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I didn't feel like this book took the story of Griffin and Sabine any further along. All the traveling to different places seemed like an excuse to create postcard art with different themes. The postcard art was wonderful, but the book felt like filler.

The Golden Mean by Nick Bantock
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

As with the 2 earlier books I liked the postcards and the envelopes as artwork. However I didn't feel like the tone of the cards/envelopes matched the content of the letters as well as it did in the first book. I also felt, despite the subtitle, that nothing was really concluded which was disappointing.

Overall I was impressed by the artwork in this trilogy, but I found the storyline disappointing. Nick Bantock lives in British Columbia, so this trilogy counts (I'm calling it one book) toward the Canadian Reading Challenge.

Jane Austen: A Life

Jane Austen: A Life
by Carol Shields

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This really wasn't a biography. It was an examination of the work of Jane Austen and how the few things that are actually known about her life might relate to that work. It was however, a very enlightening look at the work of a great novelist and the time in which she lived. Shields, an excellent novelist herself, also discusses, at some length, the creative process of the writer. Ultimately there is more speculation here than solid information, but the speculation seems grounded in research and this is a book worth reading.

This book counts towards the Canadian Book Challenge.

Review: Oryx and Crake

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When this book came out it was highly recommended by several people I knew who read it and I have picked it up and read the jacket copy many times over the years, but I kept putting it back down. It was a mistake. This is a fabulous novel. The narrative twists and turns in a way that keeps you guessing about what exactly happened and giving you just enough information that you can't believe that what you think is coming could really be what will happen. (No, I'm not going to tell you what happens-- you need to read the the book.)
The world that Atwood creates is futuristic and bizarre, but like all dystopian fiction, just familiar enough to be alarming. There was a very weird juxtaposition between fact and fiction while I read this book. NHPR reported on hamburger grown in a lab from cow cells the same day I got to the part of the novel that describes "ChickiNobs": "What they were looking at was a large bulblike object that seemed to be covered with stippled whitish-yellow skin. Out of it came twenty thick fleshy tubes and at the  end of each tube another bulb was growing. ... Those are chickens, chicken parts. Just the breasts, on this one. They've got ones that specialises in drumsticks too, twelve to a growth unit." Way too weird (also yuck).

This is my first book for the 7th Annual Canadian Book Challenge.

Challenge Update - August 2013

I haven't posted a challenge update since May, but I have been reading books that count toward my challenges.


I have read 9 Classics Club titles since September 2012, so I need to read at least one more before the end of August to stay on track. I am participating in Austen in August for which I plan to read books off my Classics Club list, so that should work out.


I have read 5/6 books in the What's in a Name Challenge. I thought I needed a "something you find in the kitchen" book until I realized that the Pie book I read in January totally counts. Pie is often found in my kitchen (though admittedly not as often as my husband would like). I still need to find a book with "a party or celebration" in the title. Suggestions would be welcome.


I need to read one more chunkster for the Tea & Books Challenge and have begun a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Weisen Cook. So far it is quite interesting, but a genealogical table would be really helpful.


I successfully completed the 6th Canadian Book Challenge which ended on July 1. I signed up for the 7th Canadian Book Challenge and haven't finished anything for it so far. I did start reading Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood which will be book 1 of 13 when I finish it.


I need to read 5 more books for the Colorful Reading Challenge, so a book per month will do it. I have read a book each for white, green, orange, and black and have books tentatively selected for blue, purple, yellow, scarlet (not too sure about this one), and grey.

I am a few books ahead of schedule (at 66%) with my Goodreads goal of 101 books in 2013 and have completed at least the minimum number of books committed to for the Vintage Mystery Challenge, the Foodies Read Challenge, and the Books About Books Challenge.

The Book Blogger Recommendation Challenge has disappeared from the blogosphere and I am therefore abandoning it.

Reading More Canadian Books

I have nearly completed the 6th Annual Canadian Book Challenge, and now it is time to sign up for #7. You can find all the details at the Book Mine Set.

The basic challenge is to read and write about 13 Canadian books between Canada Day 2013 and Canada Day 2014. (That is July 1st).

Even if you are not prepared to take on this challenge I encourage you to check out the site. Each month there is an update post with links to all the reviews written by the challenge participants. It is a great source of books by and about Canadians.