Mount TBR 2013 Reading Challenge discussion

I've got that on my shelf somewhere... look forward to seeing your reaction.

I know what you mean about lists... I get all OCD about the exact order in which the books need to be read, I spend hours on the precise algorithm of old to new books, fiction to non fiction... and then I go read something else.

Happy list-free reading to both of you!

I really like it so far! It's cute without being cutesy, and funny without trying too hard for belly-laughs.

Exactly. I could have spent half of yesterday compiling details about what I've had longest, and the proportion of mystery to fantasy to Literature and so on, and fine-tuning the perfect list of 36 books to read this year. I'd have fun doing it. And on December 31 I would probably not have been able to find eleven of the books, and accidentally-on-purpose "forgotten" to pick up the rest, and lost at least five printed copies of the list. I'll wing it.

One down! Review eventually... :)

ETA: Review up, because I felt like it: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

I've read four altogether, including one for this challenge. I'd sing "We've only just begun", but no one wants to hear me sing!

We've only just beguuuuun
something di something di
White lace and prom -

Hold on, that's a wedding song. Nevermind.

Book number two: The Brandons, my first Angela Thirkell. I've had it for ... ever, and never read it. And I love it.

It's a date.

Hm, yes, "a kiss for luck and we're on our way" doesn't quite work in this context, does it?

Next: The Mysterious Commission, which I probably picked up at a library sale at least two years ago (more - it's been on LT since 2010). Michael Innes, whom I've liked forever; Honeybath is the hero, whom I've never met before - and he's an artist, which is fun.

Just finished the first book of a YA/children's trilogy I picked up years ago at Goodwill, The Land of Elyon. It was well done, fun, nice characters and sense of humor. I'm halfway through book two (there being, of course, three).

I also started Mapp and Lucia ... This is a series that should, so I keep reading, be perfect for me, but I've never been able to get into it - and I thoroughly hated the one episode of the tv series I've seen. I take it it's supposed to be funny, but I don't really want to laugh at pretentious morons who prattle in baby talk and pseudo-Italian and think they're better than everyone else - I want to avoid them at all costs... I'll give it a bit longer, but I sense a DNF.

With the trilogy and Mapp and Lucia you're on track I should think ... better you're running to the top, dear.

I've been behaving so far!

OK: I finished the Patrick Carman trilogy yesterday (because I didn't do much else, laundry be darned); it was kind of disappointing, in that it went to a very religious, very deliberate literal deus-ex-machina place, and ... meh. I started Mapp and Lucia, as I mentioned, and I'm not too eager to go back to it; I also started a weird 80's SFBC fantasy novel that has been sitting on my shelf for probably about twenty years: Fang the Gnome, which I've just discovered is the third in a trilogy. Both of these are, I think, DNF's - so at least they'll count toward the auxiliary challenge of Getting Rid of 36 Books from Mount TBR. Because I have the attention span of a gnat, I have moved on to Anatomy of a Murder, a beat-up little library sale paperback that has been on the shelf almost as long, I think, as Fang.

Tracey wrote: "I've been behaving so far!

OK: I finished the Patrick Carman trilogy yesterday (because I didn't do much else, laundry be darned); it was kind of disappointing, in that it went to a very religiou..."

Tracey, this update made me laugh out loud at work! (That'll teach me to check these things when I might get caught.)

My last big read off the TBR mountain was The Web Between the Worlds (SF)...it had been hanging out for 20-30 years on the shelves. Glad to have gotten that one shifted.

Oh no! Don't let me get you in trouble! :D

I'm so glad I'm not the only one with books that have lingered for actual decades. I'm really trying to concentrate on those - or at least the older, dustier ones.

I didn't get in trouble. :-) I hope you enjoy Anatomy of Murder--I liked it when I read about 10 years ago....

I have - to my surprise - finished Mapp and Lucia; it grew on me, but I feel almost guilty for liking it.

I needed a little mayhem after that, so I started The Mermaids Singing. Heh. And I'm still reading Anatomy of a Murder - it's excellent.

And another one bites the dust - I spent the weekend with the sort of headache that sounds like a scam but isn't: I can't focus on anything else, but I can read. So I finished the first Tony Hill/Carol Jordan novel, The Mermaids Singing, and it was good. And apparently "The Wire in the Blood" was very faithful, which is also good.

Next I need to read something off Netgalley, so I'll be taking a rest on the slopes of Mt. Vancouver for a few days.

I have been stomping around on it a lot. I think I'm letting my wish to go to Mars show...

#9 is done - Anatomy of a Murder, which was excellent: 4.5 stars. If the mail can get through the snow (and I can get to the mailbox) I should have the movie shortly.

I haven't used my Kindle in over a week, but I'm going back to it now for a while. Duty calls.

Ooh - it's been a while. But I can finally add Sylvester to my list. I just added it to "my books" last month, but I bought it (for my mother, originally) years ago.

In the works: Lord of Snow and Shadows. I hope I can finish it, though I'm not optimistic about the sequel. Which is what this challenge is for, in part: cleaning out my shelves.

Couldn't finish Lord of Snow and Shadows. Read Barbara Hambly's Renfield: Slave of Dracula, and it's the first time I've been disappointed by her. Par for the course.

And since I have nothing better to do, another one goes on the list, a book I've had for years. It was nothing like what I thought it would be. Not bad. Toll Call.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - kept me up till 5 AM, could easily have turned right back to page 1 and read it again.

It's been so long since I read a book that did that ... It was fantastic.

Well...crap. Goodreads really shouldn't put their "edit" button right next to their "delete" button. There goes my first post.

Okay. Take two.

So. My goal for the challenge is to read not just books in my possession as of 1/1/2013, but before 1/1/12 - well before, if possible. I'm trying to clear out a lot of lumber. In some cases, my record-keeping on LibraryThing (which I've always preferred for that purpose) has been better than on GR, so my criterion for a book to make the list is for it to either show as having been posted on one site or the other before 1/1/12 or for me to be certain it's been in the house for that long.

1. Murder With Peacocks – added (to LT) 2010
2. The Brandons – added (to LT) 2011
3. The Mysterious Commission – added 2011
4. The Dark Hills Divide – added 2010
5. Beyond the Valley of Thorns – added 2010
6. The Tenth City – added 2010
7. Mapp and Lucia – bought >2 years ago
8. The Mermaids Singing – added 2011
9. Anatomy of a Murder – added 2009
10. Sylvester – bought >year ago
11. Renfield – added 2011
12. Toll Call – added 2008
13. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – added 2011
14. Book Case – added 2008
15. Guests of the Emperor – added 2008
16. Billy Boyle - added 11/11
17. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - had since childhood, yet never read. Why??
18. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde - had since childhood, too
19. Suicide Excepted - added 4/11
20. The Woman in White - owned for years
21. The Victim in Victoria Station - added 8/11
22. The Art of Mending - added 2009
23. Holiday with Violence - added 2010
24. Death Mask - added 2010
25. Shadow of the Wind - added 2010
26. Throne of Jade - added 2011
27. Endless Night - added 2011
28. Anatomy of Ghosts - added 2011
29. Silence Observed - added 2010 (to LT)
30. Knocker on Death's Door - added (to LT) 2010
31. A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs - added (to LT) 2010
32. Blueberry Muffin Murder - added June of '09
33. Carrot Cake Murder - added 9/09
34. Sugar Cookie Murder - added 10/10
35. Shades of Earl Grey - added 10/10
36.

.

New on that list are Book Case, by the same author as Toll Call, and Guests of the Emperor, by she who is also known as Jill Churchill. I'm on a WWII/POW kick.

I realized I could, technically, also add The Wizard of Oz and Moby-Dick, since I have paper copies kicking around and have had for a decade or so, but I'm still trying to decide if I want to count audiobooks. And no, I never have read The Wizard of Oz before, oddly.

Well. This whole unemployed-terrified-depressed-and-best-not-to-let-my-mind-loose-without-occupation thing sucks, but it's good for my challenge list, at least.

OK, I've recently listened to the audiobook for a paperback I've had kicking around since I was a kid, a good old classic horror novel: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde. (I listened to Frankenstein, too; you'd think it was Halloween or something, but they were the next two I came across on Craftlit, and at least one of them counts.) It was a lot of fun - and a lot more like the Bugs Bunny cartoon than I expected. :)

I also read Suicide Excepted, an Inspector Mallett mystery I've had for well over a year - two, in fact. And I am adding the Wiz and the whale to my list, because I can.

ETA: No, I won't either add Moby-Dick; most of the audiobook was listened to in 2012, during the Big Read.

Finished: The Woman in White in audio; The Victim in Victoria Station; The Art of Mending.

Wow, haven't updated since May? Oops. Well, since then I can add a few: I was on an Ellis Peters kick, and the other ones I hadn't read before this year were Holiday with Violence; The Knocker on Death's Door; A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs; and Death Mask. Good solid mysteries. Then there was Shadow of the Wind, which was wonderful; Naomi Novik's Throne of Jade, pretty good; Agatha Christie's Endless Night, ok; Anatomy of Ghosts, pretty good; and Silence Observed, ok. Five more to hit goal for the year.

Partly because I'm behind on my GR challenge, and partly because I kind of craved some brain candy (or, in this case, cookies), I read three cozy mysteries that have been on the shelf for a while: Blueberry Muffin Murder, Carrot Cake Murder, and Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke. They're part of the weird murder-mystery-with-recipes trend, this time a cookie shop owner who keeps finding bodies. One positive for the series is that the woman's mother is scandalized every time it happens; no one else seems to bat an eyelash, though, and (especially considering it's a very small town) that bugs me. At least some of the recipes are interesting - the Sugar Cookie one is something like 200-odd pages book and 200 pages cookbook, with about 50 recipes, and some I might actually use someday.

Not exactly books to add to my reading resume, but mildly amusing.

Tracey wrote: "Partly because I'm behind on my GR challenge, and partly because I kind of craved some brain candy (or, in this case, cookies), I read three cozy mysteries that have been on the shelf for a while: Blueberry Muffin Murder, Carrot Cake Murder, and Sugar Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke. They're part of the weird murder-mystery-with-recipes trend, this time a cookie shop owner who keeps finding bodies. One positive for the series is that the woman's mother is scandalized every time it happens; no one else seems to bat an eyelash, though, and (especially considering it's a very small town) that bugs me. At least some of the recipes are interesting - the Sugar Cookie one is something like 200-odd pages book and 200 pages cookbook, with about 50 recipes, and some I might actually use someday.

Not exactly books to add to my reading resume, but mildly amusing. "

I listened to the first-in-series, Chocolate Chip Murder (narrated by Suzanne Toren) a couple of years ago and that's as far as I got! I'm not much for cozies, the narrator was too old for the role and, I'm a disaster in the kitchen (so the recipes were of no use to me!) I was always curious as to what people in my mystery group were talking about, so I'm glad I tried it out; but... no, not for me.

Joanne Fluke's Lake Eden Cookbook contains all the recipes from the series and, on the web-site, murdershebaked.com, there's an index of the recipes as well as a recipe of the month :-)

There went thirty-five of thirty-six: Shades of Earl Grey. Which, I feel impelled to add, came about long before that other "shades of gray" book. It was cute, a bit more realistic for a cozy, in a way. And there were recipes.

I'm reading a book now which I added in 2009 - and that'll be the challenge! (insert Kermit the Frog with flailing arms here)