Mount TBR 2014 Challenge discussion

As was my challenge last year and the year before that, I want my recommendations to come from what **Other People** tell me to read (*See my own-and-someday-read tags). Last year I mixed it up a little by adding books mentioned in other books and I want to continue that as well. Also, Buddy Reads will always be added to the top, as I consider them top priority.

Buddy Reads:

1) The Bully Pulpit (w/Sam)
2) A Red House Mystery by AA Milne (a missed opportunity w/Chris...oops!)
3) Stoddard's Lectures Vol. VIII: Florence, Naples, Rome by John L. Stoddard (with Jeannette)
4) Absalom! Absalom! By William Faulkner (w/Simran)
5) Bostonians by Henry James (W/Chrissie)
6) My Cousin Rachel by Daphne DuMauier (w/C.)
7) Ross Poldark by Winston Graham (w/Diane Lynn)
8) Demelza by Winston Graham (w/Diane Lynn and Jeannette)
9) Sea Jade by Phyllis Whitney (w/Dorcas)
10) Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham (w/Diane Lynn)
11) Light A Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy (w/C.)
12) Split Second by Michael Connelly (w/Chris)
13) Medicus by Ruth Downie (w/Susan)

Eight recommendations by Tanya/dog eared copy:
13) Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell
14) The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
15) For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
16) Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
17) Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
18) The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
19) 1984 by George Orwell
20) Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

21) Animal Farm by George Orwell (recommended by La_Mariane)
22) A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories by Flannery O'Conner (recommended by Willowfaerie)
23) Under the Black Ensign by L Ron Hubbard (recommended by Galaxy Press)
24) Roots by Alex Haley (recommended by coworker)
25) Dead Men Kill by L Ron Hubbard (recommended by Galaxy Press)
26) The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Album (recommended by Inaniel)
27)W;t (recommended by friend)
28) Flowers for Algernon (recommended by friend)

I'm choosing this one for myself simply because I own 23 of this author's books and I have NEVER read a single one of them. (What if she sucks? Won't I be embarrassed I've owned and collected a bad author for years without ever knowing it? LOL!)

29) The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun

**Books owned that have been mentioned in other books I've read:

30) The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (from Conroy's The Great Santini)
31) Middlemarch by George Eliot (from P.D. James' Children of Men)
32) Hamlet by William Shakespeare (from The Alchemyst by Michael Scott)
33) The Tempest by William Shakespeare (from The Alchemyst by Michael Scott)
34) War And Peace by Leo Tolstoy (from Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn)
35) Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut (from Beautiful Creatures)
36) The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (from Beautiful Creatures)
37) The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper (from Johnny Got His Gun)
38) The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (from Johnny Got His Gun)
39) Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (from Gone With The Wind)
40) The Iliad (from The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest)
41) Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington (from Twelve Years A Slave intro)
42) Life of Frederick Douglas (from Twelve Years A Slave intro)
43) Wench (from Twelve Years A Slave intro)
44) Around The World In 80 Days by Jules Verne (from Land of Stories #2)
45) 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne (from Land of Stories #2)
46) Complete Short Stories of Hemingway (from A House In The Sky)
47) Anna Karenina (from I Am Malala)
48) Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (from I Am Malala)
49) The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner (from Reconstructing Amelia)
50) Lord of the Flies (from Reconstructing Amelia)
51) After the Fall by Arthur Miller (from Death of a Salesman afterward)
52) The Crucible by Arthur Miller (from Death of a Salesman afterward)
53) Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain (from Death of a Salesman afterward)
54) Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (from Death of a Salesman afterward)
55) TR: The Last Romantic by HW Brands (couple read with Bully Pulpit)
56) The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (from The Hardy Boys #1)

12 (7) mentioned in Middlemarch:

57) The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker by Tobias Smollett
58) Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
59) The Writings of Milton
60) King Arthur and His Knights *
61) Bulfinch's Age of Chivalry *
(* Canterbury Tales was the one mentioned but since I do not own a copy of that, I figured the two books with asterisks that I have owned for years would be a "decent" substitute)
62) Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
63) Twelfth Night by Shakespeare
64) Shakespeare Sonnets
65) Henry VI Part 1
66) Henry VI Part 2 *
67) Henry VI Part 3
68) Richard III
(* Only the one with the asterisk was mentioned. However, since this is Shakespeare's other tetralogy which comprises all of his War of the Roses series, I figure I may as well read all four.)

**Between Bully Pulpit and TR, both of which revolved around Teddy Roosevelt, and therefore I will include them together...A Whopping total of 19 owned books/authors mentioned**

69) King Lear by William Shakespeare
70) As You Like It by William Shakespeare
71) John Stuart Mill's Autobiography
72) Arabian Knights
73) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott *
74) Little Men by Louisa May Alcott *
75) Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott *
(* Both with asterisks were not mentioned but I figured I may as well read the entire trilogy, particularly considering I only vaguely remember Little Women)
76) The Divine Comedy by Dante
77) Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy (Will be read with Tolstoy's book, since Teddy referred to both authors as hated socialists)
78) A Modern Instance by William Dean Howells
79) Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll
80) Alice in the Looking Glass * (Was not mentioned, but would like to read the sequel)
81) The Poems of Walt Witman
82) Jungle by Upton Sinclair
83) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde by Robert Lewis Stevenson
84) O Pioneers! And Other Tales by Willa Cather *
85) Far From the Maddening Crowd by Thomas Hardy *
86) White Fang by Stephen Crane *
87) McTeague by Frank Norris *
(* Only the authors were mentioned but seeing as how I owned ONE unread book by each, I determined what exactly to read by them)
88) The Complete Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (1026 pages?? This will be one heck of a doozy!)


89) Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (from Ross Poldark)
90) William Carlos Williams, Poet from Jersey by Reed Whittemore (from City of Bones by Cassandra Clare)
91) Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare (From The Band That Played On)

Hemingway's 3 mentors as mentioned in my copy of The Sun Also Rises book blurb:

92) Selected Poems by Ezra Pound
93) The Beautiful And The Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
94) Selected Writings of Gertrude Stein

95) The Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire (from Stoddard's Lectures on Italy - also buddy read w/Chris)

I know this list is beyond the 36 mentioned and will likely grow even higher. Again, I want to invite anyone/everyone to go through my books (Own-and-someday-read tag NOT To-read, which is really my wish list, since I own nothing on my to-read list) and recommend something I should add here.

Margaret! I'm unsure you're checking e-mail but I've left notes here and there, to say merry Christmas and now happy new year! (I additionally teased about a certain birthday you're very aware of, to the minute, in November). GRIN!

You'll get plenty of recommendations from me next year and hey, I am premiering a great "Ethereal" challenge in February! I MUST have a fellow ghost story fan in my group! It accepts astrology and non-fiction mysticism too. Sincerely yours, Carolyn http://cmriedel.wordpress.com/etherea...

You did?? I never got any Merry Christmas emails...hmm! Well Happy New Year to you too! :)

I think merry Christmas wishes went on your Goodreads updates and mine. Because I DID send e-mail occasionally; none answered expect your first way back when. The girl's wondering where best to reach you! :) Can't wait to have you in "Ethereal" at least. Hugs! Carolyn. http://cmriedel.wordpress.com/etherea...

re. LJBraun - while her latest books became (IMO) insufferably sweet and repetative (never CAN spell that!), the earlier you read in the series the better - the first six or so were wonderfil - crisp amateur detectives stories starring an (ex)alcoholic newspaperman who discovers that cats have a lot to do with How The World Works (grin). That's the first three (written in the late 1960s) and the nexy 3 to, oh around a dozen - pretty much all her 1980s books are decent-to-very good cosy mysteries.

She had a stroke in very early 1990s, 1991 I believe, and although the pblishers wouldn't admit to it, it's generally thought that most, if not all, of her mid-1990s and later books were written either by her husband or other family members, or a publishers' committee/ghost writers! Personally I think the husband wrote from her ideas in the 1990s but then the quality goes 'way downhill, so am inclined to lean towards the Committee theory...

I loved the earlier and mid-books, an d think you might enjoy them. Good Luck!

affectionately, Abbey in Boston, currently wending her way through a TON of library books but hope to start on owned tbrs soon!

Welcome back! And here's to an awesome year in which you read ALL the books needed to reach the summit!