Virtual Mount TBR Challenge 2024 discussion

Continuing the climb: first mountain details

----------- Rum Doodle ----------------
January:
1. Clear by Carys Davies 💻
2. Tartans: Pleasures and Treasures by Christian Hesketh 📘

February:
3. American Spirits by Russell Banks 🎧
4. Copper Falcon by W. Michael Gear & Kathleen O'Neal Gear 💻

March:
5. The Great Divide by Cristina Henríquez 🎧
6. Crank by Ellen Hopkins 💻

April:
7. The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by by James Patterson & Matt Eversmann 💻

May:
8. Rednecks by Taylor Brown 🎧

June:
9. Get Me Through the Next Five Minutes: Odes to Being Alive by James Parker 💻
10. The Book That Wouldn’t Burn by Mark Lawrence 💻

July:
11. Email by Randy Malamud 📘

August:
12. Traffic by Paul Josephson 📘

----------- Mount Crumpit ------------
August:
13. Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks by Marcia Bjornerud 🎧

October:
14. BOOM: Oil, Money, Cowboys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush That Could Change America Forever by Tony Horwitz 🎧
15. Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean 🎧

November:
16. I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue 🎧
17. Water, Water: Poems by Billy Collins 💻

December:
18. The Forger's Requiem by Bradford Morrow 💻



----------Currently Reading-----------
The Lost Family: How DNA Testing Is Uncovering Secrets, Reuniting Relatives, and Upending Who We Are by Libby Copeland 🎧
At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison 📘



Peaks complete: ⛰️
on pause/DNF: -----------
What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman 🎧
The Singularity is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil 💻📘

Book 13 is Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks by Marcia Bjornerud.

4 stars, audio book

This is part autobiography and part science - geology. The book is organized rock types, each rock type being the focus of a chapter and the author fits this into this portion of her life too. Starting out as a child growing up, running to the bus with sand in her shoe leads to sandstone rocks. I liked that format. Listened to the audiobook through netGalley.

Book 14 is BOOM: Oil, Money, Cowboys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush That Could Change America Forever by Tony Horwitz.

3.5 stars, audio book

This was a short, quick listen. Horwitz traces where the XL Pipeline was proposed to carry the oil from the tar sands in Canada. Traveling to many small towns and talking to people whose land will house the pipeline. In Canada he talks to many people who work in the industry. This book is a compilation of those interviews and his travels. Listened to the audio through the audible plus catalog.

Book 15 is Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean.

4 stars, audio

Been wanting to read this book for a while, and finally got the push with the unabridged audio available through audible plus going to expire soon. This is an account of not only the tragic Mann Gulch Fire in 1949 that blew-up and took lives of the smokejumpers, but it's also about MacLean investigating what happened. The tragedy stayed with him for years, and he investigated it off and on for decades, never finishing the book really, as it was published after his death. Loan from audible.

Book 16 is I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue.

3.75 stars, audio book

This appealed to me as work fiction and it was firmly centered around that, with the main character Jolene. It has quite a bit of humor but in the end is not as sarcastic, nor as satire, as these books typically are like. I enjoyed this one well enough, even with the bit of predictability.

Book 17 is Water, Water: Poems by Billy Collins.

4 stars, eBook

A new collection of poems by one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins. He writes with humor and accessibility that always revives my interest in reading poetry. This is another good collection that make you laugh, think and find surprise at the unexpected ways of looking a the world. Got the eBook from NetGalley.

Book 18 is The Forger's Requiem by Bradford Morrow.

3.5 stars, eBook

For the last book on this climb, I actually finished ten days ago and only now got to posting on goodreads. I'm a little behind! This was an okay book, slow start for me but I got into the story once it got going, the formatting figured out. It had alternating first person POV that also was during different timelines that was tricky in the beginning. Didn't realize until I finished the book, this was the las in a trilogy so maybe reading the other two first would have made for a better reading experience. Picked this up at NetGalley.

I have two books going at the moment, that I won't be able to finish today, the last day of the year. So I will carry those over to the 2025 climb.