Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2012 discussion

1. Take Up Thy Bed And Walk: Death, Disability And Cure In Classic Fiction For Girls

2. The Summer Before the Storm

3. Madame Proust and the Kosher Kitchen

4. Shades of Grey

5. The Ghosts

6. The Silmarillion

7. The Master and Margarita

8. My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

9. Grimms' Bad Girls And Bold Boys: The Moral And Social Vision Of The Tales

10. The Once and Future King

11. Storm and Dissonance: L.M. Montgomery and Conflict

12. A Faraway Island

13. Die Zeit Der Schlafenden Hunde: Roman

14. Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher (Träumende Bücher, #1)

15. The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice as Chronicled by Her Minstrel Laura: A Novel in Thirteen Books and Seven Intermezzos

16. Brothers in Exile: A Novel of the Lives and Loves of Thomas and Heinrich Mann

17. The Grimm Legacy

18. Wenn das Glück kommt, muss man ihm einen Stuhl hinstellen

19. That Scatterbrain Booky

20. With Love From Booky

21. As Ever, Booky

22. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales

23. dtv-Atlas Bibel

24. A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and Central North America

25. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

The Once and Future King and The Silmarillion -- two books I never managed to make it through!

Oh I love the Once and Future King. I'm due for a re-read soon.

Gundula, I've got The Master and Margherita coming up soon too. Again. I've started it three times. I'm determined this time, cause everyone says it's brilliant. (My husband included.)

Jeannette wrote: "The Once and Future King and The Silmarillion -- two books I never managed to make it through!"

Me neither, and some of the other ones are ones I stalled at a long time ago. I'm actually hoping that once I get reading, I can get all the way to 40 or 50, but I wanted to be prudent and not lock myself into a challenge I might not be able to finish.

My bugbear will likely be "The Master and Margarita" (I've started that book at least three times, and have not gotten far).

"snap" we were posting at the same time! Hahahah... I'm glad I'm not the only one with problems with TMaM

I love the title of #25! :)

Jeannette wrote: "I love the title of #25! :)"

The English translation of that book is really boring, it is simply called "Halinka" (the name of the main character), I don't understand why they did not find some similar English expression for a book title.

Hayes wrote: ""snap" we were posting at the same time! Hahahah... I'm glad I'm not the only one with problems with TMaM"

Hopefully, I will actually be able to finish it this time around.

I'm hoping too!

Hayes wrote: "I'm hoping too!"

I actually also have a book on some of the criticism, The Master and Margarita: A Critical Companion (it's pretty good and I've gotten further with that book than the novel itself).

Gundula, I've had my beady eye on the Irmtraud Morgner for ages. If you give me a wave when you're about to start, I could maybe get it from the library here and do a buddy read with you? Not helpful for the challenge, but I think I can cope. ;-)

Do you have a German background?

Karen wrote: "Gundula, I've had my beady eye on the Irmtraud Morgner for ages. If you give me a wave when you're about to start, I could maybe get it from the library here and do a buddy read with you? Not helpf..."

I do have a German background, I was born in Germany (immigrated to Canada with my family when I was ten years old) and I have a PhD in German. I actually had to read some Irmtraud Morgner for my PhD comprehensive (in German, but not this particular book), I was actually wondering wether to read the book both in German and in English, but I don't know if that would be considered acceptable for the challenge (GR considers translations as part of the same book basically, at least for the book pages).

I certainly would not mind doing the book as a buddy read. When would be the best time for you? For me, probably in the Fall sometime, but I can be flexible.

That sort of timing looks good to me.

I'm impressed: what was your PhD thesis?

Karen wrote: "That sort of timing looks good to me.

I'm impressed: what was your PhD thesis?"

It was about a rather unknown German expressionist author named Paul Zech (and the prose works, both novels and short stories he published before being forced by the Nazis into exile in South America).

Oh lookee here!

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34833

I had to go look him up, of course. Isn't it weird sometimes how things link up? Or is it just our human desire to link things up? Anyway, what I mean is that daughter number 2 has just been accepted into the PhD programme at Toronto Uni: her chosen subject will be the Argentinian Tango under censorship - which kind of links back to her roots here in Krefeld, as it was Heinrich Band from Krefeld who developed the instrument. Sorry, I'm rambling a bit here, but there was Zech in Argentina, so it just got me going.

Karen wrote: "Oh lookee here!

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34833

I had to go look him up, of course. Isn't it weird sometimes how things link up? Or is it just our human desire to link things up? Anyway, wh..."

Oh how cool (I can definitely, most definitely recommend Der schwarze Baal, the story and the whole collection of stories is excellent, although mine which I got second hand is in Frankturschrift, which is not always that easy to read). I still have to manually add some of Zechs work and secondary literature on him to the GR database. I should also check if they have any other of Zech's work (I would love to get a copy of Peregrins Heimkehr, the copy I used for my dissertation was ILL and the one copy that was recently available on ABE Books costs more than I can afford at the moment).

Oh cool, the version of Der schwarze Baal on Project Gutenberg actually looks like it is the first version because it contains the novella "die Birke" which I have not read because most book copies of the novella collection are of the second edition which no longer contains that story.

I have read and posted a review for my first book, The Silmarillion. One down, twenty-four to go (or maybe more, but we'll see).

You got a tough one out of the way first!

Jeannette wrote: "You got a tough one out of the way first!"

That was my reasoning. I've got a few such doozies (Master and Margarita for instance, but Hayes and I and anyone else who is interested are going to hopefully read this a buddy read in the fall).

I think I signed up for that one, too.

Yay!

After Dickens it has to be time for a Russian, doesn't it? I did say I would do this, didn't I? Or did I just mess up, big time? @~@

Naahh... You can stop if you don't like it, ya know!

I'm game at this point. I've made it through the first two chapters of Mann's book, and actually enjoyed it. Now, Herr Aschenbach has to get down to Venice.

It's rather fun to be reading books I never thought I would read. :D

Jeannette wrote: "I'm game at this point. I've made it through the first two chapters of Mann's book, and actually enjoyed it. Now, Herr Aschenbach has to get down to Venice.

It's rather fun to be reading books I..."

I liked the movie as well, although it is not to everyone's taste (very slow moving, but the pace fits the book and the music is exquisite, Mahler, I think).

Alright, I changed a few of my books I listed books which I thought I had on my shelves, but I don't at the moment (as they are on loan to friends, sigh). So I checked my recently read list (since January) and I have actually read quite a number of books that had been languishing on my to-read shelf or my bookshelf for quite some time, and I added them. Thus instead of having read and reviewed only one book of my list of twenty-five, I have actually read and reviewed seven (eighteen to go, or perhaps more, ha):

The Silmarillion
That Scatterbrain Booky
With Love From Booky
As Ever, Booky
The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
dtv-Atlas Bibel
A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and Central North America

Good job, Gundula! :)

Thanks for the Checkpoint post! Looking goood! I love the variety of titles. It's been a while since I've read any fairy tales...I've got a couple of collections sitting in the TBR stack somewhere. Maybe I should add those to the Everest journey.

Bev wrote: "Thanks for the Checkpoint post! Looking goood! I love the variety of titles. It's been a while since I've read any fairy tales...I've got a couple of collections sitting in the TBR stack somewhe..."

I actually hope to get more than 25 books read, I am just being prudent and careful. I can definitely recommend The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, although it is more a research book about fairy tales (like a very detailed encyclopedia), great for research.