Tag: book lists

WWW Wednesday!

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

  • What I am reading now
  • What I just finished reading
  • What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading.

What I Am Reading Now

Actually, at this writing I haven’t started it, but by the time this is posted tomorrow, I’ll be in the midst of September by Rosamunde Pilcher. I already checked this book out once from the library, to fill the 1990 gap in my A Century of Books project, but I knew I wasn’t going to finish one of the four library books I checked out, and unfortunately, chose one of the others to be the last one I read. Unfortunately, because it turned out someone else had put a hold on this one. But now I have it back. I haven’t read anything by Rosamunde Pilcher except The Shell Seekers, years and years ago, so I’m curious.

What I Just Finished Reading

I finally got to read Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus for my Literary Wives club. It has been sitting on my pile for over a year, waiting for its turn to come up for the club. I enjoyed it very much. Review coming at our next club meeting, Monday, March 3!

What I’ll Be Reading Next

I was glad to get a little heaviness break by reading the above two books (although September is very long), because I made the mistake of putting my books for A Century of Books into a pile by length, shortest first, in an effort to get as many read as possible before the end of last year. (Obviously, I haven’t met my goal for this project.) The result is that the heftiest are all waiting for me. And I haven’t yet found a book for every year. I have four more years to find books for and some books on hold at the library that are taking a long time to get here. Anyway, my next book falls into the middling hefty category, both in length and seriousness. It’s Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner. It’s been a long, long time since I read any Stegner, and I’m not sure if this was one that I read or not, way back then.

Of course, my reading plans sometimes get thrown off. They did in January, when I suddenly decided to reread Sense and Sensibility for ReadingAusten25 instead of How Green Was My Valley, and that could happen this time, too, if some of those books that I’ve had on hold for ages arrive from the library.

What about you? What have you been reading or plan to read next?

A Century of Books: How Am I Doing? January Report

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

In January, I foolishly decided to join Simon Thomas’s Century of Book Challenge, even though I knew that reading 100 books, one for each year in a century, from 1925-2024, would be tough because last year I only read 169. So, how am I doing? I was trying to finish by the end of December, but I clearly didn’t make it.

Here are the holes in my project with the books listed for this month below. If you want to see the details, see my Century of Books page.

  • 1925-1934: complete!
  • 1935-1944: complete!
  • 1945-1954: entry needed for 1948
  • 1955-1964: entries needed for 1955 and 1960
  • 1965-1974: complete!
  • 1975-1984: entry needed for 1981
  • 1985-1994: entries needed for 1990, 1991, and 1993
  • 1995–2004: entries needed for 1995, 1997, 2001, 2002, and 2003
  • 2005-2014: entries needed for 2005, 2006, and 2007
  • 2015-2024: complete!

I had a little confusion this month with the year 1980. I finished The Name of the Rose only to find that the year was already occupied by Tropical Issue, a renamed book by Dorothy Dunnett. However, I looked that book up again, and it actually belonged in 1983. So, I filled two slots at once.

Since December 25, I read the following books. The ones for this project are listed in bold. As you can see, I concentrated this month on books for this project. I completed books for two more decades:

  • How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn for 1939
  • The Feast by Margaret Kennedy for 1950
  • Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (from 1811, too early to count)
  • The Temptations of Big Bear for 1973
  • A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul for 1979
  • The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco for 1980
  • The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende for 1982
  • Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones for 1986
  • The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri for 1994
  • Malice by Keigo Higashino for 1996
  • Island by Alastair MacLeod for 2000

As of today, it looks like I have 15 books left to read for this project, although it will take a bit longer for me to post all the reviews.

13th Anniversary! Top Ten Books of the Year!

~ whatmeread ~ 8 Comments

When I started blogging, I decided to list my top ten books of the year at my anniversary instead of close to the calendar new year so that I would have reviewed a year’s worth of books. It’s that time again. My actual anniversary is tomorrow, but that’s not usually a book blogging day for me. This year for perhaps the first time, I haven’t had multiple books by the same author to choose between. Also unusual for me because I read so many vintage books, most the books on this list were published recently. Unusual for me, too, is that half the books are written by men.

I was only reviewing three books a week last year, so that made the list of Top Ten books a bit shorter than usual but a little easier to choose from.

It was really an excellent year for historical fiction for me. Of the ten books I chose, six are historical, one is dystopian, two vintage contemporary, and one contemporary fiction. Of the historical fiction books, one was set in the 18th century, one in the 19th century, three in the 20th century, and one spans the time between the 17th century and the present.

So, here they are, in the order that I reviewed them:

My Life in Books

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

Okay, what the heck, I needed to avoid doing the dishes for another half hour or so, so I stole this idea from The Chocolate Lady, who took the prompts from Anna Book Bel. The idea is to finish out the prompts with titles from books you read in 2024. They don’t have to be true or make sense, but you can’t repeat any. So, here goes:

(Apparently, I have participated at least once before, as evidenced by the logo above being in my files. But I don’t remember doing it.)

WWW Wednesday!

~ whatmeread ~ 9 Comments

Happy New Year!

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for WWW Wednesday, an idea I borrowed from David Chazan, The Chocolate Lady, who borrowed it from someone else. For this feature, I report

  • What I am reading now
  • What I just finished reading
  • What I intend to read next

This is something you can participate in, too, if you want, by leaving comments about what you’ve been reading.

What I Am Reading Now

I actually haven’t started this book as of this writing, but I’m drafting this a day ahead of time, so by the time you read this, it will be what I am reading now. The book is The Temptations of Big Bear by Rudy Wiebe. I believe that someone recommended it this year, so I put it in my pile and then found it would fill a hole in my A Century of Books project. It’s called “an epic of the Canadian West.” Should be interesting.

What I Just Finished Reading

As of this writing, I’m cheating, because I have a page and a half of this book to go, but I will have finished it within a few minutes. It is Island by Alastair MacLeod. I guess I’m on a Canadian kick.

I think I keep reading about Alistair MacLeod on Naomi’s site, Consumed by Ink. MacLeod is considered a master of the short story. This book is collection of all his stories, 14 of them, most of them set on Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. He also wrote one novel, which I will be looking for. It also qualifies for A Century of Books.

What I Will Read Next

Next, I am reading another book that qualifies for my A Century of Books project. It is a book I loved when I was younger, so I’m curious if I will love it now. It’s How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn.

A Century of Books! How Am I Doing? December Report

~ whatmeread ~ 6 Comments

In January, I foolishly decided to join Simon Thomas’s Century of Book Challenge, even though I knew that reading 100 books, one for each year in a century, from 1925-2024, would be tough because last year I only read 169. So, how am I doing?

Here are the holes in my project with the books listed for this month below. If you want to see the details, see my Century of Books page.

  • 1925-1934: complete!
  • 1935-1944: entry needed for 1939
  • 1945-1954: entries needed for 1948 and 1950
  • 1955-1964: entries needed for 1955 and 1960
  • 1965-1974: entry needed for 1973
  • 1975-1984: entries needed for 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1983
  • 1985-1994: entries needed for 1986, 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994
  • 1995–2004: entries needed for all years except 1998, 1999, and 2004
  • 2005-2014: entries needed for 2005, 2006, and 2007
  • 2015-2024: complete!

Since November 27, I read the following books. As we’re closing in on the end of the year, I decided to mark the ones that fill one of my holes in bold from now on. I was trying to fit in novellas for Novellas in November and some nonfiction in November, so I did poorly on this project in November. This month I tried to read mostly books for this project, but I read fewer books because of the holidays.

  • Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey from 1928
  • The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier from 1957
  • Levels of the Game by John McPhee from 1969
  • A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters from 1977
  • Cousin Rosamund by Rebecca West from 1985
  • A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride from 2013
  • The New Life by Tom Crewe from 2023
  • The Winter Spirits by various authors from 2023

WWW Wednesday!

~ whatmeread ~ 4 Comments

The first Wednesday of the month, I try to have WWW Wednesday, for which I talk about

  • What I just finished reading
  • What I’m reading now
  • What I intend to read next

I stole this idea from Davida, The Chocolate Lady, and I’ve found it to be a nice break. You can participate by commenting on your recent reading below. Please do!

What I just finished reading

In among all the reading for Novellas in November, Nonfiction November, A Century of Books, Literary Wives, and Dean Street December, I managed to stuff a couple of books for my other projects. The last one was The New Life by Tom Crewe for my Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction project. It is set in late 19th century London and is based loosely on the true story of two men who wrote a controversial book about homosexuality.

What I’m reading now

I thought I had read one Cadfael book years ago, and I did not really enjoy the TV series. However, when I saw that the first book in the series filled one of the holes in my A Century of Books project, I decided to read it. So far, it is pretty good! It’s A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters.

What I’m reading next

Of course, what I’m reading next often changes, but my plans are to fill another hole in my A Century of Books project by reading Cousin Rosamund by Rebecca West. It is the third in her Aubrey family trilogy, which I have been reading lately. (I believe I am reviewing the first one, The Fountain Overflows, on Christmas Eve.) I understand that trilogy was unfinished, which means this book is unfinished, but it has been compelling reading so far.

What about you? What have been been reading or plan to read next?