Click HERE for Guidelines and Sign-ups.
HOST: Bev @ MY READER'S BLOCK
DATES: January 1 - December 31, 2021
My favorite genre. And one of my favorite challenges. I'm signing up again for 2021, and hoping to do a better job with reviews next year. I'll be tracking my progress and keeping all my lists and links over on my challenge blog (HERE).
Click HERE for Guidelines and Sign-ups.
HOST: Carol @ Carol's Notebook
DATES: January 1 - December 31, 2021
For the Cloak and Dagger Reading Challenge you can read any book from the mystery/suspense/thriller/crime genres. And since those are the genres I read more than any others, it's the perfect challenge for me. Somehow I missed out on last year's challenge, but I'm in for 2021. I'll be signing up at the "Amateur Sleuth" level (5-15 books). Not sure exactly what I'll be reading, but during the year I'll be tracking my progress and keeping all my lists on my challenge blog (HERE).
The Calendar of Crime Reading Challenge -- hosted by Bev Hankins at her MY READER'S BLOCK blog -- is one of the funnest challenges around, if you're a mystery fanatic like I am. Of course, I always hope I'll be able to read much more than I actually do; and in that, 2020 was no exception. But I did manage to read at least one qualifying book per month, even though I didn't get any reviews posted.
Here's the category check-off sheet, and a list of what I read for each month:
JANUARY:
• In the Last Analysis (Kate Fansler #1). Amanda Cross (Category #2: Author's birth month)
FEBRUARY:
• A Fragment of Fear. John Bingham (Category #7: Book title has word starting with "F")
MARCH:
• The Silent Speaker (Nero Wolfe #11). Rex Stout (Category #3: Primary action takes place during this month)
APRIL:
• And Be a Villain (Nero Wolfe #13). Rex Stout (Category #7: Book title has word starting with "A")
MAY:
• Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage (Agatha Raisin #5). M.C. Beaton (Category #7: Book title has word starting with "M")
JUNE:
• The Haunted Lady (Hilda Adams/"Miss Pinkerton" Mystery). Mary Roberts Rinehart (Category #3: Primary action takes place during this month)
JULY:
• Where There's a Will (Nero Wolfe #8). Rex Stout (Category #3: Primary action takes place during this month)
AUGUST:
• A Death Long Overdue (Lighthouse Library Mystery #7). Eva Gates (Category #9: Summer holiday setting - Nags Head NC)
SEPTEMBER:
• The Suicide House. Charlie Donlea (Category #7: Book title has word beginning with "S")
OCTOBER:
• Still Life (Inspector Gamache #1). Louise Penny (Category #3: Primary action takes place in this month)
NOVEMBER:
• Knot of This World (Quilting Mystery #8). Mary Marks (Category #9: Family relationships play major role)
DECEMBER:
• Snow (St. John Strafford #1). John Banville (Category #3: Primary action takes place in this month)
Bev has announced the 2021 edition of the challenge, and you can see the rules and find the sign-up form HERE.
Click HERE for guidelines and sign-ups.
HOST: Gilion Dumas @ Rose City Reader
DATES: January 1, 2021 - January 31, 2022
Gilion's annual European Reading Challenge is always one of my favorite challenges, even though I don't always do as well as I'd like. But last year I signed up to read three books, and managed to get them all read. So for the 2021 challenge, I think I'll stick with that number, and sign up as a "Business Traveler" (the Three-Star Level).
The idea of the challenge is to read books by European authors or set in European countries. You can see the list of countries on the announcement page. I don't have any specific books in mind for next year, but I'm hoping to explore a couple of places I've never visited before.
During the year, I'll be tracking my progress and keeping my lists over on my challenge blog (HERE).
If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as 'the Bridge of Hesitation', you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two gingko trees. Even if it did not occupy such a commanding position on the hill, the house would still stand out from all the others nearby, so that as you come up the path, you may find yourself wondering what sort of wealthy man owns it.
In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II.
Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war, his memories of his youth and of the “floating world”—the nocturnal world of pleasure, entertainment, and drink—offer him both escape and redemption, even as they punish him for betraying his early promise. Indicted by society for its defeat and reviled for his past aesthetics, he relives the passage through his personal history that makes him both a hero and a coward but, above all, a human being. (Publisher's description)
Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Friday As she says, the idea is to post the first sentence (or so) of the book you're currently reading, along with any first impressions or thoughts you have about the book, the author, etc. It's a wonderful way of adding new books to your must-read list, and a chance to connect with other readers and bloggers.
Click HERE for Guidelines and Sign-Ups
The 2021 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge is being hosted by Marg @ The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader. I'm signing up at the "20th Century Reader" level (2 books), and hoping to do a little better than that. During the year, I'll be tracking my progress and keeping my lists on my challenge blog (HERE).
Click HERE for Guidelines and Sign-Ups
I'm such a reading challenge junkie, if I'm not careful I'd be signing up for every single one that comes along. And, of course, that would be madness.
But I'm signing up for this one. It's being hosted by Celebrity Readers, and you can click on the link above, for the announcement/sign-up page.
I have dozens of series started, and I'd really like to finish at least a few of them next year. Hoping this challenge will give me the nudge I need.
I'll probably aim for the "C-List" level (complete 1-4 series). Haven't decided exactly which ones to work on, but these are some of the possibilities:
During the year, I'll be tracking my progress and keeping all my lists on my challenge blog (HERE).
As an enthusiastic reader of children's literature, I'm always interested in the various awards presented every year, and I hadn't heard about these before now.
The Children's and Teen Choice Book Awards are handed out annually by Every Child a Reader, the charitable arm of the Children's Book Council, and are the only national book awards selected exclusively by young readers.
The awards are divided into four categories, and the seven finalists in each category are chosen by children from different regions of the U.S., with supervision by the International Literacy Association. The voting for the winners was held in classrooms, libraries, bookstores, and online at home, from September 14th to November 15th.
The 2020 awards were given to books published in 2019. Winners and honor books in the four categories are:
• K–Second Grade
Honor: The Babysitter from Another Planet by Stephen Savage (Holiday House/Porter)
• Third–Fourth Grade
Winner: The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander, illus. by Kadir Nelson (HMH/Versify)
Honor: Mr. Posey’s New Glasses by Ted Kooser, illus. by Daniel Duncan (Candlewick)
• Fifth–Sixth Grade
Winner: Guts by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic/Graphix)
• Teen Choice Book Award
Winner: Mirror, Mirror: A Twisted Tale by Jen Calonita (Disney-Hyperion)
Honor: Watch Us Rise by Renée Watson and Ellen Hagan (Bloomsbury)
(Information from Publisher's Weekly)
These all sound like books I'd like to read...even though I'm several generations past high school age!
Everybody has a traumatic Christmas memory, and mine was always Christmas dinner, partly because in my family (a term used very loosely), it's actually a series of dinners — Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas dinner, and a New Year's Eve buffet, and if my one-time stepfather Dave had his way, we'd also have St. Lucia's Day and Boxing Day and Twelfth Night dinners, and who knows what else.
Ori’s holidays are an endless series of elaborately awful meals cooked by her one-time stepfather Dave’s latest bride. Attended by a loose assemblage of family, Ori particularly dreads Grandma Elving—grandmother of Dave’s fourth wife—and her rhapsodizing about the Christmas she worked at Woolworth’s in the 1950s. And, of course, Ori hates being condescended to by beautiful, popular Sloane and her latest handsome pre-med or pre-law boyfriend.But this Christmas is different. Sloane’s latest catch Lassiter is extremely interested in Grandma Elving’s boringly detailed memories of that seasonal job, seeing in them the hallmarks of a TFBM, or traumatic flashbulb memory. With Ori’s assistance, he begins to use the older woman in an experiment—one she eagerly agrees to. As Ori and Lassiter spend more time together, Ori’s feelings for him grow alongside the elusive mystery of Grandma’s past. (Publisher's description)
Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Friday As she says, the idea is to post the first sentence (or so) of the book you're currently reading, along with any first impressions or thoughts you have about the book, the author, etc. It's a wonderful way of adding new books to your must-read list, and a chance to connect with other readers and bloggers.
Now that December's here, I guess it's time to start wrapping up some reading challenges. I didn't join many challenges in 2020, so there's not all that much wrapping up to do.
First on the list is Rose City Reader's European Reading Challenge: always one of my favorite challenges, though I don't always do a great job with it. For 2020, I joined up at the "Business Traveler" level and committed to read just three books. And I was only half successful -- I did manage to read my three, but didn't get any reviews posted. (Sorry about that. Didn't really post many reviews to the blog this year. Must do a better job in 2021!) Here's what I read (links are to descriptions at GoodReads):
The Circus, by Jonas Karlsson (set in Stockholm, Sweden)
Murder She Wrote: Gin & Daggers (Murder, She Wrote #1), by "Jessica Fletcher" and Donald Bain (set in UK, mostly London)
Snow (St. John Strafford #1), by John Banville (set in Ireland)
Of those three, Snow was my favorite, although I enjoyed them all. I was just a bit disappointed in The Circus, only because I thought it didn't really come up to the quality of Karlsson's earlier two novels, The Room (which I loved) and The Invoice. But that's a high standard, and it was still a fun read. And I can't believe it took me so long to read my first Murder She Wrote mystery, since I loved the TV series so much. I can see a lot more Jessica in my future.
As I said, I do love this challenge -- it helps me discover new authors and read books I might otherwise ignore. Thanks so much to Gilion for doing the hosting. I'll definitely be joining up for 2021, if she keeps it going.
(In roughly alphabetical order,
with links to announcement/signup posts/pages.)
The challenges listed here are, in general (although it's not a strict rule), year-long challenges, open to everyone. I don't usually list read-a-thons, read-alongs, "personal" challenges, or challenges linked to special days or time periods.
This list is NOT meant to be a complete list of ALL the reading challenges available for 2021. It's mainly just challenges that seem attractive to me. And I'm not necessarily recommending any of these — just keeping track.
Also ― I haven't signed up for ALL these challenges! I'm sure I'll be joining in for a few, but definitely not all. (See the challenges I'm participating in HERE.)
Two more things. In general I'm not a fan of the "check list" type of reading challenge with a bunch of set categories — so I'll list a few, but not every one of them. Also, I don't do a lot of social media hanging out, so if a challenge is being hosted primarily on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, you probably won't find it on this list.
For more comprehensive, up-to-date lists of 2021 Reading Challenges, you can check the Reading Challenge Addict website.
.....
To the casual observer she appeared alive and well, but anyone who knew her would tell you that she had died twelve months ago when her daughter had been taken from her. She was still breathing, still crying and still feeling pain. Apart from that, she did and felt nothing.
The discovery of a severed head in a bunker on Burnham and Berrow golf course triggers a frantic race to find a serial killer that brings the seaside town of Burnham-on-Sea to a standstill.
When the connection is made with a series of unsolved murders over thirty years before, Detective Inspector Nick Dixon finds himself chasing ghosts from the past in a race against time that takes him the length and breadth of the country. (Description from GoodReads)
Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Friday As she says, the idea is to post the first sentence (or so) of the book you're currently reading, along with any first impressions or thoughts you have about the book, the author, etc. It's a wonderful way of adding new books to your must-read list, and a chance to connect with other readers and bloggers.
7 February
Dear Joan,
I do hope I know you well enough to say this.
I think you ought to try to forget about your leg.
With prose that is vibrant and witty, The Queen of the Tambourine traces the emotional breakdown—and eventual restoration—of Eliza Peabody, a smart and wildly imaginative woman who has become unbearably isolated in her prosperous London neighborhood.
The letters Eliza writes to her neighbor, a woman whom she hardly knows, reveal her self-propelled descent into madness. Eliza must reach the depths of her downward spiral before she can once again find health and serenity.
This story of a woman’s confrontation with the realities of sanity will delight readers who enjoy the works of Anita Brookner, Sybille Bedford, Muriel Spark, and Sylvia Plath. (Publisher's back-of-book description)
Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Friday As she says, the idea is to post the first sentence (or so) of the book you're currently reading, along with any first impressions or thoughts you have about the book, the author, etc. It's a wonderful way of adding new books to your must-read list, and a chance to connect with other readers and bloggers.
Hey, it's November! Suddenly! I'm not sure what happened to October. Did it really have 31 days this year?
Well, even though the month seemed to zip right by me, I did manage to get a little reading done. Here's what I read....
Not sure what I'll be reading this week. I've got an ARC that I need to read this month:
So that's a definite possibility. Never read anything by Connie Willis before. And I love discovering new authors, don't you?
Happy reading, everyone! And have a great week!
It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. If you want to let the world know what you're going to be reading this week, head on over to her blog and leave your link. It's also a great way to discover new books and new blogs.
WINTER, 1957I'm a priest, for Christ's sake -- how can this be happening to me?
Following the discovery of the corpse of a highly respected parish priest at Ballyglass House — the Co. Wexford family seat of the aristocratic, secretive Osborne family — Detective Inspector St John Strafford is called in from Dublin to investigate.
Strafford faces obstruction from all angles, but carries on determinedly in his pursuit of the murderer. However, as the snow continues to fall over this ever-expanding mystery, the people of Ballyglass are equally determined to keep their secrets. (Description from GoodReads)
Hope to get it finished up tonight or over the weekend, if all goes well.
Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Friday As she says, the idea is to post the first sentence (or so) of the book you're currently reading, along with any first impressions or thoughts you have about the book, the author, etc. It's a wonderful way of adding new books to your must-read list, and a chance to connect with other readers and bloggers.
To kick off this year's Banned Books Week (Sep 27 - Oct 3), the American Library Association has published a list of the Top 100 Most Banned and Challenged Books of the Past Decade.
It's an interesting list, with a few of my all-time favorites among the titles (Huck Finn, Lolita, 1984, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Also many titles I've never even heard of and lots I haven't read (and probably won't, at my age). But I'm intrigued, just the same. Here's the list, with the books I have read in bold typeface.
So here we are at the end of another month, and now it's autumn! Not my favorite time of year, but at least it's usually a pretty good reading season for me. This year, though, I seem to be getting off to a slow start — in the last couple of weeks, I've only finished two books:
and...
The suicide theme there is just a coincidence, not something I planned. At least, not consciously!
Right now, I'm reading:
And this week, I'm also hoping to get back to another book I've got started:
After I get those finished up, I need to start on a couple of recent ARCs:
Definitely enough to keep me occupied as October gets underway! Happy reading, everyone!
On the morning the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide — it was Mary this time, and sleeping pills, like Therese — the two paramedics arrived at the house knowing exactly where the knife drawer was, and the gas oven, and the beam in the basement from which it was possible to tie a rope.
... [The Virgin Suicides] is the story of the five Lisbon sisters – beautiful, eccentric, and obsessively watched by the entire neighborhood.The boys that once loved them from afar are now grown men, determined to understand a tragedy that has always defied explanation. For still, the question remains – why did all five of the Lisbon girls take their own lives?This hypnotic and unforgettable novel treats adolescent love and death with haunting sensitivity and dark humor, and creates a coming-of-age story unlike any of our time. (Description from GoodReads)
