The 39-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton

The only 10 year old's in Australia NOT getting The 39-Storey Treehouse for Christmas this year are the ones who've already raced out during the last month or so to buy it because they just couldn't wait!

Each year, Griffiths and Denton add another 13 stories onto their treehouse series. (To find out about the first book - The 13-Storey Treehouse click here.)

The new and improved treehouse now includes a trampoline with no net, a chocolate waterfall, a non-erupting volcano (for toasting marshmallows of course!), a boxing elephant called The Trunkinator, a not-very-merry-go-round, the world's scariest rollercoaster and a high tech office with jet-propelled swivel chairs just to name a few!!

The usual madcap adventures follow when they invent a machine that is supposed to help them write their next book.

The once-upon-a-time machine ends up taking over - they not only lose creative control, but they also get locked out of the treehouse.

The story ends with a moral, a few corny jokes and the promise of a 52-Storey Treehouse September next year.

To make the summer complete for Treehouse fans, the Sydney Opera House is hosting the return season of the 13 Storey Treehouse in its Playhouse theatre.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

I had planned to read The Goldfinch over my summer holiday break. A chunkster, lazy days lying by the pool & late, wine-infused nights sounded perfect to me!

But then I began to read and hear the rumblings of unhappy readers. Disappointed reviews because The Goldfinch didn't live up to The Secret History. Concern over the unnecessary length - the drawn-out, self-indulgent, repetitive passages.

Was The Goldfinch sumptuous or inert? Lavish or a flight of fancy? Exquisite or uneven? Triumphant or tedious? Dickensian or dishwater?

I couldn't risk packing such a big book for my holidays to have it flop.

So I started it last week.

And I wish I'd saved it for my holidays!!

It's the kind of book that deserves long, lazy days completely devoted to reading. The kind of uninterrupted, distraction free, immersive reading days that fuelled my childhood.

I think that's where the negative reviews may be coming from - reviewers unable to immerse themselves into the world of this book, unable to let go & allow themselves to go along for the journey, but instead, caught up in a busy schedule with demands on their time and unable to lose a week of their time to a chunkster.

I get that.
There are times and there are books that I can't get into or get lost in myself because of the other stuff going on around me.

But luckily for me, and for The Goldfinch, I was ready to get lost in a good book. I wanted an excuse to escape the crazy, busyness of the pre-Christmas rush. I needed another world to disappear into.

The early sections of The Goldfinch where Tartt re-imagines another 9/11 style terrorist strike on the Met are stunning with their horror, randomness and chaotic slowness. The following chapters detailing Theo's grief are authentic and heart-wrenching.

The tale of the post-traumatic orphaned boy and what would become of him had me in it's grip completely.


Well almost.

Out of the blue, my interest began to wane.

The stay with the Barbours in NY was just stretching out a little too long, when suddenly bam! something happened.

Then Theo's alcohol & drug crazed time in Las Vegas with Boris was just starting to feel a little ridiculous when bam! something happened.

Then we suddenly jumped 8 years and bam! Theo meets someone from his past on the streets of New York. Instead of being in the grip of the story, I'm becoming aware of the writer and the writing process. The magic dust has worn off.

My early concern for Theo is beginning to ebb away. With every shoddy deal, with every drug snorted, my care factor is slipping away.

How am I going to summon up the energy to finish this book?

*****************************************************************************

I wrote the above last night & planned to post it on my way to work this morning after giving it one last edit.

But I've done something drastic in the meantime.

I gave up.

I tried to read a little more before going to bed  - about Theo's unrequited love for Pippa  - and I realised I couldn't care less.
But I needed to know that Hobie was okay, since he was the one believable character in the whole thing.
So I jumped to the last chapter - where we suddenly find Theo philosophising to his unknown future reader about life, death and art!!!!!

Hobie was okay, disillusioned, but okay.
And Theo? To be perfectly frank, I don't give a shit anymore!

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

I have heard so many rave reviews and glowing testimonials about this book from my younger colleagues in the bookshop over the years, that I've been wondering how on earth I missed hearing about The Secret History when it first came out.

What was I doing in 1992/3 that allowed me to completely miss the hype surrounding this book?

I cannot answer this in any way that provides satisfaction or clarification. I was teaching. I was reading. I watched the news and read the weekend papers. I discussed books with anyone I could find. But The Secret History never crossed my radar.

However, I can tell you that a number of years ago, whilst browsing through a second hand bookshop on holidays, I came across a copy in very good condition.
With my colleagues in mind, I bought it & began reading it straight away, to see what all the fuss was about.

I was a little puzzled.

The who-dunnit was revealed early on so that we were left with a why-dunnit. So far so good.
The place and time were lovingly drawn; I could picture the campus, feel the cold & remember the insecurities and awkwardness of the age.
But I have to confess that I didn't really care about any of the characters.
I didn't care that one of them was done away with by the others in the group and I didn't really care about their motivations.

Whilst I enjoyed the book as a whole & appreciated what Tartt achieved, it certainly hasn't ended up on any of my favourite/Top 10 lists at any point.

Maybe you need to be a certain age or at a certain time in your life to discover the true joys of this book?

Five years later, I'm still trying to work out why The Secret History didn't weave the kind of magic on me that it has on so many others.

Was I too old and too removed from the college experience to succomb to it's hedonistic urges again?
Were my expectations too high?

The Secret History has become my secret mystery; an enjoyable enough read but why all the fuss?

I'm posting this as a Flashback Friday post (although I've just discovered that Lisa is having a hiatus over Christmas!)

Top Ten Tuesday

This week's Top Ten Tuesday from the Broke and Bookish is authors that were new to me this year.

I love a good list and I love any opportunity to reflect on the year that's been. So this is perfect!

First up for me was Elizabeth Strout.

Early in the year I read and loved The Burgess Boys so much that I now plan to read Olive Kitteridge in the New Year for my 2014 challenges.

2. J.M. Coetzee

I read The Childhood of Jesus with a little bit of trepidation. Even now, I'm not quite sure that I understood it all, but the writing was incredible and I was fascinated by the journey he took me on.

3. Alex Miller

Coal Creek was my first attempt at this award winning Australian author. I loved his sense of place (outback Queensland) and his protagonist, Bobby Blue.

4. Barbara Pym

I know! How have I, a major Jane Austen fan, managed to miss BP all my life?
But thanks to Pym Reading Week I finally read a couple of her books, Excellent Women & Jane and Prudence.
A life-long love affair has now begun!

5. Zora Neale Hurston

What a find Zora was.
A HUGE thank you to The Classics Club for their readalong of Their Eyes Were Watching God earlier this year. If not for this, I may have gone through my life without ever knowing about this gem of a book.

6.Brene Brown

I discovered Brown via a TED talk (below).
I found her talk inspirational although not always particularly relevant to where I am in life right now. I've been browsing through a couple of her books since, The Gifts of Imperfection and I Thought It was Just Me with a similar feeling. I can recognise my journey in her words, but at the same time I feel like I've moved on as well.



7. Yotam Ottolenghi

I discovered Ottolenghi's cookbook Jerusalem this year. The salads in particular are divine. As a result, I found myself impulse buying Plenty, not long after.

8. Haruki Murakami

I tackled 1Q84 this year with gusto and pleasure. I loved this tale of parallel universes and have slowly been accumulating his backlist ever since.

9. Steven Herrick

Australian children's writer, Steven Herrick regularly wins awards and accolades, but I've never read him. Until I picked up Pookie Aleera is Not My Boyfriend, that is.
Now I'm a convert and will try to read some of his teen books in the New Year.

10. Graeme Simsion

If you haven't read The Rosie Project yet, then go and get a copy now!
It's the perfect summer holiday read (or for those on the other side of the world, perfect for curling up in front of a cosy fire with!)
It's light and easy, laugh out loud funny! An impressive debut Australian novel bound for the big screen (I can already visualise the cocktail and dancing scenes!!)

Lost in Translations

My Classics Club spin #4 is The Brothers Karamazov.

I have the Constance Garnett translation on my epad and a Penguin Classic book with David McDuff's translation.

The matter of translation seems to have stalled my start.

The Brothers K is such a chunkster, I don't want to read the 'wrong' translation after all!

When one starts to research the matter of translations, it is easy to get caught up in "original materials restored", "the rhythms, tone, precision, and poetry of the original", "cross-checked references" and "Russified English".

But, of course, the whole thing is really quite simple in the end.

You read the version - the translation - that works for you.

So to help me work out which translation will work best for me - I give you Constance & David below with the first paragraph of chapter one.


Constance Garnett's translation:

ALEXEY Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this “landowner” — for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate — was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men’s tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity — the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough — but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.

David McDuff's Translation:

ALEXEY Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of a landowner in our district, Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, so noted in his time (and even now still recollected among us) for his tragic and fishy death, which occurred just thirteen years ago and which I shall report in its proper context. All I shall say now about this 'land-owner' (as he was called among us, though for most of his life he hardly ever lived on his estate at all) is that he was a strange type, one that is, however, rather often encountered, namely the type of man who is not only empty and depraved but also muddle-headed - belonging, though to the class of muddle-headed men who are perfectly well able to handle their little affairs, and, it would seem, these alone. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with practically nothing, was a landowner of the very least important category, went trotting around other people's dinner tables, aspired to the rank of sponge, but at the moment of his decease turned out to possess something to the tune of one hundred thousand roubles in ready money. And yet at the same time he had persisted all his life in being one of the most muddle-headed madcaps in the whole district. I repeat: here there was no question of stupidity; the bulk of these madcaps are really quite sharp and clever - but plain muddle-headedness, and, moreover, of a peculiar, national variety.


Muddle-headed madcap or abject, vicious & senseless?

Gloomy & tragic or tragic & fishy?

Toady or sponge?

Certainly with the McDuff translation I'm more likely to view Alexey in a sympathetic light. While Garnett is clearly telling me I shouldn't like him at all, no way, not now, not ever!

At this point I'm leaning towards McDuff.

If any of you out there in blogger land have another translation of The Brothers K to hand and you'd like to share the first paragraph of chapter one with us, then please do, in the comments below, and, let us know what is your preferred translation (I'm already writing like Dostoyevsky after only one chapter. Poor Mr Books could be in for a very tiresome and madcap Christmas!)

The Classics Club December Meme

In your status line, list author and title of ten books that have "stayed with you."

Don't think too much or spend too much time. Tag ten friends including me so I can see your list. 

This little book list challenge is doing the rounds on facebook with my friends.

When I first saw it, I thought it linked in nicely with this month's Classic Club meme: 

What is your favorite classic book? If you already answered this question in August 2012, great! 

Tell us what you picked then, and if your answer has changed in the last year and a half. 

If you are new since that meme, what is your favorite classic as of today? 

(Yes, you can of course list multiple books.)

I don't want to be confined by whether something is a classic or not. So here's my list quickly - off the top of head - with no thought of classic status:


1. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

2. Persuasion by Jane Austen

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

4. A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor

5. The Histories by Herodotus

6. Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth by Gitta Sereny

7. Midnight's Children by Salmon Rushdie

8. A Room With A View by E.M. Forster

9. Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

10. Little Women by L. M. Alcott


Even as I get to the end of this list, I can think of another 5, 10, 20 books that could be just as list-worthy as the above - To Kill A Mockingbird, Cloudstreet, The Stand, Reading the Holocaust, Anne Frank's Diary, Romeo and Juliet....

But these were the first 10 books that came to my mind immediately, without any hesitation, today.

A Suitable Boy was published in 1993, which means it still falls short by 5 years of my self-imposed timeline for what is a modern classic. I got around to reading it in 2004, but I still think about the characters, particularly Lata, on a regular basis. I wonder what she is up to & how things are panning out for her. And I wish that Seth would finish A Suitable Girl sooner rather than later!

I loved this book with a passion and felt connected to the characters and the place in a way that surprised me at the time. Whether this story holds up to a re-read or continues to speak to readers in the future is still unknown.

I first heard about Patrick Leigh Fermor thanks to a newspaper article about 10 years ago highlighting the best in travel writing. PLF won hands down in the reviewers mind and his description of A Time of Gifts left me desperate to track down the book.

PLF walked across Europe when he was 18. The time was Dec 1933 and Hitler had just come to power in Germany. His 2 year walk took him through a Europe on the verge of great change. He slept in barns, monasteries and castles. He met gypsies and landed gentry.

It's an extraordinary adventure, not always easy to read or believe sometimes! But PLF takes you along with him all the way. You feel like you're walking alongside him; you see what he sees as he gives you glimpses into his incredible mind.


I studied Ancient History for my HSC many, many years ago. Herodotus was one of our texts. We only needed to read a few sections relevant to our course, but I was so enthralled by my first experience with ancient writing that I read the entire book through. At the end of the year I couldn't bear the idea of parting with it, so I bought my own copy...and read it again!

Herodotus not only opened up a whole new world of literature and study for me, but it was also my first attempt at grappling with revisionism, the unreliability of historical sources and the search for truth & accuracy.

Albert Speer was recommended to me by a friend who knew I had an obsession with trying to understand the Holocaust. As it turns out, Sereny's interviews with Speer also played into my search for truth & historical accuracy. Her gentle, insistent probing into what Speer actually knew and was involved in during the war was like watching water drip onto a stone. She slowly, slowly wore away at Speer. Question by question.

It was an incredible build up of tension and trust. A psychological drama that delved into the heart of good and evil, responsibility, truth and integrity.

I went through an E.M. Forster phase in my late teens/early twenties. I adored A Room With a View for its proper English mannerisms, its romance with Italy and for Lucy's struggle with what society and family expect her to do and be against what she actually wants to do and be. The perfect book, in fact, to read when you are 19 & trying to be true to your own ideals!

An Age of Innocence was my first foray into Wharton territory. The writing made me swoon; the time & place fascinated me and I was once again caught up in a story searching for personal truth, integrity and ideals.

As for Little Women, I'm not sure what I could say that would be new, fresh or different from everyone else's responses to this classic tale about childhood and family. It's certainly one of my childhood favourites. It's still a comfort read for me today.

I was also one of four girls. I wanted to be like Jo (but was probably more like Meg!) However, Jo did give me her love of travelling, reading, writing and teaching. Little Women also inspired me to be a better person every time I read it.

The main thing this exercise has highlighted is that my core set of favourites has remained fairly stable over the years. The order may ebb and flow depending on my mood on the day, but my search for truth, integrity & authenticity is obviously a life-long obsession!

Mouse Mansion by Karina Schaapman

OMG! I'm in love!
The serious this-is-just-too-cute mousey kind of love.

Mouse Mansion: Sam & Julia is the creation (and dare I say obsession) of Karina Schaapman. She has built an entire world for Julia & Sam within the confines of cardboard boxes & papier maché.

Over 100 rooms exist in this extraordinary ecosystem.

Each room is meticulously decorated with vintage fabrics & waste materials.

The attention to detail is breath-taking and at times almost overwhelming.

We see Julia covered in chicken pox, soap suds in the bath, labels on grocery items, Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl on the bedside table & macramé pot plant holders hanging from the ceiling. There are Beatles posters on the wall, Thelonious Monk album covers on the piano, old wedding photos on bookshelves & lights and lamps of so many varieties - that can actually be lit up for the night-time sections of the story.

For those of you lucky enough to be in Amsterdam, you can see parts of the mansion on display at The Hermitage Museum.

Schaapman has written a collection of cosy, charming, endearing stories about Julia and Sam, their families and neighbours.

The book is set up like an early chapter book, but it is the photographs of the mice inside the mansion that dominate each page.

You could spend hours pouring and marvelling over the pictures.

Even my too-cool 13 year old stepson was impressed when he picked up one of the books I left lying on the lounge!

The second book came out in Australia last month - Mouse Mansion: Sam & Julia At the Theatre.

This book touches on some sadder themes - homesickness and the death of a grandparent. But we are also introduced to some of the neighbours and visit more of the rooms.

A google search of Schaapman has revealed an even more interesting & complex story though.

Schaapman, also known as Karina Content, is a Dutch writer and politician associated with the Labor party. She has written reports on the state of the education system in the Netherlands.

When rumours about her past began to surface, she decided to tackle them head on by writing her memoirs in a booked titles Motherless.

In Motherless she detailed her upbringing by her Indonesian mother & her abusive but mostly absent father.

When her mother dies of cancer, Karina finds herself, at the age of 13, neglected, living in squats, dabbling in drugs & eventually performing acts of prostitution & acting in adult movies.

This destructive way of life continued despite eventually finding a loving relationship and starting a family. 

"Now Karina must escape the nightmare that she has partly constructed for herself… Motherless is the powerful story of one woman’s path to redemption and respectability, as she seeks to reclaim the mother and the family that she has lost." (Authortrek.com)

Motherless was an instant bestseller in the Netherlands, making Schaapman's a household name.

She continued to be active in local council politics, campaigning for women & children's rights and education until 2008 when she burnt-out & left politics.

One can't help but wonder what personal demons Schaapman is trying to come to terms with in her creation of Mouse Mansion.

On the 14th of June 2008 in an interview with Carolina Lo Galbo, Galbo observed  "In this oversee-able, safe world small fabric mice live. 
"I only concentrate on the soft side of life‟, she says. 
Eli Content entered her life in the right moment, she finds. "He opened a new world to me, one of arts, literature and music. The interest was always there, but it‟s only recent that I started developing it‟. "

Tinkers by Paul Harding

I first read Tinkers in 2010 soon after it won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature that year.

Girl Booker raved about Tinkers so highly and so often, that I simply had to read it myself to find out what all the fuss was about. (Click here to read her review about Harding's latest book Enon.)

I was thrilled by the gorgeous writing, the conversation about time & memory and the imagery. In fact, some of the scenes are burnt forever into my soul's memory.

George's life as a tinker in the backwoods of America was completely outside my realm of experience. His story resonated so strongly though it became personal; the beauty of the American woods came alive through his eyes until I felt like I had also walked those paths.

One of the scenes that has stayed with me vividly, is George, or his father, in the middle of winter, driving the wagon through the snow. There was a moment of intense peace; time, memory, history & place perfectly captured in one brief paragraph.

I can picture the wagon with its many little drawers and shelves and compartments for all the bric á brac of the tinkers trade.

Then, one day, three years later, I'm wandering through the Art Gallery of NSW's 'America' exhibition and I'm stopped in my tracks.

It's the tinker; the wagon - right there in front of me! I recognised him straight away.

It was Thomas Wood's 'The Yankee Pedlar'.

A little kinder, softer and gentler than I remembered from the book, but it was the tinker nonetheless.

I love that Tinkers is still alive inside of me. I love that memories of it pop up when I least expect it in the most unlikeliest of places.

A good book can give you connections, a good feeling, a warm glow.

But a great book stays with you forever.

Jane, The Fox and Me by Fanny Britt & Isabelle Arsenault

I'm not a huge graphic novel aficionado, but every now and again, one comes along that grabs my attention.

Maybe it had something to do with the Jane Eyre reference or maybe it was the rave review from the rep that had stuck in my mind, but when I saw this book displayed on our shelves, I knew I just had to read it.

Helené is a recently rejected girl at school. Once popular with friends, she suddenly finds herself on the outer. She is taunted, teased and bullied.

Her loneliness, confusion & sadness are beautifully depicted in the grey wash illustrations by Arsenault. This is a graphic novel that is still also a picture book at heart.

The thing that keeps Helené going, that offers her respite from the taunts, that fills the void of friends, is books.

And one book in particular speaks to her - Jane Eyre.

All of a sudden we turn the page to find a little bit of Jane Eyre's story as seen through Helené's eyes.

The illustrations change - we see colour, lovely old-fashioned fonts & we also see hope.

Helené sees Jane as a kindred spirit - a connection is made through the pages of the book. Through Jane, Helené feels understood. Jane's story not only gives Helené respite, but hope.

During a ghastly school camping excursion, Helené spies a fox in the woods.

She reaches out & makes a connection with the fox.

This encourages her to make a connection with one of the other girls, Géraldine, also on the outer with the popular group.

There is nothing particularly new or earth-shattering about this classic tale of bullying & loneliness.

Or the redemptive power of a good book.

But Jane, The Fox and Me is told so tenderly that I defy anyone to resist its charms.

I certainly couldn't!

Fanny Britt is from Quebec.
The book was translated into English by Christine Morelli & Susan Ouriou.

This book has mature themes but would be suitable for good 10+ readers as well as high school students.

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty

Rosie Revere loves to make things - unusual things - useful things - like a special hat to keep off snakes for her uncle who works in the zoo.

Unfortunately, he laughs at Rosie's invention and she takes it to heart and decides never to make anything again for fear of failing.

A visit by her great great aunt - an elderly lady, called Rose, sporting a blue workers smock and red bandana, changes all that though, as Rosie learns an important lesson about failure & success, mistakes and trying again.

This is an empowering story for girls that taps into the Rosie the Riveter ethos from WW2. A time when women were encouraged to try new jobs, learn new skills and have a go - for the good of the nation, while the men were at war.

Occasionally the rhyme is a little clunky, but the heart & soul behind the text makes up for that.

Highly recommended for 3+ young readers as well as primary schools everywhere.

2014 Challenges

It's that time of year - when the New Year challenge call goes out to those of us in blogger land.

Will we, or won't we join up? How many challenges? Will I keep to my plan? Or is simply something else to fail at?

So far I've avoided yearly challenges in my 5 years of blogging.
I love a read-along or a special event, like Austen in August or Pym reading week.

I adore The Classics Club with it's five year, open-ended plan to read 50 classics (or in my case 75). It's something I would have done anyway, but the CC actually gives me a purpose and reason  for those times I might feel a little unmotivated.

Given how much I've enjoyed the CC, I decided it was time to join in a few of the 2014 challenges on offer that might help me stay focused and give me a structure to fall back on.

Firstly, Adam @Roof Beam Reader is hosting The Official 2014 TBR Pile Challenge. His challenge is simple and goes like this...

This  challenge was started after I realized I had such an issue buying books but never reading them (not because I don’t read – but because I have such a book buying problem!). So, year after year, books would sit on my shelf, untouched, and I would end up reading newer ones first. I realized I was missing out on a lot of great books because I let them sit there gathering dust instead of reading them as I bought them.

The Goal: To finally read 12 books from your “to be read” pile (within 12 months).

Obviously, to anyone who has seen the pile of unread books by my bed, this challenge and I are a match made in heaven.

But because I like to make simple things difficult, I've decided to combine more than one challenge!

Onto Shelley Rae @Book'd Out and her Eclectic Reader Challenge. 

The idea is to read 12 books, one from each category listed below. I figured I had enough books in my TBR pile to cover the first 11 categories easily!

*  You can read your chosen titles in any order, at any pace, just complete the challenge by December 31st 2014 to be eligible for the prize drawing.

Categories

1. Award Winning  - The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (New Zealand)
2. True Crime (Non Fiction) 

3. Romantic Comedy 

4. Alternate History Fiction 

5. Graphic Novel 

6. Cosy Mystery Fiction 

7. Gothic Fiction 

8. War/Military Fiction 

9. Anthology 

10. Medical Thriller Fiction 

11. Travel (Non Fiction) 

12. Published in 2014 - The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

But to make life REALLY interesting, I discovered that Shannon @Giraffe Days is hosting an Around the World Challenge for 2014.

The idea is to read books set in "a specific country or region with a noticeable attention to location of environment."

She has allowed for different participation levels by creating 4 levels - the happy camper (min of 2 books), the wayfarer (min of 4 books), casual tourist (min of 6 books) & the seasoned traveller (12 book challenge).

The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata (Japan)
Parisians by Graham Robb (France)
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (India)

The list below makes me a Wayfarer, but I'm sure I will read more books from around the world as the year progresses.

My list is beginning to look a little something like this...

1. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Award Winning, TBR & North America)

2. Jerilderee Letter by Ned Kelly (True Crime, TBR & Australia)

3. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (Rom Com & TBR)

4. 11/22/63 by Stephen King (Alt History & TBR)

5. The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman (Graphic Novel & TBR)

6. Maisie Dobbs: Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear (Cosy Mystery, TBR & Britain)

7. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (Gothic, TBR & Classics Club)

8. Parade's End by Ford Maddox Ford (War, TBR & Classics Club)

9. The Philosophy of Food edited by David Kaplan (Anthology, TBR)

10. Next by Michael Crichton (this is the tricky one - Medical Thriller - my least favourite genre! This book is officially on Mr Books TBR pile and not mine, but it's in the house, unread by me, and as close as I'll  probably get !)

11. Thin Paths by Julia Blackburn (Travel, TBR & Italy)

12. TBA in 2014!

Adam wisely suggested having a couple of back up titles in case one or two of the above turn out to be duds or not do-able. 

1. The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov (War, TBR, Russia & Classics Club)

2. Sherlock Holmes (Cosy Mystery, TBR, Britain)

3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (Award Winning, TBR, France)

4. Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (Award, TBR, Turkey)

All the books in the challenges below are also titles from my TBR piles! I'm hoping to really put a dint in it this year (as long as I resist the urge to keep adding to it!!)

What's in a Name? is being hosted by The Worm Hole.

The idea is to read a book that fits into the categories creatively designed by the host.

This year, the categories are (with some of my possibilities in brackets):

1.  A Reference to Time (11/22/63, Parade's End and Next)

2.  A Position of Royalty (Winter King, The Sun King, Children of the King)

3.  A Number Written in Letters (Ninety-Three, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness)

4.  A Forename or Names (Olive Kitteridge, An Abundance of Katherines, Elizabeth: My Royal Story, Eugenie Grandet, Villette, Nana & Maisie Dobbs: Elegy For Eddie)

5.  A Type or Element of Weather (Cold Spring Harbor, Summer Lies, Winter Journal)

Karen at Books and Chocolate is now hosting Back to the Classics.

Books must be at least 50 years old and fit the categories below:

1. A 20th Century Classic ( To the Lighthouse, Olive Kitteridge )
2. A 19th Century Classic (The Jerilderee Letters, Eugenie Grandet, Sherlock Holmes, No Name)
3. A Classic by a Woman Author (Villette)
4. A Classic in Translation  If English is not your primary language, then books originally published in English are acceptable.  You could also read the book in its original language if you are willing and able to do so. (something by Dostoyevski, Balzac (Eugenie Grandet) Proust, Emilé Zola (Nana) or Mikhail Bulgakov)
5. A Wartime Classic  2014 will be the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.  Any book relating to a war is fine -- WWI, WWII, the French Revolution, the War of the Worlds -- your choice. (Parade's End, Ninety-Three, Regeneration)
6. A Classic by an Author Who Is New To You This can be any author whose works you have not read before.  It doesn't necessarily have to be an author you've never heard of.  (The Chateau by William Maxwell, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)

There are a number of other 2014 challenges around that my reading list above (& remaining TBR piles around the house) could also apply to. 

Such as:

Fanda @Classiclit who is hosting the History Reading Challenge (London by Peter Ackroyd, Culture & Imperialism by Edward W Said, The Boy: A Holocaust Story by Dan Porat, 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow by Adam Zamoyski, Marie Curie).

Michael +Literary Exploration who is hosting his annual Literary Exploration Challenge (it should be easy for me to complete the easy challenge, but a little more effort will be required to get through the next two levels - Click here for my Goodreads page for this challenge.

Joy's Book Blog and her New Years Resolution Reading Challenge (maybe I will finally tackle my 2013 What Colour is Your Parachute? book)

There's always the Chunkster Reading Challenge (The Luminaries, The Brothers Karamazov, No Name by Wilkie Collins, A Place of Greater Safety, Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee, The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee) 

Words and Peace's Books on France Reading Challenge (Father Gariot, Eugenie Grandet, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, Paris at the End of the World, The Chateau, Chronicles of Old Paris, The Flaneur, The Devil's Pool, Indiana, The Reef, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Louise de la Valliere, Swann's Way, Parisians by Graham Robb).

The Foodie's Read (The Omnivore's Dilemma, Cooked & Season to Taste) 

Or the Colour Coded Reading Challenge (The White Earth, Olive Kitteridge, The Colour Purple, The Red Necklace, The Silver Blade, The Blue Castle) to keep me going!

Am I crazy? Have I been too ambitious? Or will it be a fun way to get through some of the books on my TBR pile in 2014?

Wish me luck !

AusReading Month - The End

I've had a great time putting together AusReading Month and I've been thrilled by the number of participants for this inaugural event.

A big THANK YOU to those of you who have popped by regularly, joined in discussions here & on twitter and added reviews. I've enjoyed getting to know you and I look forward to many more catch-ups.

My reading plan for AusReading Month went skew-if very early on, but I was delighted to have an excuse to revisit so many childhood favourites instead.

It has been a busy, stimulating month, however, I feel rather weary of the whole thing right now! I'm sure I will have some time to reflect in the coming days on how the event progressed and what I might do differently next year.

I would appreciate any feedback or thoughts from participants and on-lookers.
How to draw in more participants and how to convert on-lookers into participants would be a great start :-)

I've left Mr Linky open for a few more days for anyone finishing off their reviews.

Thank you all once again and I'll see you next November for AusReading Month #2!