2015 - Challenges - Will I? Or Won't I?

I may have over-commited myself when planning my 2014 reading challenges!

I very nearly threw my hands up in despair last week when I started spotting 2015 challenges. I was adamant - NO! Not again.

But then I spotted Behold the Stars British Reading Challenge & Adam's TBR Challenge...and I started wondering....

Did I really do so badly with my 2014 challenges?
And even if I did, does it matter?

Thanks to all those challenges I met some fabulous new bloggers & read lots of great reviews for books I'd like to read one day.

Only one way to find....

To summarise:

My ability to keep my challenge page up to date & link appropriate reviews fell down about August. But with a bit of double-checking and cross-referencing I discovered...

Eclectic Reader Challenge - not as eclectic as I thought I was.
The bulk of my reading in 2014 was either 'award-winning', 'cosy-crime' or 'published this year'. I only read some Gothic books thanks to the Angela Carter Reading Week in June.

Around the World Challenge - success!
I planned to read 4 countries, but managed to read 8 (Australia, England, USA, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, France, India - & half a Russian!) Which makes me a 'casual tourist'.

Adam's TBR Challenge - I only read 4 of my nominated TBR list, although I actually read somewhere between 12-15 books from off my TBR pile anyway!

What's in a Name? Of the 5 categories I only fulfilled one. Although I fulfilled that one, over and over and over again! Who knew that I enjoyed reading books with people's first names in them so much?

Back to the Classics - of the 6 categories - I read more than one book from 5 of them. Even though I read a few war books this year, they were not classics alas.

History Reading Challenge - thanks to Aus-Reading Month & Non-Fiction November I finally finished a book on the Eureka Stockade to fulfill one read in this challenge.

Chunkster Reading Challenge - I read at least 4 chunksters this year - yay me!

Michael's Literary Exploration Challenge - I failed miserably at maintaining a goodreads page, but I did read out of 23 of the 36 categories in the Insane Challenge.

New Year's Resolution Reading Challenge - X

Books on France - big tick - at least 7 books completed.

Foodies Challenge - one book completed - review still to come.

Colour Coded Reading Challenge - 2 books

The Classics Club - 11 more books ticked off my list.

Lessons learnt?

I read classics, I read contemporary. I read historical fiction & non-fiction. I read translations and love books set in other countries. I love joining in readalongs & reading weeks. I read a LOT of Australian books.

So I guess that means I'm in!
In for another year of reading challenges, readalongs and reading weeks - although tailored towards my preferred reading genres and styles.

Behold the Stars: Reading England Challenge

Cambridgeshire - Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf (20th century)

Cheshire - Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Cornwall - Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (reread) & Basil by Wilkie Collins (person's name)

Cumbra - Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (woman author)

Derbyshire - Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

Devon - The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (novella)

Gloucestershire - Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee (non-fiction)

Hampshire - Watership Down by Richard Adams (reread) (children's)

Kent - Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens & Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon

Lancashire - Mary Barton (19th century) and North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell (chunkster)

London - Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, The Diary of a Nobody by George & Wheedon Grossmith (humorous),  Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, Night and Day by Virginia Woolf & The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

All of these books are currently (languishing) on my shelves (or in the piles hidden behind my bedroom mirror!) Most of them are also on my Classics Club list.

The list (currently) consists of 16 books which means that I can also officially join in Adam's TBR Pile Challenge of 12 books from my TBR pile.

Karen's Back to the Classics is also (mostly) covered by the books above (notes in blue).
For the rest - a forgotten classic is Stoner by John Williams, a translation is The Dream by Emile Zola & a play is Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Ray Lawler (Australian).

On my left sidebar Plethora of Books has not only conceived a project after my own heart, but she has also designed the most exquisite badge ever.
I re-read at least one Austen every year, so it will be a pleasure to join in as time permits with this one.

Lois at You, Me and a Cup of Tea is also hosting a Birthday Reading Challenge. The idea is simply to read a book by an author who has a birthday during each month. Each month she will post a list of possible authors and a review link for that month. Could be fun.

I also plan to join the Australian Women Writers Challenge when they post their 2015 sign up as my reading & reviewing this year proved to be predominately Australian women writers.

Are you joining in any reading challenges in 2015?

The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

Sometimes it's hard for a book to live up to your own high expectations.

The Lives of Others screamed 'love me' from the start.
I love Indian literature & history.
The purple cover with dragonflies was designed to appeal to me.
The first few pages are taken up with a family tree and map - & I love a family tree & map!
A huge, glorious, rich epic family saga was awaiting me!

The first chapter was gut-wrenching and heart-breaking and got us straight into the issues of family, poverty, inequality, despair & a particular time in Indian history & politics.

Three of my all-time favourite books are set in India - A Suitable Boy, Midnight's Children and The God of Small Things.
All three transported me to a country I have never been to - they made me feel like I was home. I could smell the smells, hear the sounds & feel the humidity. The colours and images and places lit up in my mind like a long lost friend.

Two of these books also won the Booker Prize, so I was secretly thinking I had picked the winner for this years Booker when I started The Lives of Others.

However as I went along I realised that I was not falling into India like I had with the other books. I was not engaging with the characters or place in the very visceral way I had experienced before.

Some of the characters were stronger & more completely realised than others - Chhaya, the malicious, jealous unmarried, dark-skinned sister, the mathematical child prodigy, Sona, and the suspicious, demanding sister-in-law Purnima quickly came to life.
With so many 'others' (& their numerous nicknames) though, it was not always easy to remember who you were reading about. That may have been a concentration issue on my behalf though, as I was often impressed by Mukherjee's ability to get inside the skin of all his characters (even if I didn't!)
As the story progressed, all the individual personalities gradually separated out from the family drama - the same event being examined from multiple perspectives in such a way to make you feel empathy for each.

Even though I knew quite a few of the local words and customs mentioned by Mukherjee, there were many unknowns as well. I was creating quite a list of look-up words, when I discovered the glossary in the back, which helped a lot, but made it hard to get a good reading flow going.

There were some incredible, poignant moments as Mukherjee dissected the cruelties & absurdities of family life. Family secrets, fears, hostilities, loyalties, betrayals and dreams are carefully revealed. I underlined lots of meaningful sections...

"Everyone knew what a big gap existed between what they said in public and what they did in public."

"We credit ourselves with far more agency than we actually possess. Things happen because they happen."

"Did one ever know the mind and soul and personality of one's child, even little segments of them?"

"Ordinary conversations felt like booby-trapped enclosures."

"The words, the tone, her expression, all pulled in different directions."

But ultimately, I felt far, far away from the heart & soul of this story.
I felt unconnected to the characters and disconnected from the place.

I wanted to love and adore this book.
Instead I got some insightful family dynamics wrapped up in a history lesson with some sparkling, some pedestrian use of language.

This was the only other book on the shortlist that I wanted to read from this year's Booker (I read the Australian winner, The Narrow Road to the Deep North last year also with mixed feelings.)
How did you all go with this year's Booker shortlist?

For now though, The Lives of Others helps me to complete 2 challenges - the Chunkster Challenge (514 pgs) and the Around the World reading challenge.

No Name by Wilkie Collins

No Name by Wilkie Collins was my lucky number 1 for the Classics Club Spin #6.

The official finish/posting date for this Spin is the 7th July and I can happily report that I finished this book with a month to spare! (Maybe I should put this 'spare' time to go use & finally finish Spin #5 - The Brothers Karamazov!!)

I read No Name with Melbourne on my Mind, who has not only finished the book, but also written her review. She makes a couple of fabulous character comments which made me laugh and nod my head in agreement. 

"Captain Wragge lives firmly in the grey zones between right and wrong. 

Frank Clare is a jerky mcjerkface and I really wish it was possible to punch fictional characters in the face, because that's what he deserves."

If you'd like to read the rest of her review please click on her name link above.

My edition of No Name, is prefaced by Wilkie with these words,

"Here is one more book that depicts the struggle of a human creature, under those opposing influences of Good and Evil, which we have all felt, which we have all known."

To that end, Magdalen is one of the most frustrating fictional characters I've read for quite some time.

She is drawn sympathetically by Wilkie.
In the first scene we see all her good points through the eyes of the other characters; we can't but help liking her. She's a little headstrong and foolish in a Jo March/Marianne Dashwood kind of way - charming but silly.

However when she falls in love with the weak-kneed, opportunistic, self-centred Frank Clare we all reach a turning point in trusting Magdalen to make good choices.

Throughout the remainder of the book we watch her make bad situations worse, by her poor choices.

Wilkie shows us another way of managing their plight in the example of her sister, Norah. Like the Dashwood sister's in Sense and Sensibility, we are shown two ways of coping with adversity.

Norah gets on with making a new life for herself, makes the best of the things and doesn't complain. She is stoic, patient & forgiving.

Magdalen is a drama queen. She is vengeful, scheming & single-minded.

Despite all this, we still like Magdalen and feel sorry for her. Even as we are left wondering if her happy ending was a little bit more than she actually deserved!

There is much more to Wilkie than Moonstone and Woman in White. He wrote 19 novels altogether - years of reading pleasure ahead of me!

No Name also fulfills my Back to the Classics reading challenge & Chunksters reading challenge.

#ccspin

Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee

I had grand plans to start and finish this extraordinary biography about Edith Wharton during May & The Wharton Review.

Grand plans indeed!

The book has 756 pages with another 66 pages of notes at the end. The font is the smallest font allowable to still be legible!

There are three sections spaced evenly throughout the book with four pages of photos each.
I am still 70 pages shy of the first group of photos!

I have been reading this book in conjunction with Wharton's autobiography A Backward Glance, which helped to make ABG a more palatable read.

Lee strikes the right balance between revealing Edith's story (in her own words) and making informed comments.

Many of Wharton's comments in ABG appear snobbish & snooty, but Lee sympathetically reveals the class based prejudices that Edith grew up with.
From the great aunt Joneses' (who it is claimed the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" was coined for) to

"no greater service can be rendered to children than in teaching them to know the best 

and to want it." (from The Decoration of Houses).

Lee also reveals many of the complex relationship details that Wharton carefully avoids in her memoirs including lovers & mental health issues.

All this in just the first 150 pgs! 

Anyone interested in getting to know Edith Wharton and the world she grew up in will delight in this majestic chunkster. It is thoroughly researched & conversational in tone.

I will leave the last word to Lee,

"This, then, is the story of an American citizen in France. 

She was a European on a grand scale who left her old home and made new ones for herself...

but who could never be done with the subject of American and Americans. 

Over and her over again, in a spirit of complex contradictions, 

she returned to the customs of her country, and to versions of herself 

as the daughter of her family and her country....

In almost every one of them (her books) there is a cultural comparison or conflict, 

a journey or a displacement, a sharp eye cast across national characteristics."

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Regular viewers of my blog may have noticed that I've been playing around with backgrounds and layout lately.

When I was doing my 2013 retrospectives, I realised that in July of this year, I will celebrate my 5 years of blogging anniversary.

It seemed like the right time to refresh the way my blog looks.

If I could just work out how to centre my blog name and/or find a banner I like then I would be satisfied with the new look. Any ideas?

But now it's time to get on with all the backed up reviews from my summer reading.

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton won the Booker Prize in 2013. Which means that I can tick this book off my Eclectic Reader Challenge - Award Winning category.

It's also a chunkster, fits the historical fiction/whodunnit genre and it's a book that uses a structural conceit based on astrology.

These are three big crosses in many people's books.
But I'm happy to tackle a chunkster given time and interest and I love historical fiction. As for structural conceits - sometimes they can be annoying, but sometimes they work. Enough has been written elsewhere about this, so I won't go into details except to say that I was okay with it. In fact, I barely noticed the astrological divisions and I didn't feel that I needed to have a working knowledge of astrology to understand the book either.

There are also a number of reviews out there complaining about the wordiness of this book.

Yes, it's wordy, but I didn't think so in a bad way. For me all the words created an incredibly rich, detailed picture of the place, the people and the drama.

The place is Hokitika on the western coast of the South Island of NZ - a place I have visited way back when in 1993. Not quite the goldrush era, but the weather hasn't changed that much in any time!
I could still feel the cold and the wind and I could taste the briny air along with the characters.

It was in Hokitika, that I also bought a beautiful pounamu drop pendant "smooth, milky-grey stones that, when split, showed a glassy green interiors, harder than steel." (pg 99) that Te Rau Tauwhare hunted for.

The people include all the usual suspects to be found in a booming gold-rush town. Miners, Maori's, business men, hard-working Chinese, sailors, prostitutes, drunks, adventurers and con-artists.

The beginning could be a little off-putting for some, as 12 Hokitika locals meet in secret to piece together their knowledge of certain mysterious and sinister events. A stranger enters their midst and becomes their sounding board.

I was mesmerised from start to finish. I was able to keep track of the long list of characters thanks to the chart in the front of the book. I loved how Catton weaved together all the various elements, revealing just enough juicy titbits to keep me guessing.

I enjoyed the sense of time & place and I loved how the ending revealed the love story hidden in the mystery.

The Booker award is given each year to a book, that in the judge's opinions, is the best novel published in the Commonwealth, for that year. They pride themselves on promoting quality literature for the average intelligent reader.

This is not high literature or literature with a capital L; but The Luminaries is entertaining, well-written & deserving of awards & praise.

The Luminaries also fulfills one of my countries visited (New Zealand) for Giraffe Days Around the World Challenge.

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 !