2025 Reading Challenge discussion

My goal for 2012 was 50. Then it was 100. And by the end of the year I'll have read over 130... I think I'll go with 104, which averages out to 2 books a week. I'll list books in the next post as I finish, and post reviews in new posts as well.

EDIT: See, I'm already changing this! I'm going down to 75 books. The reason being I want to make more time next year to do other things besides reading.

This is where I'll keep track of the books I am reading, want to read, and have read. :)


January
1. Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat | REREAD | ***
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger | ***
3. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie | *****
4. Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection by Isaac Asimov | *****
5. The Giver by Lois Lowry | REREAD | *****
6. The Treason of Isengard by J.R.R. Tolkien | ***
7. Little White Duck : a childhood in China by Na Liu | ****

February (read)
1. Conundrum by Jan Morris | *****
2. The Bones Below by Sierra Demulder | *****
3. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne | ***
4. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card | REREAD | *****
5. The Calgary Public Library: Inspiring Life Stories Since 1912 by Brian Brennan | *****

February - to read
2. The Calgary Public Library: Inspiring Life Stories Since 1912 by Brian Brennan (dewey)
4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (buddy, GR100)
6. Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan (58TBR)
7. First Spring Grass Fire by Rae Spoon (listopia?)

March - to read
1. Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie (Agatha Christie Lovers group read)
2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (members, 100TBR)
3. The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle (Classics w/o All The Class)
4. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare (Classics w/o All The Class)
5. Billy Joel: The Life and Times of an Angry Young Man by Hank Bordowitz (dewey, history)
6. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (GR100, listopia, buddy)

April - to-read (focus on: poetry)
1. Dear Future Boyfriend by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
2. Hot Teen Slut by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz
3. Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins
4. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (buddy, GR100)
5. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank (dewey)
possibly What the Night Demands by Miles Walser -- released April 25
possibly Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe by Sheri-D Wilson

May - to-read (focus on: science fiction)
1. Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie (Agatha Christie Lovers group read)
2. Reality Is Broken by Jane McGonigal (dewey)
3. Earth Unaware by Orson Scott Card
4. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (listopia)
5. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke (listopia)
6. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (listopia)

June - to-read
1. The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories by Agatha Christie (Agatha Christie Lovers group read)
2. The Bully, the Bullied, and the Bystander by Barbara Coloroso (dewey)
3. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (GR100)
4. (twin)
5. Ruins by Orson Scott Card

Summer (jul+aug) - to-read (focus on: mysteries)
1. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (buddy, GR100)
2. Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie (AC Lovers August group read)
3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (GR100)
4. An Autobiography by Agatha Christie (dewey)
5. Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod (dewey)
+ any 5 of the following:
1. The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie
2. The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
3. The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie
4. Partners In Crime by Agatha Christie
5. The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie
6. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

September - to-read (focus on: trans)
1. An Overdose of Death by Agatha Christie (Agatha Christie Lovers group read)
2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (GR100, listopia)
3. Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman (listopia)
4. Being Emily by Rachel Gold (listopia)
5. Beauty Queens by Libba Bray (listopia)
6. Choir Boy by Charlie Anders (listopia)
7. Brooklyn, Burning by Steve Brezenoff (listopia)

January 6


Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat : REREAD

Rating: 3 stars

Review:
I've had some luck recently with rereading childhood books. I love recapturing the feeling I had when I read them the first time. When it's just as good reading it as an adult, you know you've got a great book on your hands (cough, The Giver and My Side of the Mountain).

Anyway, this book is another that I vaguely remembered from being a kid. I've always had a bad memory for the years before my 12th birthday and so this book became "that owl book" in my mind. I couldn't remember anything else about it. Finally, I found it while shelving books at work. And I was thrilled, let me tell you! I was looking for another My Side of the Mountain experience.
But this book didn't give me that. It wasn't a great book, in my opinion. There wasn't much of a plot and it was seriously lacking a conflict and there was no climax at all, that I could find. The book ends and it's just like, "oh, okay then". I'm glad it was short.
That's not to say that my opinion should be counted on as how kids will like this book. I have a feeling this would be a great book to read to children before bed. A chapter per day type deal would probably be awesome for this book. Each chapter is sort of it's own little adventure with the owls, and I believe that kids would have an easier time connecting with Billy than I did.
If you have good memories of this book, don't reread it. Treasure the memory instead!

Well this is good to know. I may do the chapter by day like you said. Sometimes reading a childhood read ends up being a mistake unfortunately. At least you still liked it.

I love hunting down faintly remembered childhood favourites too. Actually, I should do more of that!

Also, so impressed with your organised reading/to-read setup here. :)

Adriana wrote: "Well this is good to know. I may do the chapter by day like you said. Sometimes reading a childhood read ends up being a mistake unfortunately. At least you still liked it."

Yeah I know! It's pretty lame when you don't like it as much as you remember. Fortunately most of my childhood rereads have been great!

Karina wrote: "I love hunting down faintly remembered childhood favourites too. Actually, I should do more of that!"

It's quite fun actually! Unfortunately this is the end of the books I remember, even faintly. Actually, that's not true. I also remember loving Third-Grade Reporter, which is the only Nancy Drew book I ever read. I'm pretty sure I owned it once upon a time. That might be fun to track down.

Karina wrote: "Also, so impressed with your organised reading/to-read setup here. :)"

Thanks! I'm sure it will degenerate fairly quickly. ;)

January 6


The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Rating: 3 stars

Review:
I am having conflicting feelings about this book, which is why it took me a while to write a review! To be perfectly honest, I was completely underwhelmed by it. I expected more from a "classic" book.
Let me get one thing straight, the characters here were fabulous in my opinion. Holden Caufield is realistically flawed, easy to care about and totally memorable. His sister Phoebe was uber-important to him and so she became important to me as well - she was also very real and very original. Phoebe is easily the best character in this book. Even smaller, less likable characters like Sally and Stradlater were real.

What ruined this book for me was 2 things:
1. Lack of a Plot: for me, this didn't have a point. Holden wasn't striving for anything, he didn't have a goal. He was a good character just going about his life. For me, that isn't a good enough story. It certainly isn't a "classic" story!
2. The End: this book just ended. I closed it and couldn't believe it was already over. I feel like there were so many questions that weren't answered for me, there were so many things I wanted to get from this book. I wanted to know what happened to Holden after this. I feel like where the story ended should be where the story began, if you know what I mean.

Of course, I did just read this on my own and didn't have a teacher explaining to me about it. Maybe if I read it in a classroom setting I'd have a better feel for why this novel is so timeless (because there's no doubt that it is timeless, since it's still here!).

January 11


Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie

Rating: 5 stars

Review: my review

January 20


Gold: The Final Science Fiction Collection by Isaac Asimov

Rating: 5 stars

Review:
This collection really impressed me. I didn't know really what to expect from this book. I haven't read a lot of Asimov, but I count him among my favorite authors because whenever I read his work I'm always impressed; so I was excited for this. And it delivered.

The collection starts off with a group of Asimov's short stories. No surprises here; they all were worth reading. My favorite story has to be "Cal", the first story in the collection. It's about a robot named Cal who works for a writer. He discovers inside himself an urge to write, but when he uses his master's writer all he can turn out is gibberish! So his master decides to put a larger vocabulary in Cal and the knowledge of how to use the writer. Now Cal can write stories and the story follows him as he develops further skills (by having them programmed into him) and what the resulting stories that Cal writes are. This whole story was really cool to me and it got me thinking. I love robots and robot stories and there's no doubt that Asimov was the master at this.
"Kid Brother" is the next story that I especially liked. It was another one of those thinking stories, and it also had a robot in it.
If I had to pick a least favorite story it would be "Gold", the title story. It was good, but it just didn't live up to the rest, in my opinion. I didn't really get it. But I did enjoy reading it.

Next there's a bunch of essays by Asimov. Some of them are from the beginnings of anthologies he edited. These were amazing. I loved reading his views on different subgenres of science fiction, for example there is an essay on space travel, on alien invasion, on dystopias and utopias, and of course on robots. The essay "Robot Chronicles" was my favorite of this section. It was fantastic. Asimov outlined which of his robot stories he viewed as contributing the most to the idea of robots. I loved this list and it gave me an idea of what Asimov viewed as his best robot stories. Another favorite essay from this section was "Nowhere!" which was the one about dystopias and utopias.

The last part is a group of essays about the art of writing science fiction, so there's one about dialogue and one about plot, etc. These were nothing special but I did appreciate the look inside Asimov's work and ideas. I don't have a favorite of this section, I liked all of them.

I definitely recommend this collection to a fan of Asimov. Even if you've only read a few books by him, if you enjoyed those reads you'll like this one!

January 21


The Giver by Lois Lowry : REREAD

Rating: 5 stars

Review: I've read this book now 4 times in my life, and I love it just as much every time.

January 29


The Treason of Isengard by J.R.R. Tolkien

Rating: 3 stars

Review: will write one review for entire LOTR

January 30


Little White Duck : a childhood in China by Na Liu

Rating: 4 stars

Review: This is a well done graphic memoir. It's short and simple, which sort of explains why I found it in the kid's section of the library. I'm not sure it belonged there, as there are a few scenes which I think might be too (this is not meant to be a pun) graphic for children - nothing sexual, (view spoiler)[just a few scenes where birds are killed and once a duck's head is cut off (hide spoiler)]. Maybe a YA label would have been smarter? But that's my library system's fault, not the book's!

I thought that the art in this book was astounding. As soon as I opened the book I was impressed. This is really really good. The story is a little disjointed at times and it doesn't feel like we're getting the whole story either because it is being explained through the character of a child. I disliked that. As a whole, however, this book is interesting and the art alone makes it worth a look at least.

February 1


Conundrum by Jan Morris

Rating: 5 stars

Review: my review

February 8


The Bones Below by Sierra Demulder

Rating: 5 stars

Review:
You know a book is good when you are torn between going to sleep and continuing to read. You know a book is amazing when you turn a page and wonder why the poet named a poem "acknowledgments", quickly realizing that you've finished and wondering how that happened. Well, let me tell you this book is AMAZING.
This collection is so fantastic, seriously. I'm flabbergasted (not a word I use lightly, by the way) at the rawness of the poems. DeMulder holds nothing back, and she doesn't punch lightly. A few of these felt like getting hit in the stomach so hard all the wind got knocked out of me. They are intense and honest and about such real subject matter. I've never read anything like it before. Part of why I love her poetry so much is because she doesn't hold anything back. Nothing is off limits. And this collection is so revealing. It feels like the most honest book of poetry I've ever read, to tell the truth.
I am a humongous fan of Sierra DeMulder's work. I discovered her on YouTube when I was about 16, and I never looked back. At that time, a few of her poems were so hard-hitting and so close to home it was eerie. I've memorized many of her poems watching them on YouTube on repeat. So I can't tell you how excited I am to go back to the multiple poems I tagged and reread them, again and again. I also noticed many poems I recognized from YouTube in this collection, which was cool because they were slightly different here and there. I can't decide which version I like better because when I read them I hear her voice inside my head doing the version I know so well! I'll have to work on that. :)

February 13


The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Rating: 3 stars

Review:
This was a good book. It was original in plot and narrated well, from the eyes of an innocent young boy. However, I had some problems with it.

1. Bruno (the narrator and MC) was a little too naive for me. He's supposed to be 9 years old and 10 by the end of the book, but he was rather immature for that age. I think that (and could very well be wrong!) a 10 year old living in Germany in a Nazi family would be more knowledgeable about what Jews are and what was happening at the time. Bruno, though, was very dumb regarding Jews and the camps and what was going on, and I thought that was a little unrealistic. Again, I could be wrong about that.
2. This was a super sad book. It was a little overwhelming to read. I guess that's part of the point; it makes what happened be more close to home. But I'm not a huge fan of books that make me feel really empty inside when I close them, and this book definitely fits into the "feeling empty" category.

This was not the right time for me to read this book. Maybe if I'd read it in a better head-space personally, it would have been better. As it is, this is only a 3 star book for me, if that.

February 15


Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card : REREAD

Rating: 5 stars

Review:
I've claimed for a long time that this is one of my favorite books, even though I've only read it once (and I've read other favorites multiple times). I was nervous to re-read it because it is such a special book to me, and I was scared that it wouldn't be great the second time around. But the movie is coming out and my brother had bought me the hardcover "gift edition" as a present and I felt I needed to read it again.

I'M SO GLAD I DID. This book is fantastic. I read it through in only a few days, one day spending nearly 5 hours on it after work, only pausing for food and bathroom breaks. Orson Scott Card does his best work creating characters that are easy to love, and that shines through in this book very well. Each character is intricate and original. I really love the characters in this book, and genuinely want the best for them, Ender especially.
Ender is the main character, and he's a funny type of kid. He's super mature for his age, and a genius. At age 6 the military (the IF) recruits him to attend Battle School, where children are trained in strategy and war games and eventually go on to more advanced military schools. It's Ender's story we're reading, and he's immediately made out to be the underdog. He's beat on by bullies at school, and by his own brother. When he gets to Battle School, he is targeted as the "teacher's pet" and isolated from his peers that way. So we're rooting for him throughout his journey. I love Ender's character and really enjoyed reading about his "childhood" again, after reading about his adult years in the last few books of this series last year.

I'm glad I read this again and liked it. I can't wait for the movie, but I'm sure I'm not the only Ender's Game fan who is skeptical about how good the movie will be...

February 18


The Calgary Public Library: Inspiring Life Stories Since 1912 by Brian Brennan

Rating: 5 stars

Review:
Full disclosure: I am an employee of the Calgary Public Library.

I have to be honest, I was skeptical about reading this book when I first found out about it. I mean, history? Generally for me that is synonymous with eww. But I felt like it was important to read it, and I was genuinely interested in it, when I really thought about it. The fact that I love libraries and being able to brag to my coworkers was good motivation to finally read this. :)
It was super interesting, actually. I was glued to it from page one, and finished it in one day. The book has a very cool layout; it is beautiful to look at, and reading it is a joy. There are lots of great pictures from the early days of the library, which were fantastic. I loved looking at the old black and white photos, feeling like I was looking directly into the past. The story of the library is not a boring one, either. It was very fun to read about the earliest moments of something that has grown so much in 100 years.
Something I appreciated about this book was that it read like a novel almost. It was a historical account, but it didn't feel like I was reading a text book. The author made it feel like a story rather than an education. I loved that.
I definitely recommend this book to others. If you're interested in this sort of thing even a little bit, this book should be on your reading list, for sure.