Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2012 discussion

The list is subject to change; but if I replace a title, it will be with the next oldest title in my goodreads to-read list:

01. The Religion (by Tim Willocks) - 07/24/2009
02. Emma (by Jane Austen) - 07/24/2009
03. The Age of Innocence (by Edith Wharton) - 07/24/2009
04. Dracula (by Bram Stoker) - 07/24/2009
05. The Royal Road to Fotheringhay (by Jean Plaidy) - 07/24/2009
06. The Little Book (by Selden Edwards) - 08/02/2009
07. Lost Illusions (by Honore de Balzac) - 08/21/2009
08. Agnes Grey (by Anne Bronte) - 08/21/2009
09. The Blind Assassin (by Margaret Atwood ) - 09/11/2009
10. The Time Traveler's Wife (by Audrey Neffenegger) - 08/10/2009
11. The Princes of Ireland (by Edward Rutherford) - 02/13/2010
12.Alias Grace (by Margaret Atwood) - 02/13/2010

The dates listed after the title and author are the dates I entered the title on my goodreads "to-read" list. The titles listed above are the oldest twelve, unread titles from the goodreads list. I own all the titles above.


The following titles were not on the original list; but they have been on my shelves for over a year and fate/destiny allowed me the time to read/listen to them :-)

+01. Julius Caesar (by William Shakespeare; performed by a full cast starring Ralph Richardson) - 2010
+02. The Blackwater Lightship (by Colm Toibin)
+03. Ghosts of Belfast (by Stuart Neville; narrated by Gerard Doyle) - 05/29/2010
+04. Devil in a Blue Dress (by Walter Mosley; narrated by Michael Boatman) - 08/13/2010
+05. The Bad Beginning (Series if Unfortunate Events #1; by Lemony Snicket) - 08/15/2010
+06. The Scarlet Letter (by Nathaniel Hawthorne) - 11/21/2011
+07. When She Woke (by Hillary Jordan; narrated by Heather Corrigan) - 11/22/2011
+08. Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6; by Jim Butcher; narrated by James Marsters) - 11/23/2011
+09. Ready Player One (by Ernest Cline; narrated by Wil Wheaton) - 11/27/2011
+10. The Handmaid's Tale (eBook; by Margart Atwood) - 12/04/2011
+11. George F. Kennan: An American Life (by John Lewis Gaddis) - 12/06/2011
+12. Snow Falling on Cedars (by David Guterson) - 11/22/2011

The dates listed after the title and author are the dates I have on record, either on a personal spreadsheet or on audible.com as a date of purchase. I own all the titles above.

Good list. I really enjoyed Alias Grace, although I couldn't get anywhere with the Blind Assassin. I will try again with that one at some point.

Happy climbing and reading!

Hayes wrote: "Good list. I really enjoyed Alias Grace, although I couldn't get anywhere with the Blind Assassin. I will try again with that one at some point.

Happy climbing and reading!"

Thank you! Admittedly, I haven't gotten very far in the first quarter, having read only one book thus far; but interestingly enough that one book was The Blind Assassin! I really enjoyed the book though it took me over a month to read! It's not particularly long and I had attributed my spending so much time with it to a project that was leaching time from my reading; but now I'm wondering... So many other people have mentioned not being able to "get anywhere" with it! Maybe it's because the structure isn't linear and so the brain needs to take its time processing it all?


The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

I think that's it, really. When I started it I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I had too much going on and couldn't focus on it. Love Atwood, so I will definitely give "Assassin" another chance some day. The Handmaid's Tale is one of my top 10 of all time books.

Alias Grace was next up in my stacks and I admit that I was a bit daunted about jumping into a 500-page lit-fic novel! I procrastinated by reading a number of short novels and novellas (some from my own book shelf and some from the library); but the time came last night and I've finally started Alias Grace! Though it is unmistakably Margaret Atwood, it's a completely different thing than the other works of hers that I have read so far (The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and The Blind Assassin.) Alias Grace is a historical fiction based on a true crime committed in 1843: Grace Marks was convicted of killing her employer, Thomas Kinnear and served life sentence in prison. Apparently her guilt was not without a doubt... I whipped through a 100+ pages last night and now I feel silly for having waited so long :-D


Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

I read The Little Book. Man! I almost gave up on it with its dry and tedious flashbacks but then right as I reached the middle it knocked my socks off and I swear even the style of writing changed! It went from reading like it was written in the 19th century to a lot more modern. I'm not sure if this was done on purpose or if Edwards, having worked on this thing for 30 years simply got tired of writing in the old school style. Anyway, I really was glad I held in there because it got so good! All those flashbacks were in fact connected to the second half and I enjoyed it so much that I would have given it 5 stars if not for that dry tedious writing of the first half. I gave it 4 stars because I felt like he should have made the flashbacks more interesting than he had.

I applaud your perseverance! I usually give up on that sort of thing... I have very little patience with flashbacks most of the time.

Tanya: Glad you are enjoying Grace. I found it fascinating.

Well...let's just say I was counting down the pages to the middle of of the book when I could finally let it go before I got pleasantly surprised. The exact middle is usually where I allow myself to stop reading a book I'm not enjoying. (John Fowles' The Magus taught me that) There have been a few exceptions, like Brad Meltzer's The Book Of Lies; all those cliches on every other page and his cardboard characters, I knew that book wouldn't get any better. LOL

I have finished Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace! I have now read four of Atwood’s novels: The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and now Alias Grace. Atwood is one of those writers, who the more you read their books, the more you understand the other books that they have written. There is a common sensibility and variations of (a) theme(s) that you would expect from work originating from the same writer; but more than that, you can see how it’s all related in some sort of private universe that we all are privileged to share. I’m looking forward to exploring more of this private universe with Life Before Man and Wilderness Tips, both of which I picked up at the Rogue Book Exchange a couple of weeks ago.

Right now though, I’m reading The Blackwater Lightship (by Colm Toibin.) I have a number of stacks and lists of books I “should” be reading for various challenges and memes; but this is the one that is called out to me. I didn’t know anything about it when I picked it up and I wonder if the cover art, with its muted golden hues, is what attracted me in somehow appealing to my mood. I looked up “Blackwater’ and discovered that it means, uh, sewage of the nastiest kind; and I was a bit wary of what this might portend in the book; but it tuns out that Blackwater is the name of the town setting! “The Blackwater Lightship” sounds like a rather romantic title though, doesn’t it? But there’s nothing particularly romantic about it: Declan is dying from AIDS and his sister, mother and grandmother have been called upon to bear witness and be with him in this (perhaps final) round of illness. The setting is in Ireland and the time is 1992 and so reasonable hope is not a factor in the atmosphere of the story.

I should finish The Blackwater Lightship tonight and then I have Man in the Dark, a short novel by Paul Auster here on-hand. I’m not sure I like Paul Auster, after having read Invisible last week; but I think this is worth investigating before I move on.

After that, however, I think I'll tackle The Little Book (by Selden Edwards) as it happens to the book that was commented on in this thread ;-)


The Little Book by Selden Edwards

I hope you enjoy it Tanya. All I can say for the first half is "hang in there". It *will* get page-turner good, it just takes a little while.