Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2012 discussion
Level 1: Pike's Peak
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Margaret's Dozen
Well, I spotted Anne of Green Gables, which I too have creeping up on my TBR list, so if you want to read that I'll read along with you or immediately after you as I am in the middle of a few books :-)
ETA: and my owned to read list is called new-new (as opposed to new-old, which are ones that I did not buy, but still have not read.
ETA: and my owned to read list is called new-new (as opposed to new-old, which are ones that I did not buy, but still have not read.
I saw many books on your shelf that I would love to recommend (all those Agatha Christie books!), but I have to recommend Persuasion. It's one of my absolute favorites.
I am LOVING my morning!!! Okay I am going to deal with each of you one at a time, in order of your posts.Hayes, I had a little peek at your new-new shelf and I first want to comment on all the tbrs and owned we have in common that I haven't gotten around to cataloging yet. I literally took out a pad and pen just to take notes! The books we both own but haven't gotten around to reading are as follows: East of Eden by John Steinbeck; The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew #1) and sadly, it's the only Nancy Drew I own; The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan; The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lillian Jackson Braun; F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton.
In addition I noticed that while we don't own&TBR the same book in question I collect books from a lot of those authors on your list: Fredrick Forsyth; Elizabeth George; Nora Roberts; Dean Koontz; Nelson Demille; P.D. James; Elizabeth Peters; Patricia Cornwell.
Three of your new-new particularly caught my eye because I consider all of them 5 star books: The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold; Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz; Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell. I thought really hard about The Lovely Bones or Odd Thomas but in the end I decided that since you offerred to read Anne of Green Gables along with me that I would return that favor.
After much debating and head scratching I decided The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. I've always wondered what all the fuss was about when that book hit the shelf back in the day. Maybe we will both find out.
You just let me know when you're ready to start reading Anne of Green Gables and I will start reading it too and then we can do the same thing with The Joy Luck Club whenever our reading schedules are agreeable the second time around. :)
Kim you mentioned that "most" of your TBRs are books you own. Then I noticed The Lovely Bones on that list. Do you own that one? If so, that is definitely my first choice. If not I have a second choice, which is The Help, another fantastic read. I read The Lovely Bones last year and declared it the best book I read in 2011. In fact I posted on facebook, quote: Holy mother of God, now that's what I call a NOVEL!!! It's really saying something that TLB made it to number one because I also read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII and it turned me into an overnight Tudor fanatic! But that book got bumped down to #2 on my list because I was that impressed with TLB.
Oh... I've got the Lovely Bones coming up soon too! What a lot of books we all have in common!
And The Joy Luck Club will be a good one... I'll slip it into my very OCD line up somewhere in the near future.
And The Joy Luck Club will be a good one... I'll slip it into my very OCD line up somewhere in the near future.
Hayes I sincerely hope you love it as much as I did. I know a lot of reviewers said they didn't like it because they found it depressing, which made me wonder what they thought they were getting themselves into after reading the book's blurb? There is so much soul and heart in that story; every single character is so well rounded I felt like I really got to know everyone in that town and not to mention how such a tragedy affects so many other lives. Sad book? Yes, but oh, so very beautiful!
Jeannette, I may take an hour or more to get to you. I just arrived at your To-Read list and I am overwhelmed at your 903 books but I'm also in heaven as I study your list. I have every intention of going through every last page of those books...and I might have to break for lunch in the process which may take my decision making process a little longer. Just know that I have NOT forgotten about you. I'm just studying your To-Reads so I can find just the right book for you.Two things we can talk about while I go through your books though: 1- Thank you for the compliment on my Agatha Christie collection. I've been cataloging by the book order in my library and since my special editions are first (leatherbound, collector's edition and 15 antiques - the rest of those antiques are going to a special area) well, I just finished adding all my Christie books last night. Every one of them were through the book club company that specialized in sending one leatherbound edition per month but I can't always find my leatherbound edition in the list so oftentimes I settled for the first hardback that also included number of pages in it. I don't know about you but I just love how GR lets us update the precise page number we are on in whatever book we're reading. The last of my leatherbound books are Louis Lamour and I will be cataloging all of his today...if I can stop being distracted by this wonderful conversation! LOL!
2-You mentioned that there will be a buddy read this summer on A Tale of Two Cities. When this summer will that officially start? I've been meaning to read that one for a while, it was all a matter of getting the right push...LOL
I really try hard to keep my tbr list "short", but I get so many great recommendations from friends here on goodreads, and I read slowly, too. I go through and delete one or two, and I always seem to add new ones back. I'll be adding a new "books I own" shelf, because I did just make some purchases at the library sale.
I think Tale of Two Cities is probably going to happen mid-June or early July. I thought I would read it on my flight over to Germany. But, there are at quite a few of us participating, so the date is not fixed yet. I really need to make a list. I know Kim & Hayes are in.
I think Tale of Two Cities is probably going to happen mid-June or early July. I thought I would read it on my flight over to Germany. But, there are at quite a few of us participating, so the date is not fixed yet. I really need to make a list. I know Kim & Hayes are in.
Uh-oh Kim. I'm going to have to backtrack on yours. I just realized what I did wrong. When I tried to go to the next page of your to-read list I clicked on See More From the To-read list, which is actually a list of the most popular to-reads in all of GR land. It was NOT YOUR list. Oops...I'm looking at your TBRs right now.
Okay Kim here is my decision based off YOUR to-read list. We don't have many to-reads in common but doesn't mean I didn't like a few of those book blurbs enough to add them to my list as well. I had it narrowed down to two: Fingersmith or Cousin Kate? Both sounded very interesting, so interesting in fact I added them to my to-read list. In the end I decided it looked like you are quite the fan of Georgette Heyer because you had a few of hers marked and if you are a fan you will read them eventually with or without someone's prodding. So I decided for you it should be Fingersmith. I look forward to getting this one myself sometime...
Jeannette wrote: "I think Tale of Two Cities is probably going to happen mid-June or early July. I thought I would read it on my flight over to Germany. But, there are at quite a few of us participating, so the date is not fixed yet. I really need to make a list. I know Kim & Hayes are in."I'm in too, and I think Dawn is as well.
Margaret wrote: "Okay Kim here is my decision based off YOUR to-read list. We don't have many to-reads in common but doesn't mean I didn't like a few of those book blurbs enough to add them to my list as well. I ha..."Margaret, I clearly didn't re-sort all of my TBR shelf when I created two other exclusive shelves: Wishlist Definite and Wishlist Maybe (where books go depends on how strongly I feel about them). I've had to move Fingersmith to Wishlist Definite, as I don't own it. I do own Cousin Kate, but I've read it before and it's only on my TBR list because I'm going to re-read it with Jemidar when she reads it.
Part of the problem with picking a book for me is that quite a number of books I've read and intend to read for this challenge are books which have never been on my GR shelves.
Anyway, feel free to have another look at my TBR shelf to see if you can come up with a recommendation.
Jemidar wrote: "Jeannette wrote: "I think Tale of Two Cities is probably going to happen mid-June or early July. I thought I would read it on my flight over to Germany. But, there are at quite a few of us particip..."
Thanks, Jemidar. I am going to add all the names to my review notes, so I will make sure I don't miss anyone. I think Sylvia is interested, too.
Thanks, Jemidar. I am going to add all the names to my review notes, so I will make sure I don't miss anyone. I think Sylvia is interested, too.
Okay Kim. My first choice for you is 11/22/63 by Stephen King. If you don't have it or have already read it then how about The Hunger Games? If not I will do some more searches. LOL
Jeannette! You are a terrible influence! Hahaha! I think I added about 50 books to my to-read list just going through your books...all day (boy was I being generous with that hour long estimate!) Seriously, I wish you could have seen the befores and afters of our compared books. Okay, let's see if I can narrow it down...My first choice for you is A Night To Remember by Walter Lord. If you don't own that or have already read then my 2nd choice is The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. If ditto for the first choice then my third choice is The Help. Hopefully one of those is an owned and unread. If not I will add three more choices. :)
I'm going to have to look at your tbr list. But, seriously, the thanks belong to so many people who have made so many great recommendations to me on GR.
I just purchased A Night to Remember for $1.99 on the kindle on 13.April. I will bump it up on my list.
The Haunting of Hill House got mixed reviews from my friends. Have you read The Woman in Black? I read it, enjoyed it, and have not seen the film.
I just purchased A Night to Remember for $1.99 on the kindle on 13.April. I will bump it up on my list.
The Haunting of Hill House got mixed reviews from my friends. Have you read The Woman in Black? I read it, enjoyed it, and have not seen the film.
I loved The Haunting of Hill House! I remember it more for the comic relief than anything else. Especially when the doctor's (the man who invited the different characters to spend a few nights at Hill House) wife showed up towards the end of the book with her planchette. Every line she had was sooo funny!I did read The Woman in Black a few years ago but funny thing is I remember that I liked it but nothing else, like how it went or how it ended...Blank! I'm getting old, I suppose...
Margaret wrote: "Okay Kim. My first choice for you is 11/22/63 by Stephen King. If you don't have it or have already read it then how about The Hunger Games? If not I will do some more searches. LOL"Margaret, both of those books are on my wishlist shelves, which means that I don't own them. Unlike many people here, I don't acquire lots of books in advance. I typically acquire books as I want to read them. After I read them I either keep them if they're particularly good, if I think I'll want to re-read them or if I become sentimentally attached to them. Otherwise I give them away or sell them. This means that I own relatively few books which I haven't already read. Most books in that category (although not all) are books I've been given and haven't got around to reading. Virtually none of those books are on my GR shelves.
Well it looks like I'm going to have one tough time finding your next book. Do you have a brief list of some books you own but you haven't gotten around to reading yet that you can send me? I could choose from there.
Jeannette I tried to send you a PM this morning but I kept failing to get those little cryptic words right - I can't ever read those "bent" letters! LOL. So I guess I'll just post it here. I noticed you also seem to like ghost stories and I also noticed that my favorite ghost story...ever wasn't listed with your books. I wanted to recommend More Than You Know by Beth Gutcheon. I felt so strongly about that book that I posted a review. If you're interested you can read my review and then see if it may be your kind of story.
I hate those cryptic words. You can keep requesting new ones, or even request an audio word (I believe).
You need to chat with Hannah. She loves gothics, and ghost stories.
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...
I will definitely read your review, and let you know.
You need to chat with Hannah. She loves gothics, and ghost stories.
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/8...
I will definitely read your review, and let you know.
Those cryptic words are so difficult, I'm glad to know it's just not due to my vision problem. I thought it was me since Ron can normally discern them some well. I've tried the audio, a couple years ago, it had static and jumps that made it hard for me to understand. As bad as they are getting I may have to try again. What's the most anyone has had to click a new one?Margaret, I'm in the process of listing our TBR books so I will be ready when I put up a suggestion for you. I have to say this is a fun idea, maybe we should add this as part of the challenge next year.
Thanks Dawn! And I totally get what you mean about reading outside our comfort zones. I mean, no one forced us to buy the books we own; we bought each one for a reason, right? ...With a few exceptions like scholarly peer pressure making one think they should get War And Peace or The Iliad because the library won't be complete without it but let's be honest, I own those two books because they look pretty in my library. I have no plans to ever read either of those. LOL!BTW I might be asking you a question or two later on today or the next about adding tags to what you've already cataloged. I was thinking about it at work last night. My Own-And-Someday-Read is going to be a long convoluted mess, authors scattered all over the place, etc. I was thinking about adding tags per author to make it a whole lot easier to find, for example C-Dickens which should be nine total I own. That way everyone could just look up by author and see the have reads and not reads and not to mention how much easier it would be for me next time I go shopping if instead of scrolling through countless pages of what I have I'll already have a tag for what Dickens books I own and can find it in a pinch. The only thing is I've already entered about 300+ Owned books and I'm not sure how, or if I can go back and add an additional tag without deleting it and starting over. Did I make sense at all to you? I hope so, because you're the only other person I know who's cataloging all the owned and unread books.
UPDATE: Oh. My. God! *slaps forehead a gazillion times* I'm an idiot! Little edit shelf feature right underneath, click choose another shelf or add one! Add multiple shelves if you want! Yeah, I could also edit that last paragraph above and no one would ever have to know but I will leave it because my idiocy *might* make one whole person's day. LOL! Let me reintroduce myself. Hello, my name is Margaret and I am a bookaholic. I am also a technophobe born in the wrong century...
It just takes a little getting used to all the buttons, and messages. Sometimes there's so much going on on the page that simple things don't always show up.
I've made up some "Techno Lessons" for posting messages, reviews, pictures, etc., which can be found here:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
I've made up some "Techno Lessons" for posting messages, reviews, pictures, etc., which can be found here:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
Yesterday I finally figured out how to use batch-edit! I decided to create a "books-i-own" shelf, and with batch edit I can shelve whole pages of books there, just be selecting all of them. It's way easier than re-shelving each book by hand.
Hayes, thanks for that link. I have wanted to share pictures of my completed library once everything has been reorganized and I have also considered showing some "before" pictures. Long story short, I used to have a "dead author" section that immediately followed my special edition section because I was protesting what the scholars deem "classic material". Then my "modern" authors started dropping like flies and even I had to admit the dead author section was looking tacky as a result. LOL. So now all of my dead author books that are *not* special editions will be integrated with my general fiction. But that section doesn't begin until after my plays section, followed by short story collections (I have a surprising number of those - we're talking 3 real life shelves of them!) and then the juvenile (children's up to teen/YA) section.
I've gotten everything from my special editions to my juveniles reorganized into their proper place. Now the hard part remains: Integrating the three and a half real life shelves of what was once "dead authors" as well as 8 bags of "new arrivals" into the general fiction that already exists as the overwhelming majority and of course it must all be in alphabetical order...yeah, I have my work cut out for me.
Jeannette, "batch edit"? Where is this and how does that work? I have soooo many authors I'm not sure how all of my GR shelves will look once they are all entered and tagged by 1st initial and last name. Believe me, if you go check out my books right now you may already find those few tags I created this morning and that was only done in a few minutes! I haven't even come close to making a dent in my collection of authors!
*Yet another forehead slap!* Nevermind. I figured it out! LOL! Still, thanks Jeannette. I would not have known about the batch edit feature or what it does had you not told me about it. Good news, I did figure it out all by myself and now every single Charlaine Harris book I own has been cataloged with just a couple of clicks. You're right! That is far easier than the way I was doing it this morning!
I worked this afternoon -- I'm glad you figured it out. I had never used it, for fear of deleting all my books, or something drastic like that! But, now that I'm adding "books-i-own" it will come in handy.
Margaret wrote: "*Yet another forehead slap!* Nevermind. I figured it out! "
OK, you can explain this one to me... I was going to ask same question Margaret. I know in theory what it is, but not how it applies to GR stuff.
OK, you can explain this one to me... I was going to ask same question Margaret. I know in theory what it is, but not how it applies to GR stuff.
Well it's basically for tagging a cluster of what you already have. Yesterday morning as an example I typed "Harris" into search (the one at the top under My Books) and it pulled up all of my Charlaine Harris novels, plus one more author with last name Harris (that's a little common in my library already, collecting authors with the same last name) so I created a c-harris shelf. Though you can hit "select all" I couldn't in that case because of that one book that wasn't by Charlaine. It's still simpler than manually adding a tag to each individual book. I simply checked all but that one box for the ones that applied to my Charlaine Harris collection and now it shows that I have 10 Charlaine Harris books.
Sorry, haven't had a chance to check in much with tax season and two young kitties on our hands. I can't wait to try that batch edit, but it sounds like it only works for books by the same author. Please oh please, let me be ignorantly wrong here! We have many single of books from different authors or ones that don't have cover images yet. We've already started a stack of covers to scan in to update later on. Margaret, I'm glad you got things figured out and didn't have to wait on me. I have to admit you are much more organized than we are. We have books separated into his, hers, and ours, and then only have next in series or stand alone books downstairs with the upcoming ones upstairs in a spare bedroom. The collectible and keeper books are kept in other lawyer glass fronted bookcases because of our furry kids. Our inventory list is done by author, separated by books owned and books needed/wishlisted so when we go book shopping we can look it up and not guess whether we already have that book, and avoid that dastardly duplicate book purchase.
batch edit lets you select a whole page of book titles and shelve them with one click. I am currently shelving all the books I own onto a "books-I-own" shelf.
Oh no, Dawn. You do NOT just have to do it by author. That was just what I was doing *at first*. As a matter of fact, yesterday I noticed all of the Titanic books I had on my To-read(wish list!...I'm a huge-huge-huge Titanic buff!!!!LOL) and I thought it would be nice if they could be organized by Titanic fiction and Titanic non-fiction. That way next time I go to a book store I can literally hand my phone over to whomever is working the floor and say "I want these books, please". So what I did was simply type in the word "Titanic" into my search and it pulled up 44 books that had Titanic in its title. Then all I had to do was check all the ones that applied to Titanic fiction and then check all those that applied to Titanic non-fiction. Now, true I still don't have *all* of the Titanic books on my wishlist in there, since there are just a few scattered around in my to-read list that don't have Titanic in the title but I know for a fact I certainly have the majority in there...And I hope my latest little story has helped/encouraged you in some way...:)I do have one question about renaming your shelves. Funny little thing I noticed once I really got into making a new shelf per writer was that all those author shelves were showing up in alphabetical order! (seriously, go have a peek at my books and you'll see what I mean) The bad news is, since I name each shelf by first name initial followed by the full last name Agatha Christie (named a-christie) is showing up under A's instead of C's. Had I known my shelves would have even shown up alphabetically I would have named her file christie,agatha instead or at least agatha-christie, so that anyone who browses my books instantly knows what the a-christie means (I'm mostly doing this for those who want to browse my books anyway). But I tried 4 or 5 times yesterday to rename Agatha Christie's shelf but it never changed...oh well? Or is there some trick I'm missing?
Oh and just one more thing...FYI for anyone who has more than 30 books you want to catalog under one shelf: Batch edit only applies 30 books at a time. I found that out with my Agatha Christie books (I have 36 total) and also my Louis Lamours (I have 32 of his). It isn't that big a deal because you can see at a glance what books have been applied and what books haven't and it's pretty simple to just checkmark the remaining books and then click apply selected. I just want you folks to be mindful of that no more than 30 at a time thing.
"rename" not working must be a bug. I don't know if it has been reported or not.
Thank you! Maybe it will be fixed soon. :)
So batch edit only works by author or subject matter, if I'm understanding it right? I was hoping to just be able to enter say the ISBNs from these one of type books on one page instead of entering each one solo. I haven't had a chance to check it out and may not get a chance for several days.Have you tried going into 'edit' shelves to fix the alphabetizing thing. There are tips on the right that say your shelf order can be customized. Also on your books page, near the top, 'shelf settings' gives you control over what columns are shown and at the bottom of the drop down menu that opens there should be options on how your books are sorted. I think 'author' is the default sort, but you can do date entered, title, etc, and also ascending or descending. I'm not sure if this will help the situation anymore than just changing the names once the glitch is fixed but you may find some useful stuff there. I've barely even started toying with these features.
Maybe Jeannette can be a better help for you there. I haven't even considered ISBN or how I would tag a book by that. It's possible it could work that way?? I just don't know, personally. Yes, I tried going into 'edit' shelves and that's where the bug is...hopefully it will be fixed soon and I can have all of my authors in their proper alphabetical order. I have figured out how to make certain clusters of books go to the top right under my main exclusive shelves by just making them "sticky". Also I will try your advice on the 'shelf settings' and see what I can get. I'll let you know.
Margaret: As a workaround you could create a new shelf called christie-agatha, shelve all of your a-christie books onto the new shelf using batch edit, and then just delete the a-christie shelf via regular edit (edit your shelves and hit the "x" to remove the shelf).
Dawn: batch edit works on books that are already shelved, so you could sort by date-published for example, and then create a 1950s-books shelf, and shelve all books published in the 1950s onto that shelf using batch edit. The possibilities for shelving are only limited by how you want to categorize a book (all titles starting with a "T", all books set in Japan, etc.)
I'm not sure what you want to do with ISBNs? Are you trying to enter the ISBN, rather than the title when shelving a book? That involves searching, rather than batch edit.
I'm not sure what you want to do with ISBNs? Are you trying to enter the ISBN, rather than the title when shelving a book? That involves searching, rather than batch edit.
Jeannette I hear ya, I'd just rather not back track. If they can fix this bug soon it will be far more simple to just go back and rename everything.
I hear you, too! Why do all that work a second time? They'll fix it one of these days.
Too late. I got sick of the way it was organized and back tracked *all* of them.
Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2012
Books mentioned in this topic
The Book Thief (other topics)Feed (other topics)
The Blessing Way (other topics)
Ravenmocker (other topics)
The Blessing Way (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Louisa May Alcott (other topics)Agatha Christie (other topics)
Just keep in mind that my mountain exists *only* in Own-And-Someday-Read shelf. My "To-Read" shelf is really my wish list; I own none of those books. So if you tell me to read something from the To-Read shelf I will happily go out and buy, and read it. It just unfortunately won't count towards my Pike's Peak challenge.
Since my list is on page 2 I'll update here:
1)
KimRecommended by Kim2)
Anne of Green GablesRecommended by Hayes3)
Persuasion by Jane AustinRecommended by Jeannette4)
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan(Buddy read with Hayes)5)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens(group read)6)
A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott: Recommended by Jeannette7)
The Inheritance by Louisa May Alcott: Recommended by Jeannette8)
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux: Recommended by Jeannette9)
The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories by Agatha Christie: Recommended by Jeannette10)
The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White: Recommended by Chris11)
Washington Square by Henry James: Recommended by Dawn ((Dawn(&Ron)))12)
Dixie City Jam by James Lee Burke: Recommended by Ron ((Dawn(&Ron))BONUSES!
13)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: Recommended by that mean girl named Jemidar (LOL) (future buddy read with Dawn)14)
Dog On It by Spencer Quinn(Buddy read with Chris)15)
The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman(recommended by Ron)**Expanded to other GR friends; I love this girl's recommendations - all modern!
16)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil(buddy read and recommended by Miranda)17) Ashes to Ashes by Tami Hoag (recommended by Miranda)
18) Deeper Than Dead by Tami Hoag (recommended by Miranda)
19) The Great Santini by Pat Conroy (recommended by Miranda)
20) Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (recommended by Hannah)
21) Hound of Baskersville by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (recommended by Hannah)
22) Dracula by Bram Stoker (recommended by Hannah)
23) Frenchman's Creek by Daphne DuMaurier (recommended by Hannah)
24) Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (recommended by MichelleCH)
25) Suffer the Children by John Saul (recommended by MichelleCH)
26)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole(Buddy read with MichelleCH)27)
A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh(Buddy read with Jeannette)28) A Drink Before the War by Dennis LeHane (recommended by Sam)
29) Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo (recommended by Sam)
30) Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (recommended by Sam) *I would just like to say this is one book I have NEVER looked forward to reading just because my whole life I despised the movie which in my opinion had The Lamest Ending Of All Time. "I know! I'll think about it tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day!" ...Really??! A three hour movie can't have a better resolution than that? Seriously??...Oy...
Okay, what the heck? This guy isn't even on GR but as soon as he found out I own the following books he insisted that I read them both:
31) Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck(recommended by a family friend)
32) Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller(recommended by same friend)
*Though I have a complete list of 12 I hope you guys continue to recommend what I should read next from my Own-and-someday-read; remember I've made it easy for you by author tag so you can just look up authors and see which books I haven't read by them. That way you can tell my compulsive spending butt what I should have read a long time ago while I was preoccupied with buying even more books. :)