bookshelves: autumn-challenge-09, currently-reading
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bookshelves: 5-stars, autumn-challenge-09
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Another book and another country:
Europe
13. Spain - The Return by Victoria Hislop
Previous Regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, The Middle East
Previous Countries: England, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Kenya, Nigeria, Russia, Scotland, Sicily, Ukraine, USA, Yemen ]]>
I like the challenge as it is!
I believe that having both narrow and broad tasks are good. There are a lot of tasks in the challenges especially as more and more people are completing them so choosing a task each. As there are so many tasks it's good to have as much variety as possible.
I actually like the tasks where you have to read a book with a specific word in the title! The tasks where the book has to have something specific in it such as jobs or names or subject matter can be harder to find as it's not always obvious if they are included! But once again the variety is good and having the help topics on the discussion board is a great way of getting round the problem of finding books.
As for giving some participants advantages I don't think it causes too much of a problem. I'm sure with the amount of tasks there are it's going to even out at some point! I hear what people are saying about having initials where there may not be as many countries but on the other hand they may have a job as a policeman wtih lots of detective books they could read while another person may be a careers adviser with not many books involving them!
Tasks with 'gimmicky' additions to them are more likely to be avoided by me but that is no reason to not have them. Some people love them! I would agree with others that they should only consume the amount of time it takes to read a book as, for instance, making time to have a baby and calling it a character from your favourite book is a bit too much in the area of commitment!
Difficulty is completely dependent on who is doing the challenge. I will happily sit down with a 600 page adult book and read it (in theory, I'd prob not so happily read it if it was an essay of Kant's or Freud's as I wouldn't understand it so much!) whereas if you are 13 years old and doing the challenge you might want to use all teenager/young adult books. I think we should all be able to read books which are appropriate to our level of reading. So if a 6 yr old is doing the challenge they read books written for 6 yr olds and if a 25 yr old is doing it they read books written for adults. Having said that having the odd specific task to read, say a book for teenagers is fine as variety is the spice of life!
Topics which are vague and open to interpretation are great because it means you are more likely to get that one book in which you bought for the very first challenge you did 4 seasons ago and didn't have time and haven't been able to fit in to any challenges since!
As you can probably tell I'm really laid back about this challenge! I think whatever comes up on the challenge goes. There are tasks that I look at and know that I'm not going to do them (namely american president biographies!) but that's fine with me.
What sometimes daunts me is when I look at the leader board just 3 weeks into the challenge and see that a couple of people have already clocked up 400 points! I have a very competitive streak in me so I use this challenge to teach me patience! In all seriousness I love this challenge because I have more fun choosing what I am giong to read next and for it to last the entire three months rather than just a month and a half. I realise that some people like to complete the Challenge and that's absolutely fine but if that is the case then I think that they should have to stretch themselves and like the difficult tasks they can't find books so easily for or lump them! After all if completing the challenge is easy to do then it's NOT a challenge!!
Cynthia keep up the fantastic work, you're a star and have transformed my reading!! ]]>
Can anyone suggest any books for the Caribbean please? ]]>
I have finally finished the One, Two, Three 25 point task. I read Regeneration by Pat Barker, Ice Road by Gillian Slovo and The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory
Previous reads
5.1 Children are our future - Child 44 by Rob Tom Smith
5.2 Apple a day - Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller
5.4 Adoption - Digging to America by Anne Tyler
5.10 Fall back in time - Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
10.1 Buddy Holly's lifetime - Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
10.4 Hispanic Heritage Month - The Forest of Pygmies by Isabel Allende Allende is chilean.
10.5 Oktober fest - The Witch's Trinity by Erika Mailman this book is set in Germany.
10.7 Faster than a Speeding Bullet - A Song Flung up to Heaven by Maya Angelou
10.8 Word Generator - Something Might Happen by Julie Myerson (might)
10.10 The Cat's Meow - Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Marukami
15.3 Addition - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday (Alice Gould) Muliplication - Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (10x27=270, 276 pages)
15.9 Homework - Home by Marilynne Robinson
15.10 Teacher - The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Less Student - Testimony by Anita Shreve
20.3 Group Read - Shutter Island by Dennis LeHane
25.1 Rhyme Time - If I don't know by Wendy Cope and Dead Sky by Tami Hoag
25.4 Film and Book - Mystic River by Dennis LeHane
25.5 Fortune in the title - Fortune's Rocks by Anita Shreve
25.8 Nouns - person The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, thing Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, place Brick Lane by Monica Ali
25.10 Halloween - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
30.1 current job and dream job - The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury(I work in a University) and The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (I would love to own a bookshop).
50.1 Sense - The Scent of the Night by Andrea Camilleri Emotion - Even the Stars Look Lonesome Tonight by Maya Angelou Memory The Great Divorce by Valerie Martin
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bookshelves: autumn-challenge-09
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Bunny wrote: "my favorite tv show (basically the only one i watch!) is The Office... any ideas on books that could somehow be related to it?"
Hi Bunny you could read any book set in an office really. Or there's Flanimals by Ricky Gervais but not sure if that'll count as it's more of a picture book! ]]>