Laurel’s Comments (group member since Dec 30, 2013)

Laurel’s comments from the All About Books group.

I'll be keeping track here, so I have all my reading lists in one place: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Leslie wrote: "Laurel wrote: "Starting now, or only books read in 2015?"

2015 only! I was worried that people would want to start right away (which was one reason I had been delaying creating this thread!)..."

Yep. Busted!

2015 Bingo Challenge:

1A) A book with more than 500 pages: The Goldfinch
1B) A forgotten classic:
1C) A book that became a movie: The Great Gatsby
1D) A book published this year: H is for Hawk
1E) A book with a number in the title:

2A) A book written by someone under 30:
2B) A book with non-human characters:
2C) A funny book:
2D) A book by a female author: The Silkworm J.K Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith
2E) A book with a mystery: The Cuckoo's Calling

3A) A book with a one word title: Longbourn
3B) A book of short stories: Miracle and Other Christmas Stories
3C) FREE CHOICE: Red Sparrow
3D) A book set on a different continent: The Winter Witch
3E) A book of non-fiction:

4A) The first book by a favourite author:
4B) A book you heard about online:
4C) A bestselling book: Me Before You
4D) A book based on a true story: Year of Wonders
4E) A book at the bottom of you TBR pile:

5A) A book your friend loves:
5B) A book that scares you:
5C) A book that is more than 10 years old:
5D) The second book in a series:
5E) A book with a blue cover:

XOXXO
OOOXX
XXXXO
OOXXO
OOOOO

Starting now, or only books read in 2015?

I think I have solidified my Reading Plan for 2015, so here it is and I will add links as I read them. For my ongoing challenges (and I keep adding new authors to message 3 above) I have a growing list of 335 books on my 2015 TBR list, so I've randomized this by choosing every 15th book on the list, and hope to read at least 12 of those:

Daytimer's Book Club: 12 books
January: The Great Gatsby - finished Jan. 9
February: Me Before You - finished Jan. 29
March: The Chaperone
April: Year of Wonders - finished April 17
May: The Goldfinch - finished April 26 (also Bird challenge)
June: The Light Between Oceans
July: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena (also NRGM challenge)
August: Life After Life (also NRGM challenge)
September: Orphan Train
October: I Am Malala
November: The House at Riverton
December: The Other Typist (also NRGM challenge)

Ongoing Challenges: 12 books
The Bronze Horseman (new author)
Song at Dawn (new author and Welsh)
The Handfasted Wife (Wife challenge)
The Little Friend (new author)
The Echo Maker (new author)
A Short History of Myth (Canongate series)
The Children's Book (new author and Shamrocks and Stones list)
The Lotus Eaters (NRGM challenge)
The Soldier's Wife (NRGM challenge and the Wife challenge)
Equal of the Sun (NRMG challenge)
David (NRGM challenge)
All the Light We Cannot See (NRGM challenge)
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (NRGM challenge)
The Twentieth Wife (Wife challenge)
The Kingmaking (Arthurian list)
The Cuckoo's Calling (Birds challenge) - read Feb. 2015
Red Sparrow (Birds challenge) - March 2015
Decoding the Celts (Non-fiction list)
Birdsong (Birds challenge and Welsh)
The Thing With Feathers (Birds challenge and non-fiction list)
2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas (Music challenge)
Wonderland (Music challenge)
A Conspiracy of Paper (new author)
The Winter Witch - Welsh
Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction - sequels 12 + 2

Started but never finished: 12 books
1. Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer (Moby Dick project and Wife challenge)
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
3. The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
4. The Pillars of the Earth (previous Daytimer's read)
5. Wolf Hall (previous Daytimer's read)
6. Niccolò Rising (reread and Shamrocks and Stones list)
7. Hounded
8. The Fall of Atlantis
9. The Amber Spyglass (will also have to reread the first two of the trilogy...)
10. Four Queens: The Provençal Sisters Who Ruled Europe
11. Pride and Prejudice: The Scenes Jane Austen Never Wrote (concurrently rereading P&P)
12. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
--------------
Alternates:
1. War and Peace
2. Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia

Random reads, including BOM picks and readalongs: 12 books
1. Miracle and Other Christmas Stories - read Jan. 29
2. Longbourn - read Feb.
3. The Silkworm - March
4. H is for Hawk - April
And Ladies of the Club
Ulysses
Yankee Doodle (reread)
Vinzi (reread)
Watership Down (reread)

Julia wrote: "@ Laurel - Oh my... you taught yourself Welsh? You go girl!! But how do you know if you're pronouncing the words right if you don't have a teacher?"

Well, I'm a musician and I have a good ear. I used lots of tapes and videos. I've had strangers ask me what part of Wales I'm from, and Welsh people have said I speak "like a native." Of course, they could just be flattering me!

That would seem to be a Hawfinch. We don't have those here either. I'm in Minnesota.

I had to look it up, but various websites told me steglits are the European Goldfinch. Yes, very different coloring from our American goldfinch. Just like the American robin is not very much like the european robin. Now I shall have to look up stenknacks!

I just ordered Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis through ILL at the library.

I've gotten stalled on this whole project. But planning to continue it through the winter. Hopefully, I will catch up by March or so!

I have too many to name. Birdwatching, gardening, cooking (I'm really into pies lately...), knitting, music (piano, singing), folk-dancing, playing bridge, photography. I made beaded flowers for awhile, but haven't done that lately. Languages - I've taught myself Welsh and taught it for many years. Was into Old Norse for awhile... Computer games - I may be addicted to Family Farm. :-D And I should get back into doing yoga. Especially if I keep making pies...

What a striking bird! I have American goldfinches here, but I don't see them much in the winter. I love birds and have lots of bird feeders. My favorite at this time of year are the downy woodpeckers. For 2015, I'm doing a "birds" challenge - reading a number of books with birds in the title, like The Goldfinch, The Plover, The Dovekeepers, etc.

This one has been on my TBR list for a while. Maybe I'll finally get to it in 2015 with my "birds" challenge.

Lucky me! I'm a librarian in a public library.

Well, Dorothy Dunnett wrenches every emotion out of you that it is possible to have! Lassie Come Home, oh yes. And every other childhood book I read - Bambi, Heidi, Black Beauty, Little Women, The Secret Garden, Old Yeller, Gentle Ben - yeah, I liked animals.

As far as recent, I actually teared up at the end of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail that I just finished.

I'm trying to finish up The Lightkeeper's Wife which I had to re-request on interlibrary loan. Got two ongoing books for online groups: Ulysses and And Ladies of the Club. I'll be reading those all winter no doubt. I have Somewhere Safe with Somebody Good on audio to listen to while knitting socks, The Great Gatsby for my real-life bookclub. Oh yes, the recommendation swap read Longbourn, and that is probably more than I can manage, but am hoping to squeeze in something "Christmassy".

I think it depends on the book and why I am reading it. More often than not I do persevere. My tolerance for "bad" books is higher in audio format. I am currently listening to The Valcourt Heiress. It is definitely not a genre I usually read, but I picked it up because I choose books for my local book club, and the library has it as a bookclub in a bag kit and we read a romance once a year. I know that a lot of women really like Catherine Coulter and this book has its share of 4 and 5 star reviews. Personally, if I were reading this in print it would have been a wall-banger. I will finish it on audio, but I will NOT be selecting it for my book club!

Ha ha - I'm looking at the tags for this book. Someone has a shelf "frilly-romantic". Lot's of did-not-finish! (It is pretty bad...) There's also "medieval-fluff" and "romantic-fluffery". Maybe "historical-lite"?

And all three could be called domestic fiction. What would you call a book like The Valcourt Heiress? I think I am going to tag it "fantasy" and "romance" rather than "historical" and "love stories." Romance, to me, implies an emphasis on the love story above everything else, probably (but not necessarily) with sex. It is set during a historical time period, but really if I label something historical, that implies that it is history that drives the story. Maybe I need a category like "costume drama"?

I've been sort of pondering this myself lately, thinking how to categorize books on my own bookshelves. Mostly I use "Love stories" as a category. But I might start using "Romance" to mean the Harlequin sort although I rarely read them. I'm reading one now, The Valcourt Heiress, which would be a wall-banger except that I'm listening to it on audio so my tolerance is higher for audiobooks.

So I'm looking at some of the books on my "Love stories" shelf, which right now includes literary as well as fluff. Maybe I need a "fluff" shelf! I like that idea, LOL! Anyway, the more literary ones also have tags like historical fiction, or domestic fiction. Here are some that I would consider literary as well as love stories:

The Shoemaker's Wife
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
The Time Traveler's Wife
Maybe This Time
Outlander
Love Walked In
The Swallow and the Hummingbird