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

Laurel’s comments from the All About Books group.

Received mine from Sandy and sent my recommendation to Angela. I'll be reading Longbourn by Jo Baker.

My completed plan is now posted (see message #18)

Wow, good luck. Your challenges would take me until 2025 to finish!

Thanks, Sandy. I may have to add that one. Of course I'm not actually going to read ALL of these, but these are the lists I'm drawing from.

I've read Moby Dick and Freedom. I wouldn't say I "liked" either one, but I'm glad I read them. Currently reading Ulysses, and I'll be doing Middlesex next summer with my f2f book club.

Here is my Pyramid Challenge (updated for 2015) - these are ongoing (not meant to be completed in one year)

15 books - Bird theme (see message #24)

14 books - Around the World
India - The Twentieth Wife
Asia - The Ghost Bride or The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
U.S. - The River Wife
Canada -
Central Amer. -
S.A. - Obsession
Africa - The Witch Doctor's Wife - read in 2014
Africa - The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - read in 2014
Aust./N.Z. - The Lightkeeper's Wife - read in 2014
Oceania -
Polar - The Fugitive Wife or The Seal Wife
Maritime - The Sailor's Wife
Europe - Niccolo Rising
Russia/East. Eur. - Red Sparrow - March 2015

13 books - Canongate Myth series (see message #9)

12 books - Daytimer's book club (see message #2)

11 books - NRG lists (see message #6)

10 books - Music theme (see message #5)

9 books - Online book of the month reads and readalongs (see message #8)

8 books - Unfinished books (see message #4)

7 books - New authors (see message #3)

6 books - Old theme leftovers (see message #16 and 17)

5 books - Childhood rereads (message #4)

4 books - Welsh or Arthurian fiction (message #10)

3 books - Dorothy Dunnett (House of Niccolo) (message #7)

2 books - Non-fiction
The Plantagenets
The Isles: A History
Who Murdered Chaucer?
Decoding the Celts
Vanished Kingdoms
The Princess Who Ate People

1 book - Welsh language (continuing from 2014)
Un Noson Dywyll

The [Fill-in-the-Blank] Wife - another ongoing theme

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story - read in 2008
A Reliable Wife - read in 2011
The Time Traveler's Wife - read in 2012
The Sixth Wife - 2014
The Shoemaker's Wife - 2014
The Crane Wife - 2014
The Anatomist's Wife - 2014
The Silent Wife - 2014
The Traitor's Wife: The Woman Behind Benedict Arnold and the Plan to Betray America - 2014
The Headmaster's Wife - 2014
The Witch Doctor's Wife - 2014
The Aviator's Wife - 2014
The Lightkeeper's Wife - 2014
Ahab's Wife
The Twentieth Wife
The Fugitive Wife
The River Wife
The Lost Wife
The Soldier's Wife
The Paris Wife
The Tiger's Wife
The Kitchen God's Wife
Mr. Emerson's Wife
The Emancipator's Wife
The Seal Wife
The Heretic's Wife
The Antelope Wife
The Pilot's Wife
The Boleyn Wife
The Handfasted Wife
The Rebel Wife
The Sailor's Wife
An Inconvenient Wife
The Chocolatier's Wife
The Bishop's Wife'
The Silversmith's Wife
An Unseemly Wife

Moby Dick project - one of my ongoing themes.

Why Read Moby-Dick? - read in 2012
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale - read in 2012
The Nautical Chart - read in 2012
Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them - read in 2013
Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick - read in 2013
The Secret of Lost Things - read in 2013
Ahab's Bride - read in 2013
Tigers in Red Weather - read in 2013
Moby Clique - read in 2013
Ahab's Wife
The Art of Fielding
Movement of the Stars
The Watery Part of the World
Railsea
We, The Drowned
The Rathbones
The Passages of H.M.
The Whale
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
The Snow Whale
The Handsome Sailor
The Night Inspector
The Solitude of Thomas Cave
The Widow's War
The Boundless Deep
Genoa
Call Me Ahab
Green Shadows, White Whale
Lucchesi and the Whale
Two Guys Read Moby Dick
The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld

Chrissie, you're not the only one. I'm keeping mine pretty flexible in 2015. Like Dely, I seem to have some ongoing themes that are never-ending! Think I'll go back and amend my list now...

I have read about half of Ahab's Wife and did really like it. Unfortunately, it got interrupted due to other projects and really haven't been free to come back to it. I'll probably start it over now it's been so long. This is why I really want to go easy on the challenges next year!

Welsh or Arthurian books:

The Cold Light of Mourning
Eve Green
The Resistance
Night Bird's Reign
The Welsh Girl
The Winter Witch - read March 24, 4 stars
The Killing Way
The Hawk and the Wolf
The Kingmaking
Un Noson Dywyll (reading in Welsh)

The Canongate Myth Series:

A Short History of Myth
The Penelopiad
Weight
The Helmet of Horror
Lion's Honey
Dream Angus
Girl Meets Boy
Binu and the Great Wall
Where Three Roads Meet
The Fire Gospel
Orphans of Eldorado
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Ragnarok

Book of the Month reads here and in other groups

Read or reread all of Dorothy Dunnett, starting with

Niccolo Rising
The Spring of the Ram
Race of Scorpions

Selections from The National Reading Group Month lists:

The Other Typist - Nov. 2015, 5 stars
Life After Life - Aug. 2015, 5 stars
The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte
The House on Fortune Street
While I'm Falling
Out Stealing Horses
The Blessings of the Animals
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
When God Was a Rabbit
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
The Dovekeepers
The Orchardist
The Snow Child
The House Girl
Under the Wide and Starry Sky
The Good Lord Bird
Burial Rites

Music - a "new" theme this year:

Music & Silence
Bel Canto
Mozart's Sister
Orfeo
2 A.M. At the Cat's Pajamas
Appassionata
Vivaldi's Virgins
The Cellist of Sarajevo
Sleeping With Schubert
The Mirrored World
The Gold Bug Variations
The Lost Stradivarius
Quartet for the End of Time
Chamber Music

Leftovers - books that I've started at one time or another but didn't finish and still want to read "someday." Also a few childhood books that I meant to reread this year and didn't finish.

Pillars of the Earth
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Hounded
And Ladies of the Club (may finish in 2014)
Autobiography of Henry VIII
War and Peace
Wolf Hall
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
The Fall of Atlantis
Yankee Doodle
Vinzi
Watership Down
Shardik
Maia

Authors and series new to me:

Brock Clarke
Rose Tremain
David Mitchell
*Donna Tartt - The Goldfinch
Deborah Harkness
Game of Thrones
Robertson Davies
William T. Vollmann
James Rollins
Halldor Laxness
Lev Grossman
Station Eleven
Richard Powers
Michel Faber
Mary Doria Russell
Paullina Simons
Sandra Gulland
Jacqueline Carey
Jacqueline Winspear
Helen Hollick
Neal Stephenson
Patrick Rothfuss
A.S. Byatt
Nancy Bilyeau
Richard Flanagan
Robin Hobb
M.K. Hume
Robert Low
David Liss
Jo Walton
Iain Pears
Alice Thomas Ellis

Daytimer's book club - 12 books
I don't have my list at home, so I'll correct this later. I pick the books for the group, so I should be able to remember them, just not sure of the order. I've added a "theme" to our list this year. Not all books fit the theme, but a number of them do. I have not told the group what the theme is - that is for them (and you) to discover.

January: The Great Gatsby - Jan. 9, 3 stars
February: Me Before You - Jan. 29, 4 stars
March: The Chaperone - Sept. 2015, 4 stars
April: Year of Wonders - April 17, 4 stars
May: The Goldfinch - April 26, 4 stars
June: The Light Between Oceans
July: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
August: Life After Life
September: Orphan Train - Nov. 2015, 5 stars
October: I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban - Sept. 2015, 5 stars
November: The House at Riverton - Nov. 2015, 4 stars
December: The Other Typist - Nov. 2015, 5 stars

I'm going to call this a plan this year instead of a challenge. I'm not looking to increase the amount I read - it remains fairly consistent at about a book a week ~ 48-52 books. I have some ideas for new categories for 2015, but except for the 12 books in my f2f bookclub I am not going to set numbers. I always end up reading more random titles anyway and I don't want to have my reading so tied up that I can't fit in a BOM that appeals to me. Outlining some ideas below, but these may get changed. I also will not link books until I have read them.