Faye’s Comments (group member since Nov 05, 2013)

Faye’s comments from the The Reading Challenge Group group.

Melissa wrote: "Yes, I have bookshelves in every room of my house, but my laptop is not uploading pictures. Will have to take this to the Geek Squad or something like that. I do wish my shelves looked quite as nea..."

Ugh, I hate it when people don't return a book. It's funny how the most common excuse is "I moved, and now I don't know where it is." Give the borrowed books back BEFORE you move, people! You can always borrow them again later.

I never judge when I'm looking at bookshelves either. I'm too busy doing a mental checklist - "Read that. Haven't read that. Must ask to borrow that. Never heard of that. OHMIGOSH JEALOUS OF THAT." etc. ;)

Chase wrote: "We have our biggest bookshelf in the living room for viewing eyes. It has all of the "good books", books deemed favorites by myself or the significant other, or also books that are just complete s..."

LOL That raven is AWESOME. :D

Ohhh, I love your top shelf, Chase - I see the Hunger Games series, Sherlock Holmes, Rebecca... very nice. Is that Dune I see further down? Yep, I can see how this is your "good books" bookcase!

Kassandra wrote: "I have a library, which is my favourite part of the house! I'm having some issues posting a pic but I'll post again if I get it sorted out. Originally, I had a small stack of books that was my TBR ..."

A library! I hope you can get your pic issues sorted out, because I'm dying to see it!

Iasa wrote: "well I found out my camera isn't working, guess I should use it more. I always browse bookshelves and I don't mind if people look at mine.

I do have a six or seven actual bookcases but for the m..."

I have stacks everywhere, too, haha! And a box full of unread used-bookstore finds. I tend to only shelve books once I've read them, and I'm terrible for borrowing and buying tons of books when I've already got more than enough to read. I'll need a new bookcase once I get all these books read!

Have you ever been in someone else's house and found yourself drawn to their bookcase? Do you enjoy checking out what other people have on their shelves? Have you perhaps never had the opportunity, but you know you would if you could?

On the other hand, do you like it when you catch someone being nosy and checking out what's on YOUR bookcase?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, post a picture of your bookcase so that we can be nosy, too! Or if you don't have a bookcase, can't take a picture of it, or just don't feel like sharing, look around online for a picture of a bookcase that you think you would LIKE to have, and post that instead! Let's fill this thread with so much bookcase-lovin' that we're drooling all over our keyboards with bookcase-envy. :D

(If you're not sure how to post a pic, click here for a tutorial.)

To start us off, here are mine (they're bigger on Photobucket if you click on them and then on the zoom icon) -

Jude wrote: "Ok I'm finished! And as promised, or forewarned as the case may be, here's my little rant about things I need to get off my chest (I'm doing this purely so I can then focus on more positive aspects..."

I definitely got the impression that he was showing the dangers of a strong woman throwing her strength away. He tended to write his books in such a way that they show us common mistakes that society or individuals make that cause severe repercussions for those around them. Like Dickens was trying to create a better world for orphans and the poor by showing people what life is like in their shoes, Hardy was constantly trying to show people what life is like in a woman's shoes when she does something or someone does something to her that society frowns on. Tess of the D'Urbervilles, for instance - a woman who, through no fault of her own, lost her virtue and was forced to fend for herself for the rest of her life because no other man would want her. I mean, seriously, how ridiculous is that?? And Hardy made a point of shoving it in the reader's face just how ridiculous that is.

As for predictability... actually, not so much, if you're a regular Thomas Hardy reader. (view spoiler)[His books usually end in tragedy, so the fact that this was a "happy" ending with the main female character and the nicest male character finally getting their act together in the end was a complete surprise to me! I was fully expecting Bathsheba and/or Gabriel to die or the farm to burn to the ground or some other horrendous thing to happen, or at the very least for Gabriel to get sick of waiting around and just take off and leave Bathsheba alone with her land for the rest of her life. (hide spoiler)]

Jude wrote: "Man, Faye, I'll be very annoyed if I was incorrectly corrected and I was right the first time! Has anybody finished the novel yet?"

I think either way is correct. Actually, it would be correct to say it in a Hebrew accent, I guess. ;)

I'm finished! I loved it.

I personally believe that they were written by multiple people, and that Shakespeare, while definitely a contributing writer, was mostly the face of the company. Kind of like a late night TV host's jokes are written by various comedic writers, but if we didn't know that, the host would get credit for them.

I don't see that it matters much either way, but then again, I've never been one to idolize him. It would be a shame if he's been getting so much praise all these centuries for his genius if it was somebody else who did all the work.

Jude wrote: "RE: Bathsheba's name. I was pronouncing it Bath-shee-ba, but apparently it's more like Bath-shi-ba. Hope that helps Mayme? "

Some people do put the stress on the first syllable, yeah.

Mayme wrote: "Am I the only one who can't pronounce Bathsheba?"

I grew up hearing the David and Bathsheba story from the Bible a million times, so I never even thought about it being a difficult name to figure out! It's pronounced Bath-SHEE-bah.

The polls are up and open for voting! I seem to have lost the ability to send e-mail invitations to them, so for your convenience, I will link to them here.

Genre Group Read (Humour)
Classic Group Read
YA Group Read
Nonfiction Group Read

If you need information about the books before voting, you can click on the cover art shown under "This poll is about", or click on "show results" to view a list of the books in the poll and click on the title that interests you (to get back to the poll for voting, click "vote on this poll").

Polls will close on March 22.

Thanks, guys! Nominations are now closed.

Sandy wrote: "Here's an interesting list of "must-reads" from the BBC.

http://www.listchallenges.com/kaunism..."

I've read 55 of those books, I think.

Renee wrote: "Page Cutting.

At one time you read with a penknife in hand, because of the way the pages were printed and bound, leaving the exposed edge still attached to the next page. I think it was very comm..."

LOL That must have been a good way to tell who the earnest readers were!

Aitziber wrote: "I'm very curious about Reading Lolita in Tehran. Lolita is an amazing novel by one of my favorite authors ever, Nabokov, and I wonder how it'd taught in Tehran. It ranks pretty highly o..."

I really enjoyed that one.

This is the thread where you can nominate non-fiction books for our April Group Read. Remember, please only nominate non-fiction books that will appeal to a large number of people.

This thread will close once we have a few nominations, and the poll will open for voting shortly after.

How's everybody doing with this?

I'm afraid I couldn't wait - I've already finished! (It's excellent, btw, but then I'm a Thomas Hardy fan, so I'm biased.)

Brenda wrote: "Eclectic Reader. I've tried to call myself eclectic before but it's hard to get other people to use that word, so I'm pretty happy.

(edited to add a Confession: After I thought about this I realized I meant eccentric...)"

Hee!

Here's a fun quiz - What's your reading personality?

http://www.bookbrowse.com/quiz/

I'm an All-Rounder! I fit equally into each reading personality. :D

(I think what they're trying to say is that I'm a read-aholic, but that's cool with me!)