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

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

We have a tie! It's down to Splintered or I'll Give You the Sun. Tie-breaker poll will be open until Wednesday night (Feb 25th) - https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/1...

Welcome, Sam!

Welcome, Gemma!

Feel free to jump into any discussion thread that strikes your fancy and leave a comment. This group isn't as complicated as it looks, I promise! We have 4 monthly group reads that you can join in on if you like, monthly genre challenges where you can read books pertaining to a specific genre or subject and discuss them, mini-challenges which you can pick and choose between, the occasional buddy read where a few members decide to read the same book and set up a thread to discuss it, and of course our own personal challenges where you can set a goal just for yourself and create a thread to keep track of your progress. Everything's optional, so you can join in anywhere. :)

Welcome, Becki!

Welcome, Sandrine! It's always nice to find a kindred spirit. :)

Renee wrote: "Which makes it surprising that there haven't been more authors trying to fill those blanks before Diamant. Think of all the books we have which filling backstory for Austen or the Brontes."

I grew up reading lots of books that tried to fill in those blanks. Bodie and Brock Thoene's A.D. Chronicles series did loads of them (I particularly enjoyed the leper colony one); He Who Wept: An Epic Novel of Jeremiah by Thom Lemmons affected me very deeply, and I've always wanted to read it again; there are hundreds of books about Mary Magdalene, and now I can't remember which one I read that was really good... anyway, there are lots of them! They don't tend to make it to the mainstream audience very often, I guess, but Christian bookstores are chock full of them.

Honestly, my main reason is that I "read" it via audiobook, so I never got to look at the pictures. :P

I've been reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph by T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia), and in it he mentioned his surprise that the Arab men he met weren't fond of Arabian Nights at all. They didn't consider it great literature - to them it was cheap trash for women to read.

That got me thinking - a lot of Arabian women lived in harems where they basically waited around until their husband wanted them. I can see how this book would have appealed to them. A woman who is called up to sleep with the ruler, knowing very well that she'll be dead by the morning, takes the initiative and tells him dirty stories all night long so that he'll want her back the next night. And the next night, and the next night, and the next... They probably giggled all through the telling of it, cheered Scheherazade on, and rolled their eyes at the ridiculousness of some of the stories she told - stories that were deliberately designed to appeal to a man who thought so little of women, even though he was being had by one.

Thinking of it from this angle has significantly raised my opinion of this book, heh. Rather than being horrifyingly misogynistic, it was actually secretly empowering!

I'm planning to get my dad this book for his birthday. :)

The Wombles series. Whenever humanity is driving me up the wall, I can always count on the Wombles to bring me back to sanity.

I like to read Jane Eyre when it's raining.

I like to read A Tale of Two Cities whenever I possibly can.

Anything by L.M. Montgomery for a long winter's night or a lazy summer day.

Welcome, Cubi and Ingeborg!

Welcome, Linette!

Holly wrote: "You know when there's so many books and you can't decide what to read because you want to read them all?

I'm having that moment."

My stack of unread books that I own is pretty close to hitting the ceiling, but I've been reading mostly library books lately. That's partly because I'm in more of a time-crunch to read the library books, but deep down I know it's mostly because I have no idea which of the dozens of unread books to read first. So yeah, I know exactly what you mean!

Marc wrote: "I know what you mean.. I have been filling my wish lists up at Amazon.. I am up to over 900 titles.. now I know I am not that young (50) but there is no way I am going to finish all them.. lol "

I know what you mean.. I have been filling my wish ..."

Haha, you'll be 99 years old, bugging all the nurses in the nursing home when they tell you it's lights-out time - "Five more minutes? I still have 50 books left to read before I die, you know!"

Welcome Bella, Lynnie, and Ashlee!

Ohhh, I think that one's been on my to-read list for years, Melissa!

I'm reading Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo, which is indeed incredible.

Yeah, we're not doing a "Can we reach [crazy-high number]" challenge this year, but I've started a thread for us all to share how many books we read in January anyway. :)

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

It gets pretty intense, Melissa!

Yes, and it doesn't resemble intestines at all! ;)