2025 Reading Challenge discussion
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Aurora's 200 in 2016
200!! That's a lot and that is a lowered goal? That should give room for a lot of amazing books! Welcome! I'm looking forward to getting to know you more :)
Winter wrote: "200!! That's a lot and that is a lowered goal? That should give room for a lot of amazing books! Welcome! I'm looking forward to getting to know you more :)"I hope so! My main thing this year is quality of quantity. I don't want to rush or pick short things just to finish my goal. If 200 is still too high I'll lower it. Thank you so much! I'm so glad I've joined and that I'm getting to know you :)
You have a very nice list going in your corner! Just going to watch the last episode here before answering the message ;)
Winter wrote: "You have a very nice list going in your corner! Just going to watch the last episode here before answering the message ;)"
Thank you! I guess that means I didn't do it wrong (yet) ;)
Book 23: The Idiot. This was my first Dostoyevsky experience, and it was certainly interesting! I'm quite eager to continue exploring his works.
Book 24: The Penelopiad ★★★★✰ This retelling of the The Odyssey, from the perspective of Penelope and her twelve maids is part of the Canongate Myth Series
Penelope was always the good girl in life, the good daughter, the good mother, the good wife. Now she's on the other side of the river and she's done with good, done with waiting. She want to tell her side of the story, and so she does, in a voice that's equal parts wry and alluring. A beautifully written and very clever book. I especially enjoyed the chorus of the twelve maids, which interrupts the narrative with a sea-shanty, rope-jumping rhyme and an antropolgy lesson among other things.
My full review
Book 25: Citizen: An American Lyric ★★★★✰ The short texts describing acts of everyday racism are by far the most effective sections of the book. The prose is so clear; it's cutting. Each scene feels like a punch in the gut. There is a haunting quality in Rankine's voice that really appeals to me, sentences that stick in your mind, an atmosphere that lingers...
Book 26: Oedipus at Colonus ★★★★★I was honestly a little surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I liked it even better than Oedipus Rex which I read last year. I think I'll be getting to Antigone very soon.
Book 27: The First Person and Other Stories ★★★★★The first story in this collection is a short story about short stories and includes a collection of quotes about the short story from famous writers. So meta, so clever, a short story lover's dream. The Third Person, Fidelo & Bess, The Second Person, Writ and The First Person were my favorites. They're all little treasures that bend the rules for what a short story is and should be while subverting all your expectations. At times like listening in on someone else's private conversation, at times like slipping into someone else's dreams. Smith is a master of dialogue, of tone, of form. I'm so excited to explore more of her works. The Accidental is up next!
Book 29: All the Birds in the Sky ★★★★★This book is a wild thing. It caught me completely off-guard and just when I thought I'd figured it out - it went and changed it's shape on me all over again.
My full review
Book 30: The Prince of Mist ★★★✰✰A very well written and fast-paced YA/middle-grade gothic-horror story, with realistic characters; who don't make painfully stupid decisions and a compelling plot. Zafón's writing is very atmospheric; weather and geography is more than just backdrop, and he is obviously one of those writers who excels at plotting.
My ful review
Book 32: Emily of New Moon ★★★★★I've never read L.M. Montgomery before and I think this was an excellent place to start. Instant favorite! Emily is so sassy! Loved it.
Book 33: When a Scot Ties the Knot ★★★★✰ I am not a romance reader, nor a Valetine's Day-enthusiast. So of course my husband thought it would be hilarious to give me a romance novel. For Valentine's Day. And of course he'd chose this one. You see, my husband's verra Scottish and rather fond of telling people that I married him for his accent. (I didn't. I married him for his shoulders.)
But his plan totally backfired; I really enjoyed this sweet and delightful love story, and spent much of the day following him around the house, reading the funny bits aloud - and there's a lot of funny bits. (He giggled. Twice.) There's a lot of sexy moments too and romantic one, of course.
My full review
Book 35: Murder on the Orient Express ★★★★✰ My first Agatha Christie! And it certainly won't be the last.
Book 40: How Fiction Works ★★★★★ Absolutely brilliant. It's already made me a better, more aware reader. Loved it.
Book 41: The Years ★★★★★ Virginia Woolf is my favorite writer. A lot of people think The Years is her weakest novel, and while I agree it's certainly more conventional than her other works; I don't agree that that's a weakness. Woolf does conventional as well as she does experimental. The Years is a family saga, following the Pargiters from 1880 till 1937. I thought it was an absolute pleasure to read.
Didn't realise you have read so many already! May I borrow your speed for a couple of days? ;) Nice work! And varied, lots of genres :)
Thank you, Winter! Haha, you can - but your social life would suffer ;)
Book 42: Silently and Very Fast ★★★★✰ Beautiful! Catherynne M. Valente is such a luscious writer. I adore her prose,
Book 43: The Argonauts ★★★★✰ I've had this book on my radar ever since it starting showing up on 'Best Books of 2015' lists everywhere and I'm really glad I finally got my hands on it. Such a beautiful, thought-provoking and illuminating exploration of themes like gender, relationships and parenthood. I really enjoyed it. Small in size, but big in ideas!
Book 44: If There is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems ★★★★✰
I'll be keeping this one on my nightstand for a while! Short, sweet and surprising poems. Like this one:
a tentative bio:
caught fireflies
read till dawn,
fell in love with weirdos,
cried buckets of tears
for reasons unknown,
birthed two daughters
by seven men
Book 45: Prague ★★★★✰ It's been a long time since it's taken me this long to get through a book and I'm still not sure how I felt about it - it's amazingly well written, there's no doubt about that. Philips is a very descriptive writer, he's very fond of metaphors. So while this is only a 400 page book, it's a very dense 400 pages and not much happens in those pages. Our 5 main characters (though really John is the main character) are all expats living in Budapest shortly after the fall of communism and we follow their daily lives and that's about it. A lot of hanging out in cafes. A lot of drinking. A lot of hookups. A lot of introspection. Our main character's a 20 something journalist who wears a fedora and talks about his feelings. I honestly should have hated this book, but I kind of loved it? I'll definitely be reading more of this author in the future!
Book 46: Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal ★★★✰✰I had a really hard time rating this because while it's not a bad graphic novel; it's just not for me. Which I guess I should have known. Guardians of the Galaxy is the only Marvel film I've enjoyed and in 25 years on the planet I've never felt compelled to pick up a superhero comic... So yeah. I didn't love this. Kamala Khan is an awesome character and I really appreciate the feminist message, but I just wanted so much more from this. Almost every character except Kamala's totally one dimensional. The story-line's messy and not very engaging. I guess those things might improve as the series continues, but I'm not sure I care enough to find out.
we seem to be reading at the same pace! awesome choices of books so far.
I am impressed!!! Everytime I see people reading so fast I suspect them of reading cheap literature and books that aren't very challenging... You've proved me wrong!!!
Blagica wrote: "we seem to be reading at the same pace! awesome choices of books so far."Looks like we are :) Thank you!
Violaine wrote: "I am impressed!!! Everytime I see people reading so fast I suspect them of reading cheap literature and books that aren't very challenging... You've proved me wrong!!!"Thank you, Violaine! Haha, well some of them probably are doing that ;)
Awesome job, Aurora! Any recommendations so far?
Thank you, Cassandra! I really enjoyed All the Birds in the Sky - it was such an entertaining read.
I have that one on hold at the library. I'm not sure when I'm going to get it, because they're still ordering copies, I think.
I hope it'll be worth the wait for you :)
Book 47: Pet Sematary ★★★★✰ This is the best King I've read so far. It's dark, creepy and very psychological. The scariest thing about this isn't the supernatural elements, but the lengths to which a person is willing to go in order to (view spoiler) The ending will stick with me!
Book 48: Americanah ★★★★✰ This book's been on my shelf for years, I finally picked it up this month for a buddy-read and I'm so glad I got around to it. It was such an interesting read. I feel like I learnt a lot about about both Nigerian and American culture, as well as race and racism, that I didn't know. I really liked Ifemelu as a main character. She's honest, direct and unapologetic. I wish it'd had all been tied together a little better at the end, but all in all it was a great read!
Book 49: The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion ★★★★★The really special thing about Daums writing is that even when she is writing about topics that really don't interest me (Joni Mitchell, her dog) she still manages to keep my attention. The destination might not be my cup of tea, but I never doubt that it will be an interesting ride or that I'll pick up some wisdom on the way. I loved every essay in this collection (even the one about her dog). They're honest, self-aware, nostalgic, funny, warm, insightful, sad, smart and tender, sometimes all at once.
Book 50: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing ★★★★★Wow. This book. It's really something very special. I was utterly spellbound by McBride's writing. It's rare for a book to be so stylistically ambitious and at the same time so raw and emotional. This is not light read; it't very bleak and dark and sometimes uncomfortable to read, but that's part of what makes it so powerful. I loved it.
Book 51: Artemis Fowl ★★★★✰ This book was exactly what I wanted it to be: fun, fast-paced and entertaining. It has an original and action-packed plot, compelling characters and very interesting world building. I look forward to reading the rest of the series.
Book 52: Pond ★★★★★Pond is one of the most interesting books I've read this year. It's a short story collection (though it could've just as easily been classified as a novel) about a woman living alone in a cottage somewhere in Ireland, narrated largely through a mercurial and meandering stream of consciousness. The stories in this collection read like little fragments of a life, they are intimate, engaging and full of unexpected turns of phrase and stunning moments of recognition.
Put simply: Pond is unlike anything else I've read and I cannot wait to see what Bennett writes next; there's no doubt I'll be picking it up. I want more of her wry and beautiful prose.
Book 54: Radiance ★★★★★Catherynne M Valente doesn't have a silver tongue; she has a 24 karat gold tongue studded with stars and diamonds of every color. Her vocabulary is a menagerie of tigers and dragons; white wolves and black unicorns.
Radiance is a alt-history space opera noir set in a solar-system where every planet has been colonized by mankind. The moon is home to a silent-film industry. Uranus has cities of towers grown from pink and green and yellow anemones. Pluto is covered in fields of infanta flowers and connected to it's moon by a bridge of blooms. The universe Valente creates is so wildly imaginative and vividly brought to life - I wouldn't have minded one bit if the whole novel was just a guided tour of the cosmos, describing each planet in rich, glorious detail.
My full review
Book 55: Police ★★★★★This is the first Jo Nesbø book I've read in years and I was very pleasantly surprised. It was dark and twisty and kept me on the edge of my seat right until the end. Such a fast paced and thrilling read.
2025 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
Peer Gynt (other topics)Peer Gynt (other topics)
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales (other topics)
Descender, Vol. 1: Tin Stars (other topics)
The Legend of Ararat (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Agatha Christie (other topics)L.M. Montgomery (other topics)
51/200
1. De urolige ★★★★★
2. The Encyclopedia of Early Earth ★★★★★
3. Om vinteren ★★★★★
4. Personar du kanskje kjenner ★★★★✰
5. Ethan Frome ★★★★★
6. Stoner ★★★✰✰
7. Dubliners ★★★★★
8. The Light and the Dark ★★★★✰
9. An Unnecessary Woman ★★★★★
10 Widow Basquiat: A Love Story ★★★★✰
11.Artful ★★★★★
12. Madame Bovary ★★★✰✰
13.Like ★★★★✰
14. Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays ★★★★✰
15. The House of Mirth ★★★★✰
16. The Kreutzer Sonata ★★★★✰
17. Ulveøya ★★★★★
18. The Epic of Gilgamesh ★★★★✰
19. The Grownup ★★★✰✰
20. Hekla myter ★★★✰✰
21. The Empathy Exams: Essays ★★★★★
22. Bluets ★★★✰✰
23. The Idiot ★★★★✰
24. The Penelopiad ★★★★✰
25. Citizen: An American Lyric ★★★★✰
26. Oedipus at Colonus ★★★★★
27. The First Person and Other Stories ★★★★★
28. Antigone ★★★★★
29. All the Birds in the Sky ★★★★★
30. The Prince of Mist ★★★★✰
31. Pippi Longstocking ★★★★★
32. Emily of New Moon ★★★★★
33. When a Scot Ties the Knot ★★★★✰
34. Reveries of the Solitary Walker ★★★★✰
35. Murder on the Orient Express ★★★★✰
36. Stigninger og fald ★★★★★
37. Undis Brekke ★★★★★
38. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie ★★★★★
39. The Accidental ★★★★✰
40. How Fiction Works ★★★★★
41. The Years ★★★★★
42. Silently and Very Fast ★★★★✰
43. The Argonauts ★★★★✰
44. If There is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems ★★★★✰
45. Prague ★★★★✰
46. Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal ★★★✰✰
47. Pet Sematary ★★★★✰
48. Americanah ★★★★✰
49. The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion ★★★★★
50. A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing ★★★★★
51. Artemis Fowl ★★★★✰