Team An Authorly Adventure.

[NBRC Travel Agent]

Just reading books by authors of the countries


George

Anna

Xelly

Sumit

Carol

Diane

No longer travelling:
Jamie
Karin
Stephanie
Elinaly
Megan
Talia

[NBRC Travel Agent]

Your itinerary is here

When you have a team name, just let me know and I'll update this thread name :)

First stop - 1. Halifax, Canada

[NBRC Travel Agent]

reserved

[Elinaly]

Hello team 18!

Lets first change the team name :)
Who is good at it?

Finding Authors Around the World (FAAW)?
Meet Authors Around the World (MAAW)?

[NBRC Travel Agent]

Team is now full! Safe travels :D

[Jamie]

Hi team, I'm excited about this

I agree with what everyone said about a leisurely pace. I am glad for a challenge that will push me to read other authors. I also like the idea of buddy reading some of the books.

I will check back later, it is 5am here and i have to get up soon and head to work. Will think of names too.

Hi Elinaly!

[Elinaly]

High five Jamie ;)

[Jamie]

Okay names... and I'm terrible at this so feel free to ignore

How about:

Adventurous Readers
Author Adventure
Author Explorers
Enthusiastic Author Explorers
An Authorly Adventure

And I'm excited about Halifax, I really want to go to Nova Scotia some time!

[Elinaly]

I like all of the names, but if I would have to pick just one, I would go with:
An Authorly Adventure!

[Karin]

Hi guys! Checking in - so excited that we will be starting soon. I like 'An Authorly Adventure' too.

Did we decide that we are reading Authors from the countries OR books that take place in the countries (instead of spell-it-outs)? I just want to make sure because I'm interested in both.

[Jamie]

Hi Karin, I think we were on a team somewhere along the line but I can't remember what it was...

I'm open to both authors from the country and/or books taking place in the country

[Elinaly]

I think the original idea was to read books from authors of the countries we visit. No spell-outs and no "detours".

F.e I have been waiting a little push to read a book written by Margaret Atwood and now I have it! :)
So whenever we start my first book will be by Atwood (Canadian writer)

[[deleted user]]

Hi, Team, checking in! Looking forward to broadening my reading horizons. Margaret Atwood has been on my TBR list as well, so I'll read The Blind Assassin for my first book.

I like the team name An Authorly Adventure as well.

[George P.]

Hi Team, we got organized much quicker than I expected! I am fine with Authorly Adventure- I don't care that much about the name as long as it isn't a stupid one ;). We got an easy countries for our 1st few stops- Canada, France and Italy. (If you haven't done this before, click on where it says "your itinerary is here" in message #2 above). Remember it has to be a book you started AFTER the itinerary was posted (June 28th)- I was unsure about that the 1st time I did this. A few of the team members haven't yet checked in on this thread, but we can go ahead and get our books and start them.
I would like to read books by authors of the country, but if you can't find one of those, I think a book set in the country is acceptable. Some small African or Asian countries have few published authors- (Mongolia?)
The Blind Assassin is an excellent book Talia, I read it a couple years ago, rated it 4.5 stars in my own notes. I've read 4 books by Canadian Margaret Atwood, so one of my favorites.
I have several novels by Canadian authors in my "to-read" list, including Atwood's The Robber Bride, but that's more than 500 pages so probably not a good choice here unless you read a lot quickly.
I might go with Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels or Fifth Business (#1 of The Deptford Trilogy) by Robertson Davies.
I'm excited to meet you all and go around the world with you.

[Anna]

Hi, fellow adventurers!
We got a great itinerary, though not as extravagant as I hoped :)
I (albeit inadvertently) started a book on June 28th by two authors, one of whom is Canadian. So I guess my choice for this stop is settled: Us by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy (from Toronto).

[Megan]

I like An Authorly Adventure for our name! :)

I'll be reading The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong.

[George P.]

Hi again- I messaged the travel agent to list our team as An Authorly Adventure as everybody so far was good with that.
I forgot to say earlier that I have a copy of Canadian author Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace I will send to a team member if they want it, no charge. It's 460 pages long, hardback. It would probably take a week or so to get to you though.
Perhaps we want to say something about ourselves? I'm originally from Florida and have lived in Utah most of my life, I have 3 grown kids in 3 different states (1 here) and my 1st grandchild was born a month ago. I'm fine with hanging out with a bunch of women- I'm used to it because most of my co-workers have always been women.
Am I alone in wishing they wouldn't use abbreviations for the countries' names in the itinerary? Some are confusing. If I'm not mistaken our countries are:
Canada, France, Italy, Russia, China, Japan, Australia and Mexico. It's kind of nice that we can plan ahead what we're going to read.
We don't all have to read a book for every stop, if you're too busy you can skip occasionally, but we get more points if we have 5 contributors for the stop I think- I'll check that, or does someone know?

[Anna]

Hurray for An Authorly Adventure!
I got to live for some long time in Poland, Russia, and the US, and can read books in four languages. Unfortunatelly, it's almost irrelevant for the current itinerary.
George, I think you got the countries right. I added spread sheets to our itinerary for each stop, so the planning would be even easier.

[[deleted user]]

Congrats on the first grandbaby, George!

Anna, I wish I had your language skills! I majored in French, so I have read books in French but am a bit rusty. Reading the Harry Potter novels in French was fun :).

I live in Arizona but was born in California. Strangely a lot of my extended family has migrated out here from CA to AZ, so even though I'm single, there's lots of family around. I love languages, so I am currently brushing up on Latin and learning Spanish. I have books on Arabic and Chinese as well that I hope to get into soon.

[Elinaly]

George, congratulations!!!

George wrote: "We don't all have to read a book for every stop, if you're too busy you can skip occasionally, but we get more points if we have 5 contributors for the stop I think- I'll check that, or does someone know? "

I think we all have to read at least something, we called it in my other group "any book", which is the read book that didn´t fit the detour task nor could use for spelling out.

So if someone from our team doesn´t want to read a book by author or the setting in a country we are currently visiting, then for us to be able to move on to the next stop that player has to register any book read (starting from 28. June).

But we are not in this group for the max points (otherwise we have to do only detours and that is not the purpose of this group).
ˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇˇ
TASKS
◈ Completing a task will earn the team 10 points AND
◈ If at least 6 members of the team read a book that contributes to the tasks, that is an additional 15 points AND
◈ If ALL team members read a book for the time you are at the stop, that is an additional 10 points

◈ The task to complete at each stop is determined by the team. The team can either:
(a) read books set in that country or by an author of that country or
(b) complete a spell-it-out of that country or city - we will not do that!

[Elinaly]

Ah, I forgot to tell you few words about myself...

I´m from Europe (as you can see I post my replies when you from US are probably still sleeping, hehehee), from Estonia.

I speak Estonian, Russian, English (sorry for the minor grammar mistakes) and understand German. Started to learn Norwegian, but haven´t got very far with it :)
I read any genre. Total challenge-addict, so I also read books I need to read sometimes for the team. Yeah, only challenge-addicts can understand that :)
Over 30 (stopped counting when hitting 30), with kids, cats and best husband in the world.

So happy to meet you all :)

[[deleted user]]

Elinaly wrote: "Ah, I forgot to tell you few words about myself...

I´m from Europe (as you can see I post my replies when you from US are probably still sleeping, hehehee), from Estonia.

I speak Estonian, Russia..."

Russian is also on my to-be-learned list! Glad to meet some who speaks it!

[Elinaly]

yeah, living next to Russia - you just have to speak the language :)

[Jamie]

Hello team,

A bit about me - I live and work in NYC in finance. I commuted for years until my youngest went to college and then we moved in to the city and my quality of life drastically improved (although my reading time was cut back a bit). I have two sons who are both still in college. When I'm not reading I do a lot of walking around NYC. I also like knitting although I'm painfully slow and constantly ripping things back and starting over. I have been an avid reader all my life - my first "grown up" book was Watership Down, thus my avatar!

[Stephanie]

Hi team!

I live in Michigan, where I am in college studying actuarial science. Lately I have been trying to read books related to the Philippines since my mother is from there, but there aren't many. I can read some Spanish - it's something I'm working on.

I will also be reading a book by Margaret Atwood for this stop, thought I'm not sure which yet!

[George P.]

Elinaly wrote: "Ah, I forgot to tell you few words about myself...

I´m from Europe (as you can see I post my replies when you from US ..."
What grammar mistakes? Your English is great. I speak passable Spanish but not well enough for reading novels. I struggled through Jonathon Livingston Seagull in Spanish once, just to see if I could.

[George P.]

Stephanie wrote: "Hi team!
I live in Michigan, where I am in college studying actuarial science.
I will also be reading a book by Margaret Atwood for this stop..."

My offer of Atwood's "Alias Grace" hasn't been accepted yet Stephanie- un regalo, si lo quiere.

All the team members have now checked in on this thread, so a great sign of active participation.

It happens that I already have books by writers from all the countries of our stop except Australia in my rather long "to-read" list. Maybe "The Book Thief" for Australia? I've got to go with Dr Zhivago for Russia I think- I've read 8 books by Russian writers but not Pasternak yet.

How much time are you all thinking of per stop? I was thinking of aiming for 3 weeks, with maybe an extra week for the 1st stop to get organized (I'm already reading 4 novels at once, but I'll finish a couple of them in the next week). That would get us "around the world" in just under 6 months. What do you think?

[Jamie]

I am going with Alice Munro for Canada. I will fill in the spreadsheet at some point

Any timing is fine with me!

[George P.]

Jamie wrote: "I am going with Alice Munro for Canada. I will fill in the spreadsheet at some point.
Any timing is fine with me!"
Alice Munro, excellent choice Jamie- a Nobel Laureate who by the way, is having her 85th birthday July 10th, I noticed. I have to read one of her short story collection some day.

For your info, I will share what I asked the "Travel Agent" about our itinerary and her reply:

you said to NBRC Travel Agent:
The new team's name is An Authorly Adventure.
I was surprised how fast it came together from my proposal, and even somewhat that it did at all. Do you know of any other team that has completed their stops only by reading books by writers from that country? By chance(?) we got an itinerary that will make it easy to obtain books from those countries' writers. You didn't help us on that did you?
49305221 NBRC Travel Agent said to you:
Thanks George, will update your team name. Yes, it was great you got a team so fast!!

I did try and stay away from countries (like Liberia) that I think would have been nigh impossible, but otherwise just let the chips fall.
If you decide to do another round and want harder countries, then I can just leave it as completely random ;)

[Jamie]

I didn't realize that about AM's birthday, thanks for the info. She has been on my To Read list for a long time.

Thanks for sharing the messages with the travel agent.

[Megan]

Finished my book, The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong, and really enjoyed it (gave it 4.5 stars). Reading the rest of the series now :)

[Megan]

Yes, thanks for sharing the messages. :)

[Stephanie]

George wrote: "Stephanie wrote: "Hi team!
I live in Michigan, where I am in college studying actuarial science.
I will also be reading a book by Margaret Atwood for this stop..."

My offer of Atwood's "Alias Gra..."

I think I will take you up on your offer, George. Should I just message you my address?

And yes, thank you for sharing the messages :) I do think it would be fun to do harder countries, but the ones we have will at least makes things more convenient.

[George P.]

Stephanie wrote: "
My offer of Atwood's "Alias Grace..."
I think I will take you up on your offer, George. Should I just message you my address?."

Yes just respond with your address and I'll get it right out to you. Post office will be closed sun and Mon, so would be good if I could get it out to you today. I'm in Utah, so hopefully it won't take too long.

[Elinaly]

Hey teamies, what you think about author Sara Gruen?
I mean can she count for our Canadian stop? She was born in Vancouver, Canada, grew up in London and Ontario and is an author with dual Canadian and American citizenship, but as I understand now she lives in Western North Carolina, USA.

I still want to read Atwood, but it could take me a little bit more time (this wobble-event is killing me and I can fit Atwood book perhaps to the end of the next week).

I could read her book: Water for Elephants by tuesday.

[Karin]

Elinaly wrote: "Hey teamies, what you think about author Sara Gruen?
I mean can she count for our Canadian stop? She was born in Vancouver, Canada, grew up in London and Ontario and is an author wit..."

I was going to read a book by Linwood Barclay who was born in the US but lives in Canada - sort of the opposite of Sara. I say go for it - that was a fantastic book too!

[George P.]

Elinaly wrote: "Hey teamies, what you think about author Sara Gruen?
I mean can she count for our Canadian stop? She was born in Vancouver, Canada, grew up in London and Ontario [actually, London, Ontario- there is a London in Canada-George] and is an author wit..."

I have been trying to read more books by writers from other countries, and this is the rule I devised for myself:
"Nationality rule: must have been born in the country and lived there until at least age 15; parents don't have to be natives of the country. Can be a translation or written in English."
Gruen, who was born and lived in Canada til about age 30, would clearly count as Canadian writer to me, even if she became a U S citizen. I read Water for Elephants last year and it was entertaining and well-written.
Some authors don't meet my definition for any country, like Iris Murdoch who was born in Ireland but moved to England very young and was a British citizen, or Kazuo Ishiguro whose family moved to England from Japan when he was 5 (but Britain isn't a country I need to add to my list and I got Japan with Murakami).

PS: I think Yann Martel (Life of Pi) could reasonably counted as a Canadian writer- though he doesn't fit my personal definition- he was born in Spain of Canadian parents whose primary language was French and spent parts of his childhood in 4 other countries (Portugal, Costa Rica, the US and France). He's spent most of his life in Canada, has always had Canadian citizenship and lives there now.

[George P.]

Karin wrote: "Elinaly wrote:
I was going to read a book by Linwood Barclay who was born in the US but lives in Canada -"
According to the Wikipedia article, Barclay has lived in Canada since he was about 4 yrs old, so very reasonable to count him as Canadian.

[Karin]

I finished my first book. I chose to read Broken Promise by Linwood Barclay who although born in the US moved to Canada at a young age. I've read books by him before, and really enjoyed this one as well (4 stars). One of my favorite genres is mystery/thriller and this one didn't disappoint. It's the first in a trilogy and left with a bit of a cliffhanger, but most of the main story was wrapped up. Will definitely continue with this series.

[Jamie]

Karin wrote: "I finished my first book. I chose to read Broken Promise by Linwood Barclay who although born in the US moved to Canada at a young age. I've read books by him before..."

A well done mystery/thriller is always fun to read. It amazes me how the authors can plot those out.

[George P.]

Jamie wrote: "Karin wrote: "I finished my first book. I chose to read Broken Promise by Linwood Barclay "

That was quick. I've read about 1/6th of mine so far. A little irony to read a Canadian writer on Indepedence Day :) Now I'm working on my Argentinian book- Ficciones by Jorge Borges- he's also my letter "J" for an alphabet-writer challenge. The French writer (our next stop) Muriel Barbery will be my "B".

[Anna]

George, how many challenges do you have going on at once? :)

I'm loking for suggestion for the stop in France. My to-read list doesn't have a single French author and my memory doesn't serve me up with any names I heard referenced positevely. Extensive search turned up with a single book I'd be willing to read - Submission by Michel Houellebecq, but I'm in doubt. Any other sugestions? Please?

[Karin]

Anna wrote: "George, how many challenges do you have going on at once? :)

I'm loking for suggestion for the stop in France. My to-read list doesn't have a single French author and my memory doesn't serve me up..."

I recently read Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay and really enjoyed it. Historical fiction 4.5 star read for me.

[Anna]

Karin wrote: "Anna wrote: "George, how many challenges do you have going on at once? :)

I'm loking for suggestion for the stop in France. My to-read list doesn't have a single French author and my memory doesn'..."

Thank you, Karin! That sounds much better than the one I found!

[Karin]

Anna wrote: "Karin wrote: "Anna wrote: "George, how many challenges do you have going on at once? :)

I'm loking for suggestion for the stop in France. My to-read list doesn't have a single French author and my..."

No problem - I'll probably read another one by her for the France leg as I enjoyed the first so much- hope you like it too!

[George P.]

Anna wrote: "George, how many challenges do you have going on at once? :) I'm looking for suggestion for the stop in France.."
Three challenges actually- this one, the author-alphabet one that I'm nearing completion of (you have the whole calendar year to do it), and adding more countries to my list of writers of different countries. That's just a personal one- I thought this tour would help with it, but I've already read books by writers from all our stops; c'est la vie. I'm on the verge of 28 countries now- my goal is 35, but I'll probably keep adding to that.

[George P.]

Anna wrote: I'm looking for suggestion for the stop in France.."
My favorite French-author books are The Little Prince (my daughter had a quotation from it tattooed to her feet), All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Stranger (also known as The Outsider, by Camus). These are all "classics", I haven't read any contemporary French novels, but will soon- The Elegance of the Hedgehog will be my tour novel. It's in the latest edition of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Sarah's Key sounds good also, it has a WW2- Holocaust setting, as does my Canadian book Fugitive Pieces.

[Anna]

George wrote: "Anna wrote: I'm looking for suggestion for the stop in France.."
My favorite French-author books are The Little Prince (my daughter had a quotation from it tattooed to her feet), [boo..."

Cool, thanks! I've read the first three and not ready to re-read them (Erich Maria Remarque wasn't French). The Elegance of the Hedgehog doesn't appeal to me, so I'll settle on Sarah's Key :)

[Elinaly]

George wrote: "A little irony to read a Canadian writer on Indepedence Day :) ."

Hehehee :)

From my book Water for Elephants (page 92, in USA):
"How is it that everyone on this train has so much alcohol?"
"We always head to Canada at the beginning of the season. Their laws are much more civilized. Cheers!"

[Elinaly]

And I'm done with my Canadian book for this stop :)
I really loved Water for Elephants!

I must confess I was so afraid to read it - I can't read books about animals - will cry my eyes out. This book was also cruel, but I really liked the way the story was built and the atmosphere created (I felt like I was in the middle of the events). Even little humor wasn't missing.
I don't think I want to watch a movie though. Well maybe I will. After some time.
Movie just can never be as good as book.