Shell's spot

[Shelley]

FINISHED!

I use challenges like this to help pick out books from my very long TBR list. It will probably go through massive changes by the end of the year, but I have at least one thing for every week.

1. A book with the letters A, T & Y in the title. Read: Lonely Hearts

2. A book from the first 10 books added to your To Be Read list. Read Rule Zero

3. A book from the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards. Read: Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

4. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #1 Earth A Wizard of Earthsea

5. A book about or inspired by real events Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House

6. A book originally written in a language other than English The Dead Lake

7. A gothic novel The Woman in White

8. An "own voices" book* I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

9. A book with a body part in the title Blood Rites

10. An author's debut book Semiosis

11. A literary fiction How the García Girls Lost Their Accents

12. A book set in Africa or South America The President's Keepers: Those Keeping Zuma in Power and Out of Prison

13. A book with a plot centered around a secret The Secret History

14. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #2 Fire An Ember in the Ashes

15. A book with an unique format/writing structure The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

16. A narrative nonfiction The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom

17. A book you expect to make you laugh Feet of Clay

18. A book with a location in the title First Grave on the Right

19. A book nominated for the Edgar Award or by a Grand master author (books & authors) The Screaming Staircase

20. A book rated 5 stars by at least one of your friends Gregor the Overlander

21. A book written in first person perspective Marathon Woman: Running the Race to Revolutionize Women's Sports

22. A book you have high expectations or hope for Glass Sword

23. A medical or legal thriller Whose Body?

24. A book with a map Red Rising

25. A book with an antagonist/villain point of view Six of Crows

26. A book with a text only cover The Princess Saves Herself in this One

27. A book about surviving a hardship (war, famine, major disasters, serious illness, etc) Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

28. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #3 Water Over Sea, Under Stone

29. A book with a "Clue" weapon on the cover or title (lead pipe, revolver, rope, candlestick, dagger, wrench) Our Kind of Cruelty

30. A short book Herland

31. A book set in a country you'd like to visit but have never been to Dreaming in Cuban

32. An alternate history book Black Powder War

33. A book connected (title, cover, content) to a word "born" in the same year as you (link) I Am Pilgrim

34. A suggestion from the AtY 2018 polls, that didn't win but was polarizing or a close-call (link) The Name of the Rose

35. A book featuring a murder Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

36. A book published in the last 3 years (2016, 2017, 2018) by an author you haven't read before Paradox Bound

37. A Women's Prize for Fiction winner or nominee Alif the Unseen

38. A science book or a science fiction book Ancillary Justice

39. A book with a form of punctuation in the title The City & the City

40. A book from Amazon's 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime list (link)The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

41. A book by an author with the same first and last initials On What Grounds

42. A book that takes place on, in, or underwater The Call of Cthulhu

43. A book with a title that is a whole sentence I Let You Go

44. A ghost storySing, Unburied, Sing

45. A book that intimidates/ scares youWar and Peace

46. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #4 Air The Cloud Roads

47. A book where the main character (or author) is of a different ethnic origin, religion, or sexual identity than your own Siddhartha

48. A book related to one of the 7 deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth)The Wrath and the Dawn

49. A book from one of the Goodreads Best Books of the Month lists (link) The Girl with All the Gifts

50. A book with a warm atmosphere (centered on family, friendship, love or summer)Hounded

51. An award-winning short story or short story collectionSisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology

52. A book published in 2018 Victory Disc

[Katie]

Dark Money sounds like a great choice for the 7 deadly sin topic. I think I'm going to add it to my TBR.

[Shelley]

Katie wrote: "Dark Money sounds like a great choice for the 7 deadly sin topic. I think I'm going to add it to my TBR."

I may read that one a few weeks early to coincide with the election. It seems appropriate.

[Shelley]

I'm really trying to read in order and in the correct week, but with me relying on library availability and hold ties, it could get interesting. For this week, I actually bought a book the had been on my "to read" "not at the library" list for awhile (Aberystwyth Mon Amour), but it's not in yet so I went with the oldest available book which had ATY in it.

I read Lonely Hearts. It was terrible. Such a generic cop thriller, where everyone is shacking up with everyone else, and the rules are more like guidelines, and "I'm a tough guy but I still care deep down". Blah. Hopefully the rest of the year goes better.

[Shelley]

For prompt 3 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards: I put holds on Artemis, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, and Sing, Unburied, Sing. Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is what came up.

I was not expecting it to be a thriller mystery type book. Based on the cover and title, I was expecting it to be much cozier. That said, the two sides to the story came together nicely. It was tied up without too many stretches in the story and was sufficiently creepy.

[Shelley]

For prompt 2, a book from the first 10 books added to your To Be Read list, I read Rule Zero, which I added on April 12, 2014. I actually went ahead and bought the kindle version for this, which is extremely rare for me, so that I would actually comply with the letter of the prompt. All in all, I am glad i read it mainly because the premise was so promising. It's a bout a psychic MI5-type character who has to hunt down an old experiment. Totally up my alley. Unfortunately it wasn't funny enough to be comical and it wasn't serious enough to be riveting. It sorta fell flat. Oh well. I've had high expectations for three years, and I'm happy to lay them to rest.

[Shelley]

For prompt 4, an Earth book, I read A Wizard of Earthsea, which turned out to be much heavier on the sea part than the earth part. It ok, but the writing was a bit too old school fantasy for me.

I'm officially on the hold list for Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, but we'll see if I get it at a time that's good for the Fire part of this prompt!

[Shelley]

For prompt 5, a book about real events, I read Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Apparently people can be really fast readers when they want to be and I got off the hold list really quickly. The book had very few "plot points" that were surprising. No new great information seemed to be revealed, although some of the words that were used in quotes were interesting. In some parts that he had heard two or three sides to the story he would say "in one version this person said" which I did appreciate. We'll see what the fall out ends up being.

[Tammy]

I'm enjoying your updates. I'd hoped to read in order but, like you, I like to get my books at the library. I've even gone so far as to request the library to look into purchasing some of the books on my list that they don't currently have in the system. We'll see how that goes. Looks like you are moving through your prompts quickly! Keep up the good work!

[Shelley]

Tammy wrote: "I'm enjoying your updates. I'd hoped to read in order but, like you, I like to get my books at the library. I've even gone so far as to request the library to look into purchasing some of the books..."

Yea, the library thing has made it rather difficult. I'm trying not to get too far ahead in this challenge so I'm focusing on some of my other challenges. I did get a notification that they purchased the book on South African corruption I recommended, so there is a chance that they'll get what you need.

[Shelley]

For a book originally written in a different language I read The Dead Lake. It's a modern fairy tale about environmental problems in Kazakhstan. It was an interesting view of the combination of old traditions, modern changes, and the influences of foreign powers (the USSR) on these small communities. I got pretty confused by all of the names, but on the whole it was an enjoyable quick read.

[Shelley]

For the own voices book I read I Am Malala: The Story of the Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. It was great insight into the everyday lives of Pakistanis, which is a country that Americans only generally hear the worst of, so that was refreshing.

One of the most fascinating things about Malala that I Iearned from the book was that her being shot was not the beginning of her being famous for activism. I knew that she had been singled out for going to school but I had pictured it more as her being vocal in her village for her own education. Turns out she had an anonymous blog on BBC and she regularly did interviews on Pakistani TV. It seemed much more like a Rosa Parks scenario where Malala know damn well that she was sticking her neck out and she was willing to face any and all consequences. My admiration for her intensified immensely, which I did not think was possible.

[Shelley]

I finally finished February's books. For the gothic novel I read The Woman in White. There are bunch of different narrators and some i much preferred over others. Mostly (like most 19th century novels) my main complaint was that it was about 200 pages longer than necessary. Oh well. It did have a creepy portion which made it a successful Gothic story for me.

[Kathy]

I read The Woman in White also for a gothic novel and I agree--200 pages too long. I liked all the details most of the time but then the narrators started going over the same territory again. I guess that was the point, but I got tired of it. Good book though.

[Shelley]

Kathy wrote: "I read The Woman in White also for a gothic novel and I agree--200 pages too long. I liked all the details most of the time but then the narrators started going over the same territory again. I gue..."

It's one of the most frustrating things with Victorian novels, Dickens being the worst offender. Because they were periodicals, some chapters are drawn out when the author couldn't figure out the plot and needed to get something published and other chapters have way to much in it because they are running up on a deadline. They desperately needed a discerning eye after the fact to help with flow.

I'm glad others can commiserate!

[Kathy]

That's a good point, Shelley, about these originally being serializations.

[Shelley]

Finished two awesome books today for this challenge. The first was a book you expected to make you laugh which I read Discworld's Feet of Clay. I'm really loving the City Watch series and definitely see why people proclaim how good the later books get. He really gets into his groove of humorously applying satire and allegory to his universe.

The other one was for a narrative nonfiction: The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom. A group of seven escape a prisoner's camp in northern Siberia and attempt to escape to India. On foot. It was definitely a serious, sobering counterpoint to my earlier humorous book. It was a great story that was very well written. I'd recommend it for this challenge or the surviving a hardship one.

[Shelley]

With Aprils books I read two books that kicked off new serials which I'd like to continue: An Ember in the Ashes for my fire book and First Grave on the Right for a location book (I loved how on the nose it is). Both are very cliche-ish for their genre but had enough promise and were enjoyable enough for me to want to continue.

I finished off the April books with an unusual format The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. It's basically an encyclopedia for the fantasy genre. While there were some great entries, it did drag on a bit between these gems. If ever found read the horses entry!

[Shelley]

It took me longer than expected to finish June's book, but I got it done in time. For the legal thrilled I went with Whose Body?, a 1920s detective book. It was dry, slow, and fast moving, which is a very confusing mixture. Not a big fan. I also did not enjoy The Princess Saves Herself in this One. IT was too much of a literal rant. just pages of whining, which I understand that she had a rough life, but there just seemed to be no effort put into making it relateable to the reader.

The two books that i enjoyed were Red Rising and Six of Crows. I definitely get now why these two books come up again and again as recommendations. They will be added to my list of books to recommend as well.

[Shelley]

Although I haven't been updating this sheet, I have been following my plan in order this year. However, the rest of the year is going to be a bit nuts and I'm not sure if I'm going to have tons of time for reading or absolutely none, so I'm plowing through the rest of the list. I have 8 more left to fill, although one is War and Peace, so I should be fine. Onwards and upwards!

[Shelley]

I'm down to one prompt which is on hold at the library:Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology. I've been waiting for it for 4 weeks and it's so frustrating to be so close yet not be able to do anything about it!

[Shelley]

I finally finished! Wooo!

[Pam]

Congrats! And now you have time to read whatever you like!