Collecting Dust November 2014 Challenge

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

It's ime for November's Collecting Dust Challenge to get started. This year does seem to be moving fast.

Remember, this is a monthly challenge for those readers who have unread books on the TBR collecting dust.

This challenge will help you get to the books yu want to read but just keep putting off.

If you want to participate then from your TBR bookshelf list 5 books that you would like to read in the month of November. The next person who comments will pick two choices from your list. You are only obligated to read 1 of the books chosen, but you may want to read both. Once you have read it, let us know and you may add your review or link to your review.

Rules:
1. If you want to participate, please sign up (list your five books) by September 30th.

2. Choose two books from the person's list that commented before you. First person to list 5 books is the person who picks two books for the last person of the month. (I'll remind you)

3. You have the entire month to read your selections and post your thoughts. No pressure all the past months this year are still open for comments.

[Rachel]

Here are my dusty books:

1. The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis

2. Julie and Romeo by Jeanne Ray

3. Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times by George Crile

4. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

5. Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge by Liny Woodhead

[Alissa]

Hi Rachel!
I choose for you: Water for Elephants & The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game.

My top 5 are-
1.)Dash & Lily's Book of Dares
2.)It's Kind of a Funny Story
3.)Love Letters to the Dead
4.)The Knife of Never Letting Go
5.)Everything Leads to You

[Lindy-Lane]

for alissa i pick Everything Leads to You & Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

my list:
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews (11.2)
Stitch Me Deadly by Amanda Lee
The Back of Beyond by Barbara Bickmore
A Rift in Time by Michael Phillips
Midnight in Death by J.D. Robb

[Sarah]

For Lindy-Lane I pick Flowers in the Attic and Midnight in Death.

My list:

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
The Waking Engine by David Edison
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Celebromancy by Michael R. Underwood

[Julie]

Sarah for you I choose Northanger Abbey and Watership Down books I have both enjoyed :-)

I would like a pick among the following 5 books:
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet by Xinran
Exodus by Leon Uris
Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit by Daniel Quinn
London by Edward Rutherfurd

[Nathan]

For Julie, I pick Exodus and The Fault in Our Stars. Both are on my TBR list and I'd like to hear what you think.

My November picks are:

Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

[[deleted user]]

Nathan, I pick Cat's Cradle and The Penelopiad.

My November books are:

The 39 Steps by John Buchan
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
Every Last One by Anna Quindlen
Morality Play by Barry Unsworth

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

Hi Pigletto!

I'll choose for you in November: The Unconsoled and Morality Play. They both sound really interesting. Actually you have a great list of 5 for the month.


For my November read I need to get in an Author with last name starting with I to finish off my A-Z Author Challenge

1) The World According to Garp
2) Memory of Water
3) The Remains of the Day
4) Einstein: His Life and Universe
5) Yellow Crocus

[Faouzia]

Hi Kathy,i choose for you "The world according to Garp" and "Yellow Crocus" they both sounded interesting to me.

My November list is:
1. Middlemarch, by George Eliot
2. Vilette, by Charlotte Bronté
3. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
4. To kill a mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King

[Tina]

Hi Fauzia, I pick for you In Cold Blood and To Kill a Mockingbird

My list is:
The Wall
Lolita
The Princess Bride
Lord of the Flies
My Ántonia

[[deleted user]]

Sorry, Bettina - I accidentally erased my last entry, instead of editing it. So I choose the same two books for you, again: Lolita and The Princess Bride (Thank you for the "friend" :-)

My 5 books:
1. The God of Small Things
2. Appointment in Samarra
3. For Whom the Bell Tolls
4. The Sound and the Fury
5. The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

[D]

Sorry, Jasper. I haven't read any of the these but, after looking at them, I choose:

1. For Whom the Bell Tolls
2. The Sound and the Fury.

My list:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

[Desertorum]

Hi, I´m in for the last minute ;)

Danielle, I haven´t read any of those books but have considered the Gone Girl so that would be my first pick for you and then the second one is Franz Kafka´s The Trial because it sounds very interesting and I´m interested to hear your opinion.

My list:

1. East of Eden
2. To Kill a Mockingbird
3. Norwegian Wood
4. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

Desertorum since its November 1st I'll pick for you. to me there is no contest I choose East of Eden and To Kill a Mockingbird. Two of the best books I've ever read.

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

OK that's it no more challenges for November. Please post any thoughts and comment on our reads you wish to share. Enjoy your reading!

[Rachel]

Just saw the message Bob. Glad you were able to help out.

[Desertorum]

Thanks Bob! I see I´m in for little "scary" and big classics :) Looking forward to it.

[Alissa]

i finished my first November book that Lindy-Lane gave me- Dash & Lily's Book of Dares. After a month-long race of reading lots of horror for October, Dash & Lily was exactly what I needed. It's a YA novel that's nice and fluffy with some good humor in it. I found it very charming, and since it takes place around Christmas/New Years it got me in the holiday spirit a bit early. Thanks for the choice!

[[deleted user]]

Reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway ... looking at my name and purchase date on the frontispiece, I was sixteen when I bought this book - the only book by Hemingway I haven't read. Surprised, actually, at the level of organizational psychology - valid psychology - there is in the book. I've never thought of Hemingway as a particularly profound or insightful author, just a very gifted one. Giving him second thoughts - there's a lot of ironic similarities between communists fighting Franco in Spain, and American corporate culture of the 2000's. Disturbing and delightful, funny and morose, all at the same time. Strangely clever.

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

I read my November read, Yellow Crocus. Not my favorite but an okay read -- happy ending mostly.

[Desertorum]

I have now read the first book November; East of Eden by John Steinbeck.
About first 200 pages I was pretty sure this is not my favourite book. It was like waiting something to go wrong all the time and I felt that the badness in people was very extreme. But then there was enough glimpses of other things and it got better towards the end. I´m very happy it was chosen for me to read and I gave it 4 stars.

[D]

I've just finished Gone Girl. I read some comments that claim that it's 'mean spirited'. I completely disagree. I thought that the darkness of it was what was so compelling about it. I'm not into thrillers usually, but I couldn't stop reading this book. The characters are not likeable, yet it doesn't try to make you like them, it shows how flawed people are and opens up the idea of how losing someone makes us appreciate/understand them more.

I recommend this book.

[Desertorum]

I have read the other book of November; To Kill a Mockingbird. It has been on my to read -list for ages and when some book is there a long time it´s hard to it pick up. I had this feeling that I probably won´t like it...but it ended up being really good. In my opinion it described well how children see and feel things. It wasn´t too brutal with the things it described but moving and somehow even warm. No wonder it´s a classic.

[[deleted user]]

I'm thinking I might have waited a few days too many to being my dusty shelf challenge (maybe that's why I have so many books gathering dust!), but I am definitely enjoying reading For Whom the Bells Toll - even restarted my reading blog about dusting my shelves. I read everything Hemingway wrote when I was young, became disaffected, and now ... rediscovering difficult treasures in his writing and themes. I love it when that happens - rediscovering something brilliant in a book I've previously dismissed. Looking forward to finding the same experience with The Sound and the Fury (which I read earlier only because I had to).

[Faouzia]

i am finnaly starting my book for this challenge, i am about to read "To kill a mockingbird" :)
i am expecting to like it very much :)

[Tina]

Thanks Jasper for suggesting Lolita. It was a reread for me. Read as a teenager and felt I did not remember it well. With this reading, I can see Humbert knowing he is wrong but still compelled; his conflict. I can see Lolita caught up in her budding sexuality and being manipulated into dependence upon her abuser; her undoing.
I love the writing; the descriptions, the use of language. I know I did not appreciate that as a teen.
My reaction to Humbert is best summed up with this quote:
"Nothing is easier than to denounce the evil-doer; nothing more difficult than understanding him."---Dostoevsky.

[Nathan]

I finished one of my picks from Pigletto, Cat's Cradle.

I read Slaughterhouse-Five for a contemporary lit class in college about 17 years ago. I absolutely loved it, but until now I hadn't read any more Kurt Vonnegut. He's a very clever and humorous writer and I enjoyed his philosophical musings, but I was not blown away by Cat's Cradle.

I've gotten to be a reader who values character above everything else in a novel and in that respect, Cat's Cradle is somewhat lacking. While the ideas of the novel are pretty deep, the characters are all fairly shallow and too zany to be taken seriously. Cat's Cradle is not a bad book, just not one I found particularly rewarding.

My other pick is The Penelopiad by one of my favorite writers, Margaret Atwood. I absolutely will read this book soon, but I'm not sure I'll finish by the end of the month as I've decide I want to re-read The Odyssey first. I've already finished The Woman in White and I'm working on A Tale of Two Cities now for our group reads...I just have a feeling I'll run out of time to get it all done before December.

[Lindy-Lane]

i finished one of my books that sarah had picked for me:
Flowers in the Attic.

it was a re-read for me as i had read it shortly after it was first published. i worked as an assistant manager at waldenbooks back then and had the opportunity to meet the author V.C. Andrews. interesting soul.

as i read it the 2nd time (some 30+ years later), some of the outline of the plot i recalled but not enough that it wasn't worth the while to re-read it and fill in the blank memory holes.

[Faouzia]

i barely made it with my book, i finished last night 'to kill a mockingbird' and i really enjoyed reading it!!

[Julie]

I read The Fault in Our Stars - pretty much cried the whole way through the book - great read!

I didn't manage to get to my other pick, Exodus, in november, but I will be reading it in december instead - just received it from the library :-)

[[deleted user]]

Thank you, Danielle, for choosing For Whom the Bell Tolls. It was a difficult read - emotionally and historically, but I'm glad that I finally have it under my belt. I definitely would not have understood this book if I had read it during my "Hemingway" phase. Not for everyone.

Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[[deleted user]]

Bettina wrote: "Thanks Jasper for suggesting Lolita. It was a reread for me. Read as a teenager and felt I did not remember it well..."

I'm glad you liked it! I loved that quotation by Dostoevsky - I've been thinking I might need to make 2015 my Russian Read year - especially Dostoevsky and Nabokov (The Idiot and Lolita). Might have to wait a bit, though, because ...

... after trying and failing to re-read The Sound and the Fury by Wm. Faulkner in November, I decided that I might attempt his works in 2015. Reading it right after "For Whom the Bell Tolls" was a bit much.

It was reassuring to hear your comments about "Lolita." I've been trying to describe the book for other family and friends; what reading the book meant for me, and I think they all suspect I'm secretly a perv, because I try to described how brilliant Nabokov depicted such an unsavory, flawed psychology. It was a chilling, hilarious, deeply disturbing book for me. I think I need to read it again.