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2012 Individual Challenges
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HomeInMyShoes’ 2012 Reading Challenge - The Lazy Dog
Finished my eighteenth book of the year. Only three more decades to go to finish one of my challenges.James Gleick, The Information (2010)
A good read. A couple of the chapters were a little dry. Maybe there's a reason that Babbage rhymes with cabbage. Overall quite entertaining.
Finished my nineteenth book of the year. Number twenty on the original list.Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (19th C)
Entertaining.
Finished my twentieth book of the year. Another not from the original list, but it knocked another letter off the list. Under the 'R':Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2010s)
Quite good. Very entertaining. I liked the concept. Really enjoyable.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "Finished my twentieth book of the year. Another not from the original list, but it knocked another letter off the list. Under the 'R':Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (..."
Is it scary?
MrsJoseph wrote: "Is it scary?"I think you need to give some examples on a scariness scale to make that judgement.
Please rate a few things on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being soft fluffly lambs in a field 10 being The Excorcist is in your basement talking with the creature from It about how they have had enough of you.
It wasn't overly scary, it had a bit of suspense, but nothing ugly. Only a couple of sort of gruesome scenes, but not that much. I'd rate this a 4.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "I think you need to give some examples on a scariness scale to make that judgement.Please rate a few things on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being soft fluffly lambs in a field 10 being The Excorcist is in your basement talking with the creature from It about how they have had enough of you.
It wasn't overly scary, it had a bit of suspense, but nothing ugly. Only a couple of sort of gruesome scenes, but not that much. I'd rate this a 4. "
I love this comment, lol!
I'm a total wuss. I don't watch supernatural...
Probably not the best selection for you. I still think you could make it. I don't think my current reading selections are much better as recommendations for you: currently Fight Club and just picked up I am Legend. $0.99 for Fight Club was way too good a deal and $2.99 for I am Legend was pretty decent too. I also picked up A Hat Full of Sky for something more fun. The library is being slow getting me books off my list so I needed to stock up on filler. :)
Awww Fight Club for $0.99? :(I would have purchased for that price.
It showed up on Amazon for about a day at most. I lucked out that it was the one day I decided to sift through the deals forum on MobileRead.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "It showed up on Amazon for about a day at most. Actually looking back it was actualy $0.25. I lucked out that it was the one day I decided to sift through the deals forum on MobileRead."
I finished book number 21. No progress on the alphabet or decade challenges.Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club (1990s)
I don't recall the movie being quite as violent as the book was. I really enjoyed this book. So many great quotes in it.
"One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it, but a minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection."
"Recycling and speed limits are bullshit," Tyler said. "They're like someone who quits smoking on his deathbed."
I think you're right. None of that for me, lol.
I finished A Hat Full of Sky. Very entertaining. I only have one more book left of the Tiffany Aching set from Terry Pratchett left to read.In other news, I managed to find Catherynne M. Valente's The Labyrinth. Well, not that book exactly, but it and three other early short novels are in the Myths of Origin: Four Short Novels collection which I picked up at Chapters yesterday. I feel better having less crossed off the original list.
I finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Very good. I liked it perhaps even more than the movie which I need to rewatch now.Only six more letters left: B, O, P, U, W, Y
Only two more decades left: 1930s, 1950s
You are doing so well!I've always wanted to read DADOES (me super lazy). I'll have to get around to it one of these days.
I might actually complete the entire original list now that I managed to find the one costly book. I'm so far ahead of schedule that I can probably add Irving back in after substituting.I've already started plotting titles for next year's challenge list, but I don't have a theme. I need a schtick beyond read x pages or y books for this to be fun. It's the subchallenges that entertain me.
Yeah - I've got a couple I've already noted down for next year.
I finished book number 24 last night.Catherynne M. Valente The Labyrinth
Very enjoyable. Seems like a pretty standard statement for things this year for me. Her writing is lush and can be difficult, but it is just beautiful to read.
Book number 25 is done and one more decade complete. Only one decade to go.Richard Matheson, I Am Legend
Very good. It could have been a bit longer. There really is a great story there and it's no wonder it has been the basis of more than one movie.
Definitely slowing down now. But, I finished book number 27. My average pages a day has dropped to 80.28 and I've only read 877 pages this month so far.Non-fiction. Arlene G. Taylor, The Organization of Information. I probably should have only read about three chapters in this one, but I'm a persistent bugger. If there's a field that is more acronym-happy than my field, it's library science.
lol! I always wanted to be a librarian...until I realized I needed a degree in library science.
Hmmm...how shall we categorize that post? Careers? Education-Advanced? Education-Post Secondary? Dreams? If we look at what people should use the post for, it would be: Commentary-Humour.
I picked up Paddy Clarke ha ha ha as an e-book for $6.50 yesterday. First e-book I had bought in a month. Thanks to Amazon I'm almost completely free of the e-book habit.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "I picked up Paddy Clarke ha ha ha as an e-book for $6.50 yesterday. First e-book I had bought in a month. Thanks to Amazon I'm almost completely free of the e-book habit."Really?? I'm pretty weaned off of a lot of them, too. I've gotten so sick of the fragmentation that it's just easier to read a DTB. But I still have a slew of ebooks, lol.
Finished another paper book from the library.John Updike, Rabbit Run (1960s)
Very good. Hard to recommend this enough.
Well that was fun.Tropic of Hockey: My Search for the Game in Unlikely Places by Dave Bidini. Another book, number 29 and another letter, B. Only O, Q, W and Y left plus the 1930s to call my challenges complete.
Under the O,A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe.
Often disturbing. A wonderful character study of a man faced with a situation no one would want. Recommended even though I only gave it three stars.
Only three letters left: Q, W, Y.
Only one decade left: 1930.
My challenges might have a problem. I requested Whale Music by Paul Quarrington from my library, but it hasn't moved in two weeks. Yes it's a paper book. I'm not sure if I should give up on it yet or not.Does anyone have a Q suggestion for me. My backup plan is either a different Quarrington book or perhaps Ellery Queen.
Book number 31 is in the books and one of my challenges is complete. No more decades. From the 1930s:Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Very enjoyable and still very relevant for a science fiction book written in the 1930s.
It feels good to have one of the challenges complete.
CONGRATS!!!
Thanks.Only two more letters to go after polishing off under the Y:
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu. Five stars. Read it.
Under the P, again. :)I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett. Four stars. Fun and enjoyable. I'm sad that there won't be any more Pratchett titles coming.
I need to read some Prachett.
You've read none? If you want to kill two birds with one stone go read Good Omens by both Pratchett and Gaiman. Number 68 on the BBC's Big Read list. A list which I think I'm going to be using to find some more things to read. I can't believe I just said that. *shakes head in shame*
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "You've read none? If you want to kill two birds with one stone go read Good Omens by both Pratchett and Gaiman. Number 68 on the BBC's Big Read list. A list which I think I'm going to be using to f..."I started the Colour of Magic but can't get into it...
What's bugging you about it? I'd suggest Mort or Equal Rites as a starting point. Mort might work better out of sequence in my opinion, but Discworld doesn't force you into reading in sequence. Sometimes there is the occassional item previous, but not much. Or, I'd suggest the Tiffany Aching series, starting with The Wee Free Men.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "What's bugging you about it? I'd suggest Mort or Equal Rites as a starting point. Mort might work better out of sequence in my opinion, but Discworld doesn't force you into reading in sequence. Som..."Honestly? It just never caught my attention. Rincewhatever was boring and the plot line was not that interesting - so far. And nothing was really funny. I would find myself staring off into space.
But everyone told me to start there...so I just never got anywhere.
Of course...now that i think about it...JSWolf was the loudest "you must start here" person...
I start where I want. I've picked up a couple of Discworld not in order without trouble. Some streams are better read in order, but I read Wintersmith before others.People tend to love Pratchett or just think meh. You might be in the meh category. You do need to read it as a bit of fantasy and definitely social satire in my books. I loved the first four or five in the series. Mort and Equal Rites are very high on my list of favourites.
I like those types of books, though. I loved The Hitchhikers Guide and Myth, Inc. books.
I was thinking of going back and finishing up some of the Myth series. I think I got to Mythnomers and Im-Pervections.
Under the Q...Paul Quarrington, Whale Music (1990s)
Quite enjoyable. Not as funny as expected or advertised, but I will definitely give Mr. Quarrington another go with King Leary at some point.
Only one letter left to complete both challenges. W.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "I was thinking of going back and finishing up some of the Myth series. I think I got to Mythnomers and Im-Pervections."That one was pretty funny IIRC.
Under the R...had you fooled didn't I. You thought I was going to say W to finish this all off, but that will have to wait.Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing Cross-Channel User Experiences by Andrea Resmini.
Big thumbs up to this book if you're interested in this stuff.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "Under the R...had you fooled didn't I. You thought I was going to say W to finish this all off, but that will have to wait.Pervasive Information Architecture: Designing Cross-Channel User Experie..."
ummmmm...???
Think library science for the 21st century. Information Architecture is interested in how we categorize, order, display and make the increasing amount of information findable (locatable and navigable). It is the structure of shared information spaces. Pervasive IA means IA for everywhere, for everything, for every time. It's a flexible IA that can adapt to new uses and across channels. Think of a channel like a way of accessing something. Maybe your home computer, maybe your mobile phone, maybe within the store itself, maybe in printed form, etc.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "Think library science for the 21st century. Information Architecture is interested in how we categorize, order, display and make the increasing amount of information findable (locatable and navigab..."That sounds interesting but boring at the same time, lol.
Homeinmyshoes wrote: "Well, it's not romance."Library Science is romance to some. :)
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