October’s Reading list

After a late run in the last few days of September, when I managed to pile through three good books, I am now launched into October’s reading with a target of five os six books for the month.  Current titles that I am reading are:

Blood Harvest by S.J.Bolton

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Solar by Ian McEwan

I need to find a couple of shorter books to add to the list and that should get me partly back on track towards my total of 50 for the year.

2010 Reading list

For the first time this year I decided not only to keep a reading list, but also to challenge myself to read 50 books over the year – about one a week.

That was before I started on some writing challenges.  As a result the months of June [SoCNoC] and August [The End is Nigh] have been zeros for books read.  September has been going the same way too, but I have finished my story for the month and it is back to reading.

I noticed a good challenge the other day -”Reading my Shelves” – just what I need really because my bookshelves are full of books I have bought but never read.  Perhaps next year I will refine my book reading challenge to have a subset of those plucked from my shelves rather than straight from the bookstore.  I’ll need to set a time scale too – how long does a book have top languish on my shelves before it becomes one from the shelves – probably at least two or three months.

So, it doesn’t look like I will hit my 50 target this year – only 25 so far and only three and a half months to go.

The results so far:

• January – 4
• February – 3
• March – 2
• April – 5
• May – 4
• June – 0
• July – 6
• August – 0
• September – 1 (so far)

And here are the actual books, with publication dates and finished dates.  Sometimes the finished dates seems out of order… some books got put aside for a while before I cam back to them.

1. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2001)  3/1/2010
2. Divisidaro, Michael Ondaatje (2007)  8/1/2010
3. The Burning Land, Bernard Cornwell (2009)  23/5/2010
4. Angel Time, Anne Rice (2009)  18/1/2010
5. The Gates of Troy, Glem Iliffe (2009)  26/2/2010
6. The Queen of the South, Arturo Perez Reverte (2004) 31/1/2010
7. The Swan Thieves, Elizabeth Kostova (2010)  12/2/2010
8. Books, Larry McMurtry (2008)  18/2/2010
9. The War that killed Achilles, Catherine Alexander (2009)  3/3/2010
10. The Love of Stones, Tobias Hill (2001)  15/3/2010
11. Borken, Karin Fossum (2006)  3/4/2010
12. Land of Marvels, Barry Unsworth (2009)  8/4/2010
13. Sacrifice, S J Bolton (2008)  24/4/2010
14. The Library of Shadows, Mikkel Birkegaard (2009)  15/4/2010
15. The Hopeless Life of Charlie Summers, Paul Torday (2009)  11/5/2010
16. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, David Wroblewski (2008)  27/5/2010 
17. The Girl on the Landing, Paul Torday (2009)  11/5/2010
18. The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge, Patricia Duncker (2010)  20/5/2010
19. Jasper Jones, Craig Silvey (2009)  5/7/2010
20. From A to X, John Berger (2008)  11/7/2010
21. The Angel’s Game, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2009)  16/7/2010
22. Death at Intervals, Jose Saramago (2008)  18/7/2010
23. Small Memories, Jose Saramago (2009)  21/7/2010
24. The Blasphemer, Nigel Farndale (2010)  28/7/2010
25. Beneath the Wheel, Herman Hesse (1953)  17/9/2010
26.         

 

And there are a few which I have started and then put down in favour of something else.  I’ll come back to them at some stage, but not quite yet.  For the sake of completeness these books are:

1. How Beautiful it is and How Easily it can be Broken, Daniel Mendelsohn (2009)
2. The Post-Birthday World, Lionel Shriver (2007)
3. Travelling Heroes, Robin Lane Fox (2008)
4. The Engagement, Georges Simenon (1933)

Blogging Day 2

Still here, and trying to expand my expertise.

Having added only the most basic of information yesterday, today I have started by adding some links to some of the blogs I have been reading lately.

What I really want is to know how to add pictures and logos onto my right hand column – I have one for winning SoCNoC and another for winning The End is Nigh.  I’d like to put the SpecFicNZ logo on there too but I have no idea how to do this.  Learning to crawl, but wanting to run, that is me all over.

Blogging Day 1

Well, here I am at last in the world of blogging and with only half an idea of what I am doing.

Next step from here are to add some headings and start to collect some of my writing, my book reviews and perhaps even some of my photos.

I wonder where I should start to put them all….?

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