52 Books in 52 Weeks Wrapup

By -
Time for another wrap-up post!  Robin wants to know:


1) How many books did you read this year?

I'll be at 200 or so by year's end.

2) Did you meet or beat your own personal goal?

I joined the 150+ Challenge just for fun, but I was pretty sure I would hit it with no problem.  Number goals are not really my thing.  

3) Favorite book of 2012? (You can list more than one or break it down by genre)

There were lots, and I'm not even sure how to pick.  For sure:
And There Was Light
Doctor Zhivago 
The Book of the City of Ladies
Madame Bovary
Periodic Tales
Behind the Beautiful Forevers

4) Least favorite book of 2012 and why?  

I probably didn't finish it, whatever it was.  I know there were some like that but no longer have them in my brainspace.  Of the books I finished and blogged about, I'll go with The Romance of the Rose.  The first third was fine, but Jean de Meun--I would like to have a few words with you.

5) One book you thought you'd never read and was pleasantly surprised you like it?

The Phantom of the Opera for sure!  I would not have read that if it hadn't been in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen challenge and I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  It's a good book, read it!

6) One book you thought you'd love but didn't?

Er. I can't really think of one--there must have been several but I probably didn't finish them.  Life is way too short to read very many books I don't like, unless I have a compelling reason for it.

7) One book that touched you - made you laugh, cry, sing or dance. 

Bab: a Sub-Deb had me in tears of laughter, does that count?

 8) Any new to you authors discovered and you can't wait to read more of their stories?

A bunch! 
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Edith Wharton
Laini Taylor
Rhys Bowen 
Eugene Yelchin
Tsitsi Dangarembga
Lissa Evans
Katherine Boo
Alethea Kontis         

9) Name the longest book you read?  Shortest? 

Longest: either The Romance of the Rose or The Good Soldier Svejk, which I'm a bit more than halfway through now.  I also started this really great book called India: A Sacred Geography that is hugely long, though probably not as long as Svejk.  Fun fact: something I learned in the India book helped me just two days later while I was watching a Hindi movie.

 Shortest: I don't even know.  Hesiod's Works and Days?  Solzhenitsyn's Warning to the West?

10) Name the most unputdownable book you read?

 Gee, I don't know.  I'll go for Alethea Kontis' Enchanted.  Oh, and Atlas of Love, though my reaction was mixed.  I loved most of it, but thought the Katie character was so unrealistic that it overshadowed the whole book for me.

11) Book that had the greatest impact on you this year?

And There Was Light, by Jaques Lusseyran.

12) What book would you recommend everybody read?

And There Was Light, by Jaques Lusseyran.  Read it!

13) Share your most favorite cover(s)

  










These two, plus the Bloomsbury covers that I never get to actually see in real life.  Also the Penguin English Library paperback covers, but I only have one and I haven't read it yet.

14) Do you have a character you fell in love with? 

Hm, I can't think of any right now.   You mean like Mr. Darcy fall in love or just anybody I liked a lot?  I don't usually do the Mr. Darcy thing...oh, I did quite like Thomas Venn and poor Clym from Return of the Native.

15) What was your most favorite part of the challenge? Did you do any of the mini challenges?

I didn't do mini-challenges this year, but I do plan to in 2013.  I just like talking with everyone about what we're reading!

What are your goals for the new year?  To read more non fiction? To dip your toes into a mystery or a urban fantasy?  What book are you most looking forward to reading in 2013? 

To focus more on classics and on the books on my wishlist and TBR pile.  That pile contains these books that I'm really looking forward to:

In the First Circle
Anna Karenina
The Mill on the Floss
Far From the Madding Crowd (I'm more willing to read Hardy now that I've survived Return of the Native)

Thanks to Robin for a great year of reading!  Robin puts a lot of work into this challenge and it's just wonderful for many people.

Comments

  1. Robin MDecember 27, 2012 at 2:48 PM

    Thank you. It's a lot of fun. You had a great reading year. Look forward to hearing about your reads in 2013.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ChinoiseriesJanuary 2, 2013 at 6:26 AM

    Great round-up post, Jean! 200 books, eh? Wow :) And you're absolutely right, life is too short to read books that you don't like. I hope you'll get to read all the books you want in 2013 :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanJanuary 2, 2013 at 9:15 AM

    Good to see you again! :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more