Euro Reading Challenge 2013 Wrapup

By -
Rose City Reader's 2013 Challenge actually extended to the end of this month, so as to give space for wrapping up anything that needed finishing--a great idea, I thought.  Now it's time for the final post and count.  Here are the different countries I visited.  Many of them got several books, really.  I ended up reading maybe 4 books set in Poland, for example, and I don't even know how many UK titles.  And for this purpose, I can only count one UK book, not separate titles for Scotland, England, Wales, and NI.  So here it is:


  1. Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon, by Iosif Shklovsky (Ukraine)
  2. Anna Karenina, by Lev Tolstoy (Russia)
  3.  The Middle Window, by Elizabeth Goudge (UK)
  4. Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James (Italy)
  5. Sister Queens, by Julia Fox (Spain)  
  6. Zaremba, or Love and the Rule of Law, by Michelle Granas (Poland)
  7. The Red and the Black, by Stendhal (France) 
  8. The Trial, by Franz Kafka (Austro-Hungary/Czech Rep.) 
  9. The Queen's Diadem, by C. J. L. Almqvist (Sweden) 
  10. Der Struwwelpeter (in German, so Germany)
  11. Shopping for a Better Country, by Josip Novakovich (Croatia) 
  12. Niels Lyhne, by Jens Peter Jacobsen (Denmark) 
  13. Bloodlands, by Timothy Snyder (Belarus) 
  14. In Search of Ancient Ireland, by Carmel McCaffrey and Leo Eaton (Ireland)
  15.  Beware of Pity, by Stefan Zweig (Austria)
  16. Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas (Iceland)
16 different countries in all.  This is well over the goal of 5 books at the highest level, but there is no way I will win the Jet Setter Prize for the most countries visited.  I would probably have to work pretty hard at that.

Comments

  1. CleoJanuary 25, 2014 at 11:13 PM

    Can you read German, Jean? (I'm so jealous! ;-) )

    You hit Croatia, Belarus and Iceland, so that's pretty impressive!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ArenelJanuary 25, 2014 at 11:57 PM

    Impressive! You beat me by 4 titles :) I hope you'll get the Jet Setter Prize anyway, it's hard to imagine someone has read more :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. JeanJanuary 26, 2014 at 7:52 AM

    Eh, I'm pretty sure Maphead has more, and he says there's a guy in Europe with a whole lot of titles. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 26, 2014 at 5:28 PM

    Speaking of Maphead, here I am! :)
    Nicely done, Jean! Besides the sheer number of books you read for the challenge, the quality of books that you read sets you apart from probably the bulk of the challenge participants. At least several of the books on your list are quite lengthy.
    Well done!
    Inspired by yours, did my Wrap Up post this afternoon.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jen KJanuary 28, 2014 at 1:21 PM

    We tied! I'm impressed with maphead's 21. I really enjoyed Sister Queens when I read it, and I remember Struwwelpeter giving me nightmares as a kid in Germany. Also, the story about the kid that wouldn't eat his soup. So disturbing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gilion at Rose City ReaderFebruary 5, 2014 at 6:02 PM

    Congratulations! You made it to the Honorable Mention list for reading more than 10 books set in different countries.

    The main wrap up post listing you as one of the Honorable Mention participants is here: http://www.rosecityreader.com/2014/02/2013-european-reading-challenge-wrap-up.html

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

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

Popular posts from this blog

Dewey Readathon post

By -
Image
Good morning!  I am not actually awake yet, because it's 5am and I need my sleep, and I will be mostly unable to join in the readathon until this afternoon.  But here is the post where I will make updates. I'm supposed to answer these questions: 1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?  Sunny California!  Emphasis on the "sunny"--after a nice cool spring it's in the 90s now.  I live in the rural northern part above Sacramento that everyone forgets about--we hold 2% of the total population of California. 2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?  It's a smorgasbord of delight!  I don't even know. 3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?  ...you think I'm well-prepared, don't you?  I have a bag of sunflower seeds/Craisins/almond M&Ms, and I'm thinking quite seriously about treating myself to Indian food tonight.  That's all I've got. 4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
Read more

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

Howl's Moving Castle

By -
Image
1986 edition It's Diana Wynne Jones Day!  Kristen at We Be Reading, our host, decreed that today we would discuss Howl's Moving Castle.   And she has a great think-out on the different kinds of magic found in the story.  Throwing several different kinds of magic into a world or a story seems to have been a bit of a DWJ trademark. I can remember quite well where Howl's Moving Castle lived on the shelf in the library where I grew up.  It was not the first DWJ book I read (that was Witch's Business ) but it was one of the early ones.  I must have found it right after it was published in 1986.  As a result, I practically have it memorized -- I could not tell you how many times I've read it.   Even so, I enjoy it anew every time, and I still have new realizations about what's going on.  (Though possibly I have the same ones over and over, and just forget!  My kids tell me so sometimes.) When I first met my husband, he had kind of forgotten reading for fun, a
Read more