A Reading Life (48) - Almost six months later...

Yes, it's a pattern with me. I never quite do what I say/what I set out to do. I have good intentions, but then real life gets in the way...and my poor blog, which I love so, is so neglected.

I've been doing a lot of reading, as always, but just not posting my thoughts as much. I just get bogged down and then I don't want to talk about what I read. Sometimes I think it's because I think my thoughts should go a certain way, or the review should be just so, according to some standard. I'm not reviewing as many books for authors. I've pretty much decided to only accept books from authors I know/have reviewed for before (and that's mostly horror authors at the moment so will be over at my sister blog, Castle Macabre). So, my thoughts on books from my home library, mostly older books, should just be my thoughts. Right? I guess I just need to get that through my head.

I've also been listening to more audio books. Here's what I've listened to since January:

American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Jaws, Peter Benchley
Little Girls, Ronald Malfi (reread)
The Plantagenets, Dan Jones
Black River, Dean Koontz
The Bear, Claire Cameron
The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro (currently listening)

I SO enjoy audio books, although I think my boys get irritated. I do find them getting into the stories sometimes though. I've also been listening to some writing podcasts, as I'm trying to focus more on my writing (now that I have a job that takes up more of my time...go figure). This below needs to be in my face constantly...

via GIPHY

I wanted to share with you some changes to my two online book clubs (on Goodreads), TuesBookTalk and Lit Collective.

TuesBookTalk has always been a genre based book club in which we read a different genre each month (decided by voting). We also have three non-fiction months in January, May and September. Recently, I decided to set genres for specific months to cut down on the amount of voting we do, and to make it easier for members. Below is the graphic outlining what genres we read in which months. Come join us any time. We now do our chats on Slack (we have a "team" on there for TuesBookTalk) and it's so nice not to have to deal with a character limit. Of course, thoughts can also be exchanged in the Goodreads group at any time.

Our June read, which is Science Fiction, is Dune by Frank Herbert.

Lit Collective is what we call an online reading retreat which takes place in the Spring and end of Summer/Fall. We will nominate and vote on a theme for the Spring retreat and then choose a list of 2-3 books to read and discuss in March, April and May. For our end of Summer/Fall retreat, we will focus on selected works of a particular author which will also be chosen by vote. We will read 2-3 works by said author and discuss in August, September and October. We generally have our chats after we've read the whole book. So, at the end of its designated month. We're also going to have our chats on Slack (Slack is free to join, by the way...forgot to mention that). As mentioned above, thoughts can also be exchanged in the Goodreads group at any time.

We are currently finishing up The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (on which I'm seriously behind, although it is a reread for me) and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Right now, it's looking like Sarah Waters is going to be our featured author for August, September, and October (I'm pretty excited if it does turn out to be her. I loved The Little Stranger).

via GIPHY

Finally, I'd like to share with you two events coming up on June 1st.

The SciFi Summer Readathon, hosted at my readathon blog, Seasons of Reading, starts Thursday and runs until Wednesday June 7th. Details and sign up HERE.

The Summer of IT!!! In anticipation of the new movie coming out in September, I'm hosting a three month read-along of Stephen King's massive tome, IT! This will be hosted via my reading community site, Gather Together and Read (for schedule/sign-up/discussion) and I'll also have an event for discussions via the Gather Together and Read Facebook group. Check at Gather Together and Read later today to sign up and get the reading schedule.

Well, it's summer so dipping my toe back in the pool of this blogging thing. No promises, but I'm going to try. We shall see...

What's going on in your reading life?

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A Reading Life - Oh, the reading plans for April...and beyond! (39)

It has been ages since I've done a Reading Life post. I think it's about time to get back into it...and what better time than this month...April 2016, the month for all the reading!

So, this month I'm hosting Roots: The Read Along, as I'm sure many of you already know. It officially started on April 1st, but our first discussion isn't for two weeks so you can still join us. Get all the details here.

I recently decided to sign up for Read The Nobels, a perpetual challenge hosted by Guiltless Reading. There is also a 2016 challenge in conjunction with the perpetual challenge which I'm also signing up for. I will do a more detailed post about my sign up for the above at my reading challenge blog. In addition to the above, Guiltless Reading is also hosting a challenge this month to go along with Read The Nobels and Travel the World in Books challenges, Where in the World will your Nobel Take You?

The Book I chose for this challenge, which is also on my Travel the World in Books reading list, is Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth by Naguib Mahfouz.

Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1988.
"who, through works rich in nuance - now clear-sightedly realistic, now evocatively ambiguous - has formed an Arabian narrative art that applies to all mankind"

From the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and author of the Cairo trilogy, comes Akhenaten, a fascinating work of fiction about the most infamous pharaoh of ancient Egypt.

In this beguiling new novel, originally published in 1985 and now appearing for the first time in the United States, Mahfouz tells with extraordinary insight the story of the "heretic pharaoh," or "sun king,"--and the first known monotheistic ruler--whose iconoclastic and controversial reign during the 18th Dynasty (1540-1307 B.C.) has uncanny resonance with modern sensibilities. Narrating the novel is a young man with a passion for the truth, who questions the pharaoh's contemporaries after his horrible death--including Akhenaten's closest friends, his most bitter enemies, and finally his enigmatic wife, Nefertiti--in an effort to discover what really happened in those strange, dark days at Akhenaten's court. As our narrator and each of the subjects he interviews contribute their version of Akhenaten, "the truth" becomes increasingly evanescent. Akhenaten encompasses all of the contradictions his subjects see in him: at once cruel and empathic, feminine and barbaric, mad and divinely inspired, his character, as Mahfouz imagines him, is eerily modern, and fascinatingly ethereal. An ambitious and exceptionally lucid and accessible book, Akhenaten is a work only Mahfouz could render so elegantly, so irresistibly. (from Goodreads)

Week One questions for the challenge:

When someone says "Nobel Prize winner for literature," what comes to mind? Is it a positive or negative reaction? Why do you think you have this reaction?

Definitely positive. I'm anticipating some really great, well-written books from these authors and winners of the Nobel Prize. I'm really very open minded about books. While some may think books by Nobel Prize winning authors might be stuffy (or pretentious), I prefer to keep an open mind.

What book did you choose? Akhenaten: Dweller in Truth

Who is the author / when did they win the Nobel Prize / nationality? 

Naguib Mahfouz (Arabic author) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He published over 50 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have been made into Egyptian and foreign films.

Where does this story take place?

Ancient Egypt during the 18th Dynasty (1540-1307 B.C.) of Egyptian pharaohs, the reign of Akhenaten.

Why did you pick this particular book?

It has been on my TBR for some time, and it's on my Travel the World in Books list. Plus, I'm fascinated with ancient Egypt. Always have been.

What other authors / books did you also consider for this challenge? 

None really. I was seeking a short book since I have so much on my reading plate this month. This one fit the bill.
Also, this month....

My Spring into Horror Read-a-Thon over at Seasons of Reading, coming April 18 - 24. Sign up here. (Don't worry...you only have to read one scary book, and it doesn't have to be straight horror. Whatever is scary to you and within your comfort zone)

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon, coming Saturday April 23. This is during my Spring Read-a-Thon. So, why not do both? Sign up here.

What else am I reading?

My TuesBookTalk read along group on Goodreads is reading The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Bronte by Syrie James. Group details here.

My Classics Club Spin selection is The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.

Our featured author for our August online reading retreat at Lit Collective at Goodreads is Jane Smiley. We're reading A Thousand Acres, The Greenlanders, and 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel. Join us here.

It's going to be interesting to see if I can get all this reading done. Whether I do or not, it's the trying that is always fun.

Recent book acquisitions...

The Troop, Nick Cutter (one of my selections for Spring into Horror)
The Deep, Nick Cutter
The Treatment, Mo Hayder
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, John Boyne
Child 44, Tom Rob Smith
Pigs in Heaven, Barbara Kingsolver
The Shards of Heaven, Michael Livingston (won from Fantasy Literature)
The Mistletoe Inn, Richard Paul Evans
God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Christopher Hitchens
How to Write, Richard Rhodes
The Fast Diet, Michael Mosley
Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, Jennifer Chiaverini
The Book of Killowen, Erin Hart
Inferno, Dan Brown
The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino
The Incas, Daniel J. Peters

What's going on in your Reading Life?

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2014 Reading Challenges and a new literary group, Lit Collective

 

I vowed to myself that I would sign up for less than 10 challenges this year and I did it! I ended up signing up for 9 and one of those is a long term challenge that I'm spreading over 4 years. Of course, I'm keeping track over at my challenge blog, but listed below are the challenge buttons for the ones I signed up for.

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I also want to take a moment to officially announce my new book discussion community which I started with Heather at Between the Covers and Laura at Book Snob over at Goodreads. It's called Lit Collective: An Online Reading Retreat. We'll be having our "online retreats" twice a year. In March, we focus on books grouped around a theme. This March our theme is World World I. The books we're reading are:

4 Fiction
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
The Gendarme, Mark Mustian
The Light Between Oceans, M.L. Stedman
The Sandcastle Girls, Chris Bohjalian

1 Non-Fiction
The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm, Juliet Nicolson

Each week, we will focus our discussion on one book, with discussion of the non-fiction title being more of a side discussion in addition to the others. Discussions will take place predominantly in the group, but we will have a Twitter hashtag for any Twitter chats or parties we decide to have and for announcements and it is #litcollective.

I will have the schedule of what books will be discussed when and some advance discussion questions posted in the group soon. In August, the retreat will revolve around 3 or 4 selected works of a certain author. We will vote on this in the group. 

To find out all the details and to join the group, visit Lit Collective here. We'd love to have you!

Reminder: Sign ups are open for A Winter's Respite over at Seasons of Reading. Click HERE, or the image below, to sign up.