Reading Writers

Summer Reading Challenge ends

2011-09-11T23:33:00.000-07:00

On May 31, I began a reading challenge.

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, my 'book turned movie', I traveled vicariously to beautiful Italy, India, and Bali. I fell in love with Gilbert’s personable writing style and her honesty. It is no wonder that Gilbert’s follow-up novel, Committed: A Love Story became my choice for ‘memoir of a person you admire’. I discovered Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone on a friend's table. Set in Sierra Leone, this memoir fit perfectly into my 'book set in a place you want to visit' category. So, in my imagination, I have visited Africa twice this summer. I chose Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, set in Kenya (and Chicago), as my 'book about a cause that concerns you'. In this book, Obama struggles with issues of identity. I am familiar with this inner turmoil. Speaking of identity, I am Bahamian. I found my ‘author from your home country who lives abroad’ book in Christian Campbell’s Running the Dusk. I welcomed this shift from prose to poetry. I enjoyed the familiar Caribbean imagery in this book, and breezed through its pages in a few hours. But Pride & Prejudice, my ‘classic novel’ choice, was another story altogether. I fought with this book, trying to make peace with its dated language. That never happened. I am currently reading my ‘first time author’ choice – Johanna Skibsrud’s The Sentimentalist.

This summer reading challenge renewed my love for leisurely reading. I remember many adolescent nights spent awake with my imagination, a John Grisham novel, The Baby-sitters Club series or Nancy Drew book in hand. I loved books. I don’t know what separated us, but I suspect it had something to do with ‘required reading’ for academic courses. Did academic reading make me wary of all books?

I don't know.

But I do know that my appetite for reading is back. I hope to continue feeding... I mean, reading. :)

Thank you to those who participated in this “Get Ready! Get Set! Read” challenge with me - whether through this blog, Chapters.ca, or Goodreads.com! I know of 35 people who joined this challenge. A special shout-out goes to members of the “Booklover’s Hideaway” group at Goodreads.com who were enthusuastic about the challenge categories, and posted updates throughout the past three months. Thanks for taking this journey!

Final Month

2011-08-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Today marks the final month of the Challenge. I am excited.

"Knock Knock. I'm a Distraction."

2011-07-18T20:08:00.000-07:00

When I set a reading goal, it's amazing what distractions come a-knocking.

The 'lunch break that could' - the one where I promised to complete an extra chapter or two - never leaves the station.

The 'let me check my email' moment morphs into an hour or two of Facebooking and/or Youtubing.

Soon, I hear, "Telephone for you!" The owner of the voice behind my closed and locked room door has forgotten my earlier request: "I'm unavailable for calls right now."

The work day has been so long and the previous night's rest so short. Soon after I open my ebook at 11pm my focus is fighting sleep, big time! Of course, sleep wins.

If I am to complete this challenge, I must not answer the distractions. For me, this challenge is not a matter of how many books you complete, but the quality time we spend reading. This is what I'm missing, quality reading time.

P

And I Quote ...

2011-07-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

At an early age I began to collect quotes - some ascribed to prolifict speakers, others attributed to writers of television commercials, talk show hosts, strangers in passing, sign and posters, etc, etc.

I discovered this quote. I feel that these words fit our challenge:

'Tis the good reader that makes the good book; in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakenly meant for his ear; the profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader; the profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until it is discovered by an equal mind and heart. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Society and Solitude, 1870

If Emerson is correct, there are passages in our books that resonate with us. Here, we can share the "profoundest thoughts" that we, "good readers", find in the books we "discover" this summer. :)

Fellow Summer Reading Challengers at Goodreads.com

2011-06-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

Hey Readers,

I want to let you know that you are not alone. Other readers are taking up the challenge through the "Book Lover's Hideaway" group at Goodreads.com

I really want this blog to be a meeting place where we talk about the books we're reading. Hopefully, the 'Goodreaders' will stop by our blog every so often to join the discussion. You can also visit the link below and see the books your fellow summer challengers have chosen. You may find that your choices coincide. :)

Logon to: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/561874-get-ready-get-set-read-summer-reading-challenge-starts-in-a-few-da#comment_form and let the summer reading continue. :)

Getting Started. What are you reading first?

2011-05-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

I hope you guys are getting those books together!! Now that my library has removed me from its blacklist, I can begin borrowing books (Long story). I really wanted to start the challenge with Category 1: book turned movie. Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" is my choice, but my library doesn't have it. So where do I start now? Do I read Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" as my Category 1, or leave it as my Category 4 : classic novel? Decisions. Decisions.

So, tell me, what book are you starting the challenge with? Remember, we don't have to complete the categories in the order they were given.

Why not share some information about your first book choice here like the initial pub date, plot, any literary awards won, etc. Why did you choose to start with this book?

Get Ready! Get Set! Read!! Summer Reading Challenge 2011

2011-05-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

Reading is great summer entertainment! No batteries required. No annoying cinemagoer talking on his/her cellphone. It's just you, your books, and your imagination. This summer reading challenge should be lots of fun. I thank you for joining me as we read just for the love of good writing. So here's to summer reading!

GOAL: 8 titles that you have never read before! (10 for a bonus. Hey, why not )

CRITERIA: Choose any title in the following categories:

1. A book that was turned into a major motion picture.
2. A book set in a place that you would like to visit.
3. A book written by an author from your home country, region, or with your ancestoral background who lives in a foreign country.
4. A classic novel.
5. A book from the BBC list (List in previous post)
6. A novel by a first time author.
7. A biography/autobiography/memoir about someone you admire.
8. A book about the environment
9. Free choice!
10. Free choice!

Start date: May 31
End date: August 31

Please feel free to join! Share comments about the books you're reading. This challenge is about filling the summer with productive, mind-building activities and renewing a love for reading. I hear that reading is a great way to expand your vocabulary and develop writing skills ;)

Get Ready! Get Set! Read!!

*BBC Book List for Category 5 of the Challenge:

2011-05-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbon
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo