BW12: Spring Beckons

Spring officially arrives on March 20th and with it comes the feeling of rejuvenation.  The feel of the sun,  flowers and trees blossoming, birds singing, squirrels chattering  and mornings sitting out on my patio enjoying nature.  The desire to begin spring cleaning and throw out all the old stuff to make room for the new.  Plus the urge to clean up our garden, explore the nursery, go crazy buying too many flats of plants and get busy digging my fingers into the soil.  And for some unknown reason,  I'm always reminded of Robert Frost and his poem Spring Pools.

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect

The total sky almost without defect,

And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,

Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,

And yet not out by any brook or river,

But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds

To darken nature and be summer woods---

Let them think twice before they use their powers

To blot out and drink up and sweep away

These flowery waters and these watery flowers

From snow that melted only yesterday.

Tell me what you think of when you hear the word Spring.  Words that immediately come to mind for me are rebirth, flowers, buds, seeds, sunshine, bees, birds, sing, bright, pink, new.     Goodreads came up with an interesting lists related to Spring or Flowers or sunshine. 

Decided to get creative and use some of the words from Frost's Poem to find a spring book to read.   Not as easy as you think or else I'm just getting really picky.   Unlike Winter, in which my stacks were full of wintery reads, I don't seem to have nary a one relating to Spring.  Unless I want to count The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. *grin*

Join me in reading books with spring or spring related words in the title for the season of Spring.  

**************************************************

Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  

BW11: 14th Century

This month I'm jumping into the 14th century which ran from 1301 to 1400. It was the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy and later spread throughout Europe after 1450. We begin to see the rise of the alliterative verse as seen in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, along with Pearl, Purity and Patience.  Plus allegorical literature in which symbols were used to describe characters or events, such as William Langland's Piers Plowman or Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as well as Dante's Divine Comedy.   

If you've finished reading Inferno, are you ready to tackle Purgatorio?  Me neither. I spent a good amount of time, reading through the analysis on Sparknotes and looking people up.It was educational, a bit scary, and at times made me feel woefully ignorant when it came to history. But that's not such a bad thing as I can see where it will lead me on plenty of rabbit trails. Not sure if or when I'll go on to Purgatorio. Need to clean my brain with bleach and feed my soul with something positive first.

However, if you are interested, Rod Dreher from American Conservative blog is doing a Lenten readalong of Purgatorio, so head over and check out his detailed commentary.  Very enlightening. 

Check out Goodreads list of Popular 14th Century literature which includes all the ones I mentioned above as well as Umberto Eco, Anya Seton, Bernard Cornwall and Suzanna Gregory to name a few.  If you are feeling adventuresome, delve into the historical chronicles of Froissart and Joinville. 

Join me in reading a book set in the 14th Century.

************************************************************** 

Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  

BW10: Armchair Traveling through France

Welcome to March which is beginning to look like a full month with Lent beginning on the 5th, daylight savings time beginning on the 9th,  St Patrick's day on the 17th and the first day of Spring on the 20th.  Plus the very first Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1901 went to Frenchman Sully Prudhomme whose birthday is March 16, 1839.  In fact, other Nobel Prize literature winners from France include:

Frederic Mistral 1904
Count Maurice Maeterlinck 1911 - Born in Belguim, lived and died in France 
Romain Rolland 1915 
Anatole France  1921
Henri Bergson 1927
Roger Martin Du Gard 1937
Andre Gide 1947
Francois Mauriac 1952
Albert Camus - 1957
Jean-Paul Sartre 1964
Samuel Becket 1969 - born in Ireland but moved and died in France
Claude Simon 1985
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio 2008

So while we are armchair traveling through France this month, consider reading a book or poetry written by one of the Nobel Prize Winners.   

I do seem to have one foot stuck in Italy and the other foot in France and have both Italian and French authors in my backpack.  And since I've delving into the 14th century this month,  Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose, fits the bill perfectly. As well as his Foucault's Pendulum which actually is set in Paris.  Another author I've been meaning to try is Marcel Proust and discovered Swann's Way available for free on Kindle.  For fun I have 3 of Cara Black's books in her Aimee Leduc investigation mystery series as well.

For those who prefer a culinary approach to France, Nancy Pearl from Book Lust to Go recommends checking out Julia Child's My Life in France or Kathleen Flinn's The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry.  Take a food tour through France with Balzac's Omelette by Anka Muhlstein or Ann Mah's Mastering the Art of French Eating. 

For more ideas, check out Goodreads popular French Literature list with includes Camus, Voltaire, Dumas, Balzac, Verne and Sartre to name a few. 

Join me in reading all things French, with a little bit of Italian thrown in on the side.

*********************************************************

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

BW9: Follow the Rabbit Trail

Thinking - Davide Restivo

For some reason I have two words stuck in my brain - Twelve and Road.  Maybe it is because I just finished Justin Cronin's The Twelve and the characters spent a lot of time on the road. Who knows.  What do you think of when you hear the word twelve or see the number 12.  What comes to my mind are a jury, apostles, dozen eggs, months, 12 lords a leaping, knights, and time.   Road, well? A journey, travel, trails, highways, a straight line and exploring. 

Decided to check out my stacks and see what popped. In my stacks are two very dusty books,  The Road to Rome which I've just started and The Road to Jerusalem by Jan Guillou.  Obvious choices. Then, A Blind Alley, Moonlight Mile, Don't Turn Around and Invisible Bridge. Number wise, I have Tenth Stone, Twelfth Iman, 13th Tribe by Robert Liparulo.  

When I look up the road on Amazon, the first hits are The Road by Cormac McCarthy,  The Road by Jack London and On the Road by Jack Kerouac.  Of course, twelfth brings up the obvious, Shakespeare.  Wouldn't you know it. Books I wish I had in my stacks. 


Are you ready to follow some rabbit trails?  Your primary mission is to read  a book already in your stacks with a number or the word road in the title.  Your secondary mission is to see if you can find a book with both the number and a reference to a road or synonyms related to road in the title. 

Happy trails! 

 ************************************************************************* 

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post. 

BW8: 13th Century

This month I am delving into the 13th Century which ran from 1201 to 1300.   Since we have been armchair traveling in Italy this month,  let's concentrate on Italian literature for the moment.  In the 13th Century,  the sonnet became the most popular form of poetry and spread from King Frederick's Sicilian court out through Europe.  Up until the 1260's, the sonnets were all about romance and chivalry.  Guido Guinizelli introduced the mystical and philosophical style which Dante used for his La Vita Nuova.  Folk, doctrinal and religious poetry all came into play during the time period as well. 

If you look at Goodread's lists of The Best Books of the 13th Century and  Popular 13th Century literature, besides Sharon Kay Penman and Elizabeth Chadwick, whom I mentioned before, you'll also find Dante's La Vita Nuova, Umberto Eco's Baudolini, Edith Pargetter's Brothers of Gwynedd as well as Dante's Divine Comedy, St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theology and Sufi mystic Rumi's Love Poetry.  Quite an assortment to choose from.

For more information on 13th Century literature check out Factbites for interesting tidbits of information that I'm sure will send you on all kinds of rabbit trails.   And for sacred poetry around the world by century, check out Poetry Chaikhana. 

Join me in reading a book set in the 13th Century.

********************************************************************

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  

BW7: Armchair traveling through Italy

Have you started reading Dante's Inferno yet?  Yeah, me neither.  There are 34 cantos, so as of today I plan on reading two a day which should have me finishing it by the end of February.  While the rest of the world's eye is on Sochi in Russia, my eyes are on Italy. We are going to do some armchair traveling through Italy reading books set in or written by Italian authors.  So many places to choose from -  Venice, Verona, Rome.  Plus so much history to explore both fictional and non fictional wise.  All roads seem to start with Rome so we'll start there.  I found some interesting links including Italian Legacy which discusses Italian literature of ancient Rome, the middle ages, troubadours, scholars and poets, the beginnings of authentic Italian literature, the renaissance and more.  Definitely well worth checking out.

According to Book Lust to Go, the best place to start is with the history of Rome.  Nancy recommends for a historical fiction tour of Rome; Colleen McCullough's Master of Rome series or Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Roma Series.

I've currently have in my backpack The Road to Rome by Ben Kane which is the 3rd book in his Forgotten Legion Trilogy based in 48BC.    I read The Forgotten Legion a couple years back which totally blew me away, then The Silver Eagle when it came out.  They aren't the easiest books to read.



 
 

Here's what I said back in 2010 when I first read Forgotten Legion:  

"The Forgotten Legion" is an excellent book, very well written, grabs your attention from the very beginning and doesn't let it go.  I'm usually don't read historical fiction because I find them dull, flat, and boring most of the time.     Ben Kane's epic novel surrounding  the lives of Romulus, Fabiola, Tarquinius and Brennus in ancient Rome changed my mind.    Do you think I like it just a little. :)  I normally don't get effusive over a book, but I really, really enjoyed this one.   Yes, what happens to the characters and following it from their perspective could make you cringe at times.  It was a brutal era.  Plus the  lives of the slaves were just as full of political strife and politics and backstabbing as the upper class.

I think what made the story so enjoyable is I just finished taking a course in Art from the Ancients up the 14th century.  Learning all about the art and architecture of the Roman era, then reading as the characters and their activities took place in the roman forum to pompey to the silk highway to the coliseum where the gladiator fights were held was just fascinating to me.   Made reading the story a much richer experience. 

Also in my backpack are:  Open Mind, Faithful Heart by Pope Francis which are reflections he wrote before becoming pope.   Plus Emberto Uco's The Name of the Rose, and art history mysteries - Daniel Silva's Fallen Angel and Iain Pears Giotti's Hand.

Join me in reading all things Italian this month.

*****************************************************************************************

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

BW6: Dante's Inferno

Happy February!   This year marks the 700th Anniversary of Dante Alighieri's Inferno, the first cantica of The Divine Comedy.     Inferno is considered one of the great classics in literature and is on Susan Wise Bauer list of Poetry in Well Educated Mind.  I've never read it, so figured now would be the perfect time.  And as long as we are reading Inferno, why not go to Italy. Plus I'll be continuing with my Centuries challenge and exploring the 13th Century this month.  More on Italy and centuries challenge next week. 

Dante was born 1265 in Florence, Italy.    When he was 9, he met and fell in love with Beatrice Portinari who became his muse and central inspiration for all his major poems,  even after her death in 1290.  At the age of 11, he entered into a marriage contract with Gemma Donati and married her in 1285.  Beatrice continued to be his focus  of his poetry as the ideal lady even though she married and eventually died at the age of 24.  Due to his politics, he was exiled from Florence and eventually made his home in Ravenna. Dante died from Malaria at the age of 56 in 1321.

I'll be reading this version of Dante's Inferno translated by Allen Mandalbaum which has the Italian version on the left facing page and the English translation on the opposite right page. 

You can find out more about Dante and read Inferno online here, here or  here.

Join me in reading Dante's Inferno. 

***********************************************************************

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.


 

BW5: Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

The 16th novel in Susan Wise Bauer's list of fiction reads from her book The Well-Educated Mind is The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. An abbreviated form of the story was first serialized in The Philadelphia Press in December 1894 and so spread to newspapers across America.  The book was published in October 1895.  Stephen Crane was only 23 at the time and did from tuberculosis at the age of 29. 

Chapter 1

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors. It cast its eyes upon the roads, which were growing from long troughs of liquid mud to proper thoroughfares. A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when the stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills.

Once a certain tall soldier developed virtues and went resolutely to wash a shirt. He came flying back from a brook waving his garment bannerlike. He was swelled with a tale he had heard from a reliable friend, who had heard it from a truthful cavalryman, who had heard it from his trustworthy brother, one of the orderlies at division headquarters. He adopted the important air of a herald in red and gold.
"We're goin' t' move t'morrah--sure," he said pompously to a group in the company street. "We're goin' 'way up the river, cut across, an' come around in behint 'em."

To his attentive audience he drew a loud and elaborate plan of a very brilliant campaign. When he had finished, the blue-clothed men scattered into small arguing groups between the rows of squat brown huts. A negro teamster who had been dancing upon a cracker box with the hilarious encouragement of twoscore soldiers was deserted. He sat mournfully down. Smoke drifted lazily from a multitude of quaint chimneys.

"It's a lie! that's all it is--a thunderin' lie!" said another private loudly. His smooth face was flushed, and his hands were thrust sulkily into his trouser's pockets. He took the matter as an affront to him. "I don't believe the derned old army's ever going to move. We're set. I've got ready to move eight times in the last two weeks, and we ain't moved yet."

The tall soldier felt called upon to defend the truth of a rumor he himself had introduced. He and the loud one came near to fighting over it.

A corporal began to swear before the assemblage. He had just put a costly board floor in his house, he said. During the early spring he had refrained from adding extensively to the comfort of his environment because he had felt that the army might start on the march at any moment. Of late, however, he had been impressed that they were in a sort of eternal camp.

Many of the men engaged in a spirited debate. One outlined in a peculiarly lucid manner all the plans of the commanding general. He was opposed by men who advocated that there were other plans of campaign. They clamored at each other, numbers making futile bids for the popular attention. Meanwhile, the soldier who had fetched the rumor bustled about with much importance. He was continually assailed by questions.

"What's up, Jim?"

"Th'army's goin' t' move."

"Ah, what yeh talkin' about? How yeh know it is?"

"Well, yeh kin b'lieve me er not, jest as yeh like. I don't care a hang."

There was much food for thought in the manner in which he replied. He came near to convincing them by disdaining to produce proofs. They grew much excited over it.

There was a youthful private who listened with eager ears to the words of the tall soldier and to the varied comments of his comrades. After receiving a fill of discussions concerning marches and attacks, he went to his hut and crawled through an intricate hole that served it as a door. He wished to be alone with some new thoughts that had lately come to him.

He lay down on a wide bunk that stretched across the end of the room. In the other end, cracker boxes were made to serve as furniture. They were grouped about the fireplace. A picture from an illustrated weekly was upon the log walls, and three rifles were paralleled on pegs. Equipments hung on handy projections, and some tin dishes lay upon a small pile of firewood. A folded tent was serving as a roof. The sunlight, without, beating upon it, made it glow a light yellow shade. A small window shot an oblique square of whiter light upon the cluttered floor. The smoke from the fire at times neglected the clay chimney and wreathed into the room, and this flimsy chimney of clay and sticks made endless threats to set ablaze the whole establishment.

The youth was in a little trance of astonishment. So they were at last going to fight. On the morrow, perhaps, there would be a battle, and he would be in it. For a time he was obliged to labor to make himself believe. He could not accept with assurance an omen that he was about to mingle in one of those great affairs of the earth......

Continue reading here or here or here. 

***********************************************************************

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

BW4: Wintertime blues

Farmhouse in Delaware by Michael Melford

While most of the nation is freezing, it's a balmy 64 degrees in Northern California and our Governor has declared a drought emergency.  It's been so dry, one of my fur babies who usually suffers from asthma during the damp winter, has been quite happy.  I don't know why it is, but I've been in the mood for wintery reads.  Maybe I'm living vicariously through the characters as they pit themselves, man against nature. So much drama!   I'm currently reading James Rollins Ice Hunt which is set in the Antarctic in which scientists found an old Russian base set inside a polar iceburg

Carved into a moving island of ice twice the size of the United States, Ice Station Grendel has been abandoned for more than seventy years. The twisted brainchild of the finest minds of the former Soviet Union, it was designed to be inaccessible and virtually invisible. But an American undersea research vessel has inadvertently pulled too close--and something has been sighted moving inside the allegedly deserted facility, something whose survival defies every natural law. And now, as scientists, soldiers, intelligence operatives, and unsuspecting civilians are drawn into Grendel's lethal vortex, the most extreme measures possible will be undertaken to protect its dark mysteries--because the terrible truths locked behind submerged walls of ice and steel could end human life on Earth.

I love James Rollins - he has the most incredible imagination.  If you haven't read any of his stories yet, I really recommend you do.  All of them are a thrill ride. 

Since Winter began, I've been reading books with Winter or a cold word in the title, about Winter, set in the Winter season or in icy landscapes. Currently in my stacks are:  Cold Magic, Hum and the Shiver, Ice Station, Snow Crash, Storm Front and Winter Sea.   You starting to see the theme here.  *grin*

So much fun to curl up in a comfy chair, with a hot cup of tea, a warm blanket and, yes, a fur baby and delve into some winter time books.   Your task, should you choose to accept it, read a book from your stacks with Winter, Frost, Ice, Cold, or other synonyms in the title. 

***********************************************************************

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.

BW3: 12th Century Literature

A couple years ago when I took an Art history course, I fell in love with illuminated manuscripts. They are beautifully detailed works of art so searched online and found St John's Bible.  The St. Johns Abbey and University commissioned Donald Jackson to produce a hand written, hand illuminated bible.  I bought one for my folks, because you know parents are the world's hardest people to buy gifts for, because they have everything.  They loved it and I enjoyed sharing it with them.  Which brings us to the 12th century or back to the 12 Century (1101-1200 AD) as it were. 

Back in the 12th century, during the middle ages, books were made by hand, one at a time with ink, pens, brushes and paint on vellum or parchment.  Paper made of cotton and linen began to replace parchment in the 1200's but paper really didn't come into common use in Europe until the 1400's.  The Christian church was the center of learning in Europe and medieval books were made by monks and nuns in the scriptorium.  The Chinese invented movable clay type during the 1100's and the Europeans didn't have moveable type until the mid 1400's.  When the demand for books increased, rulers set up workshops in palaces and put them under the direction of well-known scholars. 

I'll let you in on a secret.  I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction.  I'm very picky about my reads and they must be well written and the storyline intriguing enough to hold my attention.  So when I decided to do the Centuries challenge, it surprised me to find had so many books from different eras on my shelves.  Figured I'd pick the 12th Century to begin with, because if I managed to read at least one book a month from each century progressively, by the end of the year, I'd be in the present.  However, once started perusing the shelves, and seeing all my choices, can guarantee my reading will be all over the map this year.

Back to the task of reading books either written in the 12th century or set in the 12th century.  When I did a search online, I found this goodreads list of the best books published in the 12th century.   The list was kind of daunting, so decided I would go with books set in the 12th century.  Surprisingly, I found I had a few on my shelves which we had inherited when my husband's mother passed away. She was originally from England, a writer working on an historical fiction novel and had quite a collection.  For example, Sharon Kay Penman's When Christ and His Saint's Slept, (and her whole Welsh trilogy but that was set in the 1300's), and  Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. 

A couple years back I read Elizabeth Chadwick's The Scarlet Lion and fell in love with her writing and the storyline.  I've since added Greatest Knight and A Place Beyond Courage to my library. Yes, I'll admit it, I'm a bookaholic, and a book hoarder, and I have more books than bookshelves.  Which is one our projects this year, to build wall to wall bookshelves in our master bedroom, but I digress. 

Chadwick and Penman and Scott also happen to be on the Goodreads list of Popular 12th Century Books.  And I think my buying ban isn't going to last too long because Ellis Peters Chronicles of Brother Caedfal is calling my name.  *sigh*

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read a book set in the 12th century.

**********************************************************************

Link to your reviews:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  

BW2: Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami -  January 12, 1949

In honor of Haruki Murakami turning 65 this month, I am reading Wind Up Bird Chronicle.  

Synopsis: Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II.    In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat.  Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo.  As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria.

Last year, one of the gals over at Well Trained Mind introduced me to Murakami through his book 1Q84 and I was hooked.  And since we are armchair traveling through Japan this month, it is a perfect time to read more of his stories. 

Haruki was born January 12, 1949 in Tokyo, Japan.  He began writing at the age of 29, inspired by all things, a baseball game. Hear the Wind Sing, his first book in Trilogy of the Rat, was published in 1979 and he won the Gunzou Shinjin Sho, the Gunzo New Writer Award for new writers, established by Gunzo Magazine.

He soon followed up with two more books in his Trilogy of the Rat:  Pinball 1973 in 1979  and A Wild Sheep Chase in 1982.  He won the Noma Bungei Shinjin Sho (Noma Literary Award for New Writers) for A Wild Sheep Chase in 1982.  During this period of time he sold his bar, Jazz Cats, which he had opened in 1974, and began writing full time.

In 1985 he wrote Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the Year  for which he won the  Junichi Tanizaki Award.  In 1991 he moved to the United States where he taught at Princeton and also wrote The Wind Up Bird Chronicle which was published in 1994. He won the prestigious Yomiuri Literary Award.

He moved back to Japan in 1995, where he's gone on to have published numerous books including Kafka on the Shore, a short story collection - Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, and his latest in 2011, 1Q84.   

Check out his facebook page maintained by his publishers Alfred Knopf  for articles and interviews.  

Join me in reading Wind Up Bird Chronicle or one of his many other fascinating stories.

**************************************************************

Link to your reviews or year end wrap up posts:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.  


 

Week 1 - Cheers to a new reading year

Happy New Year and welcome to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.  Welcome back to all those who are joining me for another round and to those joining in for the first time.  

The rules are very simple. Read 52 Books. That's it. How you get there is up to you.  We have several optional challenges which are listed in the link bar above to stimulate your imagination and help you on your reading journeys.   Beside the perpetual A to Z, Well Educated Mind challenge, Dusty/Chunky books, and another journey Around the World,  new this year are the Literary Nobel Prize Winners and 52 BaWer's recommendations from 2013.   I've also come up with some fun Monthly Themes and Readalongs.   

Mrs. Santa was quite nice to me this past Christmas and gave me Nancy Pearl's Book Lust to Go, Tom Nissley's A Reader's Book of Days and Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.  I was completely blown away by 1001 books because I had seen the lists on line, but never the book itself.  It is huge and besides the book descriptions, it is chalk full of pictures, artwork and posters for the majority of books.  Absolutely beautiful and I'll try to share some pictures soon.  I can already tell these books will be beneficial to all of us because they are already helped spark my imagination to help with weekly posts, plus making my already really long wish list even longer. Not to mention my teetering TBR stacks. 


To start off our journey, we are going to begin our Around the World tour in Japan. Join in on a readalong of Haruki Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicles or choose one of his other books if you've already read it.  To make life interesting, I'm also starting a personal Centuries Challenge beginning with the 12th century (1101-1200).  So - to make life fun for the month of January, go find some books written by Japanese authors, set in Japan and/or set in the 12th century.  Although I went a little nuts and found books from several different centuries.  *grin* 

Currently in my backpack besides Murakami's Wind Up is his A Wild Sheep Chase, the first volume of The Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki  (Waley Translation), Shinju (1st book in her Sano Ichiro series) by Laura Joh Rowland, Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn and the novella The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.  

We are going with a short week one in order to avoid a short week 52 and no one having time to do wrapup's.  It all works out in the end so don't panic over finishing a book this week.  

Cheers to a happy, fun, entertaining and educational reading new year! 

************************************************************************************************

Link to your reviews or year end wrap up posts:    Please link to your specific book review post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, tell us about the books you are reading in the comment section of this post.