A New TBR list 2015

2015 Version of my TBR list.

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

North and South by Gaskell

Law and Gospel by CFW Walther

Churchill by Paul Johnson

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther

Dead Souls by Gogol

The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek

Immortal Wife by Irving Stone

The Great Shame by Thomas Keaneally

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer

1491 by Charles C. Mann

The House of Morgan

The First Tycoon

The Fate of Africa

The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire

Courage and Consequence

Known and Unknown

Decision Points by George W. Bush

Statecraft by Margaret Thatcher

Theodore Rex (or any of the Teddy Roosevelt books by Morris)

Wodehouse: A Life

John Adams by David McCullough

Thunderstruck by Erik Larsen

A Pirate of Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer by Diana Preston

Don Quixote

Anything Goes by Theodore Dalrymple 
The Examined Life by ""
Second Opinion by  "   "
The Policeman and the Brothel by  "  "

The Economics of Freedom by Bastiat

Typhoon by Joseph Conrad

She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb

The Shoemaker's Wife by Trigiani

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

An Account of Egypt by Herodotus

The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katherine Green

Evelina by Fanny Burney

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

The Wedding Gift by Marlen Suyapa Bodden

Containment by Christian Cantrell

Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
Summer by Edith Wharton
 The Oregon Trail: Sketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain Life by Frances Parkman

A Journal of the Plague year by Daniel Defoe

Shoeless Joe by Kinsella

Catherine the Great by Robert Massie

The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt

Nicholas and Alexandra by Massie

River of Doubt

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

The Things They Carried

The President and the Assasin

Lost States

How the States Got their Shapes

Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible

Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson

Ethan Frome

Sixpence in Her Shoe

Faust by Goethe

The Dark Monk by Oliver Potzsch
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The Path to Tyranny by Michael Newton
Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks
Happy Days Were Here Again by WF Buckley, Jr.
Never Dies the Dream by Margaret Landon
The Child From the Sea by Elizabeth Goudge
Natural Law: A Lutheran Reappraisal
Women Pastors?

The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien
Any Narnia aside from TLTWaTW
Land and Property Research in the United States
Venezia by Tessa Kiros

Mrs. Dalloway

The Art of the Commonplace by Wendell Berry
Broke by Glenn Beck
Cowards by Glenn Beck
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan
The Dragon Reborn "
The Shadow Rising "
The Fires of Heaven "
Lord of Chaos " etc, etc, etc.
Dust by Hugh Howey
Shift by Hugh Howey
The COurts of Chaos by Roger Zelazny
Trumps of Doom by "  "
Blood of Amber by  "  "
Signs of Chaos by    "  "
Knight of Shadows by "  "
Prince of Chaos  by  "  "
Agatha H and the Airship City
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
Watership Down
History of Tom Jones, A Foundling
The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough
Parallel Roads: Lost on Route 66 by Dennis Higgins
All Seated on the Ground by Connie Willis
No Name by Wilkie Collins
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
Island of the Swans by Ciji Ware
Hotel Angeline: A Novel in 36 Voices
Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley
Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer
Towards yesterday by Paul Jones
The Mine by John Heldt
The Time Traveler's Apprentice by Kelly Grant
Ishmael, or in the Depths By Emma Southworth
Danielle Kidnapped by John Silviera
Daybreak by Ingolfsson
The Gauguin Connection by Estelle Ryan
The Sea beggars by Cecelia Holland
Beautiful Day by Elin Hildebrand
The Group by Mary McCarthy
Anthem by Ayn Rand
The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
Salt
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The Time Traveler's Guide to medievall England
Everything's Eventual by Stephen King
The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
A Voyage Long and Strange
The Good, the Bad, and the Mad
Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims
Gregor books 3,4,5
The Art of the Commonplace

Filling in the Gaps update

I've been at this challenge for two years and nine months now and have fallen a bit behind, having only read 47 of my 100 books. I have decided that I am going to take the liberty of swapping out up to five books, two for books that I have attempted and decided that I am just not interested in, plus up to three others. I subbed a book once before, when I decided that Three Cups of Tea needed to go because of the dishonesty in the book.

I will mark my substitutions in red. I'm not going to chicken out and sub for Karamazov  or Les Mis, as much as I would like to take the easy way out.
 
 So here is my list:

1. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (2/13/2012)
3. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
4. Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
5. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
6. North and South by Gaskell
7. Dune by Frank Herbert (3/19/2011)
8. Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
9. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
10. Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
11. Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
12. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (3/16/2012)
13. Law and Gospel by CFW Walther
14. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (3/17/2013)
15. Beach Music by Pat Conroy (3/22/2012)
16. The Children of Hurin JRR Tolkien
17. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
18. The Frontiersmen by Allen Eckert
19. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
20. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (12/5/2011)
21. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2/21/2012)
22. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
23. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling (1/27/2012)
24. The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov (2/5/2013)
25. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (4/29/2011)
26. Death Comes for the Archbishop  by Willa Cather
27. Churchill by Paul Johnson
28. The Conquest of Gaul  by Julius Caesar, subbing The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
29. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
30. The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther
31. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (11/4/2012)
32. Summerland by Michael Chabon (6/25/2012)
33. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
34. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
35. The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier (5/19/2011)
36. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (6/28/2012)
37. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
38. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller (2/9/2011)
39. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
40. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
41. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (4/12/2011)
42. A Life Worth Living by John Holt
43. Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe, 1520-1536 by Reston
44. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
45. The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois (12/13/2012)
46. Life at the Bottom by Theodore Dalrymple (3/20/2011)
47. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (1/7/2011)
48. Desolation Road by Ian McDonald (7/10/2012)
49. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (9/25/2012)
50. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (4/3/2012)
51. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
52. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
53. Faust by Goethe
54. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (5/29/2013)
55. Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington (4/7/2013)
56. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (4/24/2012)
57. Redwall by Brian Jacques
58. The Guns of August by Barabara Tuchman (just can't get into the military history), subbing Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
59. Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
60. Life of Pi by Yann Mertel, subbing Lord of the Flies by William Golding
    
61. Aeneid by Virgil
62. The Complete Poetry of  John Donne
63. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot (4/23/2012)
64. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
65.  My Antonia by Willa Cather (1/15/2013)
66. Dead Souls by Gogol
67. The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
68. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (9/28/2011)
69. East Lynne by Ellen Wood (6/18/2011)
70. Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle
71. Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery (1/6/2012)
72. The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
73. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (12/26/2010)
74. Robinson Crusoe (9/9/2013)
75. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
76. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (7/18/2011)
77. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
78. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
79. Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (3/25/2013)
80. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
81. The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton, subbing Middlemarch by George Eliot
82. Introducing Father Brown by GK Chesterton (10/6/2011)
83. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (5/2/11)
84. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper
85. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
86. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
87. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (5/6/2013)
88. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (7/2/2012)
89. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1/20/2013)
90. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
91. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (3/6/2011)
92. The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes (12/30/2012)
93. The Warden by Anthony Trollope (1/28/2013)
94. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
95. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
96. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
97. Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin, (I have read other works by LeGuin this year) subbing The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
98. The Stranger by Albert Camus
99. Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman
100. The Histories by Herodotus

What do I still need to read this year?

Given the fact that I have read almost 90 books this year, I still have some specific reading to do to finish my challenges.

First, to finish the "What's in a Name" Challenge, I need to read one book with "lost," "found" or something related in the title. I need to read one 18th or pre-18th century classic and one classic adventure for the "Back to the Classics" challenge. I still need to read two pre-1960 mysteries and six works of historical fiction.

The two challenges that I need to really get to work on are my TBR pile challenge and the "Help from My Friends" challenge. Since these require specific books, they are proving to be more, well, challenging. For the TBR challenge, these remain:  


-The President and the Assassin:Terror and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century by Scott Miller
- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
-In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
- Decision Points by George W. Bush
- Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Redwall by Brain Jacques

Alternates:
1. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
2. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
3. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

For the "Friends" challenge:

4. Tam Lin by Pamela Dean
5. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
7. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
8. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Alternates:
--Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
--The Passing of the Armies by Joshua Chamberlain
--The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
--Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
--Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome


Guess I need to get busy.

April wrap up

I read 13 books in April. This is a relatively large number for me. A couple of them were the food equivalent of potato chips: easy, delicious, and slightly embarrassing. Two were volumes of short stories. One was expected to be chick lit--Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale--but was surprisingly serious and one--How (Not) to have a Perfect Wedding--was chick lit, as expected. I managed three non-fiction books, one of which also was on my Gaps list.

Margin was the most useful book I read. In the Garden of Beasts was the most interesting. A Little Folly was the most disappointing/biggest waste of time. It wasn't bad; it just wasn't that good. And when you invoke Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer in your description, you should be GOOD.  I realized about halfway through that I had read Up From Slavery in high school. (So much for gaps!) 

I knew that Body in the Library was a re-read because I've read the entire Christie corpus, (ba-dum-bum!) but I really can't do a Vintage Mystery Challenge and not throw in Dame Agatha.

Is it horrible that I may have enjoyed the two J. D. Robb books the most out of the books I read this month? I'll blame it on post-Lent-and-Easter-church-secretary-brain-exhaustion.

33. Alex Cross, Run by James Patterson (4/2/2013) (Library) 
34. How (Not) to Have a Perfect Wedding by Arliss Ryan (4/3/2013) (Library) (Genre Variety)(Name)
35. The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories Volume 2 by Ursula K. LeGuin (4/3/2013) (Library)
36. The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie (4/4/2013) (Library) (Vintage Mystery) 
37. Margin by Richard A. Swenson, M.D. (4/5/2013) (Genre Variety) (Nerdy) 
38. Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale by Lynda Rutledge (4/6/2013) (Library)
39. Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington (4/8/2013) (Classics) (Gaps) (Nerdy)
40. In the Garden of Beasts by Eric Larson (4/12/2013) (Genre Variety) (Nerdy) (Nonfiction) (Name)
41. Witness in Death by J.D. Robb (4/14/2013) (Library)
42. Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler (4/16/2013) (Genre Variety) (Library) 
43. A Little Folly by Jude Morgan (4/19/2013) (Library) (Historical Fiction) 
44. Judgment in Death by J.D. Robb (4/22/2013) (Library)
45. Two of the Deadliest ed. by Elizabeth George (4/26/2013) (Library)

March update

Only seven books in March. Kristin Lavransdatter is the best book that I have read this year and the longest, but it took me longer to read The Maltese Falcon, because I just wasn't loving it.

I knocked five books off of the library challenge this month. I read two for the Vintage Mystery Challenge and one each for the Genre Variety, What's in a Name, Classics, Historical Fiction, and Tea and Books Challenges. I also read two more of the books for my five-year Filling in the Gaps Challenge.

 25. The Forgotten by David Baldacci (3/1/2013) (Library) 
26. Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman (3/3/2013) (Library) (Name) 
27. The Man Who Knew Too Much by G.K. Chesterton (3/4/2013) (Vintage Mystery) (Ebook)
28. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (3/5/2013) (Reread) (Classic) (Genre Variety) 
29. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (3/17/2013) (Gaps) (Friends) (TBR) (Tea and Books) (Historical Fiction)
30. Requiem by Lauren Oliver (3/22/2013) (Library)
31. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (3/24/2013) (Library) (Vintage Mystery) (Gaps)
32. Shadow Creek by Joy Fielding (3/30/2013) (Library)

February progress

I didn't get as much reading done in February and didn't read a very wide variety. Four of the nine books that I read were current crime fiction of one sort or another--lawyer, cop, Army CID--by authors whose books I put on hold as soon as I know that they are coming out. One of these was an audio book that the hubby and I listened to on the way back from Florida. I read one historical fiction book. The other four books that I read were all some variety of sci-fi or fantasy: one post-apocalyptic, one time-travel, one young adult steampunk space adventure,  one classic fantasy, and one Russian fantasy classic.

I enjoyed all of them except The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov. It had been recommended to me by several people, so I expected to enjoy it, but I didn't. The Kronos Interference was so forgettable that from a distance of a week I can't remember it. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny was very good and I got a book with the whole series in it, so I will be reading those from time to time. The Postman was a good post-apocalyptic story with a unique story idea. It was also very good.

As far as challenges go, I  have read 24/100 for Read a Latte; 12/18 for Genre Variety; 3/10 for A Little Help From My Friends; 1/6 for What's in a Name, which may prove to be the most challenging this year; 11/50 for the Library challenge; 2/12 for the TBR Pile; 3/7-10 for Nerdy Non-fiction; 3/6 required and 3/5 optional for the Classics challenge; still at 2/8 for Vintage Mystery; 3/15 for historical fiction; and 1/4 for Tea and Books. I need to try to do a bit better on books for my challenges in March. February was a low brain activity month and my ability to read anything very complex just was not there. (Thus all the crime fiction.)

I have also managed to read five books so far this year--one this month--for my five year Filling in the Gaps challenge. This puts me at 41/100 with two years and nine months left to go.

January round-up

I read a lot this month. That's one benefit to taking a trip to a place with no TV or internet, followed by a bout of the flu and a sluggish recovery.

As a result, I'm off to a good start on some of my challenges. I have read 15 of the 100 books that I need to read for the Read-a-Latte Challenge. I have read books from 10 different genres out of the 18 I am attempting for the Genre Variety Challenge. I may decide to go up a level on that one.

I have read one of the ten books for my A Little Help from My Friends Challenge and one of six for the What's in a Name Challenge (which promises to be very challenging.) I have read five of 50 for the library challenge, but I blame being sick for that. I did my reading either from my shelves or from my Kindle for a couple of weeks.

I managed two of the twelve titles from the TBR challenge that I am doing, but the longest and most difficult books on that list remain. I am also adding to my TBR Pile, because, of course, I have added new books to it in the last year! I have read two of ten books for the Nerdy Non-fiction challenge, three of the six required and one of the five optional for the Back to the Classics challenge, two of eight for Vintage Mystery, and two of 15 from Historical Fiction.

My favorites so far this year are My Antonia and Fall of Giants. The least enjoyable was The Case of the Stuttering Bishop. That was a disappointment, because I loved the old Perry Mason TV show.