Reading Challenges

Literature Reviews

2021: Reading in Review

Like for many others here, for me, too, 2021 was a year I’m infinitely glad to see behind me; particularly so, the second half of the year. Books, thus, quickly became my one major lifeline — if you just look at the sheer numbers of books read (a grand total of 246), you’d think I […]

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Cats Literature

Halloween Bingo 2021: Card, Spells, Markers and Book Pool

Phew!  I’ve had blog display issues for the better part of August due to a stupid WP plugin acting up (and of course, it was a plugin allegedly intended to “facilitate” the import of content into my chosen theme — haha, right), but luckily they were resolved just in time for Halloween Bingo! (Gosh … […]

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Blog Literature

2021 Mid-Year Reading Statistics

I didn’t think of grabbing my stats graphics on June 30, so the first books of July 2021 have already crept into the stats, but FWIW, here we go.  Still plenty of mysteries — no wonder, what with two reading projects dedicated to Golden Age mysteries alone — but by and large I’m happy with […]

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Cats Literature

Halloween Bingo 2020: TA’s Game Preparation Post

Note When updating this post during the game, the books actually selected will be highlighted in bold print and with a check mark (√) next to them. Updates Spell invoked: Bingo Flip with Lora — STONE COLD HORROR replaced by READ BY FLASHLIGHT OR CANDLELIGHT Also, as our game hosts have made it clear that […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reviews

2020 Mid-Year Reading Review and Statistics

What with the pandemic still very much ongoing, BL acting up again, MR’s and Char’s resulting posts re: BookLikes, the BL experience, and moving back to Goodreads, this feels like a somewhat odd moment to post my half-yearly reading stats.  I hope it won’t be the last time on this site, but I fear that […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reviews

February and Mid-March 2020 Reading Update

I never got around to doing this at the end of February, so what the heck … I might as well include the first two weeks of March, since that month is half over at this point already, too.  But then, February was such a universal suck-fest in RL that I didn’t even make it […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reviews

January 2020 Reading

January turned out a bit of a roller coaster in RL, continuing the course things had already taken in December: not quite whiplash-inducing, but with several sickness-prone twists and turns (for however much I’d expected them to materialize) surrounding one major glorious event (which was, however, truly glorious; even if this, too, was something I’d […]

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BookLikes Imports Fun and Games Linked Items Literature

2020 Reading Plans / Expectations & 2019 in Review

24 Festive Tasks: Door 22 – New Year’s Eve / St. Sylvester’s Day, Tasks 1-3 & Door 18 – Hanukkah, Task 1: Door 22 Task 1: Tell us: What are your reading goals for the coming year? Task 2: The reading year in review: How did you fare – what was good, what wasn’t? Task […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reviews

More Favorite / Essential Historical Fiction: Towards the 200!

OK, so I did get to another full list after all.  Here goes, without any further ado: Virginia Woolf: Orlando I’m happy I’m getting another shot for this book alone — could have kicked myself for leaving it off my first list.  I’m not a big fan of either time travel or main character sex […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reviews

My Historical Fiction Essentials

Finally getting around to this — as per Chris’s invitation, here’s my list (in no particular order, and with major reliance on Chris’s dictum that it’s “fine to list a whole author’s work or series and have it count as one entry”): Hillary Mantel’s historical fiction I’ve yet to try her contemporary writing, but both […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reblogs

Calling all historical fiction readers

Reblogged from Chris’ Fish Place Moonlight Reader has unleashed something.(and we forgot Sharon Kay Penman)  And with her permission, I am asking for your best historical fiction lists.  Post your top 25 and we’ll see how much we have, and then go from there.  First call is good from today until the 8th.  So that’s a […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reblogs

Link to the downloadable Crowdsourced! list

Reblogged from: Moonlight Reader     Themis-Athena has been working extremely hard on the google sheet, which now has 665 books on it. I believe that it is up to date except for Elentarri’s list posted today.   You can view the google document here.   I am also hard at work on the BL list, […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reblogs

Crowdsourced: State of the List — WE DID IT!!!

Reblogged from Themis-Athena’s Garden of Books   UPDATE 2 We did it!!! Here’s the list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qYl32e0L3R3X_82XldWaCOt2naBFtvoJsaQY8zzUU3E/edit#gid=0 Thanks to the final submissions by Jennifer, Ani and Lora, we’re up to 1001 exactly!  How cool is that?? _______________________________________________ UPDATE 1 Including all submissions up to right now, we have room for another 27 books. Romance and horror […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature

Crowdsourced: State of the List — CALL FOR A MORATORIUM ON SUBMISSIONS

Guys, we totally rock — once I’ll have added today’s most recent submissions, we’ll be in spitting distance of our 1001 goal! So I’m going to ask for a moratorium on submissions, with two exceptions: 1) We need more romance novels (and also a bit more horror) — the list is currently lopsided in favor […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature

Crowdsourced Book List: Just Saying

I’ve just updated the Google spreadsheet, and we haven’t just cracked the 500 book threshold, we’ve cracked 600 … and we’re on a good way to get to 700.  Do we rock, or what??? Triple hooray for Moonlight Reader’s brainwave and for everyone who responded! And it’s not too late yet in case anybody else […]

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BookLikes Imports Cats Linked Items Literature Reviews

Crowdsourced: More Books with a Difference – Fiction

You asked, Moonlight Reader?  To quote from one of my additional entries below:  “As you wish …” Without any further ado: Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies When Lillelara added A Place of Greater Safety to her list, I could have kicked myself —  because Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell books were definitely among […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reblogs

Listen up – again!

Reblogged from Moonlight Reader     I am still working on getting everyone’s contributions added to the Crowdsourced! list.  Do me a favor, and scroll aaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the way down to the bottom of the list and check the comments. Make sure that there is a link to your list pasted into one of the comments. This is […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reviews

Books With a Difference

Responding to Moonlight Reader’s “call for papers (= titles / authors)” — there are quite a number of excellent lists out there already; anyway, here’s my contribution … or a first draft, at least.  Links go to my reviews (or status updates / summary blog posts / author pages) to the extent I’ve posted any. […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature Reblogs

This is a call for your essential titles/authors?

Reblogged from Moonlight Reader   This is a call – over the next week or so, spend some time putting together a short list of your personal essential titles that are maybe a little bit out of the mainstream. Say, your top 25 or so that you think are representative or transformative of their era or […]

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BookLikes Imports Linked Items Literature

Golden Age Mysteries: Further Reading

With my Detection Club Bingo card now blacked out, I’m going to track my reading here.  (Note: for purposes of completeness, this includes books by the below authors already read prior to the creation of this list.)  My priorities are going to be: Arthur Conan Doyle’s / Sherlock Holmes’s adventures, biographies, contemporaries and rivals, as […]

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