Reading in Reykjavík

It's time to wrap up my first challenge of the year. I signed up for the What's in a Name challenge on August 12, so I was late to the game, but not as late as in 2012, when I started at the end of August. I posted my first review on August 18, and the last on September 27, so it took me 6 weeks, give or take, to finish it - counted in reading time, not by reviewing dates. The challenge got me back in the groove of reading, as I had been in the kind of slump where I wanted desperately to read but couldn't decide which TBR book to pick up next, so I usually ended up with rereads or loan books I needed to return soon. The challenge gave me something solid to base my choices on, and as a matter of fact I think I may continue letting my book choices be guided in a similar way. One coffee break at work when I had nothing better to do I decided it might be fun to see what categories had been used in previous What's in a Name challenges that I had not participated i...

I suddenly realised I forgot to write a wrap-up post for this challenge. Well, here it is: I finished the first book in the What's in a Name challenge on August 30, and the final one on October 1, so it took me a little over a month to read them all. The books were: a topographical feature (land formation): The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger. something you'd see in the sky: The Raven in the Foregate , by Ellis Peters a creepy crawly: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating , by Elizabeth Tova Bailey a type of house: Daughters of the House by Michèle Roberts something you'd carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack: The Motorcycle Diaries , by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara something you'd find on a calendar: The Darling Buds of May , by H.E. Bates As you can see, the books were quite the mixed bag, half fiction and half non-fiction: some travel, some historical crime, some memoirs mixed with natural history, literary fiction, humorous fiction and some m...

Well, I did it. Although I had given up actively trying to finish the challenges I signed up for at the start of the year, I managed to finish this one, and didn't even realise it for a couple of months, so completely had I put it out of my mind. The challenge was to finish 6 books with certain types of words in the title, given in the order I finished them: A Size Something Evil Jewelry or a gem Life stage A number Travel or movement Click on the links to see the reviews of the books I read for the challenge. As might be expected, considering my interest in the genre, four of the books were mysteries. Two of those were hard-boiled/noir detective novels, one a cosy police procedural and one a mystery thriller. The others consisted of a romance novel and a memoir-travelogue. Although I was wasn't actively trying to finish this challenge, I am glad I did. I might even participate in next year's What't in a Name.

I quite forgot to write a wrap-up post for this challenge, but here it is now. I joined the Bibliomaniac level, with the aim to read 12 books. It has been fun, and I wish there had been an even higher level, because it was so easy that I finished it in August. I don't really have much else to say about this challenge, so I will let my reviews of the books speak for themselves: The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk (also part of the Global Reading Challenge) Sullivan’s Woman by Nora Roberts Expletives Deleted: Selected writings by Angela Carter The Hours by Michael Cunningham The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton Stevenson under the Palm Trees by Alberto Manguel The Princeton Murders by Ann Waldron Maps & Legends: Reading and writing along the borderlands by Michael Chabon A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a book addict by John Baxter Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley So Many Books, So Little Time by Sara Nelson The Classic Era of Crime Fiction by Peter Haini...

The challenge (easy level) is done, and it has been fun. The books I read were all quite different from one another. The European book was a historical novel by Turkish author Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle , about two men from different cultures who switch identities. It garnered 3 stars. The North-American book was a surrealist novel by Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias, the outrageous Mulata de tal (The Mulatta and Mister Fly), which I gave 3 stars. The African book was a slightly magical but mostly realistic novel, Ways of Dying by South-African author Zakes Mda, which I gave 5 stars. The South-American book was The Tunnel , a psychological thriller by Argentinian Ernesto Sabato, which I gave 5 stars. The Asian book was Red Sorghum , a historical novel by Mo Yan, which I gave 5 stars. And the Australasian book was another historical novel, Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey, which I gave 4,5 stars. I am happy with my choices and would, given the opportunity, r...