TBR Pile books 2014

These are the books I plan to read for the 2014 TBR challenge at The Roof Beam Reader: http://roofbeamreader.com/2013/11/27/announcing-the-2014-tbr-pile-challenge/. I'll add some commentary on why I haven't gotten around to reading these titles yet. I also wil participate in the Take Control TBR Pile in March 2014, probably with books published in 2013. http://caffeinatedbookreviewer.com/2014/01/take-control-tbr-pile-march-2014-challenge.html

1. Swan's Way: I bought this volume several years ago, read the first few pages and then put it aside. I will come back to in in earnest, because this kind of reading is good for me and will count toward a Classics challenge and the Chunkster Challenge, in which I'm also participating. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/378309

2. Wolf Hall: I picked this up used at a bookstore in Asheville, N.C., and while the first few pages were inviting, I got distracted by classwork. Now is the time to finish it and add it to the Chunkster Challenge. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/317928695

3. Freedom: Like The Corrections before it, I procrastinated on reading this Franzen title, even though his first two books -- The Twenty-Seventh City and Strong Motion -- are among my favorite novels. Maybe it's the bird-watching. I'm not a bird-watcher. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/548616620

4. Shelter -- This novel by Susan Palwick is a noted long SF novel that features a Mister Rogers AI. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/84904017

5. A Star in the Family -- I'm going to read a novel a yar by Irvin Faust, who was the head guidance counselor at my high school as well as a noted writer. I've owned this book at least since the 1980s. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1111271 FINISHED 3/11/2014

6. Cryptonomicon -- Yes, it's incredibly long. But I read the Baroque Cycle, which served as a kind of prequel for this volume, and Neal Stephenson usually goes down easy. Plus my dad read it. 

7. Brendan -- Frederick Buechner's novel about an early Irish saint follows up his more well-known Godric. It's written in imitation of a directly translated Gaelic, which makes the novel somewhat difficiult to read. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/15365751 FINISHED 1/11/2014 

8. Terrorist -- John Updike is one of my favorite authors. This title split the critics and apparently has a controversial ending, but I want to read it anyway. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/62331102

9. Three Girls and their Brother -- I bought this well-received title by Theresa Rhebeck in 2008 at the Strand. It's supposed to be highly entertaining. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/216929780

10. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell -- Yes, at last I'm going to read this in the summer, because nothing says summer in Alabama like early 19th-century wizards. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/54372887

11. The Complete Novels of Flann O'Brien -- I have a volume that contains all the novels. The nice part of rading an omnibus volume like this is you can read one novel (out of order), read other stuff, then come back to it. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/154799614

12. The Colour of Magic -- This is Terry Pratchett's first Discword novel, and I'd like to read it before the latest one, Raising Steam, comes out.http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9533162 FINISHED 3/23/2014

Alternatives:

13. The Guy Under the Sheets -- I know it's weird, but Chris Elliott is one of my favorite writers. His spoof novels Shroud of the Thwacker and Into Hot Air were hilarious, and I've owned his kind of fake memoir for a couple of years. Time to read it now. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/778419269

14. The Man With the Wooden Hat: Jane Gardan's follow-up to the wonderful Old Filth; it promises to go deeper into the fascinating life of a well-traveled man who ends up a judge in Hong Kong.

15. Home: Marilynne Robinson has another book out that will function as a follow-up to her wonderful Gilead, so I think I should read this second book, which I've owned for quite awhile.

Book blogging revival for 2014

I'm returning to book blogging for 2014. I plan to join several challenges, most importantly the TBR pile and the Chunkster challenge to reduce the pile of books by my bed. Here are the challenges:

European Reading Challenges: Five novels set in five different European countries and by five different European authors. I may have to wait until my TBR pile reduces, but I should be able to do this by the end of the year. http://www.rosecityreader.com/p/2014-european-reading-challenge.html

Chunkster challenge: I plan to read six books of 450 or more pages in 2014. I have several TBR titles that will fit this bill. http://chunksterchallenge.blogspot.com/

52 Books in 52 Weeks: This one should be doable, as in my best years I've read more than 60 books. http://www.read52booksin52weeks.com/

TBR Challenges: I'm going to do two. For the first one, I will include books published in 2013 and earlier according to the rules of the Bookish challenge.  http://evie-bookish.blogspot.com/2013/10/2014-tbr-pile-reading-challenge-sign-ups.html

Then I'm going to create an older 13-book TBR list for the Roof Beam Reader challenge. http://evie-bookish.blogspot.com/2013/10/2014-tbr-pile-reading-challenge-sign-ups.html

Book to Broadway challenge: I will read a book that formed the basis for a musical, then see or listen to that musical. I might try The Once and Future King and Camelot, or the book upon which A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder is based. http://debzbookshelf.blogspot.com/2013/12/the-book-to-broadway-challenge.html

Back to Classics challenge: I like category challenges, and this one presents six that I should be able to pull off after I finish the most recent books in my TBR challenge. http://karensbooksandchocolate.blogspot.com/2013/12/announcing-back-to-classics-challenge.html

What's in a name challenge: Six odd categories by title; why not? http://wormhole.carnelianvalley.com/whats-in-a-name-2014-sign-up-post/

I may add some later. 

Book Review: Tenth of December

Tenth of December by George Saunders

George Saunders returns to several of his major themes in this collection of stories: SF-tinged tales of dealing with new behavior-altering drugs on the lines of Jonathan Franzen's Aslan; theme parks or horrible behavioral experiments; and people caught up in deciding whether to do right. I very much enjoyed his first collection, Civilwarland in Bad Decline, but I was a bit uncomfortable with the gloomy outlook on life it portrayed. These are much more "positive" stories, in that we find normal heroes (and one self-justifying louse) who have to choose whether to do good (or in one case avoid doing more bad). We come to like these heroes, particularly the children in the first story, "Victory Lap," and the lonely child and troubled adult in the final one, "Tenth of December." Probably the best, however, is "Escape From Spiderhead," in which a man subjected to mood-altering drugs must come to decide whether to inflict doses of pain on women to whom he's just made love -- it encapsulates our prescription drug-addled society, our obsessive imprisonment of all sorts of people and one person's decision to do no wrong. The story "My Chivalric Fiasco" is very funny for the most part and appears in at least one SF best-of compilation.

Top 10 Tuesdays: Books I hope to read in 2013

For the Top 10 Tuesday Web meme:

In 2012, the only book challenge I managed to complete was the Chunkster Challenge. I came close to finishing the Southern book challenge (three of four) and the British reading challenge (10 of 12), but that was about it. I will do the Chunkster Challenge again in 2013. In 2012, I read nine books of more than 450 pages, so I will commit to the Mor-Book-Ly challenge (eight books, three of more than 750 pages). In line with the Jan. 1 list of books I hope to read in 2013, here are 10 that would qualify for Chunkster. Some also will qualify for a TBR challenge:

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oskana Zabuzhko
Young Henry of Navarre by Heinrich Mann
2012 Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy (various)
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissa Pessl
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Suzanna Clarke
Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel
Mountain Standard Time by Paul Horgan
The Complete Novels by Flann O'Brien

Book Review: The Rook

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/707964780 (486 page)

O'Malley's urban fantasy opens with a woman who discovers herself wiped of memories and surrounded by a pile of dead bodies. The bodies start to pile up thereafter as she begins to discover her previous identity through a series of letters left by .. herself. It turns out she's a Rook, a key player in an organization dedicated to defending Britain from the supernatural and bizarre. Her colleague include a vampire, a man who can manipulate metal and a quadruplets who share a single consciousness. O'Malley is an entertaining first-time writer whose central character is complex (she is clearly not the woman she used to be) and whose powers are considerable. The mystery gets wound up in a fairly perfunctory manner (after some exciting bits of betrayal), but overall this novel is a great start to a possible series or a satisfyingly engaging and light one-off.

Chunkster challenge: chunksterchallenge.blogspot.com

Book review: In Sunlight and in Shadow

Book review: In Sunlight and In Shadow by Mark Helprin

(For the Chunkster Challenge Web meme)

I think the New York Times reviewer got this novel all wrong. Helprin always has had a strong romantic streak as well as a flare for satire. Here he takes the outline of a medieval story -- a knight returning from the Crusades to retake his inheritance and win the princess -- and transposes it to New York after World War II. Harry Copeland finds his father's leather business sinking because of European competiton and a strange new gangster who's extorting exhorbitant protection fees. He meets the beautiful, wealthy actress Catherine Hale on the Staten Island Ferry, then must win her from a suitor who has done terrible things to her. The novel is extremely long, and Helprin appears to go overboard occasionally in his paeans to New York and the environs, especially the sea. But essentially the story is captivating, with real heroes and villains, and his descriptions of Harry's close calls in war are as strong as his depictions of war in A Soldier of the Great War and Memoirs in Antproof Case. He also pokes fun at showpeople, accountants, building contractors, the nascent CIA and wealthy people in general. I recommend the novel despite its excesses. I think the New York Times reviewer got this novel all wrong. Helprin always has had a strong romantic streak as well as a flare for satire. Here he takes the outline of a medieval story -- a knight returning from the Crusades to retake his inheritance and win the princess -- and transposes it to New York after World War II. Harry Copeland finds his father's leather business sinking because of European competiton and a strange new gangster who's extorting exhorbitant protection fees. He meets the beautiful, wealthy actress Catherine Hale on the Staten Island Ferry, then must win her from a suitor who has done terrible things to her. The novel is extremely long, and Helprin appears to go overboard occasionally in his paeans to New York and the environs, especially the sea. But essentially the story is captivating, with real heroes and villains, and his descriptions of Harry's close calls in war are as strong as his depictions of war in A Soldier of the Great War and Memoirs in Antproof Case. He also pokes fun at showpeople, accountants, building contractors, the nascent CIA and wealthy people in general. I recommend the novel despite its excesses.