Month in Review: November 2011

Another lazy month, reading and blogging-wise.  I have been doing some of my own writing - though not taking part in NaNo for the first time since 2009 - and this is taking priority over reading.  And then I bought a couple of new games and lost some time to those (Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7, both very good and very timesuck-y). 

I also don't think my reading is going to go up in December, but I do plan to do a lot of Year in Review style posts on the blog, covering things I've read this year and challenges I've completed.

Books Read in November 2011
134. The Lantern Bearers - Rosemary Sutcliff
135. The Missing - Lisa McMann
136. Real Live Boyfriends - E. Lockhart
137. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
138. Dead Girls' Dance - Rachel Caine
139. Frontier Wolf - Rosemary Sutcliff
140. Beauty - Robin McKinley
141. The Iron King - Julie Kagawa
142. Love and Other Four Letter Words - Carolyn Mackler
143. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
144. The Mark of the Horse Lord - Rosemary Sutcliff

Stats
Total Books Read = 11
Total Pages Read = 2924
Average Book Length = 266

Owned Books = 2
Library Books = 8
Bought After Borrowing & Reading = 1 (The Iron King)

Most Read Author = Rosemary Sutcliff (3).

Top Ten Books of the Month
01. Real Live Boyfriends
02. The Iron King
03. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
04. The Missing
05. The Lantern Bearers
06. Frontier Wolf
07. Beauty
08. The Mark of the Horse Lord
09. Dead Girls' Dance
10. Love and Other Four Letter Words

Month in Review: October 2011

Slightly lazy month, both for reading and blogging.  In a minor defence it was my birthday, which meant I actually had a social life but that I also attempted to make some resolutions which I promptly broke and didn't post about.  And then November started and I still hadn't done anything new.  I need to make some plans and stick to them (this applies to my writing as well as my reading and blogging).  However, I have done quite a bit of reading in October - but am really looking forwards to the Re-readathon later this month.

NB: While I did read Dante's Inferno this month (review here) I'm not listing it as it's part of my doorstop Oxford Classics Divine Comedy so I'll count it when I've finished Paradiso.

Books Read in October 2011
121. Stop in the Name of Pants - Louise Rennison
122. Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? - Louise Rennison
123. Frostbite - Richelle Mead
124. Valiant - Holly Black
125. Ironside - Holly Black
126. Let It Snow - Maureen Johnson, John Green & Lauren Myracle
127. The Labours of Hercules - Agatha Christie
128. Destination Unknown - Agatha Christie
129. Beauty Queens - Libba Bray
130. Wish Me Dead - Helen Grant
131. Seven Sorcerers - Caro King
132. Before I Die - Jenny Downham
133. A Murder of Quality - John le Carre

Stats
Total = 13
Total Pages = 4317
Average Book Length = 332
Most Read Authors = Holly Black, Agatha Christie and Louise Rennison (2 each)

Cover of the Month

Top Ten Books of the Month
01. Beauty Queens
02. Before I Die
03. Let It Snow
04. Ironside
05. Valiant
06. Wish Me Dead
07. Seven Sorcerers
08. Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me?
09. Stop in the Name of Pants
10. Frostbite

Challenge: Victorian Literature

If there is one thing I share in common with Emma Woodhouse, it is the drawing up of reading lists - and they are always very good lists, if I do say so myself - so I'm signing up for the Victorian Literature Challenge at words, words, words.  I have quite a few 19th century novels on my Project Fill in the Gaps list, and I have even more lurking on my shelf, so this seems a good way to clear some space and actually get some books read.

There are different levels for the challenge, but I'm going to aim for Great Expectations: 5-9 Victorian Books in 2011.  And, while the challenge itself is flexible, I'm going to be a bit mental and make life harder for myself by limiting it to books published during Queen Victoria's reign, 1837-1901.  The (short) list of potential books is as follows:

• Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes
• Villette by Charlotte Bronte
• The Tennant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
• Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

I have a few more, and am also aware that all of these books are written by British authors - I would say so was Victoria, but that bit from Blackadder keeps running through my head*.  Some of them are also pretty big, which is why I haven't included all of my Dickens because they are technically weapons.  This should be interesting.

* Can't find the clip on Youtube, but basically "so your father's German, you're half-German and you married a German?".

Project Fill in the Gaps

100 books in 5 years.  Fill the list with books you either should have read ages ago in your role as totally educated, intelligent, literary person - or, as I also did, to fill in those gaps of favourite authors' bibliographies.

The list was compiled in June 2010, which is why the Discworld series only goes as far as Unseen Academicals.  I gave myself till the end of the fifth calendar year to complete this, with a 25% margin of error, so I have to read at least 75 books from the list by 31/12/2015.  Easy.

Success: 13/100 (at time of writing this post - for further updates see the Fill in the Gaps page).

The list is below the cut: