OK, I take it back, 2012 was not my worst year of reading:  2013 was.  Oh, nursing school, way to ruin all my other plans.

( The List )

Yes, that says "2012."  The past two years have been so busy that not only have I not reached the goal set for this or last year, but I am only now getting around to posting my Final Count.  Hopefully it won't take me so long to post my 2013 list ( Read more... )

Books #8-10
Boris Akunin. Pelagiya and the White Bulldog.
                    Pelagiya and the Black Monk.
                    Pelagiya and the Red Rooster.
3 books about a nun Pelagiya who has a God-given talent to solve mysteries.  Can be read together or separately.  (Available in English, but I read them in Russian).

( 11-15 )

( Read more... )

35. Towers of Midnight: Book Thirteen of the Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
                      I don't have much to say about this book that I haven't said about the previous ones in the series.  Mr. Sanderson is doing a pretty good job.  The infuriating sexism continues.  Et cetera.

36. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins
      ( Read more... )

This is my first post of the new year.

Last year's challenge was fine.  I finished my 100th book, meeting my goal, on the 31st of December.  I cut it so close because I began watching too much television, and had my worst month yet : Just two books in September.

This year, because I'll be on a long backpacking trip, I'm going to make my goal 75 ( Read more... )

Title: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michal Chabon [New York 2000]
Summary: The novel follows the lives of the title characters, a Czech artist named Joe Kavalier and a Brooklyn-born writer named Sam Clay-both Jewish-before, during, and after World War II. Kavalier and Clay become major figures in the nascent comics industry during ( Read more... )

62. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, 2007, 335 pages. [Winner of the Pulitzer Prize]
63. Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer, 2003, 377 pages.
64. Stolen Innocence by Elissa Wall (with Lisa Pulitzer), 2008, 451 pages.

( reviews here )

70. The Good Earth - Pearl S. Buck
                   I've finally read this!  Now I can answer all those NYT crossword questions, FTW!  Oh yeah, it was the Pulitzer winner for 1932.  And I liked it.

71.  What I Talk About When I Talk About Running: A Memoir - Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel
                    A book about Murakami's ( Read more... )

 67. Common Sense - Thomas Paine
                   One of Paine's pamphlets encouraging the American colonists to rebel.  This one mostly lays out why it was "common sense" to do it and do it at the time he was writing.  He talks about such things as population size and military skill being in the favor of the colonists to strive for freedom.  I ( Read more... )