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Back to the Classics Challenge 2013
I’m also joining the Back to the Classics Challenge again this year, as I really enjoyed the 2012 challenge. There are six required categories and five optional categories. My list may change, but here are my tentative choices. Required: A 19th Century Classic – Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson A 20th Century Classic – The End of the Affair by Graham Greene A Pre-18th or 18th Century Classic – Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare A Classic that relates to the African-American Experience – Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston A Classic Adventure – The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain A Classic that…
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The 2013 TBR Pile Challenge
The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues was my last book for the 2012 TBR Pile Challenge. I got through 12 books that had been on my shelf since at least 2010, so thanks to Roof Beam Reader for the push. I finished just in time to start the 2013 challenge! The challenge is to read 12 books (allowing two alternatives) that you’ve had in your possession since before January 1st, 2012. I actually didn’t have as many from back then as I thought I had, almost not enough for this list, so I guess I’m making progress. Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett Between the Bridge and the…
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The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues
The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues by Plato Published: ~399 B.C. Translated by: Benjamin Jowett Socrates died in 399 B.C. after being sentenced to death by a slight majority of 500 jurymen for corrupting the youth and not believing in the (right) Gods. He was given the choice to either drink hemlock or leave Athens, and he chose to drink the poison in the company of his friends. I know this because my brain decides what it will and will not remember, seemingly at random, and it decided a book report I did as a kid was something to remember. If only I could harness this memory for…
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Legion
Legion by Brandon Sanderson Published: 2012 Narrated By: Oliver Wyman I hadn’t read anything by Brandon Sanderson, and I only really heard of him when he took the job to finish The Wheel of Time series for Robert Jordon. I gave up on that series nine books in, so I’ll probably never get to read his contribution, but I was curious about his work after he’d been selected. Legion is just a short novella, so it’s a great introduction to him. It’s also quite a good introduction to audiobooks in general if you haven’t taken that step yet. Audible is offering the story for free, which is how I stumbled…
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The Fry Chronicles
The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry Published: 2010 Narrated by: Stephen Fry I read Stephen Fry’s first memoir, Moab is My Washpot, earlier this year, which covers his life up to Cambridge. The Fry Chronicles is in my TBR Pile Challenge list, so it’s been on the shelf for quite a while now. I feel a bit guilty about this, but after listening to his first memoir as an audiobook, I couldn’t pass up doing the same with his second. I love self-narrated autobiographies when they’re well done, and it was obvious his would be, so the dead-tree version is still collecting dust on the shelf. This actually covers less…
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The Polysyllabic Spree
The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man’s Struggle With the Monthly Tide of the Books He’s Bought and the Books He’s Been Meaning to Read by Nick Hornby Published: 2004 I’ve been meaning to pick this up for ages. It’s a collection of Nick Hornby’s monthly column, from a magazine called The Believer, where he discusses what he read over the previous month, as well as what he didn’t read. It’s essentially a professional book blog. I don’t want anyone writing in to point out that I spend too much money on books, many of which I will never read. I know that already. I certainly…