Stacy's 2018 TBR Challenge

Primary List:

1. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (pre-2013) - November
2. The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson (2014) - February
3. Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong by Terry Teachout (pre-2013) - October
4. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (pre-2013) - November
5. And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hoover Santmyer (pre-2013) - June
6. Oh My Gods by Philip Freeman (2014) - November
7. Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams (pre-2013) - November
8. Dancer by Colum McCann (2014) - September
9. Zoo Station by David Downing (2014) - December
10. Selected Poems II by Margaret Atwood (2014) - April
11. Outrage by Arnaldur Indriaason (2014) - January
12. Rat Pack Confidential by Shawn Levy (2014) - June

Alternate List:
1. The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse (2014) - March
2. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (pre-2013) - November
3. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (pre-2013) - November
4. River God by Wilbur Smith (2014) - December
5. The Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto (2014) - March
6. Cold Mourning by Brenda Chapman (2014) - May
7. Infernal Angels by Loren Estleman (2014) - April
8. Dove Season by Johnny Shaw (2014) - September
9. The Deepest Secret by Carla Buckley (2014) - May
10. Mission to Paris by Alan Furst (2014) - July
11. Shots Fired by C.J. Box (2014) - June
12. Cop Town by Karin Slaughter (2014) - February

Read: 24
Remaining: 0

I'm following a similar plan to 2017. This time the focus is on books I acquired in 2014 with some extras thrown in from my pre-2013 purchases. Zoo Station is making a repeat appearance on my list - I believe it was on the 2015 or 2016 list. I know I started reading it in 2016 and just never finished.

Some of the 2014 books were picked up at a mystery book convention as free give aways so it is definitely time to either read or donate them.

I'm putting And Ladies of the Club on here since it's one of my dad's favorite books and I really would like to finally see what all the fuss is about. :)

Cheers again on the Dickens read! I'll get to him mid-year, had contemplated Copperfield for earlier in 2018 but I'm only just reading Dombey now and I like to space them apart.

Your only listing I can claim having read for certain is The Prince, which I was too young to grasp very well. I haven't liked Verne much since I was a kid, but since I can't clearly recall whether I've read 20,000 Leagues or not, I might have to sometime just to make it a solid 'yes'. I haven't tried Atwood's poetry (largely for not being able to appreciate poetry in general), but I read her Handmaid's Tale in 2017 and I think I still have Surfacing TBR. I've read some Russians but not Turgenev yet, and that would be the one I'd try. For all the rest, I'll check your reviews as you go along and see what nabs my attention.

Twenty-thousand leagues under the sea, in an abridged format, was a staple of my childhood, and in 2018 I think I'll go back and read the entire thing, marine biology chapters and all.

Wodehouse is fun. In moderation, but great fun. Turgenev I've never read (I think), so I'm curious what you have to say.

Another great list. I look forward to following along.

To my shame I must admit that I haven't read any of the books on your list(s), so I'm very much looking forward to reading your reviews.

Great list! I have not read any of the books on your list, but a few are on my TBR list.

I've only read 20k Leagues and the Hitchhiker one, and Machiavelli is on my shelves (a good one for the TBR someday lol). Interesting list. :)

I feel like I'm behind as I haven't finished anything yet. However, I did finally start Outrage the other day and should finish it this weekend as I'll be flying and this is a perfect plane book.

Yea! Finished the first one finally.

1. Outrage by Arnaldur Indriaason (3 stars)

This book picks up at the end of the previous book and instead of featuring Erlendur the focus is predominately on Elinborg instead. It was nice to get insight into the life of another member of the team. As usual though you get an interesting case as well as some other side stories to help showcase more well rounded characters.

>10 LittleTaiko:, this seems to be a trend lately, jumping to another viewpoint character in the sequel. Has the advantage of freshening up the story, delving into a different person's head, but as an author you risk losing some of the magic of the series if your fans don't care for the new viewpoint and miss the old one.

2. The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson (3 stars)

So happy that I finally read this first book in the Longmire series. I'm not generally a fan of westerns so wasn't really sure how this was going to go. Walt Longmire is the easy going sheriff in a small Wyoming town dealing with the usual small town problems when the dead body of a local teenager with a criminal past is found dead. The investigation opens up some old wounds that the community would probably rather keep quiet. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and the resolution made sense.

I've started Cop Town but the first chapter left me feeling flat so I'll have to try something else.

Yay for #2! Too bad it wasn't more stars, but that sounds pretty decent. :)

Westerns have never attracted me, although we were assigned Shane in school and I admit I enjoyed that one.

That doesn't sound too bad, a Western mystery.

3. Cop Town by Karin Slaughter (3 stars)

I've been a fan of the author's Will Trent and Grant County series so was intrigued when she wrote this stand alone set in Atlanta in 1974. The story follows two women, Maggie and Kate, on the Atalanta police force who are having to deal with the pressures of being in a hostile work environment, family issues, and trying to track down a killer who is targeting police officers. Maggie is from a family of police officers but that does not make her life any easier. Her uncle Terry is a good ole boy who along with his cronies do not take kindly to anyone else trying to get into their business. Kate is a young widow who needs to find something to do to fill the void in her life. It was a bit hard to get my head into what life for women would have been like in the 1970's and I found myself frustrated with some of the characters actions, especially Maggie. Then again while I liked Kate more, there's a part of her story line that seemed unnecessary. This being a Slaughter novel, there is plenty of violence, swearing, and sex - definitely lots of swearing, though it seemed appropriate for the characters.

>13 .Monkey.: - It was pretty decent. Three stars for me means that I liked it but may or may not recommend it. In this case if you're into westerns and mysteries then I would say it's definitely worth reading.

>14 Cecrow: - They aren't normally my thing either, though I've read a couple recently that I suppose fall into that category - News of the World which I loved and These is my Words which was also quite good.

>15 Narilka: - There aren't a whole lot of the out there that I know of. I am a huge fan of C.J. Box's series set in Wyoming. I suppose those are sort of Westerns too now that I think about it.

So, now that I'm close to getting back on track to reading 2 a month from the list, I have started The Prince and have The Mating Season ready to go as well.

Cormac McCarthy writes westerns that are very good, but also very violent.

Or at least I consider them westerns.

4. Tuner of Silences by Mia Couto (4 stars)

Sometimes a book has been on your shelf so long you no longer remember why you bought it to begin with. That is the case this time around. My best guess is that it was a tournament of book entry from a few years ago that for some reason caught my interest. A father has moved his two sons to a remote area along with their uncle and one other person and told his two boys that the rest of the world is dead. Each member of their group gets a chapter which helps unravel how they all ended up in this situation. This really isn't the sort of book that I usually like with people who are hard to relate to and don't make sense. Not to mention the rather odd relationship with a mule. Yet, the characters were eccentric and well-meaning enough that I just couldn't help enjoy reading about them.

I'm almost finished with The Mating Season so will be almost caught up with my goal of 2 per month. We'll see if I get any others in during March.

5. The Mating Season by P.G. Wodehouse (4 stars)

Another fun outing with Wooster and Jeeves. Once again there are affairs of the heart that need to be settled and misunderstanding put right. Bertie ends up pretending to be Gussie Fink-Nottle, Gussie pretends to be Bertie, and even Jeeves is incognito. Many chuckles from this one.

Have started the 1000 plus paged And Ladies of the Club which is moving along nicely. I still need to get back to The Prince and decided to also start the Selected Poems II by Margaret Atwood for some variety.

I'm a recent fan of Jeeves and Wooster. I'm reading Thank You, Jeeves these days. They are fun books for sure.

6. Selected Poems II by Margaret Atwood (3 stars)

Let me preface this by saying I don't know much about poetry and have only read a little. That said, I felt that the writing was probably quite beautiful, but overall I also found it rather grim, dark, and disturbing. This is not the sort of poetry to read if you want to feel better about the state of the world or life in general.

I'd love to meet Margaret Atwood in person to discuss if she really sees the world through such dark-tinted glasses or whether that's just her literary persona. I believe she's fiercely intelligent. Of her books I've only read The Handmaid's Tale so far and from what I've heard about some of her others they appear to be written in much the same vein. With so much doom and gloom in the world happening already, I can only take so much dystopia at a time.

I saw her speak a couple of years ago and she definitely does not come across as a very dark person. Totally agree that she is very intelligent which is probably why I struggled with some of her poems. There are a lot of ideas packed into them and she moves from issue to issue so quickly it's hard to keep up.

I've read a few of her novels and overall enjoyed them with Penelopiad and The Blind Assassin being my favorites. It's possible that they are the least dark of her books though.

Out of interest, does she address one specific area in her poems, e.g. feminism, or the lack of women's emancipation, or does she apply her dark outlook to all sorts of other aspects of life?

She covers quite a few topics in her poems, definitely feminism, but there was also love, death, nature, and other areas touched on, all with a varying degrees of her dark outlook.

7. Infernal Angels by Loren D. Estleman (4 stars)

I'm pretty sure I received this for free at a book convention four years ago. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. Normally, I'm not a huge PI fan (Kinsey Millhone excepted), but I may have found another series to explore. This is the 21st book in the series so there's plenty of catching up to do, but I didn't feel like I missed anything by not knowing the back story. Set in Detroit, Amos Walker is a PI who wise-cracks just enough to be entertaining but not too much that it becomes annoying. Modern technology isn't Walker's cup of tea (whiskey really), but he needs to learn quickly since his latest case involves HDTV converters. Like I said, I enjoyed it much more than I expected to and do intend to try and read more in the series.

Slowly but surely inching my way through the list. Up next are Cold Mourning and The Deepest Secret.

>27 LittleTaiko:, "I'm pretty sure I received this for free at a book convention four years ago." .... I knew my TBR pile was getting too big when I couldn't remember where they all came from anymore.

It's funny how there are some books I can look at and remember where I was when I bought it. Then there are others that I stare at in confusion and wonder how it came to be on my shelf.

8. The Deepest Secret by Carla Buckley (2 stars)

This could have been a really good book but instead it came across as a movie of the week sort of story complete with cardboard characters that unfortunately were hard to like or root for. The secret is revealed pretty early on in the book and then becomes a waiting game to see how it will all unfold. It was a book I couldn't help but read though as I wanted to see how everything imploded on everyone.

9. Cold Mourning by Brenda Chapman (3 stars)

This is the first in a series I was unfamiliar with set in Canada. The first chapter regarding two young girls was a tough one to read and almost put me off the book. It quickly switches to modern day and a rather unpleasant man contemplating killing his wife. When he goes missing there are plenty of people who may have had a reason to wish him dead instead. Kala Stonechild, a young police officer with a past, is investigating along with a small team led by Jaques Rouleau. I enjoyed the dynamics of the investigative team. The storytelling was unusual as the chapters switched between about five different points of view.

I received both of these books for free at a mystery book convention in 2014. Nice to finally have them read.

10. And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer (4 stars)

I did it! I finally finished all 1,176 pages of this book. It is one of my dad's favorite books and for years he's been asking me if I had read it yet. Now I can say I have and I enjoyed it tremendously. I'm a sucker for family sagas and this one was no different. The book opens in a small Ohio town with two young women, Anne and Sally, graduating in the late 1800's. They are asked to join a women's club that is forming for the purpose of continuing intellectual pursuits. The book then follows their lives as well as the lives of other club members for the next 60 years. Nothing much happens over the course of the book besides every day life - graduations, marriages, births, deaths, political and cultural changes. After having spent so much time with these characters I find that I miss them and would like to some day revisit them. There were some obvious typos (maybe the editor was tired after all those pages), but it didn't keep me from enjoying the book.

>31 LittleTaiko:, I'd never heard of that, but it sounds like a good one. I know the power of a family member touting a particular title. I dismissed my grandmother's recommendations once upon a time, and years after her death I finally pursued and enjoyed a couple. I'm sorry I couldn't share that with her. So you did it at the right time.

>32 Cecrow: - Yes, I'm very happy that I can now discuss the book with my dad. Now it's on to the most recent book he's been recommending. Now that he's retired I'm getting quite a few book recommendations. :)

11. Shots Fired by C.J. Box (4 stars)

Box is one of my favorite mystery authors and I enjoyed this collection of stories, some of which featured Joe Pickett. There's a dark element to most of the stories which is typical for Box. My favorite was the one that was only 1000 words long. He did a nice job conveying quite a bit with so few words.

With that quick read I'm almost to the halfway point and I've almost read 12 off my list! I'm halfway through Rat Pack right now so should have it completed by the end of the week. Maybe there is hope I can complete the full list this year. :)

12. Rat Pack Confidential by Shawn Levy (3 stars)

Entertaining, gossipy, engaging, and fairly disturbing look at a short period of time when the Rat Pack ruled Las Vegas. I will always love the music of Dean, Sammy, and Frank but boy were they obnoxious, especially Frank. The author manages to walk a fine line most of the time of admiring the stars but yet finding their actions repugnant. The most icky chapter is the one that lists all of the famous women the guys were supposed to have slept with. Lots of stories about the mob and the Kennedy's provide a lot of other salacious details.

Yea! I'm actually on track after a really slow start this year. Next up will most likely be Mission to Paris and River God. Maybe it's also time to start David Copperfield...

You're doing really well. I'm looking forward to DC myself, but I've a couple of other big reads in front of it so it's probably not until fall for me.

13. Mission to Paris by Alan Furst (4 stars)

I'm not normally a huge fan of spy novels for some reason. This time around I thoroughly enjoyed this tale of a Viennese born actor who has made a career in Hollywood who finds himself caught up in the tensions between Germany and France while in Paris to film a movie. The story took some time to get going but once it did I was hooked with enough tension to keep me turning the pages. The characters were accessible and the behind the scenes of the movie business added a nice touch.

Nice review! I love spy stories and have been wanting to read Furst for a while. I think he will appear on my list next year.

14. Dancer by Colum McCann (4 stars)

McCann has the ability to make me want to keep reading a book even when the person he's writing about is a complete ass. This is a fictionalized account of the famous dancer Rudolph Nureyev who may have been a fabulous dancer but boy did he struggle as a pleasant person to be around. Loved the multiple points of view and ways that McCann let the story unfold.

My main goal now is to finish the 4 remaining books on the list that were acquired in 2014. That should be doable as I'm reading two of them right now Dove Season and Oh My Gods (this one is best read in small doses). I've also started David Copperfield and am slowly enjoying it. I'll also gets Pops off of the list soon as I'm about halfway through with it. It looks like I should get to 20 with little problem by the end of the year. Still not convinced I can get all 24.

>40 LittleTaiko:, "slowly enjoying it" ... is that like "I hate this, but I'm learning to like it", or more like "I'm slowing down to enjoy it more"? As soon as I get through what I'm reading now, DC is next up for me too.

>41 Cecrow: - Definitely more in the camp of "I'm slowing down to enjoy it more." I've been juggling it with a few other books but have enjoyed the time spent with it thus far.

15. Dove Season by Johnny Shaw (4 stars)

This is another book that I received for free four years ago and while it's a bit grittier than my normal fare I just couldn't help but enjoy this book. It falls in the mystery genre but it's not a traditional one. The author does a great job at making you feel like you're in the small town in southern California near the Mexico border. He struck just the right balance of humor with his main characters too.

I'm really hoping to push to get a few more knocked off the list that I'm part way through. Sort of saving The Life, the Universe, and Everything for when I need a quick read to help get one more off. It's nice to know I have a quick easy read waiting for me.

>43 LittleTaiko:, I just started David Copperfield, figure there's about a month's worth of reading here for me.

>44 Cecrow: - I finally got back to it at lunch today and am still enjoying it. According to my kindle app I'm about 10% through so obviously lots of reading left to go.

16. Pops by Terry Teachout (3 stars)

Everything you could want to know about Louis Armstrong and then some. This was a well researched and informative look at Louis Armstrong's life and his impact on the music world. I would recommend if you're a fan of his work though some of the musical discussion went way over my head.

Eight books to go - can I get them all done? River God is going to be the hardest one to get through as I've finished over 100 pages and am really not enjoying it and there are still a couple hundred to go. Sigh. Still hopeful that I will be able to make it through all of them after all.

Eight is a lot -- but it's only four a month. Depending on how organized you want to be (reading at set times, no other reading until these are done), it should be feasible. Then again, that might take all the fun out of this challenge. Tough choice!

If a book abhors you, skip it! Life's too short to waste on enforced displeasure.

I read a book about David Byrne this year, and it was very complex. Music is quite deep.

By the way, Life, the Universe and Everything is great fun. I read that one this year, too.

17. Oh My Gods by Philip Freeman (3 stars)

Once I got past the knowledge that this book wasn't what I expected it to be I rather enjoyed it. With the subtitle referencing "a modern retelling", I was expecting stories set in modern times. Instead it's the same stories but with more modern language. It also took a bit to adjust to people being raped or murdered on basically every page, but after a while it just becomes yet another part of the story. I'm glad I read it and that I own it as an e-book since I do plan on using it to look up the various gods and goddesses from time to time and refresh my memory as to what their particular story is.

Now back to Dickens! I'm going to be on a plane for a couple of hours later this week and am hoping to make significant progress.

>47 Petroglyph: - Normally I don't have a problem setting aside a book if I'm not enjoying it but for some reason have a harder time doing it if it's for the challenge.

>49 billiejean: - I'm gong to be getting to that one pretty soon. I know I can get through it rather quickly which is nice. Plus I know it will be fun which is a bonus.

>50 LittleTaiko:, just finished DC. If you’re stuck then I’ll bet it’s in that long middle portion when David is mostly just observing others’ drama. It gets better again after that.

>52 Cecrow: - I'm not necessarily stuck but more lacking in time. Dickens is more of something I need to settle into for large chunks of reading at a time and not the short little bursts of reading that I've been doing lately. Then again, I just started a different book from my list Fathers and Sons mainly because it was short so maybe I am stuck... I'm still pretty early on with DC - it's setting up his relationship with his classmates. I'm looking forward to getting back to it this weekend.

18. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev (4 stars)

This was a surprisingly delightful family tale that is part coming of age story and part generational clash story. Turgenev really captured the divide between the younger generation who think they will now change the world and the older relatives who are a bit bewildered by the fact that the life they are leading is now not considered good enough.

I made significant progress on DC over the weekend and hope to wrap it up in a couple of days. It's been really good so far though I doubt it will surpass A Tale of Two Cities or Dombey and Son as my favorite Dickens.

Glad to know that's a short good one. I'm used to thinking of Russian classics as dark and ponderous, so I'm surprised too.

Oh no no noooo they don't have to be dark at all! Oh I wish people were more open-minded about Russian classics, they have somehow managed to acquire this awful reputation, when they're such exquisite books! It makes me so sad. Read more Russian books, world! They are excellent! xP

19. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (4 stars)

While not my favorite or even second favorite Dickens this was still quite an enjoyable read mainly due to Betsey Trotwood, Twaddles, and the Micawbers. Such wonderful characters! David was sweet but oh so very naive. Situations that are obvious to the reader just don't register with him. Plus some of his choices regarding his personal life had me wanting to sit him down for a much needed talking to.

Next up are Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Life, The Universe, and Everything just as soon as I finish my book club book Origin. It's a Dan Brown book so a very quick read!

I also have a tentative 2019 reading list set up. Need to sit with it a little bit to see I want to make any changes before making it public.

So many people I follow read David Copperfield this year. It almost makes me want to pick Dickens as one of my classics for next year.

He's one of my favorite authors so I would definitely encourage you to read one of his books next year. I've been working my way through his books and will have Hard Times on my TBR challenge list next year.

>57 LittleTaiko:, Betsey, yes! When he shows up on her doorstep? When the Murdstones ... she's just awesome all around. And even with all that impetuousness, she still managed to contain herself when she knew he was blind, blind, blind. He had to make his own choices.

>59 LittleTaiko:, ah you're skipping Bleak House then? Already read that one? It's next for me.

Yes, I read Bleak House a couple of years ago. I think there was some sort of group read going on at the time so I read it out of order. I should really go back and give Martin Chuzzelwit another try in order to be truly on track. Maybe I'll swap it out for Hard Times next year. We'll see.

I do love a long holiday weekend especially when I can finish off a couple of books from the list.

20. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (3 stars)

I would have preferred more adventure and a little less science with this one. I appreciate what Verne was able to do in imagining what submarines could be capable of. The constant description and lists of every single sea creature that they observed had me skimming quite a bit. Still it was a fun book that I'm glad to have read.

21. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli (4 stars)

While my knowledge of 16th century history is extremely limited, I still found this book to be rather interesting and on point for how I imagine things work today to some extent. I don't think Machiavelli is necessarily advocating for these rules, but instead is acknowledging that the way politicians and rulers get to be in charge is sometimes very twisted.

With that, I have three books to go!!! I'm only 40 pages away from finishing Life, The Universe, and Everything so that means only two to go for the month of December. Feeling quite optimistic that this will finally be the year I read all 24.

You're almost there!

I feel like I should read The Prince one of these years but just can't get motivated for it.

>63 Narilka: - If it helps, it is super short. I probably spent more time reading a wikipedia summary of each chapter than I did reading the book. The summary helped me make sure I was understanding the book properly.

>63 Narilka:, I've read it and it made no impression on me, can't remember a thing. Does that help your motivation? :)

>65 Cecrow: lol Nope! :)

22. Life, The Universe, and Everything by Douglas Adams (4 stars)

I really don't have anything new to add regarding this installment in this fabulous collection of Hitchhiker's stories. All the crew is there and Arthur is still so delightfully befuddled, brave, and droll. Looking forward to reading the rest of the stories soon.

Next up is Zoo Station by David Downing, a book I had on my challenge list a couple of years ago, started, and then never finished. It's time has come!

You're really doing great with your challenge!

I have both 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Prince waiting to make the final cut on one of my tbr challenge lists. Maybe 2019. :)

>62 LittleTaiko: Agreed about 20k leagues, the endless lists were ridiculously obnoxious. The story itself was fine, but ugh, this was one of the very few cases where an abridged version would actually be far superior to the full one.

23. River God by Wilbur Smith (DNF - 1 star)

I finally decided to take Petroglyph's advice and give this book up once and for all. I tried picking it back up this weekend and after struggling through another 20-30 pages decided to call it quits. To be fair, I made it to 160 out of 840 so it's not like I didn't try. While Egyptian mythology can be interesting, this story just kept going on and on with no destination seemingly in mind. The narrator was too much to take as well. He was an expert in basically everything you could imagine and loved to keep telling you about it. Ugh.

One more to go. You're almost there :)

Good idea to not finish. Life's too short to read bad books.

Sounds like you did the right thing. Only one left!

>70 LittleTaiko:, that's too bad; I like the theme (Egyptian historical fiction). Funny: I'd heard before that this was a good series for the first couple of books and then it went downhill fast, lol. So if the first one sunk, can you just imagine ... ?

I was definitely not expecting to dislike the book that much. One of my cousins recommended it years ago since it's one of his favorite books. It also has tons of positive reviews so obviously I'm in the minority. Ha! If the rest of the series goes downhill then I shudder to think what the other books are like!

Only one more! You can do it!

And props for abandoning the clunker: you gave it an honest try, and decided you had better uses for your time.

24. Zoo Station by David Downing (3 stars)

Spy novels aren't my normal reading fare but I did enjoy this WWII spy novel featuring John Russell, an Englishman living in Germany. He is somehow aiding the Soviets and his home country England while side stepping the Germans. Add in a German son and girlfriend, teaching English to a Jewish family, and his general journalism job and you find that John has a very busy life. For such a busy man the pace was really sort of slow.

And I Am Done!!!!!!!!!!!! On to 2019!!

Congrats!!!!

Congratulations!

Well done, you!

>76 LittleTaiko:, awesome! It's been a couple of years for me, but I remember the feeling: take that, TBR pile!

Thank you everyone! It is such a relief and also quite satisfying to have finally made it through a full 24.