Boekentrol's 2018 Challenge(s)

Hi all!
Glad to be back here for a whole new year of reading books from MTBR :-)
Thank you for hosting again, mathgirl40!!

This is a first post (from my phone) to say I'm joining, the specific challenge(s) I will probably add between Christmas and December 30th.
I will be going along the same lines as I did this year: read as many off MTBR as I can, starting with the oldest ones.

MTBR challenge ticker:



Here I also list the books read off MTBR, to make it easier to overview. In the individual posts you can find more details of the book, like from whom I received it and when. I also include a direct link to the book there.
When there's a number in brackets behind the book, it refers to the number it has on the list of oldies. As you can see... I haven't yet finished an oldie, but did read 2 other MTBR books

January
01. Pluk een roos by M.J.Arlidge
02. De Nevelprins by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
03. Krebsstation 2. Teil by Alexander Solschenizyn 7
04. Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard 1
05. Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg
06. Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

February
07. De doodsvogel by Samuel Bjork
08. De man in het hoge kasteel by Philip K. Dick
09. Open hart by Eli Wiesel
10. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

March
11. The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber 2
12. From Doon With Death by Ruth Rendell
13. Watchmen by Alan Moore
14. The ransom of Red Chief; The gift of the Magi by O. Henry
15. Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs 15

April
16. The Messenger by Markus Zusak
17. Reizen zonder John by Geert Mak
18. A Cotswold Killing by Rebecca Tope
19. Ragdoll by Daniel Cole

May
20. Watching the Tree by Adeline Yen Mah 12
21. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf 41
22. What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe 10
23. City Primeval: high noon in New York by Elmore Leonard 3
24. Parken en woestijnen by Vasalis

June
25. The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory 4
26. The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory 14

July
27. Laat maar bloeden by Ian Rankin
28. Verbinding verbroken! by Mary Higgins Clark
29. Die linkshändige Frau by Peter Handke
30. Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter by Peter Handke
31. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

August
32. Fatelessness by Imre Kertész 6
33. Margot en de engelen by Kristien Hemmerechts
34. Off MTBR, but not finished: The Inner Sanctum by Stephen Frey 5
35. De zevende doodzonde by Lisa Jackson
36. Het stenen concilie by Jean-Christoph Grangé
37. Margot en de engelen by Kristien Hemmerechts
38. De afstammeling by Almar Otten
39. De man van St. Petersburg by Ken Follett
40. The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell 16

YAY, CHALLENGE COMPLETED!!

41. Fanny Goes to War by Pat Beauchamp 8
42. The Intruders by Michael Marshall 31
43. De waker, de slaper en de dromer; Mond vol tanden - oudejaarsconference by Youp van 't Hek

September
44. Jacoba, dochter van Holland by Simone van der Vlugt
45. Insluiper by Tania Carver
46. Out of Sight by Elmore Leonard 13
47. The Straw Men by Michael Marshall 38
48. Kisscut by Karin Slaughter 20

October
49. And Then You Die by Michael Dibdin 39
50. On the Road by Jack Kerouac 9
51. Ex-libris by Ross King
52. The Color Purple by Alice Walker 19
53. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 18

November
54. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 23
55. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink 30
56. Thank you, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
57. Milchgeld by Volker Klüpfer
58. Killing Floor by Lee Child 26
59. The Postcard by Tony Abbott 32
60. De hemel boven Vietnam by Duong Thu Huong
61. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

December
62. Coq Rouge by Jan Guillou 25
63. If Not Now, When? by Primo Levi 34
64. Judashart by Ingrid Black
65. Waanzin by Wulf Dorn
66. In Arkadien by Jim Crace
67. Schijnwereld by Roger Jon Ellory
68. Das Buch von Blanche und Marie by Per Olov Enquist

Welcome back! I hope to be more active in this group during 2018. Best of luck with your challenges.

>2 SqueakyChu: Thank you :-) Good to see you here as well.
It will be interesting to see your challenges (if you do any for BC and track them here). I'll update the thread in a few days, when Christmas frenzy has gone.

My challenges are on my personal thread, but I don’t want to do reproduce the same information on two threads.

I guess I could post my tickers here, though. I ‘ll think about what to do.

The only challenges I do are the TIOLI challenges because I run them. They are part of the 75 Books group here on LT.

For BookCrossing, I participate in a lot of the release challenges, but not the reading challenges.

>1 BoekenTrol71: Good luck with your 2018 plans!

>4 SqueakyChu: That's a great idea. You can post the tickers or just give the occasional update without feeling like you have to reproduce all the details.

>5 mathgirl40: Done! Thread created! :D

I have been thinking hard about my challenges for next year. I will participate in the 75-books again here on LT, that's a fun group and the amount of 75 is manageable.

At first I thought I'd do the alphabets again, but I'm not so sure anymore. I think I'll try something new. Somethibg I haven't done before and I'm therefore not sure whether I'll like it or not.
My idea is to read series next year (apart from the 40 oldest on my shelves).
I never have read a complete series one book after another, simply because I never had them complete or didn't think of doing it.

And... I have quite a few series, when I look at my shelves. Enough reading material to fill a year (or two, ....).

>7 BoekenTrol71: Good luck with your plans. I have way too many series on the go myself. It feels good when I actually finish a series, but that usually only happens when the author has passed away. Whenever I finish the last book of a series, inevitably the author has just published a new installment!

>7 BoekenTrol71: Good luck to you on your series challenge. I personally would not like that kind of challenge. I always like to switch, after completing one book. to a book that's completely different. Just for variety's sake, I guess! :)

>8 mathgirl40: It feels good when I actually finish a series, but that usually only happens when the author has passed away.

That doesn't always work. Sometimes a family member or other author later continues a series after the primary author's passing!

Like I did last year, I intend to read 40 of my oldest MTBR books. MTBR 2018 for me are books I received from other BookCrossers before Januari 1st, 2018.

Read: 26, started-not finished: 4, left to read: 10

1 Get Shorty Elmore Leonard 1001-listed READ in February 2018
2 The Book of Air and Shadows Michael Gruber READ in March 2018
3 City Primeval Elmore Leonard 1001-listed READ May 2018
4 The Other Boleyn Girl Philippa Gregory READ in June 2018
5 The Inner Sanctum Stephen W. Frey started, not finished, August 2018
6 Fatelessness Imre Kertész 1001-listed READ August 2018
7 Krebsstation. Buch II Alexander Solschenizyn 1001-listed READ in January 2018
8 Fanny Goes To War Pat Beauchamp READ in August 2018
9 On the Road Jack Kerouac 1001-listed READ October 2018
10 What a Carve Up! Jonathan Coe 1001-listed READ May 2018
11 Chesapeake James A. Michener
12 Watching the tree to catch a hare Adeline Yen Mah READ in May 2018
13 Out of Sight Elmore Leonard READ in August 2018
14 The Queen's Fool Philippa Gregory READ in June 2018
15 Death du Jour Kathy Reichs READ March 2018
16 The road to Wigan pier George Orwell READ in August 2018
17 About A Boy Nick Hornby Started, Not Finished, November 2018
18 The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne 1001-listed. READ October 2018
19 The Color Purple Alice Walker 1001-listed READ October 2018
20 Kisscut Karin Slaughter READ September 2018
21 The Rice Mother. Rani Manicka
22 The Glass Palace Amitav Ghosh
23 Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 1001-listed READ November 2018
24 The First Man in Rome Colleen McCullough Started, not finished, October 2018
25 Coq Rouge Jan Guillou READ December 2018
26 Killing Floor Lee Child READ November 2018
27 A passage to India E.M.Forster 1001-listed
28 The Silent Man Alex Berenson
29 Mortal Remains Peter Clement Started-not-finished, November 2018
30 The Reader Bernhard Schlink 1001-listed READ November 2018
31 The Intruders Michael Marshall
32 The Postcard Tony Abbott READ November 2018
33 The Milkman in the Night Andrey Kurkov READ July 2018
34 If Not Now, When? Primo Levi 1001-listed READ December 2018
35 Lucky Child Loung Ung
36 The Lacuna Barbara Kingsolver
37 We Need To Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver
38 The Straw Men Michael Marshall READ September 2018
39 And then you die Michael Dibdin READ October 2018
40 Transmission Hari Kunzru
41 The White Russian Tom Bradby
42 To the Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1001-listed READ in May 2018

Oh my, I wanted to have the list of books nicely in columns, but... for now I can't seem to get it to work. Will get back to it later, when my head is clearer (it's evening here and I'm lacking sleep, so it's not the right time to try to fix this).

>10 BoekenTrol71: Your list makes me nervous. :) Whenever I write down what I want to read, I lose my desire to read that exact book. Good luck!

>10 BoekenTrol71: 38 We Need To Talk About Kevin Lionel Shriver loved this!

>10 BoekenTrol71: There are a lot of 1001 books on that list! I'm hoping to read a few more 1001 books myself this year.

>12 SqueakyChu: In the beginning of the year all goes well. But as the months pass, I seem to have the same problem you have: losing interest in the books I wanted to get off MTBR.
Will see how it goes this year :-)

>14 mathgirl40: I have finished 21 so far, an all time high. I'm not trying to do that again next year, that would putvtoo much pressure on my reading in general. If I stick to this list above, I've already crossed of quite a few again!

>13 Amaryllys: I usually post a short comment and details of the book when I'm done reading. So I guess you'll probably see it somewhere next year.
However: the book is #38 and that might mean that it'll be late in the year. IF I stick to the order of the list.

Testing post for adding images ;-)



Test with picture from FB out of folder visible to 'only me':


test withg public folder in Drive:

>Looks like something's not going well... Instead of a webb address, I've used the path to the file on my computer. Already tried to change the image width (less wide), but somehow I do not get a picture here. Help?

>19 BoekenTrol71: To link to an image, you have to first upload it to either the LT site or to another photo hosting site. Then, you add the link here with

<img src="location" height="200">

Replace location with the Web address of the image, and 200 with whatever height you want in pixels (or you could use width instead).

To upload a file to LT, go to your own profile page. At the right, look for the link to "Your member gallery". On that page, click on "Add another picture" at the left. Click on the picture after you've added it, and then copy the link to use in your post.

I hope that helps!

>20 mathgirl40: Thank you. I'll give it a try later on.

Book 1 of 2018 has been read. Lack of sleep gives extra reading time :-)
Finished Pluk een roos by M.J. Arlidge registered by Aaltsje and received from 10n3k3 in September 2016; link: . Not an oldie, but... Still off MTBR.

Edited the list with oldies. I noticed that Krebsstation I was still on it, but I finished it before Dec. 31st.
Part II I'm currently buried in, hopefully I'll get it read before Jan. 14th, when I intend to take it with me to the New Year's meeting. One of the attendants is willing to take German books with her, to release them later on when she's on holiday in Germany.

Edited to correct mobile phone spellings issues...

>22 BoekenTrol71: Congratulations on finishing your first book of the year! Yes, I too resort to reading when I can't sleep. :)

Book #2 Has been read as well. Again not one of the 40 oldies, but still off MTBR :-)
It feels very good when all books in the house are MTBR, because in the very young new year no new books have entered :-)

Book two is De Nevelprins by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, registered by and received from Urdavik July 2017; link: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/14609911

The German edition of Sozhenitsyn's Cancer ward was published in 2 parts for some reason. Both books had a BCID, so I counted them as seperate books. For the 1001-challenge I kept them together and add it to my list of read books today.

Book three off MTBR is one of the oldies :-)
Krebsstation 2. Teil by Alexander Solschenitsyn was imho not as interesting as part 1, mainly because of the long dialogues on literature, politics etc, but all in all still quite readable.
I'm happy to cross this one off my list AND let it travel on soon.
Registered by and received from LiniP in May 2011; link: http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/9863702

Looks like you're off to a good start with your challenge!

I have read several books already, but a little devil keeps deviating me from my oldest on MTBR... Hope to be doing some of that reading now, but since I've offered to take one book with me to Bordeaux for a fellow BookCrosser and have detected a book in my possession (unread) on another convention-attendee I think this list may be not so well looked after as I intended whren I made it.

>12 SqueakyChu: It looks like I've caught your virus (atvthe moment at least)... I've finished the book I started in last year, but have not been able to concentrate on the next book off my list Get Shorty.

I'm not going to be angry with myself about that, because I've decided to be nicer to myself. As long as I keep reading and keep liking it, it's okay.

Maybe the concentration for Get Shorty will return as wel ..

Started another one off MTBR: Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardottir. So far so good :-)

>30 BoekenTrol71: Oops! Sorry about that. Haha!

I was thinking about reading something by Yrsa Sigurdardottir for a while. What kind of thriller/mystery do they write?

>33 Amaryllys: This particular book appears to be (at page 69) a legal thriller. But the blurp at the back hints at another kind of book.
So far I like it (even though I do not like US-based legal thrillers so much anymore. Probably due to an overdose in earlier years...)

>34 BoekenTrol71:
>>the blurp at the back hints at another kind of book
another intrigue!
Let me know if you liked when done with it!

>31 BoekenTrol71: I've been meaning to try Yrsa Sigurdardottir's books myself. I've just finished all of Arnaldur Indriðason's Erlendur series (but not the new prequels) and would love to read another mystery series set in Iceland.

>35 Amaryllys: I liked the book. It's the first in a series, as far as I can see. When you follow the touchstone, maybe you'll find my 10 cents on the book amongst the other opinions? Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir.

Still very effectively avoiding to read on in Get Shorty... I finished the second book by Samuel Bjørk, De doodsvogel today and for some reason I really am not attracted at all to go on in Get Shorty.
Will start another oldie The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Grüber instead... :-)

Finally I'm done with Get Shorty. It was not a book I liked. I just kept waiting for the book to go somewhere, but it just went on and on and on and...

When I went to the book sotre last week, I picked up a challenge sheet.
As if I didn't have enough already. But... it seemed interesting, so I thought I'd at least take it with me and take a look. I already tackled 1 book off the list (read the first part of a series) with Ik reis alleen and am currently reading the 'what if' book The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. That's a great book thus far. Very eerie at times, just like Er ist wieder da, but a good read.

>40 BoekenTrol71: The Man in the High Castle is a book I'd like to read one day. I've read and enjoyed some of Dick's other work.

>41 mathgirl40: I've finished The Man in the High Castle and it definitely worth reading. When you ever get to it, I'd be happy to read what you think of it!

I have started and finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark today. A nice and interesting short read, just what I needed to get me through the early hours of morning (half past 3 I was awake already) and out of my reading dip.

>43 BoekenTrol71: I loved that book. I'm hoping to read another Muriel Spark later this year, to celebrate what would have been her 100th birthday on Feb. 1.

Yesterday I finished The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber. I didn't like the book, chaotic, I had a hard time following who was talking, I hated the periodical flash forwards and I thought it was quite boring (seen from acthriller's point of view). Glad I'm.done with it. Hadn't it been an oldie, I wouldn't have finished it. But I thought it deserved at least to be read completely, since it has beeb residing on my shelves this long...

>45 BoekenTrol71: Congrats it's over :-) Time for a page-turner!

>46 Amaryllys: And I had my pageturner: From Doon With Death by Ruth Rendell. A nice little book, nothing fancy, just a good British crime. It lifted up my spirits and I have a few new books ready to be read as a result. Purpose served.

Wow, I'm also half way with books read off MTBR. Can't believe it. I am ashamed though, that there's been only a few that I have read off the list of oldest, 5 to be precise. I will have to do better in that area, but there now are a lot of 1001-books on that list.
Maybe I should look at it from a positive point of view: when I read then, I can make them count for three challenges at the same time: books read this year, off MTBR and off the 1001-list. Maybe that helps :-) I'l continue reading To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf today. I had put that on hold during our trip to Bordeaux, knowing that I wouldn't have enough time to read a book that needs proper attention.

>48 BoekenTrol71: You're doing well, getting half way with MTBR books. I too have a number of 1001 books on my TBR list, but like To the Lighthouse, most of them do need proper attention and are not ones I can use for bedtime reading.

>49 mathgirl40: You're right about 1001-books for bedtime reading. I usually have a lighter (read: thriller) in Dutch for bedtime reading. Books in English or another language and 1001-books I read during the day or, when it's a working day, after our after dinner stroll.

Today I finished another oldie from MTBR and a book from the 1001-list. It is What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe.
The further I read in it, the more I started to like it. The end was quite a surprise :-)
If you haven't read it, you should!

>51 BoekenTrol71: I will try to remember that recommendation

And #3 From the list of oldies has been read. I started City Primeval by Elmore Leonard feeling very sceptical. I read another book (Get Shorty) earlier this year and did not particularly like that one.
Much to my surprise I liked City Primeval a lot and I raced through it. Wow! In hindsight I have no idea why I put it off to read this book for so long...
Never mind: it'll be on its way to Portugal tomorrow.

Not one of the 40 oldest, but still quite old (from 2014)... Parken en woestijnen by Vasalis A booklet filled with poetry (not my favorite genre to read). I liked only one poem, unfortunately, but on the positive side the book only had 27 pages :-)

Book #25 off MTBR for this year, and #4 on the list of oldies is now finished. It is The Other Boleyn Girlby Philippa Gregory.
I loved the book. The descriptions of court life, schemes, plots, scandals, the complete different world, I enjoyed every page of it!
There's another book by this author on my oldies list. I think I just may take that one next and read on :-)

Currently reading the second book by Philippa Gergory that's on this list: The Queen's Fool. I like it as much as the other book I read and after I'm done, it'll travel on to the same bookcrosser that received The Other Boleyn Girl :-)
Still reading off MTBR, slowly but steadily. Frequently life gets in the way of reading a lot of of pages/books, but I do continue :-)

I liked the Queen's Fool so much, that I kept reading and finished it today. Now I'm quite sad that it's done. I grew quite used to the English court and its ways.

Will have to find something else to read, but luckily I can sleep on that choice...

I liked The Other Boleyn Girl but I liked the sequel The Boleyn Inheritance even better. I'll have to keep The Queen's Fool in mind.

>58 mathgirl40: I'll be looking for The Boleyn Inheritance, thanks for pointing it out to me. 😃

I've been reading 'like a madwoman' these past days. Different reasons for it:
- I wanted to finish a series because I liked it
- I wanted to finish a series to be able to take all 7 books to today's meet up and hand them all to the next reader
- I needed distraction from unwelcome thoughts
- I needed to relax after a hard day's (week's) work

I finished it, liked it and I will do it again ☺

Check out the author: Håkan Östlundh and this is the last book in the series Mannen zonder gezicht.

Now I continue reading Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood again, and my 'new' book Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving.

>60 BoekenTrol71: Those are all great reasons for reading "like a madwoman"!

Alias Grace is one of my favourite Atwood books. I've not seen the new TV adaptation but it's on my list of shows to watch.

I've slowed down the pace I'm reading at, but... of course I didn't stop :-)

I've finished Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. I loved it. I even read it in English, something that I failed at with The Handmaid's Tale. This was better to follow and keep track of, I guess. Or just the right book at the right time. It also is a 1001-book, which is great. And, while I was at it, I also had a go at Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter and Die linkshändige Frau, both by Peter Handke. The first one I didn't like very much, for the most part because of the style of writing. The second was a lot better, which also shows in my rating :-)

>61 mathgirl40: I haven't seen the TV-adaptation either. I think I'll go and look for it. Maybe it's on Netflix?

I've just finished Imre Kertész's Fatelessness and I'm very impressed. It will stay with me for a long time. Highly recommened for those who haven't read it yet!

Margot en de engelen by Kristien Hemmerechts did not impress me very much. I kept reading, because I was curious what would happen with Margot. The end was surprising and strange. Happy to be done with it.

Stephen Frey´s The Inner Sanctum was a book that has been sitting on my shelf for a very long time. It's been very quiet and that's probably why it's escaped my attention for so long.
And now that I've started... I found it not to my liking. I can't get through the first chapter. Start reading, go do something else (or find a new book), stop reading. Repeated this about three times.
So, I had a good conversation with this book today and I've decided to stop reading and send it on unread.

De zevende doodzonde by Lisa Jackson was a nice read. Nothing complicated, a good read to fall asleep with. As the book progressed, it got a bit more tense, but I was not VERY impressed by it.

And since my last post I've read more books from MTBR. No less than three!! They are Het stenen concilie by Jean-Christoph Grangé, Margot en de engelen by Kristien Hemmerechts and De afstammeling by Almar Otten. They were all good rads, although I find 'Margot' to be the least of them.
I'm now deliberately choosing books registered by others, instead of my own. At least untill I've done a considerable amount off MTBR and also of the oldies. For some reason The Road to Wigan Pier keeps avoiding me. Currently readingFanny Goes to War and I like that. It's not a book that I can read all day and then finish, it's quite graphic for people who tend to have movies in their head while reading. So I dose reading this book.

>68 BoekenTrol71: Congratulations for getting through so many of your MTBR books!

The list of books read and the ticker are updated again.

At this point in the year I find it hard to keep this thread (and the others on LT) updated. Anything that goes beyond short opinion on the book I read & automatic adding to 'list read' seems to slip my 'things to do today'-list every time I think I should do it.
And when I do get to it, there's so much to update and think of, that only after I shut down my laptop I remember that I forgot to... and...

But, for now I'm back on track here and will do the other threads as well today :-)

>70 BoekenTrol71: I'm feeling hopelessly behind on my threads too, but it's best not to worry too much about it. Just stop in and give an update on your progress when you can. :)

And another one off the list of oldies: #9 this time, On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I struggled with this book, but when I finally made peace with the fact that the book was going nowhere (at least not that I could figure out), the reading got nicer: I could focus on the things it told about life in America in that period.

While I was avoiding Kerouac, I managed to read (and like very much) another one from my oldies, being Michael Dibdin's And Then You Die.
An interesting detective with a very likeble main character :-) Always nice!

>72 BoekenTrol71: I'll have to keep your comments in mind. On the Road has been sitting on my own shelves for quite some time now, waiting to be read.

Still going on my challenge to read as many oldies as I can this year. Going strong is not the way things are going, but I do tick off books every now & then.

This time it's a 'started-not finished', unfortunately. I couldn't get into it. I tried, gave it quite some pages, but it didn't work. I think I've lost touch with that world (for now).
The book? First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough.

>75 BoekenTrol71: Ticking off books every now and then is just fine! :)

This early morning I finished a very impressive book: The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Interesting, emotional, filled with hope.
I simply loved it.

After The Color Purple I would have wished that The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was as good. But unfortunately it wasn't. Or at least, I didn't like it as much.
Can't have it all reading every book. So hopefully the next will be better again.

I was very lucky to have a book that I found unputdownable. I considered calling in sick, but then common sense took over and I didn't. I read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and I was swept away by the story. Sad, funny, graphic at times, interesting, this book was all and more.
I am so glad this book came my way!

Looking at the stats here for October I found myself wondering how this could be. I read more books than I listed here, didn't I?

And then it dawned on me... This is MTBR, so it may very well be that one or two books I read are not from that mount everest :-) Okay, cloudy moment passed :-)

And another one ticked off of the 40 oldest! I'm so happy that I'm still making progress. Terribly ashamed these books have been gathering dust for so long, but glad I'm en route to tackling the 'problem' and, what's also nice: liking most of the books I read :-)! I read this weekend: The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

>81 BoekenTrol71: Congrats! I have The Reader on my TBR too, - maybe next year will be the year for it ))

This weekend's third book I did not enjoy at all. I probably shouldn't have mentioned that I like the books I'm reading... Jinxed my reading...

About a Boy by Nick Hornby is a book I did not enjoy for a bit. So it joins the few others I DNF this year.

Edited to correct a typo...

It sounds like you're making great progress, whether or not all the books are officially on MTBR :)

I also loved Half of a Yellow Sun. I've been meaning to read more by the author.

Another one classified as DNF. Mortal Remains by Peter Clement did not grab me from the start. I tried, but with an overdose of Robin Cook & Michael Palmer on my read-list I maybe didn't try as hard as I'd normally do.

Started reading The Postcard by Peter Abbott. It turns out to be a children's book, but that's not a problem. Like it thus far.

>86 BoekenTrol71: The postcard was a quicker read than I ecpected. Liked it, being a mystery in a mystery.

I read #60: De hemel boven Vietnam by Duong Thu Huong, another one from mtbr, although not such an oldie. I didn't particularly like it.
At times I had difficulties keeping apart whether the president was talking, or the other man.

I probably am not enough informed about the typical (political) circumstances in Vietnam, for many points to things that happened or people, known issues, went past me. That made it quite a hard read.

The short stories by Edgar Allan Poe on the 1001-list I've read today. The Fall of the House of Usher and other writings by Edgar Allan Poe.
Ehm... What's there to say apart from that I'm not a very huge Poe-fan? The Pit and the Pendulum I liked, The Purlioned Letter was okay, but I disliked The Fall of the House of Usher. Absolutely.
I don't think I'll be getting back to him.

I'm reading all over the place. Have started 2 form the oldies list, but have also picked up two others. And I can't really seem to focus on pone thing (not only while reading), so I'll just do as I please. I know the books will be read eventually, but it feels so chaotic!

>90 BoekenTrol71: I also tend to read several books at one time. Sometimes it does feel chaotic but you're right -- they all get finished eventually. I know people who are strict about reading one book at a time, and I envy their discipline.