BW52: 2017 Reading Year Wrap Up

White House Book Tree 2013 

Merry Christmas to you and yours!  Our Adventurous Prime reading journey is drawing to a close.  Did you enjoy spelunking and digging up gems from around the world, uncovering polished stones as well as rough, blemished chunks of minerals just waiting to be revealed.  I had loads of fun searching for and reading new to me authors plus reading through series by favorite authors with the Birthstone Bookology challenge as well as delving into different centuries, countries, and genres with 52 Books Bingo.  

• Where did your reading take you this year?

• What was your reading goal for the year and did you meet or beat your personal goal?  Did you end with a prime number of reads?

• Top 5 (or more) favorite reads?

• Which book stayed with you the longest after finishing it?

• Which book made you want to read it all over again?  

• Which book did you think you were going to love, but didn't?

• Which genres or authors you thought you'd never read and was pleasantly surprised to like them?

• Which countries and time periods did you visit?

• Which books or authors would you recommend everybody read? 

• Which mini challenges did you enjoy? 

• Please share favorite covers or quotes

• And last, but not least, share your list of completed reads! 

 
Congratulations and thank you to everyone who joined in our 2017 adventurous reading year.    I'd also like to thank all who have followed our progress.  Are you ready to dive in yet?  *grin*  Whether you read fast or slow or listen to audio books;  read fluffy, light romances or heavy classics, comedy to drama, urban fantasies to thrillers, or nonfiction to comics, the most essential thing is reading.  

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” 

~ Charles William Eliot

I have enjoyed sharing our reading journey and look forward to the new year and more bookish adventures.  

~Cheers to a blessed and happy reading new year!

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BW51: Winter Solstice

Winter is coming!  Officially, Winter begins with the Solstice on December 21st.  Unofficially, with the falling temperatures, it's already began as we've been bundling up in several layers while we take our evening walks around the neighborhood. However, I do chicken out and abandon my poor hubby to the cold, curling up with a good book when it hits below 40.  Sometimes he'll join me in reading. Other days he's determined to get those 25,000 steps.  Brrr! 

A Winter Day

by

Lucy Maud Montgomery

The air is silent save where stirs 

A bugling breeze among the firs; 

The virgin world in white array 

Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day; 

All heaven blooms rarely in the east 

Where skies are silvery and fleeced, 

And o'er the orient hills made glad 

The morning comes in wonder clad; 

Oh, 'tis a time most fit to see 

How beautiful the dawn can be! 

Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie 

Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky; 

A glistening splendor crowns the woods 

And bosky, whistling solitudes; 

In hemlock glen and reedy mere 

The tang of frost is sharp and clear;

Life hath a jollity and zest, 

A poignancy made manifest; 

Laughter and courage have their way 

At noontide of a winter's day.

Faint music rings in wold and dell, 

The tinkling of a distant bell, 

Where homestead lights with friendly glow 

Glimmer across the drifted snow; 

Beyond a valley dim and far 

Lit by an occidental star, 

Tall pines the marge of day beset 

Like many a slender minaret, 

Whence priest-like winds on crystal air 

Summon the reverent world to prayer. 

What wintry books are you contemplating for the season?  Are your characters heading into the arctic and going dog sledding or are they searching for a warm beach to watch the dolphins play. Hmm? Both sound fun.  

I have a mini winter challenge if you want to play.   

• Read a book with Winter in the title
• Read a book written by an author with first or last name of Winter
• Spell out winter, reading one book for each letter.
• Read a book by Lucy Maud Montgomery 
• Pick any word out of the poem above and read a book with that word in the title.
• Pick any word out of the poem above and spell out the word, reading one book per letter.
• Read a book with a winter setting.  

Happy Reading! 

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2018 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. 

They are the destination, and the journey. 

They are home.” ~  Anna Quindlen

Are you ready to join me for another round of reading 52 Books in 52 Weeks! Are you a monogamous reader who reads or listens to only one book at a time or are you more of a whimsical reader, dipping your toes into multiple books at once?  Do you have books gathering dust on your shelves that you haven't quite gotten round to yet? 52 Books is your official round tuit.  *grin* 

Do you have some old friends you'd really like to revisit? Now is the time. Dip into that classic or chunkster (over 500 pages) that's been calling out to you to read. Challenge yourself by exploring new to you authors, different genres.  Whether you are just joining in for the first time or continuing  for another round, the rules are very simple.   The goal is to read 52 books. How you get there is up to you. 

This year we'll be going around the world again. Join me on the open roads as we traverse the world from the Silk Road to the Roman Roads, across glaciers and seas, climb the Alps, explore the Middle East as well as trek through the Sahara desert.  Check out the Armchair Travels and Authors for our monthly itinerary. 

Plus Sandy and Amy from Well Trained Mind will be co-hosting the Great Mysterious England Road Trip,  a year long read of mysteries through the counties of England starting in February.    

We have a variety of challenges to assist with our reading voyage this year including another round of 52 Books Bingo with bonus 18 mystery squares. 

Blossom Bookology reading challenge:  Like flowers, books have a language all their own and fill up our senses, each with their own essence.  This challenge will take you around the world and engage your senses in a variety of ways.  Read one book for each letter in the name of the flower, with the flower in the title or set in the country where the flower originated.   

Dusty Mini challenge: Limit buying new books for 1 - 4 months and/or read 4 or more books that have been gathering dust on your shelves prior to 2018.

Chunky Mini Challenge -  books more than 500 pages.

Well Educated Mind (perpetual):  Continuing exploring the classics in 6 categories: Fiction, Autobiography, History/Politics, Drama, Poetry and Science. 

Mind Voyages (perpetual):  a science fiction / fantasy challenge to explore the Hugo and Nebula winners, take side trips through the different decades reading the nominees.

The mini, weekly and monthly challenges are all optional, Mix them up anyway you like.

So grab your backpacks and walking shoes - don't forget your hat - and let's get started.

• The challenge will run from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018. 
• Our book weeks begin on Sunday. 
• Participants may join at any time. 
• All books are acceptable including comic books and graphic novels. 
• All forms of books are acceptable including e-books, audio books, etc. 
• Re-reads are acceptable as long as they are read after January 1, 2018. 
• Books may overlap other challenges. 
• Create an entry post linking to this blog. 
• Sign up with Mr. Linky in the "I'm participating post" 
• You don't need a blog to participate. Post your weekly book in the comments section of each weekly post. 
• Mr. Linky will be added to the bottom of the weekly post to link to reviews of your most current reads.

I'm Participating in 2018

I'm Participating in 2018 

BW50: Eating and reading through the holidays

It's time to start cooking!  December is a time of celebration  which means baking and experimenting with different recipes as well as making or remaking of the old standards. Years ago, my son and I read How to Make an Apple Pie and see the world by Majorie Priceman.  After reading the book, we followed the recipe in the back.  Such simple ingredients --- apples, cinnamon, sugar, salt, butter -- which when mixed together, created the world's best apple pie.  Absolutely delish.  

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take one of your favorite recipes and read a book with the one of the ingredients in the title. Or choose one of your favorite cookbooks and read a book with one of the colors that is on the cover. 

In the meantime, while your house is filling up with appetizing aromas and you are waiting for the timer to ding, check out a few scrumptious finds:

Foodie books for every eater and reader on your Christmas List.

Taste of Home Christmas 2017

27 Books Every Foodie Needs In Their Library

Best Food Focused Memoirs

10 of the best new cookbooks in 2017


“Give two cooks the same ingredients and the same recipe; it is fascinating to observe how, like handwriting, their results differ. After you cook a dish repeatedly, you begin to understand it. Then you can reinvent it a bit and make it yours. A written recipe can be useful, but sometimes the notes scribbled in the margin are the key to a superlative rendition. Each new version may inspire improvisation based on fresh understanding. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as all that, but such exciting minor epiphanies keep cooking lively.”   ~  David Tanis, Heart of the Artichoke: and Other Kitchen Journeys


Happy Cooking!

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BW49: Delightful December

Gerardus Mercator's Map of the North Pole 1595

Welcome to Delightful December and our birthstone of the month, Turquoise.  We have much to celebrate this month with St. Nicholas Day, Advent, Hanukkah, St. Lucia Day, Christmas, arrival of Winter as well as Festivus for the rest of us, Iceland's Jolabokaflod, Sweden's Julbok (Yule goat) and Finland's Joulupukki.  I'm in the mood to go to the North Pole and do some cooking with Mrs  Claus.

If cold December gave you birth—

The month of snow, and ice, and mirth—

Place on your hand a turquoise blue,

Success will bless whate'er you do.

~Author unknown, "A Gem for Every Month," c.1883

Speaking of Turquoise, our birthstone of the month, you may choose to spell out the word, reading one book per letter or read a book with the name or the colors of the stone in the title.  Perhaps find an author whose name is Topaz or spell out the word using author names.   You may decide to find a book set in the time period where the birthstone was discovered or surrounding the myth and lore or set in countries where the birthstone is currently found.

This month, I think I'll join Harold and his purple crayon as he goes in search of the north pole in Harold at the North Pole.  

Unfortunately we won't find any penguins there, but we may find the occasional polar bear, ringed seals and Arctic foxes roaming about.   

You may want to bundle up before you read about Arctic expeditions to the North Pole with Hampton Sides - In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette or Bruce Henderson's  True North:  Peary, Cook, and the Race to the Pole as well as  Fatal North: Murder and Survival on the First North Pole Expedition. 

Or take a thrilling fictional trip with Alistair MacLean in Ice Station Zebra, Jack London in Call of the Wild or Lincoln Child's Terminal Freeze.  Read more about the North Pole in the New Yorker's Literature's Arctic Obsession and Ali Shaw's The Written World: The North Pole. 

Be sure to check out Goodread's list of Popular Arctic books as well as the Listopia of North Pole books.

Have fun exploring!  

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BW48: Bookish notes and birthdays

As November winds down, it is time for another round of Bookish Notes and Birthdays!



A Wave of New Fiction from Nigeria: As Young Writers Experiment with Genre

Dawn Watch Explores The Life And Legacy Of Joseph Conrad

2017 Costa Book Awards Shortlist Announced

SBTB's Covers and Cocktails: Southern Hospitality

YA Books That Feature Sisters

Best Multicultural and Diverse Books about or featuring a variety of cultures.

Artist Andrew DeGraff on Cinemaps: an Atlas of 35 Great Movies

Upcoming Television Mystery Movies for December 2017  - ideas for movies to books reading.



Author Birthdays this week:  

11/26 -  William Cowper and Eugene Ionesco 

11/27 -  James Agee and Gail Sheehy

11/28 -  John Bunyan and William Blake

11/29 -  C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, Louisa May Alcott

11/30 -  Jonathan Swift and Mark Twain 

12/01 -  Rex Stout and Charles Finney

12/02 -  Elizabeth Berg and Ann Patchett



“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”   ― Mark Twain

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BW47: Happy Thanksgiving

Courtesy of Mommy's Playbook

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours.   I  have much to be grateful for and remember this week as our family gathers together this week to celebrate  birthdays, anniversaries and those who have gone on to eternal rest.  I am also thankful for each and every one of you who has joined our 52 Book a Week family of readers.  And yes, I'm thankful for books.  

And since we all have a cornucopia of books, read a book from your shelves or perhaps from the library this week: 

• Has Thanksgiving in the title or any variation of thanks
• about gratitude
• has Thursday or the number 23 in the title 
• Any of the symbols or synonyms of Thanksgiving
• with Thanksgiving as the theme
• with a turkey on the cover
• a book with food and/or beverage on the cover
• with a cornucopia on the cover 
• any of the colors of the fall harvest
• a book about food or drink
• a book that takes place in England or New England States - Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island

Have fun following rabbit trails. What are you grateful for this week?

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BW46: Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson - Courtesy of Wikipedia

In honor of Robert Louis Stevenson who was born November 13, 1850.

Swallows Travel To and Fro

Swallows travel to and fro,

And the great winds come and go,

And the steady breezes blow,

Bearing perfume, bearing love.

Breezes hasten, swallows fly,

Towered clouds forever ply,

And at noonday, you and I

See the same sunshine above.

Dew and rain fall everywhere,

Harvests ripen, flowers are fair,

And the whole round earth is bare

To the moonshine and the sun;

And the live air, fanned with wings,

Bright with breeze and sunshine, brings

Into contact distant things,

And makes all the countries one.

Let us wander where we will,

Something kindred greets us still;

Something seen on vale or hill

Falls familiar on the heart;

So, at scent or sound or sight,

Severed souls by day and night

Tremble with the same delight -

Tremble, half the world apart.  

Monday is Robert Louis Stevenson day in Edinburgh where they are celebrating his works and life and following in his footsteps as well as having readings of his stories.  Check out the RLS website where you will find his books, essays, and poetry online as well as a travel page dedicated to his journeys.  

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BW45: 52 Books Bingo Mini Challenge - Finance

It's time for another mini challenge and an opportunity to complete the finance category for 52 Books Bingo.  There are a number of directions to follow.  

Read books about

• Economics
• Banking, 
• Investment
• Accounting, 
• Marketing
• Money management, 
• Gambling, 
• Biographies, 

or 

• Spell out finance
• Find a book with finance or synonyms related to finance in the title.
• Make an anagram from the word finance and read a book with the word in the title.
• Read a book with the money symbol $ and/or a picture of paper money or coins on the cover. 
• Read about the history of finance
• Read a fictional thriller or mystery

And if you are feeling really ambitious, check out Goodreads  Crazy Challenge Connection group's annual challenge -  Dollars and Sense and complete the challenge tasks.  

Have fun following rabbit trails! 

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BW44: Welcome to Nonfiction November

Jonathan Wolstenholme

Wave goodbye to the ghosts and goblins of October as we embark upon the world of facts and figures with Nonfiction November as well as dive into the world of the Topaz gemstone, our birthstone of the month. This month we are celebrating All Souls Day, Constitution day, Veterans day as well as Thanksgiving here in the U.S.   Let's not forget the end of Daylight Savings time or the Look for Circles day, Forget Me Not day, Have a Hike day, Absurdity day, and last but not least, You're Welcome day.

Our birthstone of the month is the Topaz. You may choose to spell out the word, reading one book per letter or read a book with the name or the colors of the stone in the title.  Or perhaps find an author whose name is Topaz.   You may decide to find a book set in the time period where the birthstone was discovered or surrounding the myth and lore or set in countries where the birthstone is currently found.

Topaz is derived from the greek 'topazion' said to originate from the sanskrit 'tapas' meaning 'fire.' The gemstone varies from colorless to blue to yellow to brown.  Topaz is mainly mined in Brazil, but is also found in China, Japan, Russia and Australia as well as India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.  The stone is one of the twelve chosen for Aaron's breastplate, the symbol for the sun god, Ra,  and the sacred stone of the Hindu's Kalpa tree.   There are many metaphysical properties attached to the stone depending on the color from knowledge to creativity to strength.

Our armchair travels are taking us through the world of nonfiction which encompasses a broad spectrum from the financial to the historical to the creative to the travelogue to the array of self help books.  Explore the familiar or dive into those topics you have been curious about but haven't read yet.

Check out Tompkin Libraries helpful guide to the Dewey Decimal System for non fiction books.   Browse through the Guardian's 100 Best Nonfiction Books of All Time, or  Goodreads Popular Nonfiction Reads.   You may also want to join in on the Nonfiction Blogging and Instagram Challenge hosted by Sophisticated Dorkiness and company.

Currently in my bookstacks are Michael Palin's (from Monty Python fame) Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole,  Roland Huntford's Race for the South Pole, and Nathaniel Phibrick's In the Heart of the Sea, as well as David Grann's Lost City of Z.  

Learn something new this month and have fun following rabbit trails.

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BW43: Prime Time Reading Fun

Courtesy of Licor43

It's time for a bit of Prime Time Reading Fun as we begin week 43 of our Adventurous Prime Reading year.  Since 43 is a prime number, let's play. 

• Find a book with forty three in the title. 
• Create an anagram from forty-three and read a book with the word in the title.
• Read book #43 in your bookshelves counting from the left.
• Read a book set in 1643, 1743, 1843, or 1943.
• Read a book about a person born in 1943
• Read a book set in or about Idaho, 43rd state.
• Read a book about 43rd president
• Read a book in Dewey Decimal category within 300 or 400 and in  the subsection .43 
• Read a book set in the country by the scientists who discovered Technetium - Element 43 on the periodic table. 
• Read a book set in the 43rd city and/or state in any country. 
• Austria country code 43 allows you  to call Austria from another country so read a book set in Austria or written by an Austrian Author.
• Go to your current read, find page 43. Count down to line 4, then left to the 3rd word.  Read a book with that word in the title or a book about that word.
• Count the letters in your name. Did you end up with a prime number?  Read a book with a character with the same name as you. 
• Are you 43?  Read a book published in your birth year. 
• 4 + 3 = 7.  4 x 3 = 12.  7 + 12 = 19.  12 - 7 = 5.  4 - 3 = 1.  Plug in any of the resulting prime numbers instead of 43 to the above quests and have fun following rabbit trails.

Kudos to whoever can match it up with a spooktacular read!

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Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week.  No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.

BW42: Happy Birthday Robert Pinsky

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Happy Birthday to poet Robert Pinsky, who is turning 77 on October 20th

Samurai Song

When I had no roof I made

Audacity my roof. When I had

No supper my eyes dined.

When I had no eyes I listened.

When I had no ears I thought.

When I had no thought I waited.

When I had no father I made

Care my father. When I had

No mother I embraced order.

When I had no friend I made

Quiet my friend. When I had no

Enemy I opposed my body.

When I had no temple I made

My voice my temple. I have

No priest, my tongue is my choir.

When I have no means fortune

Is my means. When I have

Nothing, death will be my fortune.

Need is my tactic, detachment

Is my strategy. When I had

No lover I courted my sleep.

Learn more about Robert Pinsky, who is the founder of the Favorite Poem Project as well created the MOOC course The Art of Poetry offered through Boston University and EDX.

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Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week.  No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.

BW41: Bookish Notes and Birthdays

It is time for another round of bookish notes and birthdays.   

Congratulations to  Kazuo Ishiguro, the 2017 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.  The secretary of the Swedish academy "described Kazuo Ishiguro's writing style as a mix of Jane Austen and Franz Kafka: 'But you have to add a little bit of Marcel Proust into the mix, and then you stir.'"  Ishiguro has been awarded the prize as one "who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world."  Check out Literary Saloon's round up of articles discussing Ishiguro.

Neil Gaiman's Good Omens will be coming to screens in the near future with David Tennant and  Michael Sheen, playing the demon and the angel.   Plus Gaiman's All Hallows Read will be repeated this year the week of Halloween with some scary but not too scary book suggestions for kids to teens.  

Check out 8 Stellar Nonfiction Reads for World space week which runs from October 4th through the 10th. 

Tor's We Dare You to Spend the Night with These Haunted House stories

Moving on to the not so spooky with The Irish Times article: Mrs Osmond by John Banville: An entertaining homage to Henry James.


Royal History of Women's October compilation of royal women stories.

The little known visual art of E.E. Cummings.  


Birthdays:

October 8:  Science Fiction writer Frank Herbert,  and the author of Goosebumps - R.L. Stine

October 9:  Australian author Jill Ker Conway

October 10:   Yugoslavian novelist and 1961 Nobel Prize winner for literature - Ivo Andric as well as English playwright and 2005 Nobel Prize winner for literature - Harold Pinter 

October 11:  French novelist and 1952 Nobel Prize winner - François Mauriac 

October 12: African American novelists - Alice Childress and Ann Lane Petry

October 13:  Pulitzer Prize winner Conrad Richter

October 14:  Poet e.e. cummings

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Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week.  No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.

BW40: Spooky and Spectacular October

What lies beyond -  Witches and Vampires and Ghosts - Oh My!

Welcome to October and our celebration of all things spooky and spectacular!  Are you ready to scare yourself silly and dive into the thrilling and chilling, supernatural and psychological, the dark and the weird, Gothic and horrifically suspenseful reads. There's a bit of something for everyone - nonfiction ghost stories, contemporary, classics, Gothic,  thrilling,  terrifying science fiction and everything in between.  From the silly to the 'afraid to sleep with the lights' out. I don't know about you, but I tend to shy away from the blood and guts horror, but enjoy the fingernail nibbling, heart palpating, goosebumps all over my body,  psychological thrillers. 


If you haven't read the staples of the genre -  Frankenstein or Dracula, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Turn of the Screw or Something Wicked This Way Comes, or the works of Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, now is the time. Also be sure check out the Top Ten Contemporary Horror Novelists, Fabulously Creepy Reads by 13 Women Writers, and  65 Great YA Horror Reads by Women.  Take a peek at the plethora of choices from the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award Reading list from 2016.   


I have a few interesting books on my shelves for this month including Ray Bradbury's From the Dust Returned, new to me author Mindy McGinnis's A Madness So Discreet, Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island as well as  Dean Koontz's The Husband.  


Let's not forget our birthstone of the month. You get to choose between Opal and Tourmaline.  You may choose to spell out the word, reading one book per letter or read a book with the name or the colors of the stone in the title.  Or perhaps find an author whose name is Opal or Tourmaline.   You may decide to find a book set in the time period where the birthstone was discovered or surrounding the myth and lore or set in countries where the gem is currently found. 



What spooky books are you reading this month? 

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Please link to your specific  post and not your general blog link. In the Your Name field, type in your name and the name of the book in parenthesis. In the Your URL field leave a link to your specific post. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment telling us what you have been reading.   Every week I will put up Mr. Linky which will close at the end of each book week.  No matter what book you are reading or reviewing at the time, whether it be # 1 or # 5 or so on, link to the current week's post.