Take It or Leave It Challenge - November 2010 - Page 2

Continued from Page 1.

For those new to this challenge: More info and monthly index can be found in post #1 of this thread.
Simple directions for posting to the wiki can be found at the bottom of each month's wiki page.


...logo by cyderry

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Hi Challengers!

Welcome to November’s TIOLI challenge which is to Read a Book in Alphabetical Order.

READ THESE DIRECTIONS CAREFULLY as this challenge will work a bit differently than previous challenges!

I picked the first book which has a title starting with letter “A”. The next person to sign up for this challenge may either match an existing book (in this case, the one I’ve already picked whose title starts with letter “A”) or add a book with a title starting with letter “B” (the next letter in the alphabet). The third challenger may match any existing book (“A” or “B”) or add a book starting with the next letter of the alphabet (“C”).

No letters may be skipped. Not even “Q”, "X" or “Z”. After “Z”, begin again with an “A” title, but add it after the “Z” title for this challenge only, please. You may list more than one book for this challenge, but not sequentially. In other words, one person may *not* list two books back to back at the same time (in case of a shared book, this might happen, but then it would be okay).

To be consistent with alphabetization elsewhere within the TIOLI challenges, the words “a”, “an”, and “the” will *not* count as the beginning word of any title for this challenge. Sorry!

In summary, either match an existing book title (anywhere within this challenge) or add another book in alphabetical order only.

Addendum #1: No two books beginning with the same letter of the alphabet may be listed unless they are shared books or unless we being a second (or third) “A” to “Z” cycle.

Addendum #2: A shared read may be added at any time and may be slipped in anywhere to the main challenge.

In case you decide not to read a book you listed for this challenge, please do NOT remove it from the wiki until after November 30 (or you’ll mess up the alphabetical order).

As always…have fun!

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Wiki Page 1 - Challenges # 1-8
#1: Read a Book in Alphabetical Order - thread
#2: Read a Book translated from the French
#3: Read a Book whose Title Includes the Letter Z
#4: Read a Book written by a Nobel Laureate - thread
#5: Read a Book about the World of Harry Potter
#6: Read a Book with Four Letters or Less in the Title
#7: Read a Book with a World War I or World War II setting - thread
#8: Read a Book that has been reprinted after being out of print for a while

Wiki Page 2 - Challenges #9-16
#9: Read a Book recommended by Stasia (L to Z)
#10: Read a Book about History (Fiction or Nonfiction) - thread
#11: Read a Book that follows (prequel/sequel/series/related) another Book and is written by a woman - thread
#12: Read a Book by an author whose first name ends with the same letter with which his/her last name starts
#13: Read a book whose title refers to heaven or hell
#14: Read a book that has won or been nominated for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award
#15: Read a book whose title contains the word ‘color', 'colour', or a an actual color
#16: Read a book published after 2005 and has 5 or more words in its title

Wiki Page 3 - Challenges #17 and on
#17: Read a book about or featuring time travel - thread

Zoe's thread for non-TIOLI books! :)
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Other Fun Stuff (not part of the TIOLI challenge):
1. The November 2010 TIOLI Meter - Some challengers use this page to track which challenges they're doing.
2. I Know I'm a TIOLI Addict When... - Frog Logo is on this page!

Already? It is only November 1st!

Please notice that I did this without a warning from the Thread Police. Do you think Tim will create a badge for that?

Probably not, although he ought to!

:)

I can't believe I only missed 5 posts on this thread. Phew!

Thanks Suzanne - I am looking forward to indulging in some Heyer. It's been a few months. If anyone wants to join me for a shared Georgette Heyer fitting into the "reprinted" category read, I can do any that you want except the mysteries. Not my favorite.

LOL!!

>7 teelgee: Deputy Terri is on the case. I can go back into my cave.

TIOLI reading frenzy would be the mad scramble to finish all of the books sitting on my shelves (belonging to me or the library) that fit this month's challenges before the month ends.
I often run out of month.

Note, this does not indicate that I hate to move a book to next month (if it a fits a challenge) but that the current month's challenges are doing a great job of inspiring me to read books on my TBR list.

I can see the alternate definition as the new month begins and there is that dash to find all the books that could possibly fit the challenges as they are being put up.

In fact, there appears to be an endless loop between these two definitions.

To me, TIOLI frenzy is that period, roughly a day long, when the following month's TIOLI is first posted and I list/match every book I could conceivably read. (If there were 36 hours in the day and I didn't need to sleep, I might read them all.)

I always get wrapped up in the frenzy and sign up for about twice as many books on the wiki as I could possibly read. Then, when the frenzy dies down, I make a more realistic assessment and remove quite a few of them, later.

The frenzy definitely got the better of me this month, espeially since non fiction usually takes miuch longer to read than fiction. I started reading Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance but had to take a little break to clear my mind of the nastiness of this man. Instead I read Vagina Warriors with a monologue by Eve Ensler followed by photographs by Joyce Tenneson of women who have worked on the V-Day project to promote peace and decrease violence against women. That was a good antidote, not back to the bad tasting medicine.

Just finished my first November TIOLO - Kaspar by Michael Morpurgo. A children's book about a cat, a bell boy and the Titanic - a quick read and an appealing story. I think my goddaughter will love it.

>12 Citizenjoyce: wow, could you read two books any different? Eve Ensler is a goddess. Did you know she's been fighting uterine cancer?

No, teelgee, I didn't. Wow, the irony. I'll bet she puts that into the shows.

#14 I didn't realize that. Uterine cancer does not get a lot of attention (compared to some of the others).

I'm a three-year, so far, survivor. Mine was caught very early.

good for you, lindapanzo. A sigh of relief.

Eve Ensler did indeed use her cancer:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/the-gift-of-cancer_b_774641.html

I'm glad to hear that too, lindapanzo and agree that this particular cancer lacks a certain amount of attention that others get.

I finished my first TIOLI as well. I waited until today to finish Rescuing Da Vinci which was recommended by Stasia, but could also have been WWII or the history challenge.

#17 Thanks for that. That was a powerful piece Ensler wrote.

About the only thing I've ever read about uterine cancer is Fran Drescher's book Cancer Schmancer.

As for my TIOLI, I hope to finish my first one, a baseball book, tonight, though the World Series game will cut into my reading time.

Linda, so happy to hear about your 3 year survival. I'm nine years out from colon cancer. Happy to be here!

Here's another piece by E.E.

I'm about 80 pages short of finishing The Good Earth, hope to get there tonight. I have LOTS of reading to do this month! Oy.

Yay! for cancer survivors...and for the research still being done to eradicate this disease.

I finished my first TIOLI book for November. I really liked Room which I read for Mary's (Bell7) Challenge #6. It got 4.5 stars and a short review from me.

Edited to correct challenge number.

I finished my first book too, Fup for the 4 letter title challenge. It's a modern day fable about a duck that didn't really grab me, still it was a quick read.

I feel "poor me" when a cold hangs on too long. How do you look at uterine cancer and all the infections, chemo, surgery and suffering she went through and compare yourself favorably to someone living in the Congo. It seems almost unbearably difficult to put oneself into perspective.

Joyce, I guess we just deal with what's in front of us, whether it's a cold or cancer or worse.

I say Hooray for anyone willing to put their experience out there and help garner attention for the less "popular" cancers. I lost a friend to metastatic breast cancer last year. She fought it for 8 years. Tough.

Joyce - isn't this why we read - for perspective? We don't need to feel guilty that we are not them, just grateful that we are in a position to perhaps help? I think I am a much more balanced and tolerant person because I have read about perspectives or lives that are different than mine. Still have a ways to go... but I think avid readers are generally more tolerant, thoughtful and volunteer more than the average. IMHO. LTers, 75ers esp. are a good case in point.

Right, teelgee, that's what I mean. I deal with what's right in front of (or inside) me, but Ensler is able to look beyond that to a world view. I always envy people with a world view. It just seems so difficult to develop, and some, as we see in modern politics, aren't able to do it at all.

A question about the "World of Harry Potter" challenge. Norabelle414, does the book have to be written by J.K. Rowling? I'm thinking of The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott. Would you accept that book for the challenge? I'll be okay with it, either way.

Karen O.

Finished my first November TIOLI - Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan for the Letter Z Challenge.

I enjoyed it. I had no idea that there was an entire "sub-culture" of people who competed in contests in the 50's and 60's - there were even two monthly magazines dedicated to announcing new contests.

Although written before it, my only gripe would be that the book came off as a kind of "The Secret" success story, along the lines of "we needed money and mom won a contest". I have a feeling that life with 10 kids and an alcoholic father was a little more complicated than that, but it gave the narrative a direction.

Still, an interesting memoir and worth a read

I did not intend for the challenge to be restricted to books written by J.K. Rowling, which is why I worded it as "about the world of Harry Potter" instead of just "Harry Potter" books.

I haven't read The Alchemyst, but from the looks of it I don't think it takes place in the same world as Harry Potter. Especially since Nicholas Flamel was apparently a real person (wikipedia ftw) and not someone made up by J.K. Rowling as I originally thought.

If you think it is the same world, you could make a poll and see what other people think.

Woot! I finished The Tenderness of Wolves today, and just checked the wiki in time to sneak it in the "T" spot. Feeling lucky...

Seems sometimes that we do all have world views, we are just too busy living them to sit back and articulate them unless called on to do so, or unless that's what we do for a living!

#21 Donna828, I'm listening to Room on audio right now. I'm finding the first part tough. Great writing but the parent in me is finding it disturbing and harrowing. Really innovative writing style though. I'll look forward to checking out your review when I'm done.

30: Did you like it? I've been meaning to read it for ages (but it won't be this month)

>32 klarusu:: Claire, I can see why Room is disturbing to you. Your adorable Lily looks like she is close in age to Jack. I found much comfort in Jack's view of his limited world thanks to the way Ma created a rich environment out of nothing much. I'm having trouble leaving Jack's world to move on to my next book.

I'll be very much interested in knowing what your final verdict is.

#28 Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio sounds good. I'll have to add it to the list, though I'm not likely to get to it this month.

>33 elkiedee: I can't answer for nittnut obviously, but I loved The Tenderness of Wolves when I read it a couple of years ago. Very well written, kept me on the edge of my seat through a lot of it.

#34 Donna, it actually really reminds me of the film 'Life is Beautiful' (which made me cry and it's not often a film does that) - something about the creation of a world to protect a child from something truly horrendous. I did that parent-switch thing once I had my daughter and became someone who found reading about bad things that happen to kids really hard. Kind of happened overnight.

#28 - there was a film made about Evelyn Ryan - we really liked it - if you haven't seen it could be fun after reading the book. Julianne Moore and Woody Harrelson star in it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406158/

#36 - I liked The Tenderness of Wolves. It definitely kept my interest. I wonder if there will be a sequel because so many of the characters seemed like they would continue to develop and some threads were left hanging...

Aha, just finished my first TIOI of the month, though I was hoping to finish it yesterday. The Good Earth for the Nobel Laureate challenge. Not a favorite read, but I'm so glad I read it!

#29: what about The Alchemyst

Okay, I won't care two bits if the consensus is that this book doesn't fit the "world of Harry Potter" challenge. I'm always looking for a way to fit a book into a challenge!

The Alchemyst is set in modern times, has lots of magic, and two young heroes set on saving the world. It sounds pretty Harry-Potter-ish to me. Here's a bit from the cover of the book: "The legend: Nicholas Flamel lives. But only because he has been making the elixir of life for centuries. The secret of eternal life is hidden within the book he protects--the Book of Abraham the Mage. It's the most powerful book that has ever existed. In the wrong hands, it will destroy the world."

"That's exactly what Dr. John Dee plans to do when he steals it. Humankind won't know what's happening until it's too late. And if the prophecy is right, Sophie and Josh Newman are the only ones with the power to save the world as we know it."

#37: Are you referring to the Italian film La Vita è Bella? If so, I quite agree with you, it is beautiful, yet very sad.

#40 If we can find someone to add a 'Y' and a 'Z' to the first challenge you could list The Alchemyst as 'A'? Or challenge #16 if you're allowed to include a sub-title?

#42 Unless some sneaky soul, ahem, cuts in with another A title.

I'm in the middle of How to Be an Intellectual in the Age of T.V.. Somehow I was in a hurry (obviously I'm being taught to slow down, since this is not the first time I've made that sort of error), and thought, since the rest of the title, beyond the colon, is "the Lessons of Gore Vidal" that this was in fact a book by him. Would that it were. Instead it's a quite dreary, inconsequential, unsupportable thesis sort of work. Boring in the extreme, but mercifully short.

For challenge #6: Read a Book with Four Letters or Less in the Title I tried to read Fade a YA book second of a series. Don't like it at all - I want to get into something a bit more substantial so I have wiped it off the wiki page. Also Heavenly for #13: Read a book whose title refers to heaven or hell as it's another YA book.

On to Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones for challenge #1....

40: Okay, I'm just about to cede defeat for The Alchemyst fitting into the "World of Harry Potter" challenge. One question I do have--can someone give an example of a non-J.K. Rowling book that *would* fit here? What is it that makes "the world"?

I'm still reading (and enjoying) the book, but it just won't count for TIOLI this month. (I was going to say "It's all good" but I'm tired of people saying that--hehe).

Karen O.

>>46 klobrien2: - Although I've never read them myself, there is an entire subculture of titles like Harry Potter and the Bible: The Menace Behind the Magick and Looking for God in Harry Potter and God, the Devil and Harry Potter.

I had not planned on finishing Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio so quickly, so I find myself 1,000 miles away from my books with nothing so read. So, after a quick trip to Second Look Books in Prince Frederick, Maryland, I have a new book for a TIOLI challenge I hadn't planned on covering.

For the "Long Out of Print Challenge": The Clumsiest People in Europe: Or Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World, edited by Todd Pruzan. It is a reprint, with annotations, of a set of geographical essays written in the early 19th century by Mrs. Favell Lee Mortimer. What's great is that she never left the UK. She hated everything about every kind of "foreigner" she had ever heard of, and transcribed this diatribe against them. Under the price tag (a bargain, at $5), the owner of the store has added a warning (something I had never seen entered on any of their books): "WARNING: Bizarre and Insulting to All".

Is there something wrong with me that I am so looking forward to this???

#46 Karen - an example of a non JK Rowling Harry Potter book would be Mapping the World of the Sorcerer's Apprentice: An Unauthorized Exploration of the Bestselling Fantasy Series of All Time edited by Mercedes Lackey. It's a collection of essays by various authors each inspired by HP. Lackey's essay on Snape fan fiction is hysterical. A great non fiction HP book is 46741::Harry: A History by Melissa Anelli (that's the wrong touchstone), although it's not actually set in the HP world so that won't count for this challenge.

edited to fix touchstones but they won't fix

>47 pbadeer: Those were exactly the kind of books I was intending. Also, less controversial books like Harry, A History: The True Story of a Boy Wizard, His Fans, and Life Inside the Harry Potter Phenomenon, The Great Snape Debate: The Case for Snape's Guilt / Innocence and The Sorcerer's Companion: A Guide to the Magical World of Harry Potter. Plus, there have been a multitude of "predictive" books published before each HP book, like Mugglenet.com's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7, though I doubt those get much reading anymore :-)

VioletBramble beat me to it. Though Harry, A History does not take place IN Harry Potter's world, it is ABOUT Harry Potter's world so I would say that one would count.

There is also Quidditch Through the Ages :)

So if The Alchemyst has Nicholas Flamel in it, how does it not fit in the world of Harry Potter? Just curious. Seems like an offshoot of The Sorcerers Stone to me.

J.K. Rowling did not make up Nicholas Flamel, he was a real person.

I suppose I'd expect a book about the world of Harry Potter to include some of the central characters or events. Maybe a history of Hogwarts or a Quidditch book, or... The Alchemyst seems to be a book that overlaps because of a general theme (kids saving the world, use of magic) and one incidental character. That was my thinking, at least.

I've finished my books transferred to this month's challenges: Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter (16) by Antonia Fraser and The Child That Books Built (12) by Francis Spufford. I also finished The Faithless Lollybird, (1) another great collection of short stories by Joan Aiken.

Now reading:

Janet Skieslen Charles, Moonlight in Odessa (1) S
M J Farrell (Molly Keane), Mad Puppetstown (8) S
Dalia Sofer, The Septembers of Shiraz (2) S
Shena Mackay, The Atmospheric Railway (1)
Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question (1)
Olivia Manning, The Great Fortune (7)
Studs Terkel, The Good War (7)
George Eliot, Middlemarch (8) S but I don't expect to finish that this month

S = Shared read

For those who read The Devil in the White City,I just read about the upcoming movie:

"Leonardo DiCaprio will play a real-life 19th Century serial killer in an upcoming adaptation of Erik Larson‘s book, The Devil in the White City."

I didn't read the book, but I'll see the movie.

I've started reading Ragtime and I'm loving it.

I finished my second TIOLI book for the month, The Homeward Bounders, for challenge #17.

#54 OH! Now I get it. I should have known. One of the things I like most about HP books is Rowlings incorporation of mythology, history, etc.
Thanks.

>54 norabelle414: I had no idea he was real either, until I looked him up on Wikipedia. Hippogriffs are "real" too (the idea of them existed before HP, not actual hippogriffs being real). They're the product of a male griffin and a female horse, making them one half horse, one quarter eagle, and one quarter lion. Neat stuff.

Here at last is my TIOLI subthread. Remember, my challenge for this month is to read a book that doesn't count for TIOLI!

Just finished The Flawless Skin of Ugly People for challenge #16. A surprisingly good read. Quite unusual. The story is told from the point of view of a man suffering from acne vulgaris. He and his wife were both abused by the same church deacon when they were young. Both have issues resulting from that experience. The book deals with the issues/healing not the abuse. Anyway, the striking thing was his voice and the incredible love he has for his wife, who is absent for most of the story.

62: Well, that's where I can put the poor little Alchemyst!

Thanks to all who clarified the "world of Harry Potter" challenge. It made beaucoup sense to me once I saw some example titles.

Karen O.

I do not plan to be involved in TOLI for November, except by accident. If a book I read happens to fall into a category, I might include it.

I just read and reviewed The Elephant's Journey by Jose Saramago for Darryl's (kidzdoc) Challenge #4 - read a book by a Nobel Laureate.

If you're looking for a quick heartwarming book, this would make a great choice. Saramago's writing style is a bit on the quirky side but I kinda like it!

I finally finished Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance and feel I understand him a little better, or at least as well as I want. Unfortunately the book was mostly biography, but there was a chapter devoted to his historical mentors Cleon Skousen and Ezra Taft Benson. He picked a fine couple of nuts to clutch to his bosom.

Now I'm starting on White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine because I can seem to get enough of reading about hypocrites. Not true, that's just what my reading looks like at the time.

#65 With Mike out of the running I now have a chance to be top frog!!. I haven't finished my first book yet but I shall dare to dream.

I saw this will be on Book TV Saturday. Didn't someone post that they'd be reading this?

12pm (ET)
Approx. 59 min.
The Secret History of MI-6: 1909-1949
Keith Jeffery

Suzanne is way ahead of the rest of us already, Amanda.

Is Karen around? You could put The Alchemyst in now....

#71 Oops, I forgot about that. I will use Authors of the Storm: Meteorologists and the Culture of Prediction by Gary Alan Fine as my non-TIOLI TIOLI book instead.

Ther's no such thing as a non-TIOLI TIOLI, Linda! ;)

#73 What did she call it then?

I was just kidding! She did call it a non-TIOLI. But how can it be a non-TIOLI and a TIOLI at the same time? :/

>75 SqueakyChu: Ah, one of the great mysteries of life ;)

Does a book that is read in a forest make a sound...

no, wait a second... that's some other zen saying!

I just added Woody Guthrie, American Radical to the history challenge and Room to the four letters or less challenge.

I'm a little nervous about Room because I have a five year old son named Jack. I figured if I'm gonna read it, I might as well do it with a group!

ETA: A missing comma

A Two for One!

In case there are some of you who are not yet aware, the book Middlemarch, a shared read for TIOLI challenge #12 ("Read a Book by an author whose first name ends with the same letter with which his/her last name starts" - Phew!), is also a "75-er" group read for this month. It's not too late to join both!

Okay, the scary mean people in "Recommend Site Improvements" are onto something I've wanted for ages of ages...easy ways to identify discussions about specific books without having to hunt and search and generally get annoyed at the prolixity of our beloved Thingamabrarian community.

The thread discussing it is over here and I strongly encourage all and sundry to head over there and make your opinions known!

I love that a 75-er group reads coincides with a TIOLI challenge!

Madeline, the Monthly Author group is also reading George Eliot this month and some of those folks are reading Middlemarch.

...which is to say that any book by George Elliot fits into Terri's challenge #12, but it seems that everyone participating in the TIOLI challenge has so far clustered around Middlemarch.

I'm reading Middlemarch but not aiming/expecting to finish this month.

>83 SqueakyChu: ...except me, who will be reading Silas Marner.

I'm also reading Middlemarch but didn't enter it in the wiki because I don't have a prayer of finishing it in November.

the scary mean people in "Recommend Site Improvements"

I prefer to think of myself as "outspoken" :P

I don't go there--too scared--but I do like the new feature whereby I can look at posts I've started.

I've complained about being unable to find my own threads but it's nice to see my own 75 book thread and 1010 thread etc easily now.

Oh! I hadn't noticed that one lindap. Nice!

71: elkiedee: Thanks for thinking of me, but that's okay. I'm going to put The Alchemyst in the NTT (non-TIOLI TIOLI) (hehe).

I read an amazing book for Challenge 6 (4-letters-or-less). It's Silk by Alessandro Baricco. It's so elegantly written and translated that it often seems that you're reading poetry. Not a word wasted.

The book is set in mid-19th century France, in a village where the making of silk fabric is the main occupation. Silkworms in Europe are struck with disease, and one of the silk factory owners travels to Japan to procure healthy silkworm eggs. He encounters a local baron who aids him in his under-the-table deals. In his trips to Japan he falls in love with the baron's concubine, to whom he never speaks.

The reviews on the book's page are very good--Luli81 describes the book as "A tale, but not a tale. A novel, but not a novel. A sad story, but not a sad story. A love story, but not a love story. Silk is everything summed up in a few lines. A masterpiece." (What a great review, too!)

So, I'd like to urge you all to give this book a look-see, if you haven't read it yet. If you have read it, maybe you'd want to read it again. It's only 91 pages, and most of them are half-pages. It was a true delight to me.

Karen O.

Thanks for the recommendation for Silk, Karen. I'm off to check it out.

Wow, Madeline, I have to say that your alphabetical challenge has been wildly popular this time round. I'm sure that others, like me have been continually checking to see if there's been a book posted so we can add one more non-TIOLI book to the queue.

I've finished my first of three listed for challenge #1 Queen of Beauty by Paula Morris. This was my last read for my New Zealand fiction category in my 1010 challenge and I felt that it was a promising first novel. I'll definitely be reading more of her work, especially her short stories. I've wanted to read one of her books since seeing her in action discussing books with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie at our book festival last year. She had been called in at the last moment to stand in for the interviewer and the resulting informal bookchat was a winner.
You can see how helpful I've been on the alphabet challenge as the other two books I'll be reading are Zazie in the metro and X marks the spot.

I'm sure that others, like me have been continually checking to see if there's been a book posted so we can add one more non-TIOLI book to the queue.

For sure! I'm trying to fit all my (quickly piling up) ER book in. :)

You can see how helpful I've been on the alphabet challenge

Indeed!

Finished The Clumsiest People in Europe for the Long Out of Print challenge.

What an odd book. The introduction explains that the woman who wrote these "travel essays" never actually left the UK, and that's the only thing which kept me reading this book. Although it wasn't meant as such, you have to read this as tongue in cheek - it's so far past politically incorrect you can't see it in the rearview mirror. Even keeping a humorous spin on it, you can get away from the fact that this book is downright disrespectful of foreign cultures if not downright racist. Few cultures receive positive comments, with most tagged with adjectives such as robbers, ugly, foolish, unpleasant, sly, dishonest, dirty, lazy, unwholesome and idiots.

The editor's attempts at annotating the 19th century text for current readers are almost as humorous in their pithiness - decades of development are summed into one paragraph, with the chosen highlights laughable in their obscurity.

The only redeeming value to the book is the insight it provides to the world of 1840. Countries with different names, colonialism, and histories which sound freakishly current did make for an interesting read. But as the book dragged on to more countries (she outlines over 60), it got a little repetitive and the novelty wore had worn off. Bizarre, but still worthy of a skim if you stumble across a copy.

pdabeer, that sounds ghastly but I would love to know what they say about Switzerland!

Finished Ellis Island Interviews for the history challenge. A very thought-provoking book.

I think I will read Tales of the Unexpected for Challenge #12.

#90 - I am adding Silk to the TBR. It sounds great.

>87 _Zoe_: Preference noted, Scary Mean Girl.

>98 richardderus: :D

I just realized that The Children of Green Knowe will count for the colour challenge. I should be done that tomorrow.

>>95 cushlareads: - Switzerland starts out well. "There is no country in Europe as beautiful as Switzerland". It then goes on to say that you have to "travel in high places" and "some travelers have fallen over the precipices, and some have sunk into the cracks of the snow". and my favorite "some have been frozen in the snow, and would have died had they not been found by the good dogs sent out by the monks of St. Bernard".

then we get to the meaty part..."There are a great many idle little beggars who run after the travellers"; "you will often see poor children sitting by the wayside with their heads bent down, their eyes rolling and their mouths open. They are idiots."; "The Mountaineers are simple, honest creatures, but those who live in the valleys are more cunning and clever."

The chapter on Switzerland closes with the deadliness of Avalanches, crushing cottages "very often". Oh, and the Swiss drink in the public houses on Sundays!

I finished Cold Comfort Farm for the main challenge. It's my favorite book this year--really wonderful and funny.

Just finished Miss Ranskill Comes Home, which I'd originally listed under the reprint challenge - it's a Persephone - but have moved to the World War One/Two challenge.

Middle-aged spinster Nona Ranskill falls overboard chasing an escaping hat on a cruise ship in late 1938/early 1939. When she is rescued four years later, she is informed there is a war on, but is completely baffled not to be permitted to buy certain items of food, or a change of clothing, and rather confused by the sirens that keep going off and all the strange abbreviations that people keep using. She also causes chaos when she opens the curtains at night, because no-one has thought to tell her about the blackout. And that is just the beginning.

An excellent social satire originally published in 1946, and a very interesting look at the wartime experience.

#102 - this is a bad(good) month for picking up additions to the TBR pile. I am adding Miss Ranskill Comes Home. It sounds irresistible.

I just took the day off, sort of, and read one of my reprint selections. I enjoyed it very much, as always. It is laugh out loud funny in parts. Frederica by Georgette Heyer. Still one of my favorite books.

Ooh, I have Miss Ranskill Comes Home. Will definitely move it up the pile - that sounds fun!

#99> I'd forgotten The Children of Green Knowe existed. I haven't read that since I was a kid. I may have to revisit it.

I finished Harry Potter & the Philosopher's Stone today so that's my first TIOLI under my belt. I'm just in the right mood for HP so I'm likely going to keep going through the rest of them this month.

I should finish Room on audio today too - disturbing but it has a really effectively voiced character in it. I really appreciate that in a book because it's surprising how many writers are lazy about giving their characters a distinctive voice.

I'm also getting through Dune this week. I'm having a thouroughly indulgent week of fantasy and escapism to compensate for the bits in Room that are a bit too close to home for comfort.

#100 Patrick, obviously the Swiss took note of the criticisms, because these days you can't go to the supermarket on a Sunday, let alone find a beer!! Thanks, that was very entertaining reading.

Still on TIOLI book #1 for the month here - Finest Years by Max Hastings. Am at the 500 page mark, hopefully will finish before December's TIOLIs are up...

I finished White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine and it increased my belief that modern medicine has less and less to do with promoting health. Test subjects are the worst, least altruistically motivated or compliant people on whom to test medicine or medical procedures; fashion models working as drug reps have no interest in promoting health; doctors, no matter how they think they are immune to drug money, are easily influenced to speak well of potentially dangerous drugs; likewise bioethicists; and drug companies continue to invent diseases in order to sell drugs, as we've all noticed with the growth of what he terms "cosmetic psychopharmacology" - drugs that make a healthy, normal person feel extra perky and energetic. Carl Elliot even throws out the idea that the idea of labeling oneself transexual didn't really take off until surgeries were developed to redesign genitals. All in all the best medicine I can think of is take 2 aspirin and don't call anyone in the morning.

Now I'm going to leave modern times for a bit and read March about the dad from Little Women in the Civil War.

Still reading TIOLI's 1 & 2. I think it will be a slooooooow month for this frog.

I am about 3/4 through Devil in the White City. It's an exhausting book. Good, mind you, but exhausting. All that work to get the fair ready on time, then it wasn't ready and they still had so much work and stress, and then little intervals with the serial killer....

ETA - finished and liked it mostly. Very happy the serial killer received justice.

I finished my first TIOLI of the month, I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita for the Alphabetical Order challenge, a sprawling and ambitious historical novel about the Asian American civil rights movement in the San Francisco Bay Area, which was probably the most unique novel I've read this year. It's a finalist for this year's National Book Award for Fiction, and I'll be rooting for it to win the award.

I've started White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine, which Citizenjoyce finished earlier this evening, and I'll start Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner for my Nobel laureate challenge tomorrow.

I finished 2 TIOLI books this past week and have no idea if I posted about them here or not (it has just been that kind of week). I finished Room for the '4 letters or less challenge' and The Homeward Bounders for the 'time travel challenge.'

I'm going to give up on Theo's odyssey for the French translation challenge. It's just a bit too earnest, a book for younger teens that explores the world religions, and reads too much like a school lesson than a story. I'm enjoying Le grand meaulnes which is in English despite the title.

I got here because cmt and alcottacre mentioned TIOLI several times and I wanted to find out what this meant. Now I added two more titles I just read with Z in their titles Dreizehn Stunden and Zimmer 411. Sometimes I pick books by similar ideas like a special word in the title or an interesting author name, so I seem to be at the right place here.

#113: Glad to have you join us, Paul!

> 133

Welcome, Paul!

Hope you find TIOLI lots of fun. You'll discover that others folks here at TIOLI are, like yourself, very curious as to what's going on at Librarything and have done a bit of research to even learn that we exist! :)

Okay, I'm just about to cede defeat for The Alchemyst fitting into the "World of Harry Potter" challenge.

Personally, I wouldn't have asked. If YOU think it fits the challenge, that's all that matters. (But then, my motto is "I can justify anything"). There are no LibraryThing police who will come and get you. If anyone tries to tell me I'm doing LT "wrong," I just quote Monty Python lines at them. Works every time.

#116 - Can I tell you that you did LT wrong, just to hear the Monty Python lines?

I read another Georgette Heyer for the 2nd life challenge. I've had a long day of meetings, waiting between meetings, doctor apt. and Powder and Patch was the perfect companion.

I finished the (very short) Tales of Beedle the Bard for the Harry Potter challenge, and have made a start on Wolf Hall for the history challenge - will probably finish that next week when I'm away on a reading week.

#117: Can I tell you that you did LT wrong, just to hear the Monty Python lines?

Well, the one I had in mind was: "I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries."

But if you push me, I might even say: "You don't frighten us, English pig dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person. I blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur King," you and all your silly English K-nig-hts."

I've added A Novel Bookstore to my TIOLI challenges, and am going to set it aside as a treat to read over Thanksgiving weekend! :-)

120: Those are so great!

I'm always using the "She's a witch!" and "I'm not dead yet!" lines. Classic stuff!

Karen O.

"It has hopped the twig. It has joined the Choir Invisible. It has handed in its dinner pail, it is an ex-parrot!"

#122 & 123 . . . Oh, no! Don't get me started . . . (looking forward to the Monty Python special that's coming on TV this weekend).

"Put her in the comfy chair!"

124: Monty Python special?? What channel? Must find that on the schedule...

oh, looooove the dead parrot.

I am so glad I started this... well, at least took the bait. Laughing until I cry here.

Hmmmm....I am blank on Monty Python lines but this is some funny stuff. Sorry to interrupt with my book report.

I finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest for Challenge #16. I enjoyed it, but I'm glad to be moving on from sullen heroines and dirty cops.

I like that summary Donna.

: Monty Python special?? What channel? Must find that on the schedule...

Hmmm, I think it was the Comedy Channel in Canada, but I'll figure it out this week and let you know. Are you in the US?

"Put her in the comfy chair!"

Oh, no! Not the comfy chair! No one expects the comfy chair! (No,that's not right. It's "no one expects the Spanish Inquisition")

131: Yes, I'm in the US. I looked at both the Comedy Channel and our public TV schedules, and couldn't find anything. However, there is something with Tina Fey and the Mark Twain prize on Sunday--sounds promising.

Karen O.

I finished my Woody Guthrie musical bio for the History Challenge (#10) and began Room for the 4 letter Challenge (#6).

The bio was fantastic and was especially wonderful to read so shortly after an election which I found disheartening.

Just reviewed A Novel Bookstore, a beautiful and very French novel, in my thread...post #52.

This was for challenge #2, obviously!

"The comfy chair?!?!?", "The comfy chair?!?!", "The comfy chair?!?!"

Fetch the soft cushion!

I've finished two TIOLI books during my mini-Readathon today: Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson, a touching novel about the life and love of a severely physically handicapped girl in mid-20th century England, for challenge #16 (read a book published after 2005 and has 5 or more words in its title); and White Coat, Dark Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine by Carl Elliot, a physician and bioethicist who exposes the corruption of all aspects of medical practice by big pharma, for challenge #15 (read a book whose title contains the word ‘color', 'colour', or a an actual color). Both books were excellent.

Tonight I'll start The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig for challenge #8 (read a Book that has been reprinted after being out of print for a while).

I finished March and was completely engrossed in aspects of the Civil War I'd never heard of. In an afterward Geraldine Brooks says "Moral certainty can deafen people to any truth other than their own." March begins the book a very certain man and is challenged into uncertainty. He never seems to know himself well, but he is challenged. This is a truly extraordinary book.

Now, for my next book about history I'm on to A Renegade History of the United States by Thaddeus Russell.

#138 - I really loved March as well. I've finished Les Grand Meaulnes for challenge #2: a book translated from French, this was an enchanting story of adolescence set in the late 19C French countryside.

#113 Paul, nice to see you over here!

I finished Finest Years, and recommend it highly if you are interested in Winston Churchill, World War 2 and the relationships between the Allies. (I haven't written a review yet, but will try to later on because there's only one so far.) I read it for the history challenge, but it fits the WW2 one as well and I could move it if anyone wants to read it for that one.

Now I'm reading Joseph Stiglitz's Making Globalization Work for the Nobel Laureate challenge.

I also got A Novel Bookstore completed- I need to add my name- I also got March in the mail yesterday so I will be starting that soon I think.

Hey everybody, Lindapanzo has a Hot Review and I've just written the longest review of my short "career" here on LT on the same book...My Reading Life by Pat Conroy. It's a wonderful passionate memoir about the importance of reading in his life. Btw, it was a shared read for Ch. No. 1, and we both gave the book 5 stars!

Two 5-star books in a row for me. I'm on a reading roll!!!

I also loved Louise Penny's mystery, Bury Your Dead.

I've finished an alphabet challenge book Factotum, book three of DM Cornish's Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy.

I just finished an alphabet challenge book -- Living With Books: The Art of Book Selection by Helen E. Haines. Anything you want to know about books is here, although maybe a little dated (the second edition is 60 years old; first edition is 75 years old). I could have put this in the Stasia-recommended challenge but the alphabet challenge was fun!

Karen O.

Finished Mort for the 4 letters or less in title challenge. I hadn't intended to read that one, but it jumped off the shelf to me as an antidote to a very busy/stressful week at work! (Compared to being an apprentice to Death, the usual work pressures seem not quite so awful).

I finished listening to Day After Night by Anita Diamant about women refugees in Israel after the Holocaust. It's a small character study of the various types of people who helped found Israel. One haunting scene toward the beginning comes when new arrivals are taken to the "delousing shed" to shower and have their clothes cleaned. One survivor's eyes blaze with fear, he knows what it mean to go to the showers. One of the characters has to convince him that these really are just showers for getting clean. Refugees from the terrors of Nazi oppression want to find safety in Israel and are confronted with to with imprisonment behind barbed wire in British internment camps. How these women begin the rest of their lives is told in very matter of fact, practical language which makes it all the more powerful. It's not as powerful as The Red Tent (will she ever match that?), but shows an aspect of history I knew little about.

Now I'll start listening to Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier about Mary Anning, a fossil hunter in 19th Century England.

I'm about 100 pages in to A Renegade History of the United States. Thaddeus Russell got fired from his job as history professor at Barnard College for the opinions in this book. It's very controversial, but I'm going to keep reading and see what I think.

OtherJoyce - hope you like Remarkable Creatures as much as I did.

Me too, two Joyces.

I'm now reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera for the alphabet challenge and I'm liking it very much.

Time to Share:

So, challengers, what was the most unlikely book you found yourself reading this year as a result of a TIOLI challenge? Which challenge was it that tempted you to read that particular book?

That's easy Madeline. Can't you think of something harder tha that;-) For me, it's Dracula. Never in a million years would I have ever read it but I picked up a copy at the used book store after hearing a couple of people talk about how good it was (I'm talking to you, Madeline) and then when the Almost Horror Challenge came up I still didn't think I'd get to it but when I saw a few other people were reading it, BAM, I was there. And to top it off, I really enjoyed it.

LOL!!

Bonnie, I think I must say the same about myself, although I didn't read Dracula for the Almost Horror challenge. I'll have to go back and see which challenge tempted me.

I'll also have to go back and see whatever for I had that book in my collection! I don't like vampires. I hate historical novels. I avoid classics as best I can. Now let me figure out the answer to my own questions.

Be right back...

Okay. Now I've figured it out (...being grateful for the notes I keep on my Bookcrossing book journals). It was after I read the book The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova that I was told I "had to" read the original Dracula by Bram Stoker. Notice that I wasn't too eager to read it as it sat on my bookshelf from 2007 until May, 2010 when I read it for the TIOLI challenge to read a book with a One-Word Title.

Hey! I, too, was astounded that I liked it so much. Surprise, surprise!! :D

I'd have to say the most unlikely book I found myself reading was Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster. I never even knew it was a book until TIOLI, just a movie starring Fred Astaire. Young girl falls for older man, yuck, not my type of book. Then I found that it's a delightful tale of education, reading and growth of self. I think I read it for Zoe's school challenge which I hadn't even planned to join, but everyone made the book sound just as wonderful as it is.

I loved the school challenge, but I can't take credit for creating it! I think that was elkiedee.

As for the most unlikely book, I'll have to think about it a bit. Dracula was pretty unlikely for me too because it had been a few years since I'd read a classic, but maybe there's something even stranger that I'm not remembering right now....

Oops, sorry elkiedee.

>151 SqueakyChu: My most unlikely book was Soulless. Technically I don't think it fit into a challenge the particular month I read it, but it came as a direct result from a bunch of people picking it for the debut title in January.

#151 Madeline, for me it was The Remains of the Day for Darryl's Book by a Japanese Author challenge in June. It was so unlikely because it had been on my shelf for almost 20 years. It turned out to be a 5 star read for me and I was so glad that I finally read it.

>>151 SqueakyChu: - I'm not sure if "unlikely" is the best description, but for one of this month's challenges, I picked up The Clumsiest People in Europe, solely BECAUSE it would qualify for a challenge (the out of print challenge). I actually put it down and walked away first, and when I couldn't find anything else in the store I liked better, I went back and picked it up. So TIOLI is definitely serving my interests in diversifying my reading. It was odd, and I'm glad I read it, but if not for TIOLI I wouldn't have gone back to it.

Your description of trying to get away from that book makes me laugh, Patrick! :)

Oh, I definitely have to say Dracula too. It's one of those books I thought I might someday get around to reading, but it sure wasn't high on the list. And I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would!

For me - probably The Trouble With Poetry for the poetry challenge in April (?). Poetry is a genre I rarely visit. It was fun, surprisingly enjoyable.

Hint! Hint!

Room by Emma Donoghue seems to be the most popular TIOLI read so far this month. If you've intended to read this book, now would be a great time to do so! :D

Maybe Love and Garbage by Ivan Klima, after 2 decades on my bookshelf? (For the Prague challenge last month; my list of books about Prague seems relatively skimpy and I didn't feel like reading Kafka...)

Yeah. After two decades seems about time to move that book around a little...even, perhaps, to read it! :)

164: I just requested Room -- I may have a bit of wait, but I can always see if I can snag a rental copy (at $0.25/day).

Karen O.

klobrien2, what an interesting idea. From where do you rent a book?

Some of our local libraries (not mine) do this. If it's a really popular book, they'll have extra copies available for rental. I think there's a dollar or two charge. Or you can wait.

I pay rent on mine when I don't return them on time. AKA late fees.

I still have a long wait for Room.

I'm intrigued by the idea of library rentals for popular books.

I've heard there's something like Netflix for books out there, but don't remember what it's called or how it works.

>>164 SqueakyChu: - Schuler's Books had an autographed copy of Room earlier this week, so I am dumping Spud for the 4 letter challenge and replacing it with Room.

I saw a copy of Room today at a bookstore here in Australia. I was thinking of buying it, because so many people are reading it for the challenge. Then I saw the price tag. I think they wanted about $32 for it. Ridiculous!

I finished Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl for challenge #12. I quite like a book of short stories occasionally. Not that any of the endings were really 'unexpected'.

I think I'll read The Girl Who Played With Fire next for challenge #16. I've been meaning to read this one for a while.

#174: I cannot blame you for not buying Room at that price! I agree - ridiculous.

I have belonged to BookSwim for the last year, but am considering dropping it. Unlike Netflix, when you return two or three books, you don't automatically get the next two or three on your list. For instance, if you have a 5-at-a-time package, you can only designate one "guaranteed" book for your next package. That's useful for those really high-demand/low availability library books, like Room, but the list of what is available is more limited than many libraries. I'm probably going to cancel my subscription by the end of the year -- partly out of frustration that even the one "guaranteed" book isn't always ready to ship, leading to long delays. It's a good option if you're housebound, if your local library is lousy, etc., but it really isn't Netflix for books. I think there's another similar model that offers paperbacks, but think the "guarantee" policy is pretty much the same.

There was a topic a while ago about private ownership of libraries. My sister is a librarian and we joked about libraries renting out books instead of lending them. Amazing, I didn't know it was actually happening.

I'm fairly sure I actually own more books than my local library (excluding children's books). Of course, a more uneven mix than theirs. But they have one row of mysteries - about 8 shelves' worth -- and I've got far more than that. And only four rows of adult fiction... I do wish they kept at least one copy of each book somewhere in the library system, even if it's in storage. So many books just get completely de-accessioned. For instance, only three or four of the Jalna books are owned by the Brooklyn system.

I'm frequently amazed at the amount and variety of books my libraries have. With the inter-library loan I can get almost everything I want. I did just find that none of them had I and Thou by Martin Buber or The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay. Kind of strange, but for the most part they're very well stocked. Alas, I don't know how much longer that will last.

#174 Ricey: I am Australian and I mostly buy online from The Book Depository. Much cheaper and no delivery fee. I have seen some new paperbacks in our bookshops selling for $37!!!!

I'm not reading it this month, but I thought I'd mention that yesterday I saw Room at Target for 30% off. I don't know if that's true at all Targets, though.

Back to the idea of TIOLI group read Book Talk...

My idea of it:

1. When a book reaches a critical mass (say 7 or more people reading it), any challenger can start a TIOLI Book Talk)

2. It remains optional to create one or not. Anyone reading the shared book could start it.

3. When the work discussions (a forthcoming LT feature that Tim is now developing) begin, the TIOLI Book Talk could be linked to the work itself.

4. It is not as in-depth as a "group read".

5. It can be as superficial or as in-depth as challengers want.

6. It should never duplicate an existing group read (a search, now that Tim is improving search) can be done before setting up a TIOLI Book Talk to preclude that possibility.

6. The threads (more than one, but related) would be set up in a way that would avoid spoilers. would say to have one introduction thread and then divide the book into quarters as I think people like to talk about what they're reading at the time they're reading - but without knowing what's coming ahead. The result would be five individual threads about the same book.

7. These threads could remain active even after the TIOLI book month is gone (e.g. the same book could feasibly be entered later into a different month's TIOLI challenge).

Advantages:
1. TIOLI challengers who do share the same book would be able to talk to each other at the same time and in the same place.

2. Challengers would not be given spoilers (due to the division of TIOLI Book Talk into five separate threads).

3. Challengers could read the book at their own pace even if they have to delete their book from the current TIOLI at the end of the month for non-finishing! :)

Disadvantages

Tell me what you think...

1. Does it duplicate something else already found on LiraryThing?

2. Does it compete too much with other groups which do the same thing?

3. Does it "water down" the fun of TIOLI by making it too complicated? Too large? Too detailed?

The fun of it...

No one can pre-plan the TIOLI Book Talk as no one will really know which book will become popular until that fact presents itself. Since it will not duplicate other group reads, the surprise element of TIOLI remains.

Clarification: This would only be optional and not a part of what the TIOLI challenge itself is.

> 181

I saw a few copies of Room on book swap sites, but these are probably US only. :(

By the way, no harm in sharing books amongst ourselves via bookswaps during any given TIOLI month. I like BookMooch (although I'm not an international mailer). Which other bookswap sites have you joined and liked?

ALPHABETICAL CONTEST!

Here's the deal (Thanks, Terri, for this fun idea!)...

Beginning now through November 23rd, state how many books you think will be COMPLETED back to back (ETA: the longest unbroken sequence) in the Alphabetical Challenge by the end of November. Post the answer to this thread. The first person who gets it right or comes the closest will win a frog. In all seriousness! The winner must be willing to private message me your mailing address.

Will the frog mail internationally??? ;o)

It will.

I take it you mean the longest unbroken sequence anywhere in the challenge, and not just how many from the beginning of the list?

Correct. The longest unbroken sequence.

I just finished Ever for the 4 letters or less challenge. It's been on my shelf for quite awhile. I have mixed feelings about Gail Carson Levine. I really liked Ella Enchanted and really didn't like Fairest very well. Anyway, this was different from her sort of fairy tale re-tellings. Ever is about a boy-god who falls in love with a mortal, and the trials they must endure to earn the opportunity to be together. It is loosely derived from Mesopotamian mythology and an Old Testament story that Levine read. YA, easy read, interesting.

I am Australian and I mostly buy online from The Book Depository. Much cheaper and no delivery fee. I have seen some new paperbacks in our bookshops selling for $37!!!!

For a paperback?! Mercy! I do remember sticker shock over the price of books when I was in Australia. Aren't we lucky that we now have BookDepository!

I've finished and loved Room. Easily one of the best books I've read this year.

I've finished and loved The Lacuna for the Recommended by Stasia challenge. Easily one of the best books I've read this year! (Thanks, Nancy. That was easy.....)

> 183

Okay. Okay. I'll stop pushing "Book Talk" on all of you! :D

*concentrates on the Alphabetical Contest*

I finished and reviewed The Lost City of Z for the Book with a Z in the Title. Now I will concentrate on Middlemarch for the Read a Book by an author whose first name ends with the same letter with which his/her last name starts.

I finished Bonjour Tristesse for the translated-from-French challenge and The Careful Use of Compliments for the 21st Century Redux challenge, and I've added The Shortest Way to Hades to the wiki for the heaven-and-hell challenge.

I just realized that every book I've read in November is for a TIOLI Challenge. Of course, that's only four books...so far...but the next three I have lined up are also on the wiki! This will be a first for me unless I sneak a non-TIOLI in at the end!

unless I sneak a non-TIOLI in at the end

Uh oh! If you don't, you might disappoint Zoe! ;)

I finished and reviewed A Renegade History of the United States and will discuss some of the very interesting ideas it expresses on my history thread later. Russell's idea is that the Founding Fathers knew that in order for Americans to be good citizens they had to be willing (and able) to give up personal freedom in order to work for the common good. He said those people who insist on personal pleasure are renegades, African Americans chief among them, and it is only through their shiftlessness, malingering, sexual promiscuity, and desire for personal adornment and recreation that the rest of us have a measure of enjoyment in our lives. For some reason, he then has to take the ultimate step of saying that because of the African American's refusal to sacrifice personal freedom for the potential value of their rights as citizens, they were better off in slavery. I'm not sure why he thought he had to take that furthest step unless it was just to show that he himself is a renegade.

Now, to get that sort of thing out of my mind I've started Gun's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons For Making It Work by Tim Gun with Ada Calhoun in which Tim Gun is showing himself to be the lovely, repressed, get-it-done guy we've all grown to know and love.

I'm still listening to Remarkable Creatures and am loving it as much as teelgee and otherJoyce thought I would.

I really liked Remarkable Creatures: I'm glad you're enjoying it, Joyce.

#200 - A Renegade History doe NOT sound like my kind of book. It sounds like one I would heave at the wall.

I am interested in your review of Remarkable Creatures. I've been looking at it for awhile and not getting to it. I'd love to know who the narrator is.

I added a few books to the TIOLI challenges. I gave up and splurged on a copy of Room because my library doesn't yet have rentals of that one, and I was 104 on the list for the circulating copies. Don't want to wait!

Same situation with For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf--my library has ONE viable copy (the other is lost); other library systems in the area have their copies booked out for months, I'm guessing. So I bought a copy of my own!

Final purchase was from the used section - Darcy's Story by Janet Aylmer for the Sadie Hawkins challenge.

Three books bought in one day--shocking! (hehe)

Karen O.

p.s.: I actually bought FOUR books for myself--the fourth one is a used anthology of short stories--Irish Girls About Town. The sixteen stories are by sixteen different Irish women authors. The book was put together to raise money for charities in Ireland.

I started Doomsday Book for the time travel challenge and am really enjoying it so far.

I do think that challenge looks lonely on its own separate page, though :(

The narrator of Remarkable Creatures is Elizabeth Philpot who, as portrayed in the book, was a "spinster" lady and sister fossil hunter with Mary Anning. I'm finding both these women fascinating, their different classes and the way they were both denied the ability to publish because they were women, or as Lord Henley said, "spare parts."

I need to start that one soon, Zoe. Got it from Paperbackswap in January, and it is staring at me reproachfully...

205 - You are reminding me of how much I liked Remarkable Creatures. It really was an interesting book that showed me a whole new world, which is something I really like in historical fiction. I think Tracy Chevailier is underrated, personally. I've only read Girl With the Pearl Earring, which was one of my favourite books (I thought because I also loved Vermeer) and the Lady and the Unicorn, which wasn't quite as good, but still rather good all the same. I have one of her books in my TBR pile that I'm itching to get to--it's about Edwardians, and I just adore the Edwardians.

Funny, I worked at a charity book sale a few months ago and among the thousands of books there was a Tracy Chevalier book (the one about Blake) that I'd picked up but then put back (because I already had put aside 50 books) and a woman found it and screamed "a Tracy Chevalier! I found a Tracy Chevalier! I can't believe this is just sitting here! Can you believe what I found?" I was so glad I had put it back and given that woman so much pleasure for her $1.

I finished up Alphabet of Dreams in the wee hours this morning for challenge #1.

Spare parts... spare parts. Huh. One of the less classy terms I've ever heard. It's like the neanderthal version of comparing one's wife to a used car (lemon).

I finished Making Globalization Work by Joseph Stiglitz for the Nobel prize winner challenge. I gave it 4 stars and enjoyed it (well, enjoy is the wrong word - a very depressing book really!)

203: re For Colored Girls: I've read Ntozake Shange's novels and really liked them.

So, I finished Dune yesterday (always as good as I remember it to be) & Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets (I am shameless in my enjoyment of HP - a total big kid at heart). So this week I'm moving onto the next HP & I've started Cutting for Stone which has great potential after the first 70 pages & The Year of the Flood which I like but I'm not sure how much yet.

Edited a gadzillion times for touchy touchstones. Gah!

I saw Feed by M.T. Anderson sitting on my shelf and thought, 'That's only four letters', picked it up to take a glance at it and ended up reading 50 pages. So, I'm adding it to the four letter or less challenge.

Feed is such a fun book. I picked it up from the library when I was trying out some audio books a while back. Hope you like it.

It was an odd choice book for me because I usually don't do YA, science fiction, or fantasy. The author did something right because I was captivated by the story and found it very entertaining.

>212 klarusu: Claire, Cutting for Stone is one of my favorites for the year. Amazing book.

I'm reading The Robber Bride for the alphabet challenge. Love Margaret Atwood, and I'm not sure how I managed to never read this one.

>>214 SqueakyChu:. It is a fun book. It is so funny you should make that comment about YA, SF and Fantasy. They are all types where I have less success in finishing books than other genres.

However, very good YA SF and Fantasy seems to be something I do like.

I just added another book to the wiki - The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton. It could have gone into three categories, but because I spotted it on Stasia's thread it has gone into the recommended by Stasia category:)

It's a good story. I really need to catch up on my own thread and put some comments up for my last three reads - all TIOLI!

Coming soon...monthly stats and awards!

Stats and Awards for October 2010:

For the month of October, 2010, TIOLI challengers read a total of 506 books. Of these, 150 or 30% were shared books. We accumulated a total of 100 points for this month (bringing us to a YTD total of 500 TIOLI points!)

New record: 8 shared reads in one month. Read on...

Here are the awards…

The You Said a Mouthful Award goes to Zoe for starting the separate thread that provoked the most discussion. There were 106 messages (!) on the thread related to her challenge to Read an Old-fashioned Type of Children's Story.

The Glad I Happened to Be There Award goes to gennyt for reading Terry Pratchett's Mort, a book which “jumped off the shelf to (her)”! Better in someone's hands than on the floor! :)

The Excellent Topic Choice Award goes to bell7 for the Not Quite Horror challenge which triggered a shared read of the same book by eight challengers!! If you haven’t been following our thread closely, it was the classic novel Dracula by Bram Stoker.

The Grab My Hand and Let’s Read Together award goes to bohemima, nittnut, brenzi, teelgee, AlcottAcre, goddesspt2, Donna828, and leperdbunny for reading and completing Dracula together and contributing a total of 4 TIOLI points during October for reading that book alone.

Congrats to October award winners!

I love the award names you come up with every month, Madeline! What a great way to share the TIOLI love :)

>214 SqueakyChu:, it's a whole new genre - Yascififan.

Great awards, Madeline!

How exciting! I won an award, just for being there at the right time too! Thanks Madeline :)

OMG I won an award!! And it's so appreciated this month where anesthesia overload made reading impossible for a week and a half and so I've only finished (gulp) one book so far. Shudder.

Thanks Madeline.

Well, I'm obviously running with the right crowd here. I cherish my Grab My Hand and Let's Read Together Award. I told my husband that reading does pay off! He said, '"Let's see your award." CPAs have very dry senses of humor.

I too love the creative names you come up with, Madeline. Thanks for going that extra mile to make TIOLI even more fun!

Woot! I won an award! I love the award names.

Donna and all, let your spouses scoff, but they'll be singing your praises when the large prize check and the gold encrusted statues come in. I just hope it won't be too heavy for Bonnie to lift.

I've finished the lovely Tim Gunn's lovely Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons For Making It Work and I'm glad there are people like him in the public eye. Now I'm starting Suite Francaise by Irene Memirovsky for the WWII challenge.

LOL at Joyce!! I'm not sure who's going to pay for the big check and the gold statues. I'm already into it for one frog!

Glad everyone's enjoyed October's awards. These are just for fun only. All of you challengers should know that *each* of you is an award winner in my book!

The middle of the month means...time to think ahead for challenges for next month. I see that Club Read will also continue to do their own challenges in the coming year. I'll be keeping an eye on them (see message #13). It's been fun so far to share some of their past challenges. Hope we can continue to do so.

Yay! We won an award for doing something together! Of course, it involved the creepy Drac and the really weird Renfield.

*Does happy dance*

I love the awards!

#228: I feel like we should join arms and make like the Rockettes - kicking up our heels in celebration :)

>230 alcottacre: In my dreams I could do that!

> 230

I feel like we should join arms and make like the Rockettes - kicking up our heels in celebration

You can do that for my entertainment at a real life meet-up. I'll just sit back and smile. :D

Speaking of Dracula, has anyone heard of/read Dracula in Love? I am thinking it is one of those weird offshoots of the classics, but it apparently is from Mina's point of view. I can't decide if I'm interested or not. Maybe I have my fill of vampires for awhile.

>233 nittnut: nittnut -- I think, with rare exception, books that attempt to sequelize classics are blasphemous! (having said that, I've not read more than one or two, but the idea rankles me!). One notable exception: March.

I agree with you completely teelgee. I've never had a good experience with one. One that still gives me nightmares - Scarlett.

I have March on the TBR pile. I will have to move it up.

TS not really working - Scarlett was the "sequel" to Gone With the Wind. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Wow, PTSD from that book, sounds like!

>219 SqueakyChu: Ooh, an award! Shiny! :)
Love the stat that 20% of our TIOLI points were from last month. We seem to be keeping a good number of shared reads even in the increase of total books.

Thanks for all your effort putting the TIOLI challenge together, Madeline. It's been so much fun, I'm already looking forward to 2011!

I finished Feed and added Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead to the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Challenge. I am flying through TIOLI books this month which is very unusual for me, but these have all been exceptionally good. I hope Sag Harbor continues the excellence streak.

Congrats on the awards!

Edited for a missing word.

I really enjoyed the Dracula read - thanks for all the positive motivation to pick it up. I plan to read Shelley's Frankenstein in 2011 for a Gothic Challenge.

Nancy, you'll give me an extra push to pick up Sag Harbor this week!

Uh oh! The Alphabetical Challenge is stalled at "X" now! :/

I finished up X marks the Spot a couple of days ago for an earlier alphabet 'x' spot, it's an excellent children's 'survival in the wild' adventure that I've been meaning to read since a new edition was published a couple of years ago.

Come on X!!! cuz I have a Y!

I finished The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears during Darryl's Readathon today.

So, if I post an X and don't read it, will I get flamed???

..and I finished David Golder during Darryl's Readathon. I chose to read it for the Translated from French TIOLI challenge.

> 242

Phew! Good to hear that an "X" book was good, Kerry. I've been skeptical. I ordered my "X" book but it has not yet arrived.

> 245

So, if I post an X and don't read it, will I get flamed???

Nope!

OK, hang on a sec...

ETA: Done. Ms Y, off you go... (But save "C" for me!)

I wasted no time with my Y. I have noticed that none of the current alphabet entries are shared reads. Just sayin.

No, but lots of us are doing other intended shared reads. I've finished a shared read this morning and the top book in my current reading pile is another one.

In a discussion elsewhere on LT, I said that I don't much need physical bookstores and other people responded that they need the spontaneity, which can't be replicated online. It made me think how lucky I am to be part of TIOLI, which is all about spontaneous reads!

I also think TIOLI has given me a better understanding of religious proselytizers. I can very much relate to the feeling that I've discovered this amazing revelation and everyone else's lives would be so much better if they just tried it as well! Hehe.

I'm not even going to read the 57 unread posts here. I feel miserable as I have not finished one of my TIOLI's as planned. Just letting you know this frog is still alive and eager to hop to #1.

> 252

Yeah, but like religion, think how much better it is if one discovers it for himself! :)

> 250

I have noticed that none of the current alphabet entries are shared reads.

So who's going to read Suz's X Saves the World with her? ;0

P.S. Do I hear a "Z"?

I can't remember if I've posted any of my completed books here or not. So, I'll list all seven books I've completed so far this month, by challenge number:

#1: I Hotel by Karen Tei Yamashita
#2: The Salt Smugglers by Gérard de Nerval
#2: False Friends, Faux Amis: Book 1 by Elle Malet Spradbery
#8: The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
#15: White Coat, Black Hat: Adventures on the Dark Side of Medicine by Carl Elliott (shared read)
#16: Grace Williams Says it Loud by Emma Henderson
#16: We Are a Muslim, Please by Zaiba Malik

I'm currently reading Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa for my own (Nobel laureate) challenge.

I have several Z titles I'd like to read or reread in my library.

I've posted a Z title that I wouldn't mind re-reading.

Re shared reads, I don't set out to list things that are going to be shareable, but that I want to read; similarly, although there are books that I could read and turn into shared reads, I don't want to feel under an obligation to read them in the next few weeks just to boost the # of shared reads. The shared reads are serendipitous... If I were to add one book simply for a shared read, it would be to join Luci in re-reading The Winds of Heaven. But I'd have to physically locate the book first! Still, I'm glad to be reminded it's there, and it will go on a list to re-read in the near future. Another note -- I think this challenge is particularly tricky to do shared reads on -- there are so many books, and the rules mean, I think, that it's less likely as time goes on to have books listed that people have heard buzz about, that are new, that are readily accessible, etc. Just my 2 cents.

Wanted A and C. Got B.

(new search is annoying, as I went to Jim Butcher's page to get the A book, and he didn't appear in the author section. By the time I found him by looking elsewhere, A was gone. Old search I'd have gotten A :()

I did add Bury Your Dead as a shared 'B' read. I've been delaying gratification on that and this is a good time to go ahead and allow myself the pleasure.

For me, the main challenge of shared reads is locating the book in a timely fashion. I know where Bury Your Dead because it is on the Kindle.

Edited for grammar.

I added Bury Your Dead because I know it's now en route to my local library branch and I should have it in my mitts by the weekend! I wouldn't mind reading Helen Dunmore's book about Zennor and DH Lawrence, but I'd have to order it especially, and even if I didn't have to think about the book fast, it could still take 2 weeks to show up. It's not in the library system.

I've actually read Zennor in Darkness but it was years ago and I want to read/reread all Helen Dunmore's other adult fiction - I'd also like to read the Ingo trilogy.

I admit I've also been using this challenge to list my Bookbag, ER and other review books - someone else listed Pereira Maintains which is one of my ER books. I was hoping to get a B in this time for another review book, but never mind, it will fit Zoe's challenge....

Right - since I put it in this thread about the new search I'll add the follow-up: Jim Butcher was missing from the author section because of the canonical name bug issue. Not missing because of new search.

The B I put in there was one I had just picked up and had been wanting to read for a while, so while I said that I wanted A and C, but got B, what I meant was . . well, I want A-Z.

LOL, Mike, re the A to Z. But I don't think Madeline wants to make it that easy for us, somehow...

Er, you're right!

ETA: By the way, thanks for the Z, A, B, and C. I'd been waiting for the D! :) There's got to be *some* way I'll be inspired to read my ER books.

Finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows re-read. Enjoyed it. I had forgotten a lot of the details.

Back to Hemingway and The Lacuna.

I missed adding my 'B' book, I'd been checking the Wiki frequently then turned back and found I'd missed my chance. But yesterday I found Colm Toibin's new collection of short stories in the library, The Empty Family.

Which then allowed me to add Fame: What the Classics Tell Us About Our Cult of Celebrity by Tom Payne, which I just picked up from the library today!

Drats, I missed my E for Elephant Winter. Been watching for it all afternoon. Not that I have nothing to read, ha ha.

Guess you'll have to wait for the alphabet to do another circuit, Terri! :D

I didn't think it would make it 'round the last two times, so who knows??

btw Madeline, I see a page three in your near future.

Hehe! I was hoping you wouldn't notice!

This thread continues here.