rainpebble's 12/12/12

I am happy to see this set up early. It will give me time to really think about and choose my 12 categories. I reserve the right to change any and/or all of my categories at any point throughout the challenge.

First though, I want to do a quick rundown on my reads of 2011. And they go like this:

I really had to whittle through my favorite reads of 2011 to get the list down to a reasonable number. I read some really good books this past year. So my favorites of 2011 are:

Moments of Being by Virginia Woolf
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
A Secret Kept and Sarah's Key both by Tatiana de Rosnay
Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
A Spell of Winter by Helen Dunmore
Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor
The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Our Three Selves: The Life of Radclyffe Hall by Michael Baker
When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant
Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky; an amazing accounting.

The books that were losers for me in 2011 were much easier to list and they are:

After a 6th attempt, Moby Dick by the dastardly Herman Melville
The Spy Who Stayed Out in the Cold: The Secret Life of FBI Double Agent Robert Hanssen by Adrian Havill a poor telling of a very interesting true story.
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (was not able to finish it but WILL try it again this year.
It seems like there were a couple more but they are so totally non-memorable that I can't even list them. lol!~!

And that is the year of 2011 reading for belva.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now for 2012:

CATEGORIES:

1) Group Reads
2) R/L B/C
3) Beloved Books
4) Bios & Non-Fiction
5) Celebrating Elizabeth Taylor
6) Orange Prize Listed Books (January & July)
7) Booker Man Prize & Pulitzer Prize Listed Books
8) Faulkner & Steinbeck
9) Africa, Canada or Australia
10) Author of the Month
11) Darryl's Orange of the Month Challenge
12) ALL VIRAGO/ALL AUGUST
Bonus) Virago

1st Category:

This is an easy one as you already have this group's Group Reads set up. I like it!

GROUP READS:

1. January: Margaret Atwood - Oryx and Crake
2. February: Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
3. March: Roberto Bolaño - 2666
4. April: Muriel Barbery - The Elegance of the Hedgehog
5. May: Gabriel García Márquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
6. June: Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall
7. July: Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray
8. August: Cormac McCarthy - Suttree
9. September: Steinbeck in September
10. October: José Saramago - Blindness
11. November: Umberto Eco - Baudolino
12. December: ?
_______________________________________________

Year-long
Xenophon - Hellenika

To be determined
Peter Mayle - A Year in Provence

2nd Category:
REAL LIFE BOOK CLUB:

1. JANUARY: The Tiger's Wife by Te'a Obreht; (4*)
2. FEBRUARY: I Thought You Were Dead by Pete Nelson
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

3rd Category:
BELOVED BOOKS:

1. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
2. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
3. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
4. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
5. The Little Grey Men by B.B.
6. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
7. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
8. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
9. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg
10. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
11. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
12. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

4th Category:
BIOS & NON-FICTION:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

5th Category:
CELEBRATING ELIZABETH TAYLOR:

1. JANUARY: At Mrs Lippincote's (2*)
2. FEBRUARY: Palladian
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

6th Category:
ORANGE PRIZE LISTED BOOKS: (January & July)

1. Larry's Party by Carol Shields; (4 1/2*)
2. A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne; (3 1/2*)
3. Property by Valerie Martin; (4*)
4. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver; (5*)
5. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett; (4*)
6. Small Island by Andrea Levy; (4*)
7. The Tiger's Wife by Te'a Obreht; (4*)
8. On Beauty by Zadie Smith; (2 1/2*)

9. The Siege by Helen Dunmore

10.
11.
12.

7th Category:
BOOKER MAN PRIZE & PULITZER PRIZE LISTED BOOKS:

1. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

8th Category:
FAULKNER & STEINBECK:

1. The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

9th Category:
AFRICA, CANADA, & AUSTRALIA:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

10th Category:
AUTHOR OF THE MONTH:

1. Georgette Heyer: These Old Shades (1/2*) applied the Pearl Rule
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

11th Category:
Darryl's Orange Challenge of the Month:

1. XXX Orange January XXX
2. The Siege by Helen Dunmore; short listed; 2002
3.
4.
5.
6.
7. XXX Orange July XXX
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

12th Category:
ALL VIRAGO/ALL AUGUST:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Bonus Category should I choose to have one:
VIRAGO:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.

Hi Belva - Nice to see you have set up your 12 in 12. Of course I will be following your Orange, Booker and Pulitzer reading but I have to say I will also be following your Faulkner and Steinbeck category.... both are authors I have in the past (pre LT) steered clear of but have been gently nudged their way more recently by other fellow LTers. Haven't started reading any of their works yet but your thoughts will be of interest to me!

Hi Belva, I see you are planning a busy reading year in 2012. Lots of great categories for me to follow along with.

>@#15:
lkernagh;
I will be very happy if at the year's end I have encouraged you to read any of Steinbeck or Faulkner. Steinbeck has been my favorite author since I was in 7th grade and read his The Winter of our Discontent. It is my favorite of his works. I must, however, admit that my fascination with Faulkner came only after I joined L.T. and "eavesdropped" on many a conversation between BrainFlakes and LaytonWoman3rd regarding him. I found their conversations so fascinating that I had to read him. He is not quite up there with Steinbeck in my mind yet, but nearly so and I have not read nearly as much of Faulkner as I have Steinbeck.
I was afraid of Faulkner before I began to read him also...but not to worry. Light in August was his first work that I read and I loved it. Nor should you fear reading Steinbeck. I have read him all my life since 7th grade. He is one I have to read over and over; I love him so much.
I will be watching to see what you challenge yourself with in 2012 as well.
~belva

>@#16;
Hello Delta. Thank you for popping by. I am excited to begin our 12/12/12 challenge as I have completed my 11/11/11 one excepting for a couple of R/L B/C books and finishing my Austen-a-Thon reads. I am half-way through them. I will likewise be interested to see what you are reading in 2012.
hugs,
~belva

BELVA! *throws herself at Belva for an enormous bear hug* Oooh, I'm looking forward to keeping up with all your reading for 2012! Some great categories and some brilliant titles already being planned, I see. You've got some of my favourite books up there, as well as a fair few off Mount TBR.

I'm just hoping I haven't bitten off more than I can chew after my disastrous attempt at the 10 in 10 LAST year...

Hi, Belva! Its great to see you here. I have this thread starred!

Hi Belva - I've starred this thread :) Love your categories - I think I can tell from them that most of what you'll read I'll want to read lol.

In my 12 in 12 I've got a Steinbeck catergory to read 12 of his novels (practically all of them really) and Faulkner is an author I've been to scared to try again after I tried and failed to read Absalom, Absalom! but I have at least two of his novels and know at some point I will be up to the challenge again!

I think I will attempt Light in August this year. Thanks for the nudge.

Hi. You have such a lot of interesting reads planned. I'll be following eagerly. I love Steinbeck and Faulkner too, and both feature on my 2012 TBR, along with several of your others.

To those of you who gave this book simply mediocre marks; WHA????????????????????????????????????????????

Larry's Party by Carol Shields, my thoughts and comments:

I loved it. Read it in 2 sittings. One in bed last night and then this afternoon.
Larry's Party is about Larry. Larry at 30, Larry's Love, Larry's Folks, Larry's Work, Larry's Words, Larry's Friends, Larry's Penis, Larry Inc, Larry So Far, Larry's Kid, Larry's Search for the Wonderful and the Good, 1992, Larry's Threads, 1993-4, Men Called Larry, Larry's Living Tissues, 1996, and lastly Larry's Party. So it is all about Larry and the different highlights and lowlights of Larry's life.
I found it fascinating reading. I think anyone who loves words would.
Larry is just a guy; basically this book could be about any man out there. Larry becomes fascinated with mazes and it changes his life. Every major point in Larry's life changes it. The women in Larry's life are fascinatingly different and when you put them together, Larry's life gets more interesting momentarily.
I don't know how I have missed Carol Shields but know I will read more books by her. I really loved Larry's Party and it will probably be on my Orange January list again next year. I highly recommend this one and rated it 4 1/2 stars.

A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne, my thoughts and comments:

A typical family in a typical American community where families visit over the fences and hedges, children ride their bicycles up and down the street, neighborhood potlucks.........everything in this book is about your typical family community.............until it isn't.
The narrator, Marsha, one of three children sees a lot happen in this summer. Her father has an affair with their mother's sister and leaves the family. Her mother becomes distant and breaks off all connection with her close three sisters. Her older twin siblings spend the summer with friends and return seemingly older.
But the biggest thing that happens that summer is that a young boy in the neighborhood is molested and murdered in a small wood at the edge of the neighborhood. This, quite naturally changes the aura of the neighborhood. People become suspicious and distrustful. they stop having their get-togethers. They do whisper back and forth about who could have come into the neighborhood and committed this horror or was it one of their own?
Marsha spends her summer with a broken ankle and looking for clues where there are and aren't any. The story is based on Marsha's sleuth work and her recording of any and all occurrences that seem to be clues.
This is an interesting story, the characters are easy to identify with for the most part. I enjoyed reading it and do recommend it. I gave it 3 1/2 stars.

When I was a pre-teen, my dad bought me a copy of The Red Pony, by Steinbeck. I was so horrified by the book that I never read another Steinbeck novel again until I was in my late 20's (still haven't read very many of them). Over the years, I've accepted that someone can be a great writer while still being a tad depressing. Depressing SO wasn't my gig when I was younger! But perhaps not all of Steinbeck's novels are depressing? Are there uplifting ones?

@ 26 -- I haven't really read any uplifting Steinbeck novels, but some are less depressing than others. I recommend East of Eden, and probably not The Grapes of Wrath!

Hi Belva! I've not heard of Larry's Party before, but I have A Crime in the Neighbourhood waiting on Mount TBR... I've heard good things!

Hmmm, John Steinbeck. I've only read Of Mice and Men so far, but I've read that one twice. Definitely not uplifting, but brilliant all the same. It affected me just as much the second time I read it, years later, which is usually the mark of a good book!

>@#26:
Steinbeck's Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat make me laugh out loud crazy. I find parts of them hysterical. Love them. But you are quite correct. Most of his works have a dark side to them. He and I are suited to a T.

Miss Ellie; Of Mice and Men is simply brilliant no matter how many times you read it.

And I agree with Christina......East of Eden sounds more for you than The Grapes of Wrath, although both are masterpieces.

My favorite Steinbeck is The Winter of Our Discontent which I read the first time in 7th grade and reread it regularly as I do most of his works. But it is indeed another dark one. To a God Unknown is another favorite of mine but it is both very dark and a bit strange. I would love to have known John Steinbeck. A very remarkable and brilliant man besides being a wonderful author.

Property by Valerie Martin
My thoughts and comments:

Property is the story of a woman who is married to a quite despicable man who is the owner of a sugar plantation and as thus, with the time and place, also is a slave owner. Her husband is obsessed with a house slave and has two babies by her. The wife, Manon, is repulsed by her husband but is still very angry about the situation. The slave girl, Sarah, hates the master as well.
It is a short story, taking all of about 2 hours to read, but there is a lot contained in this book. The slavery uprisings and murders of hundreds of whites and blacks. The yellow fever and cholera epidemics also killing hundreds and hundreds of people, both free and slave.
The story is interestingly told in the first person of Manon, the wife of the slave and plantation owner. In her daily life it seems that she totally takes for granted these people who are the property of her husband and the fact that they take care of all of the needs of the plantation, including her own personal need and requirements.
During the uprising, her husband is killed, (for which she appears grateful), and she is badly injured herself. The slave girl, Sarah, runs for freedom. Manon offers rewards and hires, with the help of her aunt, a broker to find the girl. It takes several months for the girl to be found and interestingly enough when she is brought back to Manon, Manon seems to be envious of the fact that the slave, Sarah, had known those months/weeks of freedom which she, herself, has never known. It is almost as if within her lifetime Manon has felt like "Property" herself.
I recommend this book and rated it a 4* read. I quite liked it though the subject matter is troubling.

Next up for Orange January is: We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, the winner of the Orange Prize in 2005.

I think we have that one on our shop shelves! *runs off to check* Yup! Duly misappropriated, Belva - thank you! ;)

Hi Belva, I have been lurking here and following your reading. Big thumbs up for Steinbeck, I think Of Mice and Men is one of the truly perfect stories ever written. I am looking forward to joining the "Steinbeck-a-thon" over on the 75 Challenge for re-reads of The Pearl and The Red Pony as well as a new read, Travels With Charley.

I also have Property on my wishlist, so it was good to see such a favorable review.

Our county library has a copy of Property, Belva. I may add it to my list of books to check out from there. Great review!

Hi Miss Ellie; I hope you enjoy it. I thought it quite good.
Have you been well? And are you still having your day off DVDs, snackies, etc? I think about you quite a bit and wonder how you are.

Hey there Delta; I agree about Of Mice and Men. Didn't know about the Steinbeck-a-Thon..........will have to check that out. Any time is a good time for a re-read of a Steinbeck! Thanks for popping over.

Hello tymfos; Property, I did find to be a very good read. Rather left me thinking at the end and to me, that is one sign of a good book. I hope you are having some good reads.

hugs,
b

I have now completed my 3rd Orange for Orange January; need to write a review yet for We Need to Talk About Kevin, a 5 star read for me but I am just not ready to do it yet.
Am leaving Orange January to pick up an Elizabeth Taylor tonight when I go to bed real soon here. Participating in her Century Celebration with one a month of hers. This month we are reading At Mrs. Lippincote's. Love her writing so I doubt I will be disappointed.

Attempted to read These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer.
I am afraid that I applied the 'Pearl Rule' here. Just not a fan of this type of romance, I guess.

Elizabeth Taylor's writing is always exquisite but somehow I found At Mrs Lippincote's lacking. The characters were uneasily liked and the story quite dreary. I liked Oliver, Felicity and Mr. Taylor. The others I found rather boring and lifeless. I think that I found in this book the same things that I find so often in Elizabeth Berg's books: The boredom and sameness of daily living. At times I can find that extraordinary and charming but sadly in this book I did not.
I will try another of hers next month. I rated this one 2 stars.

Halfway through Bel Canto and I have to say that I think this is a good book. I am liking it. Not a fun read but a good one.

#37 - I haven't yet read any Elizabeth Taylor, but I'm considering Blaming for my Virago category. Have you read that, or is there another you'd recommend?

@ # 39:
Dors; Elizabeth Taylor's writing is always lovely whether you love the book or not. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont is probably my favorite of all of hers that I have read. I also loved A View of the Harbor in which not a lot happens but it doesn't happen so beautifully that you don't care. I hope when you try her you will love her too. I've not yet read Blaming but will be reading along with the others to celebrate Taylor's 100th anniversary. Come along and read with us. One a month for the year or just whatever and whenever you want.
Here is the link if you are interested:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/126267

~belva

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett is a novel of love, intrigue, an attempted coup, a massive taking of hostages by terrorists who planned to kidnap the President of this South American country at this, but he did not attend. So they took all of the guests hostage.
The book is beautifully written, the characters are grown well, the story is good; all things that make a good book possibly great.
There are important people at this party. One of them a premier Opera Soprano. As time goes by she begins singing for the group of hostages and terrorists daily. Things change the longer the hostages are held. They lose much of their fear and animosity toward the terrorists. The terrorists relax in their vigil but no one attempts to escape. There is much interaction between the hostages and the terrorists. And when the end comes, as it must, the hostages are overcome by the carnage and weep for their kidnappers.
It does end on a surprisingly high note which left me with raised eyebrows but this is a very good book and deserving of the Orange Prize. I rated it 4 stars and highly recommend it, though I will say that I hated the next to the last bit.

#40 - Thank you! I've starred that thread and will read through it. Perhaps I'll change my selection.

I am about halfway through The Tiger's Wife and loving it. I really like Obreht's descriptive writing.

I am now reading On Beauty by Zadie Smith and quite enjoying it.

Just a drive-by Good Morning, Belva! :)

Hey Terri; how goes it?

On Beauty didn't end up so well for me. Tonight I begin The Siege by Helen Dunmore to meet Darryl's 'An Orange a Month Challenge'. Pretty sure I will like it.

I am finding that I have an awful lot on my plate this year so I will be leaving this challenge group and also participating in very few group reads. I am just going to read for me. That is where I am the most comfortable and content.
love you guys.

We'll be sorry to see you go, but I'm glad you'll be doing what makes you happy!

I'm starting to feel that "Ack! I've overcommitted!" thing as well, so I understand. Hope to see you around elsewhere on LT, though.

I had a bit of panic this week too, but I just had to take a few breaths and remember this is a hobby. Hope you're able to join us when things calm down a little.

The most important thing is to take care of yourself and keep reading! At least keep your library up-to-date.

I'm sorry that you're leaving us, Belva, but wishing you lots and lots of great reads.

I will still be on the 100 book gig and Orange January and July.
Thanks guys.
And I will be sure to keep my library up to date.

I'm sorry to see you go, but I'm starting to feel too pressured in my reading, too.

Maybe I'll visit you on the 100 book group to say hello now and then.