brewergirl's BOMBS for 2012

I am attempting to read 30 books in 2012 that I already own but have not gotten around to reading yet. Any book already on my shelf as of 1/1/12 is eligible ... physical books, ebooks, and audiobooks included. I don't think I will limit myself to a list of particular books, but I may list the "top contenders" at some point.




January progress ... 9 books ... see message 6
February progress ... 2 books ... see message 18
March progress ... 3 books ... see message 21
April progress ... 7 books ... see message 22
May progress ... 0 books ... see message 23
June progress ... 1 book ... see message 24
July progress ... 0 books ... see message 25
August progress ... 2 books ... see message 26
September progress ... 0 books ... see message 28
October progress ... 2 books ... see message 29
November progress ... 4 books ... see message 31

updated 11/30/12

Best of luck with your challenge! :)

I don't plan to limit myself to a list of particular TBR books on the shelf, but here are some of the "top contenders" that will probably (hopefully!) get read this year (in no particular order):

Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa by Martin Meredith completed
On the Grid: A Plot of Land, An Average Neighborhood, and the Systems that Make Our World Work by Scott Huler
Alone together : why we expect more from technology and less from each other by Sherry Turkle completed
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan completed
The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan completed
The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl completed
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks
The Jungle is Neutral: A Soldier's Two-Year Escape from the Japanese Army by F. Spencer Chapman completed
Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides completed
From the Holy Mountain: A Journey among the Christians of the Middle East by William Dalrymple
1491 : New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann completed
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky completed

Ouch, I need to read 1491 too. Katie recommended it to me when I was going to take a class on American colonization (which got canceled, so I ended up with the woman suffrage class that led to my thesis). Maybe if you read it I'll get inspired to do so too!

Katie was raving to me about 1493, the follow up book, too. So I'll need to read that one eventually as well ... but thankfully it isn't on my shelf at the moment!

January progress

#1: Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens ... Started it in 2011 but finished it in 2012. Only been on my shelf since 12/21/11 so it's relatively "fresh." It was a book group pick for Dickens' 200th birthday in Feb 2012.

#2: Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman ... Another started in 2011 but finished in 2012. Been on my shelf since about October 2011.

#3: Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones ... Received this through SantaThing 2011 so it has not been on my shelf long.

#4: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan ... An audibook that I started in 2011 but finished in 2012.

#5: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith ... Another book received through SantaThing 2011.

#6: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver ... Started in 2011 but finished in 2012. This is a pick for a different book group so has only been on my shelf since November.

#7: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens ... Been on my shelf since 2009. I started reading this in May 2010 but only got halfway through. Glad to have finished it ... finally!

#8: The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl ... Been on my shelf since 2009.

#9: The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan ... Only been on my shelf since Nov 2011.

updated 1/29/12

How did you like it, brewergirl?

I liked it a lot but it wasn't one of my favorites. (I think Great Expectations will always be my favorite.) As always in Dickens there is a large cast of characters who all end up connected in some way. They are all fresh in my mind now, but unfortunately over time I know I will forget many of them ... and they'll start to blur into other Dickens novels. I thought the satire of government offices (especially the description of Barnacles in the Circumlocution Office!) and financial speculators/investors was still timely given the current political season and the recent banking/mortgage situation.

I haven't read it, but I want to some day, because I enjoyed the BBC production (with Derek Jacobi as Mr. Dorrit). I'm rather fond of Bleak House, myself.

Another book down and added to my January progress in message #6 ... Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman. I love her historical fiction but this wasn't one of my favorites. It tells of Richard's battles in the Third Crusade, so maybe too many battle descriptions for me. But a great read.

I updated my progress in message #6 above ...

Howl's Moving Castle was a fun read! I'm not sure why I hadn't read any Diana Wynne Jones before. Thanks to CathleenF for the SantaThing pick!

I must have read I Capture the Castle at some point before (although I didn't have it in my catalog) because it was so familiar. It must have been a long time ago, though, because I didn't remember the whole storyline. It put me in mind of one of my favorites ... Cold Comfort Farm (which I will now want to re-read). Thanks again to CathleenF for the SantaThing pick!

When She Woke was very good. I like dystopian stories, and this one reminded me of The Handmaid's Tale and The Children of Men. (I have Hilary Jordan's book Mudbound on my "to be read" shelf, too.)

Edited to correct touchstone

I updated my progress in message #6 above ...

I really enjoyed Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. We had gardens when I was a child, and my sister & brother-in-law have had a small garden the last few years. Like a lot of people we're trying to be more conscious of what we eat, where it came from, how it was produced, etc. I read this for a book group, and we decided to continue the theme by reading The Omnivore's Dilemma (which I read several years ago).

I am glad I finally finished The Pickwick Papers and am not sure why I set it down halfway through a couple of years ago. It is really charming and reads more like individual adventures rather than a complete story. When I started reading it I didn't realize that one of my favorite series, The Moosepath League, was a tribute to Pickwick.

It is Dickens "season" these days, so I decided to read The Last Dickens, which is a fictionalized account of the search for the missing conclusion to the novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. I really liked The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow, too ... all of which involve fictional events and real-life people (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendall Holmes, etc.).

I think you should up that goal number ... already 8 out of 30!

I've been reading 1491, and it really is good. Only thing I don't get is that often he's talking about things that happened after Columbus (since obviously Indians in other parts of the continent encountered Europeans at different times, like the Inca apparently flourished in the 1500s). So the title doesn't actually make sense, much less calling his next book 1493.

I loved The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow, how was The Last Dickens?

13> I have just started 1491. I broke down and picked up a copy of 1493 so will have that on hand when the time comes. (Probably for the 2013 books off the shelf challenge ... lol)

I have been making good progress, but I had already read a good portion of 4 of these books in 2011. So I'll be moving a bit slower from this point onward!

14> The Last Dickens was good. I had read Drood previously, which is also a novel about the last days of Charles Dickens, so some of the events were a bit familiar. I like The Last Dickens better, though. It starts out after Dickens' death but then in flashback tells the story of his last American tour ... mostly in Boston. There are a lot of references to the storyline of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, naturally, but I wasn't hindered by not having read that one (although it has moved up on my TBR list). It was a nice mix of fact, fiction, history, and mystery ... just like the other Matthew Pearl books.

Thats good to know, I haven't read a lot of Dickens, but I hadn't read a lot of Poe or Dante either. I've been doing good so far, I haven't bought a single book since I signed up for this challenge and my wallet has been thanking me so for now it has to stay on the to-read list.

February progress

#10: 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann ... Got this as a Christmas present in 2005 so it has been around for a while.

#11: Just Food: How Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly by James E. McWilliams ... Been on my shelf since 2009.

updated 2/29/12

#10 What kind of info did this book have?

19 > cyderry ... The title 1491 is a little misleading because he doesn't limit himself strictly to pre-1491. He starts off by showing that there were very civilizations in the Americas prior to and after 1491, with much larger populations than is commonly known. He also discusses how agriculture and technology grew (development of maize/corn and cotton, etc.), along with writing & language. He argues that the native peoples did much more to alter their environment and surroundings than we thought (like clearing forests, burning, changing waterways).

It was a good read ... more interesting than it sounded, frankly. I have his follow-up 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created slowly working its way up my TBR list, too.

March progress

#12: The Jungle is Neutral: A Soldier's Two-Year Escape from the Japanese Army by F. Spencer Chapman ... Been on my shelf since 2008. Got interested in it after visiting Changi prison museum in Singapore and learning about how the Japanese came through Malaya on bicycles to attack Singapore in December 1941.

#13: Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides ... Been on my shelf since 2008. Also stems from my visit to Changi prison.

#14: Diamonds, Gold, and War: The Making of South Africa by Martin Meredith ... Been on my shelf since 2010.

updated 3/20/12

April progress

#15: The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens ... Been on my shelf since 2009. I heard him speak at the Maine Festival of the Book earlier this month.

#16: Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other by Sherry Turkle ... Been on my shelf since October 2011. I heard her speak at the Boston Book Festival that month.

#17: The Foremost Good Fortune by Susan Conley ... Been on my electronic shelf since last summer.

#18: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters ... Only been on my shelf since December. I got this through SantaThing 2011.

#19: This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilyn Johnson ... Been on my shelf since August 2010.

#20: World War Z by Max Brooks ... Been on my shelf since September 2011.

#21: Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky ... Been on my shelf since May 2004, I think.

updated 4/30/12

May progress

May was a month to read new books, and I ended up reading no BOMBS in May. Still holding at 21 BOMBS so far. Onward to June!

June progress

#22: Songs for the Missing by Stewart O'Nan ... Been on my shelf since Sep 2011.

July progress

None! July was totally taken over by Game of Thrones and the rest of the books in the series. Once I started I had to finish all 5 books, so that is where July went.

August progress

#23: Death in Kashmir by M. M. Kay ... Been on my shelf since Jan 2010. Entertaining. Reminded me of Agatha Christie and Nancy Drew.

#24: The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan ... Been on my shelf since Feb 2011. A SantaThing selection! Sorry it took me so long to read it because it was really good. I believe there is a documentary based on it coming out this year.

M.M. Kay was seriously popular at one time. I believe she was one of the first to add exotic locales to romance/mystery novels.

September progress

Alas ... I only read new books in September.

October progress

#25: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon ... Been on my shelf since fall of 2010. Very good. I didn't realize until yesterday that it was part of a series. Duh!

#26: Fall of Giants by Ken Follett ... Been on my shelf since December 2010. This one I KNEW was part of a series ... and I actually also read the 2nd book which came out recently.

edited 10/10/12

Two more books to go in that series, BG!.

November progress

#27: God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam ... Been on my shelf since September 2011. I enjoyed this one but not as much as her Old Filth.

#28: Introverts in the Church: Finding Our Place in an Extroverted Culture by Adam McHugh ... Been on my shelf since August 2011.

#29: The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai ... Been on my shelf since September 2011. I really enjoyed the first part of the book but then wasn't as taken with the second part. But good overall.

#30: Mary and O'Neil by Justin Cronin ... Been on my shelf since June 2011.

updated 11/30/12

31: I felt exactly the same--really enjoyed Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat, and God on the Rocks was good but not in the same league.

DONE! I met my goal of reading 30 books from my shelves. I'll see if I can knock a couple extra off in December!

Woo hoo! Congratulations! :D

Congrats!

Congrats! Nice work.

Well done!

Right on time. Congratulations!