Take It or Leave It Challenge - October 2012 - Page 2

For those new to this challenge: More info and monthly index can be found in post #1 of this thread or this TIOLI FAQS wiki.

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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After the grand fiasco that was the “literature map” challenge of earlier this year, I’m going to try another random book challenge. Uh oh! Sooooooooo..........

Your challenge for October is to read a book found through LT’s Random Tag Generator.

What you do is:
1 Click on the link above. That will bring you to a random tag under which you will see many, many books listed. Those on your TBR list will have green check marks in front of the book titles.
2. Choose any book on that list.
3. Note the tag as you will need it for your wiki listing, and you will never be able to find that tag again through the random tag generator!

You may click on the random tag generator as often as you’d like until you find a book you want to read.

You may match a book at any time without clicking on the random tag generator.

List your book as follows.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves (linguistics) – Lynne Truss- lyzard
The Monk (Oxford’s World’s Classics) – M.G. Lewis – SqueakyChu
The Picture of Dorian Gray (late 19th century) – Oscar Wilde - pbadeer

Have fun!

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Other Fun Stuff (not part of the TIOLI challenge):

1. The October 2012 TIOLI Meter - Optional page on which you may track your TIOLI reading. FYI: This is not meant to be competitive - only fun!
2. Morphidae's List of Previous TIOLI Challenges - You may use this reference (Do a control-F scan) to avoid repeating a previous challenge. If your idea is similar to a previous challenge, just make it unique by adding a new "twist" to it. (Updated 10/07/12)

Wiki index:

Challenges #1-6
1. Read a book found through LT’s Random Tag Generator - msg #1
2. Read an ER book that you won more than a year ago - msg #6
3. Read a book first released for publication over 100 yrs ago or in 2012 - msg #8
4. Read a book about China and neighbouring countries - msg #4 - thread
5. Read a book about Childbirth - msg #23
6. Read a book with a title word that starts with "un"- msg #46

Challenges #7-12
7. Read a book with a title starting with these letters (in rolling order): J*A*S*P*E*R - msg #53 - Picture of Jasper
8. Read a book by a dead author - msg #56
9. Read a book about survival, or with a word which indicates survival in its title - msg #75
10. Read a book published under different titles in different territories - msg #79
11. Read a book with a word in the title or author associated with a cemetery - msg #78
12. Read a book where more than half the vowels in the title are I's - msg #92

Challenges #13-18
13. Read a book about architecture - msg #99
14. Read a book whose title includes both letters and actual numbers - msg #100
15. Read a book from ALA's Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books 2000-2009 - msg #101
16. Read a book that has two or more 4's in it's ISBN - msg #122
17. Read a contemporary book set in the 1970s - msg #130
18. Read a book by a German author - msg #135

Challenges #19-24
19. Read a Diary or Journal or a Compilation of Selections from Several Diaries - msg #149
20. Read a book with one or more politicians as major character(s)/figure(s) - msg #153
21. SHORT WORKS CHALLENGE: Read a short story or work (essay or novella) alphabetized by the first vowel in the title (AEIOU--Y can be added or skipped after the U in each round. Disregard "A" and "The" starting the title. - msg #168
22. Read a book about reading, or libraries or the star sign Libra - msg #179

No new challenges accepted after midnight on October 4th. Save your new challenges for November. Thanks!

>250: I think you're kidding, but, if you're not, I have absolutely NO IDEA how to do that!! :)

Yes, I was. (But if you find out ...)

:)

I've added Good Wives to Challenge 8 (Dead Authors).

Heh! Paul once accused me of never reading anything by an author who hadn't been dead for forty years, and while that isn't strictly true, I am finding that "Dead Authors" is working as my default challenge this month. :)

I probably overlooked it, but why is there a * on the frog list next to the 21 on my list?

Assuming it is for the short stories/book length thing: the book I read for the 21 Challenge fits that challenge as it is a short work, a novella, but it also is a book I would have normally put on the TOLI. Or read for any other challenge. Since it isn't part of anything else - well, it is part of a series, but I mean it isn't collected in anything. You can only buy it as is, an ebook of 70 or 80 pages in length. You can't buy it contained within anything else.

>7 MikeBriggs: MikeBriggs: Madeline had asked people to star short works in an earlier post. Someone was probably just trying to help you out. Madeline did say she woud be moving the challenge 21 reads to the short works if people did not have time to do it themselves.

It'll need a call from Madeline, but I would say if you want to call the novella, 'A Raging Storm' a short work and leave it in challenge 21, you should count it on the short work frog meter. If you want to call it a book, then it needs to go in a book challenge. With the borderline short works, I think you can call it whichever you like as long as you are consistent.

Mike, have you ever seen 'The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle' published anywhere with the title shortened to just 'Blue Carbuncle'? I see it abbreviated on Sherlock sites, but unless you can give me a published (offnet) example, I think you'll have to count that one as an ''A" instead of a ''U''.

>6 lyzard: You're welcome. :D

8> Oh, I had completely overlooked that "first vowel in the title" part of the challenge. And my copy is from "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", which has it as 'The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle'.

In terms of where on the frog meter Raging Storm goes:
"SqueakyChu: I'm adding a works list here below the books list. A "work" can be defined as anything that was presented as a challenge that is "less than" a complete book. Complete "books" as well as complete "works" as defined here will have no minimum or maximum length. That's up to you as you log your books and works. "

A Raging Storm is a complete work, and therefore would go in the "Books" section, the top section. If you wish for me to remove it from your challenge, I can move it over to the 2012 challenge where I put the other parts of the Derek Storm trilogy.

I just finished Silence of the Grave for the challenge associated with a cemetery. Once I read the first sentence I couldn't put it down.

> 11 The Indridason Silence of the Grave? One of the best first lines ever!

> 7

Mike,

You took out your asterisk! That's good. :D

I put it there originally because I thought you'd listed a short story. You (and anyone else) is free to list your books/works as you'd like.

The asterisk was possibly for this month only as I was trying an experiment to separate the BOOKS from the WORKS.

With the borderline short works, I think you can call it whichever you like as long as you are consistent.

I'd go with "you can call it whichever you like". This is really your own tally as I'm not counting any of what you list on the frog meter at all.

This, of course, may be different for the actual challenges (the wiki lists) in which the hosts or hostesses of different challenges determine what is accepted.

Can I just say I really look forward to all this kerfuffle about the frog meter and short works to just be over already? I personally don't care one way or the other, the frog meter is supposed to be there just for fun as far as I know. Last year I was counting children's books toward my 75 and nobody said anything about that. Anyway, I don't want my comment to provoke even more discussion on the topic, but I look forward to comments here being about something else!

Phew. Glad I got that off my chest!

And Liz: the dead authors challenge is very good for me too! I should be taking advantage of it more this month. I've got Tess of the D'Urbervilles going right now, which I picked up without a thought to TIOLI, so guess where it'll end up? ;-)

Ooh, I love Tess of the D'Urbervilles!

And as for the short story thing: I don't really care either. I like having short stories as a challenge, because I like reading them, but wouldn't mind if there wouldn't be short story challenges either. And I don't really use the frog meter (I filled it in twice, but didn't do it last month) and I have to say I don't really see it as a contest, so I'm fine with anybody listing whatever he/she wants...

I was given a Thomas Hardy collection as a teen, but I found him too ... un-optimistic. There was a mini-series of Tess of the D'Urbervilles on in the last couple of months, but I only managed to catch the first instalment.

Ugh. I remember Tess from school as one of the worst books I've ever read (though Grendel, this month, is right up there with her...). Utterly depressing. It's really funny how differently people see the same books - there are some of my favorites that members of my family can't stand.

I discovered Tess of the D'Urbervilles when the original movie came out with Nastasha Kinski. I was definitely not of age to see it at the time, but I absolutely venerated this woman as a romantic figure. I've always been attracted to tragic heroines I guess, a fascination I pursued with Anna Karenina, first read at age 12. Parts of this book are making my blood boil, but Hardy really is a beautiful writer.

eta: I also started My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell, listed under Madeline's challenge.

It's been a long time since I read any Thomas Hardy but I remember loving him despite his being "un-optimistic". I especially liked both the book Jude the Obscure and the movie with Kate Winslet which is surprising because I have been known to really hate books that are too depressing. There's something about Hardy that just drew me in. I think I need to do a little re-reading and see if he has the same effect.

I too loved Thomas Hardy, including all the depressing ones (they are not all thus), when I read him, mostly when I was aged about 19-20. I remember secretly reading my way through most of his novels when I was meant to be revising for my university exams (which had nothing to do with Hardy).

I finished and REVIEWED Kevin Wilson's absolutely delightful short fiction collection Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. That was for the Random Tag Generator Challenge.

Now I'm reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon for the JASPER Challenge. I haven't read anything by Morrison in a very long time. I'd forgotten how spectacular her writing is.

I've added a few extra books to the wiki including Inside Out & Back Again to challenge #17: Read a contemporary book set in the 1970s. I've also finished John Steinbeck's A Russian Journal for the Read a Diary or Journal challenge. I'm not sure how many others I'll get read as I have to concentrate on IQ84 if I want to get it done by the end of the month.

AnneDC and Deltaqueen, I see you're reading The Giver for challenge 15! Yay! I just so happen to be reading it now, too, so I'll join in with you.

Karen O.

#22 Genny, there's a good chance I'll be reading quite a few more novels by Hardy. I don't mind that kind of depressing somehow.

I finished listening to The Mysterious Affair at Styles yesterday, narrated by David Suchet. Funny, I've read quite a few Agatha Christies in my life, but had never thought of reading the first of the Poirot mysteries until now! Am adding it to the dead authors challenge (#8). Could we have that one every month? ;-)

I've been out of town, but have been reading - now I just need to catch up with reviews and such. I am currently reading and enjoying Dracula which has surprised me with it's readability and I am just about to start The Giver which I have long been looking forward to.

I also completed a very short Persephone book this week, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey, which I'll also list under challenge #8.

I just finished The Giver today and loved it. It's great to have company! I am really having a hard time with the fact that this book was banned.

>24 avatiakh: Inside Out and Back Again is terrific, aviatakh, I hope you like it.

I'm another Thomas Hardy fan, especially Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Anne, I loved it. I was looking at this year's National Book Award YA nominees and then went on to look at last year's winner and recognised the cover. So pleased that I finally got to it.

I've decided to pass on 1Q84 for now... Definitely want to read it some time, but it's way too much reading for this month. I might join in on The Giver though, it sounds intriguing. I'll be trying to stick to shorter works for now. I don't have that much time to read, so longer works take ages to finish :/

I've just started Narcopolis after spotting copies at my library and have added it to Anne's on challenge 3 so it is now a shared read.

I've added Sharon Shinn's Reader and Raelynx to Challenge 22 (the Reading challenge).

I like this current short story challenge. So many authors I've been aware of but haven't tried, plus so many I hadn't heard of before. Going slightly crazy here with my reading, especially after I found out about Tor.com having all those free short stories available.

I've had The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving on my kindle, free, for a rather long time now. I kinda already knew the story, and had seen numerous variations of it over the years. The actual story, though, wasn't really what I had gleaned from other sources.

". . . there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills,
which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small
brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to
repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a
woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks
in upon the uniform tranquility." &

“He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow
shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled
a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served
for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung
together. His head was small, and flat at top, with
huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long
snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock
perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way
the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile
of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and
fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for
the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or
some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.”
― Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

I already knew Anton Chekhov was a depressing read. The short story challenge, though, allowed me the chance to experience him for myself. Life's too short, and too depressing as it is, though, so I'll probably not read another Chekhov story.

"On the river, and here and there on the meadows,
a mist was rising. High narrow coils of mist, thick and
white as milk, were trailing over the river, hiding the
reflection of the stars and hovering over the willows.
Every minute they changed their form, and it seemed as ...
More though some were embracing, others were bowing,
others lifting up their arms to heaven with wide sleeves like
priests, as though they were praying . . . Probably they
reminded Dmitri Petrovitch of ghosts and of the dead, for
he turned facing me . . . with a mournful smile." - Anton Chekhov

Ah yes, Sherlock Holmes. Read two of his stories for that short story challenge. I'd always kind of put him to the side unread. I read short stories to find authors to read in longer length works, and Holmes' story is mostly told in short story form. So I'd collect free versions of Doyle's work, but never actually get around to reading any of them. I had read Sherlock Holmes books, though, just by other authors. Getting the incentive to actually read the 'real' Holmes was enriching.

I found Katherine Mansfield's short story collection when I was looking to see if I could get Anton Chekhov's short story collection for free. Everyone seemed to be using "The Party and Other Stories" as the source for Chekhov, so I used that as my search terms. Which lead me to the free " The Garden Party and Other Short Stories". I liked the two short stories I read by this New Zealand author. A recommendable unknown to me author.

“She had become really quite expert, she thought,
at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in
other people's lives just for a minute while they talked
round her.” - Mansfield, 'Miss Brill'

The challenge did lead me to spend money though, sadly (I've been trying to not do so lately). I've been reading a lot of Heyer's works lately, and I knew there were some short stories she had done. Unfortunately, I could only find a few in a short story collection, and none for free. So the challenge lead me to get that book. And I rather enjoyed the first story I read from it.

"You will allow that one's curiosity must be aroused
when one learns that a lady is prepared to elope to
escape from advances one had not the least intention of making!"
― Georgette Heyer, Full Moon

This "going crazy" with reading extended to other challenges. I'd heard of the Horatio Alger stories and their rags to riches theme. Alger's another author with whom I'd mostly passed by, but still collected a free book by for my kindle. I had no intention of reading Do or Dare when I started reading, I was just looking to see what the first few words were like. A quick read. The characters were wooden, as expected, but also fuller than what I figured they would be like. I do not necessiarly like this 1884 book, but it's nice to first hand reading experience of another author I'd heard about throughout my life.

I'm very pleased to hear of your Katherine Mansfield discovery, Mike.

I came across her through a short story course more than 20 years ago. I also bought Chekhov's The Party and other stories, a Penguin Modern Classic, for that course but have still to get to read it, I have got it out with a view to trying a few stories this month.

Alger's fun in small doses. Don't try to read a whole bunch of his in a row - the formula becomes way too obvious. But I do enjoy his books, every once in a while (Project Gutenberg has most of them, BTW). I don't know that I've ever read the Heyer, I'll have to look it up. It looks, from your extract, to be one of those with the very clever words and interesting characters (her stuff varies widely, for me, from too silly to bear to great).

I intend to read more of Mansfield's work, maybe even for this short work challenge, if I get a chance. It is interesting that the story I quoted here above, Miss Brill, is about an oldish lonely woman at a park sitting and people watching. Dealing with the problems of being old and alone. I mention because Mansfield herself, I learned immediately after I read Miss Brill, died at the age of 35.

The Heyer short story, Full Moon, is the last story in the Pistols for Two and other stories collection. Because of that 'u', I ended up reading it first, though, because the short story challenge was down to U. Full Moon is 54 pages in length. Oh, heh, I wrote a review for it, I forgotten that. A really short review:

A quick short story from Georgette Heyer, written around 1948. Despite being only, roughly, 54 ebook pages, the story is quite solid, and the characters are as lively as in Heyer's full length work. A dash of mystery, humor and romance packed into a brief moon night visit by one Lord Stavely to Shropshire.

I found a Heyer short story posted online for free. Or at least it had been on August 23 2010. The Georgette Heyer, or a, website had a link to the story, but the link was broken. Using a 'wayback' machine you can still find and read the story.

I mention all this to ask, should I remove the link I put on the wiki to that story? The story is copyrighted, and has been removed from the website. There is a mention on that Heyer website I found the broken link on that the story's copyright might have been sold, and therefore no longer offered for free. Which is why I ask if I should remove the link to the story.

> 38

I guess the ethical thing to do would be to remove the link. However, if the wayback machine works, the onus is on that, right? The link is only what leads to the breach of copyright.

I have no strong opinion either way, Mike.

I've removed the link, though now it is the only short story on there without any links.

It's interesting, looking around online. I've found several Georgette Heyer short stories which are not contained in the one short story collection available for purchase (which I've purchased). There's an Australian website called "Trove Digitised Newspapers and More" that has several of the actual magazines the short stories appeared in. I've read several, now, from the original source.

It's kind of neat reading from the original source, seeing the advertisements from 1937, and other dates the stories come from.

There's five short stories from The Australian Women's Weekly on that website. All are from 1937, except one from 1953. That magazine also has 19 of Heyer's novels serialized from 1935-1979. Another book is serialized in Sydney Morning Herald from 1946.

I had some vague assumption that it was a The Australian Women's Weekly website until I noticed a ton of other Australian magazines on there from 1933-1982. Wait, no, that's for that specific magazine. There are also digitalized records going back to 1803.

Oh, I see now, it's "The National Library of Australia" website. I was wondering about the legality of it until I noticed that. Good, good.

hehe, an ad from 1803 mentioning a sale. So wordy, they were. Also, liked using f for some s's, they did, except, not always. Had the ability to make capital S but not lower case s. Wait, no, there's that s in Charges and Articles. And prices. And Orders.

"JOHN JAQUES, TAYLOR,

At the Back of the General Hofpital, Sydney,

RESPECTFULLY acquaints the PUBLIC,

that in confequence of the reduction that has lately taken place in the Prices of many Articles of common Confumption, he has been enabled to make an Abatement in his Charges, and that all Orders with which he may be honoured fhall be carefully and punctually executed."

Mike, you're looking at "s" characters, *not* "f" characters. It's similar to the printed German I remember reading while in school.

Check it out!

How strange. Feeling the need to note whether or not an s fell at the beginning or middle of a word as opposed to the end. You'd think someone gazing upon the word would be able to pick up on the idea that there's an s there at the beginning of a word.

Does make me picture wandering around hissing like snakes while they talked. To show 'long s'.

I've found, on a different topic, that a reader probably shouldn't read too many Heyer short stories in a row. They have a rather large similarity between each other. They all seem to involve people eloping to escape unwanted marriages. Thinking about it, I can't recall any that weren't that specific story line. Ah, I recall one now. So, four in a row that include Elopment in the story, most of which, probably all, elopment to escape forced marriage as opposed to elopment due to forced . .um . . unmarriage. heh. Being kept from marrying. Nah, Pursuit has that 'elopment to be able to marry' element, though the couple that does that are not the main characters of the story. And one short story that doesn't include that elopment element. That one had almost rape, which I hadn't seen before in a Heyer story.

>42 MikeBriggs:: I am confumed by curiosity ;)

That Australian website sounds fascinating. I should have time for it at the moment but I don't seem to.

I've just raced through Erebos for Suzanne's JASPER challenge.

That Australian website can be found here.

Finished and added An Unexpected Apprentice by Jody Lynn Nye to Challenge 6 (Un).

ETA : Also Tashi and the Genie to Challenge 16 (two 4s in the ISBN)

I'm about 50 pages into The Midwife of Hope River and am absolutely loving it, I think more than you did, Countrylife. My plan, when I'm done is to try to tackle Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out because of Mo Yan's recent Nobel Prize. Stephen Colbert had a short bit about him the other night in which he said that Red Sorghum is interminable. Youch, Life and Death is 200 pages longer. I don't think I'll be in for that much interminability, so we'll see if I stick with the plan.

Tonight at midnight begins QUICKIE READS DAY! Suggest some shorter books that have already been COMPLETED by someone this month that you'd recommend as a good TIOLI reads to share before the end of the month.

For a quick read: The Giver... It's not very long and easy to read, and I loved it...

Whoo hoo! I always try to make a point of participating in Madeline's challenge each month, but after a particularly disheartening run on the random tag generator it seemed that this time it might not be possible. However, one last try just turned up 'schools - fiction', which allows me to list (appropriately enough) a work about a girl called Madeline - Madeline Clifford's School Life.

> 53

Heh!

Oh, Liz!!

I was able to fit in a book for the first challenge as well. The random tag generator gave me "Your Library". Which I found on one of my books. I still don't know what the tag could mean.

Now presenting...

The TIOLI Stats for September 2012:

In September, a total of 650 works were read. Of these, 180 or 28% were shared reads. We accumulated 94 TIOLI points getting us to a record of 783 YTD (year to date) TIOLI points! This is only 2 points ahead of where we were last year so whether or not we come out ahead at the end of the year depends on the amount of reads we continue to share - so keep that in mind as we proceed through the end of 2012.

The two most popular books of the month were both shared by four readers each. They were The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny and The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells.

The most popular challenge (199 works read) and the one with the most TIOLI points (44 points) was elkiedee's challenge to read a short work such as a short story or an essay with a title in which the last letter follows an alphabetical sequence. This challenge sets a new record for number of works read in one month (beating MikeBriggs' number of 164 for a challenge he presented in June, 2011).

Awards coming soon...

Read two more Anton Chekhov short stories. Typhus is the best of the works I've read by him. I read both of them because they were free and would turn them into shared reads. I now have 10 shared reads.

Interesting stats once again, Madeline. In the interest of more shared reads, I've just posted the wonderful new book by Louise Erdrich, The Round House, on Challenge #3. This has been a popular challenge for me this month. I try not to double up on books and challenges, but due to a bonanza at the library, I got all these great new books, the first three of which are already shared reads on No. 3: The Beautiful Mystery, The Garden of Evening Mists, In One Person, and The Round House.

Adding:

Challenge #3 (old or new)
Archangel's Storm by Nalini Singh
Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey

Challenge #8 (dead author)
The Heirs of Hammerfell by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Challenge #10 (different title/territory)
Chthon by Piers Anthony
Gerald's Game by Stephen King

Challenge #12 (vowel i)
The Spirit Ring by Lois McMaster Bujold

For challenge 17, I'm wondering whether Black Water Rising would count? It is set mainly in the 1980s, but with about one third of the novel being flashbacks to the 1970s. Is that enough 1970s to qualify?

Now presenting…

The September TIOLI Awards:

The Double or Nothing Award goes to DorsVenabili for reading the book Salome of the Tenements by Anzia Yezierska for pbadeer’s challenge to read a book whose author’s first name includes an "a" and last name includes a "z". Smartly, our award winner chose to play it safe by reading a book whose author has an “a” and a “z” in both her first and her last name!

The Tongue Twister of the Month Award goes to christiguc for reading the book called Thirty Three Teeth for bell7’s challenge to read a book with an alliterative title by a new-to-you-author. Alliterative that title surely is! I like how it sounds. It doesn’t sound so good, though, if you repeat it quickly twenty times in succession!

The Two is Not Enough Award goes to souloftherose for reading A Long Walk to Wimbledom by H. R. F. Keating for casvelyn’s challenge to read a book by an author who commonly published using his or her initials. Two initials were not enough for this award winner. Nope! She chose an author whose name has three initials!

The You Left Something Out Award Goes to _Zoe_ for her challenge to read a book that has been on your TBR pile for at least six months--with a buddy who has also had the book on their TBR pile for at least six months! This was a great idea, especially the buddy part. However, Zoe wins the award for leaving out the most important part of this challenge. That is, how long these books have been on everyone’s TBR list. What a blooper!

Congrats to our September award winners!

November is just around the corners, folks, so you’d best be finishing up your October reads and starting to think up new and creative challenges for the upcoming month.

heh, I also read a book by an author who uses three initials. I just put it in a different challenge. The "more books in a different series" challenge. W.E.B. Griffin.

#61 - My first TIOLI award! Very exciting! I didn't even realize that I'd accomplished such an impressive feat.

I'm a little way into Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, and it appears I worried for nothing. This is a very interesting and humorous book about a land owner who is executed in 1950's China and reincarnated as various animals. I'm just on the first (and maybe last? - it's confusing) reincarnation, and not finding it tedious at all.

> 62

heh, I also read a book by an author who uses three initials. I just put it in a different challenge.

See what you lost, Mike, by not being more careful into which challenge you inserted your book?! ;)

> 63

My first TIOLI award! Very exciting! I didn't even realize that I'd accomplished such an impressive feat.

Sometimes it's the small things that count, Kerri! :D

>61 SqueakyChu: Hehe, I wish I had done that. It would also have been an easier way for me to choose a "winner" from my challenge, instead of thinking that I would count how many times each person was a buddy....

> 67

Zoe, I have a funny post script for your challenge. I read Emerging Arab Voices with you, and then I took it to a Bookcrossing meet-up this past weekend. I told everyone there my of my dislike of that book so a fellow BookCrosser took it from me right away, and then, later that day, wild released it! :D

I did not pick a book from this month's ER program as none of them were to my liking. I hope I don't get one sent to me anyway (as has happened in the past!).

Okay, that's weird... I just went to the TIOLI meter to move myself from 11 books completed to 12...and found that someone already had moved me...

{doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo...}

If anyone's interested in a fun and quick shared read, I've just listed The Witches by Roald Dahl (completed), as well as The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (currently reading) under challenge #1.

...and I've just hopped over you Liz! :-)

> 69

{doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo...}

LOL!!

...and I've just hopped over you Liz! :-)

D'OH!!

I just added Machiavelli's The Prince to challenge 20 --Read a book about a politician. It's a wonderful read during this political season. If anyone wants to join in, it's very short (just over a hundred pages), and available several places online and as free downloads.

I had read this in high school and hated it. But it was the choice of my RL book group, so onward I went. Thirty plus years after my initial read, I found it brilliant. Some things really do get better with age!

Well, it's probably too late for anyone to start it, since the book is 540 pages long, but keep it in mind for next month. Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out gets more horrific and more interesting with every chapter. It does assume the reader knows something about the history of China in the mid 20th century, which thanks to Shanghai Girls I do, and it makes things seem as bleak as they were, but not as devastating as Shanghai Girls did, at least not always. I think that's because the major narrator is an animal incarnation of an executed man. I've been through the donkey and the ox, now I'm on the pig who is quoting a German shepherd's take on Chinese history: People in the 1950s were innocent, in the 1960s they were fanatics, in the 1970s they were afraid of their own shadows, in the 1980s they carefully weighed people's words and actions, and in the 1990s they were simply evil. Shanghai Girls ended long before the 1990s, I'm a little afraid to find what's going to happen there, but I'm sure going to keep reading.

> 74

Joyce,

I recently started reading Dreams of Joy (the sequel to Shanghai Girls), which I'm really enjoying. You might want to pick that up as well.

*light dawns*

Oooh! Maybe a shared read for November?! :)

By the way, would that work for your November "labor" challenge as it seems to be about the collectives of Maoist China? If not, I can easily fit it into another challenge.

what--there's a November challenge up?

Heh!

Dreams of Joy = scrabble 11

> 78

Dreams of Joy = scrabble 11

I actually have it listed there now, but, if I share that read with Joyce, I'll probably move it to Joyce's challenge. :)

November already? Honestly, I have a big day out and look what happens!

>76 AnneDC:: !!!!!!

PS: Reading Ballet Shoes by Noel Streathfield, if anyone wants a quickie read for October.

>75 SqueakyChu: Well, that's what I get for not paying attention. I didn't double check the name of the novel that told me so much about 20th century China, and instead of Shanghai Girls the one I wanted was Dreams of Joy. I can't share the read with you, Madeline, because I already read it for my China challenge a few months ago. There's so much information in that book that applies to Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out and shows the happenings of that time to be even more gruesome. (You had me all excited, though, thinking that there was a sequel to the book. I wonder if she'll write one.) I like your suggestion of putting the Mo Yan book in my labor challenge. It would fit just right, those people really knew the meaning of labor.

> 82

I'll keep my book in cyderry's challenge then. So far, I'm really liking Dreams of Joy, although I'll be reading it slowly as I have it on CD and only listen to it when I'm in my car.

pbadeer, can I count Audrey's Door for challenge #13? The main character is an architect, works for an architectural firm and there is a lot about the architectural design of the haunted building in it. It also has architecture as a tag.

>84 Morphidae: - absolutely, any connection to architects would count

For challenge 8 - Morphy's dead author challenge, I've re-read Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild.

(PS - all these years, I've been referring to her as 'Noel Streathfield')

Good for a last minute quickie read, anyone.

#86 Fancy that! I would have spelled her name Streatfield, not Streatfeild.

#61 Thank you for my award! :-)

I also wanted to say that I really enjoyed joining in with the short stories challenge this month - I managed to read quite a few of Elizabeth Gaskell's shorter works (and matched reads with a couple of other TIOLI'ers) and enjoyed them a lot.

Too much going on. I'm not going to finish Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out so I'm moving it to the 3 letter last name challenge for November.

Yeah, there's a bunch I won't finish (or start). I'm going to try to get to at least a couple more - I have a relatively free day today - but they won't be the long or complicated ones.

The challenge was interesting - and got me to find books I wouldn't have looked at otherwise - but I overscheduled myself and, this last week, felt pushed (by me - I know the challenge isn't a requirement) to read books I didn't really want to read rather than veering off into books that wouldn't fit the challenge but appealed to me. I don't think I'll do next month's challenge. Or maybe I'll look at it and pick a couple books that fit a challenge, or that I can make fit.

I always try to have a bit of a balance of books that I want to read anyway and that just happen to fit a challenge, and books that I specifically look up for a challenge; that way I avoid reading lots of books for the challenges and not getting around to books I really want to read....

Anyway, I'll also be deleting some... I started Irma Voth for the early-reviewers books of over a year ago challenge, but I don't find it very gripping, and I'm not really enthousiastic about it. It sounded interesting, and I probably will finish it over time, but it's not all that I had expected...

Trying to fit all my reads this month into a challenge somewhere, I've just added Liza's England to Challenge 5, a book about childbirth. This novel is not only about childbirth (it's also about unemployment in the 1920s and 1980s, and parrots), but depicting as it does the life of an 80-something woman born at the start of the 20th century, childbirth features large in the narrative. It is an honest portrayal of the realities of the lives of ordinary working-class women as the century evolves, through the perspective of one woman's life.

It's already November here and I was able to finish 1Q84 yesterday afternoon. I'll have a few books to clear off the wiki, I was kind of sad that I couldn't find time for Ender's Shadow for Suzanne's JASPER challenge though I did read two other 'E' books for it - Erebos and Enchanted Glass.

I just added another 'E' book to the Jasper challenge - happily that letter was next up when I was looking for a space to fit Espresso Tales, which didn't seem to go anywhere else. Does anyone have a final book beginning with R- to add, so that Jasper's name can be completed one more time?

Thanks Genny. Yes I've got one I have nearly finished - was waiting for it to roll around:)

Somebody got in before me:(

Edit to add - But I can put off finishing it until tomorrow as it will fit into one of November's TIOLI challenges:)

94> I moved over an R which was not a shared read from another challenge to close off the name.

96> Go ahead and add it and I'll move Regency Buck back to the other challenge.

No worries Mike - I haven't quite finished my book yet and it will give me a head start on November's challenge:)

hmm. heh. Well, R's open again if you want to quickly grab it before someone else does. I'll move Regency Buck over after the month's over if JASPER isn't completed.

I'm not going to finish #44, E, in the JASPER challenge. I couldn't find the silly thing, and I don't have another E handy to fill in. Anyone got a replacement? It's already back up to J at the bottom.

Time's up at 12 midnight tonight for October's challenges, folks. Please help me by marking your books/works COMPLETED or deleting them.

Feel free to transfer any that fit into November's challenges. New challenges for November may be posted until midnight November 4th.

Started but didn't finish Cosmicomics - but I read several others yesterday. I think my lists in the wiki are currently correct, but I'll check again.

ETA - nope, I'd missed one - now corrected (to completed). And I deleted one - poor Jasper has a hole (one among many, I'm afraid. Hope they can compact correctly!).

And - wow, Madeline, you put the question marks on my book. You actually checked what was marked read? For everyone? I have enough trouble tracking just _my_ books, going back and forth to check what challenges etc. I'm impressed.

I just spend the morning moving October reads to November. I left my JASPER reads alone so as not to disturb the pattern, but I was way too ambitious on that particular challenge. Maybe because it was such an appealing one!

Silly me. I was in the hospital the last two days of October thinking I.d get plenty of reading done. Alas it was all painkillers and sleep. Had to remove Unbroken from the un challenge.

> 103

you put the question marks on my book.

Yeah. Those question amrks are just editing marks to show me what books I might have to delete when I do the monthly stats. It always helps if individuals do their own completions and deletions first.

Anne, yes, I was too - but even then, I managed to finish all but one of the JASPER books! Hopefully Madeline is OK with not deleting those unread books to leave the pattern intact...

> 107

Hopefully Madeline is OK with not deleting those unread books to leave the pattern intact...

:(

May I leave Jasper's name and remove most* of the book information, Suz?

*I'd just leave the book title.

I already deleted mine...maybe move people who finished up into the empty slots? It would shorten the number of cycles claimed, but match the books actually read...

It's okay. I added the book titles back. I'm good with the just the book titles there. I recreated the list from the wiki history (I just love that about the wiki!).

Suz, this is for you, for Jasper, and for NYC...my heart goes out to all three.