Ipsoivan's 2014 TBR Challenge

The image above represents both my first TBR Challenge read, Moby-Dick, and my effort to come to terms with my great whale of TBRs.

The books chosen for the challenge are some of the longest in my collection. In this way I hope to tackle a few feet of shelf space this year.

1. The Recognitions William Gaddis
2. Cloudsplitter Russell Banks
3. A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
4. The Man Without Qualities Robert Musil
5. The Magic Mountain Thomas Mann
6. Too Far Afield Gunter Grass
7. A Book of Memories Peter Nadas
8. The Death of Virgil Hermann Broch
9. The Spell Hermann Broch
10. Demons Fyodor Dostoevsky
11. The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky
12. Moby-Dick Herman Melville

Alternate list:
1. The Discovery of Heaven Henry Mulisch
2. The Complete Enderby Anthony Burgess
3. Riders in the Chariot Patrick White
4. The New Confessions William Boyd
5. See Under: LOVE David Grossman
6. Auto-da-Fé Elias Canetti
7. Cecilia Fanny Burney
8. The Great Indian Novel Shashi Tharoor
9. Family Matters Rohinton Mistry
10. Mason and Dixon Thomas Pynchon
11. Gravity's Rainbow Thomas Pynchon
12. Women in Love D.H. Lawrence

Brothers Karamazov is an excellent book, good pick!

Welcome and good luck! :)

Thanks!

>1 ipsoivan:

Moby-Dick is excellent albeit a bit of a chore. Haven't read any of the others.

I read it many years ago in university, and yes, found it a chore. I can't remember it at all at this point, but I hope to enjoy it more this time through.

Found and starred you.

Moby Dick would be in the running for the pole position if I tried to choose my favourite novels of all time. Yeah, some of the detailed whaling chapters are a drag, but who cares. Gravity's Rainbow I wish you luck with, heard it's a toughie.

A Fine Balance and Auto da Fe are on my TBR pile at home. The Magic Mountain and Women in Love will probably find their way there. I'd not heard of Too Far Afield, but I'd like to read The Tin Drum.

5>, that's me and The Brothers Karamazov. I recall a small handfull of details. It's on my list of "books I've read but should probably read again someday, supposing I ever find time to read the same book twice." I think I quickly put Moby Dick on that list, too. :)

>6 connie53: Hi connie!

>7 Cecrow: Hi cecrow, it looks like we have similar reading tastes.

I have always been intimidated by Gravity's Rainbow, so this challenge will be a good test to see if I like it. I did read Vineland when it first came out, and remember enjoying it a great deal.

As to The Tin Drum, I got bogged down a couple of years ago about halfway through. Maybe I will try to finish it for ROOT in 2014. A worthy ROOT, as I still have my sister's copy from the 70s.

And re-reading... I resisted for the longest time, but my memory of the books I read years ago is quite weak for the most part, so re-reading is really interesting. Odd things have stuck with me that often prove to be of minor relevance. My relationship to a book seems deeper for revisits decades apart.

I have accomplished 2, note 2!!! major feats today. One is that I finished Moby-Dick. The other is that I mastered the html code for strikethrough so that I could edit my list. Guess which was the more difficult?

ETA: I guess I didn't master the code after all. It looks as if I finished 13 books today. Hmm, back to work.

ETA#2: ok, fixed with the help of the internet. Have to tell it where to stop striking through. Or have some really inflated statistics.

Oh, and I am now moving on to The Recognitions by William Gaddis. It is 956 pp. long. I may be gone for a while...

Nice job, good luck on the next one!

Never heard of Gaddis, sounds interesting though.

It looks good, Maggi! And Hurrah!!

>12 Cecrow: Hi Cecrow, Gaddis only wrote a few books, but I believe they are all whoppers. The writing is quite dense--long, convoluted sentences. The story and characters so far are absorbing, and I'm hoping this is going to sweep me along because I really need something that moves a little faster than Moby-Dick!

>11 .Monkey.: and 13 Thanks for the cheers, PM and connie. I really feel like it was a milestone to stick it out. This year could prove interesting if all my reads are this challenging.

I did pick up a murder mystery from the library, but oddly, have left it to one side to do my dense book heaving.

ETA: I will give a more detailed review than I usually do, as it seems not many LT'ers have described it; they have more commented on the experience of reading it.

Somehow I missed that you finished Moby Dick, one of my all time favourites. I take it you weren't too impresssed, lol? I find it hard to imagine turning to Gaddis for something that "moves faster", based on briefly reading about him, but - good luck! :)

Oh, I loved Moby-Dick! I must have only posted about it on my ROOTs page. I'll cut and paste what I said there below:

I started Moby-Dick (I can't for the life of me figure out why it has the hyphen in the title but nowhere else in the book) on Jan. 1. It was a whopping 823 pp., much of it to be taken extraordinarily slowly to stay alert to what Melville might be up to.

Many others on LT have commented that they did not enjoy the middle section, which really is most of the book, because it goes into whaling details that don't really add much to the novel. But, as Melville spells out, this isn't really an adventure story, but an allegory. Of course he is so good at the adventure bits, we just want more of them. I did find much of the whaling detail weirdly entrancing.

This is just an incredibly odd book. I love it.

I read it in seventh grade and, intended or not, to me it was a gripping adventure story all the way. At that age I found even the detailed whaling bits just added more colour to what was going on.

I had to chuckle a bit at your "extraordinarily slowly" comment - I haven't finished a title from my lists yet, and it's not for reading anything else, lol. I'm a truly slow reader by nature, so clearly we use different scales. :)

I find now that I am older, i slow down to savour as I read, whereas before I was burning through books for glory, or for various other ends--for many years, because of school pressures. I'm impressed that you read it in 7th grade with such patience. I think a book like this can feed the mind for years, but my own mind was too impatient in my 20s when I first tried to tackle it (for school).

My husband reads slowly, but when he gets to the end, it's as if he knows every detail and can discuss it for years to come. Such a different way from my own. I have a brain like a sieve, but LT is helping with that.

By the way, The Recognitions is absolutely wonderful. Have you read it?

lol - I'm the worst of both worlds: slow, and a week later I can't remember much at all, lol.

I don't know anything about Gaddis, you've introduced me to him.

> 18 - Maggi! ohh, there are more like me! I'm a sieve too.

I'm not alone!

Ha, connie, and cecrow, it's good to know I am not alone.

I think LT is helping with my sieve brain. When I write my thoughts about a book, I do have a better recollection of it. For the most part, though, in LT I don't post detailed reviews with summaries--laziness to some extent, but also wanting to keep potential readers interested without giving away too many details. Maybe I should keep a separate journal.

As to The Recognitions, it's such a strange book. It's theme is forgery in paintings, and falsehood in life. Parts are just beautiful, other parts just so ugly.... But it is all very readable. Note I am leaving out all the details!

And it's LONG. I can manage a good 20-30 pp on my way to work on the train, but over the course of a week of work, I've barely put a dent in this one. Truly a door stopper.

>21 ipsoivan:, sounds closer to the rate I've been reading, lol. Except that's me reading just about anything. It's a big part of why I'm in this group - every finished book is a little victory against the looming TBR pile.

Just how bad is that TBR pile, Cecrow? Mine is humungous! One of my friends, a voracious reader, occasionally cruises my shelves demanding recommendations. When I confess that I haven't read most of what she is interested in, she gives me a really hard time. I am at least starting to put a dent in the pile.

How much is humungous, Maggie? In numbers? just curious ;-)

>23 ipsoivan:, I've just over 150 waiting in the pile, but it's all relative right? For me that'll take between 4-6 years to get through; and it would be silly of me to assume I'm not going to add another one by then, lol.

>24 connie53: My LT count says 543, but in that list I deliberately put some books that I read long ago and can't remember well (or, truth be told, at all). I'm quite pleased that that number is reduced by about 75 from last year but, like Cecrow, it's going to take me a long time to get through them. I've reduced buying considerably, which helps.

>26 ipsoivan: Haha. I have been very bad with bookbuying in the past. Last year was relatively good: only 50 books.

2010 - 89
2011 - 94
2012 - 91

Before 2010 I did not keep track of buying. I became a LT member in november 2009.

My LT count says 588,

I don't know what my exact numbers are, I have a ton of books yet to add. But I do know there's several hundred unread, and more added every year. heh.

Ok, I'm giving up on The Recognitions. I enjoyed the beginning, but between pp. 100 and 200 it was just such heavy going. I certainly don't have to like characters to get along with a book, but these characters... The earlier part of the book held a lot of interest because of the discussion of painting, and I'm sure that would pick up again later, but where I stopped was one long marital breakdown, and I just could not swim through to the other side.

I'm crossing it off above because it is done--for me. Off the shelf. Kaput.

I'm thinking about giving up on De weg van de hemel by Tad Williams too. I just can't get into the story. Maybe sometime later this year(s)

Oh dear, you too!

On a brighter note, I've really been loving A Fine Balance. I found the receipt in it, showing that I bought it in 1997. I can't believe this wonderful book has been waiting this long for my attention.

Good for you that you can put aside a book you don't like. I stubbornly slog through to the end, like it or not. Knowing that, I use a lot of caution in what I choose to read!

I have Een wankel evenwicht on my TBR too, Maggi. It moves up right now!!

Cecrow, that would be 956 pp of slogging! I looked at the LT reviews, and some actually seem to have enjoyed it, albeit with gritted teeth.

Connie, it's a fine read! I am enjoying immersion in a book again, and I'm sure it won't take so long, so I can start another even in this short month.

I've A Fine Balance on my TBR pile as well, but I'm still engaged by Paul Scott's Raj Quartet. I'm waiting until afterwards, so I can move ahead chronologically (not that the authors collaborated or anything; just the same setting in common.) Books that take place in India always draw me, for some reason. A Passage to India is one of my all time favourites.

>32 Cecrow: I do the same. On rare occasion if I am just really not feeling something, I will put it aside for later (which might be a decade, but it's still on the list!), but it's never down for the count until the last page is done. Sometimes books turn around later, and even if they don't, I just don't feel like I can properly critique until I've read it all and can say my piece with certainty.

Sometimes you can start reading a book at the wrong time in your live. Things can happen that change you and years later the book is good for you.

Not necessarily better (though it's entirely possible), but yeah. The first time I tried picking up Kite Runner I got like 50 pgs in and was like, Okay, I am not in the right place to be reading about such a nasty character with such horribly depressing things going on, so I just stuck it back on the shelf. I still hated the book in its entirety when I read it last year, but at least I was in a proper mindset and it only took me a few days to get through.

>37 connie53:, I sort of agree with you. I might modify 'wrong' to just 'different impact', but that's probably what you meant. Here's a topic I started in another group, with a link to an article about this that I found insightful: http://www.librarything.com/topic/163072

I've made a list of a dozen or so books I can remember quitting without finishing. At least half of them I'm willing to try again.

>36 .Monkey.:, 37, 38, 39 I am usually reluctant to lay something aside, but this one moved past 'this is my kind of weird' to 'this is so boring/pretentious' really fast. I think he really needed a tougher editor. At my stage of life (pushing 60), life is short and my TBR pile so high; I do wish I could plan on making time in a future decade to give this a chance, but I have so many other worthy contenders, that's too unlikely to happen, so I'm taking it to Goodwill. Good insights from you all, and thanks for your thoughts. Cecrow, I'll read your thread after I finish writing, and perhaps come back to the topic.

>35 Cecrow: Cecrow, A Fine Balance is wonderful. And yes, I hear you about the Raj Quartet, which I really enjoyed many years ago, and which I would love to reread. I have a pile of South Asian novels that I am hoping to read this year, and I'll shove recommendations your way. I would like to reread A Passage to India (ok, not South Asian, but the setting), which I haven't tackled since undergrad years; I also have some Narayan, a few unread Rushdies, more Mistry, and something called The Great Indian Novel--I wonder if it can live up to that title!

>37 connie53:, 39 Ohhh, yes, that is perhaps the problem. Maybe I am coming to The Recognitions too old!

It was published when Gaddis was in his early 30s, and perhaps what I'm reacting against is experimentation for the sake of experimentation that, I think, invades the book after the opening sections and that often--not always!--is the mark of a younger writer.

I tend to be more tolerant of things now than I was when I myself was in my 30s, so I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it then either. Maybe in my early 20s?

I finished A Fine Balance just now. It is long, but it took me much longer than it should have, interrupted by less satisfying library books--6 of them.

But oh--what a book! I may tackle Mistry's Family Matters soon.

Good, I want to read A Fine Balance someday.

Wow! I finally finished The Brothers Karamazov. Much of it brilliant, but enough that was irritating that I really dragged my heels on this. Short books for me for a while. This means I will be taking a break from my above lists, but I hope to come back with renewed vigour.

I read that one in highschool. Stupid, stupid, stupid ... I did it to show-off, and really didn't understand much of it or remember much to this day, and I've never been back. Crime and Punishment is lurking in my TBR pile, never quite making it onto my lists. If I'm impressed with that, and can bring myself to read the same book twice (generally not something I've time for), the Brothers deserve a revisit.

I loved both C&P and Brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky is high on my list.

The only other one I've read is The Idiot, many years ago, and I loved it. Can't remember a thing about it now, so it warrants a re-read.

Hmmm. I am tentatively scheduled to read The Brothers Karamazov later this year. Not sure whether to forge ahead or retreat until another day.

LittleTaiko, It's well worth reading. If you do, I hope your experience is more like PM's hungry feast than my nibble.

Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks. I have now finished 5 of my allotted 12. This one was a whomping 758 pp, and totally compelling. Highly recommended!

>50 ipsoivan:

You're having a fantastic year. I think Moby-Dick and Karamazov would provide sufficient reading matter for me for a year all by themselves! :D

>51 artturnerjr: it's beginning to feel like I've bitten off more than I can chew with this list. I also vowed to read 30 books off my own shelves as part of the ROOT group, which at the time seemed laughably modest. Oh, these chunkers are slowing me down, but most of them have been great--just slow going and full of stuff to ponder.

Lordy! I just finished Cecilia--all 948 pp of it. For the most part I loved it, but the last 300 pp or so did drag--alright already, enough verbal coitus interruptus--get those two married! The plot twists became more and more absurd as Burney struggled to draw it out.

Interesting, though, to see what a huge influence this book had on Austen. Even PRIDE and PREJUDICE (her capitals) twice in one paragraph at the end.

>53 ipsoivan:, influence on Austen seems like the primary reason to have read this; was that your impetus? I'd never heard of it.

>54 Cecrow: Actually, no. I read a lot of 18th century fiction in the past, including Burney's Evelina, which is light and funny compared to Cecilia, and as part of this challenge wanted to read more. Defoe's Roxana and A Journal of the Plague Year and Sterne's Tristram Shandy are two long-ago favourites. For some reason, I just find myself really drawn to the period.

Another reason to read this is that it is an interesting look at shifting social relations following the French Revolution--away from defining yourself according to social hierarchies and towards the importance of self determination.

I didn't know the Austen connection until I read this and found plot devices and some dialogue that seem to be a clear influence on Austen. I may get the energy to read the intro at some point, which might confirm my hunch.

I've a mounting collection of 18th C fiction on my TBR pile, a period I've hardly sampled anything from. Glad you liked Tristram Shandy, that's one of them. Several other LTers seem to run him down, but perhaps they didn't know what to expect (it's nearly all digressions, from what I understand.)

I've also Tom Jones, Clarissa, Vicar of Wakefield ... maybe some others that don't come to mind. It's a pretty big pile, thus why I'm in this group, lol

No wonder the pile is big if it has Clarissa in it. That one just about wore my eyes out when I read it for a course. It's great though. Tom Jones is wordy but quite funny and clever, and the Vicar of Wakefield is... ok. Actually, I think I quite liked it while I was reading it, but I had to stop and think if I had read it, so maybe a bit forgettable. Very sentimental. I like the weirder end of 18th C better, I think, but I wouldn't put Cecilia at that end. I'm glad I read it, but don't foresee a repeat. Now Clarissa, yes, I might reread it. But not in this year of the wrist-breakers!

>56 Cecrow: Oh, and as to the digressions of Tristram Shandy, yes, that's the point. To run them down is like running Mr. Bean down because his situations are unlikely.

I've a full-version Clarissa, and an abridged that's half as long. I've gone the abridged route before and not felt like I regretted it - but then, you don't always know what you're missing. Although I guess I would, if I trouble to compare. I've a tough choice ahead of me; might start the abridged and then check what I'm missing and decide which to continue with.

Well, it's a novel without much plot, so there's not much point in cutting to the chase--it's mostly gradually built-up characters.

I'll be interested to hear the outcome of your experiment.

Ok, my long read for June is done: The Spell by Hermann Broch. There's a good book in there fighting its way through a lot of mystical (mystifying) prose.

The basic premise is a doctor telling the events of 9 months in a mountain village, and yes, 9 months is significant in just the way you might think--there is a unifying thread of death, renewal and nature. A man has come to the village from outside who is clearly mad, and he unifies most of the villagers around a kind of Fascist rhetoric of blood and earth. The problem for me is that the opposing figure, Mother Gisson, uses a similar rhetoric, although hers is life-affirming, and this is where the mystification sets in -- what in the world are they saying?

Much of the book is really engrossing, and there are passages of astounding beauty, but there are also whole sections that you read and reread, trying to extract any meaning. Apparently Broch did not intend this version of the book to be published, and was rewriting it before his death. There is also a section in the middle that really does not seem to fit in with the rest of the book that tells the doctor's back story. Broch's son, the translator, decided to add it, but I don't think it was a good choice.

I think you have the wrong touchstone, although it took me a minute to realize that. Hollinghurst's novel is something completely different!

Thanks--I didn't even check before posting. I've changed it now.

Yes, I'm sure Hollinghurst's novel is quite different!

I finally finished Mason and Dixon. It's bizarre, and very, very long, yet if you are willing to zoom through parts that you don't entirely get (or reread them until you have an inkling what they say), it's really enjoyable.

What's it about? Well, on the surface it tells of the long relationship between Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, surveyors of the infamous Mason and Dixon Line in the mid 18th century.

It's also about lines and divisions, the forces that work through them and against them--so the book joins together physical and metaphysical, and Pynchon has a lot of fun playing with them.

And yes, it is playful; half the fun of the book is spotting the ridiculous lapses between the 'real' story that is being told by the Rev. Cherrycoke (yes, Pynchon has fun with names) and the various 'inner' stories, some more clearly fictional than others, as well as spotting references to, or untangling, myth, pop culture, and 'reality'. Just a few examples: fictional characters in a book a 'real' character is narrating wander into the 'real' events; someone flashes a Vulcan salute, "Live Long and Prosper", complete with a description of the hand gesture; Popeye is spotted briefly in a bar. Is that a Golem? Who exactly is Stig the Axman? Is Dixon always pulling Mason's leg with his wild tales?

It's all completely baffling, quite hilarious, and in the end, quite moving.

I've not read Thomas Pynchon yet, but keeping meaning to sample him. This one sounds a bit surreal, is that typical of him?

I'm not sure. I did read a review that said this is 'classic' Pynchon, or words to that effect, so I imagine he is generally this nutty. I tried to read The Crying of Lot 49 some years ago and got a bit bogged down, but as it's short, maybe I'll try again. It was certainly surreal.

Hmmm...I've never read him either but have Inherent Vice on my list of books to read next month. Good to know it might be a bit out there.

Ok, I just finished Women in Love. VERY mixed feelings about this; it's a bit of a bodice ripper at points, mostly homoerotic, but in the end I actually did care what happened to the characters. It's just so overwritten.

>68 ipsoivan:, that's one I intend to sample, though I have mixed feelings about that author in general, lol.

>69 Cecrow: I'm also part of the 1001 Books to Read before You Die group, and ALL of Lawrence, I think, makes it to the list. Nooooo.

I might read The Rainbow, the prequel, but I will likely avoid the others. I read Sons and Lovers in high school and Lady Chatterley at some point or another, and didn't really like either that I can recall.

Similar story here; I'm following 501 Must-Read Books; but the only Lawrence there is Women in Love. Yay! and thus my interest ;)

>71 Cecrow: His style is right over the top. An interesting period piece though.

Women in Love is in my owned-but-unread collection. Hmmm. Maybe I should give the shorter The Plumed Serpent a chance before WiL.

I'm in two minds about Lawrence: I liked his The Virgin and the Gypsy, which was very short (novella-length) and straightforward; Lady Chatterley's Lover I found overstaying its welcome. But I would like to try long-form Lawrence again. (Most authors deserve three chances, in my view.)

I may have to give up on The Man Without Qualities. It's been haunting my TBR for many years, but each time I try to read it, it just pushes me away. There is something about it--I'm not sure what; it's all hard shiny surfaces and interesting ideas, but no soul to speak of. I'll plug away at it for a few more hours and see how it goes, but I may move on to A Book of Memories by Peter Nadas. I hate to give up on a book, but this one may just not be for me.

Ok, that's it. The Man Without Qualities got a good effort from me, but... just no. It reminds me of the people who recommended it to me 25 years ago, a couple of Philosophy grad students who were as arid as this book. It's dry, intellectual, and completely lacking soul.

I hate to give up on books, but life is just too short, so out it goes.

You can at least be satisfied now that you gave it a shot and it won't be nagging for your attention anymore. It's disappointing, though, when a book lurks at the back of your mind that long and then doesn't amount to much when you finally shed light on it. I had that experience with Treasure Island.

Oh dear, I downloaded some Stevenson and was kind of looking forward to it. Well, I'll give it a go anyway.

Yes, Musil has been on the shelf for 25 years. Gone as of today.

>77 ipsoivan: - I hope you do give Stevenson a go anyway. I read Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde earlier this year and enjoyed both. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

>77 ipsoivan: I just read Schateiland by Stevenson and thought is was a very nice book to read. If my son was 11 instead of 31 I would read it to him ;-))

>79 connie53: Oh, go ahead, connie! He might love it. It's low in the pile for now, but with so much encouragement, it may rise higher to the top.

He does not live at home any more! He is 31 and living with his girlfriend. It would be kind of awkward to sit next to their bed and read to them ;-))

Clearly you have never read (the somewhat creepy) Love You Forever, lol

>82 Cecrow: hee, I guess it is creepy. It always used to make me cry when I read it to my daughter. I DO NOT go to her place now to read it to her.

Well, another off the list, but again, I couldn't finish it and it is going to Goodwill. A Book of Memories by Peter Nadas is one I've looked forward to for years. The blurb on the cover compares it to Proust, Joyce and Mann. What could go wrong?

There are 3 stories interwoven here, and as each is narrated by "I", readers need to re-orient themselves with each shift in voice; this is tiresome, but soon becomes easier. He also throws in cliff hangers that are (probably intentionally) not really cliff-hanging, if you follow my drift. Not that we really care. There are interminable 'significant' conversations that are clearly intended to be utterly empty. The characters? There are none. But why does he bother with this? Was he making some political point? Maybe just playing with the novel form? After almost 200 pp I was no nearer to an answer, and really didn't care.

I'm going to console myself with something from my list that is guaranteed to be readable, either Rohinton Mistry, William Boyd, or Patrick White.

Ah, hate it when that happens. I find that's the one downside of this challenge, that it places emphasis on how long I've been putting off a title or looking forward to one, when it turns out to be a dud. Still, you can say you've tried it now and it's off the list.

Indeed, and now I am reading one, The New Confessions, that I've had for years, started several times and kept putting down for no real reason. After reading for 2 days, I'm 276 pp in and loving it. I think in part the difference might be that this one is not 'important', and doesn't have the weight of a big reputation to live up to.

Technically, it's also the last for my TBR Challenge. I may read some of those important books on my list more readily now that I don't feel I have to.

I fall into the same hole - great, it's on my list, now I HAVE to read it, lol. Because we all know when you HAVE to read something, it's twice as hard to like it. But I found a different mindset to make it work for me though: I have this crowd of people I'm eager to meet, see, but I can only shake their hands one at a time and somehow I have to queue them up, and they get really disgruntled if people bud ahead, and really, I'm eager to meet them all or else I wouldn't have invited them, so ...

If only some of these books took as long as a handshake to read...
I do find it interesting to meet each of these revered elders of my bookshelves and get to know them. And I love that some of the scarier ones turn out to be so modest and self-deprecating, like Moby-Dick and The Brothers Karamazov. Some of the others have not been so congenial: A Book of Memories, The Recognitions, A Man Without Qualities, all share an air of being far too pleased with their own cleverness.

The New Confessions is now finished. What a great read! Highly recommended.

Ok, I've done 12, so I'm officially finished. But I aspire to finish more... I will keep going!

>89 ipsoivan:

Congratulations! :)

Thanks, Art. I see you are hovering on the brink of done as well.

>89 ipsoivan:, congrats on the group's first 'official finish'! Now you can coast to Dec 31, looking forward to that myself. :)

Congratulations! Happy obligationless reading!

>91 ipsoivan:

Yep - still plugging away on #12. Slow and steady wins the race. :)

>92 Cecrow: Thanks cecrow. Are you determined to finish all 24 on your list? I'm just not in that league.

>93 Petroglyph: Thanks, Petroglyph. Yes, I felt such a relief at having no obligations, I started in on #13, The Magic Mountain. So far, I'm enjoying it much more than when I dashed through it in my 20s. Idiot youngster.

>94 artturnerjr: Slow and unevenly flapping was more my style this time around. Next time, I will make less ambitious choices.

>95 ipsoivan:, if I'm lucky; it'd be the first time in four tries. I only read 10 last year I think, and looking ahead to my 2015 lineup doesn't give me confidence, lol.

12 is great considering what you put in your list!

>96 Cecrow: that sounds ominous. Just what exactly do you have planned for next year?

I'm thinking of putting old ones on my list, but not necessarily big reputations or long.

>97 ipsoivan:, no spoilers! But sufficient page count that I'm leery I'll surmount it all. That's what I do too, bring back some of the ones I missed but usually not all. I've still some titles that were on my 2011 challenge (my first year) but were missed and that haven't been listed since. The poor souls - so close, and now so far down the TBR pile again ...

>98 Cecrow: :-)

I'm taking a different approach in 2015: no more massive tomes that are in the TBR because they are scary, but more stuff that I would want to pull off the shelf right now and read. Most have been on the shelf for quite a while, and some I have actually read, but long enough ago that it is really time to reacquaint myself with them:

1. The Pope’s Rhinoceros – Lawrence Norfolk
2. Shame—Salmon Rushdie
3. Edwin Drood—Charles Dickens
4. Phineas Finn—Anthony Trollope
5. Family Matters—Rohintan Mistry
6. Oh, Play that Thing!—Roddy Doyle
7. Pilgerman—Russell Hoban
8. The Poisonwood Bible—Barbara Kingsolver
9. Troubles--J.G. Farrell
10. One Hundred Years of Solitude—Gabriel Garcia Marquez
11. Accordion Crimes—E. Annie Proulx
12. Madame Bovary—Gustave Flaubert

1. Pere Goriot—Emile Zola
2. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain—Robert Olen Butler
3. Ulysses--James Joyce
4. The Black Book—Orhan Pamuk
5. The Book of Ebenezer le Page—G.B. Edwards
6. The Emperor’s Children—Claire Messud
7. Le Grand Meaulnes--Alain Fournier
8. Baumgartner’s Bombay—Anita Desai
9. The Emigrants—W.G. Sebald
10. Regeneration—Pat Barker
11. Landscape and Memory—Simon Schama
12. Three Day Road—Joseph Boyden

ETA: I'm putting this up in a new thread.