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Lara

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  1. So it seems this has been a good start to the year for me. Since I last updated, I finished both Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen and Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. Both were great. I've started reading Jane Eyre for the readathon, but I had less time last weekend than I hoped and I didn't get that far. I think I'll pick that one back up during the next readathon and finish it. It's my first book by a Bronte sister Currently, I'm reading Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff. God save us.
  2. Happy reading! I love the way your thread is organized.
  3. Jane Eyre is a great idea. I'm down. Anyone else interested?
  4. Thank you everyone! Today I finished my first two reads of 2018. Dear Ijawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and a collection of poetry titled An Attic of Ideals by Karen Swenson. Dear Ijawele, while not particularly groundbreaking, was perfect for what it was - honest, to the point, and clearly communicated. It is a short book, 60ish pages long, taken from a letter Adichie wrote to a friend who asked her how to raise her daughter feminist. Adichie writes about feminism without being moralizing, a quality I appreciate in any social discourse. An Attic of Ideals is a book I came across by chance. Of its many poems there were both hits and misses, but the hits were of excellent quality.
  5. A group read sounds lovely!
  6. Happy new year and happy reading!
  7. Happy new year! Looks like you're off to a great start Sky Chasers sounds so sweet.
  8. Happy new year! Hope you have a great year of reading. I haven't read most on your TBR list, but I loved Slaughterhouse Five. Best of luck with your challenges
  9. Open for business! Here's to 2018!
  10. Read Last Year (2017): -Moshiah by Andrew Craven -Father Comes Home From the Wars (Parts 1, 2, and 3) by Suzan-Lori Parks -God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian by Kurt Vonnegut -Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare -All My Sons by Arthur Miller -Brave New World by Aldous Huxley -Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett -Trifles by Susan Glaspell -The Dramatic Imagination by Robert Edmund Jones -God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut -Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss -Hamlet by William Shakespeare (re-read) -Arcadia by Lauren Groff -Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger -Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage -Machinal by Sophie Treadwell -Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris -Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney -The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht -Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell -Theft by Finding by David Sedaris -The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway -Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard -Three Crows Yelling: Poems by Bill Noble, William Keener, and Michael Day -True West by Sam Shepard -Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2 by J.K. Rowling and Jack Thorne -Buried Child by Sam Shepard -The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich -Antigone by Sophocles -The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd -Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  11. Statistics *updated monthly 2018 total number of books read so far: 38 Number read for school: 19 Number read for pleasure: 20 Number of non-fiction: 10 Number of fiction: 29 Number of plays: 19 Number of poetry collections: 1 Number of graphic novels/comics: 0 Number of new authors: 31 Number of known authors: 5 Number of books with male authors: 25 Number of books with female authors: 14 Nationality of authors: American - 22 Bohemian/Czech - 1 British - 2 Canadian - 2 German - 2 Greek - 1 Italian - 1 Nigerian - 1 Norwegian - 1 Russian - 1 South African - 1 Swedish - 1 Swiss - 1 Number of books not originally in English: 8 Number of books not in English: 0 Time period published: -Ancient: 1 -Medieval: 0 -1500-1700: 0 -18th century: 0 -19th century: 5 -1900 to 1950: 6 -1951 to 1980: 8 -1981 to 1999: 6 -21st century: 13 (-2018: 1) Average rating: Longest book: Shortest book: Most read author:
  12. To Read: *edited continually; crossed off as read -All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr -Americanah by Chimamanda Ngoz Adichie -Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner -As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner -The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan -Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson -Backstage Handbook: An Illustrated Almanac of Technical Information by Paul Carter -Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays by David Sedaris -Beloved by Toni Morrison -The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam -The Best We Could Do by The Bui -Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen -Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen -Born Both: An Intersex Life by Hida Viloria -A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling -Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams -The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger -Children Playing Before A Statue of Hercules by David Sedaris -Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee -The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin -The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson -A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen -Dracula by Bram Stoker -Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover -Endgame by Samuel Beckett -Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury -The Family Medici: The Hidden History of the Medici Dynasty by Mary Hollingsworth -The Favorite Game by Leonard Cohen -The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer -The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan -The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing -Florida by Lauren Groff -Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes -For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway -Freud's Mistress by Karen Mack -Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin -The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? by Edward Albee -The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy -The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas -Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance -The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien -Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell -The Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston -How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez -I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai -In The Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks -In The Penal Colony by Franz Kafka -The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd -An Ishmael of Syria by Almohammad Asaad -Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith -A Jury of Her Peers by Susan Glaspell -Just Kids by Patti Smith -LaRose by Louise Erdrich -The Last Time I Wore a Dress by Daphne Scholinski -Let Us Compare Mythologies by Leonard Cohen -The Likeness by Tana French -The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie -Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez -Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich -The Lover by Harold Pinter -Maggie Now by Betty Smith -The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton -Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden -Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis -The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka -The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff -Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf -My Life With Bonnie and Clyde by Blanche Caldwell Barrow -My Louisiana Sky by Kimberly Willis Holt -My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult -The Name of God is Mercy by Pope Francis -Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga -The New Jim Crow: Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander -No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy -Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami -On Liberty by John Stuart Mill -O Pioneers! by Willa Cather -Oedipus Rex by Sophocles -Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson -An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina -Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline -Othello by William Shakespeare -The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore -Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders -A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn -The Perfect Nanny by Leila Slimani -A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline -The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich -Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction by J.D. Salinger -Ready Player One by Ernest Cline -Remainder by Tom McCarthy -The Road by Cormac McCarthy -Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories by Roald Dahl -The Santaland Diaries and Season's Greetings by David Sedaris -The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir -A Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing by William Ball -Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli -Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility by Germaine Greer -The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class by Bernie Sanders -The Spice Box of Earth by Leonard Cohen -A Spot of Brother by Mark Haddon -Stupid F*****g Bird by Aaron Posner -The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare -The Theatre of the Absurd by Martin Esslin -Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal -The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal by Jared Diamond -Threepenny Novel by Bertolt Brecht -To The Novel by Michael Chekov -Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks -The Viewpoints Book by Anne Bogart -A Vindication on the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft -We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver -We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families by Philip Gourevitch -The Zoo Story by Edward Albee -The Zookeeper's Wife by Diane Ackerman The Well Educated Mind Suggested Reading List: *hidden for the sake of saving space *to be slowly chipped away at *crossed off as read
  13. I'm going to try this again this year. Reading Goal: 52 books For Fun Mini Goals: *crossed off as completed -Read a graphic novel or comic book -Read a memoir or biography -Read a book in Spanish -Read a mystery novel -Read a book published this year (2018) -Read a book I was supposed to read for class but didn't (ha ha) -Read a book set in my hometown -Read a book of poetry cover to cover -Read 2 Shakespeare plays -Read at least 7 plays Books Read: January 1) Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4 stars) 2) An Attic of Ideals by Karen Swenson (3 stars) 3) We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4 stars) 4) Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen (4.5 stars) 5) Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (4 stars) 6) Damned by Chuck Palahniuk (3 stars) 7) Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (3 stars) February 8) The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (5 stars) 9) Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello (2.5 stars) 10) Woyzeck by Georg Buchner (3.5 stars) 11) Hunting and Gathering by Brooke Berman (3 stars) 12) Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets (4 stars) 13) A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen (4 stars) 14) Miss Julie by August Strindberg (3 stars) 15) Ruined by Lynn Nottage March 16) Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekov (3 stars) 17) Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (3.5 stars) 18) Angels in America (Part One: Millenium Approaches) by Tony Kushner (4.5 stars) 19) Angels in America (Part Two: Perestroika) by Tony Kushner (4 stars) 20) The Visit by Friedrich Durrenmatt (4 stars) April 21) Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht (4 stars) 22) Dead Man's Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl (3 stars) 23) A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (4 stars) 24) The Drunkard: Or, the Fallen Saved by William H. Smith (2 stars) 25) Dutchman & The Slave by Amiri Baraka (3 stars) May 26) A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams (4 stars) 27) The Homecoming by Harold Pinter (4 stars) 28) Men Without Women by Ernest Hemingway (4 stars) 29) Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook by Mark Bray (4 stars) June 30) Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (4 stars) 31) Genocide by Jane Springer (2 stars) 32) Pastrix by Nadi Bolz-Weber (4 stars) July 33) Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger (5 stars) 34) Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family's Correspondence from Poland by Christopher R. Browning, Nechama Tec (5 stars) August 35) The Liars' Club by Mary Karr (4 stars) 36) Abolition Democracy: Beyond Prisons, Torture, and Empire by Angela Y. Davis (4 stars) 37) The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (4 stars) 38) Alfred and Emily by Doris Lessing (4 stars) 39) Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O'Connor (2 stars) September October November December
  14. That's an impressive amount of books! But also you are an impressively fast reader, imo. Sounds like the woman at the bookshop gave you a good deal. The benefits of knowing people at places you frequent are quite nice
  15. Hi everyone who happens to be reading my thread! Just thought I'd check back in here. February has been a horribly slow reading month for me, unfortunately. School and work have been keeping me quite busy, so I haven't had as much time to read as I would like. If I counted textbooks in my list here I'd definitely appear much more productive! I have been able to finish Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, which I read for my English class. I enjoyed it much more than I'd expected to, though I found the narrator to be infuriatingly egotistical. I think that was intentional, though, so I guess it's a mark of good writing! I do admire Shelley's character development in that novel. I also finished A Fighting Chance by Elizabeth Warren. I adore Elizabeth Warren, and that's why I started reading it (it's her autobiography), but I was pleasantly surprised to find it quite informative about recent economic reform in the United States. It was interesting to hear about the workings of Washington from a behind the scenes, personal sort of view. If you are interested in U.S. politics and lean towards the left, I'd definitely recommend it. Just today, I finished World War Z by Max Brooks. This was another book I read for my English class. While it is absolutely not something I'd ever read of my own volition, it was enjoyable. The format was interesting - it is presented as nonfiction, a collection of interviews about the "Zombie War" the world has recently undergone. Brooks does a fantastic job maintaining realism. There was a couple bits which I thought were inconsistent with each other, but it could be argued that those inconsistencies made sense considering that the entire book is recollections from a bunch of different people - memory and perception can be faulty. I found the book to be quite terrifying, to be totally honest; the first night after I began reading it I dreamed that I had to hide from zombies. Horrifying. I hope that I'll be able to get some more reading done this month than I did the last, having the time to read for pleasure is so nice. Hope you all are having a great reading year!
  16. Just goes to show it's all subjective
  17. I felt the exact same way. It was strange. My copy also had eleven pages of "praise for Freakonomics" at the beginning of the book before the introduction which I found rather...excessive .
  18. Usually ketchup, but also queso if I have some around. I'm a queso addict . My dad likes to mix salt and vinegar with ketchup, and then dip them in that. It tastes pretty good, but I'm usually too lazy to go to the trouble of mixing it up. Sriracha is good as well. I went through a phase where I dipped just about everything in that. I do *not* understand how some of you can eat them with mayo! It's definitely not a thing here. Mayonnaise just grosses me out in general, though. Ah, to each their own!
  19. Happy reading, Muggle Not! It looks like you've had a great start to the year. I must say, I love your username!
  20. Lara

    Hola!

    Welcome, Jessica. I hope you enjoy it here
  21. Welcome, Kerry! Happy reading
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