Mount TBR: Checkpoint #3

Published on by Margaret

It’s time for the third quarterly checkpoint in the Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2014
Bev asks 2 questions:
 
1. Tell us how many miles you’ve made it up your mountain (# of books read).  

I have read 40 books. The full list is on my TBR Challenge page. In terms of how many mountains I’ve scaled this means that I have just 8 books left to read to reach my target of Mt Ararat (48 books) by the end of the year. Looking at the photo from Wikipedia I think I’m probably at the top of the Lesser Ararat. I should reach Greater Ararat by the end of the year if not earlier. 

2. Pair up two of your reads using whatever connection you want to make. Written by the same author? Same genre? Same color cover? Both have a main character named Clarissa? Tell us the books and what makes them a pair.

It was obvious when I looked at my list which two books make a pair:

Shakespeare’s Restless World by Neil MacGregor and Shakespeare: a Biography by Peter Ackroyd. Both books are non-fiction and obviously about Shakespeare and they complement each other very well.

Shakespeare’s Restless World is a beautiful book recreating Shakespeare’s world through examining twenty objects. It reveals so much about the people who lived then, who went to see Shakespeare’s plays in the 1590s and 1600s, and about their ideas and living conditions.

And Shakespeare: a Biography is structured mainly around the plays.  But above all, Ackroyd Shakespeareit places Shakespeare within his own time and place, whether it is Stratford or London or travelling around the countryside with the touring companies of players. Shakespeare spans the reigns of two monarchs, which saw great changes and Ackroyd conjures up vividly the social, religious and cultural scene. It’s a very readable book, full of detail. 

4 thoughts on “Mount TBR: Checkpoint #3”

  1. You’re doing great, Margaret! Thanks for checking in! I read a book about Shakespeare too. Well–sortof it’s about one of the people that might have written the Shakespeare plays if old William didn’t. Good book–don’t necessarily buy the theory, though.

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    1. Thanks, Bev.There are quite a few of theories about who might have written the Shakespeare plays – I haven’t read any of them though, whoever wrote them was a genius!

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  2. I should definitely do this challenge next year–most of the books I read are from my shelves, though sometimes I can’t resist something new.

    Yes, those two books do go together. I liked the Ackryod bio and now I’m hankering after the Restless World book.

    Congrats on scaling the lesser Ararat–will you be scanning the top of Greater Ararat for Noah’s ark? 🙂

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    1. Jane, that’s my problem, those new books are so enticing!

      I’ll certainly look out for that old ark – you never know what might be there 🙂

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