TBR Pile Challenge – Page 2

Reading TBRs & The TBR Pile Challenge: May Checkpoint

Published on May 17, 2015 by Margaret10 Comments

In the context of this challenge and also the Mount TBR Challenge TBRs are books that have a publication date before 1/1/2014 (ie any book published in the year 2013 or earlier qualifies, as long as it has been on your TBR pile). It does not include all the books you’ve acquired since 1/1/204 even though they are, of course To Be Read books too!

It’s time for the MAY Check-in for the 2015 TBR Pile Challenge, hosted by Adam at Roof Beam Reader! We’re now almost half-way into the challenge, which is to identify and to read 12 books during 2015!

Question of the Month: If you could go back and edit your list to make ONE change, what do you think you would have done differently? A book or author that you wish you had included? A book that you wish you hadn’t bothered with?

First of all this is my answer to Adam’s question – I wish I hadn’t included The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower, which I have put back one of the books on my shelves, at least for the time being, as I found it so confusing and I don’t like the fact that it’s written in the third person present tense, which I find awkward. I bought this book 7 years ago and like to think that I am more careful now in choosing books and would avoid books written in that tense.

My Progress: 2 of 12 Completed – I am way behind! I’ve read The Burning by Jane Casey and The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld. The books for this challenge are shown in the sidebar to the right.

So, why am I behind when the books on the list are ones I’ve identified as ones I have owned for a while and want to read? One of the reasons is that I’m a great believer that there is a right time to read a book and often these books are not the right books this time. But there are other reasons too:

I start reading one of the books from the TBR Pile and find it difficult to read because it’s in a small font, or it’s very heavy/bulky to hold, so I read something else.
Or it’s very long and I fancy reading something shorter.
I keep reading about interesting books on other book blogs and want to read those now, so I either borrow them from the library, which means I have to read those first in case I can’t renew them, or I buy them and start reading them straight away.
Then there are books I read for my local book group which I have to fit in each month.

I’ll have to overcome these reasons if I’m ever going to read those books!

The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld

Published on April 10, 2015 by Margaret8 Comments

I was looking forward to reading The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld. It had sat on my shelves for nearly 8 years and I decided it was time to read it this year, including it in my TBR Pile Challenge list of books. It’s historical fiction – a mixture of murder mystery and psychoanalysis with an interpretation of ‘˜Hamlet‘˜ thrown in.

It began well as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung arrived in New York in 1909 to give a series of lectures and to receive an honorary degree from Clark University. That much is fact, but this book is a work of fiction as Rubenfeld makes clear in his Author’s Note and most of the characters are fictional.

There are some things that I did think were well done, for example the descriptions of New York as the city grew, its architecture and streets, the building of the Manhattan Bridge; and as I mentioned earlier the interpretation of ‘Hamlet‘. But as I read on I began to lose interest and at times I felt it was slowed down too much by psychological exposition and debate. Rubenfeld is no doubt well grounded in Freud – as a Princeton undergraduate he wrote his senior thesis on Freud – and also in Shakespeare, which he studied at the Juilliard School of Drama. I found his ideas on interpreting ‘Hamlet‘ most interesting. But I was less enamoured with the dialogue between Freud and Jung, which as Rubenfeld explained is drawn from their own letters, essays and statements, which whilst being factually accurate, doesn’t come across as real conversation.

I thought the murder mystery was unconvincing and too convoluted. Briefly, the morning after Freud’s arrival a young woman is found brutally murdered and later a second, Nora Acton, is attacked in a similar fashion but she survives, although unable to speak. Freud is asked to help by psychoanalysing Nora and asks his young American colleague, Dr Stratham Younger to carry out the analysis. To cut a long story short Younger is helped in his investigations by Detective Jimmy Littlemore and together they discover what really happened.

Maybe I was expecting too much from this book, which is described in the blurb as’Spectacular … fiendishly clever‘, and a ‘thrilling heart-in-the-mouth read … Once you start reading, it’s impossible to put down.’ It jumps about a bit too much for my liking, between narrators and sub-plots, some of the characters came over a bit flat and I didn’t find it either ‘fiendishly clever‘ or ‘impossible to put down‘.

The 2015 TBR Pile Challenge: February Checkpoint

Published on February 16, 2015 by Margaret2 Comments

It’s time for the February Checkpoint for the 2015 TBR Pile Challenge, hosted by Adam of Roof Beam Reader.

My Progress: 1 of 12 Completed: The Burning by Jane Casey (on my shelves since 2013)

I also began reading one of the other declared TBR books in my pile – The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower, but have put it back on the bookshelf at least for the time being. I was keen to read this one as it’s been on my shelves for 7 years! But when I began reading I realised why I hadn’t read it before now ‘“ it’s written in the third person present tense, which I find awkward, and it’s so confusing working out who the characters are. I hate to say this but I may abandon this book. But there are two alternatives I could substitute for this challenge.

These are the books in my piles:

Adam’s Question of the Month: Since it will be Valentine’s Day weekend when this post goes live, I have to ask: Do you have any ‘romantic’books on your 2015 TBR challenge list? If so, which ones?! (This could be capital r Romantic, or regular lovey-steamy romantic).

I don’t often choose ‘romantic’ books and I don’t think any of these could fall into that category – maybe The Secret Keeper? It’s described on the back cover as ‘a spellbinding story of mysteries and secrets, murder and enduring love.’ But I doubt ‘romantic love’ comes into it.

I think that could be my next book to read from these piles.

The Burning by Jane Casey

Published on February 14, 2015 by Margaret8 Comments

The Burning by Jane Casey is one of the books I selected for the TBR Pile Challenge 2015. It’s a book that I read about on other book blogs and thought I would like. I was right – I really enjoyed it.

It’s the first the DC Maeve Kerrigan series. Maeve is on the murder task force investigating the case of the serial killer the media call The Burning Man. Four young women have been brutally murdered, beaten to death and their bodies burnt in secluded areas of London’s parks. When a fifth body is discovered that of Rebecca Haworth, it appears to be the work of The Burning Man – but is it, there are slight differences? The more that Maeve and her colleague Rob Langton check out the facts it appears it could be a copy-cat killing.

The pace of the book is quite slow at first as the characters are introduced and the story unfolds mainly through Maeve’s eyes with some chapters narrated by Rebecca’s friend Louise, and briefly by Rob. Because the pace is slow to begin with the main characters are fully rounded – Maeve in particular is a likeable character, intelligent and empathetic, working to impress her male colleagues and determined to catch the murderer. She’s new to the job, which both her boyfriend and her family criticises. Rebecca’s character is revealed through Louise’s eyes, fleshed out as other friends give their versions of her past to Maeve and Rob. As the pace picks up, a complex plot develops providing several suspects which kept me turning the pages right to the end.

I have the third Maeve Kerrigan book, The Last Girl, but I think I’ll postpone reading it until I’ve read the second book, The Reckoning. There are now six books in the series and Maeve has her own website!

As well as the TBR Pile Challenge The Burning completes one of the categories in the What’s In a Name challenge, that of a book title containg a word ending in ‘ing’, the My Kind of Mystery challenge and also the Mount TBR Reading Challenge (a book I’ve owned prior to 1 January 2015).

TBR Pile Challenge 2015

Published on January 2, 2015 by Margaret10 Comments

I’ve been dithering for some time now about taking on reading challenges because I really want to concentrate on reading without thinking whether the books I read fit any of the challenges I’ve joined, but I’ve decided that I’m not going to worry about that – if they do, they do and if they don’t it doesn’t matter and so here’s another challenge for 2015.

Adam from Roof Beam Reader is running his TBR Pile Challenge for the SIXTH YEAR!

I’ve not joined in before because I’ve been doing Bev’s Mount TBR Challenge, but this is slightly different because the books you read must have been on your bookshelf or ‘To Be Read’list for AT LEAST one full year and you have to list them in advance. This means the books cannot have a publication date of 1/1/2014 or later (ie any book published in the year 2013 or earlier qualifies, as long as it has been on your TBR pile ‘“ Adam will be checking publication dates!)

The Goal: To finally read 12 books from your ‘to be read’pile (within 12 months). Books have to be listed and reviewed so that you can link back to Adam’s challenge. You are allowed two alternates just in case you just can’t finish a book for whatever reason.

For the full run-down of challenge details, see Adam’s blog (click on link above).

I’m a bit doubtful that I’ll complete this challenge because I often find that planning in advance what I’m going to read doesn’t work for me – I seem to find reasons for reading other books instead of the ones on my list! But I’m going to give it a go anyway – here’s my list:

The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende (pub 1994 – on my TBR since 2008)
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (pub 1994 – on my TBR since 2009)
The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower (pub 2007 – on my TBR since 2007)
The Burning by Jane Casey (pub 2010 – on my TBR since 2013)
Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens (pub 1844 – on my TBR since 2007)
Zen there was Murder by H R F Keating (pub 1960 – on my TBR since 2012
Mrs Jordan’s Profession by Claire Tomalin (pub 1995 – on my TBR since 2011)
Fresh from the Country by Miss Read (pub 1970 – on my TBR since 2012)
The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld (pub 2006 – on my TBR since 2007)
Bad Land by Jonathan Raban (pub 1985 – on my TBR since 2011)
We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates (pub 1997 – on my TBR since 2011)
The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton (pub 2010 – on my TBR since 2013)