randomfakename is getting back in the saddle for 2015

After an unfocused and unsatisfying reading year in 2014, I'm going to try the category challenge for 2015.
My categories are:

1. Pre-Columbian/Colonial Americas
2. Science Fiction Classics
3. Second Time's the Charm
4. Graphic Novels
5. Memoirs/Biographies
6. Books I Must Read for Work
7. Books That Were Presents
8. Great Women Writers
9. Mythology/Fables/Fairy Tales
10.The TBR List
11. Self-Care
12. Magpie Reads

1. Pre-Columbian/Colonial Americas
i. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe. **1/2. 14/01/2015
ii. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
iii. The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson. ***. 07/02/2015
iv.
v.

2. Science Fiction Classics
i. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler *****. 09/03/2015
ii. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
iii. We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
iv. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
v.A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
vi. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
vii. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

3. Second Time's the Charm (Rereads and second tries)
i. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
ii. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino
iii. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
iv.
v.

4. Graphic Novels
i. A Life Force by Will Eisner
ii. Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley. ***. 20/01/2015.
iii. In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang. ***. 14/01/2015
iv. Sisters by Raina Telgemeier
v. Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry
vi. Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
vii.
viii.
ix.
x.

5. Memoirs/Biographies
i. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. ***. 01/02/15
ii. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

6. Books I Must Read for Work
i. The Inconvenient Indian by Thomas King. ****. 09/02/2015
ii. Longbourn by Jo Baker. **1/2. 17/02/2015
iii.
iv.
v.

7. Books That Were Presents
i. The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore
ii. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
iii. Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
iv. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
v.

8. Great Women Writers
i. Beloved by Toni Morrison
ii. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
iii. The American Way of Death by Jessica Mitford
iv. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier
v. Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

9. Mythology/Fables/Fairy Tales
i. Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version Edited by Philip Pullman. **** 09/01/2015
ii. Mythology by Edith Hamilton
iii.
iv.
v.

10.The TBR List
i. Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
ii.Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
iii. The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel. ***1/2. 06/06/2015.
iv. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
v. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
vi. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

11. Self-Care
i. French Taste: Elegant Everyday Eating by Laura Calder
ii. It's your ship by Michael Abrashoff. ****. 15/05/2015
iii.
iv.
v.

12. Magpie Reads

i.Get in Trouble by Kelly Link. *****. 06/04/2015
ii.The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule. ***. 20/04/2015
iii. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. *****. 05/05/2015
iv. Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake by Sarah MacLean. ****. 10/06/2015.
v. Ten Ways to be Adored When Landing a Lord by Sarah MacLean. ****. 13/06/2015.
vi. A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean. ***. 20/06/2015.

Welcome to the challenge! Nice category range!

Thanks! Now I just have to see if my reading interests hold true for the year.

You've got some interesting books lined up! And good idea to include a magpie category. You never know where the reading whim will take you! Enjoy your challenge. :)

Exactly - shiny new books can lead you astray.

The Handmaid's tale and The dispossessed are favorites of mine. Octavia Butler too but I haven't read Kindred yet. Good luck!

Great categories - looking forward to seeing how you fill them. Magpie is a very appropriate name for the shiny ones. :)

Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version Edited by Philip Pullman.

First (completed) book of the year and the challenge! Pullman retells fifty tales from the Brothers Grimm and discusses each of them in endnotes. Most of the tales are familiar, but Pullman gives the stories a real freshness. My interest in fairy tales and mythology boils down to a desire to understand why these are the stories we choose to tell over and over. In the case of Grimm (and most fairy tales from Western Europe) the stories can mostly be divided into those that reward goodness/punish wickedness and those that reward cleverness/punish stupidity. Every story, however follows a different path to get there - often a fantastical, wondrous, utterly bananas path. Which is what makes them so much fun to read. Story least likely to become a Disney movie: The Girl With No Hands. Four stars. Library Book.

paruline
I've read (and loved) other books by all three of them so I am really looking forward to them. I have found their books to be very thinky reads - as in I have to put the book down and think about it. Especially The Left Hand of Darkness.

>20 randomfakename: - I have had my eye on the Pullman book.... I think I even had a copy checked out from the library at one point last year but had no time to shoehorn it in to my reading plans. Looks like I will be replacing that hold. ;-)

The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

Constance Goodwin, Harvard PhD candidate, stumbles across evidence of a (previously unknown to history) actual witch in Salem. There is research (set in 1991, so without the internet), academic villainy, a (trite) love story and a great deal of exposition. The best parts of the book are the interludes set in 1692. I happened on this book because I wanted to read a novel about the Salem Witch Trials. I quickly realized that this was not really that book, but kept reading anyway. I enjoyed it, but I doubt I will remember it. Two and a half stars. Library book.

In Real Life by Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang

Interesting story about a girl gamer who starts playing a MMORG, gets recruited to run in-game missions for real life money, befriends a Chinese professional gold farmer and convinces him to try to organize his workplace for better working conditions and healthcare. There are a lot of complex ideas in this small story and Doctorow's introduction about the power of the internet as an organizational tool and the economic realities of gamespace really ends up being necessary for context. There is something entirely new about this story. Four stars. Library Book.

lkernagh

It's worth it just for his endnotes about the stories!

>24 randomfakename: Good to see that Doctorow's foray into graphic novels is a worthwhile read.

>24 randomfakename: This is the same plot he uses in For the Win. I started it but didn't quite finish it. Neal Stephenson's Reamde uses miners, too. They create a virus that attacks the computers of game players. The players have to pay a ransom inside the game to get all their RL files decrypted. Interesting stuff!

>27 mamzel: Cool. I'll have to check Reamde out. I loved Snow Crash.

>26 AHS-Wolfy: I haven't actually read any of his novels. Little Brother his been on the TBR list for ages though.

>28 randomfakename: It was really good except it felt like the chase scene at the end was never going to end. I hope to get to Snow Crash this year. I also have Cryptonomicon on my shelves.

Little Brother X was really excellent. It addresses the issue of the fine line between public safety and personal privacy. I had taken a course in network security just before I read it and was amazed at the technology he referred to in the book.

Seconds by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Katie is a chef about to open her second restaurant before the age of 30. A house spirit with some magic mushrooms allows her mulligan her mistakes a la Groundhog Day. Katie abuses her do overs and upsets the multiverse. Eventually everything works out. Katie is spectacularly self absorbed but still somewhat likeable, not unlike Scott Pilgrim. I wanted to like this more than I did, but it's just a good, slightly forgettable book. Three Stars. Library Book.

>30 mamzel: Little Brother just moved further up the TBR list!

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

Everyone knows what this is about, right? I liked it, but I think I would have liked it just as much as a 30 page article as a 300 page book. Three Stars. Library Book.

The Witchcraft of Salem Village by Shirley Jackson

An excellent narrative historical account of the Salem Witch Trials, possibly the weirdest episode in colonial history. Three Stars. Library e-Audiobook.