Pete's 23

This year I'm going to be following my favourite book blogger's TBR challenge - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2022/12/TBR%20challenges

January – End to end temptation

The most recent book on the TBR

As my birthday is in January I shall try and finish all the books I got for Xmas & birthday this month - I have already finished several of my Xmas books)

Stretch Goal – Read the oldest book in Mount TBR it has waited long enough

Books Added

December The books I got for Xmas that I've not read yet I'm adding to this challenge - the rules of the TBR challenge I'm following say that I can't add books I buy this year to the challenge. As ever I'm going to try and not buy as many books this year (hahaha)...

What If?
An inventory of losses
Dark Tales
Illuminations
Viaducts and river views

January
Mycelium Running
Beating the story
The Silent Gondoliers
Feral
The Jaws Log
2120
Devouring Dark
Orlam
Ducks
Terrortome

Books Read
Ducks
2120
An Inventory of Losses
On writing and worldbuilding vol 1
Feral
Orlam
The silent gondoliers
Devouring Dark
The Jaws Log
13 steps to evil
What If?

February - Short steps

read 28 short stories - a TBR collection, anthology or even backlog of magazines

Stretch Goal - Read four novellas one for each week of the month. If you have no novellas then read to the shortest book in Mount TBR you can find.

Books Added
Writer's handbook
memoirs of my writer's block
how to read a play
Conversations with Isaac Newton
Death and dying: a reader
making sense of death, dying and bereavement
Internal strength for tai chi
Qigong exercises for stress management
Silk-Reeling energy for tai chi

Books Read
Writing your story's theme
The moral premise
The diving bell and the butterfly
Over sea and under stone
Dark Tales
The dark side of the moon
Internal strength for tai chi
Chen style Taijiquan
Be excellent at anything
Magpie's ladder
Memoirs of my writer's block

March - Fresh Starts

For the beginning of spring start a series never read before.

Stretch goal - by the end of the year read all the remaining books in the same series. If a new book comes out in 2022 then you’re allowed to read it when it is published.

Books Added
I am the law
Unfuck your business
Unfuck your eating
Literature, criticism & theory
Magical Passes
Shaman: The Mysterious Life and Impeccable Death of Carlos Castaneda
Daoist Nei Gong
Attune your body with Dao In
The Underdogs
Mornings in Mexico
A Mexico escape 1936
Chinese Healing Arts

Books Read
The loneliness of the long-distance cartoonist
The past is red
Writing for story
The Highest House
Brilliant Kids
Beginner's guide to qigong
Until proven safe
Hel's Eight

April - Open and Shut Case

read a standalone book with no sequel or links to any other book

Stretch goal - you need to finish the last book in a series that you’ve had in Mount TBR for ages.

Books Added
Writing the mind alive
Bold ventures
Biopoetics
The Utopia Reader
Spec Fic for newbies
Punk Publishing
The dust of the red rose knight
In praise of shadows

Books Read
Unfuck your writing
Punk Publishing
All the white spaces
Nine modern day muses
Dust of the rose red knight
In praise of shadows
The dancing plague
The best of Richard Matheson

May - Crowning Glory?

let’s pick a book about revolution or a change of those in power

Stretch Goal - A tale with a member of a royal household in a leading role needs to be completed.

Books Added
Gigantic
Night falls on Ardnamurchan
Blakes 7 obsession
From Chaos to Creativity
Feeling Blah
Please yourself
The art of noticing
Written: How to keep writing and build a habit
Tao of Jeet Kune Do
Be Pure, Be Vigilant, Behave
Creative Writing story starters
Creating Short Fiction
how to improve your speculative fiction openings
To catch a moon
The coral bones
Unexpected places to fall from

Books Read
Scene and structure
I am the law
From Chaos to creativity
The pharmacist

June - long reading days or longest nights

find the largest tale on Mount TBR and finish it

Stretch Goal - find the shortest novel in your pile and finish that off too

Books Added
Premonitions bureau
On connection
no happily ever after

Books Read
Night falls on Ardnamurchan
how to improve your speculative fiction openings
Premonitions Bureau
On Connection
the fiction editor, the novel and the novelist
Gigantic
The road to somewhere
25 secrets of Tai Chi

July - Holidays are coming!

find a book by the author who lives the furthest from you on the globe

Stretch goal - strike back by having a tale with an empire featuring heavily in it.

Books Added
Oaxaca Journals
Do I make myself clear?
Out of sheer rage
Travels with Herodotus

Books Read
The Ways of Ghosts and other dark tales
Signposts on a martial arts journey
Exploratory Writing
Titanium Noir
How to focus
Plot (Writers wokshop)
Knockemstiff
The Others of Edenwell
Red smoking mirror

August - Holiday Treats

choose the book in the TBR pile no Themes, clues of queries to ask. Just take one off the list!

Stretch Goal -I’d like you to read a translated work.

Books Added
Gentle Writing Advice
Japanese Death Poems

Books Read
The complete Tai Chi tutor
Gentle Writing Advice
Travels with Herodotus
Pest
Do I make myself clear?
How high we go in the dark
Moment Maker
Death poems
against worldbuilding
Speak to me: dark side of the moon

September - Seven Deadly Tempts

Read a book linked however you want to one of the seven deadly sins
Stretch goal - can you read a book published by an author who has published more than seven books?

Books Added
Borges a life

Books Read
The snare of the tree
Monstrum poetica
The Tai Chi Book
Are you actually going to write a book
Ignore everybody

October - Spooky Season cometh

read a book with a spooky or dark theme.
Stretch goal - can you read a book connected to night-time in some way as northern nights are now longer

Books Added
Every man for himself and god against all
Putting it together
Hidden Camera
Writing for stage and screen
Contact
From the abyss
select poems mervyn peake
River of shadows
Chen living taiji
Complete Lewis Carroll
Tender is the flesh
Let me tell you a story
Snoopy's guide to writing
Writing Proposals and Synopses that sell
The Stasi poetry circle
Traces of Enayat

Books Read
Imagist Poetry
The library at mount char
On writing and writers
Are you actually going to be prolific
The art of living a meaningless existence
Arguments for socialism
Tender is the flesh
Goblin market and other poems
I have more souls
Industry talk
Blackhart Blades
Tai Chi Walking
How to edit an anthology
Writing proposals and synopses that sell

November - Small Press Big Stories

read a book that is published by a printing house that is not connected to the auk/US Big Five publishers
Stretch Goal - for the month of remembrance can you find a book where peace is the end result?

Books Added
Pageturners
In the pines
Burnt eucalyptus wood
Invitation to a beheading
A Spectre, Haunting
System Collapse

Books Read
Will my cat eat my eyeballs
You've lost a lot of blood
Queen of teeth
River of teeth
All the words: a year of reading about writing
the disordered mind
7 steps from burnout to happiness
101 reflections on tai chi
Chen: living taijiquan in the classical style
How to set goals with kaizen and ikigai
The artist's way
All systems red
Artifical condition
Rogue protocol
Exit strategy
Black Paper
Writing the Australian crawl
The Creative Act
The writer's crucible

December - Don’t forget to say thank you

treat yourself to a book someone else gifted you
Stretch goal - find a wintry based tale to read

Books Added
Conversations with gordon Lish
Gods of the word
The Inner Game of Music

Books Read
Feel Free
Network effect
System Collapse
The girl in red
By cunning and craft
Burnt eucalyptus wood
The life and rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah
The mind inside tai chi
Traces of Enayat
The man who mistook his wife for a hat

I like the loose nature of this challenge and it's also something that seems doable - 12 (or 24, or maybe more if I read a whole series in March.

I mean the TBR will still be stupidly large at the end of the year if this is all I read - but, baby steps, I shall still get some books off the TBR this way...

btw the longest book on the TBR is either the tale of genji or war and peace gulp!

Good to see that you are going to be back for another year of Category Challenge, Pete!

Good luck with your 2023 reading

>15 DeltaQueen50: Thanks! I may even think of a challenge by the time next year starts ;-)

>16 lowelibrary: Thanks!

Happy reading in 2023!

Wishing you a wonderful year of reading in 2023!

Welcome back and have a great reading year!

>21 rabbitprincess: Thanks!

>20 lkernagh: Thanks!

>19 JayneCM: Thanks

I've now chosen my challenge (see begining of thread) and feeling a bit more hopeful for 2023!

Just checked and War and Peace is around 100 pages longer than The Tale of Genji

I'm currently reading a Christmas present and think I might still be reading it by the time the 1st rolls by - An inventory of losses so a toss up as to whether it'll go on the 22 or 23 challenge thread

Wishing you a year of happy reading, and reaching those goals!

Oh - I like this challenge. And I've added another book blog to the list.

Love that challenge!

Hope 2023 is filled with lots of good books!

See my January post above to see what books I got for my birthday

So far I've read:

An Inventory of Losses By Judith Schalansky - Rating: Unfinished

Nice writing but failed to grip me and when I found I was doing anything but read it I DNFd it

2120 by George Wylesol - Rating: Brilliant

Brilliant CYOA GN with an existential AI -really well planned out, great story and tricksy

Ducks by Kate Beaton - Rating: Average

This is a bit of a weird biography - I learned very little about the oil sands, the environmental issues, the ducks, her life or the jobs done there. I did learn a lot about how difficult it is being a woman working in the camps. Trigger warning - contains sexual violence/abuse

A good start even with one book abandoned. Have a good year for reading!

The silent gondoliers Rating - Good

A novella ful of gentle whimsy, a tall tale well-told

Feral Rating - Good
Pretty good apart from the last act - can't really say what put me off without massive spoilers, but it had a trope I'm not fond of and then compunded that with another and when I was disliking that added another. BUT it's a good example of the genre (rage-zombie apocalypse) and it's well-written and page-turnery for the most part...

Devouring Dark - fun supernatural gangster thriller set in London

The more Feral has settled the more I've disliked it...

am dipping into What if? and reading Dark Tales in between longer works but I doubt I'll hit the end of the month with all xmas & birthday presents read - so as well as the February challenge I guess I'll finish the January challenge too :-)

Am now reading The Jaws Log

The jaws log - excellent 'making of' documentary style book about the film Jaws - if you love the film it's worth a read

What If? by Randall Munroe (XKCD) - this has been an entertaining 'dip into' read - not a book to be read through all at once (imho) but more a dip into. A book of essays where people ask absurd What If questions and the author answers with serious science.

So at the end of January, how did I do?

As a reminder, the month's challenge was:

January – End to end temptation

The most recent book on the TBR

As my birthday is in January I shall try and finish all the books I got for Xmas & birthday this month - I have already finished several of my Xmas books)

Stretch Goal – Read the oldest book in Mount TBR it has waited long enough

I read 9 of the 16 books and obviously didn't get to the stretch goal.

So my February challenge is:

February - Short steps

Read 28 short stories - a TBR collection, anthology or even backlog of magazines

Stretch Goal - Read four novellas one for each week of the month. If you have no novellas then read the shortest book in Mount TBR you can find.

and 'luckily' two of the books from my January challenge are short story books with a total of 26 stories which is almost the right number - so I'll be trying to read them ( Dark tales and Illuminations ) a little synchronicity of titles there. I just need to find another short story book - and given the theme of the month the shortest on my TBR is Honeymoon in Hell

the four shortest books on Mount TBR are:

The kids - a book of poetry at 80 pages
The clockwork muse at 98 pages
Magpies Ladder at 104 pages
Viaducts and River Views a book of poetry from my xmas haul at 108 pages

so that coincidentally strikes off another January book :-)

which leaves Terrortome which I am listening to on and off (I only listen to books on bus and car journeys) which I may finish this month and Mycelium running and Beating the story which I'll try and shoehorn into another monthly challenge just so I don't add any books to the TBR...

>37 psutto: It does make a very good dip-into read! Although I treated it like a bag of chips and just devoured the whole thing in far too few sittings :D

I am a big fan of Jaws, so of course I've read The Jaws Log. It's a must for the fan!
Good luck with your February goals!

First Feb read is Wriitng your story's theme
Pretty good guide to theme - assumes an understanding and familiarity with the author's structure and character arcs books - so will read those and return to this

2nd Feb read -The moral premise Mostly useful book about the 'moral premise' (called a variety of things by different people) at the heart of good stories.

Just got Magpie's ladder off the shelf and it turns out it's a short story book - which is perfect to fill up the short story slots, but not a 'shortest book' for the category (I think) so I'm adding The diving bell and the butterfly which has been on the TBR for a long long time - I think every time I pick it up to read I think it'd make me feel sad and put it back on the shelf, but I'll just have to get over that...

The diving bell and the butterfly wasn't as sad as I was expecting - full of sly humour and hope, the saddest bit is knowing he died shortly after the book was released. I may track down the film - it doesn't seem like an obvious choice for an adaptation.

Over sea, under stone - adventurous kid's book from the late 60's where a family on holiday find the holy grail - quite entertaining. I read it as out book club are doing the dark is rising and although it doesn't follow on I wanted to read the first book anyway.

Dark Tales - Pretty good short story collection & The dark side of the moon which was OK

I've started Magpies ladder but this month's reading has slightly been derailed by doing an edit for a publisher, but that's an anthology of 15 stories so I'm going to count that (more details once I'm allowed to share it)

I'm still going to move onto Illuminations after Magpies Ladder

As for March I'm a bit stuck - it's all about series but many years ago I decided I didn't like series and I don't really have any on the TBR nor do I want to buy any. I do have the books of lankhmar (Masterworks version) on the shelf which I may just read for this...

internal strength for tai chi - so I've recently restarted Tai Chi (or Taijiquan) which I did briefly around ten years ago. I need some sort of kick up the pants to do exercise, mainly stretching, as I'm getting creaky so I landed on Tai Chi. I'm reading around the subject now so there'll be a few Tai Chi books that sneak into my reading this year I reckon.

Chen style taijiquan bit of a mixed bag of history, Chinese philsophy, how to and legend - interesting read

Be excellent at anything - read for work in a drive to improve performance, lots of interesting stuff, but unless you're managing the business it's less relevant. It'd be nice to implement some of the ideas at more than a personal level

Memoirs of my writer's block Excellent book about writers block and ghostwriting and a Chinese gaint and dolphins. I knew nothing about the Chapman brothers before reading this and when I looked to see if the author had written anything else I was surprised to see that he was a famous artist

magpie's ladder Pretty good short story book with excellent illustration

The loneliness of the long-distance cartoonist - a so-so collection of short pieces about life as a neurotic graphic novelist - full of artistic angst

Writing for Story

Excellent resurce for writers who are confused about structure - how to structure a story, not a play or screenplay, a story - so applicable to any of the many media stories can be told within.

The Highest House

Pretty good high fantasy - bit Gormenghast derivitive to start with but once it finds its feet it gets good

Went to EasterCon bought some books:

Biopoetics
The Utopia Reader
Spec Fic for newbies
Punk Publishing
The dust of the red rose knight

The dancing plague very weird graphic novel with embroidery

In praise of shadows Essay on aesthetics that turns into a bit of an old man's complaint that things have changed

the nine modern day muses Excellent how to get over your fears writing book that will need a revisit

The best of richard matheson - Pretty good collection of short tales, most on a twist/shock style

I am the Law - Excellent analysis of historical Judge Dredd crossed with the history of policing, very thought-provoking

mid-year reading slump. Been pretty busy last few weeks, am getting certification for the day job and have to do 12+ hours a week extra study on top of the working day. Also have been succesfully freelancing as an editor means not much time for reading for pleasure. However I did manage to finish The pharmacist today - think I'm going to have let it sit a bit before deciding what I think about it though... it was, at least nominally, about revolution though - so fit the month's theme.

Just finished Night falls on Ardnamurchan Which was recommended to me by a fellow writer. It's a strange book - partly meditative on crofting, partly grief at a father's death, partly autobiographical, partly a diary of someone losing their sense of self isolated in a remote part of Britain. Interesting read.

Just finished Gigantic which was a really interesting novel about the search for a Gigantipithicus in Sutton, Surrey

Is it August already? I just finished in time (last night) Red Smoking Mirror which was an odd alternative history of if Moorish Spain had never fallen and it was a Jew who found the Americas and the Moors who sacked Tenochtitlan.

I'm just starting Travels with Herodotus which fulfils both criteria of August's challenge - I've not always been successful on the challenges so far...

September has been a bit of a slump. I'm currently reading The library at mount char for book club and it's a bit of a slog. I'm struggling to read the books that are coming into the house never mind the ones already on the shelves. I'm also sufferring writer's block and I think the two may be linked. One (drastic) solution is to do a "Reading Deprivation" week. Which is an idea from The artist's way which I'm currently doing - it's a solid week where you don't read anything. That was written from a pre-internet age (1992) but advocates a whole week of not reading. That's incredibly tough not least because modern jobs are email driven! Needs some thoughts. I have already deleted my content and account from Twitter (Elon Musk cured me of that addiction!) and deleted Facebook from my phone and I don't have any other social media accounts.

I feel I need a run up to a reading deprivation...

>60 psutto: Wow, a reading deprivation does sound shockingly difficult! Maybe you could still do necessary reading (i.e., work stuff) but not leisure reading (books, internet articles, etc.). Though that would still be a huge challenge!

>60 psutto: A reading deprivation sounds almost impossible to me. Don't we always read? The ads on the street, the backs of cereal boxes, other people's newspaper?

I think it's more to do with unintential reading - although she does say that people on college courses should still skip reading course material for a week. It's just not possible. I've basically failed - although I've managed to do a digital detox and stop reading social media so I'm taking that as a win ;-)

>63 psutto: Cutting down on social media definitely counts as a win. (I wish I had the willpower to do that myself.) I wonder how students would manage not reading course material for a week. That sounds exceedingly difficult!

So I finished The Artist's Way as part of a course. If I hadn't had done the Creative Flow Club course I would not have completed this book - and I am in two minds about it even now. Too 'spiritual' touchy feely and new agey in a 90's "West Coast" sort of way. And yet. There's something to it. Morning Pages - not sure, Artist's Dates yes (and assigning time to be playful) but here I am at the end of the course, 12 weeks, and I am no closer to being unblocked.

Just started The writers crucible - I'm guessing that the answer isn't in a book (:-o) but I'm hardwired to read a book whenever I want to find stuff out...

Xmas bookhaul:

The condition of secrecy
Terry Pratchett a life
The Lone Man
You've got red on you

I should probably do a review of the year since I'm unlikely to finish any more books (I'm about half way through The condition of secrecy but have a busy day tomorrow)

I read 123 books this year - 40 by women, 11 by people of colour
As usual the main nationalities of writers are UK & USA but this year I managed to read authros from Egypt, Nigeria, Vietnam, Argentina and South Korea
I only rated 3 books as Brilliant this year - The others of edenwell, 2120 and I am the law 19 books were DNF
42 books came from the TBR - which is better than I was expecting
43 books came from physical bookshops - again better than I was expecting, Amazon obviously topped the list for the rest
6 hardbacks
55 paperbacks
62 e-books
9 Graphic Novels
5 books of poetry
5 books of short stories
82 nonfiction
22 fiction
Lowest and highest page length (for physical books) = 90 & 492

heh and one last book for the year - Selected poems of Mervyn Peake which is a short book of 1 long poem and lots of short poems