2017 Reading Challenge - End of May Update

I tried.  I really tried to get through 4 3 2 1 - but I couldn't.  An interesting concept, it tells the life of the same man if that life took 4 different paths.  I don't know if I was/am overly brain-tired, or if it is the nature of the book, but I couldn't keep the different story threads straight and therefore spent most of my time attempting to figure out what was going on 95% of the time.  It also is a LONG book - over 800 pages. After struggling through 25% of it, and renewing it from the library to try to plod on, I gave up.  Maybe I'll try it again some time when I'm not so busy.  But maybe not. 

So I'm behind on things, having devoted 3 weeks to a book I didn't finish.  Last week, after I ditched that read, I picked up A Book of Bees by Sue Hubbell on a whim (see week #37 - a book you chose randomly).  While it's listed as a book on "how to keep bees", it's not except at the highest level.  It's more about why the author chose to keep bees as a living, and the cycle of her year as a beekeeper.  It does have some very interesting tidbits about beekeeping, which appealed to the factoid geek in me, but it's also a lovely little book with some food for thought about the world around us and our relationship to it.  I enjoyed this one very much and it was exactly what I needed to get my reading mojo back. 

This weekend, I'll be starting The Moon in the Palace for week 1.  I've had this on my to-read list for a while, but my library just got it in, so I snapped it up to read over the long weekend.


The 2017 List
1. A book from the Goodreads Choice Awards 2016
2. A book with at least 2 perspectives (multiple points of view): Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce.
3. A book you meant to read in 2016
4. A title that doesn't contain the letter "E":  
5. A historical fiction
6. A book being released as a movie in 2017:  Olive Kitteredge by Elizabeth Strout. 
7. A book with an animal on the cover or in the title: The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht.
8. A book written by a person of color
9. A book in the middle of your To Be Read list:
10. A dual-timeline novel: The Girl Who Came Home by Hazel Gaynor.
11. A category from another challenge: Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier.
12. A book based on a myth:  Summerlong by Peter Beagle.
13. A book recommended by one of your favorite authors
14. A book with a strong female character: The Ornatrix by Kate Howard.
15. A book written or set in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland)
16. A mystery
17. A book with illustrations:  Prairie Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
18. A really long book (600+ pages)
19. A New York Times best-seller
20. A book that you've owned for a while but haven't gotten around to reading
21. A book that is a continuation of a book you've already read
22. A book by an author you haven't read before:  The Secrets of Wishtide, by Kate Saunders.
23. A book from the BBC "The Big Read" list (link)
24. A book written by at least two authors
25. A book about a famous historical figure
26. An adventure book
27. A book by one of your favorite authors
28. A non-fiction
29. A book published outside the 4 major publishing houses (Simon & Schuster; HarperCollins; Penguin Random House; Hachette Livre) - check all the editions
30. A book from Goodreads Top 100 YA Books (link)
31. A book from a sub-genre of your favorite genre
32. A book with a long title (5+ words, excluding subtitle):  I Shall Be Near to You by Erin McCabe.
33. A magical realism novel: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.
34. A book set in or by an author from the Southern Hemisphere
35. A book where one of the main characters is royalty
36. A Hugo Award winner or nominee (link)
37. A book you choose randomly: A Book of Bees by Sue Hubbell.
38. A novel inspired by a work of classic literature
39. An epistolary fiction
40. A book published in 2017
41. A book with an unreliable narrator: His Bloody Project by Graeme McRae Burnet.
42. A best book of the 21st century (so far)
43. A book with a chilling atmosphere (scary, unsettling, cold):  Black Rabbit Hall by Eve Chase.
44. A recommendation from "What Should I Read Next" (link)
45. A book with a one-word title: Uprooted by Naomi Novik.
46. A time travel novel:  Valley of the Moon by Melanie Gideon.
47. A past suggestion that didn't win (link)
48. A banned book
49. A book from someone else's bookshelf
50. A Penguin Modern Classic - any edition
51. A collection (e.g. essays, short stories, poetry, plays) : Beyond the Woods; Fairy Tales Retold by Paula Guran.
52. A book set in a fictional location