Read My Review: SciFi

Read My Review, Hosted by A Trillian Books is a chance for book bloggers to share new and old reviews--all related to a theme.

What to do:

*Find one of your reviews that fits this week's theme (you can be as creative as you like when choosing what fits). It can be new or old, good or bad.

*Create a post on your blog explaining your book choice and leaving a link to your review there.

*Leave your link with Mr. Linky at the bottom of her post.

*Visit some of the other reviews and leave a "quality" comment (at least a couple of sentences).

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*Themes stay for a month.

This month's theme is Sci-Fi. And do I have a doozy for you. Harlan Ellison--one of the superstars of classic Science Fiction. And, a collection that fits right in with the Halloween holiday. 'Cuz Ellsion can give you the creeps. Only his frightful stories don't deal with ghosts and goblins. He sticks with the the spookiness that is human nature and gives it a nice little twist. Click here to check out his short story collection Shatterday.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a bookish meme hosted by Book Journey. It's where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It's a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list. So hop on over via the link above and join in...and leave a comment here so I can check out what you are reading

Books Read (click on titles for review):
To Join the Lost by Seth Steinzor (review coming Nov. 9th in a blog tour)
Let's All Kill Constance by Ray Bradbury
Hangman's Holiday by Dorothy L Sayers

Currently Reading:
Hide & Seek by Wilkie Collins: At the centre of the story, a secret waits to be revealed. Why should the apparently respectable painter Valentine Blyth refuse to account for the presence in his household of the beautiful girl known as Madonna? It is not until his young friend Zack Thorpe, in rebellion against his repressive father, gets into bad company and meets a mystery stranger that the secret of Madonna can be unravelled. [Still making my way through this one....I don't know if I'm ever going to make it.]

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L Sayers: When ad man Victor Dean falls down the stairs in the offices of Pym's Publicity, a respectable London advertising agency, it looks like an accident. Then Lord Peter Wimsey is called in, and he soon discovers there's more to copywriting than meets the eye. A bit of cocaine, a hint of blackmail, and some wanton women can be read between the lines. And then there is the brutal succession of murders -- each one a fixed fee for advertising a deadly secret.

Books that spark my interest:
Lucky Jim by Kinglsey Amis (for several challenges)
Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford (for several challenges)
Blood Atonement by Dan Waddell (for fun)

Mount TBR Challenge Sign Up

Here I am signing up for my very own Mount TBR Reading Challenge (click link for rules and sign-up page). I'm such a bookaholic that I'm going straight for Mt. Everest. I'm going to see if I can knock out 100 or more of my very own books that just happen to be in gigantic piles of TBR books stacked up around my backroom. I don't have a TBR shelf. Oh, no. I have "Mount TBR"...possibly a whole mountain range.

Mt. Everest: Read 100+ books from your TBR pile/s

In the days between now and January 1, 2012 (official start of the challenge), I will be putting together some planned reading and will list those choices below. I also plan to leave some spaces empty so that if certain books in the TBR stacks just happen to call my name at a particular time I can use them for the challenge as well. Come on and join me in the mountain climbing madness!

 1. From Sawdust to Stardust: The Biography of DeForest Kelley, Star Trek's Dr. McCoy by Terry Lee Rioux (3/14/12)
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (7/12/12)
3. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (6/30/12)
4. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen (8/13/12)
5. The Four Million & Other Stories by O. Henry (7/21/12)
6. My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny (1/4/12)
7. Prayers to Broken Stones by Dan Simmons (1/14/12)
8. So Many Steps to Death by Agatha Christie (5/25/12)
9. Gideon's Month by J. J. Marric (8/8/12)
10. Murder & Magic by Randall Garrett (1/28/12)
11. Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly (2/18/12)
12. The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes (9/16/12)
13. The Fleet Street Murders by Charles Finch (9/1/12)
14. Crime on Her Mind: 15 Stories of Female Sleuths from the Victorian Era to the Forties by Michelle B. Slung, ed. (8/18/12)
15. The Edgar Winners: 33rd Annual Anthology of the Mystery Writers of America by Bill Pronzini, ed. (9/5/12)
16. The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin (9/7/12)
17. A Finer End by Deborah Crombie (4/14/12)
18. The Morning After Death by Nicholas Blake (5/14/12)
19. The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg (1/16/12)
20. The Jesus Incident by Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom (2/29/12) 
21. Bland Beginnings by Julian Symons (4/12/12)
22. Death's Pale Horse by James Sherburne (8/27/12) 
23. Future on Ice by Orson Scott Card, ed. (2/15/12)
24. The Fire Engine that Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (4/9/12)
25. The Devil to Pay by Ellery Queen (5/6/12)
26. Death of a God by S. T. Haymon (5/1/12)
27. Such Friends Are Dangerous by Walter Tyrer (5/19/12)
28. A Stranger in My Grave by Margaret Millar (9/10/12)
29. Silver & Guilt by Cynthia Smith (4/9/12)
30. The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (8/25/12)
31. Murder With a Past by Ellery Queen (4/27/12) 
32. Future Crime by Cynthia Mason & Charles Ardai, eds. (1/23/12)
33. O' Artful Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor (6/20/12)
34. Mysterious Incidents at Lone Rock by Rajendra Pillai (8/6/12)
35. The Last Escape by E. C. R. Lorac (5/14/12)36. The Nine Wrong Answers by John Dickson Carr (7/7/12)
37. DeKok & Murder on the Menu by A. C, Baantjer (7/13/12)
38. The Problem of the Green Capsule by John Dickson Carr (1/7/12)
39. The Black Seven by Carol Kendall (1/29/12)
40. The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells (2/3/12)
41. The Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/7/12)
42. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (2/14/12)
43. The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/27/12)
44. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (2/29/12)
45. The Greenwell Mystery by E. C. R. Lorac (3/3/12)
46. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (3/6/12)
47. Hare Sitting Up by Michael Innes (3/9/12)
48/49/50. Five Passengers from Lisbon/Wake for a Lady/The Murder in the Stork Club by Mignon G. Eberhart/H. W. Roden/Vera Casapary (3.11.12 /3.12.12/3.10.12)
51. The Strange Murders at Greystones by Elsie N. Wright (3/16/12)
52. The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux (3/19/12)
53. The Rose Window & Other Verse from New Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke (3/22/12)
54. Full Moon by P. G. Wodehouse (3/23/12)
55. The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Huges (3/24/12)
56. The Case of the Grinning Gorilla by Erle Stanley Gardner (3/30/12)
57. A Sprig of Sea Lavender by J. R. L. Anderson (3/31/12)
58. The Golden Scorpion by Sax Rohmer (4/2/12)
59. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (4/4/12)
60. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B Hanna (4/8/12)
61. Chancellorsville & Gettysburg by General Abner Doubleday (4/15/12)
62. The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart (5/15/12)
63. A First Class Murder by Elliott Roosevelt (5/16/12)
64. A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong (5/17/12)
65. Garden of Malice by Susan Kenney (5/21/12)
66. New Graves at Great Norne by Henry Wade (5/31/12)
67. Something to Kill For by Susan Holtzer (6/1/12)
68. The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer (6/12/12)
69. The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholson (6/17/12)
70. And Four to Go by Rex Stout (7/1/12)
71. The 39 Steps by John Buchan (7/3/12)
72. File No. 113 by Emile Gaboriau (7/11/12)
73. Compartment K by Helen Reilly (7/15/12)
74. The Fifth Man by Manning Coles (7/22/12)
75. Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis (7/31/12)
76. The Key by Patricia Wentworth (8/5/12)
77. Mrs. Jeffries Stands Corrected by Emily Brightwell (8/19/12)
78. Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett (1/19/12)
79. History of the Millennium (So Far) by Dave Barry (9/30/12)
80. Murder at the MLA by D. J. H. Jones (10/3/12)
81. Sherlock Holmes & the Treasure Train by Frank Thomas (10/6/12)
82. The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (10/21/12)
83. Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas (10/27/12)
84. The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime by Michael Sims, ed (11/5/12)
85. The Case of the Blind Barber by John Dickson Carr (9/22/12)
86. Cover Up by Anthony Oliver (12/6/12)
87. Slowly, Slowly in the Wind by Patricia Highsmith (11/30/12)
88. Star Trek & Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant by Jason T Eberl & Kevin S Decker, eds (12/1/12)
89. Murder at the Library of Congress by Margaret Truman (9/24/12)
90. 11/22/63 by Stephen King (10/8/12)
91. The Bone Is Pointed by Arthur W. Upfield (11/16/12)
92. The School of Night by Louis Bayard (11/12/12)
93. A Sleeping Life by Ruth Rendell (10/8/12)
94. Dancing with Death by Joan Coggin (12/5/12)
95. Murder for Christmas by Agatha Christie (12/8/12)
96. She Woke to Darkness by Brett Halliday (10/29/12)
97. The Confession & Sight Unseen by Mary Roberts Rinehart (10/10/12)
98. A Question of Time by Helen McCloy (10/15/12)
99. Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart (10/14/12)
100. Not in the Flesh by Ruth Rendell (11/10/12)
101. The Adventure of the Ectoplasmic Man by Daniel Stashower (10/16/12)
102. Death of an Old Girl by Elizabeth Lemarchand (10/21/12) 
103. The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas (12/15/12)
104. Plum Pudding Murder by Joanne Fluke (12/18/12)
  

150 Plus Reading Challenge 2012

During 2011 Amy at My Overstuffed Bookshelf sponsored the 100+ Reading Challenge. Coming up in the new year, she is upping the ante and challenging herself--and us--to read 150+ books. I'm on target to read over 200 books by the end of 2011, so I think I can handle 150+ for 2012. We'll see. For full details on how to sign up and all the rules, click on the link above...and jump on in. The water's fine!


My List:

1. Murder Has Its Points by Richard & Frances Lockridge (1/2/12) [221 pages]
2. My Name Is Legion by Roger Zelazny (1/4/12) [213 pages]
3. The Problem of the Green Capsule by John Dickson Carr (1/7/12) [168 pages]
4. The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells (1/9/11) [220 pages]
5. Prayers to Broken Stones by Dan Simmons (1/14/12) [403 pages]
6. The Masks of Time by Robert Silverberg (1/16/12) [252 pages]
7. Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett (1/19/12) [400 pages]
8. Future Crime: Anthology of the Shape of Crime to Come by Cynthia Manson & Charles Ardai (eds) (1/23/12) [275 pages]
9. Proust & The Squid: The Story & Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf (1/28/12) [308 pages]
10. Murder & Magic by Randall Garrett (1/28/12) [266 pages]
11. The Black Seven by Carol Kendall (1/29/12) [275 pages]
12. The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells (2/3/12) [284 pages]
13. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2/5/12) [174 pages]
14. The Red Lamp by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/7/12) [256 pages]
15. Imagined London: A Tour of the World's Greatest Fictional City by Anna Quindlen (2/10/12) [192 pages]
16. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne (2/14/12) [270 pages]
17. Future on Ice by Orson Scott Card, ed (2/15/12) [432 pages]
18. Nothing Can Rescue Me by Elizabeth Daly (2/18/12) [181 pages]
19. A Spark of Death by Bernadette Pajer (2/19/12) [208 pages] 
20. Satan's Circus: Murder, Vice, Police Corruption, & New York's Trial of the Century by Mike Dash (2/25/12) [449 pages]
21. The Yellow Room by Mary Roberts Rinehart (2/27/12) [256 pages]
22. The Jesus Incident by Frank Herbert & Bill Ransom (2/29/12) [432 pages]
23. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (2/29/12) [394 pages]
24. The Greenwell Mystery by E. C. R. Lorac (3/3/12) [256 pages]
25. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (3/3/12) [181 pages]
26. Champagne for One by Rex Stout (3/5/12) [153 pages]

27. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (3/6/12) [128 pages]

28. Dead as a Dinosaur by Frances & Richard Lockridge (3/8/12) [185 pages]
29. Hare Sitting Up by Michael Innes (3/9/12) [215 pages]
30. The Murder in the Stork Club by Vera Caspary (3/10/12) [127 pages]
31. Five Passengers from Lisbon by Mignon G Eberhart (3/11/12) [168 pages]32. Wake for a Lady by H. W. Roden (3/12/12) [164 pages]
33. The Doctor Dines in Prague by Robin Hathaway (3/12/12) [198 pages]
34. From Sawdust to Stardust: The Biography of DeForest Kelley, Star Trek's Dr. McCoy by Terry Lee Rioux (3/14/12) [362 pages]
35. Strange Murders at Greystones by Elsie N. Wright (3/16/12) [284 pages]
36. The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Onon no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan trans by Jane Hirshfield w/Mariko Aratani (3/17/12) [212 pages]
37. The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux (3/19/12) [175 pages]
38. Nantucket Soap Opera by S. F. X. Dean (3/20/12) [259 pages]
39. The Curious Cape Cod Skull by Marie Lee (3/21/12) [213 pages]
40. The Clue in the Old Album by Carolyn Keene (3/22/12) [192 pages]
41. The Rose Window & Other Verse from New Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke (3/22/12) [149 pages]
42. Full Moon by P. G. Wodehouse (3/23/12) [215 pages]
43. The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes (3/24/12) [181 pages]
44. A Good Death by Elizabeth Ironside (3/28/12) [340 pages]
45. The Case of the Grinning Gorilla by Erle Stanley Gardner (3/30/12) [274 pages]
46. A Sprig of Sea Lavender by J. R. L. Anderson (3/31/12) [218 pages]
47. The Golden Scorpion by Sax Rohmer (4/2/12) [308 pages]
48. Swan Song by Edmund Crispin (4/3/12) [190 pages]
49. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (4/4/12) [145 pages]
50. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore (4/6/12) [192 pages]
51. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (4/6/12) [217 pages]
52. Star Trek Vol 1 by Mike Johnson (4/5/12) [104 pages]
53. Venetia by Georgette Heyer (4/7/12) [355 pages]
54. Morgue Drawer Four by Jutta Profijt (4/7/12) [231 pages]
55. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Whitechapel Horrors by Edward B Hanna (4/8/12) [471 pages]
56. Silver & Guilt by Cynthia Smith (4/9/12) [245 pages]
57. The Fire Engine That Disappeared by Maj Sjöwall, Per Wahlöö (4/9/12) [221 pages]
58. Titanic 2012 by Bill Walker (4/10/12) [286 pages]
59. Bland Beginning by Julian Symons (4/12/12) [238 pages]
60. A Finer End by Deborah Crombie (4/14/12) [336 pages]
61. The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart (4/14/12) [224 pages]
62. The Gemini Man by Susan Kelly (4/15/12) 221 pages]
63. Chancellorsville & Gettysburg by General Abner Doubleday (4/15/12) [243 pages]
64. The War of the Worlds Murder by Max Allan Collins (4/19/12) [378 pages]
65. Dracula by Bram Stoker (4/25/12) [512 pages]
66. Murder With a Past by Ellery Queen (4/27/12) [154 pages]
67. Death of a God by S. T. Haymon (5/1/12) [262 pages]
68. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (5/4/12) [240 pages]
69. The Devil to Pay by Ellery Queen (5/6/12) [200 pages]
70. The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories by Michael Sims (ed) (5/12/12) [576 pages]
71. The Morning After Death by Nicholas Blake (5/14/12) [212 pages]
72. The Last Escape by E. C. R. Lorac (5/14/12) [128 pages]
73. The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart (5/15/12) [192 pages]
74. A First Class Murder by Elliott Roosevelt (5/16/12) [218 pages]
75. A Dram of Poison by Charlotte Armstrong (5/17/12) [160 pages]
76. Such Friends Are Dangerous by Walter Tyrer (5/19/12) [224 pages]
77. Garden of Malice by Susan Kenney (5/21/12) [279 pages]
78. The Cat Who Saw Red by Lilian Jackson Braun (5/22/12) [249 pages]
79. The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough (5/23/12) [258 pages]
80. The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman (5/24/12) [253 pages]
81. So Many Steps to Death by Agatha Christie (5/25/12) [168 pages]
82. The Strange World of Mr. Mum by Irving W. Phillips (5/27/12) [125 pages]
83. King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard (5/29/12) [306 pages]
84. New Graves at Great Norne by Henry Wade (5/31/12) [303 pages]
85. Something to Kill For by Susan Holtzer (6/1/12) [230 pages]
86. A Slip of the Tong by Charles Goodrum (6/3/12) [180 pages]
87. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (6/3/12) [84 pages]
88. Standford White: Letters to His Family by Claire Nicholas White, ed (6/5/12) [152 pages]
89. Pearls Before Swine by Margery Allingham (6/8/12) [240 pages]
90. A Dark Time by Dennis Bradford (6/9/12) [292 pages]
91. The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer (6/12/12) [194 pages]
92. Timeless by Gail Carriger (6/16/12) [386 pages]
93. Ahmed & the Oblivion Machines by Ray Bradbury (6/16/13) [64 pages]
94. The House of a Thousand Candles by Meredith Nicholas (6/17/12) [382 pages]
95. O' Artful Death by Sarah Stewart Taylor (6/20/12) [278 pages]
96. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare (6/30/12) [214 pages]
97. And Four to Go  by Rex Stout (7/1/12) [222 pages]
98. The 39 Steps by John Buchan (7/3/12) [120 pages]
99. Fatal Induction by Bernadette Pajer (7/4/12) [225 pages]
100. The Nine Wrong Answers by John Dickson Carr (7/7/12) [186 pages]

101. File No. 113 by Emile Gaboriau (7/11/12) [246 pages]
102. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (7/12/12) [180 pages]
103. DeKok & Murder on the Menu by A. C. Baantjer (7/13/12) [180 pages]
104. Compartment K by Helen Reilly (7/15/12) [192 pages]
105. North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell (7/18/12) [451 pages]
106. The Four Million & Other Stories by O. Henry (7/21/12) [189 pages]
107. The Fifth Man by Manning Coles (7/22/12) [190 pages]
108. Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien (7/24/12) [249 pages]
109. The Lieutenant's Whistle by Fred Stemme (7/26/12) [371 pages]
110. Murder at the Portland Variety by M. J. Zellnik (7/29/12) [317 pages]
111. Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis (7/31/12) [238 pages]
112. The Key by Patricia Wentworth (8/5/12) [236 pages]
113. Mysterious Incidents at Lone Rock by Rajendra Pillai (8/6/12) [248 pages]
114. Gideon's Month by J. J. Marric (8/8/12) [158 pages]
115. The Anatomy of Death by Felicity Young (8/10/12) [307 pages]
116. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen (8/13/12) [462 pages]
117. Crime on Her Mind: Fifteen Stories of Female Sleuths from the Victorian Era to the Forties by Michele B. Slung, ed (8/18/12) [380 pages]
118. Mrs. Jeffries Stands Corrected by Emily Brightwell (8/19/12) [215 pages]
119. The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (8/25/12) [248 pages]
120. Death's Pale Horse by James Sherburne (8/27/12) [199 pages]
121. The Fleet Street Murders by Charles Finch (9/1/12) [306 pages]
122. The Edgar Winners: 33rd Annual Anthology of the Mystery Writers of America by Bill Pronzini, ed (9/5/12) [420 pages]
123. The Necropolis Railway by Andrew Martin (9/7/12) [229 pages]
124. A Stranger in My Grave by Margaret Millar (9/10/12) [289 pages]
125. Vincent Price: The Art of Fear by Denis Meikle (9/13/12) [240 pages]
126. The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes (9/16/12) [353 pages]
127. The White Forest by Adam McOmber (9/18/12) [303 pages]
128. The Case of the Blind Barber by John Dickson Carr (9/22/12) [253 pages]
129. Murder at the Library of Congress by Margaret Truman (9/24/12) [269 pages]
130. History of the Millennium (So Far) by Dave Barry (9/30/12) [208 pages]
131. The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor (9/30/12) [412 pages]
132. Murder at the MLA by D J H Jones (10/3/12) [217 pages]
133. Sherlock Holmes & the Treasure Train by Frank Thomas (10/6/12) [241 pages]
134. 11/22/63 by Stephen King (10/8/12) [849 pages]
135. A Sleeping Life by Ruth Rendell (10/8/12) [180 pages]
136. The Confession & Sight Unseen by Mary Roberts Rinehart (10/10/12) [253 pages]
137. Lake of Sorrows by Erin Hart (10/14/12) [328 pages]
138. A Question of Time by Helen McCloy (10/15/12) [220 pages]
139. The Adventure of the Ectoplasmic Man by Daniel Stashower (10/16/12) [203 pages]
140. The Final Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Peter Haining, ed (10/21/12) [208 pages]
141. Murder Most Puzzling by Lillian S. Robinson (10/23/12) [312 pages]
142. The Foods of North Italy by Luigi Veronelle (10/27/12) [120 pages]
143. Some Danger Involved by Will Thomas (10/27/12) [290 pages]
144. She Woke to Darkness by Brett Halliday (10/29/12) [191 pages]
145. The Penguin Book of Victorian Women in Crime by Michael Sims, ed (11/5/12) [321 pages]
146. Not in the Flesh by Ruth Rendell (11/10/12) [303 pages]
147. The School of Night by Louis Bayard (11/12/12) [338 pages]
148. The Bone Is Pointed by Arthur W. Upfield (11/16/12) [288 pages]
149. Death of an Old Girl by Elizabeth Lemarchad (11/21/12) [218 pages]
150. Death in the Memorial Garden by Katie Deviny (11/23/12) [141 pages]
151. Catch as Catch Can by Frances & Richard Lockridge (11/26/12) [186 pages]

Challenge Complete! 11/26/12  Still reading! 

152. Slowly, Slowly in the Wind by Patricia Highsmith (11/30/12) [178 pages]
153. Star Trek & Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant by Jason T Eberl & Kevin S Decker, eds (12/1/12) [287 pages]
154. India Black & the Rajah's Ruby by Carol K. Carr (12/4/12) [e-copy, about 50 pages]
155. Dancing with Death by Joan Coggin (12/5/12) [183 pages]
156. Cover-Up by Anthony Oliver (12/6/12) [218 pages] 
157. Murder for Christmas by Agatha Christie (12/8/12) [272 pages] 
158. The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargas (12/15/12) [292 pages] 
159. Plum Pudding Murder by Joanne Fluke (12/18/12) [303 pages]
160. The Cat Who Came for Christmas by Cleveland Amory (12/21/12) [240 pages] 
161. Nine Man's Murder by Eric Keith (12/22/1) [240 pages] 
162. The Joy of a Peanuts Chirstmas: 50 Years of Holiday Comics! by Chrales M. Schulz (12/23/12) [119 pages]
163. The Female Detective by Andrew Forrester (12/27/12) [316 pages]
164. Murder on the Rue Dumas by M. L. Longworth (12/29/12) [296 pages]
165. Accent on Murder by Frances & Richard Lockridge (12/31/12) [223 pages]

Mount TBR Reading Challenge

If you are a bookaholic like me, then you can't let a bookstore (used or new, it doesn't matter) go by without stopping in ("just to look") and walking out with at least something--if not an armload. I wait all year for the Red Cross Book Sale in October so I can cart them out by the bagful. And, well, that means that I wind up with gigantic piles of TBR books stacked up around my backroom. I don't have a TBR shelf. Oh, no. I have "Mount TBR"...possibly a whole mountain range.

With that in mind, and having read Susan Hill's Howards End Is on the Landing (where she spent a year just reading from her own shelves, I've decided to create my own TBR reading challenge and plan to concentrate on reading primarily from my own books this year. And you're invited to join me in knocking out some of those books that have been waiting in the wings for weeks....months...even years.

Challenge Levels

Pike's Peak: Read 12 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Vancouver: Read 25 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Ararat: Read 40 books from your TBR piles/s
Mt. Kilimanjaro: Read 50 books from your TBR pile/s
El Toro: Read 75 books from your TBR pile/s
Mt. Everest: Read 100+ books from your TBR pile/s

And the rules:
*Once you choose your challenge level, you are locked in for at least that many books. If you find that you're on a mountain-climbing roll and want to tackle a taller mountain, then you are certainly welcome to upgrade.

*Challenge runs from January 1 to December 31, 2012.

*You may sign up anytime from now until November 30th, 2012.

*Books must be owned by you prior to January 1, 2012. No ARCs (none), no library books. No rereads. [To clarify--based on a question raised--the intention is to reduce the stack of books that you have bought for yourself or received as presents {birthday, Christmas, "just because," etc.}. Audiobooks may count if they are yours and they are one of your primary sources of backlogged books.]

*Books may be used to count for other challenges as well.

*Feel free to submit your list in advance (as incentive to really get those books taken care of) or to tally them as you climb.

*A blog and reviews are not necessary to participate. If you have a blog, then please post a challenge sign up and link THAT post (not your home page) into the linky below. Non-bloggers, please leave a comment declaring your challenge level--OR, if you are a member of Goodreads, I have just put together a group for the challenge there. Feel free to sign up HERE.

*A progress site for reviews will go up in January and I will post the link in my sidebar for easy access.

UPDATE: I had NO idea that there would be so many people out there with TBR mountains to tackle (and what mountains!). There is no possible way I could keep up with the reviews for almost 200 of you. Not that I'm upset with the number of challengers. Wow! I love it. But--the overwhelming support for this challenge has made me rethink the progress thing. SO, instead of a review posting, I plan on doing quarterly check-ins. Keep your eyes peeled in March, June and September for the Check-Point posts. Rumor has there may be Progress Prizes.

***Addendum (2/20/12): From a question...You may count any "currently reading" book that you began pre-January 1, provided that you had 50% or more of the book left to finish in 2012. I will trust you all on that.




Oh and in case you're wondering how I decided on the mountains....I just went with those I recognized and built up to Mt. Everest. My apologies if I missed using your favorite mountain.