The Content Reader

My Life in Books hosted by Annabelbooks invites us to use the books we have read for 2020 to answer a few prompts. You should not repeat a book title. These exercises are always fun, so let's see how this works out for me.   In high school I was The Prisoner of Heaven (Carlos Ruiz Zafón) People might be surprised (by) The Labyrint of Spirits (Carlos Ruiz Zafón) I will never be The Railwayman's Wife (Ashely Hay) My life in lockdown was like Days Without End (Sebastian Barry) My fantasy job is The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare) At the end of a long day (I look for the) Laterna Magica (Ingmar Bergman) I hate being The Andalucian Friend (Alexander Söderberg) Wish I had A Turning Wind (J.G. Harlond) My family reunions are The Book of Secrets (Tom Harper) At a party you’d find me with Mario and the Magician (Thomas Mann) I’ve never been to Ostende (Volker Weiermann) A happy day includes Vermeer's Little Street (Franz Gruzehout) Motto I live by:  Don't L...

As you see in the image above I have five different choices under this link.  The Classic Club contains the list I am following for the Spins. I think I only managed to read one or two of my choices this year. Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader and The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice saw five posts this year. Less than usual, but probably because I read more Swedish books now that I am back in Sweden. I did non of 6 Degrees of Separation, hosted by Books Are My Favourite And Best , although I really like this meme.  Bookmark Monday hosted by Guiltless Reading  (although I think she mostly posts on Instagram) saw only one entry this year. Typical of the pandemic year when travelling and visiting places was out of the plans.  I keep the same Memes for 2021 but might change some things during the year. 

This is a challenge just in my taste. The Unread Shelf is hosted by Whitney Conard who guides us through how to best tackle the unread books on our shelves. Once you enrol you get a small guide to follow, as you see fit yourself. It helps and encourages you to tackle the challenge in a scientific and orderly way. I am quite confident that it will help me lower the number of unread books. Go to her website to get more information and inspiration in this Hercules task.  There are several ways how to approach the task. You can name 10 top books you really want to finish this year. There is a guide to choose a book for each month of the year, and a bonus guide to further help you choose the right books to read. For me mostly, I am aiming at the oldest books I have on my shelves.  I am looking forward to lowering the number of unread books which amounts to around 200 at the end of 2020. Let's meet again in December 2021 and see how far I have come.

  Liz Dexter at Adventures in reading, running and working from home  is inviting us for a re-read of Anne Tyler's books. I love the books I have read by her, and it was a long time since I read them.  It might be to ambitious for me to read all of her books, but I will try to catch up with the schedule as best as I can. Here are the basic rules. Go to Liz' link above for further information.  How will it all work? My plan is to read one of the books each month by the 10th of the month and review it then, and the other by the 20th and review it then. Then my review will be available for linking and commenting by the middle and end of the month respectively. I will link to my review on this page and I will try to link to anyone’s who does a review, including on Goodreads, and sends me the link. How do I join in? When you’ve read your book, you could do any of these things … Post a review in a comment on my review Write your own review by the 15th or 30th of the month...

  This week I have ventured back to an old classic. Maybe being influenced by the latest challenge I have joined; Back to the Classics . It is George Sand's A Winter in Mallorca. George Sand and her lover Fredrick Chopin visited Mallorca during the winter of 1838/39. They stayed in Palma and in the monastery in the picturesque village of Valldemossa. Still today you can visit the apartment they stayed in, although it is not exactly the same rooms and the same furniture. But it is a beautiful place. Unlike most people who visit Mallorca, George Sand was not over-enthusiastic about the place and the people.  Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader This quote is from the 4th paragraph of Chapter One.  "Without quite the same claims to immortality as Jean-Jacques and in search for something that I could achieve, I thought that I might perhaps become as famous as the two Englishmen in the valley of Chamounix and claim the honour of having discovered Mallorca. " T...

I did say in a recent post I will not enrol in too many challenges. My main aim for 2021 is to be firm on lowering the number of unread books on my shelves. They amount to around 180 as I write this. It would be perfect to reach down to 100 at the end of next year. So, I choose only challenges that will help me in my endeavour. I did not think I have so many classics on my shelves, but checking them I found 18! Well, well, should be enough for this challenge, if I can fit them in. Anyway, I am interested in reading more Classics, so this challenge will be a suitable complement to my list from The Classic Club. For eight years now Karen at Books and Chocolate has been hosting the Back to the Classics Challenge . Here is my preliminary list (might be changed depending on the situation). Scroll down below to find the rules for the challenge. Without further ado, here are the categories for 2021:  1. A 19th-century classic: any book first published from 1800 to 1899 - The Red and the B...

  Another challenge that goes well with my aim to reduce the number of unread books on my shelves. Hosted by Escape With Dollycas Into a Good Book . The rules are simple. Details The Alphabet Soup Challenge means that by December 31, 2021 your bowls must be filled with one book for each letter of the Alphabet. Each Letter Counts As 1 Spoonful This challenge will run from January 1st, 2021 until December 31st, 2021. You can join anytime. You do not have to post a review of the book. Books can come from any genre. You do not need to link up each spoonful. Make a page or a post or a GoodReads shelf where you will keep track of your spoonfuls. I keep track of mine on my Challenge Page. Crossovers to other challenges are allowed and encouraged!  It’s an alphabet challenge!!! The challenge is to read one book that has a title starting with every letter of the alphabet. You can drop the A’s and The’s from the book titles as shown below. The First Main Word Needs To Be The Letter You ...

I said to myself that I will not join any challenges this year. Of course, when the challenges are now published for 2021, it is difficult not to be inspired. I am only following challenges which will go with my overall aim of lowering the number of books I have not yet read on my shelves. This fits perfectly into that challenge, although I am not sure I have authors enough to cover all the letters of the alphabet. Let's see. It is hosted by Dollycas at Escape With Dollycas Into a Good Book  and the rules are simple. Details Start keeping track of your authors and by December 31, 2021 your bowls must be filled by one author for each letter of the Alphabet. Be sure to include the book title too. This challenge will run from January 1st, 2021 until December 31st, 2021. You can join anytime. You do not have to post a review of the book. Books can come from any genre. You do not need to link up each spoonful. Make a page or a post or a GoodReads shelf where you will keep track of your ...

  Week 4: (November 23-27) – Katie@Doing Dewey  is rounding things up with her post " New to My TBR".   As she says, it has been a month full of amazing nonfiction books. Her last question for this year's challenge is: "Which ones have made it onto your TBR?" Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book!  I have been inspired by all of you, especially for books outside my comfort zone. I have added a few books to my wishlist. I mention the books here but can't, unfortunately, not remember at which blogs I read about them. I hope you recognise your own titles. If you do, please leave a comment below.  For week 2 I asked the experts for books set in the Kingdom of Naples at the beginning of the 14th century. I had just read historical fiction The Girl Who Tempted Fortune  by Jane Ann McLachlan, and wanted to read nonfiction about the same time. Emma at Words and Peace  kindly recommended two books which are now on my wishlist....