Stacy's 2020 TBR Challenge

Primary List:

1. Hard Times by Charles Dickens - December
2. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood - January
3. Shirley by Charlotte Bronte
4. The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery - July
5. The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne - November
6. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
7. West with the Night by Beryl Markham - February
8. Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell - July
9. Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson - July
10. Miss Chopsticks by Xinran - March
11. The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan
12. Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo

Alternative List:

1. Live by Night by Dennis Lehane - May
2. Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino
3. Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel - May
4. Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
5. Seeing by Jose Saramago
6. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson - February
7. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
8. Carry Me Home by Sandra Kring - June
9. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
10. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx - August
11. Tomorrow in the Battle Think of Me by Javier Marias
12. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

Read: 13
Remaining: 11

This year I'm going for two Dickens books, mainly because I didn't actually read Hard Times in 2019 like I had planned. This year I also made a conscious choice to not include mysteries on my list as that would just be too easy. I have all these other books piled up that I really would like to read, so I'm hoping that this will be the push that I need.

I'm also taking the opportunity to indulge my love of sea otters with two books on the list about my favorite animal!

Sea otters are pretty awesome :) Great list! I'm really looking forward to your review of Shirley. That's a Bronte book I haven't read and am curious about.

Ill have to look closer later but I see lots of good titles here!

I'm still here!

Got off to a bad start as my first book ended up being a DNF. I just couldn't get through Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I read a couple hundred pages and nothing was happening. It started off okay but it lost me during all the flashbacks. Atwood is one of the authors who I can never find consistency as to whether I enjoy her books. This one was definitely at the bottom of the list for me.

Fortunately, book two was much better.

2. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson (4 stars)

Received this book as a Christmas gift in 2016 when the book was published and for some reason I kept putting off reading it. I think because I had heard that some people were disappointed in it compared to her first book. I am now kicking myself for waiting as I completely enjoyed reading this book. It was the sort of book where I'd pick it up to read just a couple of chapters and then find it hard to put down. The title is a bit misleading as the war starts about a third of the way through the book. The book opens with Hugh contemplating his future as a doctor, Beatrice is starting a new life in East Sussex as a Latin teacher at the local school, Daniel is flitting aimlessly about writing poetry and Agatha is doing her best to organize everyone's affairs. All the while the threat of war is looming over them. The story unfolds and we see how the war impacts them and how the smallest words or decisions can have huge repercussions.

Now I'm on to West With the Night by Beryl Markham and possibly Everybody's Fool by Richard Russo. Pretty sure I'll be getting to Miss Chopsticks by Xinran and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers in March. That's the current plan anyway.

>5 LittleTaiko: A DNF at the beginning of the year stinks. At least you quit when you realized it wasn't working for you rather than trudging through.

I'm a stubborn trudge-through kind of person, for better or worse. I didn't find Oryx and Crake that bad, just kind of grim, but I wasn't interested enough to read the sequels.

3. West by Night by Beryl Markham (3 stars)

If I were giving stars for how interesting a persons life is, this would get an easy five. Beryl grew up in Kenya with a menagerie of animals around her, she learned to hunt, break horses, and along the way became a Thoroughbred horse trainer and a pilot. Oh yeah, she's the first person to fly from England to America. She has a delightful way of telling a story too though I found the book to be a bit disjointed and I had a hard time picking the book up after setting it down.

>9 LittleTaiko:, I like these stories of women who should not be so overlooked by history. More of these are coming to light now.

4. Miss Chopsticks by Xinran (3 stars)

According to this book girls in China are referred to as chopsticks and boys are roof beams with the implication that girls are fragile and to be discarded while boys are what hold homes together. Xinran took three separate stories from women she met and weaved them together into a novel featuring three of six sisters - Three, Five, and Six who are able to move from the country to the city and explore a whole new way of living.

I don't know if it's a problem of the translation or the story itself, but sometimes it felt more like a lecture on Chinese history and politics than a novel. People were dropping long winded factual explanations in their conversations that just didn't sound natural.

You do root for all three girls to succeed though and each of their personalities showed through.

I'm very slowly working my way through The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. I'll also be working on Soul of an Octopus and Hard Times soon.

>11 LittleTaiko: So it's a work of non-fiction or the author just added those things along with a fictional story?

>12 LittleTaiko: Soul of an Octopus is in my wish list. I hope it's good :)

It's technically a work of fiction but she based the three sisters on people she actually met during her years of being a journalist. She just took the stories and decided to make the three women in the book sisters. Apparently most of the places in the book were real too. At the end she gives you a brief synopsis of what happened in real life to each of the women.

Time to catch up on what I've been reading from the list.

5. Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel (2 stars)

Her debut novel just did not work for me. The book opens with Lilia leaving her current boyfriend. As we soon learn, this is not something uncommon in her life as she has spent her whole life leaving people. The book then alternates between his reaction to her leaving, her back story, and a detective who has been looking for her. The problem I had was that there wasn't anything terribly surprising in the story and non of the characters were particularly likable. It was a short book that felt long.

6. Live By Night by Dennis Lehane (3 stars)

This is the second in Coughlin trilogy. This time around it focuses on Joe, the youngest of the Coughlin brothers. Unfortunately he's not nearly as interesting as his older brother from the first novel. This is definitely more of a mobster book too then the first one complete with all the requisite violence. Joe tries to walk the very fine line between being an honorable gangster and the necessary tasks that are required to succeed in his profession. I'm not a huge fan of mob books but this was fairly entertaining.

7. Carry Me Home by Sandra Kring (4 stars)

This delightful novel touched the heart strings even if it started a bit slow. Once I made it past the first chapter I was hooked on the story of Earl "Earwig" Gunderman, his family, town, and his unique way of looking at life. It examines friendship, family secrets, and the impact of war. While it all sounds so serious, Earwig's spirit and big heart lighten the mood.

Glad each was better than the last, may the trend continue!

8. Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson (2 stars)

I really wanted to like this book more since I adore otters, however it quickly became a repetitive story of otters eating, fighting, playing, fending off predators. This repeated over and over again. I finally skimmed the last third of the book.

>18 Cecrow: - No such luck on the trend continuing upwards. :) Though maybe that means my next book will be a three or a four.

Next up will be Soul of an Octopus, I, Claudius, or Ring of Bright Water.

9. Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell (5 stars)

I loved this book so much! It was beautifully written, captured the author's love of nature, and most importantly featured a couple of amazing otters.

10. The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery (4 stars)

Montgomery has written a fascinating book that explores the life of octopuses and other marine animals. The focus is primarily on four octopuses who reside at the Boston Aquarium and the devoted staff and volunteers who love them. I never really appreciated how interesting the octopus is and have a much deeper appreciate for how complex they are.

So apparently I love books about animals since the last two were some of my favorites from the year. Sadly, no other animal books on my challenge list. :)

I have started The Shipping News - so far so good after a few chapters.

>22 LittleTaiko:, I was going to say, do otters and octopus have something to do with your line of work? ;)

>22 LittleTaiko: - No, I'm actually an accountant at a regional theater which has absolutely nothing to do with animals. It does make me wish I had considered other career options when I was younger and realized all the possibilities with animal science.

I've purchased a few other animal related books now - maybe they'll end up on a future list.

I just realized that I completely forgot to mark one of the books off my list. I read it in August but somehow missed actually posting.

11. The Shipping News by Annie Proulx (4 stars)

I like an author who is sparing with words so I was inclined to enjoy this book based solely on that fact. Quolye is a sad-sack who is desperately in love with his horrible wife and bewildered by his two young daughters. When his wife meets an untimely demise he packs up and moves back to his family home in Newfoundland to try and find some kind of a life. The small town is full of oddball characters and there is a subtle humor flowing through the book that I appreciated.

One more and I'll at least have hit the official goal for the year though I hope to finish more. Who knows, maybe some of the leftovers will end up on next year's list?

>26 LittleTaiko: That's what I do. I'm woefully behind this year. Just keep reading other things.

12. The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne (1 star)

Just not for me - too many pages and not enough of anything happening. I made it about halfway through and decided I had had enough of Cyril and his life. The coincidences were a bit much and Cyril's refusal to take responsibility for the things he had done wrong were grating. I'm sure he redeemed himself in the second half but just didn't care to stick around to find out.

Well, I have read a ton this year, just not much from this list. I do have high hopes that I'll finish Hard Times by the end of the year and make it to 13. Who knows maybe I'll squeeze one other one in though I'm not holding my breath.

I do have my 2021 list ready to go and am cautiously excited about it.

>29 LittleTaiko: I'm like you - been reading like crazy, just not from my TBR challenge :)

>28 LittleTaiko: Ouch! Glad you DNF'd instead of pushing through.

>28 LittleTaiko:, that's a bummer, I liked his Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

13. Hard Times by Charles Dickens (3 stars)

It's not often that I want a book to be longer, but this book could have been a tad longer with a bit more character development and I might have given this 4 stars. It's still a Dickens novel and therefore quite worth the time. This is Dickens mocking the Industrial Revolution and full of characters who are not as easily defined as "good" or "bad" as in some of his other novels. The rich vs poor themes still resonate today.

Think I'll call that a wrap for 2020 as I don't anticipate reading any of the others from my list in the next two weeks.

Happy Holidays!!

Good finish! I would rate Hard Times as middle-of-the-pack Dickens but still good, same as you.

13 read is great! Now you can plan for 2021 :)