The Sunday Salon - Catch-up Round-up Wrap-up

Hello Saloners and other visitors! Since I missed last week, I'm doing my January wrap-up this week and just a little check-in on my challenges.


January reads: (Orange indicates books read for Orange (Prize) January):

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
The Road Home by Rose Tremain**
Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
A Year of Mornings: 3191 Miles Apart by Maria A Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
The Flying Troutmans by Miriam Toews
Open House by Elizabeth Berg
Tree Crazy by Tracy Gallup
Everybody Needs a Rock by Byrd Baylor
The Bonesetter's Daughter by Amy Tan
I Was Amelia Earhart by Jane Mendelsohn

• Loved the most: The Night Watch and The Road Home
• Biggest surprise: The Flying Troutmans (if you loved Little Miss Sunshine, read this book!)
• Biggest disappointment: Amy and Isabelle - after loving Strout's Olive Kitteridge last year, I had high expectations.

The Bonesetter's Daughter was a re-read and for my book group. I loved the middle - the meat - of this book, the historical fiction, but the contemporary story that sandwiched it didn't do much for me.


My challenges: Including a couple of books I've read so far in February, I'm doing well.

What's in a Name: completed 4/6
Decades Challenge: completed 2/10, reading the third now.
The Orange Prize and Booker Prize challenges are perpetual, but I've set a personal goal to read 12 of each this year (some are crossovers). Orange Prize: 5/12; Booker Prize: 2/12.
Dewey's Books: 0/5
Pub Challenge: 0/9
Short Stories: 9/25
Essays: 0/20
Jane Austen: 0/1
Classics (other than Austen): 0/4
These last two are personal challenges. By my definition, Classic is any book older than me that has a high level of notoriety. There are a few exceptions (e.g. To Kill A Mockingbird)


This week I'm reading Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. What a hoot! She's a master at describing the bleakness of the Sussex farm. Made me want to go shower! Books I'm looking forward to this month: The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which I've heard nothing but raves about.



And join me here on Thursday, February 12th for a TLC book tour with Ingrid Cummings, author of The Vigorous Mind: Cross-Train Your Brain to Break Through Mental, Emotional and Professional Boundaries.





Hope you're having a great weekend. And prayers and good wishes to our friends in Australia who are experiencing such unprecedented heat and horrific fires. Be safe.


Join the Sunday Salon!
.