In Leanne Shapton’s marvelously inventive and invented auction catalog, the 325 lots up for auction are what remain from the relationship between Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris (who aren’t real people, but might as well be). Through photographs of the couple’s personal effects–the usual auction items (jewelry, fine art, and rare furniture) and the seemingly worthless (pajamas, Post-it notes, worn paperbacks)–the story of a failed love affair vividly (and cleverly) emerges. From first meeting to final separation, the progress and rituals of intimacy are revealed through the couple’s accumulated relics and memorabilia. And a love story, in all its tenderness and struggle, emerges from the evidence that has been left behind, laid out for us to appraise and appreciate.

In a nutshell:

I read it in: English

I liked it: I loved the idea, I kind of liked the result

For people who like: Fiction that looks like non-fiction, putting two and two together without being explicitly told what happened.

My thoughts: 

I was quite fascinated with the idea of an auction catalogue to tell the story of a relationship. It sounded intriguing, interesting and different. When I started reading this book I realized how much work it must have been to put this together. There are photos of the couple (standing in for Lenore and Hal were Sheila Heti and Paul Sahre), tons of letters and notes, various items, clothes, pictures of cakes and what not. The thought that someone put a part of the lives of two fictional people together in that way is fascinating.

However, I would have liked it better if those people were a little less hip and outstandingly original, but a little closer to everyday people in everyday life. There are a few short conversations that Lenore and Hal had written on brochures during a concert etc. and the dialogue to me sounds just too much of a good thing. Listen to this (about the poodles on the cover):

I can tell you hate them/ No!/ But I love the dogs, the dogs love you, they are perfect pets, as they do not poo./ Dearest Hal, they are not our pal, their breed is a pain, a firm hand must train./ Lenore, Lenore, fear not evermore, these unbroken pups you’ll soon adore./ You win, dark knight, at least they don’t bite.

Often there would be song lyrics scribbled down in books, unfortunately I knew none of the songs, and so couldn’t relate too much. The clothes are mostly vintage clothes, the items are all vintage or artsy. Everything was just a little bit too extraordinary. I mean, who on Earth would go as a litmus test on Halloween? I just couldn’t relate to those two and frankly, I didn’t give a damn whether they would stay together or not (even though, of course, it was clear from the start, they would not). Also, I saw no reason why they would auction off the things they did. Why would you sell on your bathing suits after a break up?

Most of the hints as to what happened in the relationship of the couple we receive from notes to each other, emails, letters (who nowadays writes postal letters from the US to Europe, esp. when the other is only gone for a week or two?) either to each other or from friends or family to either Lenore or Hal. I must be missing something completely because I think that basically the same effect could have been achieved with an epistolary novel of some kind. Maybe in the style of Love Virtually. Somehow I simply expected more of that auction catalogue idea and it didn’t deliver it.

All in all I enjoyed reading this (I love catalogues in general), but the book left me a bit disappointed in the end.

Product info and buy link :

If you click on the buy link above you will be taken to The Book Depository.co.uk. If you buy the book through this link I will earn a small commission. You can find my general affiliate links to The Book Depository, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com here.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? I would love to hear other opinions.

Narnia…a land frozen in eternal winter…a country waiting to be set free.

Four adventurers step through a wardrobe door and into the land of Narnia – a land enslaved by the power of the White Witch. But when almost all hope is lost, the return of the Great Lion, Aslan, signals a great change…and a great sacrifice.

In a nutshell:

I read it in: English

I liked it:     Kind of yes, kind of no      

For people who like: fairy tales, fantasy, good vs. evil

My thoughts: 

This was the quickest read for me in a long time. I started some time in the morning and was done in the afternoon (including the usual family interruptions, I might add).  According to the target group the story was not overly complicated and extremely easy to follow.

I liked the general idea of the children discovering another world by entering a wardrobe, moving through fur coats and leaving through the back. But there were a few things I didn’t like at all.

• The mishmash of characters in Narnia that just didn’t go together. Giants, trolls, fauns, speaking beavers, satyrs, unicorns, centaurs, for me they don’t all belong into the same universe. What I found even more annoying was the appearance of Santa Claus. What on Earth does he do in a parallel fantasy world? And gives some useful gifts, too. Those gifts sounded more like fairy gifts than from jolly old Santa.
• The witch was mean, but stupid. She could have gotten more use out of Edmund after he came to her castle had she been a bit nicer. As it was she made him realize how wicked she really was and he turned against her. That wasn’t something I would have expected her to do. She should have kept up her sweet, deceiving personality a little longer.
• Aslan, well, that little trick he pulled was not very honourable. I didn’t care about the Christian aspects of that scene but what really annoyed me was that he betrayed the deal with the witch. He gave her his word (implied by his furious roar when she asked about whether she could trust the deal will be honoured) and then he comes up with the even older magic crap which the witch didn’t know about. Not fair! I admit he had to go through a fair amount of humiliation and yes, the witch would have not been honourable and honest either, but two wrongs don’t make a right (sorry about having to quote a commonplace here). Also this is not a very good example for children. I know something you don’t, so I can cheat on you easier. And that is ok, because you are evil and I am good. I didn’t like that. At all.

It was an ok start to the series as the children discovered Narnia together with me. I am curious to know what comes next. At the same time I am quite apprehensive. Will the series continue to give such dubious messages to its readers? The end justifies the means isn’t something I 100% agree with. We will see.

Movie tip

The chronicles of Narnia: The lion, the witch and the wardrobe

Product info and buy link :

If you click on the buy link above you will be taken to The Book Depository.co.uk. If you buy the book through this link I will earn a small commission. You can find my general affiliate links to The Book Depository, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com here.

Have you read this book? What did you think of it? I would love to hear other opinions.

This post is part of

my Narnia Reading Project 2012.

OK, it’s January at last and I want to get started on reading Narnia this month. I decided to go with the order of completion which is again a little different from the publication order. In both cases, however, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” comes first. 

This is how it goes:

1. The lion, the witch and the wardrobe
2. Prince Caspian: The return to Narnia
3. The voyage of the Dawn Treader 
4. The horse and his boy 
5. The silver chair 
6. The magician’s nephew
7. The last battle

Who else is going to read in that order and who is planning on starting this month? Please, remember, we have a discussion page for each book where I also posted some questions from the reading group guide at Harper Collins. You can find the links to the pages either on the Narnia project page or in the drop down menu at the top of this blog.

Let’s get started!

I want that badge!

But I am afraid I won’t get it.

Somehow I bit off more than I can chew. Of the 100 books I targeted I read 62 and that is wrong already because there is a number of DNFs included in this. I will set next year’s target considerably lower. Even though I will be participating in the Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge.

Did you participate in the GR reading challenge? How did you do?

And yet another challenge…I don’t know, but there are so many tempting ones and I just can’t let them pass.

Ally from Snow Feathers and Bellezza from Dolce Bellezza are hosting the Venice in February Reading Challenge. They have even created a dedicated blog just for that challenge – how great is that? Just look at the header picture and start dreaming! You can already find reading recommendations there and it will be used to link to all the reviews.

What do you have to do? Just read one or more books about or set in Venice during the month of February and that’s it. This is what Ally says about the location:

We have chosen Venice because it’s a unique city, with a dreamlike atmosphere and yet, with secrets to discover. Whoever visited Venice once still wishes to go back and this challenge may be the next best thing

I wholeheartedly agree. Venice is wonderful, even in summer when it is overcrowded with tourists.  A great location for a reading challenge.

As it happens, one of the books recommended is already on my reading list for next year. All I need to do is make sure to read it in February. It is

• “Across the river and into the trees” by Ernest Hemingway

If I am going to read anything else I don’t know. Donna Leon would be a quick read and it would be great for Venetian atmosphere, but I really don’t care for Commissario Brunetti. He has NOTHING on Commissario Montalbano, I don’t know why so many people like him as much as they do. But I am digressing.

Do you feel like going on a short trip to Venice? Then join this reading challenge and enjoy that lovely city in February!

This challenge hosted by The Book Vixen is perfect. No additional books to add, nothing to buy, no specific theme. All it asks is to read a certain amount of books MORE than last year.

Seeing that my goal was 100 books in 2011 and my current status is 59 books, it is safe to say that I will not reach that goal. For next year I will be less ambitious, but still want to read a bit more than I did this year.

Here are the details from The Book Vixen’s Blog:

Details:

• Runs January 1, 2012 – December 31, 2012 (books read prior to 1/1/12 do not count towards the challenge). You can join at anytime. Sign up on The Book Vixen’s blog.
• The goal is to outdo yourself by reading more books in 2012 than you did in 2011. See the different levels below and pick the one that works best for you. Nothing is set in stone; you can change levels at any time during the challenge.
• Books can be any format (bound, eBook, audio).
• Re-reads and crossovers from other reading challenges are allowed.
• Grab the reading challenge button and post this reading challenge on your blog to track your progress. Please include a link back to this sign-up post so others can join the reading challenge too. You do not have to be a book blogger to participate; you could track your progress on Goodreads or LibraryThing.

Levels:

     Getting my heart rate up – Read 1–5 more books
     Out of breath – Read 6–10 more books
     Breaking a sweat – Read 11–15 more books
     I’m on fire! – Read 16+ more books

You will already know what level I will go for, right? I will go for the first one, no surprise here. “Getting my heart rate up” is exciting enough for me. At the end of the year I will see how many books I finished (there were some DNFs in that list of 59) and then set the new goal.

Who else is going to join this challenge?

I have NEVER read a Narnia book before, have never seen a film and am clueless about the story. But I here they are good.

I am planning to read all seven books – unless it turns out I hate the whole world or concept – and am looking for some fellow readers who are as new to Narnia as I am and would like to explore it with me and other likeminded people.

You are one of them? Great! Head on over to my Narnia Reading Project page and sign up! If you would like to grab my Narnia button, just copy the code in the box at the bottom of this post and paste it into your sidebar or your posts.

My estimated timeline is until the end of 2012. I would like to start reading in January, so we all have still time to get at least the first book, which for me will be “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. You can find more info about the reading order on the project page.

So, what do you say? Are you in?

Code for above Narnia button:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.rikkidonovan.com" title="Rikki’s Teleidoscope"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w78/Rikkiscrapper/teleidoscope/narnia_button-1.jpg" alt="Rikki’s Teleidoscope" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

This will be the only challenge for me next year seeing that I miserably failed on the ones in 2011. Plus, I am planning another reading project which will keep me busy as well.

These are the rules:

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.

Especially the “counts towards other challenges” works well for me as I have plenty of books I want to read to finish off challenges from this year (better late than never). Seeing that I am bad at commitment and at sticking to anything challenge related I go for the lowest level, Pike’s Peak which amounts to 12 books. That sounds do-able.

I need to determine NOW what books to read otherwise I will not do it, I know this, so I went through my Goodreads list and here they are:

1. Changeless by Gail Carriger
2. Blameless by Gail Carriger
3. Heartless by Gail Carriger
4. Steampunk Anthology edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer
5. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
6. Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
7. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
8. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
9. I capture the castle by Dodie Smith
10. The art of travel by Alain de Botton
11. Horns by Joe Hill
12. Men without women by Ernest Hemingway

The first 6 are for my own Steampunk Challenge 2011, the next two for one part of the One, Two, Theme challenge 2011 and the rest are random picks. An eclectic mix!

How big is your TBR mountain? Will you be joining? And what other challenges are you planning to join in 2012?

The Steampunk challenge 2010/2011 is finished and I would like to do a short recap of what went on. Please, if you read more Steampunk books, feel free to add your review links to the review page. Just because the challenge is officially over doesn’t mean that we can’t make the list grow.

Number of participants: 88

Number of reviews: 82

Number of entries for the flash fiction contest: 43

Winner of the flash fiction contest: Chris Pantazis

Number of entries for the haiku contest: 17

Winner of the haiku contest: Giada M.

Just in case you have bookmarked any of the challenge pages, I changed their location and placed them under the challenge page in the top menu, so previously created links won’t work any longer.

Thank you everybody for participating. It was great fun! And thanks to the very helpful Steampunk community for helping us out with information and reading recommendations.

Thanks everybody who entered the steampunk haiku contest. Voting for your favourite steampunk haiku is over and we have a winner.

It is Giada M. with

Clock-Work-Cuckoo-Clown
Steam-Cyber-Space-Ship-Circus
Err-And-Iron-Punk

To see all entries, please go to the entries page.

Congrats, Giada! I will contact you by email to get your shipping address and to find out your choice of steampunk book from The Book Depository.

Many thanks again to Kristi from Northwyke Creations and to Fox Chapel Publishing who generously sponsored the contest with a beautiful Steampunk lapel pin from her Etsy shop and a copy of Art Donovan’s “The art of Steampunk”.