Katrina's 16s

Last year I think I planned this and didn't even get started on it, so I think I'll have an early start to get me into gear. I'm picking 16 categories with a minimum of 5 books in each category. 80 books is doable, even if I start my dissertation mid way through the year.

I really need to attack my TBR stacks as I'm buying more books a month than I'm managing to read at the moment.

Category 1: Dust collectors (books which have been on my shelves for 3 years+)

1. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
2. A Man of Property, John Galsworthy
3. The Snow Child, Eowyn Ivey

Category 2: Bookcrossing books (books registered by other bookcrossers)
1. 26a, Diana Evans
2. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

Category 3: YA Dystopian fiction
1. Only Ever Yours, Louise O'Neill

Category 4: Books in translation

1. The Vegetarian, Han Kang

Category 5: Caught by the shiny cover (those books which I bought just because of the cover)

1. Wolf Winter, Cecilia Ekback 4/5 stars
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41xkAVp4rJL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
2. Beautiful Stories of Life, Cynthia Rylant
http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344670981l/6100264.jpg
3. Shelter, Jung Yun
4. S, J.J Abrams
5. The Museum of You, Carys Bray
6. Sweet Home, Carys Bray

Category 6: series

1. The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman 5/5 stars
2. The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman 3/5 stars
3. Quarter Share, Nathan Lowell
4. Half Share, Nathan Lowell
5. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
6. The Silkworm, Robert Galbraith
7. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, Alan Bradley
8. Full Share, Nathan Lowell

Category 7: Radomizer I am in the process of numbering all of my unread books, I will then use a number generator to select my next read.

1. The Danish Girl, David Ebershoff (number 166 on the list)
2. The Book of Strange New Things, Michel Faber

Category 8: Ernest Hemingway
1. A Moveable Feast
2. A Farewell to Arms
3. The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Category 9: Children's Literature

1. The Whale, Ethan Murrow and Vita Murrow
2. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
3. The Best Christmas Present in the World, Michael Morpurgo
4. Bayou, Jeremy Love
5. The Conductor, Laëtitia Devernay
6. The Many Lives of Albie Bright, Christopher Edge
7. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K Rowling
8. Code Name Verity, Elizabeth Wein
9. The Girl of Ink and Stars, Kiran Millwood Hargrave
10. Shackleton's Journey, William Grill
11. Through the Woods, Emily Carroll
12. Jane, the Fox and Me, Fanny Britt

Category 10: Group Reads

1. Mrs. Hemingway, by Naomi Wood (Book group choice) 4/5 stars
2. Gunshot, Amelia Gray Goodreads A Breif Reading Group readalong
3. Life after Life, Kate Atkinson RL reading group
4. The Letter, Kathryn Hughes RL reading group
5. A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara An unofficial group read led by my friend who is now demanding everyone we know reads this.
6. Go Set A Watchman, Harper Lee RL reading group
7. Work Like Any Other, Virginia Reeves (Booker Prize group)
8. The Many, Wyl Munmuir
9. Our Endless Numbered Days, Claire Fuller

Double post - ignore

Category 11: 1001 Reads (I really must get back to this challenge)
1. Falling Man, Don DeLillo
2. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst
3. The Bone People, Keri Hulme

Category 12: Poetry/plays

1. Peter and Alice, John Logan
2. Metro-Land, John Betjeman
3. The Bees, Carol Ann Duffy
4. Apocrypha, Catherynne M. Valente
5. I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan

Category 13: Non-fiction

1. What We See When We Read, Peter Mendelsund
2. The Atlantic Sound, Caryl Philips
3. The Fixer, Joe Sacco
4. We Should All be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
5. Introducing Postmodernism: A Graphic Guide to Cutting-Edge Thinking
6. The Blue Door, Lise Kristensen
7. Vietnamerica, GB Tran

Category 14: Vintage Classics/Vintage Modern Classics

Category 15: Penguin Classics/ Penguin Modern Classics

Category 16: Odds and Sods

1. Instructions for a Heat Wave, Maggie O'Farrell
2. The Lady in the Van, Alan Bennett
3. Brooklyn, Colm Toibin
4. Etta and Otto and Russell and James, Emma Hooper
5. The Dumb House, John Burnside
6. Only We Know, Karen Perry
7. Nimona, Noelle Stevenson
8. The Yiddish Policeman's Union, Michael Chabon
9. Eileen, Ottessa Meshferg
10. The Version of Us, Laura Barnett
11. The Submission, Amy Waldman
12. Fell, Jenn Ashworth
13. Kindred Spirits, Rainbow Rowell
14. The Rabbit Back Literature Society, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen
15. The New and Improved Romie Futch, Julia Elliott
16. The Girl With All the Gifts, M.R Carey
17. The Particular Sadness of the Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender
18. Girl Meets Boy, Ali Smith
19. A Man Called Ove
20. How to be Both, Ali Smith

1. Mrs. Hemingway by Naomi Wood A book club choice, a quick pace to this book, and although the time flitters around it was easy to follow. Hemingway is presented as a lovable rogue, and even though you dread each new woman and each new infidelity each wife is likable and complete in herself.

Good for you trying again. Hope this year works better. Best of luck with your MA.

Up and at 'em again! Yey! :)

"I'm buying more books a month than I'm managing to read"
Yeah, I know that one...

Welcome back and good luck with your MA! Will be interested to see what you read for it. :)

Welcome back, Katarina!

Thanks for all of your messages

#2 The Whale by Vita and Ethan Murrow a gorgeous children's picture book found through an amazon suggestion.
#3. Instructions for a Heatwave, Maggie O'Farrell, a recommendation from my Mum and boss, a good family based read, it is supposed to be about a father who disappears, but it is more about the family he leaves behind.

Great categories and can't dodge the Mrs. Hemingway BB!

Welcome back! Lots of interesting categories!

#4 Wolf Winter, by Cecilia Ekback bought for the brooding cover and the reference that fans of The Miniaturist would love it.

>28 katrinasreads: What did you think of it? Several people have brought the book to my notice and thought highly of it.

I really enjoyed it, it is very bleak and atmospheric, perfect for a wintery days reading. Lots of strong female characters and mysteries to figure out. I'll certainly look out for more by this author.

#5 Gunshot by Amelia Gray, a set of very bizarre short stories, I usually like odd things but these were simply trying to shock. The majority of people in this read-a-long felt the same, too.

you have some interesting categories there, I like dystopian fiction and would love to indulge in a bit of a Hemmingway binge... too many books, too little time! enjoy your 2016 reading!

>30 katrinasreads: Thanks, I'll keep it in mind.

#6. The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman I can't believe it took so long for me to read this 2 book in the series (10 years), it was far, far better than the first and I loved that one. I'm going to continue straight on to the third book.

Nice range of categories. Good luck with your challenge and your dissertation!

#7 The Amber Spyglass, this completes my first incomplete series - I read the first book in The Northern Lights Trilogy about 10 years ago, so it was about time I finished it. A great series but the last book was too long, in my opinion.

I read the Golden Compass series too. I almost stopped at the first one but a friend didn't let me. You kind of need the rest of the books to make sense of the end of The Golden Compass. Otherwise, it's just cruel.

#8 Life after Life I loved this read for my book group although I struggled with the first 100 pages, I felt it was a little too fragmented. Lots of lose ends, but I've bought the next book A God in Ruins which follows the brother so It'll be great to see if that fills in any of the gaps.
#9 The Lady in the Van, Alan Bennett I was really disappointed by this, lots of small excerpts of time and events between the crazy lady in the van and Alan.
#10 The Little Prince I was really excited to read this but again I wasn't emotionally invested, seems a bit of a recurring problem at the moment.

Good job on 10 reads already completed!

Lots of good categories - and you're doing your dissertation on YA Dystopian Fiction - that sounds really interesting.

Interested to see what you thought of The Little Prince. I read that in French in high school and I didn't think of it as a children's book.

I started before January so I didn't lose mementum

#11 26a, I read this a part of a bookring, it took a while to get into, but I'm not sure why, but once they returned from Africa I was gripped. Ugly crying at the end.
#12 The Best Christmas Present in the World, bought to read over Christmas and inspired by a homework project I was making for the kids at school I only just got around to this one. Very brief, but very emotional. Beautiful illustrations.
#13 Brooklyn, first of all I dug this out when I saw the film advertised and wanted to read it and then watch the film, but I missed that. Then, I wanted to read this over Christmas, I got half way through and then lost it. Then I had to wait for group reads to be read. Finally I got this finished and loved it, quite a slow book, which leaves lots of time for the characters and place to seem very real.

#14 Heidi, I read this as part of a goodreads read-a-long but I'm counting this as a book which has been sitting unread on my bookshelves for 3 years plus. Actually I've had this book since my childhood, probably about 25 years ago this was bought as part of a monthly/weekly children's classic subscription.

#15 Beautiful Stories of Life This is a small retelling of the Greek myths, each myths is beautifully told and illustrated, perfect for adult or child.

>40 LisaMorr: Long story, but I was in a French hospital when I was 8 years old and the only book in English my French grandmother could find for me was The Little Prince. Understandably, it has a special place in my heart.

#16 The Letter, Kathryn Hughes terrible trashy novel selected by my RL book group (they are a mixed bunch the selection really varies).

>45 mamzel: That makes sense! I was reading it as an exercise in French, and also looking at it critically and what the metaphors meant.

#17 Etta and Otto and Russell and James, Emma Hooper first audio book of the year and I loved it, a quaint little town with some complex characters.

#18 The Dumb House, I really enjoyed this boo after seeing it reviewed a few times on youtube I grabbed it and read it immediately - I was far better behaved than I normally am! A creepy but gripping book, about a man's experiments on the speech of children and the moment of death.

#18 Only We Know, Karen Perry a terrible crime novel given to me by my mother, summer holiday flight material. I'd guessed a good part of the plot early on. The odds and sods category is quickly creeping up, but I have a few on the go for some of the other categories and I'm going to read a Hemmingway next.

#19. A Moveable Feast My first Hemingway and worryingly I didn't love it - well I didn't love all of it, bits were great.

#20. A Little Life, this has been all over the bookish press for the last year so I was bound to get to it at some point but then my housemate read it and bullied me into starting it. Beautiful and heartbreaking, at points I hated her for making me read something so sad and terrible, but it is also heart warming and full of hope. I predict this is my favourite book of 2016

#21. Go Set A Watchman I've owned this since the day it was released but have put off reading it for fear of it being terrible. It wasn't terrible, or great. It does show the start of the creation of two great characters and the foundations of Maycomb as a great setting. Was it necessary to publish it, I'm not so sure.

#22. Nimona A friend at work was desperate for someone else to read this as he loved it so he gave me his copy, now we have to have the dreaded conversation where I say I didn't like it... It wasn't so much the plot of the story, I just didn't care for any of the characters and I didn't like the art and the presentation of the book. Too comic book for me, bright colours, simple line drawings and super shiney pages, I like my graphic novels to be beautiful and rich.

>52 katrinasreads: - I'm about 2/3 of the way through A Little Life and am completely agreeing with you thus far. It has been beautiful but I don't know how much more sadness I can take.

I found that I was able to handle a lot of the later parts of the book a lot better emotionally, but the final chapters were very upsetting.

Category change: I had listed my 7th category a Marcel Proust but after struggling with Swann's Way I'm changing the category as I'm not going to drag myself through a series I'm not enjoying. I've changed this to 'randomizer', I have been listing the unread books I have, I'm not half way through this list yet and I'm up to 196 books. My plan is to list then all and then get a number generator to select the next book I will read.

#23 A Farewell to Arms, another book for my Ernest Hemingway shelf. I much preferred this one to A Moveable Feast, I think the fact that it was a story rather than an autobiography helped, the pace moved along quite quickly. At the beginning I struggled with his sparse style but this was less apparent as the book moved on and his love affair started.

>56 katrinasreads: Good idea to change the category if your original plan isn't working out. Looking forward to seeing what the number generator picks out for you!

My first Randomizer book, the number generator selected number 166 The Danish Girl a quick fast paced book based loosely on the real life of the first trans-gender patient Lili Elbe. I enjoyed this read, especially the relationship between the husband and the wife, but I didn't feel that it had the emotional intensity to it that could have been presented. There were lots of emotions in the background but the author seemed more interested in describing their paintings, who visited, the dressed worn etc.

#25 Finally tackled a non-fiction book What We See When We Read, this gave me a lot to think about and certainly changed how I think about how I, and others, visualize a text. This looks chunky but is packed full of images, different sized and types of fonts, excerpts, diagrams etc.

#26 I've had The Forsyte Saga on my shelves for years and I'm finally getting to them after getting rid of the idea of reading Proust this year I've replaced that project with this. The first book A Man of Property starts off largely an introduction to the large family but eventually settles on the scandal of an affair. I really enjoyed this first book, now off to tackle a few more contemporary novels before I return to the next one.

#27 The Yiddish Policeman's Union, this really isn't my type of book, read for a reading challenge. It was okay but I skimmed through a lot of it as it was long winded.

#28 The Snow Child, this book has lurked on my shelves for years waiting for the perfect winters day and then some how always being surpassed. Finally I read it in a fairly mild week in March! A nice comfort read, not outstanding but certainly enjoyable.

Updated to add the last 8 months worth of books! It's quite surprising which categories filled up when I hadn't paid attention to this.
Next year I need to really think about my categories.

The Book of Strange New Things, I bought this over a year ago after hearing fantastic reviews (and loving his other works which I'd previously read) and kept waiting for a time to savour it, that didn't come and then I couldn't decide what to read so when back to a number randomizer. I was happy when this was selected.

But, I have to say I was disappointed in this book. I wasn't gripped by it as I was with The Crimson Petal and the White or Under the Skin, although I did enjoy large chunks of it when I was reading it, but lacked the compulsion to pick it up. I have his short story collection Some Rain May Fall on my TBR to try and may pick that up soon to see if I get on better with something else by him.

"gripped by it as I was with The Crimson Petal and the White"

This is good to know, only because I have The Crimson Petal and the White in my bookcase and it's so thick I shy away from it. :)

Full Share, the third book in this series, I listened to this as a free podcast, great to catch up with these characters

The Blue Door for the Book Buddies BookBox on etsy, a memoir of life in Japanese Prisoner of War Camps

I read Vietnamerica for university. It's a graphic novel about a second generation immigrant in America discovering his family's past. It was interesting to learn about Vietnam's past especially as it's somewhere I have been but know little about, but the story gives a voice to lots of different relatives and I generally was lost as to who was who.

Taking the morning to play catch-up on all the threads in the group.

>66 -Eva-: - Ditto what Eva said, except that I have read Crimson Petal and the White and was blown away by the story. Have you seen the TV miniseries? If not, I can highly recommend it.... it was well done!