I was challenged to the 7-day book cover challenge on Twitter – I’ve been nominated on Facebook a few times too, but never participated. I did this time around and I’m doing a bit of a cheeky and thematic book cover challenge. I think it’s obvious the theme I went with when posting these covers. ;-) You can see the thread here:
https://twitter.com/LiteraryHoarder/status/1086734213615927296
Anyway, one of the book covers I posted was from something I read in 2014, Bird in the Snow by Michael Harding. I revisited what I wrote about it and saw I had also included it in a Backlist Challenge from 2014. I’ve been challenging myself to read from the backlists for many years now haven’t I?? I looked through what I listed broken down into four categories: From the WPL (library), Netgalley, Kobo and Shelves at Home.
In all, I listed 36 books to challenge myself to read. How many did I actually read? So, this would be taking into account the timeline from 2014 to now… And that number is….10. Ten books. That’s it. (I’ve even purchased three to sit on my own shelves instead of on the WPL shelves, and still haven’t read them: * insert eye roll here *. Those books would be: Doctor Zhivago, A Marker to Measure Drift and Snow Hunters.) Those are not the greatest reading statistics now are they?
So what did I read? If we start from the first category, Windsor Public Library titles, I’ve read: Perdita and The Tilted World. Which leaves seven still waiting to be read: Doctor Zhivago (he sits on many lists in my world! Why haven’t I read this yet??) Return to Oakpine, Snow Hunters, The Marker to Measure Drift, Me Who Dove Into the Heart of the World, A Far Piece to Canaan, and Mr. Lynch’s Holiday. The one that interests me the least now, in 2019, would be Return to Oakpine.
Moving over to the Netgalley titles, my perpetual problem of requesting but never reading can be solidly found here. Of the nine listed here, I’ve read three. My Notorious Life (which I loved!), The Mourning Hours (another great one!) and the least liked out of the bunch, Ten White Geese. Leaving seven others to read, which, if I’m to be honest, there are only a few here that tug at me to want to pick up now (shrugs) (unless you can tell me otherwise about any of these?) Mrs. Poe, The Ashford Affair, The Wife, The Maid and The Mistress, The Shadow Queen, Flat Water Tuesday and The Elephant’s Keeper.
On my Kobo list, nine were listed here as well, and I’ve read four. Better odds with this list! I’ve read, Burial Rites (great one!) In the Land of the Birdfishes, Bird in the Snow (as mentioned in the opening of this post) and A Fine Balance (so much love for this one!).
On the Home Shelves I’ve also included nine and this is the category where I performed miserably. ONE book was read from this section. The Snow Child. But just look at these fabulous books that are sitting on my shelves at home! I really must make it a point to read these ones! More Anger by Jill Robinson, Broken Music by Marjorie Eccles, The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom, Midwives by Chris Bohjalian (this cover longs to be read on a cold winter night doesn’t it?), Purge by Sofi Oksanen, The Captain’s Wife by Beth Powning, another Bohjalian: Skeletons at the Feast, The Time in Between by Maria Duenas. Now, I did recently pull The Time in Between off the shelf because I wanted to finally read this one. However, Modern Mrs. Darcy just posted about extra-long audiobooks, and The Time in Between was on this list, and I can borrow it from the library! So — do I read this one, or listen to it?
I see also that I could easily use The Sea Captain’s Wife or More Anger for the Reading Women Challenge — a book that I got because of the cover. Those two would fit that category quite nicely right? Both books are beautiful books, just not their covers, but also their pages, the feeling you get when holding or touching the book. And gasp! I have YET to read a Chris Bohjalian novel! Do you know how many of his, outside of the two mentioned here, I have on my shelf? I really need to remedy that situation this year!
(I’m still trying to work with this new editor – images are still giving me trouble and I’m battling with how to make them smaller. I’m not having a great deal of luck, but I’ll keep trying.