Stray talk

Stray Talk moves

straytalk — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 16:33:38 +0000

As it happens, I’ve purchased my own domain (again) and so this blog will be moving there.

From now on, straytalk.net is where to go to access new posts.

I repeat:

Russian Reading Challenge 2008: The list

straytalk — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 17:46:44 +0000

The challenges never end, seemingly. This is a little one, though, and one I believe I can combine with one or two of the others I’m participating in.

Russian Reading Challenge
This challenge is a twelve month challenge, but the minimum number of books to read is only four. Why? Many Russian novels are quite lengthy, so it may take more than one month to read one book. Also, it keeps the burden to a minimum if you are, like me, participating in several reading challenges. You are welcome to read more, though!

Both fiction and non-fiction are acceptable here, as well as short stories and poetry. Authors read should either be authors who wrote (write) in Russian or authors who wrote (write) about Russia and Russians. The challenge begins January 1, 2008 and ends December 31, 2008.

My list:

Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog; Boris Akunin
Crime and Punishment; Fyodor Dostoyevsky (also in the Decades ’08 challenge)
The Idiot; Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Anna Karenina; Leo Tolstoy

YA Challenge 2008: The list

straytalk — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 21:36:43 +0000

Boy, do I blog tonight! But, but, but — it’s another challenge!

This one is straight-forward enough: simply pick twelve young adult books and read them at your own convenience during 2008.

I’ll probably edit my list as I go, especially considering that I don’t even know if one of the books I picked will actually be published before next year ends.

My list:

Nu heter jag Nirak; Peter Pohl
Som jag vill vara; Katarina von Bredow
The Princess Diaries V: Princess in Pink; Meg Cabot
Gathering Blue; Lois Lowry
Messenger; Lois Lowry
Bryta om; Åsa Anderberg Strollo
Ska vi rymma?; Bo R Holmberg
När du blundar tittar jag; Gunnar Ardelius
Det fattas en tärning; Johanna Thydell
Spelar roll; Hans Olsson
Looking for Alaska; John Green
Postcards From No Man’s Land; Aidan Chambers

Would be on the list, but won’t be out until summer ’09:

The Demon’s Lexicon; Sarah Rees Brennan

Seafaring Challenge: The list

straytalk — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 18:20:47 +0000

I just discovered the world of reading challenges and I just can’t get over how much fun it seems. Unfortunately, most of the ones I’m interested in don’t start until early ’08, which left me wanting something to bite into right now. Thankfully for me, I then stumbled upon the Seafaring Challenge which started only a couple of days ago. Basically, it’s the perfect match as I completely adore nautical books.

The challenge runs from November 1st, 2007 to January 31st, 2008, so I’m not going to make my list of books terribly long, but I do plan on reading at least four (which ought to earn me the rank of Admiral).

My list:

Mr Midshipman Easy; Captain Frederick Marryat
Kydd; Julian Stockwin — finished on 11th November, 2007
This Thing of Darkness; Harry Thompson
Trafalgar: The Biography of a Battle; Roy Adkins (if I can just figure out where I put my copy…)
Moby Dick; Herman Melville
Beat to Quarters; CS Forester

Decades ’08: The list

straytalk — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 15:31:14 +0000

I forget exactly how I ended up there, but I found an interesting-sounding reading challenge called Decades ’08. The point of it all is to read at least 8 books from consecutive decades (below you will find my list of possible reads). The challenge doesn’t start until the first of January, which means that I am currently really, really antsy and want it to begin now. xD

Please keep in mind that I probably won’t read all of these, but they are the options I have chosen so far. Might add on or retract from the list at any time, so it’s by no means a completed thing.

1700s:
A Tale of a Tub; Jonathan Swift

1710s:
Robinson Crusoe; Daniel Defoe
The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; Daniel Defoe

1720s:
Gulliver’s Travels; Jonathan Swift
A Journal of the Plague Year; Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders; Daniel Defoe

1730s:
Manon Lescaut; Antoine François Prévost

1740s:
Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded; Samuel Richardson
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, or Fanny Hill; John Cleland

1750s:
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman; Laurence Sterne
Candide; Voltaire

1760s:
The Vicar of Wakefield; Oliver Goldsmith
The Castle of Otranto; Horace Walpole

1770s:
The Sorrows of Young Werther; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1780s:
Les Liaisons dangereuses; Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

1790s:
The Mysteries of Udolpho; Ann Radcliffe
Lady Susan; Jane Austen

1800s:
Castle Rackrent; Maria Edgeworth

1810s:
Sense & Sensibility; Jane Austen
Emma; Jane Austen
Rob Roy; Sir Walter Scott
Frankenstein; Mary Shelley

1820s:
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater; Thomas de Quincey
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner; James Hogg
The Last of the Mohicans; James Fenimore Cooper

1830s:
The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Victor Hugo
A Marriage Contract; Honoré de Balzac
The Pickwick Papers; Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist; Charles Dickens

1840s:
A Christmas Carol; Charles Dickens
The Count of Monte Cristo; Alexandre Dumas, père
Jane Eyre; Charlotte Brontë

1850s:
The Man in the Iron Mask, Alexandre Dumas, père
The Scarlett Letter; Nathaniel Hawthorne
Moby Dick or the White Whale; Herman Melville
Bleak House; Charles Dickens
North and South; Elizabeth Gaskell
Madame Bovary; Gustave Flaubert

1860s:
Journey to the Interior of the Earth; Jules Verne
Crime and Punishment; Fyodor Dostoyevsky

1870s:
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea; Jules Verne
Carmilla; Joseph Sheridan le Fanu
Around the World in Eighty Days; Jules Verne
A Pair of Blue Eyes; Thomas Hardy
Black Beauty; Anna Sewell
The Return of the Native; Thomas Hardy

1880s:
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Robert Louis Stevenson
Hemsöborna; August Strindberg
The Woodlanders; Thomas Hardy
Three Men in a Boat; Jerome K Jerome

1890s:
The Picture of Dorian Gray; Oscar Wilde
Gösta Berlings saga; Selma Lagerlöf
Tess of the d’Urbervilles; Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure; Thomas Hardy
Dracula; Bram Stoker
The Turn of the Screw; Henry James

1900s:
Heart of Darkness; Joseph Conrad
The Call of the Wild; Jack London
White Fang; Jack London
Anne of Green Gables; Lucy Maud Montgomery

1910s:
The Phantom of the Opera; Gaston Leroux
Daddy-Long-Legs; Jean Webster
Dear Enemy; Jean Webster
Maurice; E M Forster
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; James Joyce

1920s:
Kristin Lavransdatter; Sigrid Undset
Whose Body?; Dorothy L Sayers
Emily of New Moon; Lucy Maud Montgomery
The Great Gatsby; F Scott Fitzgerald

1930s:
As I Lay Dying; William Faulkner
Five Red Herrings; Dorothy L Sayers
Murder Must Advertise; Dorothy L Sayers
Brave New World; Aldous Huxley

1940s:
Brideshead Revisited; Evelyn Waugh
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept; Elizabeth Smart
Sparkling Cyanide; Agatha Christie
I Capture the Castle; Dodie Smith
Titus Groan; Mervyn Peake

1950s:
Gormenghast; Mervyn Peake
Mr Midshipman Hornblower; CS Forrester
Ring for Jeeves; PG Wodehouse
The Charioteer; Mary Renault

1960s:
Flambards; KM Peyton
The Edge of the Cloud; KM Peyton
Flambards in Summer; KM Peyton
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead; Tom Stoppard
Fire From Heaven; Mary Renault

1970s:
Funeral Games; Mary Renault
Danny the Champion of the World; Roald Dahl
Duktig pojke; Inger Edelfeldt

1980s:
Flambards Divided; KM Peyton
A Countess Below Stairs; Eva Ibbotson

1990s:
The Giver; Lois Lowry
Knappt lovlig; Katarina von Bredow