Trees of Reverie June Read-A-Thon End

June is ending, so that means the ReadaThon is ending too. Sad Face.

I was able to get through quite a few books on this challenge:

1. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
2. Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
3. Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor
4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
5. Divergent by Veronica Roth
6. Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein
7. Aimless Love by Billy Collins
8. Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor
9. Brooklyn by Colm Tobin
10. Dreams of Gods & Monsters by Laini Taylor

I also started The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, She Walks in Beauty by Caroline Kennedy, and listened to a few more chapters of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

By reading these books, I completed quite a few challenges on Trees’ challenge list. I did way better this time than on her last prompt list, so I’m pretty psyched about it.

1. Read a popular or well-known book.
2. Read a book you’ve heard a lot of good things about.
3. Read something recommended to you by a friend.
4. Read a book from your Goodreads to-read shelf.
5. Read a book to go towards a specific reading challenge.
6. Pick out a book from your TBR jar and give it a go.
7. Read a book you’ve been meaning to read.
8. Read a book you’ve been avoiding.
9. Read a book you’ve had lying around unfinished.
10. Read a book by an author you haven’t read before.
11. Finish a book in a series you’ve not yet completed (although I ended up finishing the series by the end of the challenge).
12. Read a Classic.
13. Read a book in the Fantasy genre.
14. Read a book in the Contemporary genre.
15. Read a book from a genre you don’t usually read.
16. Read a book featured in Booktown’s Book Club.
17. Read a poetry book.
18. Read a book written by or focusing on POC #weneeddiversebooks
19. Read a book from thebookishdragon’s Book Lovers List
20. Recommend a book to a friend or a fellow book blogger.
21. Join discussions on the Treesofreverie Read-A-Thom Goodreads Group
22. Share some of your favorite quotes from the books you read
23. Write a book review for one of the books you read.
24. Take pictures of your reading progress.
25. Show off your books by taking more pictures.
26. Start a reading journal (I already had one…so this was a bit of a cheat.)

How did your challenge go?

WWW Wednesday 6/18/2014

 

What are you currently reading?

Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

Aimless Love by Billy Collins

 

What did you just finish reading?

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein

Brooklyn by Colm Tobin

 

Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant

Sometimes I comes across books on my To Read list that I’ve had on there for so long, I don’t remember why I added them in the first place. I probably saw them on someone’s recommended list, or maybe in the back of another book I’ve read. Maybe on a “Also By This Author” list on the one decent book that author wrote.

 

And because I have so freaking many books on my Goodreads list, it takes years to get to those obscure books by those authors that I don’t remember reading. Or sometimes, I remember the name, but I don’t remember if I liked them. I just remember that I’ve seen their name so many times, I must have liked them, right?

 

Anne Tyler is one of those authors. I’ve read a few of her books, so I keep adding her books to my list, because her name is so familiar to me. And every time I read her, I think, “Why in the world do I keep adding her books to my list?” There’s nothing so horribly wrong with her books that I can put a finger on, except that they just are extraordinarily dull. I always complete them. Because I want to find out what happens to the family, and I feel like maybe, just maybe, something interesting will happen. But of course, nothing interesting every happens to the family. Because that is the point, really.
Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant is just one of those books that Anne Tyler writes. It’s a book about an ordinary, dull, dysfunctional family. Everyone is unhappy in their own sort of way. No one gets along but they all stick together because they are family and they are obligated. It’s all very bleak and sad and depressing. I definitely don’t feel good after reading this. I can’t exactly say I hated it, but I definitely can’t say I liked it either.

Teaser Tuesday 6/17/2014

 

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 

“Every day the mail arrived later.

Ezra stood with his coffee at the window and watched the postman moping past and wondered if there were any point to life.”

–Anne Tyler, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant:  A Novel