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?

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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

 

Greek

There was a whole chapter in Walden on reading, which I suppose makes sense, since if you’re going to live in the woods by yourself for several years…what else are you going to do to keep yourself busy? You can only take so many nature walks.

Thoreau was very strict about reading in the original language of the author. The below is just one page of a long tangent about reading in the mother tongue, especially Greek and Latin. He loved Homer, and kept a copy that he constantly read while he was at the pond.

Walden

We tend to think of hermits as old, dirty men with long, straggly beards. We don’t tend to think of them as bright-eyed, intelligent men with quite a strong grasp on the world. And really, Henry David Thoreau wasn’t that bad looking, for his time. He did have kind of a weird beard, but I suppose that was the fashion then.

His social experiment at Walden, as I suppose you could call it, was successful. Could a man live on his own, starting from scratch? The country girl part of me, the introvert, craves this sort of living. How lovely would it be to get away from the city, and go off on my own, out where it’s just nature and sky?

But then I think of how much I would miss civilization. I checked in regularly all day yesterday on Tumblr, in between chapters. And there are, of course, the updates on my phone, the texts from friends, etc etc etc. And don’t forget Game of Thrones last night OMGGGGGG.

What was I talking about again? Oh, right, Walden. Things sure were simpler back then. Farming was just a hoe in the ground, and up sprang more beans than Thoreau could handle. So many that he said, “Holy shit, I’m never doing that again!” They harvested ice, Frozen-style, from the lake in the winter. He knew the bird calls, and described them perfectly in his book. I loved that.

This was just a lovely book. I’ve had it on my shelf forever, but I kept putting it off. I had tried to start it in college, but I hadn’t ridden far enough into life yet, so it didn’t mean anything to me. I think you have to go through some debt, some tough knocks in order to connect with this. Otherwise, you are going to read a few pages in the Economy chapter and just not care less. And once you get through that Economy chapter, it does get much easier to connect. But the first chapter, really, is the most important.

I was reminded of my grandmother several times. There’s nothing more happy for her than to walk along the river back home, looking at the trees and listening to the birds. She used to know several calls, and named every heron “Pete.” I emailed her today, and she said this was one of her favorite books and had read it many times. I saw her in so many of the pages…I’m curious to see her copy. She taught me to love and appreciate nature, as Thoreau did.

Book#1 for TreesofReverie ROT

To read well, t…

To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent, the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Trees of Reverie ReadaThon June

For those of you who have been following the blog since the beginning (first of all, I love you!), you will remember the readathon I did back in April. It was a week long marathon reading session, where I got through 5 books.

Trees of Reverie is holding another one, beginning today (well it was midnight Monday her time, but she’s on the other side of the of the globe from me) through June 30th.

I have a stack of books to read, and I’m sure I’ll read a few ebooks as well! Here’s what is on the list:

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

Garth Stein, Raven Stole the Moon

Colm Tobin, Brooklyn

Ernest Hemingway, Old Man in the Sea

Veronica Roth, Divergent (A reread for bookclub next week)

 

I started Walden today and I’m about a quarter of the way through it. Hoping to get at least halfway, but it’s a piece of work. Are any of my readers joining in with the readathon? What are you guys reading?