READING CHALLENGES for 2012

Last year, the only challenge I entered myself in was a goal of 50 books, tracked by Goodreads. I hit my goal, but this year I wanted to mix things up a little and give some props to other book bloggers.  I found a great list of options at Novel Challenges. It's searchable by keyword and by year. 

Clocks, Cogs and Mechanisms Reading Challenge 2012

Focusing on Steampunk titles, including classics like HG Wells as well as newer graphic novels.  Levels are cleverly named Brass Gears, Flight goggles, Button-up boots and Clockwork Corset.

Merely Mystery Reading Challenge 2012
This challenge breaks down mysteries into sub-genres and the readers are encouraged to choose titles from the various types.  Choose from The Whodunit, Locked Room Mystery, Cozy, Hard-Boiled/Noir, The Inverted Detective Story, The Historical Whodunnit, The Police Procedural, The Professional Thriller, The Spy Novel, Caper Stories, The Psychological Suspense, Spoofs and Parodies.  And this one has a prize!

Victorian Challenge 2012
So this might not be much of a challenge since I read a great deal of Victorian literature already, but it will help me focus on some authors and works I have yet to delve into.  This one works more like a book club, setting authors in advance. January: The Bronte Sisters, February: Charles Dickens, March: Robert Louis Stevenson, April: Emily Dickinson, May: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, June: George Eliot, July: Oscar Wilde, August: Anthony Trollope, September: Elizabeth Gaskell, October: Mark Twain, November: Lewis Carroll, December: Louisa May Alcott.

Tea & Books Reading Challenge
From the site: This challenge was inspired by C.S. Lewis' famous words, "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me."  You better settle in with a large cup of tea, because in this challenge you will only get to read books with more than 700 pages.
I've only committed to two, making me a "Chamomile Lover."



What will you read this year?

REVIEW: MURDER IN A FIRST-CLASS CARRIAGE by Kate Colquhoun

The First Victorian Railway Killing

I'm a sucker for these sorts of books.  In fact, when I received the review copy, my husband joked, "Well, someone said, 'Let's write a book for you!'"  It has so many themes I love: mystery, the Victorian era, trains, and a murder trial.  AND it's British.  

Drawn from the annals of the Old Bailey and newspaper accounts, it traces the murder of one Mr. Thomas Briggs, an older but successful business man who was traveling home via the rail. Among many of the mysterious circumstances are the seeming lack of motive, the sort timespan in which the crime could have been committed and the loss of a hat (In fact, in Britain, this book was titled Mr. Briggs' Hat).  Even more intriguing is the setting.  The British Victorians had a love/hate relationship with crime even then.  As a society, they were obsessed to the last, bloody detail of the darkest side of human nature -- while at the same time obsessed with repressing and destroyed every shred of it within. 

Favored suspect Franz Muller

The book is very well researched and chock full of quotes from eyewitnesses and reports.  Yet all of this studiousness makes it feel at times a bit more academic than a mystery to be solved.  Between an inquest, an extradition and two trials, some of the information begins to feel redundant, if complete.  The author also chooses to italicize the quotes she uses, rather than surround them with quotation marks.  Rather than getting used to it, I found it increasingly distracting.  Still I read happily to the end, devouring the gripping tale of the crime and investigation itself. 

Murder in a First-Class Carriage explores a completely fascinating chapter of Victorian crime that has been lost to time somehow.  I am admittedly obsessed with this idea and often read from The Old Bailey Online for a voyeuristic peek into the past.  This book brings one of those many, dusty stories back to life.

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Many thanks to Kate at Overlook Press for the review copy.

Murder in the First-Class Carriage
By Kate Colquhoun 
352 pages
ISBN 13: 978-1-59020-675-1
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Release Date: October 27, 2011

REVIEW: MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN by Ransom Riggs

Anyone who knows me could have guessed I'd like this book just based on the cover.  Slightly creepy, old black and white photograph and a Victorian-style title. I came across this book while in a book store at the Newark airport, of all places.  My husband and I were headed to Scotland for our honeymoon but we had a six-hour layover, which left plenty of time to pour over the titles this shop had -- thankfully more than the usual top ten thrillers and romance novels.  

At the outset, the author makes it clear this is no typical scary story.  Our main character relates his confusion and desperate feelings when pieces of the strange tales his grandfather told him begin to come true.  A true teenager and constantly at odds with his parents, he struggles to discover what these clues mean. At times, the book reminded me of "Bedknobs and Broomsticks", "The Orphanage" and "Harry Potter".  But it is none of those things entirely.

To the book's credit, I had read nearly half of it before I realized it was probably meant to be in the young adult genre.  The plot, story and characters are strong.  The hints only become obvious as more characters his age come into the story and his interaction with them come front and center.  Riggs does not "talk down" to his reader, which is refreshing in any genre.  The main character, though confused, is not rash or inherently irresponsible.  He is not perfect, but neither should he be ignored -- an excellent role model for a younger reader. 

Perhaps the strongest characteristic is the inserting of bizarre photographs.  These are real photos that Riggs has found along the way -- in yard sales or in friend's collections.  He builds his "peculiar children" around them and their images make them far less fantastical.  Creepy, perhaps.  But more real. 

I must admit to having a soft spot for this detail.  I too collect cast-off and sometimes strange photographs.  I wonder about the people in them, and the ones that took them.  My book photo includes one such photo:

I even own an original photo by Yefim Tovbis, one of the people Riggs borrowed a surreal photo from. It's been a dozen years or so since I bought it but it's always had a place of honor on the wall.  It shows, as do the photos in this book, how striking images can alter our perception of reality and burn place on our memory.  

I highly recommend reading MISS PEREGRINE'S HOME FOR PECULIAR CHILDREN.  It was great fun as an adult and can only imagine it must be so for a mid-late teenager as well.  I would not suggest it for someone younger than 10 or so since it can be a bit scary.  Although I was watching Hitchcock when I was 4, so judge for your own child.  

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I did not receive a review copy of this book.

View the author's site here: http://www.ransomriggs.com/

ISBN: 9781594744761
Book Dimensions: 5 3/16 x 8 3/16
Page Count:  352
Release Date: June 7, 2011
Book Price: $17.99

REVIEW: THE QUICKENING MAZE by Adam Foulds

I always look forward to starting new books -- ones to review or otherwise.  When I knew this one was on its way, I watched the mail everyday.  It is by a British author.  It's about an asylum ... and poets ... and madness ... and takes place in Victorian England. What more could I want?

The novel is a fictional imagining about real people and places.  Dr. Matthew Allen was a psychiatrist, phrenologist and steampunk inventor who owned and ran the High Beach Private Asylum, situated on the edge of Epping Forest, east of London.  

At the time, the forest was a netherworld between bustling London and country idyll.  The old growth trees were a hiding place for gypsies and become a perfect metaphor for the tricky, surprising line between sanity and madness.

The forest was also an inspiration for nature poet John Clare - inmate at the asylum.  He is joined in the sanitarium by Septimus Tennyson, brother to Alfred who takes a home in the village to be nearby his ailing brother  (Foulds often references Tennysons as yet unwritten tribute to friend Arthur Hallam, one of my favorite poems).

Fould's book wound up short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in late 2009 as a work of "intense and atmospheric imagination."  It is a very addicting read, even if it seems deliberately obtuse at times.  Foulds manages to create distinct voices for each of his characters, ones that leave the reader sympathetic to each delusion.  

The book is written in numerous first-person, inner thoughts from these characters and Allen's family.  As Dr. Allen sinks further into his ill-fated machinations, as  Margaret falls victim to her own imaginings and Hannah attempts to navigate courtship, we wonder if anyone will leave High Beach the better for it. Ironically, we never hear the thoughts of Dr. Stockdale, who, seen though the eyes of others, becomes the villain of the tale.  

Foulds' most impressive feat, however, is not the story-telling.  He truly has a refreshing way with words.  It is not affected or forced.  Descriptions simply drip with tangibility.  However, a word of warning.  This is not a source for historical accuracy.  Anyone looking for or expecting the concrete and clear excitement of something like The Devil In the White City will be quite lost and frustrated.  

Thanks to Meghan Fallon for the review copy

Book: Paperback | 5.23 x 7.87in | 272 pages | ISBN 9780143117797 | 29 Jun 2010 | Penguin | 18 - AND UP