This was the reading challenge I was most excited about starting, and the one I'm most proud of finishing! I read through the alphabet both by title and by author's last name. This resulted in lots of time staring at library shelves, trying to find a book or author that would work for one or both categories (or for another challenge as well). This truly was a reading challenge, and I enjoyed every bit of it!

Here's what I read for this challenge:

A - After Rome by Morgan Llywelyn
B - The Baker Street Translation by Michael Robertson
C - Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler
D - Destiny, Rewritten by Kathryn Fitzmaurice
E - Europe on 5 Wrong Turns a Day by Doug Mack
F - A Forthcoming Wizard by Jody Lynn Nye
G - Going Clear by Lawrence Wright
H - Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo
I -  Inheritance by Christopher Paolini
J - Just One Day by Gayle Forman
K - Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen
L - A Little Folly by Jude Morgan
M - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
N - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
O - One for the Books by Joe Queenan
P - The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen
Q - Quiet by Susan Cain
R - The Real Jane Austen by Paula Byrne
S - Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
T - These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer
U - The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma
V - The Vatican Diaries by John Thavis
W - Words Spoken 'True by Ann Gabhart
X - Xingu by Edith Wharton
Y - The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
Z - Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler

A - Allen, Sarah Addison (The Peach Keeper)
B - Byrne, Paula (The Real Jane Austen)
C - Chiaverini, Jennifer (Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker)
D - Doig, Ivan (The Whistling Season)
E - Esquivel, Laura (Like Water for Chocolate)
F - Forman, Gayle (Just One Day)
G - Gabhart, Ann (Words Spoken True)
H - Hartman, Rachel (Seraphina)
I -  Izzo, Kim (The Jane Austen Marriage Manual)
J - Jansma, Kristopher (The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards)
K - Kidd, Sue Monk (The Mermaid Chair)
L - Lawhead, Stephen (The Skin Map)
M - Moers, Walter (The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear)
N - Nye, Jody Lynn (A Forthcoming Wizard)
O - O'Hara, Mary (My Friend Flicka)
P - Paolini, Christopher (Inheritance)
Q - Queenan, Joe (One for the Books)
R - Rigler, Laurie Viera (Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict)
S - Sloan, Robin (Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore)
T - Thavis, John (The Vatican Diaries)
U - Ursu, Anne (Breadcrumbs)
V - Vreeland, Susan (Clara and Mr. Tiffany)
W - Wright, Lawrence (Going Clear)
X - Xiaolong, Qiu (The Mao Case)
Y - Yu, Charles (How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe)
Z - Zitwer, Barbara (The J.M. Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society)

I heard of this concept awhile ago - read one million pages in your lifetime. It sounded doable, but then I did some math. If I read 40,000 pages a year, it will take me 25 years to read 1,000,000 pages! It sounds a bit overwhelming. Oh, well. I'm going to go for it anyway!

I joined the Goodreads group for this, and then started searching for a picture to display along with my page count. I couldn't find one in the blogosphere, so I created my own!

If anyone else wants to join me in the quest, feel free to sign up with the Linky below. I'd love some company!

And if you do decide to join me, here's the button I made. Copy and paste the hyperlink below to use it on your blog.

<a href="http://www.smilingshelves.com/1/post/2013/11/read-one-million-pages-challenge.html"><img src="http://www.smilingshelves.com/uploads/8/3/4/5/8345014/8556634.png?264"/></a>

Winter has arrived! While there still isn't much snow to speak of, the temperature is struggling to climb above 25 degrees. Looks like it may be a white Thanksgiving on Thursday!

Reviewlets - One for the Books by Joe Queenan & Sixpence House by Paul Collins
Following the Sun by John Hanson Mitchell - Review
Books About Books Challenge - Complete! (Reading challenge #2 finished!)

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein (Has anyone else read this one? What was your opinion of having a dog as the narrator? I'm curious what others thought.)
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

The Laird's Inheritance by George MacDonald (This has been on my TBR pile for a long time. It's taking awhile to get into it, but I'm interested enough to stick with it.)

Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer by Lynne Cox

Like any bibliophile, I love reading books about books. This challenge was right up my alley! When I joined it, I had already reached the second level of Short Story, which was to read 6-10 books. So I decided to aim for the next highest - Novella (11-15 books). And I just made it! Here are the eleven books I read for this challenge:

The Reading Group by Elizabeth Noble
Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondlin
Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose
The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
The Cherry Cola Book Club by Ashton Lee
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
One for the Books by Joe Queenan
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books by Paul Collins

I would love to read many more, but I'm running out of time in the year, and I have other challenges to finish up. I'm sure there will be more books about books in my future once 2014 hits!

Following the Sun is the story of John Hanson Mitchell’s journey from Spain to Scotland. On a bicycle. He begins in Spain on the vernal equinox and ends in Callanish on the summer solstice. Along the way, he encounters many interesting characters and stories – and a lot of flat tires.

Mitchell tells the story of his bicycle journey in a laidback fashion. Even when he’s battling against wind and rain, it doesn’t seem to faze him much. His descriptions of some of his meals made my mouth water. And who wouldn’t want to travel around to little villages all over Europe, staying in bed & breakfasts (a.k.a., a very nice person’s spare bedroom), and sampling local delicacies at the town café (or pub)?

This was also an educational book. Mitchell is a lover of the sun and sun lore. He intersperses stories from his journey with stories from world cultures. He covers everything from mythology to the development of the heliocentric view of our solar system. Most of this was interesting. Some of it I could have lived without (there’s a lot of sacrificing to the sun god in world history). And as a Christian, I didn’t really appreciate him lumping Biblical events in with world myths and trying to explain how these stories evolved over the past five million years.

A minor pet peeve – his writing style really bugged me at the beginning. He is a great user of run-on sentences. For example: “They wore wide-brimmed straw hats held in place with white bandannas tied beneath their chins, and they all had round, nut-brown faces, with rosy cheeks and white teeth, and many of them wore full-cut blue or brown skirts and heavy shoes.” Seriously? Why isn’t that three separate sentences? After awhile, though, he either stopped writing like this or I stopped noticing, because eventually it no longer annoyed me.

As an armchair traveller, I like being able to learn as I read. But in my opinion, this book could have used more travel narrative and less history lesson, especially since his worldview didn’t agree with mine. I picked it up because the idea of riding a bicycle from Spain to Scotland intrigued me. That’s the story I was hoping to read. It was in there, but there was a lot of other stuff that got in the way.

This is a book about books. Queenan wrote eight essays, covering everything from public libraries to keeping books you know you will never read. It’s usually fun to hear another bibliophile’s take on these topics. Queenan is a witty writer, but he’s also, well, snarky (in the words of his local librarian). He’s been a voracious reader since his youth, reading mostly classic literature and nonfiction on obscure topics. And somehow those reading choices make him a better person – or at least, reader – than I am. Or you are. He comes across as a bit of a reading snob, even looking down his nose at classics like To Kill a Mockingbird. I enjoy reading about others’ reading tastes, but not if it makes me feel like less of a person because I read fiction books that people have actually heard of.  I enjoyed Queenan’s take on some bookish things, but I would have been just fine without having ever read this book.

Paul Collins has fallen in love with the town of Hay-on-Wye in Wales. Who wouldn't? It's a town with 1,400 residents and 30 bookstores. Every book lovers' heaven! Collins loves it so much, however, that he decided to move there - taking along his wife, young son, and many, many boxes of books. And we get to embark on his adventure along with him. Sixpence House follows him in and out of the bookstores and unstable piles of books. It chronicles his family's search for the perfect house in Hay-on-Wye ("perfect" being defined as level-ish floors and not too much mold). It introduces us to some of the residents of the town. Bibliophiles galore! Collins also intersperses amusing quotes from obscure books that he has read. These were some of my favorite parts, since I know I would never have come across these quotes in any other way. Collins writes with wit and humor. His adventure in this bookish town in Wales is well worth your time. You will most certainly add Hay-on-Wye to your list of places to go someday, just as I have!

I made it through my stack of library books just in time to return them on Wednesday. Now I'm onto the books that I own - I'm racing to finish up the Mount TBR Challenge before the end of the year!

The Elephant Keepers' Children by Peter Hoeg - Review
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett - Review
Color Coded Challenge - Complete! (I finished my first reading challenge ever!) 

The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig (I won't include the list of things I didn't do because I wanted to finish this book!)
Gatsby's Girl by Caroline Preston
Gone: The Last Days of The New Yorker by Renata Adler

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs (And then I'll be done with my A-Z Reading Challenge!)

This is the first reading challenge I have officially completed - ever! I only discovered the world of reading challenges when I started this blog back in June, but I became completely hooked very quickly. The Color Coded Challenge, hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block, was one that I thought would be difficult. Little did I know how many colorful titles there were out there! Here's the list of what I read for this challenge:

Blue - The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers
Red - The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Yellow - Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library by Chris Grabenstein
Green - The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens
Brown - Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Black - The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig
White - A Corner of White by Jaclyn Moriarty
Any other color - The Lavender Garden by Lucinda Riley
A word that implies color - The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma

Most of them are linked to my reviews. I really enjoyed discovering new authors and new books because of this challenge. I'm looking forward to participating again next year!

I love books. And I love owning books. And I most certainly love old books – the smell, the look of them lined up on my mahogany bookshelves. But as much as I admire the look and the smell, I also have every intention of reading them someday. Unlike most of the people in The Man Who Loved Books Too Much.

The person referenced by the title is a book thief with a penchant for rare books. He steals credit card numbers and then orders rare books with them. It’s a scam that worked amazingly – and scarily – well. He “acquired” hundreds of books, but not for the pleasure of reading them. Simply for the pleasure of owning them, accompanied by the impressed opinion that others would have of him upon seeing his taste in books. As beautiful as old books are, that’s the one thing I don’t understand about those who collect rare books. Why would you own hundreds or thousands of books with no intention of reading them?

Allison Hoover Bartlett does a great job of introducing us to the world of rare books. She traces the parallel journeys of John Gilkey, the book thief, and those bookstore owners who are desperately trying to catch him. She explores the reasons behind collecting rare books – both legal and illegal. And she finds herself being drawn into the realm of rare book collecting.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is a fascinating look at rare books and the people that love them to the point of obsession.

The Elephant Keepers’ Children is both ridiculous and profound. It takes place (mostly) on the fictional Danish island of Fino, and is narrated by the pastor’s son, Peter. Peter is certainly a storyteller. His narrative jumps from present events to past ones, trying to explain how exactly the current incredibly ridiculous situation has come about.

The novel begins with Peter’s parents disappearing. He and his older sister, Tilte, immediately realize they must find them – in essence, go to their rescue. Peter and Tilte have a strong connection. Both have had their hearts broken by the love of their life (although you may think 14 and 16 years old respectively a bit young for such heartbreaks). Both feel more inclined to take care of their parents, rather than vice versa. The pastor and his wife are enthusiasts. Since she is extremely talented mechanically, they have often used that to their advantage in creating “miracles” to draw people to church. While this breaks no laws, Peter and Tilte find their parents to be treading slippery ground. They are afraid to see where this path will lead them. As they begin to uncover clues in the parents’ disappearance, their fears seem to be realized.

The elephants mentioned in the title are not real elephants at all. They are obsessions, enthusiasms, major concerns….honestly, they are rather hard to describe, so I’ll just let Peter do it for you: “Mother and Father have something inside them that is much bigger than themselves and over which they have no control…This is what they live for above all else, and it is this yearning that has given them that sorrowful look around the eyes, and it is a yearning as big as an elephant, and we can see that it will never properly be fulfilled.” (p. 148-149) Surely, to some extent, we all have an elephant in our lives, whatever it may be.

Peter and Tilte’s adventures border on the ludicrous, but that’s really simply the style of the book. It’s not meant to be realistic; it’s meant to be absurd. Some of the characters’ names alone show this (honestly, one of my favorite parts): there’s Anaflabia Borderrud, Professor Thorkild Thorlacius-Claptrap, Leonora Ticklepalate, and Sinbad Al-Blablab, to name just a few. In a way, this book tackles religious fervor. There is a Grand Synod of all religions in Copenhagen, which, as you can imagine, becomes rather essential to the plot. The author, Peter Hoeg, makes up a few religions to lay alongside the traditional ones. And while he doesn’t treat any religion precisely respectfully, he doesn’t exactly treat them disrespectfully either. It’s part of the ridiculous profundity of this book. He can describe a basic human truth couched in an impossibly silly situation, and you can learn something from it all.

The Elephant Keepers’ Children is really an enjoyable book. It’s unusual, certainly, but that is part of its draw. Read it to discover what love is, of what nature your elephant is, or simply to get lost in a good story. There’s something for everyone here.