This is the second year that I have participated in this challenge. I really enjoy trying to find titles with colors in them. Blue and green seem to be popular choices, but there are other colors that are rather more difficult. I may have stretched a bit on some of these . . . like using "iron" as a shade of black. Close enough, right?

Here are the books I read for this challenge:

Blue - The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
Green - Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson
Yellow - Travels in the Greater Yellowstone by Jack Turner
Red - Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani
Brown - Bitter Chocolate by Carol Off
Black - Riding the Iron Rooster by Paul Theroux
White - The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
Any other color - The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley
Any implied color - The Color of Rain by Michael & Gina Spehn

I'm sure I'll be back next year for more colorful fun!

Whew! What a crazy week last week was. Parent-teacher conference were Wednesday and Thursday. I hosted book club Friday night (which meant cooking dinner for way more people than I have ever cooked for before). And Saturday was spent painting our soon-to-be-finished master bedroom and bathroom. I'm looking forward to a calmer week!

Bitter Chocolate: The Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet by Carol Off (If you want something to keep you from eating chocolate, this would be the book.)
Persuasion by Jane Austen (A pleasure, as always)

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro (I love learning about authors, and even more so when it's put in their historical context.)

Good question! All I can tell you is that it will be a book I own, as I'm desperately trying to decrease my stacks of TBR books. So that limits it to. . .oh, about a thousand choices. I guess I'll wait and see what I'm in the mood for!

I love the spin lists! It's such a great way to keep me motivated. I always intend to pick up a book from my list, and then I get distracted by the next, new, shiny book. With a spin list, I have to commit. So here's my list this time around:


1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
2. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
3. Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
4. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
5. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
6. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
7. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
8. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
9. The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
10. Autobiography of Anthony Trollope by Anthony Trollope
11. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
12. Erewhon by Samuel Butler
13. The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
14. Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
15. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
16. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck
17. The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith
18. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
19. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
20. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift


I'm looking forward to seeing what I have to read by January 5!

'Tis the time of year when I finally start feeling accomplished because I have successfully completed some reading challenges. The first one I finished this year was the Full House Reading Challenge, hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. I absolutely loved this challenge because it brought back memories of fourth grade reading class, when we had to do something similar. I'm such a reading nerd, but I'm okay with that!

Here is the original board that we had to complete:

And here are the books I read to complete it. (I did replace the Suspense or Crime square with Classic, because I'm not a suspense or crime sort of reader.)

From the local library: Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins
Theme/issue you think is important: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Reread: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Won or borrowed: The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder
Book from a series: Big Cherry Holler by Adriana Trigiani
Best read so far in 2014: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
Setting you'd like to visit: Living in a Foreign Language: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Love in Italy by Michael Tucker
Review persuaded you to read it: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Historical fiction: The Service of Clouds by Delia Falconer
Free or bought very cheaply: The Queen of the Big Time by Adriana Trigiani
From your wish list: The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton
Suspense or crime: Classic: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain
Free choice: The Song of the Quarkbeast by Jasper Fforde
Less than 200 pages: Austenland by Shannon Hale
Published in 2013: The Wishing Thread by Lisa Van Allen
Set in a different country from you: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Contemporary: Wonder by R.J. Palacio
Published before 2013: Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Nonfiction: The Good Girl's Guide to Getting Lost by Rachel Friedman
Paranormal or SF or Dystopian: The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman
Published in 2014: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
More than 400 pages: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Book with animal in it: The Underneath by Kathi Appelt
Author new to you: Longbourn by Jo Baker
You love the cover: A Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn

Well, we've had our first snowfall. Halloween night was windy and cold with freezing rain that turned into snow overnight! Has anyone else had snow yet?

Jesus by Walter Wangerin (Writing a novel of Jesus' life is tough. I give Wangerin credit for trying, but I honestly wasn't all that impressed.)

Bitter Chocolate: The Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet by Carol Off (Not exactly cheerful reading, but certainly interesting.)

Persuasion by Jane Austen (It's been awhile since I've read this one, and I think it's time for a reread!)