Tag: reading challenge

Heartstopper – Isaac’s reading list in season 3

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Heartstopper logo

It’s that wonderful time of the year again. No, not autumn, I mean the release of a new season of the Heartstopper TV show on Netflix. It is an excellent adaptation of the comics by Alice Oseman. One of the major differences made for the TV show is the introduction of the character Isaac, a bookworm who gradually realises over the first two seasons that he’s ace and aro. Which is a great addition. And has given the world the great gift that is Isaac’s reading list.

I have done my best to pause to see clearly every book we see Isaac reading in season 3. Sometimes the title isn’t clear and it’s only identifiable if you recognise the cover design. So if you spotted a book in Isaac’s hands this season that I haven’t listed here, please do comment below and I’ll add it to the list.

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Easter weekend readathon

Every Easter for more than a decade now (16 years?) Tim has got together with a group of friends to play computer games for the bank holiday weekend. Usually they come to our house and I either go to visit my family or I hole up in the bedroom reading books. This year we of course could not have several house guests, but they still gamed together remotely while I enjoyed the freedom to read all over the house!

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EU reading challenge

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Flag of Europe

I have spent almost three years feeling pretty low about Britain voting to leave the EU, but I have decided that in this bonus time created by the latest extension, I want to do something to celebrate the EU. So I’m going to try to read a book from every one of the 28 EU countries (yes, that’s including the UK).

Ideally, I’d like every book in the challenge to be written by an author from the designated country and set in that country. But if that’s not possible for every country, then I’ll take one or the other where I need to. I already have several books to get started with, but I’m going to need to do some research/get some recommendations to complete this.

I started by making a pile of books from my TBR that are by EU authors. There are some duplicate countries in here, so I have some decisions to make (again, recommendations will be welcomed). And I’ve only included one book from the UK – the collection of Welsh legends known collectively as The Mabinogion.

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Reading in August: to plan or not plan

Every month there are bookish challenges around and August is no different. My Twitter feed is full of Austen in August and Women in Translation Month, both of which tempt me for different reasons.

I’ve read three Jane Austen books and so far not been blown away, but I keep wondering if she’s a writer I’ll appreciate more as I get older. She’s certainly not flowery, which I have less and less patience for. And she’s smart, which I do like. It’s hard to talk myself into reading a book that I suspect I’m not going to enjoy. But I have heard good things about Mansfield Park, so maybe I’ll give that a go.

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Sunday Salon: Book lists

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The Sunday SalonI love lists. I especially love lists of books where I can tick off the ones I’ve read – which usually, though not always, makes me feel good about myself. I have a few lists that I have created myself, such as the Luke Cage Reading List, plus I have my own version of the Gilmore Girls Reading Challenge, heavily edited by me on my many rewatches of the show (which have actually become much rarer for me since the frankly disappointing Netflix reboot).

The only list that I have set myself as a goal to complete is the Classics Club, and even that one is open to being changed over the five years of the challenge. I’m currently a little behind on that but at halfway through the challenge period I’m not too worried.

Every few years I do a quick count of how many books I have read from certain prize lists (I generally do best at the Women’s Prize for Fiction) and one day I will actually store that information in a spreadsheet so that I don’t need to start from scratch each time.

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New Gilmore Girls reading list

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gilmore-girls-year-in-the-life

When the new Netflix series Gilmore Girls: a Year in the Life was announced I was so excited I marked the date in my diary. But it turned out that last weekend was the only date I would be able to see my best friend before the end of the year, which is basically the only thing that could possibly have delayed me shotgunning those new episodes the second they became available. (The three-day delay was totally worth it. We had a fab weekend together at the seaside.)

Once I did get back home to our own sofa and TV, it didn’t take me long to watch the new mini series. And because it’s what I do every time I watch Gilmore Girls, I kept note of every book, author and play mentioned. I don’t think these should count towards the original Gilmore Girls Reading Challenge, so I haven’t followed my usual rule of limiting the list to only Rory and Lorelai’s reads. And I know I’m not the first to do this. But I figure it’s still interesting, and probably not just to me, so here goes.

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Book bingo six-week update

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bingo-card-2016-update1

It’s about six weeks since I first posted about the Books on the Nightstand Book Bingo and it’s going surprisingly well. I’m currently reading The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna, which could tick off either of two categories: “With a main character over 60” or “Set in Africa”. I have a couple of options lined up for “Popular science” and a few others should be easy enough (“Mentioned on The Gilmore Girls”, for example).

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Books on the Nightstand Book Bingo

The truly excellent podcast Books on the Nightstand sadly came to an end on 7 July this year, but hosts Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness kindly left us with one last Summer Book Bingo.

Yes, I know it’s 5 September, which seems like an odd time to announce a summer reading challenge. The thing is, the official challenge runs from 30 May through 5 September, but I had a busy summer so I decided my own personal book bingo would run from 5 September until the end of the year. (Ann and Michael encouraged their listeners to make rules that suit them!)

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