Dewey Decimal Challenge

The Dewey Decimal Challenge is an unusual one for me: I don't read a ton of non-fiction so even the lowest level of participation is going to be rough for me.

Dilettante--Read 1-5 non-fiction books

Still, I read about a handful of non-fiction books last year, and this challenge allows poetry to be counted -- a helpful way for me to accomplish more than one reading goal this year!

Read


Joan Frank, Because You Have To
Jonathan Gottschall, The Storytelling Animal
Janet Groth, The Receptionist: An Education at The New Yorker
Carolle Jean-Murat, Voodoo in My Blood: A Healer's Journey From Surgeon to Shaman
Stephanie LaCava, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris
Sandra Newman, The Western Lit Survival Kit: An Irreverent Guide to the Classics, from Homer to Faulkner
Mark Spivak, Iconic Spirits
Dubravka Ugrešić, Thank You for Not Reading: Essays on Literary Trivia
Vatsyayana, Kama Sutra
Saima Wahab, In My Father’s Country: An Afghan Woman Defies Her Fate
Marilyn Yalom, How the French Invented Love: Nine Hundred Years of Passion and Romance 
Jean Zimmerman, Love, Fiercely: A Gilded Age Romance

Comments

  1. Welcome to the Challenge! I hope you enjoy the books you choose!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    1. thanks -- this is going to be good for me since I rarely read non-fic!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Winter 2017 Bloggiesta To Do Post

Image
I love Bloggiesta for reminding me to brush up and take of my blog, and doing it "in community", so to speak, makes this housework a little more fun.

Given my earlier whining about feeling out-of-it with my blog, I'm really excited there's a mini-event this coming weekend in which I can do some backend work here.

My to do list is pretty simple:
make a top 10 of 2016 post (even if it is just a list!)review the book I just finished!I'd like to start 2017 without a backlog of reviews, so it feels important I keep up. We'll see if I'll tackle my 2016 backlog. (Perhaps for another Bloggiesta!)
Read more

Interview with Mary Sharratt on her newest novel, Ecstasy

Image
I'm an enormous Mary Sharratt fan; her novels are rich, detailed, evocative, complicated, lush, and compelling. (See my reviews for Illuminations and The Dark Lady's Mask.) I'm sharing my review of her newest novel, Ecstasy, tomorrow, but needless to say, it'll be all gushing praise. Sharratt's portrait of Alma Mahler, Gustave Mahler's beautiful, talented wife, is so good. I couldn't say I liked Alma's choices, but Sharratt allowed me to imagine why she would have made them.

I'm delighted to share my interview with Ms. Sharratt about Ecstasy. There's also a giveaway at the end, too!

How did Alma's story cross your path?

I’ve always been a huge Gustav Mahler fan. I adore his music and he appears like the perfect tragic hero, rising up from rural obscurity and facing insurmountable struggles in his life, and meeting his untimely death with great courage and dignity. But then I became intrigued by the figure of his wife, Alma, especially after …
Read more

Weekend reads and wow, it's been a while...

Image
Yikes, it's been a while.

Winter did a number on me, as it always does; although I can say that while I wasn't reading much (and clearly not blogging about it), I've been filling my time. This year I've finished six knitting projects, which is a record for me given that I normally only manage one piece a year!

A few weeks ago, we adopted two cats since Unabridged Kid and I had reached our limit of cat-less living. After bickering over names for two weeks, we finally reached agreement: Gus, from Gus's Garage, and Stanley, from Stanley's Garage. (Notice a theme?)

I've fallen terribly behind on my novel; I pretty much stalled out after the winter holidays, and I've just gotten back into a morning writing habit (one hundred-ish agonizing words a day, le sigh).

This weekend I'm starting Mary Sharratt's Ecstasy, a historical novel about Alma Mahler. Gifted in her own right, she put all that away for her marriage, and I'm kind of shoulder tense i…
Read more

Book Review: Ecstasy by Mary Sharratt

Image
First line: Nineteen years old, Alma Maria Schindler longed body and soul for an awakening.

I knew, from the previous novels of Sharratt's that I've read (the astounding Illuminations and fascinating The Dark Lady's Mask) that I would love Ecstasy -- even though I feared the story of Alma Mahler's life would frustrate me. However, I should have trusted that Sharratt would somehow manage to make me not just enraptured of/with Alma but also the people in her life, including the frustrating Gustave Mahler.

Alma Schindler is beautiful and clever, growing up in Vienna's glittering world of art and intellect. She composes and wishes to devote herself to music, but aspires to a passionate love as well. She eventually marries Gustave Mahler, a genius who demands she give up her composing and devote her entire self to his art. The cost, unsurprisingly, is enormous.

This probably sounds miserable, but Sharratt somehow manages to make it deeply compelling and kind of understan…
Read more