Saturday, May 2, 2015

Progress

I dedicated the month of April to England in part to clear space for reading a little Dickens and a little Austen, and here the month is past and I haven't read one of either. The month was still a success, though, with lots of history and historical fiction, and more to come. Read of England will carry on until I have read Dickens and Austen, and yesterday I launched into Great Expectations.  This is no self-punishment, because I'm not out of my mood yet and have two more English histories I'd like  to take on before moving on to another big theme.

So far, and note that a couple of these haven't gotten comments yet but will:

English Classics
...maybe Come Rack! Come Rope!, but does it count if no one has ever heard of it?

English History
Boudica, Vanessa Collingridge
Faith and Treason, Antonia Frasier
The Fall of  Saxon England, Richard Humble

 Fiction, Set in England
Armada, John Stack (Historical)
In a Dark Wood, Michael Cadnum (Historical)
The Other Queen, Phillipa Gregory (Historical)
Ruled Britannia, Harry Turtledove (Alt-History)
The Inimitable Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse
Bachelors Anonymous, P.G. Wodehouse

Books by English Authors
Medieval Essays, Christopher Dawson.
.
More will follow. After this reading will be fairly mixed until mid-June, when I'm planning for a bounty of books relating to colonial America and the patriotic rebellion of 1776.   More on that later.

Also, the 2015 Reading Challenge continues apace,  and I am twenty books into it. Those taken:

A book with more than 500 pages (Politics on a Human Scale, Jeff Taylor)
A book published this year  (The Empty Throne, Bernard Cornwell)
A book with a number in the title (Selma 1965, Chuck Fager)
A book written by someone under 30 (I Am Malala, Malala Yousafzai)
A funny book (Bachelors Anonymous, P.G. Wodehouse)
A book by a female author (Boudica, Vanessa Collingridge)
A mystery or thriller (The Iron Web, Larken Rose)
A book of short stories (The Inimitable Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse)
A book set in a different country (Map of Betrayal, Ha Jin)
A nonfiction book (Winter World, Bernd Heinrich)
A book based on a true story (The Marriage Game, Alison Weir)
A book based entirely on its cover (The Internet Police, Nate Anderson)
A book that came out the year you were born (Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card)
A book with a love triangle (The Other Queen, Philippa Gregory)
A book set in high school (The Chosen, Chaim Potok)
A book with color in title (Green is the New Red, Will Potter)
A book that made you cry (The Pigman, Paul Zinde
A book set in your hometown (Casualties, David Rothstein)
A play ("The Importance of Being Earnest", Oscar Wilde)
A book you started but never finished (The Human Zoo, Desmond Morris)



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