2017 Reading Challenge: List

#1 A book recommended by a librarian : Dracula Vs. Hitler
#2 A book that's been on your TBR list for way too long : Ted Bundy
#3 A book of letters : Dracula
#4 An audiobook : Octopussy & The Living Daylights
#5 A book by a person of color : Push
#6 A book with one of the four seasons in the title : Bayou Autumn
#7 A book that is a story within a story : The Hobbit
#8 A book with multiple authors : Love in Vein
#9 An espionage thriller : The Night Manager
#10 A book with a cat on the cover : The Psychopath Test
#11 A book by an author who uses a pseudonym : Christine
#12 A bestseller from a genre you don't normally read : The Jane Austen Book Club
#13 A book by or about a person who has a disability : A Beautiful Mind
#14 A book involving travel : Tales of Travelrotica For Gay Men
#15 A book with a subtitle : Cannibal Serial Killers: Profiles of Depraved Flesh-Eating Murderers
#16 A book that's published in 2017 : Norse Mythology
#17 A book involving a mythical creature : Strange and Eerie Tales
#18 A book you've read before that never fails to make you smile : Llama Llama Hippity Hop
#19 A book about food : Hannibal Rising
#20 A book with career advice : How to Win Friends and Influence People
#21 A book from a nonhuman perspective : The Bees
#22 A steampunk novel : The Time Machine
#23 A book with a red spine : Love Poems
#24 A book set in the wilderness : The Last One
#25 A book you loved as a child : Wicked Witches
#26 A book by an author from a country you've never visited : Get A Life
#27 A book with a title that's a character's name : Lizzie Borden
#28 A book set during wartime : The Remains of the Day
#29 A book with an unreliable narrator : American Psycho
#30 A book with pictures : Atomic Blonde
#31 A book where the main character is of a different ethnicity than you : Uncle Tom's Cabin
#32 A book about an interesting woman : The Woman in White
#33 A book set in two different time periods : Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
#34 A book with a month or day of the week in the title : Three Sundays in a Week
#35 A book set in a hotel : A Room With a View
#36 A book written by someone you admire : D*U*C*K
#37 A book that's becoming a movie in 2017 : Murder on the Orient Express
#38 A book set around a holiday other than Christmas : Labor Day
#39 The first book in a series you haven't read before : The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
#40 A book you bought on a trip : Obedience to Authority
#41 A book recommended by an author you love : The Other
#42 A bestseller from 2016 : Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis
#43 A book with a family-member term in the title : Sons of Anarchy
#44 A book that takes place over a character's life span : To The Stars
#45 A book about an immigrant or refugee : Hannibal
#46 A book from a genre/subgenre that you've never heard of : John Dies at the End
#47 A book with an eccentric character : Drag Queen
#48 A book that's more than 800 pages : A Clash of Kings
#49 A book you got from a used book sale : Sliver
#50 A book that's been mentioned in another book : This Side of Paradise
#51 A book about a difficult topic : Lethal Lolita
#52 A book based on mythology : The Odyssey

Date Started: January 1, 2017
Date completed: December 27, 2017
Books finished in challenge: 52 of 52
Books finished in total for year: 90

2017 Reading: Wicked Witches

#25 A book you loved as a child

Okay, this is one of those books that I randomly thought of about a year ago and I could remember little bits of one part, but I didn't know the name of the book, the name of the story, the characters, the author. I know NOTHING. But I remembered the stupidest little details: the fact that it had a blue cover (dear God, help me) and one part where it talked about a witch having really red eyes because she would work by candle light late into the night. And that was IT.

It took almost an entire YEAR, but I finally tracked it down. I did everything I could think of! I went to lost book sites, discussion boards for librarians about older books, I asked every single one of my librarian coworkers, I googled the google out of google in every possible pattern I could think with what little info I could remember until one day I finally stumbled upon the cover.

And you know what I did? I immediately bought the damned book so that I could show everyone that I was NOT crazy and the book actually DID exist!

I must have made my mother read this book to me a million times because I loved it so much and pictures were amazing and a little frightening now that I look back on them...

2017 Reading: To The Stars

#44 A book that takes place over a character's life span

George Takei is a fascinating person. He went through containment camps in WWII, he speaks 3 languages, he ran for office... He has done so many things other than just Star Trek and yet, that’s the only thing you really hear about. I think that’s just sad. 

I’m glad I read this book. It was full of great stories that are told only as he could, with that little bit of wit and you can just imagine his big smile while he tells all these tales of his life.

2017 Reading: Tales of Travelrotica For Gay Men

#14 A book involving travel

I read better fanfic on LiveJournal back when LiveJournal was a thing.

Meh. Not much else to say about these stories. Pretty horrible. There are only so many euphemisms for the male anatomy that you can use before it becomes utterly ridiculous. No joke, one part of the book referred to the penis as " a spicy chorizo." It was painful to read.

It reminded me of all those articles that you read in nude-y magazines, you know, the "you won't believe what happened to me" stories. Yeah, I don't believe them because that NEVER happens. This kind of stuff does not happen. I mean, if it does, more power to you, but come on! This is reaching just a little too far over the line.

But whatever. I'm done with it now and I can get rid of this book that has been sitting on my shelf for the longest time. Where did I even get this book? I don't remember buying it but I'm sure I did somewhere down the line, probably closer to my early 20's. Oh, how naive I was...

2017 Reading: Love in Vein

#8 A book with multiple authors

Yet another one that has been sitting on my shelf for the longest time waiting for me to pick it up. Although to be fair, I've owned this book since before the whole vampire thing exploded into the popular market and that's probably the reason that is sat as long as it did. But the pages smell divine.

Basically anything that Poppy Z. Brite deems to put his name on is alright with me. I know that there are no stories by him in this collection, but he chose them and since I like his writing so much and just the way his mind works, I trust his judgement when it comes to recommendations.

I like that some of these stories branched out into other types of vampires and lampas, not just the ones to drink blood and stuff. It gives them more variety and also expands the kind of stories that you can tell with them.

2017 Reading: A Beautiful Mind

#13 A book by or about a person who has a disability

There's a reason I studied English in college... I cannot math. At. All.

So, this book?

SUPER CONFUSING!

Also, if you have seen the movie and think it's a great story or whatever, then don't bother reading the book. Nothing is the same. Nothing. The movie might as well have been called something completely different and they should have changed the names. Part of me understands the need to create certain elements so that one can in some way at least a little bit understand what it's like with schizophrenia, but the rest of it? Nope. Just made up nonsense that has no bearing in the real story of what actually happened.

That being said, there were certain parts that were interesting to know about this person, but on the whole, I really didn't particularly care for this book. Most of it was all of the math and descriptions of things that had nothing to do with Nash (like the procedures of the Nobel committees, for example). The other part was how mad it made me that a movie was made seemingly by a person who never read the book or knew anything at all about Nash in the first place.

Hollywood.

2017 Reading: Strange and Eerie Tales

#17 A book involving a mythical creature

Short little book that has been on my shelf for a while. Contains three little stories that I must admit, I had never heard before. Nice and quick.

2017 Reading: Phoebe and Her Unicorn: The Magic Storm

I always like to read these when I can find them. They're cute, quick reads that make me smile.

2017 Reading: Llama Llama Hippity-Hop

#18 A book you've read before that never fails to make you smile

Since my nephew was old enough to really understand words, we have read this to him before bedtime every night. Over three years of that and it never fails to put a smile on my face.