Book 114: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Book Stats.

Title: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Author: Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

First Published: 1886

My Edition: Signet Classic (at left)

Pages: 144

Other Works Include: Treasure Island (1883), Prince Otto (1885), Kidnapped (1886), The Black Arrow (1888), Catriona (1893), as well as various short story collections and co-written novels

I am still working my way through the massive Moby-Dick, and while I love Melville's masterpiece, I need a little breather before diving back in. I decided it might be a good idea to grab a book off my R.I.P. Challenge list to get working on it.

I read Stevenson's Treasure Island last month and really LOVED it, so I was excited to get to it anyway. I have a huge pile of his work that I picked up at all those book sales, so I am hoping this is just as positive as Treasure Island was.

Hopefully, given Darlyn's recent review, this will be a fast, fun read that I will absolutely LOVE. I read the first chapter last night and only set it down because I was exhausted....so who knows, maybe I'll even finish it tonight!

If you are curious, here are my thoughts on Treasure Island.

Joining RIP.

You know, when I see fun things that other bloggers are participating in, I feel this incredible urge to join in. I like trying new things, exploring literature with others, and broadening my horizons. And, as this is my third fall season as a book blogger, this is the third time I have seen the RIP (R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril) Challenge out and about. And I have stayed far, far away from it.

I am a huge chicken. Silly things scare me. After seeing Signs in the theater, I slept with my lights on and a cup of water by my bed for a week (I was 16 or 17). Matt got mad at me when we went to see King Kong because I about ripped his arm off. The last time I went to a haunted house (I was 18), I screamed so much I started crying hysterically and I had nightmares for weeks. Even trailers for scary movies played during commercials freak me. Matt, of course, thinks it's hilarious, until I force him to sleep with the lights on. Needless to say, I avoid anything scary.

So of course I am going to join in on RIP, a challenge dedicating to reading some scary, dark, and gothic stuff. Coupled with the new Classics Circuit coming up, Matt is in for some bright nights. :) But the fact is, I have some titles I have been avoiding on my list (because of the scary), and I need to just read them. This is a good time. So, I am declaring my intention to join in.



I am signing up for "Peril the First," which means I am reading four books of scary nature. Here are the titles I will be choosing from:

• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
• Dracula by Bram Stoker (I might just turn this one into a readalong)
• The Divine Comedy by Dante (mainly Inferno will count towards this one)
• The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
• maybe some other Shakespeare?

I also have a collection of Edith Wharton ghost stories I just bought, as well as some Poe, but we'll see how scared I do get. And Matt told me to tell you that he demanded I delete the Dickens title off the list. Just because I am scared of it doesn't mean it fits the challenge (boo hiss on him).

I hope you'll all join in on the fun.

Bring on the nightmares! ;)

2011 TBR Challenge.

Well, I caved and decided to join one last challenge. I have actually been contemplating joining ever since I saw the sign-up post, but I finally convinced myself that I want to do it. And I am making sure to choose books that are not on any of my other challenge lists or in my readalongs.

The 2011 TBR Challenge is hosted by Adam over at Roof Beam Reader. Here is his explanation of the challenge:

The Goal:
To finally read 12 books from your "to be read" pile, within 12 months.

Specifics:

1. Each of these 12 books must have been on your bookshelf or "To Be Read" list for AT LEAST one full year. This means the book cannot have a publication date of 1/1/2010 or later (any book published in the year 2009 or earlier qualifies, as long as it has been on your TBR pile - I WILL be checking publication dates). Caveat: Two (2) alternates are allowed, just in case one or two of the books end up in the "can't get through" pile.

2. To be eligible, you must sign-up with Mr. Linky below - link to your list (so create it ahead of time!) and add updated links to each book's review. Every listed book must be completed and must be reviewed in order to count as completed.

3. Your list must be posted by Friday, December 31st, 2010.

4. Leave comments on this post as you go along, to update us on your status. Come back here if/when you complete this challenge and leave a comment indicating that you CONQUERED YOUR 2011 TBR LIST! Every person who successfully reads his/her 12 books and/or alternates (and who provides a working link to their list, which has links to the review locations) will be entered to win a $50 gift card from either Amazon.com or The Book Depository!

5. There may be mini-challenge "check-ins" throughout 2011, to award and recognize those participants who are progressing through the challenge, such as a "Spring Break Check-In!" or a "6 Month Pit Stop!" Participants who are making equal progress to-date (6 books at the 6 month check-in, for example) could win a prize!

6. Crossovers from other challenges are totally acceptable, as long as you have never read the book before and it was published pre-2010!

*Note - You can edit your list through Dec. 31st. As of 1/1/2011, the posted list needs to be final. Also, you can read the books on your list in any order; they do not need to be read in the order you have them listed. :)


Alright, sounds fun, doesn't it?

I have put a lot of thought into my list. I wanted to select 12 books (and 2 alternates) that I really want to get to in 2011. None of them are going to be books for other challenges, and they aren't books for my readalongs. I also tried to choose a few books that I am not so excited about, but need to read. You'll understand when you see the list. :)

My Chosen 12 Books:

1. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
   
2. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
3. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
4. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
5. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
6. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
7. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
8. The Dubliners by James Joyce
9. Wise Blood by Flannery O'Conner
10. Pamela by Samuel Richardson
11. Ceremony by Leslie Marmon
12. The Once and Future King by T.H. White

My Two Alternates:

1. Winter in the Blood by James Welch
2. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
   

I think this will be a great challenge and will actually push me to get some of the...ickier...things off my list in the coming year. :)

Weekly Wrap-up for November 28, 2010: Settling In, Illness, and Challenges.

It feels good to be back in the blogging world. With the chaos that was this past month, its great to be able to read blogs and catch up on everyone's posts. I think I'm pretty much caught up on old posts. You'll have to excuse my lack of commenting, but you all write too much. :)

In any case, we're still settling in to the new apartment. We have too much crap to put it bluntly. We can't really walk into our second bedroom as it is stuffed full of boxes. I suppose that'll happen when you lose 300 sq. feet of apartment by moving. But, we'll make it work (eventually). For now, the living room, kitchen, dining area, and our bedroom are put together and organized, so it'll work until we find some storage solutions, and decide to throw out some stuff that we really don't need.

One of the biggest storage problems we have is my book collection. When you have over 1200 books, they are hard to store. I have three bookshelves (2 large and 1 small) that are currently holding my classics as well as some favorite books. In addition, I have 20 or so boxes full of other books sitting in various closets in stacks. I really wish I could display them all, but there is no room. Frustrating.

I did decide that I need to purge some. I have a lot of big history books from my college days (I have a history degree-did you know that?) that I honestly will not read again. Perhaps it is time to part ways with them.

Anyway, things are going well in the new place except that I seem to be coming down with a cold or something else nasty. I have a slight fever and a sore throat, so I will be spending the next day or two drinking lots of tea and orange juice and nursing myself back to health. I hope it goes away, as I have a lot I need to get done! I don't feel like writing when my head's all fuzzy and I have A LOT of posts to write and edit.

I did sign up for 3 challenges yesterday. I feel I need to state again that I am not a huge fan of most challenges. But, considering I have that list of 250 books to get through, it is best that I find ways to motivate myself. As I get further into it, I know that I will be less and less excited to read those nasty books I decided to put on the list. So, I am using challenges within the confines of my own project to get some books read. And that's really the purpose, right?

Anyway, the three I decided to join are the Victorian Literature Challenge, the Special Topics in Calamity Physics Challenge, and the Shakespeare Challenge. I think that all 3 of these will push me through some hard titles faster than if I were doing it alone.

On Tuesday I am posting my recap of the month, so I'll give you more details of what I finished reading then. I have one more book not on my list to finish this month (The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls) before moving on to the Trollope book for the Classics Circuit and War and Peace.

Happy Reading!

2011 Victorian Literature Challenge.

There is no way I couldn't sign up for the Victorian Literature Challenge hosted by Bethany over at words, words, words. I mean, I do love most Victorians and this will be an excellent kick in the pants to read some of their work...and some of that work by that reader I hate (you know, that Dickens chap). And, like said in another challenge sign-up post, this challenge serves as a great way to get more books read off my list (I am only signing up for challenges that allow me to do so, and I figure that challenges are a great way to reach out into the book blogging community).

Anyway, like all challenges there are a number of levels to choose from:

Sense and Sensibility: 1-4 books.
Great Expectations: 5-9 books.
Hard Times: 10-14 books.
Desperate Remedies: 15+ books

I'm aiming for some middle ground and while I am reaching for some Hard Times, I might just get to Great Expectations. (haha).

In any case, I have a lot of Victorians on my list and I know that reading too many of them will make me sick, so I made a list of 15 books that are possibilities. This list will most likely change as I go and I am sure that when I finish this thing, hardly any of these titles will make it. :)

• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
• Tess of D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
• Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Silas Marner by George Eliot
• Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
• Hard Times by Charles Dickens
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
• The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Kim by Rudyard Kipling
• Dracula by Bram Stoker

Anyway, that is where I am starting from. I hope you'll give this one a go as some of my favorite writers are from this era, as well as my arch-nemisis. :)

2011 Special Topics in Calamity Physics Challenge.

This post is my starting point for the Special Topics in Calamity Physics Challenge hosted by Amazingly Pretty and Somewhat Literary.

I love the premise of this challenge and that is why I am joining. I also like that it is more of a short term goal (it lasts for only 3 months-January 1, 2011 through March 31, 2011) and short term goals are my friends.

And while it might seem slightly complicated, I am looking forward to it. The challenge was inspired by the book that was reviewed on their site, and the reading requirements come from the titles of the chapters.

The goal is to read books from the following sections, with each book being assigned a point value. Once point values are added up, you earn a degree. Here is the full list of books and their point values:

50 points:
Othello - William Shakespeare

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë

The House of the Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

40 points:

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

Les Liaisons Dangereuses - Pierre Chordelos de Laclos

Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw

The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie

30 points:

Moby-Dick - Herman Melville

A Moveable Feast - Ernest Hemingway

Women in Love - D. H. Lawrence

"The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" - John Cheever

Sweet Bird of Youth - Tennessee Williams

20 points:

Laughter in the Dark - Vladimir Nabokov

The Sleeping Beauty and Other Fairy Tales - Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch

A Room With a View - E. M. Forster

Howl and Other Poems - Allen Ginsberg

The Taming of The Shrew - William Shakespeare

15 points:

Deliverance - James Dickey

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

One Flew Over the Cockoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

Bleak House - Charles Dickens

10 points:

The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

Justine - Marquis de Sade

Quer Pasticciaccio Brutto de Via Merulana - Carlo Emilio Gadda

Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe

The Nocturnal Conspiracy - Smoke Wyannoch Harvey

5 points:

Che Guevara Talks To Young People - Ernesto Guevara de la Serna

"Good Country People" - Flannery O'Connor

The Trial - Franz Kafka

The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Metamorphoses - Ovid

100 points:
Paradise Lost - John Milton


From there, you can add up the points for the books you are reading to see what level you will reach. The levels are as follows:

Freshman 0-200 points
Sophomore 201-400 points
Senior 401-600 points
Undergraduate 601-800 points
Graduate 801-900 points
PhD 901-950 points

Since some of these books I have already read, and some are not on my list, I took each of the books that is still left to create my own list for the challenge. The books I will be attempting to read for this challenge are as follows:

Othello (50 pts)
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man (50 pts)
The Woman in White (50 pts)
The House of Seven Gables (50 pts)
Moby Dick (30 pts)
Heart of Darkness (15 pts)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (15 pts)
Things Fall Apart (10 pts)
The Trial (5 pts)
Metamorphoses (5 pts)
Paradise Lost (100 pts)-This is if I am feeling brave.

Whether I am feeling brave enough to tackle Paradise Lost or not, I am still in the range from 280-380, which means I will be aiming for the sophomore level.

This is a great way to get some of those books off my list that have been sitting there for awhile out of dread. :) It will be a fun way to kick off the new year and start on some new goals.

2011 Shakespeare Reading Challenge.

To be quite honest, I'm not big on a lot of challenges. I mean, I already have enough to deal with by reading off my own project list. I also have a hard time dealing with the confines of fitting my own list into the requirements of other challenges.

With that being said, I think there is an opportunity to participate in a couple of challenges as a way of being slightly more active in the book blogging community at large. And I am only signing up for those challenges that will help me with my own project, and that sound like something that will push me.

The first challenge to catch my eye is the Shakespeare Reading Challenge, hosted by Elena. Since Shakespeare has quite a few titles on my list, this is a great way for me to get through more of his works.

There are three levels to the challenge, as follows:
1. Puck: Read 4 plays over the year, 1 of which may be replaced by a performance
2. Desdemona: Read 6 plays, 2 of which may be replaced by a performance
3. Henry V: Read 12 plays, 3 of which may be replaced by a performance

I am choosing to go with Level 2. In the last year and some months, I only read 4 of his plays, and I still have 12 left. 6 would be a great number for the coming year and enough of a challenge for me.

I am excited for this one and hope you will decide to join in. Shakespeare is not as difficult as he is made out to be. I find that with a good edition he can be fairly accessible.

Anyway, this is the first of the 2011 challenges I will be signing up for. I will be doing single posts for any other challenges I may decide to join.