Is anyone else here having a problem with picking what to read now, 2013? Most of my kindle books that I feel like reading will count towards a challenge for next year. My geography one specifically. I am afraid to start them in case I get hooked and finish. :lol: This is the oddest situation!

Sorry, would not let me back to the Premier Inn part to complete my thought. Grrrr I was going to say we normally stay at that chain because 2 children under 16 eat breakfast free with one adult at their restaurants. We eat a huge breakfast, then a snack type lunch, and then a meal out when we need to stay overnight. These are fairly basic but can sleep 4 which is not the norm here.

http://www.hrp.org.uk/supportus/membership/ I would recommend buying this attraction pass for London area Palaces. The are all near the underground so will work with the travel pass. The price of one visit to the Tower for a family is not that much less. I love Hampton Court which is part of the pass. I was amazed at how much I liked Kew Palace -- you get a coupon for entrance into kew gardens at half off I think which you need to go to this one. The rest of the Palaces are free with the pass. British Museum and many others are free. You can stay busy for a week in London pretty easily. We normally drive in so I can't really recommend a letting agent but I would look at holiday house rentals. Basically that would give you an apartment with cooking facilities. Which would save quite a bit of money over the week, even if you just eat in once a day. We normally stay at Premier Inns

Tress -- The Harvard course looks interesting. Great find. :) As I understand the 5/5/5 is a challenge where you pick your own topics and read 5 that meet your criteria for each topic. You could do 5 Durch classics for instance. I think you are supposed to do 5 of these when you do the 5/5/5 but just completing one was hard for me! I failed at this one last year. I am hoping that without the pressure to read 5 I will at least read some CS Lewis and Bronte in the coming year. I believe the tentative plan is for two chapters a week the SWB books. Pretty sure that is what someone said. Hopefully you will be able to join in! Don't feel too bad about the Goldfinch. I loved the first 400 or so pages but almost quit after that. It improved vastly for me roughly at the point you are at. I did not list it as a favorite because I did not like the middle at all.

:lol: To be honest I thought someone here was talking about doing all three. Considering that I have only made it a third of the way through Ancients on my own I will admit one would be a huge improvement! :)

If it is going to br April for SWB history books I can join in too. :)

Hello, this is dd. These are the books I have read since I last posted, and I will be back later with favourites, least favourites, etc. 96. Dracula by Bram Stoker 97. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 98. Frost Hollow Hall by Emma Carroll Some assorted Poe and Hawthorne stories for the Coursera course. 99. The Invisible Man by H G Wells 100. The Island of Dr. Moreau, also by Wells 101. Herland by Charlotte Gilman 102. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs 103. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin 104. A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R King 105. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury 106. Little Brother by Cory Doctorow 107. The Mist on Brontë Moor by Aviva Orr 108. The Religious Body by Catherine Aird 109. Murder on the Flying Scotsman by Carola Dunn 110. The Gods of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs 111. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde 112. Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger 113. The Last Detective by Peter Lovesey

I hope you have a great time with your dd!

In regards to next year, what happens? Do we start a new thread Jan 1 that goes for a week and a half? I can't remember when it started last year so have been wondering.

In terms of new releases I have the new Flavia already on hold at the elibrary and anticipate fighting dd for the right to read it first! ;) Reading plan wise at this moment I am most excited about my planned version of the continental where I read books set in as many countries as possible. I plan to keep track of author's country origin but am hoping settings will get at least 24 -- since it is my game the UK gets broken into four to get a bit of a head start unless Robin sets some ground rules that I need to follow. I have a stack set aside with 6 countries to start. Hoping to include the Nobel authors in this pursuit. Also hope to read more classics with dd. I failed to meet my expectations here this year pretty badly. For a couple of months in the New Year my family will be in the States. I spend a great deal of time with my mom when there which means airports and a lack of wi fi for weeks for me. I hope I manage to keep up here because I will miss this quite a bit. It also means my light and fluffy books will go way up. My mom loves Harlequin Romances and subscribes. She has stacks waiting for me to read and I normally oblige. I also have access to big libraries where I can browse the cozy mystery sections. Basically this means my first bit of the new year won't look much like my challenges unless I get lucky.

:grouphug: I am so sorry for your loss. I think your decision is well thought out and seems reasonable. Obviously take care of yourself but you don't need to tell a single person you don't want to or talk about it with anyone. This is your business and your husbands, that is it. I have had several miscarriages and my inlaws involvement made things much worse. :grouphug:

http://www.detecs.org/sistermary.html This is an interesting site. I love clerical mysteries an plan to study it in more detail! At the start of December I started requesting an even larger stack then normal from the library because my libraries would be closed for almost 2 weeks. What if bad weather forced us to read nonstop for those weeks? I needed books for everyone and I wanted some fun ones for the dc's. That is when I remembered an old "friend" Sister Mary Helen. It took some time to find the book because all I could remember was Sister Mary something and a San Fran setting but it was worth it. :) I just reread (yes, series are what I reread :lol:) the first one and it was a great cozy. Can't wait for dd to read it. Fyi to Jenn, ds is currently reading "The Nine Taylors" and loving the chapter headings!

:grouphug:

Ladydusk -- I only go analytical when I don't want to pay library fines! ;)

I am trying to cleà n up my stack and finish my series reading that I started in 2013. "Let the Devil Sleep" is the third in John Verdon's series. I liked it almost as much as Think of a Number. Clever solution. http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/v/john-verdon/let-devil-sleep.htm I also finished "The Poisoned Pilgrim" by Oliver Potzsch. It is the fourth in the Hangman's Daughter series which I have really enjoyed reading. This one was quite interesting with a bit of the mystical included with potential Golems.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/02/reviews/971102.02jamest.html I was looking for the page count for Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Murakami and found this article which I wanted to share. I'm looking forward to reading it! :)

I was just looking at the free kindle books and discovered that there are three by Lara Adrian an author I discovered at BaW. A Touch of Midnight (Midnight Breed series), Heart of a Hunter, and White Lion's Lady, are the titles I found. :)

Just wanted to wish everyone here a "Happy Christmas" and I hope you enjoy today/tomorrow with friends and family and eat lots of chocolate. Plenty of chocolate seems to be the British way of celebrating most holidays! :lol: My Santa duties are done, the presents have magically appeared so I am off to bed. Have a lovely day!

Dd has been enjoying Excellence in Literature. There are several books and you can mix the units between the books if desired.

Since you enjoy sewing but find the equipment too much maybe hand quilting. Dd and I took a class from a local shop where wew me a pillow sham. Two pieces of fabric, batting, quilt thread, special needles, and two thimbles were the extent of the equipment. My project fit in a ziplock while in progress. Not too bulky or messy. A couple hours setting up and tracing your pattern then you are ready to go for hours. Several squares could be pieced into a quilt.

I helped a friend assemble her sweet potato dish at Thanksgiving. She had boiled the potatoes in the morning skins on so they were cold. They peeled off in about a second with my fingers. Really easy. If you have a choice boil skins on. Could not believe how easy I skinned and chopped roughly 16 in under 10 maybe 5 minutes.

:grouphug: I am so sorry for your loss.

Happy Birthday to Lostsurprise!!!!

I am glad that your post surgical little one is doing better. That is one less thing to worry about. I had several plugged ducts while nursing so understand your pain. Do you have access to a pump? I was able to see them break up a couple of times while pumping. Because your situation is rather unusual due to location I wonder if someone from le leche might be more help because of more compiled knowledge. I fell asleep while latched and got a blood blister there. No one could help including the lc's at a pretty major hospital because it was an unknown problem but painful and bleeding. I think something from le leche said to keep nursing with it which did seem to work although neither the baby or I liked it. I will continue to pray for you and hope tomorrow brings relief for this issue. :grouphug:

Here is my wrap up. Favorite Books of 2013 1) Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley 2) Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger 3) 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami 4) A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki 5) The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton Least Favorite 2013 that I completed 1) Wicked Business by Janet Evanovich 2) Red Moon by Benjamin Percy 3) Grendel by John Gardener 4) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 5) Sweetheart by Chelsea Cain Pleasantly surprised by: If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italio Calvino Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Most Unputdownable books: The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway Think of a Number by John Verdon Planning to reread: Generally I only reread with a purpose like the entire series because a new one came out or my Dracula / Historian comparison during October. Thought I would love but didn't : Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris -- still sad about how Sookie Stackhouse one of my all time favorites ended Books with Greatest Impact in 2013: WWI series books -- I kept reading novels that were set during and in the aftermath of the war accidentally along with it being part of the dc's history. It ended up being really useful because I "get" much of the history which appears to be going to be a hot topic in my community because of the hundredth aniversary this year. Recommend to everyone irl: A Tale for the Time Being and The Secret Keeper Favorite Challenge: I didn't complete many but enjoyed all that I participated in. I did Continental without Antarctica :lol:, Dusty Books, 1Q84, and If on a Winter's Night a Traveller. I read a book with a color that week just not the one dd picked so disqualified. ;) Just a quick add on to thank everyone for this thread especially Robin. I have loved it and it has meant a great deal to me this year.