BLOG ENTRY: 100 Book Tag Post Meme

The 100 Book Tag

I saw this post on a blog I follow, Helen's She Reads Novels, and I thought now that's a fun way to analyze what I've been reading, what I'm reading now, and future plans. She was tagged from FictionFan and her 100 post. As Helen mentioned, I'm not nearly as organized as FictionFan is, with spreadsheets and everything. All my organizing is loosely done on GoodReads. My TBR pile/list is an ever changing scene, depending on what my current frame of mind and interests are. But I figured what they hey?! This would be a fun way to maybe inspire a bit more organization for me. So consider me inspired, folks! :)

What is the 100th book on your TBR list? (In the unlikely event that you don’t have 100 books on your TBR, what book’s been on there longest?)

Like Helen, I don't do spreadsheets (see ever changing TBR in 1st paragraph *snicker*). So I did the same thing, took my 100th to-read book off of GoodReads, which was:

I first added this book in November 2012, and I've got it already in Kindle format. So I've really got no excuse other than the sheer number of books on my to-read GoodReads list. So will I ever get to it? Who knows? I won't be reading all the books on my list in my lifetime so we'll have to see. LOL Yet it sure sounds intriguing!

Open your current book to page 100 (or randomly, if you don’t have page numbers on your e-reader) and quote a few sentences that you like.

"She regard herself dispassionately - as strangely detached as she'd been the day he'd laid bruises on her arm. She looked quite different: her hair now about her ears and forehead, and her face smeared with her own blood. Behind her face Nello's floated, sated and gloating. She understood that she wasy lucky. With a wisdom well beyond her own innocence, she knew that if he had not cut her hair he would have raped her, even if she bled."

I liked this paragraph as it illustrates how precarious women's positions were in the past. A husband could get away with such behavior, no censor from society or the law coming his way. As I read historical fiction, I find the examination of women's positions and how they overcome them as one of the most intriguing aspects of the genre.

When you are 100, what author(s) do you know you will still be re-reading regularly? (This should be an easy one for those of you who are already over 100…)

I'll tell ya, there are days I FEEL over 100. LOL! With that figure being so far in the future, I don't know how solidly I can guess on this one. But as of right now, I feel safe to say that I see myself reading Elizabeth Chadwick, Simone St. James, and Stephanie Thornton again and again, in future. I've already re-read works by these guys and look forward to doing so again (maybe after that ever growing TBR mountain range is scaled a bit. :D).

Link to your 100th post (if you’re a new blogger then link to your tenth post, or any one you like). Do you still agree with what you said back then?

I've been reviewing books far longer than I've been doing a blog; I'm a late comer to the blog scene with a start date of May 2015. So I went with my 100th review on GoodReads which was for:

I posted this review on June 29, 2014 which is mind tripping as it doesn't seem that I've been posting reviews that long. As to agreeing with what I said back then, 100%! This author knew how to bring an obscure female historical figure to life, balancing her out against some very heavy-hitter family members (Eleanor of Aquitaine, anyone!!). 'Twas all the more impressive as the book was considered YA which threw me. Completely still agree with the snippet below:

"Yet, being caught up in the upheaval between father, mother, and brothers has also given Joan an aloof approach to life (to protect her heart I'm guessing) and a very strong problem with trust, especially when it comes to men. She has a warped sense of what counts as a strength and a weakness in men. She sees any kindness as a weakness. Yet I can see her, time and time again, yearning for that kindness with all the strength that she spends on seeing it as weakness. The author has taken the time to present her as a very three-dimensional character with all the strength and fallacies that being a Plantagenet entails. "

Name a book you love that has less than 100 pages. Why do you love it?

Egads, this is a hard one. Like Helen, I tend to read longer works. I think I can count the number of novellas or the like on my fingers, and even the majority of those were over 100. After looking through my reading history, I've gotta fudge a bit. I went with a work that's 128 pages, so only 28 over the limit!

A collection of short stories on the history of New Zealand, this work took me on a journey through this isolated landscape and its inhabitants, bringing to life a colonial world unlike any others in history. The harsh landscape and how it impacted New Zealand's early colonists made for jaw-dropping reading. I'd still recommend it.

If someone gave you £100, what would be the five books you would rush to buy?

Holy carp, that's a hard one!!! So many choices! I can't say there's any one title that is burning me inside out to get right now. I'll go with five titles I'm eyeballing right now and may acquire sometime in the near future (or when they publish).

When this one publishes in August of next year, I'll definitely be in line waiting to get it. I've read Europeans/Americans in Japan but samurai in 1600's Europe?? What follows sounds like an amazing examination of culture shock at its highest. Some of the samurai even stayed behind and their descendants live to this day. That blows my mind... I can't wait to explore that more!

If I had the extra money, this one would be a fascinating one to grab. It details events that happened just roughly 40 miles north of where I live. So little is known about this massacre that I believe this is the first detailed work on it ever written. In all the wonderful history around the world, I find I often neglect my own local history. Reading this work would be a good start to remedying that.

Now this, to me, tingles all my interest cells to the extreme. If I had the extra cash and the in to a copy of this rare book, I'd swipe it up in a heartbeat. An examination of a young woman captured by Amazonian rain forest natives in the '30s, she spends 20-25 years with them, living their life, marrying, having kids, and basically becoming one of them. After a time back in the modern world, she shuns it all and returns to the tribe to finish out her life. Even respected by anthropologists as a legit source, I think I'd find this book mind-boggling.

My interest in this subject got quenched a bit with another title I read this year, Our Man in Charleston by Christopher Dickey. Yet, that only covered one man and really one country, Great Britain, in regards to the Civil War. This one sounds like it covers all over Europe and Latin America. Exploring more on this topic intrigues me, seeing the war as involving so much more than just the North and South, but issues that impacted the whole world.

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

For my last one, there's not even a cover out yet, despite a publish date rapidly approaching. Either way, I'd wait to the ends of the earth for a book by this author. No one can combine creepy ghostly imagery, gripping mystery, historical details, and lovely romance in one volume as well as she can. She's always a treat to read and this one sounds like no exception. It's a departure from her usual '20s in that she's now exploring the '50s. Can't wait!!

What book do you expect to be reading 100 days from now?

I honestly can't answer that. There's no way for me to predict where my interest will be swinging at that point in time. Safe to say,it'll incorporate history in some fashion. Yet, whether that'll be a nonfiction, historical romance, and straight historical fiction, I can't tell you.

Looking at The Guardian’s list of “The 100 greatest novels of all time”, how many have you read? Of the ones you haven’t, which ones would you most like to read? And which will you never read?

I had to laugh out loud when I got a number of read titles of this: 7. And most of those were for school. I'm just not a big classical reader; I usually find the language too odd to enjoy. I even had to drop the Lord of the Rings trilogy just as they were leaving Rivendell as I couldn't take it anymore. If given enough ambition, I think I'd like to try that trilogy again since I love the story itself so well. I'd also like to give Count of Monte Cristo a try since I loved the Three Muskateers. Yet, the rest I'll probably never read. Call me a philistine or what you will. LOL

Free Question – Create a 100 themed question of your own choice and answer it.

I think I'll have to go off a riff of FictionFan's original question ('cause I'm as original as a rock) but with a bit of non-classical Sarah twist, given the last question.

What TV/movie/play adaption of a classical work could you watch 100 times yet never (or at least only when the zombie apocalypse might be happening) want to read the original work?

The BBC adaption of Elizabeth Gaskell's, I find myself re-watching this BBC mini-series at least once every six or seven months; I love it that much. It's got a great story and characters; those lead actors just make the show for me. Yet, the prospect of reading the original work just freezes me cold. From what I understand, it pushes its lessons of equality and the harshness of the worker's lot in life hard. For the time it was written, these issues were front and center, in your face. They still hold some truth today; but combined with the awkwardness of speech older works have for me, I think I'd find this book too bogging and harsh for me. Who knows, maybe something will change my mind in future, but I'm not counting on it.

So there ya go, Sarah's 100 tag post to add to the blogosphere. If you're feeling like joining in, tag you're it!