I saw this meme at Travellin’ Penguin and I thought, why not? (I’ve been crook with a miserable cold all week and have had to cancel my entire social life so some light-hearted fun is definitely in order!)
A: Agamemnon’s Daughter by Ismail Kadare (2003, Albania)
N: North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell (1855, England)
Z: Zone by Mathias Énard (2008, France)
L: Larry’s Party by Carol Shields(1997, Canada)
I: I Asked Cathleen to Dance by Gerard Windsor (1980, Australia)T: Tamara by Geoffrey Dutton (1970, Australia)L: Latecomers by Anita Brookner (1988, England)
O: Ocean Road by Glyn Parry (2007, Australia)V: The Visitation by Sue Reidy (1996, New Zealand)
E: Enid Lyons, Leading Lady to a Nation by Anne Henderson (2008, Australia)
R: Rumours of Rain by Andre Brink (1978, South Africa)S: Strandloper by Alan Garner (1996, England)
That spells out ANZ LitLovers:)
(But don’t hold your breath waiting for a review of any of these, there are over 1000 books on my TBR!
Well, this looks like fun. I may just have to try it out! Thanks for reminding me of Strandloper. You have a treat in store there.
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By: A Life in Books on April 28, 2018
at 6:56 pm
I must admit that digging this one out has made me move it up the TBR. I’ve only read Garner’s children’s books, so I’m interested to read this one, especially since it has an Australian connection.
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By: Lisa Hill on April 28, 2018
at 9:14 pm
Over 1000 books on your TBR. Music to my ears as I have the same number. We’re both hopeless!!!! Liked your list of books. Haven’t read any of them nor do I own any of them. Good idea to put the country beside them. Wish I’d thought of that. Feel better soon. It’s good to do fun things on our blogs.
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By: TravellinPenguin on April 28, 2018
at 7:25 pm
Hopeless is right!
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By: Lisa Hill on April 28, 2018
at 9:15 pm
I’ve only heard of 2 of these – the Anita Brookner and the Alan Garner which I tried and dud not get along with. And for once I feel like my tbr shelves are small at 570 books 😉
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By: sharkell on April 28, 2018
at 8:14 pm
From what I remember of Garner’s books, they are not easy at all. SO maybe I won’t get on with it either.
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By: Lisa Hill on April 28, 2018
at 9:16 pm
Handy because I have a challenge to finish that requires a book title beginning with Z – the only one on my shelf is The Zookeeper’s War and honestly, it’s been there so long and it still isn’t grabbing me…
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By: Kate W on April 28, 2018
at 9:08 pm
How about Zorba the Greek, or ZenZele which is a novel from Zimbabwe?
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By: Lisa Hill on April 28, 2018
at 9:17 pm
Thank you. All suggestions gratefully received (just cross I’d already read Zelda…!)
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By: Kate W on April 28, 2018
at 9:49 pm
Go with your gut about The Zookeeper’s War – I read it a couple of years ago and it didn’t really grab me either, even after I finished it.
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By: sharkell on April 29, 2018
at 7:29 am
Yes, I’d second that. The PM’s Award hasn’t always guaranteed good reading IMO.
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By: Lisa Hill on April 29, 2018
at 10:58 am
I think I might struggle with the 7, the 4 and the 6 in mine (although I do have the thriller Six Four in my TBR!)
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By: Cathy746books on April 28, 2018
at 10:57 pm
LOL I read a book a while ago called 7 Signs of the Lion, but, well, while it was mildly interesting I wouldn’t recommend it really.
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By: Lisa Hill on April 28, 2018
at 11:43 pm
Sorry you’ve been crook Lisa and hope you are soon on top form and well done for producing an entertaining post like this even when not well. You are amazing and inspirational – I don’t think I’ll live long enough to read 1000 books. I may trawl my bookshelves just for fun but then I look at lessons still to be planned and may change my mind but it is a clever blog post😆
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By: mairineilcreative writer on April 28, 2018
at 11:05 pm
I have been feeling very sorry for myself, that’s for sure. In one week I’ve wasted four prepaid movie tickets and a theatre ticket, missed my French lesson and a retirement function, and had to cancel my teaching commitments at U3A and an outing to Lancefield. And I haven’t really been able to concentrate too well on reading either because I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since last week!.
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By: Lisa Hill on April 28, 2018
at 11:52 pm
Get well soon, what a waste having to take a sickie when you’re retired. Love North & South, think it’s an important work – Jane Austen meets the Industrial Revolution.
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By: wadholloway on April 28, 2018
at 11:55 pm
I loved the BBC series, that’s how I discovered Gaskell:)
(Yes, it’s a waste!)
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By: Lisa Hill on April 29, 2018
at 12:36 am
Sorry to hear you’ve been unwell, Lisa. And what a fine list of books. You have a tbr of 1000! Now I don’t feel so bad; mine is just a few dozen, I’d estimate – I keep them scattered in different places, like a squirrel with his nut stashes. I watched the recent TV version of N and South on BBC – impressive. Especially the scenes with the swirling cotton dust in the mill; how did they do that – CGI?
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By: Tredynas Days on April 29, 2018
at 2:32 am
Oh yes! That cotton dust, was it Engels who wrote about that and how it made it so hard to breathe?
The casting in that series was perfect (not just the leading man either!)
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By: Lisa Hill on April 29, 2018
at 10:10 am
Well I’ve read North and South but that’s it form your list – very much want to read the Kadare.
And it looked kind of fun so did it myself –
https://beckylindroos.wordpress.com/012011-2/my-blogs-name-in-books-a-meme/
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By: beckylindroos on April 29, 2018
at 1:22 pm
I like yours! Have you blocked comments on it? I couldn’t respond there to tell you that you will love The Story of Lucy Gault, and to ask if you’ve read anything by China Mieville? I recently bought something of his but couldn’t get into it at all.
BTW I discovered something interesting at the Goodreads site: I keep a separate Excel file for my TBR so I used that because it was easier to sort alphabetically, but I went to GR for an image of the book, and found that there were four in my file that weren’t in my GR TBR list. They’ve been on my TBR since 2008, and I’ve done an annual ‘stocktake’ matching GR and this file more or less every year since I joined it, and I’d be willing to put money on having entered them there. It’s not the first time I’ve encountered this either. The moral is, don’t entrust all your records to GR alone!
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By: Lisa Hill on April 29, 2018
at 1:40 pm
I forgot to allow the comments! (Turned them on now.) Thank you for responding here!
Yes, I’ve read The Story of Lucy Gault but that was a long time ago and now it’s coming up in another group, so it’s back on the wish list to get it in Audible format.
I’ve also tried to read Meiville before and got confused. But this one is nonfiction and I’m pretty familiar with the Russian Revolution so I’m curious to see what he does with it – he’s supposed to be an amateur expert.
I have a lot of crime novels in my TBR/Wish List – I need them to get some down time from the good stuff. lol –
I don’t use Goodreads a lot because I started all this stuff in 1996 or so on Geocities and just got used to my own ways. Had to move from there but still… never took to the ways of Goodreads. ?
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By: beckylindroos on April 30, 2018
at 7:26 am
Gosh, Geocities, that seems so long ago. I used Geocities to make a whole of interactive teaching activities so I was not very happy when they all vanished into cyberspace. That experience has always made me a little anxious about the long term security of our blogs too.
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By: Lisa Hill on April 30, 2018
at 10:14 am
It is a long time – like 20 years? – And then I moved to iWeb from Apple but they shut down so then it was WordPress. The iWeb gave us almost 2 years to get moved – but you never know, do you? LOL~
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By: beckylindroos on April 30, 2018
at 10:18 am
I go through phases of printing out my reviews, because I mostly write them directly into WP, no drafts anywhere else…
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By: Lisa Hill on April 30, 2018
at 10:39 am
Good one Becky. I think I’ve read Mieville’s Kraken and Embassytown – very much straight SF (ie. Not to everyone’s taste!)
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By: wadholloway on April 29, 2018
at 2:57 pm
The one I have is The Last Days of New Paris. One of these days I’ll give it another try and then I’ll send it to you.
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By: Lisa Hill on April 29, 2018
at 4:15 pm
I really like Sci-Fi but Mieville gets complicated – “weird” I think he calls it. The thing about his “October” book is that it’s about the Bolshevik Revolution and I do know a fair amount about that and it’s got some really good reviews.
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By: beckylindroos on April 30, 2018
at 8:17 am
I hope you feel better soon, Lisa.
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By: amandacurtin on April 29, 2018
at 10:11 pm
That list read as if you were looking at my bookshelves!!!
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By: Jan Wallace Dickinson on April 30, 2018
at 1:44 pm
Except for the OpShop Finds, most of them are from Readings so that’s probably why:)
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By: Lisa Hill on April 30, 2018
at 3:19 pm
What a fun idea. I’m glad I don’t have a Z in my blog’s name, I would have to hastily find something I wanted to read.
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By: maamej on April 30, 2018
at 4:40 pm
Just as well I didn’t have a Q!
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By: Lisa Hill on April 30, 2018
at 5:27 pm
Great job! I’m glad that you participated in this meme. However I would have appreciated a mention link as the the person who created it. https://fictionophile.wordpress.com/2018/04/15/my-blogs-name-in-books/
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By: Fictionophile on May 5, 2018
at 1:25 am
I’m so glad you have over a thousand books to read. I don’t feel so bad about only having 704.
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By: Sharon Barrow Henning Wilfong on May 5, 2018
at 1:48 pm
Hi Sharon, I think it’s lovely to have lots of books to read, just think of all the authors you’ve supported over the years – so don’t feel bad at all:)
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By: Lisa Hill on May 5, 2018
at 2:10 pm
Ah, my TBR list is out of control too! I hope the dates in your post aren’t when they were added to your TBR ;) Anyway, some good stuff there, Lisa. I loved Rumours of Rain. And I haven’t read that particular one by Kadare, but have enjoyed everything else I’ve read by him.
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By: Andrew Blackman on May 6, 2018
at 12:04 am
Well, *blush* I started my Excel file in 2008, but I know some of them go back further than that…
You know, every time someone comments on this post and I see these books again, I am so tempted to drop everything else and read them all:)
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By: Lisa Hill on May 6, 2018
at 8:19 am
[…] remember the name of the book or where I’d put it. It was when I was completing the meme My Blog’s Name in Books that I came across it: First Words, a Childhood in Fascist Italy is a brief memoir by Italian […]
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By: First Words, a Childhood in Fascist Italy, by Rosetta Loy, translated by Gregory Conti #BookReview | ANZ LitLovers LitBlog on May 11, 2018
at 9:57 pm
Interesting list- North and South is the only one of these I’ve read and liked very much. 1000 books- that’s makes me feel so much better about my own 300+ :)
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By: mrbooks15 on May 12, 2018
at 1:29 pm
Reading has to be one of the most guilt-free pastimes we can have, I reckon:)
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By: Lisa Hill on May 12, 2018
at 1:33 pm
North and South was a great read, I think you’ll love it. Well done for getting a book for Z by the way!
Hope you’re feeling better now.
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By: Brona on May 15, 2018
at 10:40 pm
On the mend, thanks Brona:)
Guess whose handsome face I will be imagining when I read it!
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By: Lisa Hill on May 15, 2018
at 11:06 pm
[…] remember the name of the book or where I’d put it. It was when I was completing the meme My Blog’s Name in Books that I came across it: First Words, a Childhood in Fascist Italy is a brief memoir by Italian […]
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By: First Words, a Childhood in Fascist Italy, by Rosetta Loy, translated by Gregory Conti | ANZ LitLovers LitBlog on November 25, 2018
at 4:35 pm
[…] come to a meme that’s been rattling round the internet for months. I saw it on Lisa’s ANZLitlovers and she saw it on Travelling Penguin, who saw it on Fictionophile. The rules […]
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By: My blog’s name in books meme | The Resident Judge of Port Phillip on January 21, 2019
at 7:43 pm