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2015 reading challenge

1/19/2015

 
To keep an eye on the progress in this 2015 reading challenge (source: Pop Sugar), I keep a list here on my blog.
20 december 2015: finished!

1. a book with more than 500 pages
Done: Carlos Ruiz Zafon – The Shadow of the Wind

2. a classic romance
Done: Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice (
read review)

3. a book that became a movie
Done: Pascal Mercier - Night train to Lisbon (read review)

4. a book published this year
Done: Andreas Gruber - Todesurteil

5. a book with a number in the title
Done: Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities

6. a book written by someone under 30
Done: Charles Dickens - Oliver Twist

7. a book with nonhuman characters
Done: Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Peter Rabbit

8. a funny book
Done: Jerome K. Jerome - Three Men In A Boat

9. a book by a female author
Done: Harriet Beecher Stowe – Uncle Tom’s Cabin

10. a mystery or thriller
Done: Agatha Christie – Murders in the Orient Express

11. a book with a one-word title
Done: William Beckford – Vathek

12. a book of short stories
Done: E.T.A. Hoffmann – Nachtstücke

13. a book set in a different country
Done​: ​​Charlie Lovett - The Bookman's Tale

14. a nonfiction book
Done: Philipp Blom - Enlightening the World: The Triumph of Reason in a Unreasonable Age

15. a popular author's first book
Done: Jane Austen – Sense and Sensibility

16. a book from your favorite author that you haven't read yet
Done: Mark Twain – Life on the Mississippi

17. a book a friend recommended
Done: Josephine Pennicott - Poet's Cottage (read review)

18. a Pulitzer-prize winning book
Done: Alice Walker - The Color Purple

19. a book based on a true story
Done: Solomon Northup - Twelve Years A Slave

20. a book at the bottom of your to read list
Done: Noah Gordon – The Physician

21. a book your mom loves
​Done: David Lagercrantz - The Girl in The Spider's Web

22. a book that scares you
Done: Stephen King - Revival

23. a book more than 100 years old
Done: Louis Couperus - Van oude mensen, de dingen, die voorbijgaan...

24. a book based entirely on its cover
Done: Carlos María Domínguez – The Paper House 

25. a book you were supposed to read in school but didn't
Done: Harry Mülisch – The Discovery of Heaven

26. a memoir
Done: Anne Frank - The Diary of Anne Frank (
read review)

27. a book you can finish in a day
Done: John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men

28. a book with antonyms in the title
Done: Arthur Japin - De zwarte met het witte hart (
read review)

29. a book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit
Done: Josephine Pennicott - Currawong Manor (read review)

30. a book that came out the year you were born
Done: Ken Follett – Pillars of the Earth

31. a book with bad reviews
Done: ​Gustave Flaubert – Madame Bovary

32. a trilogy (the first)
Done: Stieg Larsson – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)

33. a trilogy (the second)
Done: Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Played with Fire (Millennium #2)

34. a trilogy (the third)
Done: Stieg Larsson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium #3)

35. a book from your childhood
Done: A.A. Milne - Winnie-the-Pooh

36. a book with a love triangle
Done: William Shakespeare - Othello

37. a book set in the future
Done: Dmitri Glukhovski - Metro 2033

38. a book set in high school
Done: Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower

39. a book with a color in the title
Done: Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange

40. a book that made/makes you cry
Done: Victor Hugo - The Hunchback of Notre Dame (
read review)

41. a book with magic
Done: William Shakespeare - The Tempest 

42. a graphic novel
Done: Art Spiegelman – Maus (
read review)

43. a book by an author you've never read before
Done: Wilkie Collins - The Haunted Hotel

44. a book you own but have never read
Done: Geert Mak - Amsterdam: A brief life of the city

45. a book that takes place in your hometown
​Done: ​Max Dendermonde – Kunstmin, liefde en dood in Dordrecht

46. a book that was originally written in another language
Done: John Milton – Paradise Lost

47. a book set during Christmas (or similar holiday)
Done: E.T.A. Hoffmann - Nutcracker and Mouse King

48. a book written by an author with your same initials
Done: Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita

49. a play
Done: Friedrich Schiller - Die Räuber

50. a banned book
Done: Marquis de Sade - Justine

51. a book based on OR turned into a tv show
Done: Arthur Conan Doyle – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

52. a book you once started but never finished
Done: Ildefonso Falcones – Cathedral of the Sea

Discovering pastels

1/11/2015

 
Every now and then, I take out my pencils and paper and start to draw something. So far I had only used lead pencils, but I never was satisfied with the result. The colors are pale, there's always too little choice in color, etc. etc. Painting is nothing for me, but then I found out about pastels. With pastels, you can mix colours, you can rub them for color transitions and the colors themselves are very intense. So I got me a box of pastels, as well as pastel pencils for details. I've been busy discovering how to work with them... you can see my first try outs below! (I am not very talented, but hey, it's the fun that counts anyway!).

literary advent calendar 2014

1/5/2015

 
In the weeks before Christmas, I published a literary advent calendar on my Facebook page. I took photos of my favorite books and tried to express the atmosphere of the book in the scenery of the photo. Now that it's over, you can see all of these pictures here in my blog.

If you want to read more about the books and my opinion, check out the album on my Facebook page!

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