About Us

Introduction

"I stepped into the bookshop and breathed in that perfume of paper and magic that strangely no one had ever thought of bottling." -- Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game

The idea for this blog came about after a discussion between the contributors about how little time and motivation that we, as two twentysomething urbanites, have for reading for pleasure.  It was not the first time we had touched on this topic and, were something not done about it, it would not be the last.  It was also, of course, born of a shared love for books, not the least evidenced by the reams of e-mails and text messages that have passed between us regarding them.

And thus the Challenges were born.  By holding each other to completing a Challenge each month (and writing about it), the two of us will be forced to find the time to read more often, as well as to pick up books we otherwise might not. We have a brainstormed list of Challenges in a shared Google doc and used a random integer generator to pick a year’s worth. Suggestions for Challenges are more than welcome, though we can’t guarantee they’ll be taken.


The Rules


...are simple.

1. Read a book that fits into each month’s Challenge within the time frame of that month.
2. Said book cannot be one that you have previously read (though ones read by the other contributor are still fair game).
3. A minimum of three (3) posts must be written and published here: one (1) when you begin the Challenge, one (1) during the Challenge, and one (1) when the Challenge is complete. You are, of course, encouraged to write more.

The Participants

Malin’s life as a bibliophile got an early start: she was That Toddler who used to shout out the names of letters printed on the sides of buildings, or at least that what her father tells her, and, when she was eight, she would save up quarters earned from household chores to buy the latest volume of the Adventures of Wishbone series. She’s come a long way since -- for one thing, books cost a lot more than $3.99 these days -- but one thing has remained constant: the belief that reading is as essential to life as food, water, and air.

She has a deep fondness for hoity-toity literary novels, historical fiction, and anything with even a touch of Gothic sensibility. Every now and then, Malin will feel guilty about all of the classics she hasn’t read and pretend to be an English major for a time. Her favourite authors include David Foster Wallace, William Faulkner, and Tony Judt; this would suggest that her ideal novel concerns a grandiloquent, degenerate family from the American South mingling with a passel of French Socialists meditating on the socially constructed nature of historical memory, interspersed with two hundred pages’ worth of footnotes. Or something like that.

Katherine was one of those kids who got books as presents and rewards whilegrowing up. While she certainly didn’t always appreciate that quirk of her parents (particularly when a new American Girls product was released) to this day she rewards herself with a good book. Try it sometime - it’s better than chocolate. As cheesy as it sounds, she believes there’s no feeling quite like cracking open the spine of a book for the first (or second, or third) time.

While these days the books she reads tend to revolve around salacious real-life art theft and forgeries, Katherine still enjoys good works of fiction, historical novels and the occasional ridiculous murder mystery. Under duress, she’d call Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind her favorite novel, but only because you forced her to choose just one. And whatever you do, don’t suggest she read East of Eden. It is the one and only book she’s started but never finished and that’s all she has to say on the matter.