Home Books Archive by category "Challenges" (Page 2)

Category: Challenges

The Winter Fortress – How Nine Norwegians Saved the World!!

The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb – Neal Bascomb

The Winter Fortress recounts the tale of the 1942 sabotage of the Vemork hydroelectric plant in Norway. The plant was one of the few places in the world that produced heavy water. Nazi Germany wanted all the heavy water that Norway could produce.. Heavy water was a key element for the production of an atomic bomb. I never had really heard of the mission before reading the book, but now I feel that I lived through it! Bascomb did a great job researching and writing The Winter Fortress, The book reads more like an action novel than a work of non-fiction. read more

March 2016 Reading Challenge Update

March 2016 Reading Challenge Reads and My Proposed April Reads…..

March Reads

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To meet my 2016 Reading Challenge of 60 books, I need to average five books per month. I fell one book short of that this month reading only four books. Overall though, I am two off the pace needed to reach my 60 book goal. Three of the four books that I read were either mysteries or thrillers,and were written by a favorite author. The fourth book was a mini-memoir. The three books written by favorites  were: Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter,The Forgotten Room from Lincoln Child and Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. read more

Reading Challenge Update: October 2015!

Reading Challenge October Update

So now I’ve caught up on my running,(well, actually if you consider today’s run I’m not caught up with runs right now!), it’s time to catch up on my reading. Over the last couple of weeks I have finished two books! The first is the Pen/Faulkner winning Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson, and then I finished Gracie: A Love Story written by her partner and husband George Burns!

They were the 43rd and 44th books that I have finished this year!! That leaves only 7 more to reach what I thought was a lofty goal of 51 books for the year!! read more

Reading Challenge Update for Mid-October!

2015 Reading Challenge 41 books down 10 more to go!!

So as I have said many times October has been a busy month especially the last two weeks. But in those two weeks I have finished two books first Broken Promise from Linwood Barclay and most recently Silent Creed from Alex Kava. So where does that put me on my various reading challenges. Well, the addition of these two books have brought the total number of books I’ve read to 41 which is 80% of my goal total of 51 books. Since the goal of 51 books was very lofty, I’m really happy with where I am right now!! So right now I can achieve my goal with 2 more books this month and 4 in each of the following months. But with so much competing with my time over the next few month i.e Eagles football, Sixers basketball and Flyers hockey plus the World Series I don’t know if I’ll reach my goal!! Anyway, here’s a tabulation of my reads!! read more

Mid – June Reading Challenges Update!

Well we’ve just past the middle of June, so it’s time to check how I’m doing on my Reading Challenges.So far this month I have finished three books. I was only planning on reading one of them this month!

June 2015 Reads
28 Dark Intelligence – Neal Asher Science Fiction Library
27 The Stranger – Harlan Coben Cloak & Dagger Library
26 The Martian – Andy Weir Science Fiction Ebook

The books that I was reading at the end of May and planning to finish in June are listed on the table below. As you can see only Dark Intelligence is the only one that I was reading!!  I found Harlan Coben’s latest The Stranger  at the library when I was picking up a book for my daughter and couldn’t pass it up, I figured correctly that it would be a fast read!. The Martian is an ebook that I had requested from the library a long time ago, that became unexpectedly available!! So after finishing the above books, I have to get back into the other four books that I am still reading and see if I can finish them before the end of the month!! I will be posting my reviews of Dark Intelligence and The Stranger shortly! They were both great reads! read more

Reading Challenges End of May Update

Six Books Finished for My Reading Challenges 

So as we come to the end of May it’s time to check in and see how I’m doing on my various Reading Challenges. May was another great reading month. I finished six books that go towards my Reading Challenges and one that doesn’t. The one that doesn’t fall into any of the Reading Challenges is a free Kindle ebook that I read Payback and a Bottle of Merlot – Bria Marche. Hey it was free and worth every penny of it! Cough! Cough! So here are the books and the Reading Challenges that the book falls into….. read more

May Reading Update…..

May Another Good Reading Month – Five books finished with a week to go!

At he end of April my projected reads for May were projected to be…..::

What Then Shall We Do?
Dance of Death
Bowl of Heaven
A Delicate Truth
The Technologist

As I moved into May, I finished reading What Then Shall We Do? and Dance of Death. At that point, I went to the library and then changed the books. I added: How to Read the Solar System,and The Smoke at Dawn by Jeff Sahaara from the library. Then I added Preston & Child’s Brimstone (the book prior to Dance of Death) and The Devil’s Punchbowl from Greg Isles both from my TBR pile. Additionally, I continued reading Bowl of Heaven from Gregory Benford and Larry Niven. A few days later, Inspector of the Dead by David Morrell, which I requested from the library became available. I zipped through that book and then did the same thing with Brimstone!! read more

Reading Challenge Update and Reads May 2015

May Reading Challenge Update

April 2015 was a great reading month for me as I finished seven books!! Woo! Hoo! May has not gotten off to a bad start either I have already finished two books. What Then Must We Do? by Gar Alperovitz and Dance of Death from the dynamic duo of Preston & Child

What Then Must We Do? is treatise on what we need to do in the future to try to fix our broken economic system. It delves into what we can do to democratize the ownership of wealth in our nation to strengthen our communities and our nation!! It is book 4 on a goal of 11 in my nonfiction reading challenge and book number 20 for 2015! Review read more

April 2015 Reads and Reading Challenges Update!

Update: April 2015 Reads and Reading Challenges 

It’s time to update my reading for the month of April and to look forward to next months reads. To say that as far as reading goes April was a good month is a vast understatement. It was an exceptional reading month, as I finished SEVEN books! That brings my total of 2015 up to  19! Way, way above the average over the last several years!! Now all I have to do is keep it going!!

Here are the books that I read in April 2015 – The big three are The Chessmen, Dreamless and Endangered. While the other were good these three were great!! I haven’t posted my review yet of C J Box’s Endangered but it will be coming soon!! read more

Reading Challenge Status Update – April 9, 2015

2015 Reading Challenges Update and Projected April Reads

So we are almost a third of the way through April and I guess it’s time to update my Reading Challenges status and update the list of books I hope to finish this month!!! First yesterday I finished book 15 for 2015 Woo Hoo! To put this minor accomplishment in perspective I finished book 15 in 2014 on August 17th! I actually believe that having a plan and the reading challenges have helped me keep up this great pace!! (and not working full-time help just a wee little bit!)

Book 15 for the year was On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft  by Stephen King. The book was a Christmas gift from my wife along with two other books on writing.  On Writing Well by William Zinsser and The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Do you think she’s trying to tell me something??? Anyway, the book was good and although it was written or those writing fiction, I did pick up some tips. I will be writing a more detailed review tomorrow. The book counts towards my 2015 Nonfiction Reading Challenge bringing the total in that challenge to 2 on a goal of 11. read more