The Telling Tales Reading Challenge 2012

I’ve just realised that in my end of year hype I got a tiny bit carried away signing up for new challenges and forgot to actually decide what to do for the one I’m co hosting.

I can’t decide which category sounds best so I’ve decided to let my indecisive nature free and do a bit of each one, that way at least I’ll have variation can only think of about three films at present that are based on books that come in to any of these categories, but I’m sure I’ll find more as I go along. If the worst comes to the worst I’ll just settle for having several Disney marathons. I’m gonna aim to complete level 3, which sounds fairly achievable but we shall see.

So here’s all the stuff I want to read:

Twisted Fairytales:

·         The bloody Chamber – Angela Carter

·         The Penelopiad – Margret Atwood

·         Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow- David Gemmel

·         Troy: Shield of Thunder – David Gemmel

·         Troy: Fall of Kings – David Gemmel

·         Troy – Adele Geras

·         Happily Ever After

·         Stardust – Neil Gaiman

·         The Princess Bride- William Goldman

·         Peter pan – J.M. Barrie

Classics:

·         The complete Fairytales – The Brothers Grimm

·         The Odyssey  - Homer

·         The Iliad – Homer

·         The Aeneid - Virgil

Graphic Novels:

·         Fables Vol.1: Legends in Exile – Bill Willingham

·         Fables Vol.2: Animal Farm – Bill Willingham

·         Sandman Vol.3: Dream Country – Neil Gaiman

·         Greek Street: Blood calls for Blood – Peter Milligan

·         Habibi – Craig Thompson

Poetry and Drama:

·         Goblin Market – Christina Rossetti

·         Kincora: An Irish Folk History play – Augusta Gregory

Review – Fables Vol.1: Legends in Exile By Bill Willingham

This is my first review for the Telling Tales Reading Challenge 2012 and The Graphic Novel Challenge 2012.

Bill Willingham’s First graphic novel of the Fables series is absolutely brilliant. Based in a fictional place known as Fable Town within New York City many of the much loved characters of beloved fairytales live seemingly normal lives. Or at least they attempt to live as normal lives as are possible given their pasts and abnormal characteristics. The investigation of Rose Red’s murder headed by Bigby, more commonly known as the big bad wolf takes us in to the live of many of the best known fairytale characters showing an inspirational world where fairytales and reality live quite comfortably in unison. In Willingham’s world fairy tales really do come true, in the most literal sense, and we see the undesirable consequences of many of them. We see our fairytale stars manipulated and equipped with adequate human dilemmas so that they fit semi-seamlessly in to modern society. Beauty and the Beast need marriage counselling, Prince Charming is a broke and failing con-man and snow white, little miss ‘fairest of them all’ is 2^nd in command under the lovable mayor king Cole. This graphic novel is genius, fantasy set in reality, with a gory subject matter like the true stories that hide behind the happy clappy Disney films that have stolen their lime light. I really enjoyed reading this and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

Welcome 2012 with general wishing and wondering...

Happy new year everyone! This year marks the start of the challenge I’ve set myself to actually use my blog. I’ve signed up for 4 reading challenges, sadly I had to restrain myself otherwise I would’ve signed up for at least 7 and then probably failed to complete any of them. Hopefully thanks to these awesome challenges I’ll have plenty to read and therefore plenty to blog about. I’m talking some tips from Bex and attempted to plan my year in the hope that I might actually achieve some of the things I set out to do. So far I’ve made about a million New Year’s resolutions and have managed to break at least 2 of them already...go me. So far my reading target for this year, challenges included is about 85 books. Wish me luck.

I get the feeling that 2012 is going to be interesting, to say the least. The New Year welcomes the Olympics and the ensuing madness which will undoubtedly conquer London the closer it gets. Then of course there’s the happy matter of the end of the world. I’m hoping that if the world does end that it’ll be by zombie apocalypse because then at least then I’ve got some plan of action and there’s a small chance of survival, plus then I can justify repeatedly watching Shaun of the dead and all those other epic zombie films. Anyway those are my two main happy thoughts for this year.

Here are my relevant resolutions:

    Read 5-7 books a month

    Plan what to read each month so I can track my progress and see how much I’ve failed

    Blog at least twice a week. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more than this but I don’t want to set my standards to high, because going by the classic saying the higher they are the further I’ll fall and although falling will inevitably happen at some point (in fact probably at many) it doesn’t sound that much like fun. Maybe I should invest in a trampoline or a giant crash mat...

    Explore new genres. This is something I routinely tell myself I want to do as it’s something I’ve always thought I should do but I always lack the ability to motivate myself to actually do it and it doesn’t really help that I don’t really know where to start. Any suggestions are always welcome.

Good luck to everyone with all their resolutions, look on the bright side of life, remember to believe in fairies and you’ll discover that anything is possible (the impossible just takes longer)

Bring it on 2012!

The Graphic Novel Challenge 2012

Hosted by Nicola @ Back to Books

I’ve always been a big fan of graphic novels, as I count them as one of the awesome things you can and should nerd out about. However recently I’ve realised that my nerdiness in this area is quite restricted, mainly to fantasy such as Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean collaborations and the genius work of Alan Moore and his various partners in crime. So I’ve decided that in order to classify myself as a true nerd I should expand my range, take risks and board other nerd ships and explore new genres of graphic novel.

I’m signing up for this as it looks like awesome amounts of fun and because graphic novels are relaxing a relatively easy to read and i think that a relaxing challenge will go well with the three reading challenges i'm already doing. I’m planning to read 12 graphic novels but depending how many I can borrow off people or find in libraries I may end up reading more or less... hopefully it’ll be more but we shall see. Does anyone have any suggestions for awesome graphic novels I could read?

So far I’m planning to read:

• ·         The Umbrella Academy – Dallas
• ·         Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
• ·         The Invention of Hugo Cabret – Brian Selznick
• ·         Fables Vol.1: Legends in Exile – Bill Willingham
• ·         The Dark Tower: A Gunslinger Born
• ·         The Walking Dead Vol.1 – Robert Kirkman