HPIR February numbers

In February our 5 readers read 20 titles for a total of 5366 pages. Jim was the leader with 1842 pages. Jane and Sheila brought up second and third place with 1001 and 921 pages, respectively. Here's what we read:

The Man on the Balcony / Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahloo

From Doon with Death / Ruth Rendell

Research Strategies: Finding Your Way Through the Information Fog / William Badke

The Laughing Policeman / Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahloo

Formulas and Improvisation in Participatory Music (in Musical Improvisation, ed. By Gabriel Solis and Bruno Nettl)/ Thomas Turino

A Moveable Feast/ Ernest Hemingway

Gone Girl/ Gillian Flynn

Creole Belle/ James Lee Burke

Red Harvest / Dashiell Hammett

"Wasn't That a Time!" : First Hand Accounts of the Folk Music Revival/ Edited by Ronald D. Cohen

Harper's Magazine (November 2012)                                                                                        

The Dain Curse/ Dashiell Hammett

Short nights of the shadow catcher/ Timothy Egan

Sweet Tooth  / Ian McEwan

A New Lease of Death / Ruth Rendell

The Maltese Falcon / Dashiell Hammett

My First Coup d'Etat/ John Dramani Mahama

The Bat / Jo Nesbo

Fifth Assassin / Brad Metzler

Third Bullet / Stephen Hunter

HOLY MOLY, I FORGOT!

I can't believe my mind is so cluttered with all this work stuff, I totally blanked on the blog!  My sincerest apologies to my team.  It's not like I had much to brag about.  Almost nobody participated for the month of January.  I think we all forgot to keep track, plus there was a bit of confusion about the way we were running our portion of the challenge so it wasn't clear to some that we were still participating.  but, that's okay, we have time to make up for our slacking here at The Valley.

For January we had a whopping 3 people participate with a total of 7 whole books read.  Number of pages?  3291.  "Wah-wah".  :(

Abby at Wildwood however, managed to get in 6 books for a total page count of 2005.  Thank God for our dear friend Abby!

Not messing with a list of stuff we read this time around but, next blog will be back to my usual fare.  Complete with photos and everything.

Don't stop reading!

Meramec January

Those New Years' resolutions paid off! Meramec had 11 participants for January, including one new one (yeah, Patrick!), for a total of 51 books and 15035 pages. Damaris took top honors in both categories with 10 books and 2962 pages. Here's what we read:

 

Jane Eyre	Charlotte Bronte
Death Be Not Proud	John Gunther
Lost in a Good Book	Jasper Fforde
A Moveable Feast	Ernest Hemingway
Marseilles Caper	Mayle
Twelve Clues of Christmas	Bowen
Mrs Queen Takes the Train	Kuhn
Art of Invention	Paley
Urban Pantry	Pennington
Culture of Knitting	Turney
Making is Connecting	Gauntlett
Cinderella Rules	Kauffmann
Two Down	Blanc
Gilded Web	Balogh
Gilded Web	Mary Balogh
Web of Love	Mary Balogh
To The Top; Gateway Arch Story	Amanda Doyle
Devil’s Web	Mary Balogh
It Happened One Season	Stephanie Laurens
Temporary Wife	Mary Balogh
Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian	Sherman Alexie
This is How You Lose Her	Diaz
Round House	Erdich
Reluctant Saint: the life of Francis of Assisi	Donald Spoto
The girl who kicked the hornet's nest	Stieg Larsson
The girl who played with fire	Stieg Larsson
The girl with the dragon tattoo	Stieg Larsson
Elsewhere	Richard Russo
Astray	Emma Donoghue
Raised from the Ground	Jose Saramago
Gringos	Charles Portis
The History of Us	Leah Stewart
Tenth of December: Stories	George Saunders
Wash: A Novel	Margaret Wrinkle
Over the edge of the world : Magellan's terrifying circumnavigation of the globe	Laurence Bergreen
Tom: the Unknown Tennessee Williams	Lyle Leverich
100 things Cardinals fans should know & do before they die	Derrick Goold
Feathers : the evolution of a natural miracle	Thor Hanson
The Black House	Peter May
The Light Between the Oceans	M.L. Stedman
Biographical Essays (partial)	Joseph Epstein
Watching the Dark	Peter Robinson
Ratlines	Stuart Neville
Lives Of The Saints
Father Elijah	Michael O’Brian
Muted Grey	Dianna L. Young
The Language of Flowers	Vanessa Diffenbaugh
1968: the year that rocked the world	Mark Kurlansky
Uprooted	Gregor Thum
The Music School	John Updike
Far From the Tree	Andrew Solomon

HPIR down in 2013

It's a sad day for HPIR in the MO Book Challenge, and indeed for the whole district, as our District champeen reader Marian has opted out for this year of 2013. Folks, I laid on all the charm and good looks I could to persuade her to rejoin us, but alas. You will see that without her, our numbers are down.

Our six participants read a total of 29 titles and 5821 pages. Jim was tops with 1445, followed by Evale with 1258 and Jane with 1067.

Here's what we read:

Nebraska: under a big red sky / Joel Sartore

Winter's Bone / Daniel Woodrell

Born to be Mild - Smithsonian article / Abigail Tucker

A Christmas Garland / Anne Perry

Two graves / Douglas Preston/Lincoln Child

Agenda 21 / Glenn Beck

The man who went up in smoke / Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahloo

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Market Research / Anne M. Wenzel

From the Classroom to the Boardroom: The Impact of Information Literacy Instruction on Workplace Research Skills in Education Libraries, Winter 2011 / Tiffini Travis

World Affairs/Dear Mr. President (article) / PJ O'Rourke

Winesburg, Ohio / Sherwood Anderson

Shadow Woman / Linda Howard

Roseanna / Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahloo

Working Girl Blues: the Life and Music of Hazel Dickens / Hazel Dickens and Bill C. Malone

Cold Days / Jim Butcher

Harper's Magazine (Feb. 2013)                                                                                  

The blood gospel / James Rollins

Death be not proud / John Gunther

UnSpun : finding facts in a world of disinformation / Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Bob Dylan in America / Sean Wilentz

Odd Apocalypse / Dean Koontz

Harper's Magazine (Oct. 2012)                                                                                  

Quiet : the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking  / Susan Cain

9 Dragons / Michael Connelly

New Republic  (Feb 11, 2013) / Franklin Foer & Chris Hughes

Short nights of the shadow catcher: the epic life and immortal photographs of Edward Curtis / Timothy Egan

Creole Belle / James Lee Burke

Suspect / Robert Crais

Not Nearly as Much Reading Over the Holidays as I Hoped.

So, the Christmas break didn't produce the numbers we were looking for either but, what can you do.  Celebrating with friends and family can easily dig into reading time.   However, we did manage to still put up some respectable numbers for the month.  Especially when you consider the fact that we lost a couple of participants this time around.  The numbers for Florissant Valley look like so:

Participants:     6

 Books:            21

Pages:          6841

Now Abby, on the otherhand is still reading like a champion and adds her 7 books that totaled 2099 pages to the district totals.

District totals for the month:

Participants:     21

Books:              94

Pages:        25,104

Here's what the folks at Flo and Wildwood read:

Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades Darker

Fifty Shades Freed

Rough Country

Death of a Maid

Death on a High Floor

Below Stairs

Not Working

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

Lewis & Clark: An Illustrated History

What's a Dog For?

Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend

Lambs to the Slaughter

The Odyssey of KP2

Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone

Wonderland Avenue

I Want my MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution

Gone Girl

Heading Out to wonderful

A Map of Home

Maisie Dobbs

A Christmas Homecoming

The Dud Avocado

Heft

The Thirteenth Tale

Several issues of Newsweek

Happy New Year!

Yes, I know New Year's Day was two weeks ago...
Meramec is finally getting our act together to post the Dec. 2012 totals... our 8 readers this month read 32 books and 9050 pages. Damaris was in the lead in both categories: 9 books and 2543 pages.
Here's what we read:

Sherman Alexie	The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Deutsch	Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword
Daly	Murders in volume 2
Daly	Evidence of Things Seen
Daly	Book of the Dead
Beverly	Unlikely Countess
Phillips	The great Escape
McManus	They shoot Canoes don’t They?
Kuhns	A Simple Murder
Jasper Fforde	The Eyre Affair
Balogh	Dark Angel and Lord Carew’s Bride
Bain	Margaret Truman’s Experiment in Murder
Stead	Bear Has a Story
Landry	Treat or Treat
Clare	Wicked Nights with a Proper Lady
Fallen	Jensen
Joyce	Surrender
Catherine Reef	The Bronte Sisters: the brief lives of Charlotte,  Emily and Anne
Jennifer Worth	The Midwife: A memoir of birth joy and hard times
Jennifer Worth	Call The Midwife (audiobook)
Michael Chabon	Telegraph Avenue
George Higgins	Outlaws
Jeffrey Toobin	The Oath: the Obama White House and the Supreme Court
William Boyd	Restless
Rian Malin	My Traitor's Heart:  an Afrikaner exile writes of South African society and politics
Henry Wiencek	Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and his slaves
M.L. Stedman	The Light Between Oceans
	1968
	God With Us
Mark Strand	Hopper
	L is for Lollygag
John Updike	The Afterlife and Other Stories

HPIR slacks in the holidays

You would think that with all the time off work we would be able to post some fat numbers. But no. For whatever reason, many of us were off our game in the month of December. The six readers who participated this month read 7114 pages in 34 titles. Of course Marian read 2435, Jane came in second with 1463, and Monica followed with 932. My own personal excuse for coming in last? Reading non-fiction all month.

Meditation: an indepth guide / Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson
A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History / Thomas Bender
Kiss the Dead / Hamilton, Laurell K.
GSA Today, Nov. 2012
Confederacy of Dunces / John Kennedy Toole
Harper's Magazine (August 2012)                                                                                      
Cunning corvids / Moss, Mary Beth
Mink River / Brian Doyle
XO / Jeffery Deaver
Learning Curve: How College Graduates Solve Information Problems Once They Join the Workplace / Alison J. Head
A Land More Kind Than Home / Wiley Cash
I, Michael Bennett / James Patterson &  Michael Ledwidge
Visions of Sugar Plums / Janet Evanovich
A Christmas Treasury of Yuletide: Stories and Poems / Assorted authors
A Christmas Garland / Anne Perry
Call the Midwife: a memoir of birth, joy, and hard times / Jennifer Worth
Chasing Cezanne: a novel / Peter Mayle
I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections / Nora Ephron
Naked: essays/memoir / David Sedaris
An Uncommon Appeal of Clouds: a novel / Alexander McCall Smith
The Art of Procrastination: a Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging, and Postponing or Getting Things Done by Putting Them Off / John Perry
In Rooms of Memories: essays / Hilary Masters
A Daughter's Tale: the memoir of Winston Churchill's youngest child / Mary Soames
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: a novel / Ransom Riggs
The Pocket Mirror: poems / Janet Frame
How to Dunk a Doughnut: the science of everyday life / Len Fisher
Ambient Findability / Peter Morville
St. Zita Society / Ruth Rendell
Quiet : the power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking / Susan Cain
Bird brains : the intelligence of crows, ravens, magpies, and jays / Candace Savage
The Last Man / Vince Flynn
Political Suicide / Michael Palmer
Every Closed Eye Ain't Sleep: African-American Perspectives on the Achievement Gap / Teresa D. Hill