2015 challenge: Back to the Classics

Well, this challenge was also too tempting to resist! After I got the first taste of making lists with intended reading from O, here's another one that whetted my appetite:

Karen is hosting the 2015 Back to Classics challenge, and I'm still cautious and have (only) indicated 7 categories for which I intend to read books - obviously, if all goes well, there will be more:

1. A Classic by a Woman Author: The Tennant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
2. A Very Long Classic Novel:   The Moonstone by W. Collins
3. A Classic Novella: The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells
4. A Classic with a Person's Name in the Title: Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
5. A Humorous or Satirical Classic:Thank you, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
6. A Classic Children's Book: Charlotte's Web by E.B.White
7. A Classic Play: A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

One other category I'm interested in is the Forgotten Classic, and here I want to go through my Persephone catalogue to see which title could entice me...

2015 challenge: Reading England

 It's time I got my blog mojo back, and there is no better way to ease this transition than a challenge!  
The fact that a reading list has been prepared in advance, plus the feeling of actually achieving a goal are beneficial (at least for me):  without further ado, my first challenge for 2015:  Reading England!
Hosted by O at Behold the Stars, the goal is to travel around England by reading novels (English or not) set in the various counties.  O has been kind enough to already provide a list with some of the more known books and which counties they refer to (including some counties I've never heard of...) so this should make my research easy.

I will not be very ambitious though:  I'm going for level 2, meaning 4-6 books.  I figured that it's better to aim low and get there than not.  This is the list with my intended reading:

• The Tennant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (Cumbria)
• Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence (Nottinghamshire)
• The Moonstone by W. Collins (Yorkshire)
• Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (Essex)
• Thank you, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (Dorset)
• The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells (Sussex)

Here's looking at 2015 with a fresh look!  I'll also be interested in learning about each of the counties I'm visiting, so as to better get into the spirit of the novel describing it.  Double the fun...

Cooking: Baby shower

Potluck dinners are the type of gatherings I love to go to, one, because they highlight the convivial spirit and two, because they give me a good excuse to cook up something new and exciting!  When my friend Jessi gathered us all girls around for a baby shower I went to my trusted Pinterest trying to find some new recipes. Here's what I came up with...

Cover her face, by P.D. James

I started reading P.D. James fairly recently, when a colleague de-cluttered her house and gave me a box full of books, including several by this author.  I knew the name, but had failed up to that point to read anything relevant (plus, for some reason I always mistook her for A.S. Byatt, but that's another story altogether..).

So,  following the announcement of her death, I thought it proper to write down my thoughts on the first experience I had with P.D. James:  Cover her face, the first of the Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries.