Just curious... what reading challenges are y'all doing next year,? I'm still working on the 50 states, 50 horror books (50 percent complete); the past couple of years I have been slightly intrigued by the 52 book club challenge and I've knocked off a few new favorites I might not have otherwise... but I'm thinking '26 will be challenge/prompt free.As a mood reader, it's just so hard to commit!
Poet Giosuè Carducci was the first Italian Nobel laureate in literature. Not that #Italy had to wait a long time for it: it was awarded in its 6th year, in 1906. His work is in the public domain, so I thought I'd try his masterpiece, Barbarian Odes, in their French translation corrected by the author. The poems are quite classical in form & subject, & reject Romanticism. Some were moving, some I found a tad ridiculous.
#FoodandLit
@Texreader
Yesterday, I went with my less-than enthusiastic SO to a pub-type quiz about #Italy. We realised there that it was all done on mobile phones, & ours were too old for it. We teamed up with someone we knew with the right gear & came 3rd🎉😁 We could have been 1st or 2nd if not for some technical issues... We received a gift voucher for a local Italian deli, and we got to eat some delicious vegetarian appetizers.
#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
#wordoftheday
“Allegorical figures were extremely popular at the time; actors and actresses representing Divine Justice, Holy Religion, and Saintly Sacrifice would declaim onstage and then fly straight up to heaven.”
#Italy #Jubilee #foodandlit @Catsandbooks
pickI found this story/writing quite interesting. Written 80 years ago, it‘s the story of a guy who shows no emotion towards anything; his mother‘s death, his girlfriend, a murder. He just wakes up each day and goes through the motions of life. Today, he may be considered neurodivergent. Eighty years ago was a very different time. I paired #FoodandLit with Chorba Bayda, an Algerian chicken soup. Delicious!
“In Ibn Khaldun's lifetime, in the 14th century, the Kingdom of France is submerged by the English's new Bedouin wave, according to his short account of the Hundred Years' War as it was told to him in Spain.“
The English as Bedouins 😂 It makes sense given his view of the world, his philosophy, & the info he had, but the mental image is funny to me. I almost want to feed it to an AI image generator
#Algeria #FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
#WeeklyForecast 48/25
A #ToB26 week! I am reading and enjoying Lion and listening to Emperor of Gladness, which I am not enjoying at all. Next will be the tagged book, that everyone seems to hate but I already bought it and am curious to see what I‘ll think.
Forbidden Notebook (in Dutch) is my choice for #FoodAndLit (Italy).
I also do two on #GoodReads.
The #DustyBookShelf by the Challenge Factory and #MountTBR. Here are this year's links to check out-
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group_folder/476813?group_id=55345 https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/1256310-mount-tbr-challenge-2025
I like all these because they are to work down my TBR & they are books I WANT to read. 15h