# What is your Winter Reading Project? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 1, 2003, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774 "2003-11-01T01:29:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2003, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/21 "2003-11-03T17:28:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Slainte \* > **My Winter Reading List is anything by Margaret Atwood. Somehow I’ve missed out on her until a few months ago. I’ve read _The Handmaid’s Tale_ and _Oryx and Crake_ and I’m currently on _The Blind Assassin_.** I’m about halfway through _The Blind Assassin_. I keep setting it aside for other things. I want to read _Oryx and Crake_ next. I’m also going to start _The DaVinci Code_ (as soon as I buy it) for my book club. It’s our November book. ---
**Author:** ![Slainte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Slainte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slainte)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2003, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/22 "2003-11-03T22:59:07Z")
**BiblioCat** , I _loved_ _Oryx and Crake_ (plan to re-read that one) . I’m not really into futuristic fiction but I greatly enjoyed the way Margaret Atwood pulled it off in that book, as well as in _The Handmaid’s Tale_. I’m only about 65 pages into _The Blind Assassin_ - so far it hasn’t grown on me yet. ☹ I’m hoping it gets more interesting - so far I’ve not been disappointed by an Atwood book. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/23 "2003-11-03T23:15:51Z")
i always enjoyed nero wolfe, those books are, no doubt, why i always look to find a way to put a consevatory on my roof. i’m trying to get through at least one box of books i bought and haven’t read yet. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/24 "2003-11-04T02:12:59Z")
**Slainte** , I’ve only read _The Handmaid’s Tale_ by Atwood. I loved that one. _The Blind Assassin_ is strange. It’s interesting, but boy, is it odd. I’m really enjoying the bits where Iris talks about her childhood and growing up, but I’m wondering how it ties together with the bits where she talks about the present (where she’s old) and the bits with the unnamed people writing the sci-fi story. In another thread, someone mentioned that they liked it, but then in either a bookclub or online discussion group, realized they had missed the whole point of the book, so I’m trying to read more carefully. ---
**Author:** ![Slainte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@Slainte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slainte)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/25 "2003-11-04T02:32:39Z")
\*\* BiblioCat\*\*, If you liked _The Handmaid’s Tale_, I think you’ll enjoy _Oryx and Crake_ - they’re very different but both are well done. > [@](#): > > I’m really enjoying the bits where Iris talks about her childhood and growing up, but I’m wondering how it ties together with the bits where she talks about the present (where she’s old) and the bits with the unnamed people writing the sci-fi story. ☹ It sounds like I have the same problem as you, and I’m only on page 65. I plan to stick with it though. I will have to follow it a little more closely too, thanks for the info. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/26 "2003-11-04T03:50:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Krisfer the Cat \* > \*\*As if the Biblical studies weren’t enough to do I went and started > _A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis_ By David Friedman yesterday. Its quite good, so far nothing much I hadn’t read before but the author’s sense of humor is worth it alone. > \*\* You might also enjoy _History of the Breast_ by Marilyn Yalom. My winter reading project is to read _The Tale of Genji._ And I do mean _project._ I’ve tried to read it a couple of times now, but have never been able to get through it. For the modern reader, it can be very confusing, especially since the female characters (there are many) don’t have names. They have nicknames like the Lady of the Locust Shell, but even those aren’t always constant. ---
**Author:** ![Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krisfer_the_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2003, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/27 "2003-11-05T02:55:05Z")
Thanks **Lissa.** I’ll add that to my copious list of future reading material. Now if I could just get all the writers to take a year off I \* might\* get a pile or two read.😃 ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2003, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/28 "2003-11-05T03:41:07Z")
I intend to get around to some of the major fantasy series that I’ve managed to miss so far. I have Leguin’s Earthsea Cycle, Guy Gavriel Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry, and Tad Williams’ Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn on the shelf. Thanks to the wonders of used bookstores, I got these all for one or two dollars a volume. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2003, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/29 "2003-11-06T22:59:00Z")
I’m going to try to get through the rest of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witches series. I have to read _Merrick_and _Pandora_ in the vampire series and the entire Witches series, with _Cry to Heaven_ thrown in for good measure. Along with that, I have about five other books I want to read: Thornton Wilder’s_The Skin of Our Teeth_, Edith Wharton’s _The House of Mirth_ and _The Age of Innocence_, Hermann Hesse’s _Steppenwolf_ and Erik Larson’s _The Devil in the White City_. I’m looking forward to the last one because it seems that every time I’ve been to the library since August it’s been checked out. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/30 "2003-11-07T05:02:10Z")
I’m currently on a self-education in American history project. Next, I’m going to read up on the Christian Church in the 1st-4th centuries. _Then_ I’m thinking I might do a “classics in history/literature” thing, to fill in the holes in that area. But by then I will probably have become sidetracked. All that is what I’m trying to do, but I keep seeing interesting books at the library, too. So it’s a bit slow. My eyes are bigger than my brain, I guess; I just keep checking the books out, whether I have the time for them or not. And I read _Angels and demons_, and it was _terrible_. I thought it would be an art history mystery, but it was more like an MST movie. Or something. I ain’t touching the DaVinci book, it would probably kill me. ---
**Author:** ![Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krisfer_the_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2003, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774/31 "2003-11-11T00:27:39Z")
Well I did it! I finished **The Bible Unearthed** by Finkelstein and Silberman. _fans self_ One down some 400 hundred or so to go… Oh yeah, and three more in transit, somewhere in the ether:D [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-winter-reading-project/210774.md?page=1)