Mount TBR: Checkpoint #3

In true Anja K style, I managed to miss the previous 2 checkpoints, and I even managed to miss the deadline for linking up for this one - LOL! I swear, if someone designed one of those medieval family crest things for me, the motto would be "a day late and a dollar short." (Side note: according to Google translate, in Latin this would be "et denique a pupa a die nuper" - seems much nicer when you can't understand the words, ha ha!)

Even though I am late, I would love to participate in this, so I'm going to claim "Potius mori quam foedari" (better late than never) and go for it.

1. Tell us how many miles you've made it up your mountain (# of books read).  If you're really ambitious, you can do some intricate math and figure out how the number of books you've read correlates to actual miles up Pike's Peak, Mt. Ararat, etc. 

As of today, October 9, I have read 31/60 books, and 60 books translates to each book being the equivalent of 322.35 feet / 98.25 meters of Mt. Kilimanjaro. So far, then, that means I have climbed  9992.85 feet / 3045.75 meters. Not too bad, but I am only slightly past the halfway mark - better get to reading those TBR books!

2. Complete ONE (or more if you like) of the following:

I love answering questions, I'm going to do them all, why not?

A. Who has been your favorite character so far? And tell us why, if you like.

This is a good question. As I look over my list for this challenge, I see a lot of books with characters I didn't necessarily even particularly like, even if I liked the book overall. In fact, maybe that's what made me like the book - the characters were like real people in that way.

I will probably have to say that I still think about the Joads from The Grapes of Wrath a lot - especially Ma Joad. I like that she tries so hard to keep the family afloat during such a difficult time. She has a lot of heart.

B. Pair up two of your reads using whatever connection you want to make. Written by the same author? Same genre? Same color cover? Both have a main character named Clarissa? Tell us the books and what makes them a pair.

This is so interesting! I am going to pair up 1Q84 and Catch-22 because they both have numerals in the title. They are also both ostensibly set in the real world but it's not quite realistic. Other than that I don't think they have a lot in common!

C. Which book (read so far) has been on your TBR mountain the longest? Was it worth the wait? Or is it possible you should have tackled it back when you first put it on the pile? Or tossed it off the edge without reading it all?

That would be the Russian-language children's book I read, Сорока-белобока / The Magpie. I bought it in the Soviet Union in the 1980s and then it languished until I regained custody of it last year and read it this summer (with the help of a dictionary and Google Translate - my woefully rusty Russian wasn't up to the task, unfortunately). It was enjoyable for what it was, and I do wish I had read it when my language skills were a bit more up to par :S

Since that was a children's book, it didn't have the same impression on me as a novel would have, so as an alternate response I'll say that I had been meaning to read The Tin Drum since the 80s, when I saw the film version, although I didn't have a physical copy of the book in my possession until 2011. It was worth the wait in that I feel like I have a better appreciation for some of the themes and ideas presented in the book, although my younger self would have thought she appreciated them just fine, thankyouverymuch ;) 

D. Choose 1-4 titles from your stacks and using a word from the title, do an image search.  Post the first all-eyes-friendly picture associated with that word.

Oh how fun! I used random.org's number generator, and here are my results:

12. The Dark Side of Camelot:

Gustave Doré’s depiction of Arthur's mythical castle. I love Doré, this is so cool and spooky looking.

15. The Kingdom of Ohio:

We have a theme on our hands - this is Cinderella's castle from Disney World. I love the cloudy background!

1. The Man in the Iron Mask:

The results for "iron" were images of irons - a bit too literal, so I Googled "mask" and this was the first result - a Guy Fawkes mask. That's pretty literal too, but a more interesting image, I think.

31. Sugar Street:

More literal-ness - some sugar! I like the cool scoop/spoon though.