2015 – When I Got Angred by a Reading List So Read It. Also, Crochet.

*taps internet*

hello?

hmmm…been a while again hasn’t it? Life huh? It has no place getting in the way of books and blogging, but alas, it does anyway.

But hey! I’m here now (and hopefully you are too…) so lets see if I can still do this blogging thing now that the time is 2015.

At the start of the year people give up butter and at lunchtime choose crisps made out of beetroot over their usual tub of candyfloss. I have decided to dust the blog off and finally get to grips with crocheting.

Yesterday I managed to make this granny square. I know, just nibble at it, that thing is tasty and fulfilling (if you too want to learn after many frustrating years of people telling you “its easier than knitting” only to find out it makes NO sense at all and having your BF come home to find you covered in knotted wool and blood, hook wedged in hand, crying “but they said it was EASIER!!!” you really must visit HappyBerry Crochet – she is amazing and I love her). So, with that luscious artefact complete it was time to give the blog a quick bash before January is out of the year for good.

Along with home-crafting aims, as January 1 rolled round, my, mainly book orientated twitter feed, began unfurling numerous book challenges people were setting themselves. I don’t usually go in for book lists (why? well I talk about the reasons here) and am happy to just set myself a GoodReads target (read 70 books this year) and be on my way.

However, my friend BooksellerEmma posted a list from PopSugar that made me puke a little bit and after puking made me angry and when I’d calmed down made me want to do something construction.

Look at the ninth challenge…

What in all the merry universe is that?!

It made me punch the internet so hard it froze for 3/4 of a second.

So, according to PopSugar the assumption is that most people on an ordinary day, going about their business, will mainly be reading stuff by men – that female authors are such an oddity, or that reading something by one would be so whack-o unusual, that doing so is worthy of being deemed a challenge? What buckwheat nonsense is happening here?! I have scanned and rescanned that list and nowhere does it say “A book by a male author” so why the female highlighting?

I should say here that once I pointed this out to BooksellerEmma she was as incredulous as I was, she only hadn’t noticed it first time around as she was blinded by challenge sweat.

I didn’t know much about PopSugar, but judging by a very quick browse of the site it seems to be pretty much aimed at young women. So why have such a stupid thing listed as a “challenge”?

So, to show PopSugar that reading stuff by women is super easy and pretty brilliant, BooksellerEmma, CatrionaRoseann and I are going to complete this list reading only female authors. When it comes to challenge number 9 I’m just going to read whatever I want, be that by a man or a woman.

And this list will basically cover my blog posts for this year. I am going to try to crochet in to the challenge (oh yes) as many books already sitting on my shelf as possible in the vain hope of steering this blog back to its original purpose, but will also cover as many new and preview titles as I can as well.

So, just to let you know, I am currently reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt which will have the very first challenge ticked by a good 200 pages or so! We’ll discuss the fact, and any possible challenge implications, that I have listened to a good quarter of it on audiobook in my next post….

It feels dirty to do this at this late stage but, Happy New Year!