Batchelor’s Fare
“Bread and cheese and kisses.”
Author: Cora Lee
Cora Lee is a National Bestselling author of Regency romance. She went on a twelve year expedition through the blackboard jungle as a high school math teacher before publishing Save the Last Dance for Me, the first book in the Maitland Maidens series. She then followed it up with six other novels and novellas ranging from sweet and traditional to spicy and suspenseful.
When she’s not walking Rotten Row at the fashionable hour or attending the entertainments of the Season, you might find her participating in Regency Fiction Writers events, wading through her towering TBR pile, or eagerly awaiting the next Marvel movie release. If you’d like to find out more about Cora or her books you can sign up for her newsletter, or connect with her on Facebook, BlueSky, Bookbub, or Goodreads.
Cora’s TBR Challenge 2015
In the immortal words of John Lennon, “another year over and a new one just begun”. It’s time (if you haven’t already) to make those resolutions for 2015–including one for your TBR pile.
My TBR Challenge was such a personal success last year that I’m doing it again! 2015 is very uncertain for me–my teaching career is up in the air right now (Will I ever teach again? When? Where? How? If not, what else will I do?), and thus so is my writing time (How much energy will I have to devote to a day job? How will my health hold up? The bills have to be paid, but will I be too tired to do anything else?). So this year’s TBR Challenge is a way for me to take a measure of control in addition to finally reading some of the books languishing on my shelves and Kindle.
I’ve tweaked the rules slightly for this year:
1. How many books from your TBR pile will you read? I’m upping my goal to 18 books this year over the 12 I chose for last year. I have so many books floating around the house that 12 felt like just a drop in the bucket, and I’m hoping to make more headway this time around.
2. How long have your books been waiting? For the purposes of this challenge, the books I read must have been acquired by me or placed on my library TBR list (which is also getting out of hand) before August 1, 2014. This means I can’t buy new books in January and count them toward my TBR Challenge come September–which I found myself doing at least once last year, and kind of defeats the purpose of the challenge.
3. How will you hold yourself accountable? Like last year, I’ll post here once a month to share my progress and see how you all are doing. I found the Goodreads shelf and the dedicated page on this blog were enormously helpful, too. I’m a very visual person and being able to see the collection of books that I’d read gave me a nice sense of accomplishment, which made me want to read more TBR books 🙂
Who will take up this challenge with me? Who will commit to wading through the mountains of books you’ve spent your hard-earned money on, but never read? Leave a comment here or on the 2015 TBR Challenge page with your goal: how many books will you tackle this year?
This Week In History: January 5-11
This new year brings a new feature to And Then He Kissed Her! Welcome to This Week In History, a look each Monday at what was happening in the world before we inhabited it. We’ll focus mostly on the Georgian, Regency, Victorian eras in the UK and geographic areas related to it. Don’t be surprised to see the occasional event from the Middle Ages or World War I, though–events separated by large expanses of time can still affect each other. Plus, I adore history from many time periods 😀
January 6, 1781: The British defeat the last attempt by France to invade Jersey.
January 7, 1785: Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a gas balloon.
January 8, 1815: Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans.
January 9, 1806: Admiral Horatio Nelson receives a state funeral and is interred at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
January 10, 1810: Napoleon divorces his first wife, Josephine.
January 11, 1805: The Michigan Territory is created (yay!).
Quote of the Week
A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.
–Sir Joshua Reynolds
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/sir-joshua-reynolds
Happy New Year!
2014 TBR Challenge Finale
2014 is coming to an end fellow readers–did you meet your TBR Challenge goal?
My initial commitment was 12 books from my heaping TBR bins/kindle/iPod. I read 21 books that were six months old or older (yay!). Looking back through the Goodreads shelf I made, I can see that I favored paper books over electronic ones, and that no audio books made it into the fray. I know what happened with the audio books (I’m still working on one enormous one, and half-listened to a couple as I drifted off to sleep at night), but the paper vs. electronic count surprises me a bit. E-books are physically easier to read for me–no mass market paper back to squint at or pry open, no weighty hardcover to lift and hold. But I’m something of a tactile person, and there’s nothing like holding a real book in your hands 🙂
I also mentioned in my original post that I’d wanted to go with a small number of TBR books in order to leave room for other reading challenges and writing time. I completed the other two challenges I began, and incorporated TBR books into both (two birds, one stone right?). But the writing time never materialized. That’s something I definitely need to work on next year.
Overall, I think the TBR Challenge was a good idea. Knowing that I was posting updates to this blog and keeping a public Goodreads shelf helped motivate me. When it was time for a new book I’d find
myself digging through my bins and reading blurbs, searching for one that still sounded interesting months (and in some cases, years) after I purchased it. That was a lot of fun–like a kid sampling treats in an ice cream shop, looking for just the right flavor–and something I didn’t realized I missed until I started doing it again. In all the tumult of 2014, digging through my TBR bins was also comforting for me, and gave me a sense of accomplishment as the piles in some bins shrunk. I have no idea what 2015 has in store for me, but I’m going to make sure a TBR Challenge is involved 😀
Regency Word Wednesday
Bang Up
“(Whip.) Quite the thing, hellish fine. Well done. Compleat. Dashing. Ina handsome stile. A bang up cove; a dashing fellow who spends his money freely. To bang up prime: to bring your horses up in a dashing or fine style; as the swell’s rattler and prads are bang up prime; the gentleman sports an elegant carriage and fine horses.”
Quote of the Week
The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.
–Tom Clancy
http://www.tomclancy.com/tom_clancy.php
Friday Favorite: Best of 2014
In a year of Friday Favorites, which one was the most popular? None other than Richard Armitage reading Georgette Heyer! This post received more views than any other post on And Then He Kissed Her in 2014. I joked at the time that, if I became famous, it would be because of Richard Armitage…and I may not have been far off 😉
Check out the original post here, which includes an excerpt of Richard reading Venitia, interviews conducted during his work on The Convenient Marriage, and links to other audio samples and projects.
Merry Christmas!
From me and my family to you and yours, Merry Christmas!
Cora Lee, Regency Romance Author 