Thursday, January 2, 2020

Book Beginning: Off Island by Lara Tupper

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS
THANKS FOR JOINING ME ON FRIDAYS FOR BOOK BEGINNING FUN!

MY BOOK BEGINNING



The northern island looked best in morning light: slices of sheer cold rays on rugged pines and cliffs, the gray-blue sea below.

Off Island by Lara Tupper.

Tupper's new novel blends an imagined historical tale of artist Paul Gauguin living on an island off the the coast of Maine with a contemporary story of another painter who finds the art and letters Gauguin left behind.

Off Island launches January 6, 2020 and is available for pre-order from Encircle Publications.

From the publisher's description:
With wry humor and clear-eyed precision, Tupper captures the lure of the unknown, the pull of the familiar and the strangers our loved ones turn out to be. A novel of love and disappointment, duty and wanderlust, Off Island questions what it means to be loyal to one’s art, one’s family and one’s home.





Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

SOCIAL MEDIA: If you are on Twitter, Instagram, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I try to follow all Book Beginnings participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up. Please find me on InstagramFacebook, and Twitter.

YOUR BOOK BEGINNING




TIE IN: The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice is a natural tie in with this event and there is a lot of cross over, so many people combine the two. The idea is to post a teaser from page 56 of the book you are reading and share a link to your post. Find details and the Linky for your Friday 56 post on Freda’s Voice.


MY FRIDAY 56

The dirt road is lined with stocky pines, weak sun slanting in. In winter the dirt freezes in random stretches, making tricky planes Pete likes to crack with steel-toed boots.



2020 European Reading Challenge: WRAP UP POST PAGE

The 2020 European Reading Challenge

WRAP UP POST PAGE




January 1, 2020 to January 31, 2021

THIS IS THE PAGE FOR WRAP UP POSTS

TO LIST YOUR REVIEWS, GO TO THIS PAGE

TO SIGN UP, GO TO THE MAIN CHALLENGE PAGE, HERE,
OR CLICK THE BUTTON ABOVE

When you complete the 2020 European Reading Challenge whatever level you signed up for, please do a wrap up post and enter a link to your post here. A wrap up post can be as simple as an update of your original sign up post. Please link to your wrap up post, NOT the main page of your blog.

LINK YOUR WRAP UP POST HERE:



You can complete the challenge simply by reading one to five books (or more), each set in a different European country or written by an author from a different European country.

You do not have to review books to complete the challenge. But only books reviewed count towards the Jet Setter Prize. So if you are going for the prize, link your reviews on the review page here. Only one book per country counts towards the prize.

When I announce the prize winner, Honorable Mention will go to the participants who visited the most countries, with links to their wrap up posts. If you don't link a wrap up post, I won't be able to find you.

NO BLOG? NO PROBLEM!

You do not need a blog to participate! If you don't have a blog, be flexible about how you alert us to your wrap up. If you post on a platform that allows you to post a link here, post the link. If you post your wrap up on Instagram, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Facebook, or some other place that doesn't generate a link, just leave a comment here with a list of your books and the countries. Please name the countries as well as the book titles so I don't have to guess.

NOTE ABOUT DATES

There is overlap in January 2020 between the last month of the 2019 challenge and the first month of the 2020 challenge. If you participated both years, only count books read in January in one of the years, not both.

2020 European Reading Challenge: REVIEW PAGE

The 2020 European Reading Challenge

REVIEW PAGE





January 1, 2020 to January 31, 2021

THIS IS THE PAGE TO LIST YOUR REVIEWS.

IF YOU HAVE FINISHED, WRAP UP POSTS GO ON THIS PAGE.

TO SIGN UP, GO TO THE MAIN CHALLENGE PAGE, HERE,
OR CLICK THE BUTTON ABOVE.

LINK YOUR REVIEWS HERE

Please put your name or the name of your blog, the name of the book you reviewed, and the country of the book or author. For example: "Rose City Reader, A Gentleman in Moscow, Russia."




When you review a book for the 2020 European Reading Challenge, please add it to this list using the Linky widget above. Please link to your review post, NOT the main page of your blog.

You do not have to review books to complete the challenge. You can complete the challenge simply by reading one to five books (or more), each set in a different European country or written by an author from a different European country. If you complete the challenge, please link some kind of wrap up post (even an updated version of you original sign up post) on the wrap up page. That way, I know who finished the challenge.

But only books reviewed count towards the Jet Setter Prize. So if you are going for the prize, link your reviews here. Only one book per country counts towards the prize.

NO BLOG? NO PROBLEM!

You do not need a blog to participate! If you don't have a blog, be flexible about how you alert us to your reviews. If you post them on a platform that allows you to post a link here, post the link. If you post your reviews on Instagram, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Facebook, or some other place that doesn't generate a link, just copy your review into a comment here. That way, I can find the reviews and count them towards the Jet Setter Prize.

NOTE ABOUT DATES

There is overlap in January 2020 between the last month of the 2019 challenge and the first month of the 2020 challenge. If you participated both years, only count books read in January in one of the years, not both.