The 306 Greatest Books #117 - Swallows and Amazons

The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. This book can be found on the BBC Book List.

Swallows and Amazons was the next book I chose to read with my daughter and I found it quite interesting. The book follows a family of four children who are staying on a lake during the summer. There is an island in the lake, which they go to camp on for several days (weeks?) and they meet up with some other children who do the same thing. The interesting thing about the book is that it introduces a lot of nautical terminology. I am not a big boat person so several of the phrases confused me but overall the author did a good job introducing them in such a manner so they were self explanatory. The author also took the time to explain very intricate details of living on this island, perhaps going into tedium. He would explain what the boats looked like and how the food was prepared. Even though the book was well written and rather interesting at times, I wouldn't rate this as one of the Greatest Books. Enjoyable for a child, but I have no desire to continue reading the stories that follow this one.

2013 Personal Goals - Month 4 Updates

Four months down. Still really busy.

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1. Finish 1st Draft of my Novel
Start - Yes, this has been on here since the beginning of me doing this. And yes, I do still hope to finish it.

2. Drop weight to 167
Start - This has also been on the list since the beginning. Starting at 174.1.
Month 1 - 175.0
Month 2 - 175.9
Month 3 - 176.2 (too much work, not enough free time)
Month 4 - 177.7 (going the wrong way :-( )

3. Read 1 of the Top Ten Books on Zane's List
Start - In the middle of The Stories of Anton Chekhov.

4. Read 5 books on the Sybervision Book List
Start - Current count is at 75.
Month 1 - In the middle of David Copperfield.
Month 2 - Still reading David Copperfield.
Month 3 - Finished David Copperfield. 4 to go. 

5. Read 5 books on the BBC Book List
Start - Current count is at 45.
Month 1 - In the middle of David Copperfield and The Princess Diaries.
Month 2 - Finished The Princess Diaries. Still working on David Copperfield. 4 to go.
Month 3 - Finished David Copperfield. Working on Swallows and Amazons. 3 to go.
Month 4 - Still reading Swallows and Amazons.

6. Update 1 Geological Movie Review
Start - The Day After Tomorrow still needs to be done.
Month 1 - The first part has been redone.
Month 2 - Still working slowly through it. Some more work has been done.
Month 3 - Slowly but surely working through it.

7. Finish 1 more Geological Movie Review
Start - Earthquake still looks like the best bet.

8. Watch 6 of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time
Start - Current count is at 74.
Month 1 - Watched Duck Soup. 5 to go.

9. Watch 5 of the 100 Greatest Comedies of All Time
Start - Current count is at 26
Month 1 - Watched Duck Soup. 4 to go.

10. Finish 55 things on the Blog/Website Things to do List
Start - The list currently has 115 things on it, so this should cut it down by approximately half.
Month 1 - 9 Things done on the list. 46 left to go.
Month 2 - 12 total things done. 43 left to go.
Month 3 - 17 things done. 38 left to go.
Month 4 - 20 things done. 35 left to go.

11. Finish 8 things on the House Things to do List
Start - The list currently has 20 things on it.
Month 1 - 1 thing done, fixed the carpet. 7 Things to go.

12. Finish skinning the top of the hovercraft
Start - I started working on it last year. Hopefully I can finish this part of it.
Month 2 - Sealed the milk jugs and placed them in the hovercraft. In the process of getting some wood I need for the outside that needs to be attached before skinning the top.

13. Get my Sprint Triathlon time under 1:25:00
Start - My current official best is 1:41:45.2

14. Get my 5K time under 23 minutes
Start - My current unofficial best is ~28:30

15. Catalogue and Photograph the Comics portion of my Star Wars Collections
Start - Currently I have some of the comics photographed so if I get the time this should


Other things of note
 The big thing that I wanted to get done was finish the manuscript that was due May 1st. Well that got done and submitted last week, which was the middle portion of my dissertation. Hopefully it will get accepted. But that constituted the majority of the work I was doing for the month. May will likely be better and less stressed.