Reading Challenges June 27, 2011
Posted by freda in Birmingham, Michigan.add a comment
I’ve been meaning to blog about my Reading Challenges for a while now, and then just today (June 27th) I read this article in The Globe and Mail about the very same topic:
Read the article first, or read me and then go to the article.
I decided I should put my ‘challenges’ in print, creating a public record, because I think that will cement the deal: I am going to want to complete the reading because I’ve pledged to do so. (Though, being an avid reader, I guess you know I would most likely complete the challenges, whether I blogged about them or not :)) I first learned about ‘reading challenges’ from a couple of blogs by avid readers that I somehow started following (who knows where the links begin and end..), and as I’ve always loved reading books about books, following readers’ blogs seems a natural extension of that. Besides, you can get all kinds of great recommendations that way – books you’d never have heard of otherwise. One blogger was participating in a few interesting challenges and I decided (once I checked out the details) they would be fun to try. In telling Barb (avid reader friend living in Windsor) about them, she decided to join me, and then we could discuss what we were reading, as well, which always increases book enjoyment. I decided I wasn’t going to ‘officially’ sign up for these challenges (which is encouraged), and because of that, I can not ‘officially’ display on my blog the reading challenge logos, though I can obviously tell you the names of the challenges. In addition, Barb and I decided we wanted to read all of this year’s short-listed Orange Prize nominees, so we’ve made that our own personal ‘challenge.’ And of course I’m in a book club here in Michigan, as well as participating-from-afar in my Ontario book club (we are just about to celebrate our 20th anniversary of being a book club!!), which you could consider a version of a reading challenge, so I’m going to list those books here, too.
Here, therefore, is my ‘planned’ reading for 2011, and if I’ve read the book already, I’ve included that detail (I will edit the list to tell you when I’ve completed the other so-far-unread books:
Michigan Book Club reading list:
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway – read in January
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jamie Ford – read in February
The Lotus Eaters – Tatjana Soli – read in March
The Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck – read in May
The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon – read in June
Cutting for Stone – Abraham Verghase – read in Sept 2011
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd – Jim Fergus – read in Oct 2011
The Camel Bookmobile – Masha Hamilton – read in Oct 2011
Ontario “Third Thursday” Book Club reading list:
The Secret Daughter – Shilpi Gowda – read in January
The Secret River – Kate Grenville – I didn’t read this again as I’d read it a few years ago
The Englishman’s Boy – Guy Vanderhaeghe (haven’t read it yet, but I will…) – read (finally) in Oct 2012
The Promise of Rain – Donna Milner – read in April
Cool Water – Dianne Warren – read in May
Little Bee – Chris Cleave – read in June
The Help – Kathryn Stockett – read in Aug 2011
The Other Wes Moore – Wes Moore – read in Sept 2011
Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe – not read
Orange Prize Short List:
Room – Emma Donaghue – read in January
The Memory of Love – Aminata Forna – read Dec 2011
Grace Williams Says It Loud – Emma Henderson – read Nov 2011
The Tiger’s Wife – Tea Orbrecht – read Nov 2011
Annabel – Kathleen Winter – read in June
Great House – Nicole Krauss – not read
What’s In A Name 4 Reading Challenge:
Here I’m going to first list the challenge category descriptions, then the book I’ve picked to fit the category, and then when I’ve read it….
1. Book with a number in the title: Sizzling Sixteen – by Janet Evanovich – read in June
2. Book with jewelry or gem in the title: The Silver Swan – Benjamin Black – read in Nov 2011
3. book with size in the title: Little Bee – Chris Cleave – read in June (hope you don’t think it’s cheating that I’ve used a book I read for book club here!)
4. book with travel or movement in the title: Lost on Planet China – Maarten Troost – read in May
5. book with evil in the title: Evil Genius – Catherine Jinks – not read
6. book with life stage in the title: Secret Daughter – Shilpi Gowda – read in January (again, book club book used twice)
Criminal Plots Reading Challenge:
1. Book by a new-to-me author who’s blurbed a book I enjoyed: (thought I had one, but what I picked was a new-to-me author who had been blurbed by an author I like, so that’s wrong… so, still looking for a book in this category… if you have ideas, let me know..)
2. Book made into a movie: The Feather Men – Ranulph Fiennes (movie in production)
3. Book with protagonist that is opposite to me: Motor City Blue – Loren D. Estleman – read in February (I’ve read so many mysteries with male protagonists)
4. Book set outside country in which I live: Random Violence (it takes place in S. Africa) – Jassy Mackenzie
5. Book that is first in a new-to-me series: Her Royal Spyness – Rhys Bowen – read in July
6. Book by 2011 debut author: Before I Go To Sleep – S. J. Watson – read August 2011
And that’s it. As I mentioned, I’ll update this post whenever I read another book in any of the challenges. And I’ll continue to list books as I read them on the little side bar to this blog, because of course I’m reading books other than required for these reading challenges. I’m also thinking I should add a rating system (my rating out of 5 stars) to that side bar list, but I’m not sure how to go about that yet, so we’ll see.
This blog was inspired by that newspaper article I read today, but I will now get back to working on my blog post about my trip to Shanghai in May. It should be done by the end of the week. Cheers!
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