Ok, I Cave
by lauralynne
More reading challenges…these will mostly overlap, I think, with the challenges I have committed to already. We shall see. At any rate, I’m really excited about this year in reading. I hope I can keep it up! Unless I state otherwise, these challenges can overlap.
I feel fairly confident I can committ to reading 20 essays over the next 10.5 months. No list as of yet, but I’ll be keeping track of my progress on all of these reading challenges on my 2010 Reading Challenges page (posted but sill under construction). This may be the only challenge that I am participating in that doesn’t easily overlap with others.
I’m going with Option A: Choose 6 books on your To Be Read list to read over the year. Post a list of titles and commit to them. You can make a list of 6 alternate titles (to be read in case a book from the original list is somehow a no-go), but should not change these two lists over the course of the year. My list is comprised of a lot of books I started at one point or another, but never finished:
- The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
- Cloudsplitter, Russell Banks
- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
- Vanity Fair, William Thackeray
- Foxfire, Joyce Carol Oates
- The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers
I am still working on an alternate list–that will eventually make it’s way onto the challenges page.
10 books, 10 different awards, 10 months. I can do that!
I’m choosing the intermediate level–read 3-10 graphic novels over the course of a year. I read graphic novels occasionally, but this is one genre (?) that I’d like to know more about personally–I tend to keep up on reviews for kids/customers at the library, but don’t often get around to reading the books myself.
Our Mutual Read is a Victorian themed challenge. This falls perfectly in line with my personal taste and TBR-type lists, so I’m going to go ahead and commit to level two – 8 books, at least 4 written during 1837 – 1901. The other books may be Neo-Victorian or non-fiction. I may also try the period film mini-challenge.
According to the challenge, chunksters are 450 pages or more. Adult literature (so no YA or kiddie lit). I’m going to take the plunge and commit to the Mor-book-ly Obese level–6 or more chunksters. I”m a leetle nervouse, because once a level is chosen, there is no changing your mind. But I have some really BIG books on my lists already–The Remains of the Day, Vanity Fair, Possession (I WILL finish this damn book), The Children’s Book, The Swan Thieves.
The final, FINAL, challenge that I’m participating in is the Women Unbound reading challenge. The goal is to read books related to women’s studies–as defined rather broadly by Merrian-Webster: the multidisciplinary study of the social status and societal contributions of women and the relationship between power and gender. Again, this follows my interests, so I’m going ahead an committing to the top level–Suffragette. Read 8 books, including 3 non-fiction titles. Whee!!
I’m so glad you’re joining us for the Essay Challenge! I’ll add your blog link to the list of participants. Happy reading!
Hey Lauralynne, I’m going nuts with reading challenges for the first time, too. I’ve posted the first of them up at my book blog: http://ya4oa.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/reading-challenges-for-2010/
There are so many I want to do – and some of the ones you’ve posted I didn’t even know about… I could spend all my time just signing up for and posting about all these challenges, never mind actually reading any books!
[...] and so that I can keep my head on straight by tracking these challenges only in one place. My sign up posts for the various challenges I am participating in this year are on my main blog (or, well, my [...]