Becky's Challenges

1% Well Read Challenge 2009-2010

Becky — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:55:29 +0000

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3M (Michelle) is hosting the 1% Well Read Challenge again for 2009. There are three options offered–to accommodate the changes made to the list recently. I’m choosing option 3, Read 13 TITLES FROM THE COMBINED LIST OF ALMOST 1300 TITLES FROM MARCH 1, 2009 THROUGH MARCH 31, 2010.

1. She by H. Rider Haggard (old)
2. Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (old)
3. He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope (old)
4. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (old and new)
5. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (old and new)
6. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (old and new???)
7. Adam Bede by George Eliot (old and new)
8. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (old and new)
9. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell (new)
10. The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox (old and new)
11. Roxana by Daniel Defoe (old)
12. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (old and new)
13. The Monk by M.G. Lewis (old and new)

Alternates
1. Cecilia by Fanny Burney (old)
2. The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (new and old)?
3. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (old and new)
4. Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe(old and new)
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon (new and old)
6. Evelina by Fanny Burney (old and new)
7. A Room With A View by E.M. Forster (new and old)
8. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (old and new)
9. Howard’s End by E.M. Forster (new and old)
10. Pamela by Samuel Richardson (old and new)
11. Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding (old and new)
12. Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (old)
13. MiddleMarch by George Eliot (old and new)

More alternates:

1. Vilette by Charlotte Bronte (old)
2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (old)
3. The Awakening by Kate Chopin (new and old)
4. Tess of the D’ubervilles by Thomas Hardy (old and new)
5. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (old and new??)
6. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope (old and new???)
7. The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope (old and new???)
8. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (old and new)
9. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (old and new)
10. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (old and new)
11. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (old and new)
12. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (old and new)
13. Possession by A.S. Byatt (old)

Even More Alternates:

The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe (new, old)
The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe (new, old)
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin (new, old)
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (old)
2666 by Roberto Bolano (new)

Banned Books 2009

Becky — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:25:04 +0000

#fullpost{display:none;}The Pelham Library is once again hosting its annual Banned Books Challenge for 2009. February 22, 2009 THROUGH June 30, 2009

My goal is to read two books. Fortunately, Don Quixote is on the list. So I just need to choose one more…and Of Mice and Men is on list. As is Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

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Extras:

Classics Challenge (April 2009-October 2009)

Becky — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:08:42 +0000

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Hosted by Trish of Trish’s Reading Nook. The challenge has its own blog–the Classics 2009 Challenge blog. The challenge is from April 1 through October 31, 2009.

I’m going with option three–Classics Feast–Read six classics. (Plus one, bonus book if desired that is a “new” classic; so a total of seven books possibly).

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I’ve got so many classics that I want to read this year. Books by Daniel Defoe, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, just to name a few. And then there are individual titles I’d like to include…

1000 Novel Guardian Challenge

Becky — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:04:21 +0000

I have a little bargain I’m making with myself. If I can find at least five books in each of the categories of Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read Before They Die list…then I will let myself join Biblio File’s challenge. The books should really fall into at least two of these four categories a) books already on the tbr pile that I own b) books that I’ve been meaning to read, but are at the library c) books already on my Amazon wishlist d) books that would work well with other challenges (aka books I’ve already listed on other challenge lists.) The challenge goes from February 1, 2009 to February 1, 2010. The requirement is to read 10 books, one from each of the seven categories, and three extras.

Comedy
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (b, d)
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (a, d)
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding (a)
Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding (a, d)
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding (a, d)
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (a)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon (a, d)
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (b, d)
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope (a, d)

Crime
Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary E Braddon (c)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (c)
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (c)
My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier (almost a)
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (a, d)

Family and Self
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (reluctant a)
Evelina by Fanny Burney (a and d)
The Awakening by Kate Chopin (a, d)
Roxana by Daniel Defoe (a, d)
Howards End by EM Forster (a)
Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (a)
My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok (b)
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (b)
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (b)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (b)
Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield (b)

Love
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (a,d)
Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore (a, d)
Vilette by Charlotte Bronte (a, d)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (a, d)
Possession by AS Byatt (a, d)
Adam Bede by George Eliot (a,d)
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (a, d)
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot (a,d)
A Room with a View by EM Forster (a,d)
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell (a,d)
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (a)
The Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer (a)
Pamela by Samuel Richardson (a,d)
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (a,d)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (a,d)

Science Fiction and Fantasy
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (b)
Kindred by Octavia Butler (b)
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll (a,d)
Dune by Frank L Herbert (a,d)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (b)
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (a)
The Monk by Matthew Lewis (a,d)
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin (c)
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (b)
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell (a)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain (a)
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (c)
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (a, d)

State of the Nation
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (b,c)
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (a, d)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (a)
Middlemarch by George Eliot (a, d)
Silas Marner by George Eliot (a, d)
The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (a)
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (a, d)
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (a, d)
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (a)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (b,d)
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (a)
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (a, d)

War and Travel
She: A History of Adventure by H Rider Haggard (c)
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (b)
Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally (a)
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy (a)
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott (a)
Maus by Art Spiegelman (b)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (a, d)
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (b)

Okay, so I don’t quite meet two on all the books listed. And some of the books listed I have no interest in reading. If they’ve been on the shelf unread this long, then it’s not like I’m all that eager to read them now. But I think I can get ten books total from all these books.

Comedy:
Crime:
Family and Self:
Love:
Science Fiction and Fantasy:
State of the Nation:
War and Travel:

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© Becky Laney of Becky’s Book Reviews

Pool of Books for Dewey’s Books Challenge

Becky — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:48:56 +0000

Pool of books, choose five or six,

East of Eden by John Steinbeck (November 20, 2008)
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett (November 10, 2008)
Nation by Terry Pratchett (November 4, 2008)
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (October 15, 2008)
Maus and Maus II by Art Spiegelman (October 1, 2008)
Harlem Summer by Walter Dean Myers (Sept. 30, 2008)
Monster by Walter Dean Myers (Sept 23, 2008)
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie (September 19, 2008)
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer (September 15, 2008)
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Round Things by Carolyn Macker (September 5, 2008)
Educating Esme by Esme Raji Codell (August 25, 2008)
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen (July 22, 2008)
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (July 9, 2008)
One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke (July 2, 2008)
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (June 26, 2008)
What I Was by Meg Rosoff (May 15, 2008)
Surrender by Sonya Hartnet (May 16, 2008)
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper (May 13, 2008)
1984 by George Orwell (April 23, 2008)
The Little Prince by Antoine de St. Exupery (April 22, 2008)
The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright (April 19, 2008)
Freak Show by James St. James (April 3, 2008)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (March 22, 2008)
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier (March 20, 2008)
Plain Janes by C. Castellucci and J. Rugg (March 17, 2008)
Purple Hibiscus by Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie (March 10, 2008)
HOw I Live Now by Meg Rosoff (February 27, 2008)
I Am the Cheese by Robert Cormier (February 6, 2008)
Into the Forest by Jean Hegland (Jan 25, 2008)
Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon (December 18, 2007)
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (November 19, 2007)
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (November 3, 2007)
Chocolat by Joanne Harris (October 30, 2007)
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke (October 8, 2007)
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks (April 8, 2005)
Holesj by Louis Sachar (August 8, 2007)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon (Jan 25, 2004)
The Misfits by James Howe (April 2, 2006)
March by Geraldine Brooks (May 28, 2006)

Herding Cat selections from Dewey which I’m assuming will count:

So here are my 10 recommendations. I tried to pick books from a variety of genres.

1. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
2. American Born Chinese by Gene Yang
3. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie
4. The Gate to Women’s Country by Sherri S. Tepper
5. Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
6. What I Was by Meg Rosoff
7. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
8. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
9. The World According to Garp by John Irving
10. March by Geraldine Brooks

Chunkster Challenge

Becky — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:50:01 +0000

Chunkster Challenge
Dana
Now – November 15, 2009
Your Choice: Morbookly Obese

I’m committing to the Mor-book-ly Obese option. (A chunkster is 450 pages or more of ADULT literature (fiction or nonfiction) The challenge is between now and November 15, 2009.

Books I am strongly considering:

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot
Cecilia by Fanny Burney
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Books I’m timidly but stubbornly considering:

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear
Clarissa by Samuel Richardson
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

I may add different books–I’ll have to check the page count on other classics I’m reading this year.

The books I actually read:

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For this level of challenge you must commit to 6 or more chunksters OR three tomes of 750 pages or more. You know you want to…..go on and give in to your cravings.

Buy & Read It Challenge

Becky — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 18:52:13 +0000

The *wonderful* blogger, Amy, is hosting the Buy One Book and Read It Challenge. There are two levels. The first level is just to read one book in 2009 and read it. The second level–option two is to commit to buying TWELVE books in 2009 and reading them. There is a small loophole. You can use three books you bought prior to 2009 for your twelve–books already on your TBR pile. But most of your books should be bought in 2009. Reviews can be shared via Mr. Linky here on her blog.

Becky’s Twelve:

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Celebrate the Author 2009

Becky — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:29:07 +0000

January:
February:
March:
April:
May:
June:
July:
August:
September:
October:
November:
December:

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

Becky — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:22:25 +0000

Royal Reviews is hosting the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2009.
3 Books. Historical Fiction.
January 1, 2009 – March 31, 2009

Becky’s Reads

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I’m thinking I’ll read three Sunfire Romance books.

A to Z Challenge 2009

Becky — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 18:59:50 +0000

Challenge Website (for posting links to reviews and signing up)

Option C: Read both authors A to Z and titles A to Z (52 books; this is the challenge Joy created)

Hosted by Becky, Sally, and Patti

Authors List

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Titles List

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z