FAILED TO COMPLETE

Of all 63 reading challenges that I took on this year, the one is the one I’m saddest about not completed. Herewith, my January remarks:

I cannot remember a time when I didn’t read and didn’t love it.

My brother was born when I was 13 months old and my mother read to me to keep me occupied while she nursed him. I was reading when I entered kindergarten just before my fifth birthday, and in first grade I was called out of class once a week to read a story to my brother’s kindergarten class. (He was not impressed since he was already a reader himself.)

Dave & I spent many summer afternoons in the children’s section in the basement of the old library in St. Thomas. We could take only four books at a time and so we were there several times a week, replenishing our stock of entertainment. Dave favored Freddy the Pig books, although I could never get into them. I loved Laura Ingalls Wilder and Trixie Belden.

The Books That Made Me Love Reading Challenge, hosted by Emlyn Chand, allows me to re-read the books that made me fall in love with reading in the first place.

I’ll also reflect upon what made me love them the first time around and discuss how my impressions changed upon reading them again.

I haven’t determined yet which books I’ll read for this challenge (one per month is required), but I’m enjoying searching my memory and finding old friends.

January: These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

February: Trixie Belden and the Red Trailer Mystery

March: The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright

April: A Place for Johnny Bill by Ruth Juline Bishop

Entering the Color Coded Reading Challenge, hosted by Bev over at My Reader’s Block required that I add a number of books to my already long reading list for 2012, but I just couldn’t resist. I love category challenges!

Here are my tentative choices:
1. A book with “Blue” in the title: Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
2. A book with “Red” in the title: Trixie Belden and the Red Trailer Mystery by Julie Campbell
3. A book with “Yellow” in the title: The Mystery Of The Yellow Room by Gaston LeRoux
4. A book with “Green” in the title: How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewllyn
5. A book with “Brown” in the title: TBD – any suggestions?
6. A book with “Black” in the title: Crime at the Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
7. A book with “White” in the title: The Woman in White by Wilkie Colllins
8. A book with any other color in the title : These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
9. A book with a word that implies color: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

To see how I really did, see my challenge wrap-up page.

FAILED TO COMPLETE

So, yes, I’ve already entered Library of Clean Reads’ Short Story Reading Challenge which requires me to read entire collections of short stories.

But the Short Story Reading Challenge hosted by Dead Book Darling asks me to read 12 individual short stories. This will allow me more latitude to find a variety of authors. I’m looking forward to this!

1. A Lesson on the Links by Stephen Leacock
2. The Landlady by Roald Dahl
3. The $64 Tomato by William Alexander

Alas, although I read many more short stories and certainly in excess of 12 authors, I failed to blog about them.

COMPLETED

Over the past year, I’ve started following a number of bloggers who promote Australian literature. I must admit that my exposure to authors from down under has been somewhat (although not entirely) limited.

To stretch myself this year, I’ve decided to join this Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge, created by Elizabeth at The Devoted Eclectic. I’m just going in ‘casual’ this year at the ‘Stella’ level of 3 books and I’m going to ‘dabble’ in more than one genre. Here’s my tentative reading list (although the first two are pretty firmly set because they are next in the pile on my bedside bookcase):

1. The Secret River by Kate Grenville

2. Searching for the Secret River by Kate Grenville

3. Bush Studies by Barbara Baynton

Do you have any other suggestions for me?

COMPLETED

What books were published the year you were born, or the birth year of someone special to you? The Birth Year Reading Challenge encourages you to find out, and then read some of them.

I really couldn’t get excited about anything published in my birth year, so I decided to do an Honors Challenge and read books published in 1973 – the year my beautiful baby girl came into the world. (Love you, Jen!)

A Prairie Boy’s Winter by William Kurelek

Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

The BYRC is hosted by the Hotchpot Cafe.

Emmanuelle at Words and Peace is hosting the Books Published in the First Years of My Life Challenge.

What is this challenge-that’s-a mouthful all about?
Easy: pick up and read a book that was published in the first years of my life; 1 book per year.

I originally thought I would complete this challenge (at the Toddler level) by reading adult books, but the challenge logo puts me in mind of snuggling up with a book as a child – and so I think I’m going to read some of the books I might have read then. Here’s my list:

1954 – Horton Hears A Who! by Dr. Suess
1955 – Eloise by Kay Thompson
1956 – Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion

Kristen at Strawberry Splash Reviews is hosting another A – Z Reading Challenge. I say ‘another’ because I’ve already joined one of these.

Kristen, however, has a ‘double whammy‘ category that takes this ‘eh’ to ‘zed’ experience to another level: not only must I read books with titles that start with the letters of the alphabet, but also I need to read books by authors whose last name start with A to Z. FUN!

A. Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
B. Bronte, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
C. Collins, Wilkie: The Moonstone
D. DeWitt, Patrick: The Sisters Brothers
E. Edugyen, Esi: Half-Blood Blues
F. Ferguson, Will: 419
G. Gowdy, Barbara: Mr. Sandman read Dec 2012
H. Hemingway, Ernest: The Old Man & the Sea read Dec 2012
I. Innes, Michael: Death at the President’s Lodging
J. Johnston, Wayne: The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
K. Kurelek, William: A Prairie Boy’s Winter
L. Llewellyn, Richard: How Green Was My Valley
M. McKay, Ami: The Birth House
N. Norman, Dave: White River Junctions
O. Ondaatje, Michael: The Cat’s Table read Dec 2012
P. Philips, Lila: Murder is a Crafty Business
Q. Quinn, Spencer: The Dog Who Knew Too Much
R. Rushdie, Salman: Midnight’s Children
S. Shakespeare, Wiliiam: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
T. Trudeau, Pierre Elliott: Memoirs
U. Urquhart, Jane: The Underpainter read Dec 2012
V. Vanderpoole, Claire: Moon Over Manifest
W. Wolfe, Inger Ash: The Calling
X. foX, Ian: Promise Me Eternity
Y. Young, Cybele: A Few Blocks
Z. Zion, Gene: Harry, the Dirty Dog

COMPLETED

Cassandra over at Wickedly Delicious Tales is hosting the 2012 Amazon Best Books of 2011 Reading Challenge.

Since four of the books on my 2012 reading list are Amazon editors’ picks for last year, I’m going to enter this at the Novice level which requires me to choose another, for a total of five books.

Here’s the Amazon list.

Here are my original choices for this challenge and my YEAR-END UPDATE:

1. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

2. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

3. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt

4. A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

4. 11/22/63 by Stephen King

5. The Cat’s Table by Michael Ondaatje

COMPLETED

In completing the second annual Criminal Plots Reading Challenge, I’ll be reading six books between January 1, 2012, and December 31, 2012. One book should be read that fits into each of the following categories:

1. Novel with a weapon in the title: Sign of the Broken Sword by G.K. Chesterton

2. Book published at least 10 years ago: Crime at the Black Dudley by Margery Allingham

3. Book written by an author from the state/province/etc. where I live: Murder: a Crafty Business by Lila Phillips of Truro, Nova Scotia

4. Book written by an author using a pen name: The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn, a pseudonym used by Peter Abrahams

5. Crime novel whose protagonist is the opposite gender of the author: I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Flavia deLuce) by Alan Bradley

6. A stand-alone novel written by an author who writes at least one series: Murder at Hazelmoor by Agatha Christie

The Challenge: Read any non-fiction book, adult or young adult. That’s it. I can choose anything. Poetry? Yes. Memoirs? Yes. History? Yes. Travel? Yes. You get the idea? Absolutely anything that is classified as non-fiction counts for this challenge.

So – I’m going in at the Master level which requires me to read 16 – 20 non-fiction books this year.

The Dewey Decimal System Reading Challenge is hosted by Jen over at The Introverted Reader.

1. Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 by Sally M. Walker

2. Searching for the Secret River by Kate Grenville

3. A Prairie Boy’s Winter by William Kurelek

4. Seeing Trees by Nancy Ross Hugo & Robert Llewellyn

5. Chickens, Mules, & Two Old Fools by Victoria Twead

6. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

7. A Small Furry Prayer by Steven Kotler

8. White River Junctions by Dave Norman

9. Winnie & Gurley by Robert G. Hewitt

10. Notes to My Mother-in-Law by Phyllida Law

11. Manners for Women by Mrs. Humphrey

12. Heading Home: On Starting a New Life in a Country Place by Lawrence Scanlan

13. The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard

14. UContent by Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo

15. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck

16. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

17. The Canadian Food Guide by Pierre & Janet Berton

18. Memoirs by Pierre Elliott Trudeau

19. Mordecai: the Life and Times by Charles Foran

This Books In Translation Challenge, hosted by The Introverted Reader, is pretty self-explanatory. The goal is to read translations of books.

Any genre and any age range qualifies. Crossovers with other challenges are fine. Any format that I choose is also acceptable.

Since I’m already committed to reading Montaigne’s essays this year, this seems like a good fit. And who knows what else I might run across that’s been translated?

I didn’t get to Montaigne but I did read The Stranger by Albert Camus (translated from the French) Completed Nov 2012

Kailana at The Written Word and Lu at Regular Rumination have started a monthly poetry blog-along. I haven’t posted my sign-up yet, so I’m combining this month’s post with that.

On the last Tuesday of every month, I’m going to join in and blog (very) informally about some of the poetry that I’ve read over the past month.

For January, I thought I’d share some of Shakespeare’s thoughts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In Act III, scene ii, Hermia has awakened to find her love, Lysander, gone without explanation. She accuses Demetrius, his rival, of harming him:

Out, dog! Out, cur! Thou driv’st me past the bounds
Of maiden’s patience. Has thou slain him then?
Henceforth be never numb’red among men.
O, once tell true: tell true, even for my sake
Durst thou have looked upon him being awake!
And hast thou killed him sleeping? O brave touch!
Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?

I can just feel the pain, anger and contempt in Hermia’s words!

My favorite lines from this play, though, are Helena’s in Act 1, scene i:

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

The Classics Reading Challenge hosted by November’s Autumn is the one I’m calling “Classics with a Twist” – the twist being that on the fourth of each month, Katherine posts a prompt to act as a basis for my discussion of the classic I’m currently reading.

I’m nearing the end of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Stowe. Stowe was born in 1811 in Connecticut USA. She lived for a time in Cincinnati Ohio where she met her husband, Calvin Ellis Stowe who was a professor at the Lane Theological Seminary there. The Stowes later moved to coastal Maine.

Both Stowes were deeply religious and fierce critics of slavery. It’s no surprise that they supported the Underground Railroad and offered their home as a stop on it.

Her writing is typical of the 19th century writers I have read: great descriptive detail and slow plot advancement. I understand that readers expected in the 1800s to be entertained at length by a single book that could be savored slowly. In my 21st century life, I often read through books just so that I can get to the next one, so I admit that I have been at times frustrated by Stowe’s writing.

I think that Stowe’s novel, published in installments in The National Era in 1851 & 1852, and in book form in March of 1852, was met with the same sort of attitudes that fomented the American Civil War: strident voices both for and against slavery. Anecdotal history says when Stowe met Abraham Lincoln in 1862, he greeted her by saying, “so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”

I know that by now, most of you think I’m insane because, after all, I have joined fifty-two (52!) reading challenges for next year. (Here’s the list). Maybe I am a little touched in the head, but I told you I was a challenge addict.

But I do have a plan: a master reading list for next year that right now stands at 106 books and fulfills my entire reading obligation except for the picture books. (I figure I can fit them in somewhere.) Since I read 121 books in 2011 and am aiming for 150 this year, I figure that’s doable.

My only problem will be resisting all the new goodies I see this year until I’ve completed my challenges at the end of the year.

So, how about you? Do you have a reading list for 2012 or are reading catch as catch can – which I think I’d like to try in 2013!

The Global Reading Challenge (GRC) challenges me to expand my reading boundaries, go where I haven’t been before, move a little outside my comfort zone. I may read any genre so long as the books are fiction.

I’m entering The Easy Challenge in which I must read one novel from each of these continents :

• Africa
African Love Stories, edited by Ama Ata Aidoo (various countries) Completed May 2012

• Asia
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (India) Completed Apr 2012

• Australasia/Oceania
The Secret River by Kate Grenville (Australia) Completed Feb 2012

• Europe
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyen Completed Mar2012

• North America (my own continent, so I’m challenged to try to find a country, state or author that is new to me):
The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield (Arkansas, USA) Completed Jan 2012)

• South America (may include Central America)
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder (Peru) Completed Sep 2012)

• The Seventh Continent (here I can choose either Antarctica or my own ´seventh´ setting, eg the sea, the space, history, the future – whatever).
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury (space) Completed Sep 2012

Although 2012 is the year I concentrate on books I already own and put a moratorium of book-buying, I know I won’t be able to resist entering contests for interesting-looking books I see on blogs. And if my record continues, sometimes, just sometimes, I’ll win them!

Teddy Rose, who blogs over at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time is hosting the perfect challenge for me to work my way through these wins. I’m entering the Books Won 2012 Reading Challenge at the Bronze level, pledging to read (and review!) four – six books I’ve won.

COMPLETED although I did receive several wins that I did not manage to get around to reading – yet. I will do my best to get to them in 2013!

Tree books:
1. Northwest Corner by John Burnham Schwarz
Won from Colloquium

2. The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield
Thanks to Kat at Reviews from the Heart

3. A Small Furry Prayer by Steven Kotler
Won through Library Thing Early Reviewer program

4. White River Junctions by Dave Norman
Won through Library Thing Early Reviewer program

5. Oxford Messed Up by Andrea Kayne Kaufman
Courtesy of the author through Shelf Awareness Author Buzz

6. African Love Stories edited by Ama Ata Aidoo
Thank you to Amy McKie of Amy Reads for this book!

7. UContent by Nicholas G. Tomaiuolo
Won through Library Thing Early Reviewer program

8. Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston
I’m so sorry that I can’t remember who was the kind donor of the Book Depository gift certificate that allowed me to buy this. If you know who it is, please let me know!

9. 419 by Will Ferguson
Courtesy of the publisher

EBooks:
10. Chickens, Mules & Two Old Fools by Victoria Twead
Won through Library Thing Early Reviewer program

11. Winnie & Gurley by Robert G. Hewitt
Won through Library Thing Early Reviewer program

12. Falling Into Green by Cher Fischer
Won through Library Thing Early Reviewer program

13. Promise Me Eternity by Ian Fox
Courtesy of the author

14. A Shortage of Bodies by Dr. Gary D. McKay
Won through Library Thing Early Reviewer program

This year Jillian at a Room of One’s Own has started reading some books that she didn’t finish because she got side-tracked. Now with 2011 coming to a close, she’s scrambling to read these half-started mighty tomes, or else feeling guilty and low because she didn’t finish what she started, by the end of the year.

But Jillian has declared that shame or guilt doesn’t belong in the world of literature!! So she’s hosting the Books I Started But Didn’t Finish Reading Challenge.

I didn’t get distracted and forget about books, but I did abandon a few. One of those, I was convinced to try again – but I haven’t yet. So I’m going to enter Jillian’s challenge and finish the The Magnificent Spinster by May Sarton.

Alas! Once again, this book goes unread. I DID NOT COMPLETE this book nor this challenge.

COMPLETED

Darlene. who blogs over at Darlene’s Book Nook, loves audio books – they’re the perfect way for her to fit reading in with her active ‘mom’ lifestyle. In 2012 she wants to listen to some longer books, but couldn’t find a “big book” challenge that allowed her audio books. So she designed The Mammoth Book 2012 Reading Challenge.

This challenge allows books of all formats, including audio books and ebooks. The regular-bound format equivalent of any title must be a minimum of 450 pages.

Since I’m participating already in the Chunkster Reading Challenge, I thought this would be a good fit for me. I’m entering at Level 2, committing to read four mammoth-sized books.

YEAR-END UPDATE

1. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth 1488 pages

2. 11/22/63 by Stephen King 849 pages

3. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 764 pages

4. Mordecai: His Life & Times by Charles Foran 717 pages (in progress)

5. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins 626 pages

6. The Colony of Unrequited Dreams 608 pages

7. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie 552 pages

8. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe 544 pages

This seems like a fun challenge and one that is a bit different: instead of using book titles, it looks at the images on the covers of books.
To complete the Find the Cover Challenge, I must find images on my book covers starting with the letters that spell out the year: Two Thousand Twelve. No cover may be used for more than one letter.

T ***TREE on the cover of A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
W ***WASTECAN on the cover of The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard
O ***OLD WOMAN on the cover of The Market Square Dog by James Herriot

T ***TATTOOS on the cover of The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
H ***HOLLY LEAF ON HAT on the cover of I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley
O ***ORNATE METAL FENCE on the cover of Postern of Fateby Agatha Christie
U ***UNIFORM on the cover of The Absolutist by John Boyce
S ***SCREEN DOOR on cover of Northwest Corner by John Burnham Schwarz
A ***ANDIRONS on the cover of The Mystery of the Cape Cod Tavern by Phoebe Atwood Taylor
N ***NOSEGAY on the cover of Memoirs by Pierre Elliott Trudeau
D ***DAISY on the cover of A Recipe for Bees by Gail Anderson-Dergatz

T ***TEETH on the cover of At Bertram’s Hotel by Agatha Christie
W ***WINDOWS on the cover of Heading Home by Lawrence Scanlan
E ***EARS on the cover of The Antagonist by Lynne Coady
L ***LABEL ON SUITCASE on the cover of Lonesome Hero by Fred Stenson
V ***VERDIGRIS FROG on the cover of The Golden Mean by Nick Bantock
E ***EVERGREEN TREE on the cover of Coyote Sings to the Moon by Thomas King

Since one of the first books I’m going to tackle in the new year is A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, it seemed foolish not to join The South Asian Reading Challenge being hosted by Swapna over at S. Krishna’s Books.

I’m to choose my own goal, and to make it a ‘challenge’ I’ll add to the one book I know I’m already reading and commit to reading two.

1. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (set in India) 1,488 page Completed April 2012

2. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (set in India & Pakistan) 536 pages Completed Oct 2012