Fall Into Reading 2010

***Challenge completed. See my wrap-up post here.***

Dates: 22 September through 20 December 2010
Hosted by: Katrina at Callapidder Days

Guidelines (quoted from the challenge website):

• Make a list of books you want to read (or finish reading) this fall. Your list can be as long or as short as you’d like. (Also, feel free to modify your list during the challenge if it’s not working for you.)
• Write a blog post containing your list and submit it...using the Mr. Linky [on the challenge announcement page].
• Get reading! The challenge goes from today, September 22nd, through December 20th.
• Check out other participants’ lists and add to your own to-read-someday pile!
• Write a post about your challenge experience in December, telling us all about whether you reached your goals and how Fall Into Reading went for you. But remember: this is a low-pressure challenge that should be fun. As long as you do some reading this fall (and enjoy it!), that’s good enough for me.

See my original post about the challenge here.
See my wrap-up post here.
See the challenge announcement page here.


MY BOOK LIST (Books Read):

1. Cards on the Table. Agatha Christie [See Review]
   
2. The House Next Door. Anne Rivers Siddons [See Review]
3. Book of Shadows. Alexandra Sokoloff [Review to come]
   
4. Animal Farm. George Orwell [Review to come - maybe]
   
5. The Dark Half. Stephen King [Review to come]
   
6. After Claude. Iris Owens [See Review]
7. The Vanishing of Katharina Linden. Helen Grant [Review to come]
   
8. We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Shirley Jackson [Review to come]
9. The Distant Hours. Kate Morton [Review to come]
   
10. Juliet. Anne Fortier [See Review]
    
11. The Weird Sisters. Eleanor Brown [See Review]
    
12. The Thirty-Nine Steps. John Buchan [See Review]
    

OTHER POSSIBILITIES (Fiction):

Afternoon Men. Anthony Powell
Alice I Have Been. Melanie Benjamin
Appointment in Samarra. John O'Hara
Bad Boy. Peter Robinson
Dead Man's Folly. Agatha Christie
The Distant Hours. Kate Morton
The House on Tradd Street. Karen White
I Am Madame X. Gioia Diliberto
Moonlight Mile. Dennis Lehane
Mr. Murder. Dean Koontz
Mrs. McGinty's Dead. Agatha Christie
The Prince of Mist. Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Relic. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Room. Emma Donoghue
The Sign of the Book. John Dunning
Spiderweb. Penelope Lively
A Stir of Echoes. Richard Matheson
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise. Julia Stuart
The Women. T.C. Boyle
Something by Nina Bawden
Something by Muriel Spark

OTHER POSSIBILITIES (nonfiction):

Books: A Memoir. Larry McMurtry
Just Kids. Patti Smith
Must You Go? My Life with Harold Pinter. Antonia Fraser
My Reading Life. Pat Conroy
Strapless. Deborah Davis
The Pattern in the Carpet. Margaret Drabble

Memorable Memoir Reading Challenge

***Challenge ended. See my wrap-up post here.***

Dates: 1 January to 31 December, 2010
Hosted by: Melissa of The Betty and Boo Chronicles

Guidelines:

• Read at least four books during 2010; but more than four is OK.
• Choices can come from memoirs, autobiographies, diaries, letters ("Basically, if you think it is the stuff of memoir, it counts.").
• Crossovers with other challenges are allowed.
• Audio-books and e-books are allowed.
• No lists are required, but you can make one if you want.

See my original post about the challenge here.
See my wrap-up post here.
See the announcement/sign-up page here.
See the review page here.


MY READING LIST (books read):

1. Just Kids. Patti Smith (reading now)

LIST OF POSSIBLE CHOICES:

American Girl: Scenes from a Small-Town Childhood. Mary Cantwell
And I Worked at the Writer's Trade. Malcolm Cowley
A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict. John Baxter
Books: A Memoir. Larry McMurtry
Bookshop at 10 Curzon St: Letters between Nancy Mitford and Heywood Hill, 1952-73. John S. Smith, ed.
D.V. Diana Vreeland
Here At The New Yorker. Brendan Gill
Hons and Rebels. Jessica Mitford
Intellectual Memoirs: New York, 1936-1938. Mary McCarthy
Just Kids. Patti Smith
Kafka Was All the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir. Anatole Broyard
Literary Life: A Second Memoir. Larry McMurtry
Losing Mum and Pup. Christopher Buckley
Manhattan, '45. James/Jan Morris
Manhattan, When I Was Young. Mary Cantwell
Memoirs of Montparnasse. John Glassco
My Dark Places. James Ellroy
My Word is My Bond. Roger Moore
New York Days. Willie Morris
Old Books, Rare Friends: Two Literary Sleuths and Their Passion. Madeline B. Stern and Leona Rostenberg
Out of Africa. Isak Dinesen
The Pattern in the Carpet: A Personal History with Jigsaws. Margaret Drabble
Prodigal Sons: The New York Intellectuals and Their World. Alexander Bloom
Reading Lolita in Tehran. Azar Nafisi
Shakespeare and Company. Sylvia Beach
Sixpence House. Paul Collins
So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading. Sara Nelson
The Year of Magical Thinking. Joan Didion
The Years With Ross. James Thurber
The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, A History. Lewis Buzbee

New Authors Challenge 2010

***Challenge completed. See my wrap-up post here.***

Dates: 1 January through 31 December, 2010
Hosted by: Jackie at Literary Escapism

Guidelines:

• Choose 15, 25, or 50 new-to-you authors.
• No limit on genres.
• Anthologies are allowed; however, only a third of your choices can be from anthologies.
• Crossovers with other challenges are allowed.
• You don't need a blog to participate.
• There will be a Mr. Linky for reviews.

See my original post about the challenge here.
See my wrap-up post here.
See the challenge announcement page here.

I'm committing to 15 new authors, and hope to do a little better than that.

MY READING LIST:

1. The Anthologist. Nicholson Baker [See Review]
   
2. The Raphael Affair. Iain Pears [See Review]
3. Venom. Joan Brady [See Review]
   
4. Quattrocento. James McKean [See Review]
   
5. People of the Book. Geraldine Brooks [Review to come]
   
6. The Brontes Went to Woolworths. Rachel Ferguson [See Review]
   
7. Heresy. S.J. Parris [Review to come]
8. Before the Throne. Naguib Mahfouz [Review to come]
   
9. The Swimming Pool. Holly LeCraw [See Review]
10. An American Type. Henry Roth [See Review]
    
11. A River in the Sky. Elizabeth Peters [See Review]
    
12. Live To Tell. Lisa Gardner [See Review]
13. Tinkers. Paul Harding [See Review]
14. The Last Child. John Hart [Review to come]
    
15. The Hypnotist. M.J. Rose [See Review]
    
16. The Forgotten Garden. Kate Morton [See Review]
17. The Spider Bites. Medora Sale [Review to come]
    
18. The Three Weissmanns of Westport. Cathleen Schine [Review to come]
    
19. The Good Psychologist. Noam Shpancer [See Review]
20. Damaged. Alex Kava [See Review]
21. The Egypt Game. Zilpha Keatley Snyder [See Review]
    
22. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Alan Bradley [Review to come]
23. Think of a Number. John Verdon [Review to come]
    
24. All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. Lan Samantha Chang [See Review]
    
25. The Convent. Panos Karnezis [See Review]
26. The Inheritance. Simon Tolkien [See Review]
    
27. The House Next Door. Anne Rivers Siddons [See Review]
    
28. Book of Shadows. Alexandra Sokoloff [Review to come]
29. After Claude. Iris Owens [See Review]
    
30. The Vanishing of Katharina Linden. Helen Grant [Review to come]
    
31. Juliet. Anne Fortier [See Review]
    
32. The Weird Sisters. Eleanor Brown [See Review]
    
33. The Thirty-Nine Steps. John Buchan [See Review]
    

The Thriller-Suspense Challenge 2010

***Challenge completed. See my wrap-up post here.***

Dates: 1 January to 31 December 2010
Hosted by: Book Chick City

Guidelines:

• Read twelve (12) thriller-suspense novels in 2010. You can make your choices from any of the many sub-genres.
  
• No list necessary; if you want to list your books ahead of time, that's OK, but not required.
• Lists can change during the course of the challenge.
• Crossovers with other challenges are allowed.
• There will be a page to list your reviews, although reviews are optional.

See my original post about the challenge here.
See my wrap-up post here.
See the challenge announcement page here.
See the list of sub-genres here.
See the review page here.

MY READING LIST (books read):

1. The Raphael Affair. Iain Pears [See Review]
   ~ (I'm putting this one in the Drama Thriller category.)
   
2. Venom. Joan Brady [See Review]
   ~ (This one would fit in either the Disaster or Eco-Thriller categories.)
   
3. Mrs. Malory and Any Man's Death. Hazel Holt [Review to come]
   ~ (Cozy Mystery category. Would also fit the Amateur Detective Mystery category)
   
4. Heresy. S.J. Parris [Review to come]
   ~ (Historical thriller category.)
   
5. A Stitch in Time. Monica Ferris [Review to come]
   ~ (Cozy Mystery category; but it would also fit into the Amateur Detective category, too.)
6. A River in the Sky. Elizabeth Peters [See Review]
   ~ (Historical Mystery/Thriller category.)
   
7. Live To Tell. Lisa Gardner [See Review]
   ~ (This would fit in the Drama Thriller and/or Serial Killer Thriller categories)
8. The Last Child. John Hart [Review to come]
   ~ (Drama Thriller category; with a little bit of Amateur Detective Mystery thrown in.)
   
9. Innocent. Scott Turow [See Review]
   ~ (Legal Thriller category)
10. The Hypnotist. M.J. Rose [See Review]
    ~ (Drama Thriller category)
    
11. Damaged. Alex Kava [See Review]
    ~ (Serial Killer Thriller category)
12. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Alan Bradley [Review to come]
    ~(Haven't figured out a category for this one yet)
    
13. Think of a Number. John Verdon [Review to come]
    ~ (Serial Killer or Drama Thriller categories)
14. The Inheritance. Simon Tolkien [See Review]
    ~ (Legal Thriller category)
    
15. Cards on the Table. Agatha Christie [See Review]
    ~ (Locked Room Mystery category)
16. Book of Shadows. Alexandra Sokoloff [Review to come]
    ~ (Supernatural Thriller category)
    
17. The Dark Half. Stephen King [Review to come]
    ~ (Horror Thriller category)