Triple 8 Challenge

The object of the Challenge is to pick 8 categories of your choosing and read 8 books in each of those categories in 2008. I opted for no cross-overs within this Challenge*, but most of them are included in other Challenges and Projects. Here is my list:

11/22/08 -- What a mess I've made here! In order to focus on other Challenges with a better chance of not making my head hurt, I am officially abandoning this challenges as of today. I've signed up for the 2009 version, The Countdown Challenge, which is a nice straight-forward plan that I can't wreck with topical indecision. See you there!

Completed: 17/64 as of Nov. 19, 2008

1. Jean Plaidy's "Queens of England":

The Courts of Love
The Queen's Secret
The Reluctant Queen
The Lady In The Tower
The Rose Without A Thorn
In The Shadow of the Crown
Queen of this Realm
Loyal In Love

2. Agatha Christie Mysteries:

Cards On The Table
Dumb Witness
Death On The Nile
Murder In The Mews
Appointment With Death
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
Murder Is Easy
And Then There Were None

3. Christoper Moore v. Tom Robbins:

Practical Demonkeeping -- Christopher Moore
Coyote Blue -- Christopher Moore
Island of the Sequined Love Nun -- Christopher Moore
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove -- Christopher Moore
Another Roadside Attraction -- Tom Robbins
Even Cowgirls Get The Blues -- Tom Robbins
Still Life With Woodpecker -- Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume -- Tom Robbins

4. I, Me, My (1st Person POV):

The Historian -- Elizabeth Kostova
The Borgia Bride -- Jeanne Kalogridis
The Queen of Subtleties -- Suzannah Dunn
In The Company of the Courtesan -- Sarah Dunant
Junky -- William S. Burroughs
The Praise Singer -- Mary Renault
I, Claudius -- Robert Graves
Tides of War -- Steven Pressfield

5. Bookmarks Magazine's Best of 2007:

American Youth -- Phil LaMarche
What Is The What -- David Eggers
In The Country of Men -- Hisham Matar
Nada -- Carmen Laforet
Then We Came To The End -- Joshua Ferris
Black Girl/White Girl -- Joyce Carol Oates
After Dark -- Haruki Murakami
The Raw Shark Texts -- Steven Hall

6. Penguin Classics:

The Power & The Glory -- Graham Greene
The Scarlet Letter -- Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Tale of Two Cities -- Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer -- Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain
Petals of Blood -- Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Theresa Raquin -- Emile Zola
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- James Joyce

7. Barnes & Noble Classics:

Siddhartha -- Herman Hesse
Beowulf -- Anonymous
Pride & Prejudice -- Jane Austen
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz -- L. Frank Baum
Crime and Punishment -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Narrative of an American Slave -- Frederick Douglass
The Jungle -- Upton Sinclair
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde -- Robert Louis Stevenson

8. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die:

Things Fall Apart -- Chinua Achebe
Time's Arrow -- Martin Amis
The Master & Margarita -- Mikhail Bulgakov
The Old Man & The Sea -- Ernest Hemingway
Cry, The Beloved Country -- Alan Paton**
A Farewell To Arms -- Ernest Hemingway
Memoirs of Hadrian -- Marguerite Yourcenar
Zeno's Conscience -- Italo Svevo

Whew. Polish up those reading glasses!
Lezlie

Added 5/5/2008:

Possible alternate catagories:

Tudor England:

The Lady In The Tower by Jean Plaidy
Rose Without A Thorn by Jean Plaidy
In The Shadow of the Crown by Jean Plaidy
The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir
Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
The Last Wife of Henry VIII by Carolly Erickson
The Concubine by Norah Lofts
The Other Queen by Phillipa Gregory

Historical England:

Duchess by Susan Holloway Scott
Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
The Conqueror by Georgette Heyer
??
??
??
??
??

Library Books:

The Crusader -- Michael Alexander Eisner
Travels In The Scriptorium -- Paul Auster
Allah Is Not Obliged -- Ahmadou Kourouma
The Romanov Bride -- Robert Alexander
The Swallows of Kabul -- Yasmina Khadra
The Nature of Monsters -- Clare Clark
A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters -- Julian Barnes
The Rossetti Letter -- Christi Phillips

Audio Books:

Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir
Cathedral of the Sea by Ildefonso Falcones
Lady Macbeth by Susan Fraser King
Roots by Alex Haley
Heat Lightning by John Sandford
Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs
??
??

Non-Fiction:

John Adams by David McCullough
His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. Ellis
Homo Politicus by Dana Milbank
When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops? by George Carlin
When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris
The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria
The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman
Naked by David Sedaris

Advance Reader Copies

Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland
Stealing Athena by Karen Essex
My Lady of Cleves by Margaret Campbell Barnes
The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner
The Queen's Lady by Barbara Kyle
The Tsarina's Daughter by Carolly Erickson
The Heretic Queen by Michelle Moran
Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman


Published in 2008

The Aviary Gate by Katie Hickman
Phantom Prey by John Sandford
Mistress of the Revolution by Catherine Delors
The Broken Window by Jeffery Deaver
Odd Hours by Dean Koontz
Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk
Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais
Killer View by Ridley Pearson


* As the year progressed, I realized that this was terribly unrealistic. There are cross-overs included now, but not too many.
** Changed selection on 1/26/08 as I found I may not be able to aquire a copy of my original selection of Exercises In Style by Raymond Queneau. If I do get my hands on a copy, I will still try to read it this year.