2008 Short Story Challenge

I need my head examined. Didn't I say just yesterday that the two (two!!) challenges I joined yesterday would be it? Here's my new thinking: I'm going to join 100 challenges this year. That should cover any other lapses in judgment I may have over the next 11 months. :-) As if I need to explain myself to other book addicts, here is my reason for joining the Short Story Challenge: Sometimes a person just wants to read something really short. Enough said.

Since I'm a short story extreme novice, I will choose Option #1 -- 10 short stories by 10 different authors. I won't include the Edgar Allan Poe story I read earlier this month, as I was not officially in the Challenge at the time. I will, however, list the ones I read here:

Completed: 10/10 as of Dec.. 21, 2008 **FINISHED**

1. "Battle Royal" by Ralph Ellison
2. "Miss Brill" by Katherine Mansfield
3. "The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted" by Elizabeth Berg
4. "God Sees The Truth But Waits" by Leo Tolstoy
5. "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner
6. "Up In Michigan" by Ernest Hemingway
7. "The Destructors" by Graham Greene
8. "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty
9. "Blue Winds Dancing" by Tom Whitecloud
10. "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" by Mark Twain

This will be fun!!
Lezlie

2008 Pub Challenge

OK. This is it. My last challenge for the year. (Now you can laugh. . .) At least 8 books published in 2008. The cool part? I plan on all audiobooks so I can keep up with some of the authors and series I've read that are still currently publishing. The list may change depending on what is actually released. Sadly, publishing omniscience is not one of my fortes. Wouldn't that be cool if it was, though? :-)

**FINISHED**

Completed: 8/8 as of July 8, 2008

The Serpent's Tale -- Ariana Franklin
The Devil's Bones -- Jefferson Bass
The Road To Cana -- Anne Rice
The Romanov Bride -- Robert Alexander
Compulsion -- Jonathan Kellerman
Mistress of the Sun -- Sandra Gulland
Stealing Athena -- Karen Essex
The Aviary Gate -- Katie Hickman

Potentials:

The Broken Window -- Jeffery Deaver
Phantom Prey -- John Sandford
Killer View -- Ridley Pearson
Revelation -- C.J. Sansom
Chasing Darkness -- Robert Crais
Devil's Bones -- Kathy Reichs

I'm thinking I might need to host a challenge next year. I'll call it The "Finish Your Challenges from Last Year" Challenge. Ha!

Lezlie

2008 Chunkster Challenge

OK. I'm in. I have a rational reason though! Stop snickering. I really do have a rational reason. This will not add any new books to my list. It will only give me another reason to read the bigger ones that are on there instead of only picking up the smaller ones for a quick finish. The rules are at least 4 books of a minimum of 450 pages. My choices are:

Completed: 3/4 as of August 13, 2008

The Borgia Bride -- Jeanne Kalogridis
The Courts of Love -- Jean Plaidy
Mistress of the Revolution -- Catherine Delors
The Queen's Lady -- Barbara Kyle

There. Now I have to read them! :-)

Keep warm everyone!
Lezlie

WORLD WITHOUT END by Ken Follett

This book is the sequel to Follett's Pillars of the Earth, which is one of my favorite books of all time. World Without End takes place about 200 years after Pillars, and is the story of the descendants of the builders of the cathedral and founders of the town. It's a huge book (as is Pillars) , but it's never boring. There isn't even a good way to quickly sum up what it is about. So much happens in 1000+ pages that all I can say is, "Hang on to your hats!"

What I really love about these books is that the author is not afraid to let bad things happen to good people. And believe me, a lot of bad stuff happens: Successful families topple, peasants lose what little they have, evil lords wreak havoc, unscrupulous monks yield to ambition. (Readers beware: There are a couple of rapes in the book and while not terribly graphic, they are disturbing.) Not that I'm a scholar on medieval life, but it all seemed very realistic to me. It was a hard existence back then. Not that I want bad stuff to happen to good characters, but it keeps you on the edge of your seat never being certain that everything is really going to be all right. And the bad guys don't always pay. But when they do, it is, oh, so satisfying. . . I sound a bit blood thirsty, don't I? Sorry about that. I do find myself getting emotionally caught up in the lives of these characters even after the last page is turned. Just for the record, a lot of good stuff happens, too. And it will be all you can do to not cheer out loud. I, however, was not able to maintain, and I whooped with joy. Thankfully, I was listening to it in my car, and no one was any the wiser. :-)

Have I at least intrigued some of you even though I've told you nothing? I hope so. It's a big commitment to read these, but I truly believe you will not find the time wasted. I listened to the unabridged audio version on my commute, and found it was a great way to not only fit another enormous book into my reading schedule (I was also reading War & Peace at the time), but I almost wished for a traffic jam!

Lezlie

AMERICAN YOUTH by Phil LaMarche

When a gun accident in a small but growing town leaves one kid dead, the community deals with the aftermath while emotions boil over.

This book was listed as one of the Best of 2007 in Bookmarks Magazine. I'm not sure what I think of this one. While it was kind of interesting, I felt strangely detached from the book. I never found a character to love and cheer for, or even one to hate for that matter. The book has some great scenes depicting rural v. suburban life, adolescent angst, misguided political fanaticism, and differing but equally understandable views about guns and gun control. There is a lot here, but I never really felt it. Could just be me. When it comes to books about angry teenagers, I find myself fearing hideous, gratuitous violence, usually directed at animals, to prove how "bad" a character is. I probably steeled myself a little too well for this possibility. Fortunately, the author is not one to go the cheap route, and my fears never materialized. (Thank you, Mr. LaMarche!) The downside is that the parts that I maybe would have been more moved by under normal circumstances went by all but unnoticed while I waited for the hammer to fall.

Once I have a chance to see if I find myself mulling over American Youth as time goes by, I think there may be a good chance I will discover it made more of an impression on me than I thought it did.

Lezlie

Wolves Update

Awesome game last night! The team with the best record in the NBA (Celtics) v. the worst (T-Wolves), and we lost by one point in the last seconds of the game. My boys were right there with them the whole time and nearly came away with the victory. Next time, guys! You have your chance to pay them back in two weeks, and Peter and I will be there cheering you on!

Speaking of being there, our sales guy is giving us courtside seats for tomorrow's game against the NJ Nets!!!!! One of his season ticket holders can't make the game, so he's passing them on to us as a gesture of appreciation for supporting the team during rebuilding. How cool is that??

Go Wolves!!

In the meantime, I finished up American Youth and will be starting Mrs. Dalloway this afternoon. Reviews coming right up!

Lezlie

THE COMPLETE FABLES by Aesop

I loved Aesop's fables as a kid, and I thought it would be great fun to go back and read them now as an adult. I chose the Penguin Classics version and my plan was to read them bit by bit. So much for that plan. I read the whole things in about 2 nights. I have to say the stories are not near as enchanting when they're not being rendered for children. Straight translation tends to leave out a bit of the magic. However, it was still entertaining to see many familiar tales again. You still grin and shake your head when the Raven loses her meal to the flattering Mr. Fox. And "The Travelers and the Bear" is very cute!

There are certain advantages to the PG versions of the Fables. I'm pretty sure my favorite line would never have shown up in Little Golden Books. (You'll have to read "The Lion and the Ass Go Hunting Together" for that one. . . )

Overall, while most of the stories are simplistic and many are just plain odd to our modern sensibilities, and the morals written to go with them are usually pretty silly, there is a lot of wisdom to be found between the smiles.

Lezlie

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.