Tuesday, December 23, 2008

At Last—The 2009 To-Be-Read Challenge


It's here! It's here! My favourite reading challenge is here!

No themes this year. This list has been carefully compiled from my to-be-read pile, and I am ready for the challenge. Twelve books, twelve months. Personal goal is five out of twelve. I know, I know. Given that my average is four out of twelve, I'm not setting my goals high.

1. Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore
2. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
3. In Europe: Travels Through the Twentieth Century by Geert Mak.
4. Fangland by John Marks
5. Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored and Challenged Books from Dante to Harry Potter by Pearce J. Carefoote
6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
7. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
8. No Fixed Address: Life in the Foreign Service by Christine Hantel-Fraser
9. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
10. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
11. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
12. Night by Elie Wiesel

I've tried mixing more non-fiction into the collection because I feel like I don't read enough, even though A LOT of my TBR pile is non-fiction. Maybe that's why I don't read enough? They're all waiting...?

Anyway, I'm EXCITED. This is gonna be fun! Wish me luck. :)

5 comments:

SmilingSally said...

You'll love Night; I used to teach it in high school. It's a fast read that will leave you thinking.

Olga said...

Thanks, Smilingsal. It was a last minute decision, and I think I'm going to enjoy it. I've heard good things already.

Terri said...

Good luck! I enjoyed Stiff - a bit macabre and not one to read whilst eating! But very well written, funny, educational.

Kathy said...

OK, so how does this work...do you pick your own books that you'd like to read?

Olga said...

Kathy: Yes, you choose the books on your list (and you can even pick up to twelve alternatives, but I didn't do that this time around). The main point of the challenge is to read books that have been languishing in your To Be Read pile for a long time...books that you planned on reading last year and haven't started, books that you've always wanted to read, etc. etc. Each year the list changes for me. There's about a billion of these very books on my list!