To-Be-Read Challenge End of Year Update

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This is the second year I took part in the TBR Challenge. Last year, I forgot about it. I ended up reading 4/12 novels. While it wasn't the full twelve, I'm glad I read some of them. After all, the whole purpose of the challenge is to read books that have been on your TBR pile for ever. Taking four books off of that list leaves four whole spots to fill!

This year I came up with the brilliant idea of making the challenge themed. I chose the Great American Novel as my theme and whittled the list down to these twelve books:

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
3. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
4. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
5. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
6. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
7. Animal Farm by George Orwell
8. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
9. Beloved by Toni Morrison
10. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
11. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
12. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong

The bolded books are the ones I ended up reading. So four seems to be my constant. I guess next year's goal is to beat four. I don't think I'm going to make it themed again, though. It made it tougher to choose from my TBR pile, and I ultimately had to pick a few that weren't on there, which defeats the purpose.

I'll publish the next twelve books in the TBR challenge shortly. There's still time in December. Perhaps I'll beat my goal yet and read a fifth before January 1, 2009!