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. :)

To-Be-Read Challenge End of Year Update

Image by mintlips

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!

Book Review: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

This book is so full of old-timey goodness that it makes me want to buy a pair of pantaloons and a corset, strap myself in and haul butt to New York City, circa 1916.

Times is tough for Francie Nolan and her family. Betty Smith paints a vivid and imaginative picture of life in turn of the last century Brooklyn, New York. Your heart breaks for the sorrow of Johnny Nolan, the doomed patriarch who drinks himself to an early grave, leaving behind his wife, Katie, and their two children, Francie and Neeley. Despite the hard life, Francie, who narrates the story, is able to find joy in her life.

I'm a bit of a promiscuous reader, in that, I read several books at a time. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn started off as a lazy Sunday read which led to a nightly ritual wherein I would read well into the night, bedtime be damned. I even took it on the work commute a few times, just to get a few more pages in. I really liked this book; like I said, it made me want to time travel. And to be honest, isn't that what a good book is supposed to do?

Review: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

I started my TBR challenge with Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man simply because it was the first to arrive from the library. And I sorted of cheated. I took out the books on tape. I got my comeuppance, though—the last bloody tape was messed up! Therefore, I didn't actually get to finish the book. The last thing I remember is something about eating yams on the street.

In any event, Ellison's classic novel about the plight of the African American male in early-twentieth century America was pretty good. I didn't hate it. I didn't always understand it, but the story was fascinating enough. I'm not in a huge hurry to finish it, even though there was no closure, but eventually I'd like to find out just why he is an Invisible Man, preferably if I can get the same audio tape. Whoever it was that read the story had a lovely, deep baritone voice. I think the reason I was so captivated was because he did such an amazing job of reading the story.

2008 To-Be-Read Challenge

In 2007 I took up the To-Be-Read Challenge but ended miserably. I completed two out of the twelve that I set myself to read. How embarrassing! Part of the reason was that I actually forgot about the challenge until October. That’s right, I actually forgot about it entirely until G. mentioned it. However, I still managed to read a whopping 30 books in total last year, which is still quite a few considering I spent the first part of the year in school.

This year, I’ve decided to go with a theme with the books I’ve chosen. I’ve been interested in The Great American Novel ever since I read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. So, in honor of that great book, I have picked 12 novels that have been written by American authors in the past two centuries:

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

I’ve tried to put an equal mix of male and female writers but it’s hard to be even. It looks like a pretty good list, though. Some of these have been on my master list for years and years.