The Book Awards Reading Challenge: A New Strategy

As I was joining new challenges in the dawn of the post-dissertation period, it occurred to me (with some degree of shock) that I still have a challenge open: the Book Awards Challenge, which lasts a full year, and which has about three and a half months left in it. I had promised to read 12 books in that year, which means that I have {blush} ten books to read in the next three and a half months. Looking back at my list, I realize it was filled with dense and intimidating chunksters (as well as books that would have qualified for my 2007 Year of Australian reading, which is now over). It sounded like it was time for a reconception of my challenge goals, if I was even to have a small hope of finishing the challenge (or making a valiant attempt at it).
So here is a rather short list of the two books I have already read:
  1. Tehanu by Ursula K. Le Guin [Nebula]
  2. Citizen Vince by Jess Walter [Edgar]

And here is a new list of 15 possibilities from which I hope to draw my final ten challenge books:
  • Small Island by Andrea Levy [Orange, Costa/Whitbread, Commonwealth]
  • Hyperion by Dan Simmons [Hugo]
  • The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields [Pulitzer, NBCC, Governor General's]
  • Gilead by Marilynne Robinson [NBCC, Pulitzer]
  • Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler [Nebula]
  • March by Geraldine Brooks [Pulitzer]
  • Neuromancer by William Gibson [Nebula, Hugo]
  • The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard [NBA, Miles Franklin]
  • The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter [Pulitzer, NBA]
  • Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey [Booker, Miles Franklin]
  • Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee [Booker, Commonwealth]
  • Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje [Governer General's, Giller]
  • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin [Hugo, Nebula]
  • Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett [NBA]
  • Them by Joyce Carol Oates [NBA]
  • Mao II by Don DeLillo [PEN/Faulkner]
You can find the blog for the challenge here.

Notable Books Challenge (2008)

The tedious fullness of my schedule this year has prevented me from participating as I should in the Notable Books Blog, Wendy's successor to the 2007 New York Times Notable Books Challenge (drawn from the 2006 New York Times Notable Books list). Now, at long last, I am ready to leap back into the breach with a list for my own 2008 challenge. I enjoyed the New York Times list last year, so this year my goal will be to read (or more accurately, to have read, since some of these books I read in their actual year of publication) 12 books from the 2007 list. Here they are:

  1. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
  2. Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat
  3. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan [READ]
  4. The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
  5. Remainder by Tom McCarthy
  6. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
  7. The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
  8. What is the What by Dave Eggers
  9. Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre
  10. Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee
  11. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling [READ, click for my review]
  12. The Gathering by Anne Enright
To visit the blog, see the very supportive rules for participating in it, or to join, go to the Notable Books Blog.

The Non-Fiction Five Challenge: A Second Attempt


Last year I participated in the wonderful Non-Fiction Five Challenge, because I truly do delight in non-fiction, which doesn't make enough appearances in the annals of my pleasure reading. Ultimately, I only made it through 3 of the 5 required books, and I am not totally convinced I read most of those within the time scheme of the challenge. Boo to me.

Well, this year I, unabashed, make another attempt at Joy's Challenge. Here are the rules:
  1. Read 5 non-fiction books during the months of May - September, 2008 (please link your reviews at Thoughts of Joy)
  2. Read at least one non-fiction book that is different from your other choices (i.e.: 4 memoirs and 1 self-help)
You can sign up for the challenge, see the list of participants, or read all about it here.

For me, a number of books will be reappearing from last year's list. Like last year, I will have a list of five, with six alternates, some of which may change over the course of the challenge:

    1. 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare by James Shapiro
    2. This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
    3. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt
    4. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
    5. A Brief History of the Caribbean by Jan Rogozinski
Extra Credit:
    1. Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
    2. The Trojan War: A New History by Barry Strauss
    3. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
    4. The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
    5. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
    6. Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
Since the start of the challenge is still a way off, I won't be able to include a book I just finished and hope to review soon, The Translator by Daoud Hari. Nor will I include a truly gripping account of the North Carolina/Duke basketball rivalry that I am currently reading while I watch UNC progress to the ACC championship (Go Heels!): To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever by Will Blythe. Also unincluded will be (probably) my next non-fiction venture, the library's copy of a biography of Cary Grant that has been sitting on my shelf for months. I am now experiencing a rampant desire to read all the books I have named in this post simultaneously. Best just to back away and return to the many reading projects I already have underway, at least until May.