Another day, another challenge to join! This time, I'm joining the 2009 Young Adult Book Challenge. It should be a breeze to do this one, as I read quite a few YA books as it is.

The rules are:

1. Anyone can join. You don't need a blog to participate.
2. Read 12 Young Adult novels. No need to list your books in advance. You may select books as you go. Even if you list them now, you can change the list if needed.
3. Challenge begins January thru December, 2009.
4. You can join anytime between now and December 31, 2009.

I'm going to hold off on listing them for now, but they will be listed on this post.

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Tags: 2009 reads, challenges
Current Music: Coldplay - Violet Hill

I'm joining another challenge for 2009: The Pub Challenge. It actually shouldn't be too challenging. I request a fair amount of ARCs, and even if I didn't, I work at a public library. Reading 9 new releases throughout the year won't be too hard. Anyway, here are the rules for the challenge:

1. Read a minimum of 9 books first published in 2009. You don’t have to buy these. Library books, unabridged audios, or ARCs are all acceptable. To qualify as being first published in 2009, it must be the first time that the book is published in your own country. For example, if a book was published in Australia, England, or Canada in 2008, and then published in the USA in 2009, it counts (if you live in the USA). Newly published trade paperbacks and mass market paperbacks do not count if there has been a hardcover/trade published before 2009. Any questions on what qualifies? Just leave a comment here, and I’ll respond with the answer.
2. No children’s/YA titles allowed, since we’re at the ‘pub.’
3. At least 5 titles must be fiction.
4. Crossovers with other challenges are allowed.
5. You can add your titles as you go, and they may be changed at any time.

My books for this challenge will probably all be fiction, but we'll see. I literally never know when the urge to read a good history book will strike me.

Tags: 2009 reads, challenges
Current Music: Lifehouse - Broken

I am a glutton for punishment.

That being said, I have joined a new challenge, the July Book Blowout. But unlike many of the other challenges, this one just challenges you to read a certain amount of books in the month of July. I don't have to read award winners, or books from the 1001 Books list.

I've been averaging 10 books a quarter, which means that at this rate, I will be ten books short of my initial 50 book goal for the year, and 24 short for the 888 challenge. In looking at my 888 challenge list, the categories that I seem to be struggling most with are the British classics category, with the historical fiction category also taking longer than expected. So I'm setting myself a goal of 10 books for the month of July, focusing on British classics and historical fiction. All books read for the challenge will be reviewed and tagged "July Book Blowout."

Participating in book blogging has introduced me to more reading challenges than is technically considered healthy...

Tags: challenges, july book blowout
Current Mood: determined
Current Music: Save Ferris - Everything I Want To Be

With just over a month left until the Book Awards II Challenge starts, I decided to go through the lists of award winners and see which awards had books I already owned (and could therefore complete the challenge without spending any money or relying on finding what I need at the library). And I was able to narrow the list down to ten books pretty quickly. Some of the books I've selected overlap awards, so I picked one category for them. And my top ten are as follows:

1. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Alex Award)
2. The Sea by John Banville (Booker Prize)
3. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (Commonwealth Writer's Prize)
4. Saturday by Ian McEwan (James Tait Black Memorial Prize)
5. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx (National Book Award)
6. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (PEN/ Hemingway Award)
7. Looking for Alaska by John Green (Printz Award)
8. American Pastoral by Philip Roth (Pulitzer Prize)
9. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Booker Prize)
10. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (Booker Prize)

I have some alternates in mind in case any of these books don't work out.

Curious about the challenge? The rules are here, and my original post is here.

Tags: book awards challenge, challenges
Current Mood: pensive
Current Music: Snow Patrol - Whatever's Left

In the span of a month, I've made quite a few changes to my plans for the 888 challenge I'm participating in on Library Thing. I've changed two categories altogether, and I'm still mulling over what I'm going to do with a third category.

I've gotten rid of two categories, the ones previously known as "Books By Authors Who Are New to Me" and "Non-fiction." I'd only completed one book in each category. I've replaced them with "Austen Addiction" and "Re-Reads." Austen Addiction is for books based on people reacting to Jane Austen's novels, such as The Jane Austen Book Club, and sequels, such as At An Assembly Such as This. Generally, Austen sequels make me cringe, but I know that Assembly isn't the smut-fest some of the other "sequels" are. The Re-Reads category is extremely self-explanatory; I decided to include it after I re-read the first three books in the Twilight saga this week. I won't be including those in my 50 books challenge, though, since it's not really that challenging to re-read books you've already read once.

The category I'm still mulling over is the British classics category; I've made zero progress on it, except that I'm a little over halfway through A Room With a View, and I've started Middlemarch. I hate to get rid of it, but I don't have anything to replace it with, yet. I should just see how my reading shakes down for the rest of the year and see how it goes from there.

Anyway, here are the categories, and the books I've completed for each category. The rest of the spaces will be filled in as I complete the books (though if a book is in progress, I've included it, and it's noted.

1. 1001 Books (You Must Read Before You Die)
2. Books from the TBR Pile
3. British Classics
4. Books Released in 2008
5. Austen Addiction
6. Young Adult Novels
7. Historical Fiction
8. Re-Reads

( 1001 Books )

( Books from the TBR Pile )

( British Classics )

( Books Released in 2008 )

( Austen Addiction )

( Young Adult Novels )

( Historical Fiction )

( Re-Reads )

I will probably update this list on a monthly basis for the rest of the year; it just seems easier to do it monthly rather than every time I finish a book. If you're interested in following my progress more closely, I update my thread on Library Thing each time I complete a book or make changes.

Tags: 888, challenges
Current Mood: mellow

Since posting my initial entry regarding the 888 challenge in April, I've finished some books and made some changes. The most significant change is the change in categories: I will no longer be trying to complete the Shakespeare category, and have since relabeled it as Books from my TBR Pile." I was making zero progress with the Shakespeare, and so I think this was a good change.

I need to make a lot more progress overall, though. I've only completed thirteen books toward this challenge, and that leaves me with 51 to go! For now, I've decided to kind of clear out the books I *haven't* read, so that it gives me a little more leeway when it comes to filling in the blanks and deciding what I'm going to read next.

Anyway, my updated list of categories is as follows:

1. 1001 Books (You Must Read Before You Die)
2. Books from the TBR Pile
3. British Classics
4. Books Released in 2008
5. Books by Authors I've Never Read Before
6. Young Adult Novels
7. Historical Fiction
8. Non-Fiction

( 1001 Books )

( Books from the TBR Pile )

( British Classics )

( Books Released in 2008 )

( Books by Authors I've Never Read Before )

( Young Adult Novels )

( Historical Fiction )

( Non-Fiction )

Wish me luck on all this. I'm thinking of amending a couple categories to include a few books I've read this year but didn't include in the challenge. There are three such books, and I may need them if I ever think I'm going to reach 64 (or even 56, if I take advantage of the ability to use 8 books in two categories each).

Tags: 888, challenges, librarything

Earlier this month, I signed up to participate in the 1% Well-Read Challenge. This challenge encourages participants to read 10 books from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I've already completed the first book, The End of the Affair, but I wanted to make sure I had the list of books I planned to read in my journal as well as on the website. This list may be altered or changed at any time, of course.

1% Well-Read
1. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
2. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
3. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
4. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
5. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
6. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
7. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
8. The Sea by John Banville
9. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Tags: 1% well read, challenges
Current Mood: contemplative

I am a glutton for punishment. Since joining the Sunday Salon a few weeks ago, I've run across quite a few different reading challenges. And I've joined a few: the 1% Well-Read Challenge, which encourages participants to read 10 books from the 1001 Books list in 10 months (The End of the Affair was the first of those), and now, the Book Awards Challenge. In this challenge, I will have 10 months to read 10 award-winning books.

The challenge doesn't start until August, which means I've got time to sift through the various awards and decide which books I want to read. I'll pick 10 in advance of beginning the challenge and post them here, but they will be subject to change.

I'm looking forward to the challenge. I suspect I have a few award winners here and didn't realize that they were award winners (though some of them I am quite sure about). I'll edit this post when I come up with a list of books.

ETA: I have selected my ten books for this challenge, and they can be found here.

Tags: book awards challenge, challenges
Current Mood: excited