Monday, January 5, 2015

2015 Reading Challenge...(Updated)


Yes, I found this on Pinterest and no, I am not ashamed of that.....
So without further ado, here is the list and my planned book for each item.

1.  A book with more than 500 pages.
              Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

2.  A classic romance.
              Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

3.  A book that became a movie.
              In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Phillbrick

4.  A book published in 2015
            The Season of Migration by Nellie Hermann

5.  A book with a number in the title.
             Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

6.  A book written by someone under 30.
             Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

7.  A book with nonhuman characters.
             Fluke by James Herbert

8.  A funny book.
             Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

9.  A book by a female author. 
             First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen

10.  A mystery or thriller
              The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

11.  A book with a one-word title.
               Motherlunge by Kirstin Scott

12.  A book of short stories.
              The Turning by Tim Winton  (updated...)

13.  A book set in a different country.
              (France)  Hunting and Gathering by Anna Gavalda

14.  A nonfiction novel. 
               A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon

15.  A popular author's first book.
               Irish Thoroughbred by Nora Roberts

16.  A book from an author you love that your haven't read.
                Wicked Charms by Janet Evanovich

17.   A book a friend recommended.
                 Walking Home: A Poet's Journey by Simon Armitage

18.  A Pulitzer Prize winning book.
                  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

19.  A book based on a true story.
                  Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

20.  A book at the bottom of your to-read list
               Middlemarch by George Eliot
     (April 8, 2013 is the date this book was put onto my Goodreads to read list... I was supposed to read it for my book club a while ago and didn't...  YA! It will finally be off my list)

21.  A book your mom loves.
                 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

22.  A book that scare you.
                Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

23.  A book more than 100 years old.
                A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

24.  A book based entirely on its cover.
               The Yamas & Niyamas: Exploring Yoga's Ethical Practice by Deborah Adele
       (I have been told about the book for years and had ordered it and it got lost in the mail for over 3 months, and when I finally opened the package and looked at the cover, I said I need to read this for my challenge....)

25.  A book your were supposed to read in school but didn't.
        (a disclaimer on this one, this was an option in college, and I chose another book)
               The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

26.   A memoir.
                The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

27.  A book you can finish in a day.
      (note, I read really fast, so I just picked a book a random)
                 The Major's Daughter by J.P. Francis

28.  A book with antonyms in the title.
                 Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman

29.  A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit.
                  Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy (updated)

30.  A book that came out the year you were born (1971).
                  The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

31.  A book with bad reviews.
                   Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith (Updated)
                   found from this list of bad books....
                  (This is a portion of a review on goodreads..."Occasionally offensive not because I am an                Austen purist, but because I'm not an idiot, the book barely escapes being so awful as to not receive even one star."

32.  A trilogy.
                  The third time is the charm right????  The Patrick Rothfuss Kingkiller Chronicle's third book will not be published in 2015, so here is my next attempt of a trilogy.

Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy which includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass

33.  A book from your childhood.
                 Charlotte's Web by E.B. White

34. A book with a love triangle.
                 Embers by Sandor Marai

35.  A book set in the future.
                Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

36.  A book set in high school.
                 I'm on my 3rd option for this book.  The first, I could not find, except for purchase for about $50 since it is out of print.  The second, an new version of the first, was available at my library, but instead of taking place in high school takes place with a 4th grade class...  grrrr... so now,

                Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

37.  A book with a color in the title.
                 White Oleander by Janet Fitch

38.  A book that made you cry.
                 Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (updated)
                 Nobody Don't Love Nobody by Stacy Bess (updated)

39.  A book with magic.
                  The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness

40.  A graphic novel.
                  Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O'Malley

41.  A book by an author you've never read before.
                One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus

42.  A book you own but have never read.
              The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

43.  A book that takes place in your hometown.
      ( note, I went with the city where I was born, Willington Quay, Northumberland, England)
               The Fire Eaters by David Almond

44.  A book that was originally written in a different language.
               Night by Elie Wiesel (I am ashamed to say I have never read this)

45.  A book set during Christmas.
              Pelican Road by Howard Bahr (updated)

46.  A book written by an author with your same initials.
               Lost Laysen by Margaret Mitchell

47.  A play.
              A Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

48.  A banned book. (There are quite a few books on my list that would fit this category)
              The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

49.  A book based on or turned into a TV show.
             About a Boy by Nick Hornby (it's a movie too)

50.  A book you started but never finished.
             Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach

And there you go...
yes, it is ambitious, but I believe it is doable.

Some books are ones I've been meaning to read for a long time.
Others are on book lists that you need to read in your life.
One is for my book club.
I even managed to get the latest book by my current favorite author, Sarah Addison Allen.
Quite a few of them break me out of the genres I have been reading.
Plus, I looked for books that I had never read to fill the challenge.

I could not be happier to be attempting this.
In fact, I have already read 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood.  Wow is all will say about it.

Off with my nose in a book,
Melissa

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Final Bit....

I knew it was coming, for a while now, but when it finally happened it still hurt. Miss Bacall, tail wagging joyful basset hound superst...