Book to Movie 2008

September - November 2008

I enjoyed this so much last time that I cannot resist this year.

First thoughts:

The Remains of the Day / Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day / One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest / Cold Heaven

Unread Authors Challenge

01.08.2008 - 31.01.2009

Objective: 6 works by unread authors.   May read multiple works by someone never read before.

Hosted by: Unread Authors

Now I’m a mix-and-match and moody reader so I’m keeping my options open with this one.  (Particularly as the Booker longlist is announced tomorrow!)

Here’s the initial list of authors I want to read.  I’ll pick from this non-alphabetical list, i.e un-premeditated and in the order in which these authors occur to me::

Virginia Woolf, Mary Shelley, Gatean Soucy, David Lodge, Colm Toibin, Hugo Hamiton, Imre Kertesz, Clio Gray, Robert Cormier, Naomi Novik, Owen Sheers, Katherina Hauser, Joyce Carol Oates, Helen Garner, Tim Winton, Poppy Adams, Amitav Ghosh

What An Animal Challenge

Hosted by Passion for the Page

July - December 2008

6 Books

It’s the animals in the title option for me.

Options:  The Book of Chameleons, Nightingale, Shroud for a Nightingale, The Silver Swan, The Sound of Butterfiles, Cuckoo in the Nest, The Burying Beetle, The Lemur, Out Stealing Horses, Cat and Mouse, Dog Years, The Yellow Dog, The Porcupine, The Flying Camel and the Golden Hump  ….

The 2nd Canadian Challenge

I opted out of this first time round.  13 books is a tough challenge.  But, as I’ve embarked on a quest to read everything Brian Moore wrote, it dovetails nicely with personal goals.  So I’m in.

Hosted by John 

Timescale: July 1st 2008 - July 1st 2009

Possible reads - I’m far too moody a reader to tie myself down so far in advance.  But here’s a list of Canadian books from my library.  I’ll pick 13 of the great unread from these.  Might even buy a few more, particularly if Anne-Marie MacDonald publishes something new!

Challenge 2008 - 2009: Book Awards Challenge II

Oh yes!  I’ve had so much fun with the first Book Awards Challenge  that there is no way I’m refusing this one.

Rules and sign-up for Books Awards II here.

Full marks to 3M for organising this and bonus marks too for that great button!

 

Possible Reads (All in the TBR)

Orange Prize: The Road Home, Once I Lived in Modern Times, On Beauty, A Spell of Winter, The Road Home

Orange Prize for Debut Fiction: Inglorious

Man Booker Prize: The Remains of the Day, The Siege of Krishnapur, Oscar and Lucinda, Disgrace, Midnight’s Children

Pulitzer: Beloved, American Pastoral

CWA Dagger: Motherless Brooklyn, The False Inspector Dew, Other Paths to Glory, The Twelfth Juror

The Giller Prize: The Book of Secrets, Alias Grace

Whitbread Prize: Music and Silence

International Foreign Fiction Prize:  The Book of Chameleons, The White Castle

German Book Prize: The Have-Nots

Swedish August Prize: Gregorius

French Crime Writer’s Association: Rough Trade

German Crime Prize/Friedrich Glauser Prize: The Murder Farm

Whitbread Best Novel: Music and Silence

Canadian Governor General’s Prize: The Luck of Ginger Coffrey

Carnegie Prize: Here Lies Arthur

Challenge 2008: The Eponymous Challenge

 

Objective: 4 titles which describe characters within March - May 2008
1) A Partisan’s Daughter
2) Tess of the D’Urbervilles
3) The Man In The Window
4) The Artificial Silk Girl

Challenge complete 17.05.08.

I only really enjoyed one of the four titles and that was K O Dahl’s crime novel.  Still it was a great idea for a challenge.  I hope I have better luck with my choices next time around.

Challenge 2008: 2 New to U

1) Wolfgang Koeppen - Death In Rome

2) Penelope Fitzgerald - The Blue Flower

Challenge completed 14.05.2008.  I’m glad I joined this one.  I’ve discovered two excellent authors and I now look forward to investigating the back catalogues of both!

Challenge 2008 - 2009: 1% Well-Read Challenge

Timescale: May 2008 - February 2009

The goal of this challenge is to read 10 books in 10 months from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. For you non-math people, 10 out of 1001 is approximately 1%, hence the title.

EDIT:  I’ve created a reference list/personal status report on my main blog.  Starting point at the beginning of this challenge = 139 read.  Think I will probably aim to read eleven from the list to make it a neat 150.

Challenge 2008 - 2009: Arthurian Challenge

Hosted by Becky at:

http://arthurianchallenge.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/signuphere/

Objective: 6 books containing Arthurian characters April 2008 - March 2009

First thoughts: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight / The Gawain Quest / The Crystal Cave / The Hollow Hills / The Last Enchantment / The Wicked Day

 

 

 

Challenge 2008: Novella Challenge

Objective  6 novellas April - September 2008

First thoughts: Michael Kohlhaas / The Falconer / A Day In The Country / Death in Venice / The Lesson of the Master  / Death of the Author / The Kreutzer Sonata / One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich / Gigi / The Cat / Gold

Challenge 2008: Reading Full Circle

1) Fall On Your Knees
2) On Beauty
3) If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller
4) Night and Day
5) Nightwebs
6) Spiderweb
7) The Blue Flower (Link Penelope)
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost
9) Before The Frost
10) The Falls

Challenge 2008: Decades 2008

Objective: 8 Books 8 Consecutive Decades Jan - Dec 2008

1861/1864 The Grey Woman / Cousin Phillis
1870
1880
1891 Tess of the D’Urbervilles
1900 The Touchstone
1910
1920
1930
1940 The Power and the Glory
1954 Death in Rome
1962 The Cry of the Owl
1970
1980
1997 Fall On Your Knees

Challenge 2008: Russian Reading Challenge

Objective: 4 books by Russian authors or set in Russia
Jan - Dec 2008

1) Selected Tales - Leo Tolstoy
2) A Vengeful Longing
3) Leviathan
4) The Helmet of Horror
5) The Shooting Party
6) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Challenge 2008: In the Pub

Objective 1: 8 published 2008
1) A Vengeful Longing
2) The Long Delirious Burning Blue
3) A Partisan’s Daughter
4) Trauma
5) The Man in the Window

Objective 2: 7 published 2007 (Personal objective - not officially part of the challenge)
1) The Bower Bird
2) The Book of Words
3) The One from the Other
4) Fault Lines

Challenge 2008: What’s In A Name

Jan-Dec 2008
Colour:       Snow White, Blood Red
Animal:       The Bower Bird
First Name: The Luck of Ginger Coffrey
Place:          Death in Rome
Weather:     Snow
Plant:          The Blue Flower

Challenge 2008: The Man Booker Challenge

Objective: 6 Booker nominees Jan - Dec 2008
1) Lies of Silence
2) The Colour of Blood
3) The Doctor’s Wife
4) Fasting, Feasting
5) The Remains of the Day
6) The Stone Diaries
7) The Siege of Krishnapur
The Bookshop
9) Offshore
10) The Secret River

Challenge 2008: Back to History

Objective 12 historical reads from differing genres Jan - Dec 2008
Young Adult Fiction
1 ) Here Lies Arthur
2 ) Crusade
3 ) Blood Red, Snow White
Adult Fiction
4 ) The Radetzky March
5 ) Innocent Traitor
6 ) The Secret River (No review)
Non-Fiction
7 ) Death and The Maiden
8 ) Lizzy Siddal - Tragedy of A Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel
Alternative History
9 ) Resistance
10) Temeraire
Historical Crime
11) A Gentle Axe
12) The One From The Other

Challenge 2007: Reading The Author

Objective:  Three Novels by Brian Moore

Timescale:  September 2007 - December 2007

1) The Doctor’s Wife
2) Black Robe
3) The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

Challenge 2008: Themed Reading Challenge

Objective 4 Books Jan - June 2008
Theme: Our Feathered Friends

1) The Bower Bird
2) The Cry of the Owl
3) The Falconer
4) The Midwich Cuckoos

I have to say that this has been my favourite challenge to date.  Short, sweet and manageable.  My picks were as different from each other as the falcon is from the bower bird (!) and were all, without exception, great reads.

Yes, I will join next year’s challenge.  But why wait so long?

Challenge 2008: C19th Women’s Writing

1) Elizabeth Gaskell - Cousin Phyllis / The Grey Woman

2) Charlotte Perkins Gilman - The Yellow Wallpaper