Exploration: Reading Latin America

Dates: January 1st through April 30th of 2009

Host: Katrina

For details: Click here.

The challenge (put simply): Read four books, fiction or non-fiction, from/about Latin America. There are a variety of different options.

My list:

*A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet by Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela

*The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey by Salman Rushdie

*The Massacre at El Mozote by Mark Danner

*News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Diversity Rocks Reading Challenge

***Yeah! I made it!***

Dates: January 1st through February 28th of 2009 (?)

Host: Ali

For details: Click here.

The challenge (put simply): There are several options. I'm choosing The Non-Joiner level, reading one book by a non-white author.

My list of possibles:

*In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom by Qanta A. Ahmed, MD

*Fledgling by Octavia Butler

*Story-Wallah: Short Fiction from South Asian Writers edited by Shyam Selvadurai

*The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie

*Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino

*The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Sci-Fi Experience '09

Dates: January 1st through February 28th of 2009

Host: Carl

For details: Click here.

The Challenge (put simply): It's NOT a challenge! Just read as much or as little Sci-Fi as you'd like.

My list of possible reads (hoping to read at least three of them):

*The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge by Harry Harrison

*The Chrysalids by John Wyndham

*Larklight by Philip Reeve

*The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers

*Heads by Greg Bear

*Germ by Robert Liparulo

*Jennifer Government by Max Barry

*Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card

*The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Short Stories:

*"The Father Thing" by Philip K. Dick

*"Orange" by Neil Gaiman (from The Starry Rift edited by Jonathan Strahan)

*"Ass-Hat Magic Spider" by Scott Westerfeld (from The Starry Rift edited by Jonathan Strahan)

*"The Menace From Earth" by Robert Heinlein

*"The Home Team" by Greg Wickenhofer

*"Summer All in a Day" by Ray Bradbury

*"Cheats" by Ann Halam (from The Starry Rift edited by Jonathan Strahan)

*"The Fluted Girl" by Paolo Bacigulupi

*"The Surfer" by Kelly Link (from The Starry Rift edited by Jonathan Strahan)--read, but didn't review

R.I.P. III Reading Challenge

***A resounding success! I finished on time and even read more than I needed to!***


Dates: September 1st through October 31st of 2008

Host: Carl

For details: Click here.

The Challenge (put simply): Several options available. I'm going with Peril the First, which means reading 4 books of the dark/creepy/scary variety.

My pool of possibles:

*The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason (yes, maybe this will be the time that I actually give this well-loved book a go)
*The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
*Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
*Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
*The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
*We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
*Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge
*Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk
*The Thirteen Tale by Diane Setterfield
*Witch-Hunt by Marc Aronson
*Dracula by Bram Stoker
*Lost Boy, Lost Girl by Peter Straub
*The Society of S by Susan Hubbard
*The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker
*Daphne du Maurier's Classics of the Macabre
*Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle
*From the Dust Returned by Ray Bradbury
*Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest by Matt Haig
*The Homecoming by Ray Bradbury
*Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman
*Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub
*The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
*The Witches by Roald Dahl
*The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Floods: Good Neighbors by Colin Thompson

Japanese Literature Challenge 2

Dates: July 30th, 2008 through January 30, 2009

Host: Bellezza

For details: Click here.

The challenge (put simply): Read at least 3 works of Japanese literature.

My list:

*The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

*Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

*Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino

July Book Blowout

Dates: July 1st through July 31st

Host: Mrs. S

For details: Click here.

The challenge (put simply): Read as many books as you can during the month of July.

My list (to be filled in as I go):

1. Six Modern Plagues and How We Are Causing Them by Mark Jerome Walters
2. Becoming a Superhero by William D. Smith (counts as half a book)
3. How did I get to be 40 & other atrocities by Judith Viorst
4. Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman
5. Stuart Little by E.B. White

Classics Challenge

Dates: July 1st through December 31st

Host: Trish

For details: Click here.

The challenge (put simply): Read 5 classics, and then one bonus book from the list that the participants put together of should be/will be classics.

My list:

*Dracula by Bram Stoker

*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

*Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

*Walden by Henry David Thoreau

*Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

*Bonus book: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini