The 2009 100+ Reading Challenge (and Other 2009 Goals)
As I mentioned in my Sunday Salon post this week, I've signed up for the 999 Challenge on Library Thing for 2009. If I do each category without any overlaps, that will put me at 81 books for the year. So I figured, why not go for it and complete a full 100?
As a public library employee, it's vitally important that I'm aware of what's going on in the book world. I'm regularly asked to make recommendations to customers, and I regularly put in my two cents for books that we order (whether or not those two cents are welcome is another matter entirely, but we have ordered some books at my request). So I try to read as much as I can (mostly fiction, as non-fiction tends to recommend itself when it's needed)
Since 2009 will be the first year that I am not enrolled in school at all (what a wonderful feeling!) I decided it would be the perfect time to take on the 999 Challenge, and so the 100 book challenge naturally follows suit.
Beneath the cut, I've listed all the books I plan to read for the 999 Challenge, and left some blank for the remaining 19 books it will take to reach 100. If you're interested in participating, see J. Kaye's blog post here. I will be updating this post throughout the year with any changes to the list, and I will also be adding links to all my reviews as the year goes on.
1001 Books:
1. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
2. The Sea by John Banville
3. Drop City by T.C. Boyle
4. Possession by A.S. Byatt
5. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
6. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
7. Tess of the D'urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
8. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
9. American Pastoral by Philip Roth
Mysteries
1. And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander
2. The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
3. D is for Deadbeat by Sue Grafton
4. E is for Evidence by Sue Grafton
5. F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton
6. G is for Gumshoe by Sue Grafton
7. The Complete Sherlock Holmes vol. 1 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
8. The Complete Sherlock Holmes vol. 2 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout
Young Adult Literature
1. Two Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt
2. Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer
3. Rebel Angels by Libba Bray
4. Honey, Baby, Sweetheart by Deb Caletti
5. Lovesick by Jake Coburn
6. Looking for Alaska by John Green
7. Second Helpings by Megan McCafferty
8. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
9. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Chunksters
1. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1444 pgs.)
2. Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell
3. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (617 pgs.)
4. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (809 pgs.)
5. Clarissa by Samuel Richardson (1499 pgs.)
6. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell (649 pgs.)
7. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (777 pgs.)
8. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1462 pgs.)
9. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (1201 pgs.)
(Total Pages- not including Dance to the Music of Time: 8458)
Classics
1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
2. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
3. Cecilia by Fanny Burney
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
6. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
7. Villette by Charlotte Bronte
8. The Ambassadors by Henry James
9. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
From the TBR Pile
1. March by Geraldine Brooks
2. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
3. Goldengrove by Francine Prose
4. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
5. Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
6. The Gathering by Anne Enright
7. The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory
8. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan
9. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
Women in Fiction
1. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
3. The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton
4. The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
5. Music and Silence by Rose Tremain
6. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
7. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
8. Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
9. Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson
ARC/Review Copies
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2009 Releases (Currently, these are all tentative, as there's always the chance the books won't be published next year- particularly An Echo in the Bone. But I'm pretty sure of the first four)
1. The Temptation of the Night Jasmine by Lauren Willig
2. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
3. Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen
4. Tap and Gown by Diana Peterfreund
5. An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon
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Nineteen Uncategorized Books
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So my goals for 2009 are:
-100 books
-30000 pages
-30 books from the 1001 Books list (1st or 2nd edition- doesn't matter)
-Reviews for all 100 books!