... Yet More Resolutions

The beginning of the year is a fabulous time to get interested in book challenges. There are so many starting right now that I felt like a kid in a candy store browsing around and picking which ones I wanted to join. Since I started this blog (a few short days ago) I've been dipping my toes in the pool of book challenge goodness, and now I'm taking the plunge (so to speak).

So here goes. I'm joining 7 challenges so far this year, and I hope it will actually become more!

Sci fi Experience

I have already posted about the , but here's my reading list so far (almost all books mooched from the parents):

Books/Stories by Philip K. Dick
A Scanner Darkly
Our Friends From Frolix 8
Paycheck
The Minority Report
The Man in the High Castle
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon
Radio Free Albemuth

Books by Ray Bradbury
The Toynbee Convector
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Quicker Than the Eye
The Illustrated Man

The Planet That Wasn’t by Isaac Asimov
Transition by Vonda McIntyre

Short Story Challenge

For this challenge, I have choices between 10 short stories during 2008 or 10 short story collections. I haven't finished my reading list, but this is the start:

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman (collection)
Old Times on the Missippi by Mark Twain (story)
Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep? By Philip K Dick
The Overcoat by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

I'm planning to keep up to date on this one by participating in the discussions on A Curious Singularity

The Mythopoeic Award Challenge

I really like this one. I get to pick 7 titles from the books which have contended for the Mythopoeic Award. I might have to add more as I get more into this one:

Little, Big by John Crowley
Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card
A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

In Their Shoes Challenge

For this one, I'm reading however many books I want to that are autobiographies, memoirs, or biographies:

Eat, Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
Candy girl: a year in the life of an unlikely stripper by Diablo Cody.
The year of magical thinking by Joan Didion
Paula by Isabel Allende
Ten Thousand Sorrows by Elizabeth Kim

Young Adult Reading Challenge

For this one I'm reading 12 Young Adult Books. I haven't had the time to quite finish this list either, but I figure I'll browse the library as I check out new books. Now that I've finally figured out where the YA section is:

Feed by M.T. Anderson
House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
Esperanza rising by Pam Mu~noz Ryan
Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Chunkster Challenge

For this I was a little apprehensive... 4 books in 2008 that are 450 pages or longer. But then I realized I already have a chunky book that I've started on, and another I'm planning to read for the Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge. So... easy peasy:


War and Peace
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

My Year of Reading Dangerously

The point of this one is to read books that are challenging, or at a minimum ones you don't normally read. This one comes with an official list, which I'm going to stick with so far. The one that sounds the scariest for me is Great Expectations. Hope I can find all of these books in the library! If not, there will be some substitutions.

January: Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
February: The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison (African American)
March: Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood (Atwood for Atwood's sake)
April: Transformations, by Anne Sexton (Poetry)
May: Other Voices, Other Rooms, by Truman Capote (Southern)
June: Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov (Russian)
July: The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier (adolescent)
August: Maus I and II, by Art Spiegelman (Graphic Novel, Pulitzer winner)
September: The Secret Lives of People in Love, by Simon Van Booy (Independent)
October: The Human Stain, by Philip Roth (Contemporary/Jewish)
November: A Month of Classic Short Stories, Various
December: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (Dusty)