Once Upon a Time Challenge II

This is Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge. It began on Friday, March 21st and runs to Friday, June 20th: Midsummer Night’s Eve. Joining this challenge means you are participating but not committing yourself to any specific number of books. I'm aiming to complete "Quest the First "which is to read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time II criteria of fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

These books are on my to-be-read list already and fit into these categories:

Dante’s Descent into Hell, translated by Dorothy L Sayers
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham Finished see here
The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Star Wars by George Lucas
Helen of Troy by Margaret George

Heart of a Child Reading Challenge

Becky is running this Challenge. The challenge which ends on 14 July is to re-read books you read as a child. See here for full details. The books I'm choosing from are:

1. Mr Blossom's Shop by Barbara Euphan Todd - Finished see here for my review
2. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Finished see here for my review.
3. What Katy Did and What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge
4. Heidi by Johanna Spyri and Heidi Grows Op and Heidi's Children by Charles Tritten
5. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
6. The Gloriet Tower by Eileen Meyler

What's In a Name Challenge

These are the books I've chosen for now. I've been meaning to read these books for quite a while now, so this should push me into reading them. See here for details

A book with a colour in the title: Half a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie -finished March 08 - see here

A book with an animal in its title: The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney

A book with a first name in its title: My Cousin Rachel, Daphne Du Maurier

A book with a first name in its title: Daniel Isn't Talking, Marti Leimbach - finished March 08 - see here

A book with a place in its title: Winter in Madrid, C J Sansom - finished Jan 08 - see here

A book with a weather event in its title: Snow, Orhan Pamuk

A book with a plant in its title: Gem Squash Tokoloshe, Rachel Zadok

Revised 28 March 2008

Chunkster Challenge

For details of the Challenge see here.

The books I initially chose are:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusack (584 pages)

The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox (598 pages)

The Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bower (575 pages)

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (529 pages)

Added Winter In Madrid, C J Sansom (530 pages) See here.

Revelation by C J Sansom (546 pages). See here

Revised 15 April 2008

From the Stacks Challenge Ended 31 January 2008

This Overdue Books Challenge is just what I need. The idea is that 1 November and 31 January you read 5 books from those you have already purchased, have been meaning to get to and haven't read before. No going out and buying new books. No getting sidetracked by the lure of the holiday bookstore displays.

This should help me keep to my resolve not to buy any more books for a while - until at least after Christmas. Here's my list (in no particular order):

Half a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie
Needle in the Blood by Sarah Bowers
The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson - finished - review 13 December 2007
Winter in Madrid by C J Sansom - finished - review 30 January 2008
The Other Side of You by Salley Vickers

Revised 1 February 2008

Outmoded Authors Challenge

This Challenge has ended. See here for my final thoughts.

Imani set up this challenge, which will last for six months ending on February 28th 2008. During that time the challenge is to read however many books by however many authors you like from a good long list. I've never heard of some of them, so that's another opportunity to broaden my reading. The rules of the challenge are here. I decided to limit my choice to books I already have or can borrow from my local library.

So far I have read:

1. Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe. See my review here.
2. D H Lawrence, Sons and Lovers. See my review here.
3. D H Lawrence, The Man Who Died. See my review here.
4. Olivia Manning, The Great Fortune. Review here.
5. Olivia Manning, The Spoilt City. See my review here.
6. W.Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence. See my review here and here.

Other books I would like to read are:

1. G K Chesterton, The Complete Father Brown. I've read some of Chesterton's books before, but none of the Father Brown books. There's a copy in my local library - in the Reserve Stock.


2. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.


3. Somerset Maugham, Books and You & The Moon and Sixpence. The library has copies of both of these. Books and You sounds intriguing from its title.


4. John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga. I'm surprised to find that I've never read any Galsworthy either, but as The Forsyte Saga has been serialised on TV I know the story. I'll be interested to see how faithful the series was to the book. Sometimes, I don't like a film or TV dramatisation if I've read the book first, but it's usually ok the other way round.


5. Olivia Manning, The Balkan Trilogy. I know nothing about Manning's books. The on-line catalogue of my local library lists this one volume book comprising The Great Fortune ; The Spoilt City; Friends and Heroes. So far I have read The Great Fortune and The Spoilt City. I've ordered Friends and Heroes from W H Smith - not arrived yet.


6. Italo Svevo, As a Man Grows Older. I know absolutely nothing about this author and have never heard of him before, so this may or may not be a good choice. I borrowed this from the library and couldn't get interested in it so returned it unread.

Revised 2 March 08

Celebrate the Author Challenge

This is a twelve month challenge starting on January 1 2008 set up by Becky. The challenge is designed to "celebrate" authors' birthdays. Choose one author for each month of the year. Read at least one book a month. You can choose alternatives for each month and you do NOT have to choose a book until the very moment you're ready to start reading. You can change your mind so long as you change your list to reflect that change.

This suits me very well as I have a long list of books to be read and so the authors I’ve currently chosen are all taken from that list. I particularly like the idea that I can change my mind as I do like to read spontaneously and this gives me that freedom of choice. I hope that this challenge will help me clear the backlog of unread books!

January - Virginia Woolf -The Death of the Moth and Other Essays - see here

February - Paul Auster - The Book of Illusions - see here

March - Robert Frost - see here

April - Ian Rankin - see here

May - Daphne Du Maurier or Richard Adams or Margaret Forster

June - Orhan Pamuk or Thomas Hardy

July - Alexander Dumas or Joanne Harris

August - Irving Stone or Jorges Louis Borges or Mollie Panter-Downes

September - Kiran Desai or Chimananda Ngozi Adichie or Elizabeth Gaskell

October - Melvyn Bragg or A N Wilson

November - George Eliot or Chinua Achebe or Mark Twain

December - Jane Austen or Sophie Kinsella

Revised 28 April 08