I think I’m going to join two new reading challenges:

Maggie Reads is hosting the second annual Southern Reading Challenge. I intended to sign up for it last year and failed miserably, so I want to make up for it this year. The challenge is to read three Southern works between now and August 15.

My selections will be (with the option of switching out books):

• Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston
• The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

The second challenge is the Non-Fiction Five Challenge, which runs through September.

Again, with the option of subbing in other selections, I’m hoping to read:

• The 20-Minute Vegetable Gardener by Tom Christopher and Marty Asher
• The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
• Why the Wind Blows: A History of Weather and Global Warming by Matthys Levy
• Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau

Conveniently, I owe a blog review on the advance reader copy of the Levy book, so that should get read shortly, and I’m supposed to be reading Walden with Karen as we speak, so this should spur me to alleviate the guilt I feel every time I see my copy of it sitting on my desk.

Sooner or later, someone is going to notice that I haven’t posted about books since the end of last year. (Or, conversely, no one will notice because no one cares. Unfortunately, I notice and I care, because I constantly refer back to my past book posts, so I just feel guilty with each day that passes without a book post.) So today, we’re just going to say, screw it and go with what we’ve got. This post will be ridiculously long because it covers the first four months of the year. So, feel free to skip it and come back tomorrow if you aren’t into the reading thing. I promise my feelings won’t be hurt.

(more…)

The Telegraph has come up with the 110 books they claim will constitute the perfect library. As with any list like this, I don’t do well. But I enjoy examining them and seeing what specific entities (in this case a British newspaper that focuses on European classics) think I ought to have read.

Here’s how I fall out with their list:

Classics: I’ve read four completely (Austen, Bronte, Trollope, and Swift); two more are on my to-read list for this year.

Poetry: This is the hardest category, as I’ve definitely read snippets of at least all of the poets they’ve include. I’d have to look at the specific works to see which ones I’ve read completely. I know it’s at least one, but it could easily be more.

Literary Fiction: Thank god for Toni Morrison. Otherwise I haven’t read any of these, although I’ve read other work by some of the authors.

Romantic Fiction: I’ve read two (Rebecca and Gone with the Wind and two others are on my list to read soon.

Children’s Books: At last! a category in which I do well! I’m not sure if I’ve read Treasure Island all the way through or if I’ve just read snippets. I do know I didn’t like it (although I can see its merits). Otherwise I agree with and have read the lot.

Sci-Fi: It strikes me that usually you’re either a fantasy reader or a sci-fi reader and I definitely fall into the former category. I’ve read 1984 and am in the middle of listening to the Librivox version of Frankenstein through CraftLit. Should I bother with any of the others? It seems like I ought to read Jules Verne at the very least…

Crime: I haven’t read any of these, although I have read some of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Collins, Christie, Chandler, Doyle, and Hammett are all on my list.

Books that Changed the World: I’ve read excerpts of nearly all these works, but was turned off by de Tocqueville’s introduction the only time I ever attempted to read any of them unabridged. This category, in particular, would seem to be a weak link in my literary creds. Any suggestions on where to start first?

Books that Changed Your World: Mayle’s work is a favorite and I read A Child Called ‘It’ back in middle school, I think. I gave up on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance from disinterest. Truss, Schott, Adams, and maybe Gladwell are all on my list.

History: I think it’s a bad sign that I’ve hardly even heard of any of these books…

Lives: I started Gaskell at one point…

Hmmm… looks like I’d better hit the non-fiction section of the library sometime soon…

Since I’m a bit stalled on the classics readalong that Karen and I are supposed to be working on (I just don’t feel like reading Walden right now), I thought I’d join some other readalongs, reserving the right to change my mind as I go along. The first one started last week:

Once Upon a Time II (hosted by Carl)

Once Upon a Time…

For me these four words conjure images of four classifications of story: Fantasy, Folklore, Fairy Tales, and Mythology. These four classifications, or genres, or subgenres of story can exist separately or in various combinations but their one common factor in my mind is that they can all very easily begin:

Once Upon a Time

Carl offers a number of options, but I think I’m going to pursue Quest the Third:

Fulfill the requirements for … Quest the Second* AND top it off with a June reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The challenge runs from the first day of spring through the last.

*Quest the Second: Read at least one book from each of the four categories. In this quest you will be reading 4 books total: one fantasy, one folklore, one fairy tale, and one mythology.

The books I’m hoping to read are:

• Fantasy: The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
• Folklore: Mules and Men by Zora Neale Hurston
• Fairy Tale: The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
• Mythology: The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan

Don’t those sound like interesting choices? Any other takers? Karen? Grey Kitten? Jenn?

This book review, which The Morning Times pointed me to, has me intrigued.

Maryanne Wolf’s Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain sounds fascinating and I can’t wait to add it to my list of books to read in 2008.

(Speaking of which, my Into the Shelves feature will return on April 1 with what I’ve been reading since the beginning of the year.)

Mia shared this meme on her blog earlier this week and it seemed like a perfect antidote to a rainy weekend:

Bold the ones you have read, italicize the ones you are interested in, and leave the ones you don’t care about reading alone.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner(Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91.The Skin of the Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlem)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I can’t figure out what these books have in common to put them on a list together. Books all sitting on someone’s shelf perhaps? Weird…