Melissa's comments
(member since Sep 09, 2007)
Melissa's comments from the The Book Challenge group.
(showing 1-6 of 6)
I'm in for this challenge. (Maybe it will keep me honest with my English lit. major roots...)1. Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (in progress, thanks DailyLit!)
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I'm a little disappointed to say that I didn't meet my unofficial reading goal, which was to read more than 200 books in 2008. (I only read 182 books this year.) I also didn't quite finish the author alphabet challenge (but also hadn't really applied myself to it) and failed abysmally at the to-be-read challenge. So in 2009, I hope to read 200 books, complete the author alphabet and TBR challenges, and complete a "variety is the spice of life" challenge in three months. Wish me luck!
Update: DONE! Finished this up in April but forgot about it until June, so I underestimated the time it would take me by a month, but I'm still pretty pleased with how fast this challenge went by.Original post: I'm betting this is gonna be a piece of cake, so here we go... in fact, I think I can finish this in three months.
Keeping track:
Read one book by an author of the opposite gender: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford by Ron Hansen
Read one book by a living author: Flight by Sherman Alexie
Read one book by a deceased author: Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne
Read one book which was originally written in a language other than English. (Translated or not, your choice): Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Read one nonfiction book: The Magician's Book A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller
Read one genre book (fantasy, science fiction, mystery, western, romance, horror): The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Read one work of literary fiction: A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
Read one young adult book: Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams
Read a short story collection or anthology: Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
Read a poetry collection, poetry anthology, or an epic poem: In the Pines by Alice Notley
Read a graphic novel: What It Is by Lynda Barry
Read a banned book: The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
I'm fairly impressed with my progress on this challenge, as I really wasn't trying very hard or looking for specific authors but still managed to knock most of the letters out of the park by June. So I"m going to bat clean-up (and lighten up on the baseball metaphors) in 2009 by filling in the letters I didn't get to: I, O, Q, U, X, Y, and Z.Status monitored here:
I:
O: Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
Q:
U:
X:
Y: Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Z:
My unofficial reading goal for 2007 was to break 200 books read in that year (in 2006, I read 190 books.... so close!) Well, I'm pretty excited that I actually read 219 books last year. That total includes quite a few graphic novels and YA books, which speeds everything along, of course. Still, thanks to the public library for giving me so much print to tear up this year.
I'm in for this challenge too! I think I'll spend a few months just seeing which authors I happen to fill in here, and then evaluate which letters I need to seek out purposefully.
A: Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, 1/2/08)
B: Po Bronson (Why Do I Love These People?, 1/15/08)
C: Willa Cather (My Antonia, 4/12/08)
D: Olena Kalytiak Davis (shattered sonnets love cards and other off and back handed importunities, 1/26/08)
E: Joseph Epstein (Envy, 3/25/08)
F: Ann Fessler (The Girls Who Went Away, 6/17/08)
G: Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love, 2/12/08)
H: Shannon Hale (Book of a Thousand Days, 1/13/08)
I:
J: Tove Jansson (Moomin: The Complete Tove Jansson Comic Strip, 4/16/08)
K: James Kochalka (American Elf, 2/3/08)
L: Frances Moore Lappe (Getting a Grip, 1/28/08)
M: Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses, 1/20/08)
N: Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife, 1/8/08)
O:
P: Ernest Poole (His Family, 3/9/08)
Q:
R: Salman Rushdie (Midnight's Children, 3/24/08)
S: Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight, 2/3/08)
T: Booth Tarkington (The Magnificent Ambersons, 3/18/08)
U:
V: Brian K. Vaughan (Y The Last Man, 2/21/08)
W: Wendy Wasserstein (Sloth, 3/7/08)
X:
Y:
Z:
