My 2012 book challenge was so rewarding, making me pick up books I would just keep skipping over in favor of lighter reading. I'm doing it again this year. Some books are carried over from last year and some I dropped because they just didn't look interesting to me right now. But you can see I have plenty of others to fill in the gaps.
As before, I may not get through all of them in a year, but I will be trying always read one of them despite other distractions. In no particular order.
Classics• Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (
required of self after seeing musical)
• Middlemarch* - Eliot
• Belly of Paris* (Emile Zola)
• Wuthering Heights* - Charlotte Bronte (began this in 2012, finishing it in 2013)
Modern• Momento Mori - Muriel Spark
• Last Call* - Tim Powers (not a true classic, I know ... but still a "challenging" read which is what all these are for me)
• Galactic Pot Healer - Philip K. Dick(I wanted to try a novel instead of short stories and this was recommended as being one of the most complete stories told in a novel.)
• Journal of the Gun Years - Richard Matheson (I'm so curious to see what sort of Western Matheson writes since he was such a science fiction award winner)
Religion• Introduction to the Devout Life* - St. Francis de Sales (began this in 2012, finishing it in 2013)
• The Way of Perfection* - St. Teresa of Avila
• A Song for Nagasaki - Glynn• The Scarlet and the Black - Gallagher
Rereading• The Sand Pebbles*
• Nine Princes in Amber - Zelazny
Nonfiction• Tolkien's Letters
• The Inklings - Humphrey Carpenter
• H.V. Morton travel book
• King Peggy
* Carried over from the 2012 Book Challenge.