Phil's 2017 Personal Challenge

[Phil]

I crafted a mission statement for my reading:

I want to be the kind of reader who
challenges himself
reflects on books
participates in the reading community
embraces his heritage
develops professionally
explores weird books
seeks diversity
studies the Bible
specializes in science fiction, and
reads for joy.

Next, I will identify ways to fulfill these goals.

[Terris]

Very nice!

[Lena]

That's a good start.

[Brina]

Wow, Phil, good luck to you in achieving those goals!!

[Phil]

All categories are one book apiece unless otherwise noted.

1 challenges himself
Cockroach Squashers
The Good Soldier Švejk
The Decameron
Gargantua and Pantagruel
War and Peace
Ulysses
Life: A User's Manual
The Divine Comedy
Classics I haven't read (sorted by classic-ness)
The Grapes of Wrath
The Sound and the Fury
Mrs. Dalloway
Gone with the Wind
A Passage to India
To the Lighthouse
Anna Karenina
One Hundred Years of Solitude

2 reflects on books
Write reviews

3 participates in the reading community✅
Participate in monthly reads for these groups:
✓Catching Up on Classics (and lots more!) An Ideal Husband Othello
✓Sci-Fi and Heroic Fantasy Alphabet of Thorn
✓Science Fiction AficionadosParable of the SowerMore Than Human
✓Mock NewberyLucky Broken Girl
✓Classics for Beginners The Autobiography of Malcolm X
✓Shakespeare Fans Much Ado About Nothing
✓The Evolution of Science Fiction Doorways in the Sand
✓Beyond RealityThe Curse of Chalion
✓African-American Historical FictionBeasts of No Nation
✓Sci Fi and Fantasy Book Club The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
✓Never Too Late to Read the Classics Snow Country
✓1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow UpThe Neverending Story Stone Soup
✓Children's Books Pancakes-Paris Misty of ChincoteagueSeabird
✓Literary Fiction by People of Color The Bluest EyeThe Fire Next Time
✓All About Books The Unbearable Lightness of Being
✓Boxall's 1001 Books To Read Before You Die At Swim-Two-Birds

4 embraces his heritage✅
Books by Czechs & Danes
✓The Unbearable Lightness of Being
The Trial
I Served the King of England
The Good Soldier Švejk
War with the Newts
✓The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground
Out of Africa
Smilla's Sense of Snow
We, the Drowned
The Fall of the King

5 develops professionally✅
Books about teaching
In the Middle: New Understandings about Writing, Reading, and Learning
✓The Elements of Style
✓Comprehension Connections: Bridges to Strategic Reading
Newbery Medal & Honor Winners (Read twelve)
Smoky the Cow Horse
✓Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze
✓Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women
✓Journey Outside
✓Pancakes-Paris
✓Misty of Chincoteague
✓The Tombs of Atuan
✓Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan
✓The Girl Who Drank the Moon
✓Millions of Cats
✓Seabird
✓Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night
✓The Corn Grows Ripe
✓When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories
✓Abel's Island
✓ The Light at Tern Rock
Savvy
Al Capone Does My Shirts
Hoot
The Thief
The Blue Sword
The Dark Is Rising
Old Yeller
Coretta Scott King Winners (Read two)
Elijah of Buxton
Copper Sun
The First Part Last
✓Bronx Masquerade
Slam!
The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales
✓March: Book Three
March: Book One
Belpre Winners (Read two)
Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida
✓An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio
Esperanza Rising
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
✓Before We Were Free
Printz Winners (Read two)
✓Ship Breaker
On the Jellicoe Road
I'll Give You the Sun
The First Part Last
Going Bovine
How I Live Now
✓March: Book Three
✓American Born Chinese
✓The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
The Book Thief
I Am the Messenger
An Abundance of Katherines
Eleanor & Park
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

Diverse children's books
Words Under the Words: Selected Poems
Habibi
✓The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child
Dragonwings
Inside Out & Back Again
Brooklyn Bridge
Letters from Rifka
Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself
✓The Tree Is Older Than You Are: A Bilingual Gathering of Poems & Stories from Mexico
✓Coolies
✓Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze
✓American Born Chinese
✓The Corn Grows Ripe
✓Caminar
✓Native American Animal Stories
✓The Year of the Dog
✓A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story
✓Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two
✓When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories

6 explores weird books✅
Cult Books(In order of cultishness)
House of Leaves
Cormac McCarthy
The Alexandria Quartet
✓The Unbearable Lightness of Being
✓Flann O'Brien
Dead Souls
Friedrich Nietzsche
I Capture the Castle
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
Haruki Murakami
Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings
The Diceman
The Magus
Valley of the Dolls

Obscure Books(In order of obscurity by # of ratings)
The Sabbath Garden: 9 0
The Iron Boys as Foremen or Heading the Diamond Drill Shift 0
Harding of Allenwood 0
The Spider, Master of Men! #6: The Citadel of Hell 10
On the Choice of Books 10
The Planet Strappers 24
Cape Cod Stories 31
Average Jones 39
✓Spring Heeled Jack: The Terror Of London 44

7 seeks diversity✅
Women's Classics
✓Jane Eyre
✓The Awakening

African-American Classics
✓The Autobiography of Malcolm X
✓The Bluest Eye
✓The Fire Next Time
The Miseducation of the Negro

8 studies the Bible✅
✓Matthew
✓Psalms

9 specializes in science fiction, and✅
Sci Fi & Fantasy Classics I haven't read
✓The Stars My Destination
Doomsday Book
The Road
Stand on Zanzibar
✓More Than Human
✓Solaris
Sci Fi & Fantasy by People of Color
✓Parable of the Sower
✓Parable of the Talents
Dhalgren
✓The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora
✓The Einstein Intersection

10 reads for joy.✅
Favorite Authors
✓Daniel Pinkwater The Terrible Roar Magic CameraAuthor's Day
✓Gordon Korman Restart
✓Jacqueline Woodson Each Kindness
✓ Walter Dean Myers Harlem
Charles Bukowski
✓Graham Greene The End of the Affair
✓ P.G. Wodehouse Joy in the Morning
Jack Vance
✓Roger Zelazny Doorways in the Sand
✓Ursula K. Le Guin The Tombs of Atuan
J.R.R. Tolkien
GR is convinced I will love these books:
Duncton Wood
Loving
The Adventures of Augie March
Doctor Mirabilis
Dreamsnake
Young Lonigan
Dog Soldiers
Dark Benediction
The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
✓When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories
✓Abel's Island

[Terris]

WOWWW!!! That's all I can say!!!

[Katy, Quarterly Long Reads]

Phil-- this is amazing. It will be so fun watching your challenge for the year.

[Lena]

I bet compiling that list was fun! I had a blast doing mine.

[Susie]

Lots of thought here and lots of ideas...thanks for sharing!

[Jackie]

I like your mission statement.

[Julie]

Wow a great list!

For the 'Dane' category I just want to suggest The Fall of the King by Nobel Laureate Johannes V. Jensen - it was voted the best danish 20th century novel a couple of years ago.

[Phil]

Thanks for the encouragement, everybody! My stuff is weird, and I'm a little surprised that anybody looked at it.

[Phil]

Julie wrote: "Wow a great list!

For the 'Dane' category I just want to suggest The Fall of the King by Nobel Laureate Johannes V. Jensen - it was voted the best danish 20th cent..."

Thanks for the tip, Julie. "Danish literature" is not a well exposed category. I'm reading Hans Christian Anderson this year. I've heard of Dinesen, and HCA mentions Holberg a lot. After that, I'm just going by what seems popular on GR.

[Brina]

Definitely not weird. I know you teach middle school at a school near me and you have listed a lot of middle grade kids books that I have either screened for my kids and have given me ideas of what to suggest for them for next year. Your list is inspiring.

[Phil]

Brina, you really are the sweetest. I'm sitting here with a copy of Herschel and the Hanukkah goblins in my lap because of you.

[Brina]

Our all time favorite Chanukah book!! We know it so well that we act it out. Enjoy!!!

[Kathleen]

Inspiring Phil. Such a good idea to consider your goals first, and then pick books to match! I'm sure this will bring lots of joy.

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

Phil your mission statement is not only excellent it’s inspiring. It has given me cause to reflect on what if anything, other than personal enjoyment, I want to accomplish with my reading. I made the decision earlier in the year not to participate in any annual challenges, other than the three personal goals I’ve had going on for a while. This was done so I wouldn’t feel constrained to reading preselected books or books from specific categories. Now based on your statement I think I should at least consider and plan to read from some specific genres. So, thanks and good luck with your plan.

[Phil]

Bob wrote: "Phil your mission statement is not only excellent it’s inspiring. It has given me cause to reflect on what if anything, other than personal enjoyment, I want to accomplish with my reading. I made t..."

Thanks, Bob. My participation in this group and my occupation as a reading teacher have caused me to actively consider my reading life. How does my reading reflect my values? What do I hope to gain by it? Not all my goals are serious. Some are deliberately weird, and I'm okay with that. Lucy Calkins, an educator who has influenced me, says, "Embrace what makes you weird. It's what you have to offer the world."

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

I hope you really enjoy this challenge!

It looks like "challenge" in itself! And interesting too!

[Laurie]

I agree with everyone else that your challenges are great. And I also agree that you aren't weird just because your choices of books reflect your interests, values, and occupation.

It is so beneficial sometimes to really analyze our choices in reading and other entertainment. I have been thinking about the books I want to read next year. It is sobering to think that I likely don't have 50 more years to read (I'm 50 now) when I seem to want to read everything. I may try to be a little more selective this coming year and not read books just because they are something I feel like I should read. Should read and want to read are not always the same thing.

Anyway, good luck on your challenges and I hope you enjoy your choices.

[Pink]

A great list of books to challenge yourself with!

[Phil]

Thanks, Pink!

[Darren]

wow, some cracking titles there! quite a bit of overlap (12 titles at a rough count) with my (as yet undeclared) 2017 challenge, so plenty of chance to compare notes...
particularly pleased to see War with the Newts as I am very keen to get started on that one :oD

[Phil]

Let me know when you're starting one of the dozen, Darren.

[Darren]

first one will be One Hundred Years of Solitude since group read in January!

[Phil]

Darren wrote: "first one will be One Hundred Years of Solitude since group read in January!"

Dang. We'll see. I'm reluctant to bite off anything new until I finish The Divine Comedy.

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

I enjoyed One Hundred Years of Solitude, personally I think it fits your weird goal perfectly.

[Brina]

Phil I am reading Solitude in January. I look forward to being part of your journey.

[Phil]

Notes to self:

I'm reconsidering my 8th grade advanced curriculum.

Reread the following:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
A Tale of Two Cities
The Old Man and the Sea
All Quiet on the Western Front


Read for the first time:
Sophie's Choice
The Secret Life of Bees
The Book Thief
Ernest J. Gaines
Into the Wild

[Phil]

Mid-year checkin.

I'm happy with the way this is going. I feel like I'm getting what I want from my reading habits. I'm able to prioritize books based on how well they fit my goals. My goals are reasonable enough that it all seems like it's under control. I'm at least halfway on everything except the classics listed under "challenging myself" and some of the diverse children's books. So that's something I can focus on in July.

I might even get around to filling in a bingo card if I'm feeling good about my personal challenge.

[[deleted user]]

Phil wrote: "Mid-year checkin.

I'm happy with the way this is going. I feel like I'm getting what I want from my reading habits. I'm able to prioritize books based on how well they fit my goals. My goals are r..."

A very unique and fascinating categorisation. 3 titles in my challenge overlap with yours. Let me know when you read the Decameron please. Good luck ahead!

[Pink]

Glad your challenges are going well for you. I agree you have an interesting selection of books and many I still want to read. Think I might do a mid year check in for myself, but I'm a lot further behind!

[Phil]

Kt wrote: "Phil wrote: "Mid-year checkin.

I'm happy with the way this is going. I feel like I'm getting what I want from my reading habits. I'm able to prioritize books based on how well they fit my goals. M..."

Thanks, Kt! Let me tell you what the Decameron will look like for me.

First of all, I can only tackle one dense 700+ page cockroach squasher per year. Last year, I threw in The Stand on top of Moby-Dick or, The Whale, but that didn't count because Stephen King is fluff.

So I have to pick a year for the Decameron. I was kind of thinking somewhere in the 2020s, but I could move it up to 2018 if someone wanted to buddy read it with me.

Next I would divvy it out over a year and plan to read a minimal amount per month- say 10 stories, which would leave 2 extra months of catch-up.

That's how I fit my reading to my lifestyle (full time teaching with three small children). If you're interested in Decameroning that way, let me know.

[Phil]

Women's classics for next year:

The Joy Luck Club
The Red TentThe Secret Life of BeesMrs. DallowayThe House of the SpiritsCat's EyeWide Sargasso SeaTo the LighthouseAlanna: The First Adventure

[Phil]

African American classics for next year

Song of SolomonBlack BoyThe Souls of Black FolkThe HelpRoots: The Saga of an American FamilyA Lesson Before DyingLangston HughesThe Secret Life of BeesJames Baldwin

[Phil]

Sci Fi classics for next year:

The Demolished ManDoomsday BookThe RoadStand on ZanzibarThe Windup GirlThe Diamond Age: or, A Young Lady's Illustrated PrimerWay StationEarth AbidesTimescapeMission of Gravity

[Phil]

Fantasy classics for next year:

TiganaGormenghastHarry Potter and the Goblet of FireThe Scar

[Phil]

SF by POC for next year

Octavia Butler Who Fears DeathBrown Girl in the RingBintiMy Soul to Keep

[Phil]

GR recs for next year:


They'd Rather Be RightRoderickThey Shall Have StarsPavaneBelling The TigerClip-ClopThe Saggy Baggy ElephantAll AloneThe Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal RightsAlexander and the Wind-Up MouseAmerican Boys Handy BookGolemIncident at Hawk's HillMake LemonadeWe've all got belly buttonsThe Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes A Story, a Story Leaving Las VegasVon BekThe Emperor of DreamsThomas the RhymerPeaceSea-Kings of Mars and Otherworldly StoriesThe House on the BorderlandThe Dark Light YearsDownward to the EarthThe Instrumentality of MankindNight WindsFrontier Living: An Illustrated Guide to Pioneer Life in AmericaRagweedSaturday, the Twelfth of October