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 Masterpiece  Excellent  Very good  Good  Just okay  Not for me  Definitely not for me  | 29. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert **** Pages read in May: 2466
1. Read any 12 award-winning books from July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2008. Please look on the sidebar for eligible books from the Pulitzer, Booker, etc. prize lists. Also feel free to pick non-fiction books or other prize winners not listed. 2. Books may be cross-posted with other challenges. 3. You may post your challenge books just on your blog, or you may also contribute to the BAC blog by giving your email address in a comment to this post. I will email you an invitation to be a contributor. Please write your email address in a manner similar to the following: janedoe AT hotmail DOT com. You must be a blogger member in order to contribute. 4. There will be prizes. 1st prize: 5 credits or in-stock books from paperbackswap.com Everyone who completes 12 books for the challenge will be entered once into the drawing. For every book over 12 completed, you will receive one more chance for the prize. For example, if you complete 14 books, you will receive 3 chances. 5. Anyone may participate, but to be eligible for the prize, you must sign up by November 1, 2007. To participate in the BAC blog, you must sign up before January 1, 2008. 6. This is NOT required, but if you would like to discuss prize-winning books with others, you are encouraged to join any or all of the follow yahoo book groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bookawards 7. Have fun reading! I only have a partial list so far, but the titles were easy to come up with because of The Newbery Challenge and the reading groups listed above. I’ll probably have at least the first 12 titles below finished before the end of 2007. I’d like to complete 18-24 books for the challenge. My list so far: 1. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Booker 2000) Award winners I read in the first half of 2007 (not counted for the challenge): Everyone has been doing the 8 Random Things About Me, and I thought I would play along. I guess it’s not random, though, because all of these happened the summer of 1990.
1. I was in the Middle East when Iraq invaded Kuwait. 2. I’ve been horseback riding at the foot of the pyramids. 3. I’ve been in King Tut’s tomb. 4. I was baptized in The Red Sea. 5. I saw a dead human body floating in the Nile. 6. My wallet was miraculously returned to me hours later by a taxi driver in Cairo when I left it in the cab. 7. I knew enough limited Arabic to direct taxi cabs to my destination without telling them my destination (so they wouldn’t go the long way). 8. I climbed what some people believe to be Mt. Sinai. I have 230+ book credits at PBS!! As of today, I am #2 on the 7 day AND the 30 day swapper chart. I have been a very busy girl. I mailed almost all of them before the postal rates changed. I won’t be mailing much out from here on out until I get settled in the Omaha area. Remember to comment with your PBS i.d. if you haven’t already. I’ll be getting a “few” books after I move! I’d like to get them from people I “know.”
1982, 289 pp. 1983 Pulitzer Prize/1983 NBA Rating: I read this for the Banned Book Challenge, and I can definitely see why people would be against it. Some of the themes include incest, rape, lesbianism, language, and drug and alcohol use. I’m not saying it should be banned–just that if I had a teenage daughter, for instance, I would want to read and discuss it with her. All of the above (and more) happen to Celie, the main character in the book. By contrast, Celie tries to protect her sister Nettie, and Nettie ends up going with a missionary family to Africa. We see Celie and Nettie both grow in different ways through what happens to them. They are separated for 30 years but do keep in contact through letters. It is appalling, really, what men can do to women. This type of novel is always hard for me to read, but sometimes I do think it is necessary for me to venture out of my protected little world into the very unprotected world of other women. If only to appreciate and thank God for what I do have and to pray for and help other women whenever I can.
2004, 364 pp. Rating: 4 Margaret is an older woman who has lived alone in a mansion for a very long time. She finds out she has cancer and then decides to start taking in boarders. Wanda is her first boarder. Her boyfriend has broken up with her and she needs somewhere else to stay. The women hit it off and slowly reveal their secrets to one another. Margaret starts taking in other boarders and soon a surrogate family is developed. I really liked this first novel by Kallos–especially the first and and last parts of the book. The middle section I didn’t much care for, or I would have rated this a 4.5. Also, there was quite a bit of s * x and language that I didn’t like. I did like how Margaret and Wanda not only forge a strong friendship but also start “really living” for the first time after they meet each other. There is much more to this novel that I don’t want to give away. I really did like the storyline, but it did seem like there were a few too many coincidences at the end. Overall, a fantastic first effort!
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