I’ve really enjoyed participating in John’s Short Story Mondays over at the Book Mine Set, so this challenge is perfect for nudging me into a short story every week. Kate from Kate’s Book Blog is the host, and she has several options you can choose from to tailor this challenge to your needs. I’m going for Option #5, which is do whatever you want to, basically. And this is what I want to do ended up doing:
Read ? stories in Collected Stories of Carol Shields
Read 2-3 stories from Carol Shields’ Collected Stories every week starting in January so that I can finish the book before July 1 for the Canadian Challenge. This book contains over 50 stories and is almost 600 pages long, so I feel it’s a worthy goal. 6 month timeframe. Update: I still plan on finishing this; it just won’t get done until the end of the year, and I’ll use it for Canadian Challenge #2.
Read 1 story per week from The Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol Vol. 2 to coincide with the Russian Reading Challenge hosted by Ex Libris. There are 8 stories, so that should take about 2 months.
Read some of the stories from Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman to coincide with the R.I.P. 3 challenge hosted by Carl. That will take another 2 months. (I’ll try to read them all, but I’m not going to commit to it.)Update: I’m not going to do this one as I won’t have time. I plan on reading one of Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story collections instead.
That leaves 2 months open. I already have The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards, so I’d like to finish that story collection in this time frame.
Whew, I think that covers it. Looking forward to this challenge. Thanks, Kate!
The New Testament***** was of course my top read of the year.
Not counting that, though, I finally have my Top 20. Of note, look at all the dystopian novels! I guess I like that genre. There is only 1 non-fiction title, which is not that surprising given the few titles I read. Two children’s titles made the list. I had a separate children’s book list in rank order as well. I also think it’s interesting to note that 8 out of the Top 20 were pre-1961, and 12 out of the 20 were female authors. Although it’s sooooo tough to do, I have them ranked in order of preference with ties noted.
Wendy was the wonderful hostess for this challenge. Thanks so much, and I’m looking forward to more notables in 2008!
I committed to reading ten and finished ten, though I did switch out some titles. I loved the top three, which were truly outstanding books. I’m really glad I read the middle of the pack, and I could have done without the last two.
Suite Françaiseis the incredible incomplete set of novels by Irene Nemirovsky, a Russian Jew who had been living in Paris for 10 years before ultimately dying in Auschwitz. The preface to the French edition states that:
She dreamed of a book of a thousand pages, constructed like a symphony, but in five sections, according to rhythm and tone. She took Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony as a model.
Sadly, only two of the planned five were completed. In these stories, she creates such vivid characters and situations that it is a shame we never get to find out what happened to them. She was a fine writer. Her characters were so well-defined; I cared about the worthy ones and loathed the loathsome ones. Even in her description of the latter, there was humor to be found. Both good and bad die, and of course the question is always, “Why?” The accounts of the flight from Paris as the Germans descended on them during 1940 were chilling and frighteningly relevant to what could happen today. Then, during the section depicting the occupation of France, I was most surprised at her portrayal of the German soldiers, in which some could be seen as sympathetic.
Her two daughters had kept these stories in a suitcase for years, not even looking at them as it was too painful. When one of her daughters did finally take out the papers to type them, she found this wonderful, incomplete novel and it was published in France in 2004, sixty-two years after her death in 1942.
Highly recommended.
2006 for the English translation, 367 pp.
Rating: 4.5
Inksplasher is hosting this challenge. There are 12 weeks in winter, so I’ll put 12 books on the list. Most of these are cross-listed with other challenges.
To Kill a Mockingbird doesn’t really meet my own definition of a classic, which is a work 50 years or older; but, it is very nearly 50 years old, and I have no fear it will be a classic in years to come.
I know many people don’t like Heart of Darkness. I can’t say I ‘loved’ this book, but Conrad is a masterful writer. To think that English was his third language, wow.
I can’t wait to read more of George Eliot; I’m planning on reading Middlemarch next year. Silas Marner really demonstrates how a warm heart can grow cold but still find its way back to warm again.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn really surprised me. A wonderful book with such a powerful sense of time and place. Francie is a character I will never forget.
With this many new authors, no one can accuse me of being in a rut! I really have too many new favorite authors to list; you’ll see them next year and in the years beyond. I discovered I despise Roth and Banville, and the good part of that is that I won’t have to waste my precious reading time on them in the future. The only exception will be Roth’s Pulitzer winner, American Pastoral. I don’t expect I’ll ever have this many new-to-me authors again in a single year, but it was fun discovering these in 2007. I have all the great challenges and fellow book bloggers to thank for it!
This was harder than I thought it was going to be! I think the hardest letters to find are ‘X’, ‘V’, ‘Z’, and ‘N’. Yes, ‘N’ is very difficult for some reason. My ‘Z’ author was easy this year. I read The Book Thief early in the year. It looks like Joy is having an A-Z Title and Author challenge for 2008. I’m going to think about it again, but since I just completed one this year, I don’t know if I’ll be able to fit it in. I’d like to, but there are just so many books and so little time!
A. The Translator by Leila Aboulela Rating: 4
B. March by Geraldine Brooks Rating: 3.5
C. Heart of Darkness – Conrad Rating: 5
D. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane - DiCamillo – Rating: 4.5
E. Peace Like a River – Enger – Rating: 4.5
F. Inkheart - Funke Rating: 4
G. Grendel – Gardner Rating: 2
H. The Bone People – Hulme Rating: 4
I. Never Let Me Go - Ishiguro Rating: 3
J. The Known World – Jones Rating: 4
K. Broken for You – Kallos Rating: 4 L. The Giver – Lowry Rating: 4.5
M. Atonement – McEwan – Rating: 3.5
N. Suite Française – Nemirovsky Rating: 4.5
O. The Black Pearl - O’Dell Rating: 4.5
P. My Sister’s Keeper – Picoult Rating: 4 Q. Ishmael - Quinn Rating: 3.5
R. Everyman - Roth Rating: 1
S. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – See – Rating: 5
T. The Amateur Marriage by Ann Tyler Rating: 4
U. The Wreath – Undset Rating: 4.5
V. A Severe Mercy- Vanauken Rating: 4
W. The Color Purple - Walker Rating: 4
X. Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather – Xingjian Rating: 4
Y. Amos Fortune, Free Man – Yates Rating: 4
Z. The Book Thief – Zusak Rating: 5
Thanks, Sherry, for a wonderful challenge! The goal was to read 6 books reviewed in the archives of The Saturday Review of Books. I really liked all of these, but if I had to pick ONE favorite, it would be A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Suite Française is the incredible incomplete set of novels by Irene Nemirovsky, a Russian Jew who had been living in Paris for 10 years before ultimately dying in Auschwitz. The preface to the French edition states that:
