Fasciknitting's 999 Challenge

Okay, I think I've decided on my 9 categories:

1. 1001 Books to Read (focus mainly on the more recent releases)
2. Classics Written by Female Authors (my definition of "classic" is not spelled out and is flexible)
3. Classics Written by Male Authors (see #2's parenthetic note)
4. Salem Witch Trials (fiction and non)
5. Mystery/Thriller
6. Prize Winners (any and all prizes)
7. Books on Books, Writers or Literature in General
8. LibraryThing Group Reads (current and past books chosen)
9. Spontaneous Pick-Ups

I've been very ambitious with my choices, so expect to see lots of changes!! One of my goals for next year is to read a lot of the classics that I should have already read, and to reread those that I read a really long time ago. We'll see what really happens, though.

1. 1001 Books to Read - In this category, I will focus on the more recent releases because of other categories I've decided to work on. I'll also count either edition of the book.

1. White Teeth by Zadie Smith
2. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
3. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
4. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
5. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
6. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
7. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
8. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
9.

2. Classics Written by Female Authors

1. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (reread)
3. House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
4. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (reread)
5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (reread)
6. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
7. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
8. To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
9.

(Moved Middlemarch to LT Group Reads category)

3. Classics Written by Male Authors

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (reread)
2. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
5. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
6. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
7. The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
8.
9.

(Moved Bleak House to LT Group Read category)

4. History and Historical Fiction (formely: Salem Witch Trials)

1. The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent
2. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

5. Mystery/Thriller

1. Jane and the Stillroom Maid by Stephanie Barron
2. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

6. Prize Winners - Any and all of the prizes are fair game.

1. March by Geraldine Brooks
2. The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
3. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

7. Books on Books, Writers, or Literature in General

1. The Common Reader by Virginia Woolf
2. The Second Common Reader by Virginia Woolf
3. The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

8. LibraryThing Group Reads - Current reads or reads that I missed

1. Bleak House by Charles Dickens
2. Middlemarch by George Eliot
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

9. Spontaneous Pick-Ups

1. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Hi fasciknitting:

I will be adding this book under my historical fiction category. I saw it at the library but it has a lot of holds on it.

Are all these books you haven't read before? I just wondered. You have some solid books on here.

jonesli: I'm sorry, I must be missing something. Which book is going under your historical fiction category?? I'm assuming it's The Heretic's Daughter since it's considered historical fiction??

cmbohn: yes, most of them are books that I haven't read. I've read a couple (Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations), but the rest are new reads. I realize that this is a huge undertaking for just one year, so I expect to make lots of changes over the course of the year... but why not start big, right?

Hi: Oops, yes, I am sorry The Heretic's Daughter is going under my historical fiction. I think it will be really interesting to see how many people wind up reading the same books in order to get different interpretations, which is always good.

jonesli, no worries! Doesn't it seem interesting? I love The Salem Witch Trials and am going to enjoy the challenge of digging around for books on it!

And yes, it is interesting to see how a lot of people end up reading the same books to meet different goals! Plus, I plan on taking lots of suggestions from everyone else's challenges.

I've heard great things on LT about The Lace Reader. It's supposed to be about the Salem Witchcraft Trials. And I loved The Crucible. Perhaps I'll read some Arthur Miller for my drama category?

Ahhh... is the Lace Reader about the Salem Trials? If so, that is so awesome because I have been wanting to read that for a while now! The descriptions that I've read seemed made me believe that it was a present day story, but I'll definitely look into that some more.

Thank you so much for the suggestions! I love hearing the advice of others :) Good luck with your challenge!

Hi fasciknitting. I read the Lace Reader earlier this month and loved it. Unfortunately for your Salem witch trials category, the book is set in Salem in the late 90's (sorry, should clarify that that's 1990's) and doesn't have anything to do with the witch trials. However, if you can manage to fit it into one of your other categories (it is kind of a mystery/thriller), I highly recommend it.

Elee, thanks for letting me know that. I'm definitely going to read it, but I have a feeling it will be in 2008 and 2009 because I have so been wanting to!

The Stone Diaries is excellent and led me to read anything by Carol Shields I could get my hands on! I wasn't impressed with White Teeth, but despite its size, it's an easy, pleasant read.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your Salem Witch Trial reads!

Thanks Zoe! I'm looking forward to finding great books to read about the SWTs :)

Hmmm... I beginning to consider changing my Salem Witch Trials category to a general History/Historical Fiction category. The only things I'm really finding is The Heretic's Daughter and The Crucible - and I really don't want to read the Crucible. :(

I'm surprised there's not more; I would have thought that would be a popular subject :(

The Witch of Blackbird Pond?

>24: Zoe: I know... I'm definitely not giving up, but I think it might be a good idea to just go ahead and make it a broader category. I can still stuff it with SWT topics as I find them, but I don't want to feel forced to read books that I don't enjoy (such as The Crucible) just to complete a category.

>25: Shannon: Oooh, that's a good one! It's been years since I've read it and it will be nice to break up heavy reading with some YA. Thank you for the suggestion :)

There must be some applicable or nearly applicable Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Last Witchfinder by James Morrow includes some good research on 'witches' for a fiction book. It includes a lot more than Salem though. He spent several a few years on the research. I quite enjoyed it. I also ran the Tagmash fiction, Salem Witch Trials and it came up with some titles although it looks like not all of them are fiction.
http://www.librarything.com/tag/fiction,salem%20witch%20trials

Relatively new user wanting to know more about Tagmashing, please. Sounds like fun.

bk04011, on the search page enter two or more search words in the tag box separated by commas. That creates a tagmash. For example- historical fiction, Salem witch trials. Or non-fiction, Salem witch trials. You can also use the minus sign to eliminate a tag; non-fiction, witch trials, -Salem. It comes in handy for searching historical fiction for certain people or eras or even events. I've used it for quite a few searches.

Thanks. Not only useful but, as I said, fun. Like a treasure hunt.

For category 4, how about:

* Susannah Morrow by Megan Chance
* I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Conde
* Judge Sewell's Apology by Francis Richard
* The Devil in Massachusetts by Marion Starkey
* The Devil in the Shape of a Woman by Carol Karlsen

First two are fiction, last three nonfiction. The Chance and Richard books intrigued me most, and are fairly recent publications.

Sad story: found the Megan Chance book shelved under "M" in fiction once. Someone couldn't figure out that Chance, not Morrow, was the author.

Wow! Thanks for all of the recommendations VisibleGhost and ReneeMarie! I'll definitely check those out.

And that is sad ReneeMarie :(

Tagmashing very useful at the library when people tell me (as an example) I read a mystery about Amish people, but don't know the title, author or much anything else about it. But I want more in that series, by that author, etc..

I love your Salem Witch Trials category! Don't know if you're wanting to specifically stay in Salem, but there's a nonfiction called Witchcraze which is more about the Europe witch hunts, but it's interesting.

I look forward to seeing what else you add--we have a couple similar categories (I'm working on a thread for mine). Good luck!

Catching up on reading the American History group, and noted someone's mention of a Salem book by an author whose name I recognize: In the Devil's Snare: The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton.

Just FYI, Renee

I also love your topic of the Salem Witch Trials. There's a non-fiction book called Salem Possessed that gives an account for what happened. If I read it, it was a while ago and I don't remember the particulars! You might also find some contemporary fiction that has people studying or researching the SWT, which would also fit your category.

I'm going to be keeping an eye out to see what you read- you've already got some great ones noted! Happy reading!

amy, thanks for the recommendation! That's exactly the type of books that I was looking for: research.

First book of the 999 Challenge, placed in Spontaneous Pick Ups:

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke - A lovely YA novel about the magic of reading. Meggie's father, Mo, has a wonderful (yet cursed) gift of reading aloud - when he does, people and objects from the stories leave their world and enter ours. One day, when Meggie was a child, Mo read a scary story to his wife and the evil characters from the story switched places with Meggie's mother. Try as he might, Mo couldn't make the villains trade back with Teresa.

This is the story of the struggle between Meggie's family and the villains that either want to be sent back to their story or want their power in our world to increase. Great fun and adventure for all ages. Definitely recommend.

Yay, I'm glad I could be of help. I hope you enjoy your first pick. I've read Inkeart and Inkspell. I'm waiting for Inkdeath to come out in paperback. I found them to be good reads, but man they can get depressing!

amy, I'm definitely going to continue with the Ink series... I really enjoyed Inkheart.

Finished another, this time in my Mystery/Thriller category:

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - I actually started this one a couple of years ago and only got about 250 pages into it. I picked it up again the other day and became enthralled.

Adventure, love, legend - this book has a lot going for it. Dracula has taken one of our academic friends and we're on hot pursuit to find him. The strengths of this book is that I truly felt like a fellow academic, chugging through the hills of Europe on a train and burrowing in medieval libraries and museums looking for clues. The weakness (for me) was that at times it felt a little tedious - the research of these academics was thorough and I'm not a researcher.

In all - good fun, worth the dry spots, and 4 stars.