Ladygata makes a list

May be open to change as the year progresses.

1 History
2 Books/Reading/Writing/Writers
3 Italy/Rome (Ancient and Modern)
4 By a Lady
5 Historical Fiction
6 Food & Drink
7 Plays/Poetry
8 Kitchen Sink
9 1001

History/Biography/Memoir/Anthropology
1. Gimme Shelter
2. When Cats Reigned Like Kings
3. Mistress of the Monarchy
4. Watching the English
5. The Prince
6. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew
7. Gimme Shelter
8.
9.

Books/Reading/Writing/Writers
1. Two Guys Read Jane Austen
2. The City of Dreaming Books
3. The Life of Samuel Johnson
4. The Lambs of London
5. Biblioholism:The Literary Addiction
6. Writing Past Dark
7. Coffee With Dickens
8. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much
9.

Italy/Rome
1.I, Claudius
2.The Almond Picker
3.A Thousand Days in Tuscany
4.Nero, by Edward Champlin
5.Innocence, by Priscilla Fitzgerald
6.That Summer in Sicily
7.Following Hadrian
8.Claudius the God
9.

I like your Italian category and will be watching to see what ends up there!

Thanks!

By a Lady
1. Eyes Like Stars
2. The Wednesday Sisters
3. The Joy of Eating: The Virago Book of Food
4. The Day I Became an Autodidact
5. Fairy Tale
6. High Tea
7. 84 Charing Cross Road - reread
8. When Wanderers Cease to Roam
9.Thrumpton Hall

Historical Fiction
1. The Autobiography of Henry VIII
2. The Coffee Trader
3. Shannon
4. The Book Thief
5. Pillars of the Earth
6. The Sunne in Splendour
7. The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
8. Rooftops of Tehran
9.Cleopatra's Daughter

Food & Drink
1. A Homemade Life
2. Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors
3. Tea Bliss
4. A History of the World in 6 Glasses
5. Oolong Dead
6. The Empire of Tea
7. The Teashop Girls
8. A Guide to Tea
9.

Whatever
1. Macbeth
2. The Lost Art of Gratitude
3. The Doll People
4. Essays and Sketches by Leigh Hunt
5. A Season in Hell & Illuminations, Rimbaud
6. Shades of Grey
7.Hamlet
8. Tales of Mystery and Imagination
9.

YA/Fantasy/Graphic Novel
1. Jane Eyre The Graphic Novel
2. The Last Olympian
3. Wings
4. Fragile Eternity
5. Need
6. Persepolis
7. Wicked Lovely
8. Ink Exchange
9. Wondrous Strange

1001
1. The Leopard
2. The Woman in White
3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

I knew we'd see something about Tea in your Food group! I'm looking forward to seeing what else you select. I almost chose a Food category.

Yeah, big surprise, huh?

Oh, The Autobiography of Henry VIII is a good one. Margaret George is good in general, and I definitely think that one is better than her Cleopatra book.

That's great: I read Cleopatra and loved it, even if it was rather long.

Looking at this list, I realize this will be my most ambitious reading year evar! I'm pretty sure it won't be completed by 9/9/09.

I think the main difference for me was that The Autobiography of Henry VIII didn't FEEL as long, even though it was.

Even better! Actually, I started it recently, and am thinking about not waiting til next year to continue.

You are more strong minded than me then!

You have some great categories and great books. I'll be interested to read your views in due course.

Oooh, I've got Tea Bliss on my list for my Tea category.

Great lists so far! I've been thinking of reading A History of the World in 6 Glasses myself. I'm also intrigued by Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors.

I have What Jane Austen Ate and I think it's a very cool book. It's set up like a reference guide, so it would be good to read a section or two at a time. I really enjoyed it!

Great - I was supposed to read it this year, but 09 is as good a time as any.

Tristram Shandy has been sitting on my bookshelf mocking me all through 2008. I plan to read it as part of my 999 Challenge so will be watching for your thoughts on it. I'm not sure if it's the number of pages that put me off or the mixed reviews I've read. Have you seen the movie of the book?

Oooh, I want to do Food and Drink too! May I suggest, if you need a crossover: Food and Drink/Historical Fiction, Lobscouse and Spotted Dog.

Stupid touchstones! this work

I have a really fancy copy of Tristram, and I think I put off reading it because I can't lug it around for fear of tarnishing its gold-edged pages. I haven't seen the movie - I rarely read a book after I've seen the movie. Jane Eyre was ruined for me by that.

Justjim - That sounds like a fun book! I love stuff like that.

Which it is my pleasure m'Lady. There is a brief discussion from someone who actually cooked something from Lobscouse and Spotted Dog over at the HMS Surprise group.

Jim

Ooh fabulous!

I have added some books that were started either this year or previously. Now that it's in the challenge I think I'll have more incentive to finish them (anyway, my yearly record is usually about 62 books, so I needed all the help I could get!)

Now that it's 2009, I'm gonna really start in earnest! I'm already into The Autobiography of Henry VIII, and it's really fun.

If you still need a ninth book for your Italy category, I suggest you consider The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga. It takes place in the sixties, if memory serves, after the Arno flooded. A woman travels to Florence to help restore books. I won't say any more, other than I loved it. It's been years since I read it, and it still stays with me.

Wow! Will look for it, thanks!

I'll second the recommendation for The Sixteen Pleasures - I read it last year and really enjoyed it. And yes, it is set in the 60s.

#2 Okay, ladygata. I am adding When Cats Reigned Like Kings to my "Books About Cats" list. It looks like a fun read!

Thanks.

The big, chunky Autobiography of Henry VIII is completed...now I can turn to slightly smaller books.

I've tweaked a few of the categories to fit in other TBR's. Nothing monumental.

I'm falling a little bit behind - think I'm reading too many massive, serious books. It's all good.

I haven't gotten to the 1001 list yet, but when I do, I'm not too particular about which 1001 list (I understand there's more than one now.) It's all good.

My Virago list wasn't doing too well, so I tweaked it once again and it's now the category "By a Lady". This will consist of books written by the female gender, whether novel or non-fiction.

In yet another effort to squeeze my 09 reads into a category, I've included in Historical Fiction anything, not fantasy, that is fiction and took place before I was born. It's a stretch, but it works for me!

In the compromising trend, I've converted a category to "whatever", as I keep taking in books that don't fit anywhere.