Ooh, this sounds good- 12 books should be achievable !

1. Everything is illuminated,
2. Steppenwolf, Herman Hesse
3. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, Robert M Pirsig
4. The Story of Lucy Gault, William Trevor
5. Elizabeth Costello, J M Coetzee
6. Tintin & the secret of literature
7. First Love, Ivan Turgenev
8. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
9. The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney
10. What I loved, Siri Hustvedt
11. Atonement, Ian McEwan
12. Red Azalea, Anchee Min

Message edited by its author, May 23, 2009, 6:53am.

Hi, wonderlake!
You can add a list of 12 alternates to choose from, too. Last year I did read a few from the alternates list. Good luck with your challenge! :)
--BJ

>2

The rules seem quite strict:

"* you may NOT change your list, once you've made it public!
"

so I don't want to post an alternates list unless I start to really struggle with my chosen dozen x

Hooray, finally started Everything is Illuminated. The sections by Alex are a bit like reading a cryptic crossword !
NB. I like cryptic crosswords x

Hmm, struggling with Everything is Illuminated. p84. I just keep on finding it upsetting, everyone in it seems to be bereaved. Is there anything worse than someone you love dying ?

Had a brainwave re my 'alternates' list: using my online book groups choices to populate it. They choose 2 books a month:

-JAN: Mr Pip or
The Book Thief

-FEB: Brideshead Revisited, or
Mudbound

-MARCH: Wuthering Heights, or
The Birthing House, Christopher Ransom

-APRIL: The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry, or
The Shadow of the Wind

-MAY: The Glassblower of Murano by Marina Fiorato, or
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, F. Scott Fitzgerald

-JUNE: Burning Bright, Tracy Chevalier, or
Black Swan Green, David Mitchell

- JULY: Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck, or
Garden Spells, Sarah A Allen

Message edited by its author, Jul 5, 2009, 2:23pm.

I have Brideshead Revisited on my list. So I will be interested to see what you think of it.
--BJ

#6... I really loved The book thief!

Message edited by its author, Feb 9, 2009, 3:20am.

I am now reading one of my Alternate choices:
Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan...

after I found a copy in the chip shop !

(They have a pile of 'free' books in there that they ask you to make a donation for... I just have to get the smell of fried food out of it now!)

7410

1. Mudbound, Hillary Jordan *alternate
2. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh *alternate

yey I have read BOTH February choices !

3. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak *alternate
4. The Story of Lucy Gault, William Trevor
5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, F. Scott Fitzgerald *alternate
6. The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney
7. Black Swan Green, David Mitchell *alternate

Message edited by its author, Jul 5, 2009, 2:28pm.

Today I have started to read Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Ho and hum; last week I threw over 'Zen...' in favour of another of my alternate choices: Brideshead Revisited. So I'm not really getting around to tackling my TBR Books !

However, 'Brideshead...' is great !

On another note, we were in the chippy again last weekend and the server saw us browsing the books while we waited and asked "do you read?"; J said something like "I Try"; and she then recommended The Tenderness of Wolves; which I said I HAVE, but haven't read... so maybe that'll be my next pick :D
Oh, and I'll also nominate it for the April book choice x

A lady sat next to me on the bus this morning was reading... Everything is Illuminated. She seemed to be getting on better with it than I did- I didn't say anything to her, too shy !

Message edited by its author, Mar 12, 2009, 6:30am.

Started another alternate- The Book Thief...

Hi wonderlake, hope you enjoy The Book Thief more than some of the others you have started so far!

Foolish question, is Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance really about taking care of your motorcycle? I've heard of the book but never really had a clue what it is about.

I really enjoyed Wuthering Heights which was a new to me read this year.

I hope you enjoy The Book Thief, I've heard good things about it.

So anyway, getting back to the list:

Started The Story of Lucy Gault :)

Really loved The Story of Lucy Gault, yey TBR challenge for getting me around to reading it at long last !

I have started to read The Tenderness of Wolves; and am also receiving emails from Dailylit.com for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- only 11 parts !

ha! I'm getting that one too! Dailylit is great!

Ha, I won a copy of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button over on Babbling Books... might have been better if I hadn't already read it *ungrateful huh ;)

The Tenderness of Wolves was very good :) I might consider getting a copy for my dad, but wonder if it might be a bit 'female' for him... ?

Started to read Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters.

Ditched Fingersmith for something else, then thought I'd pick it up again for Orange July, so went ahead and read alternate Black Swan Green, which I really did have on my TBR list... not as good as Cloud Atlas (read maybe 2 yrs ago, or Number9dream - read even longer ago).

David Mitchell is one of my favourite authors. I agree with you about Black Swan Green. I hope his next book is more like his earlier ones. If you haven't read Ghostwritten you should give it a go.

Hi Socialpages, thanks for the comment. I _do_ have Ghostwritten sitting on Mt. TBR LOL !

I think I ...not _struggled_ with, but wasn't blown away by BSG because
1. I'm slightly too young to indulge in "do you remember Betamaxes?" nostalgia and
2. maybe just generally that the narrator was a 13-year old boy- I didn't really get on with The Wasp Factory/ Le Grand Meaulnes I think for the same reason. Would a 13-year old FEMALE narrator have been a lot more assured/ mature ?