Here are my tentative categories for 2010, along with a 20-book "bonus category." One or two categories might still be changed.

(A book with * means I own it)

Cozy Mysteries

Health/Medicine

Baseball Books

Books About Chicago

American Presidents

Books About Disasters

General Nonfiction

Books by Anne Perry

Days and Nights

Not My Usual

Bonus Category: Next in the Series

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2009, 12:33pm.

Cozy Mysteries

* --Apple Turnover Murder by Joanne Fluke
--Death of a Valentine by M.C. Beaton (Hamish MacBeth series)
--A Plateful of Murder by Claudia Bishop
--Dead Renegade by Victoria Houston
--Laughed Til He Died by Carolyn Hart
--Death Without Tenure by Joanne Dobson
--Loco-Motive by Mary Daheim
--Wicked Witch Murder by Leslie Meier
--The Teaberry Strangler by Laura Childs
--Toast Mortem by Claudia Bishop
--Death at the Alma Mater by G.M. Malliett

Message edited by its author, Dec 10, 2009, 5:41pm.

Health/Medicine

*Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years by Dr. Michael J. Collins
*The Light Within: The Extraordinary Friendship of a Doctor and Patient Brought Together by Cancer by Lois M. Ramondetta
*An Irish Country Village by Patrick Taylor
--White Coat: Becoming a Doctor at Harvard Medical School by Ellen Rothman
* The Healing of America by T.R. Reid
* Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande
--Better by Atul Gawande
--The Measure of Our Days by Jerome Groopman
--Every Patient Tells a Story by Lisa Sanders
--The Soul of Medicine by Sherwin Nuland
--The Deadly Dinner Party by Jonathan Edlow
--The Great Cholesterol Con by Anthony Colpo

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2009, 12:34pm.

Baseball Books

Books about Chicago

*Chicago: A Biography by Dominic A. Pacyga
--One Goal: Chicago's Resurgent Blackhawks
*Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul by Karen Abbott
*Devil in the White City
*City of the Century by Donald L. Miller
--Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West By William Cronin
--Forever open, clear, and free : the struggle for Chicago's lakefront by Lois Wille
*American Pharaoh by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor
--Shattered Sense of Innocence: The 1955 Murders of Three Chicago Children by Richard Lindberg
--The Gambler King of Clark Street: Michael C. McDonald and the Rise of Chicago's Democratic Machine by Richard Lindberg
--The New Chicago: A Social and Cultural Analysis by Koval et al
--Chicago Sports Reader
--For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz Age Chicago
*The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy
*Chicago Stories by James T. Farrell
*The Pit by Frank Norris

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2009, 12:35pm.

American Presidents

--American Lion by Jon Meachem

Message edited by its author, Dec 10, 2009, 5:29pm.

Books About Disasters

--Nine Minutes, Twenty Seconds by Gary M. Pomerantz
--The Third Man Factor: surviving the Impossible by John Geiger
--Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
*Down Around Midnight: A Memoir of Crash and Survival by Robert Sabbag
*Rising Tide by John M. Barry
*The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin
*Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Disaster of 1917
*The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America by Timothy Egan
*The Great Chicago Fire by Ross Miller
--Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871-1874
--The Big One: The Earthquake that Rocked Early America and Helped Create a Science by Jake Page
*When the Mississippi Ran Backwards by Jay Feldman
--A Crack in the Edge of the World by Simon Winchester
*The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy
--The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley
*Titanic's Last Secrets
--Acts of God: The Unnatural History of Natural Disaster in America
--Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
*Tinder Box: The Iroquois Theatre Disaster 1903
--City on Fire: The Forgotten Disaster That Devastated a Town and Ignited a…
by Bill Minutaglio
--Lessons from Longford: The Esso Gas Plant Explosion

Message edited by its author, Dec 13, 2009, 11:52am.

General Nonfiction

--The Art of a Beautiful Game
*Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives by Nicholas A. Christakis
*Plain Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution by Richard Beeman
*Bright-Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich
*Heart of Power by Blumenthal
*In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002 by Bill Murphy
*The Great Good Place
*The Narcissism Epidemic
*Seven Pleasures
*Nine Lives
--Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose
-- Forgotten Patriots: The Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War by Edwin Burrows
*Eiffel's Tower by Jill Jonnes
--The Courage of Their Convictions by Peter Irons
*Outliers by Malcoln Gladwell
*Chaos Scenario by Bob Garfield
--Mouse Trap by Kevin Yee
--Mouse Under Glass by David Koenig
--More Mouse Tales by David Koenig
--Realityland by David Koenig

Message edited by its author, Nov 24, 2009, 12:46pm.

Books by Anne Perry
(was 20th Century American History)

--Rutland Place
--Bluegate Fields
--Death in the Devil's Acre
--The Face of a Stranger
--A Dangerous Mourning
--Defend and Betray
--A Sudden, Fearful Death
--No Graves as Yet
--Shoulder the Sky
--2010 Christmas series book

Message edited by its author, Dec 10, 2009, 5:46pm.

Days and Nights

*Friday Night Lights
*Night's Child by Maureen Jennings
*Terror on Tuesday by Ann Purser
*Weeping on Wednesday by Ann Purser
*Saturday Night Dead by Richard Rosen
--Saturday by Ian McEwan
*The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror by Beverly Gage
--Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce by Stanley Weintraub
*A Cold Day in Paradise by Steve Hamilton
*A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow
*Down Around Midnight by Robert Sabbag
--The Saturday Morning Murder by Batya Gur
--Night and Day by Virginia Woolf
--Night and Day by Robert Parker
--A Catered Birthday Party by Isis Crawford
--One Hundred Days of Solitude: Losing Myself and Finding Grace on a Zen Retreat by Jane Dobisz

Message edited by its author, Dec 10, 2009, 5:26pm.

Not My Usual

--New York: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd
--Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck
--Dune by Frank Herbert
--The Picture of Dorian Gray
--The Three Musketeers
--The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
--Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk
*The Book Thief
--Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
--Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
--The Three Musketeers
*Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality by Donald Miller
*The Road Not Taken: A Selection of Robert Frost's Poems by Robert Frost
--Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

Message edited by its author, Dec 8, 2009, 8:38pm.

Bonus Category: Next in the Series

Welcome aboard! I can't wait to see what you're reading.

For the categories that are active on my 999 x 2 challenge list, of course, I can't start to fill them in yet. That's only half the categories though.

The others, including my brand new science and nature category, can start to get filled in now.

I have a special interest in a couple of your categories, Science and Nature and Mississippi River. Mississippi not so much specifically but because I am interested in regional and locale reading. I look forward to keeping up with your reading.

Thanks NeverStopTrying. I am pretty set with the Mississippi River book choices as this was going to be a 999 x 2 category but, at the last minute, I changed my mind and decided not to include it.

As for science and nature, I like reading about meteorology and astronomy etc but, for me, this will be a wide open category. I have very few books in mind, to start with.

You guys are all so clever at coming up with topic themes etc. Not me. Pretty boring in comparison.

However, I am on the lookout for a book in which a Chicago baseball player and a former American President, take a canoe ride down the Mississippi River. When their canoe capsizes, they manage to swim to shore but are forced, for a time, to subsist on twigs and shrubs and "deal with nature." While trying to solve an old mystery, they come across a collection of Anne Perry mysteries and happily sit down and read them.

In other words, a book that fits all 10 categories.

Message edited by its author, Aug 13, 2009, 6:39pm.

#17 lol! If you find such a book, I hope you will count it in all 10 categories!

@ No 17 Post that description on "Name that book"! You never know...

Limnda, why don't you just write it!

>17 Love it! Your cleverness takes a back seat to no one!

Change in plans. 20th Century American History is now books by Anne Perry. I will have to update my 10 category book.

Chicago, the Mississippi River, and Disasters. Your thread is reminding me of The Weather Channel. Or it's late and my brain is thinking odd things. Neat categories still.

Weather is another category I'd planned for this year's 999 but I changed it, thinkiing it's too narrow.

My 2010 science and nature category will probably include a lot of meteorology books.

Definitely go for the Monk series by Anne Perry, I think it's her best.

Linda, have you read Simon Winchester's A Crack in the Edge of the World (about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) or Krakatoa? I found A Crack in the Edge of the World last year when I wanted to read more about the earthquake; it is far more scientific and technical than I had anticipated, but I was fascinated (learned a lot). I just happened to see Krakatoa when I bought the first one, and it interested me since I'd just seen a tv show about Krakatoa, but I haven't read it yet.

I keep waiting for you to read The Devil in the White City and find out what you think of it. History, mystery and Chicago -- what could be more perfect for you (unless, of course, it had baseball as well)? Anyway, I enjoyed it very much.

I'll be watching your Anne Perry category. I've read quite a few, but not for a while, and really like them -- especially, as Cheli says, the Monk series. Did you know that she was convicted of murder when she was a teenager?

Edited to add: that was Anne Perry -- not Cheli! -- who was convicted of murder!

Message edited by its author, Aug 19, 2009, 2:44pm.

I never read that Winchester book, ivyd, though I have heard of it. I will be researching disaster books and adding some fresh ones to the list, I think.

The Devil in the White City is a definite for 2010. I want to take the Chicago History Museum tour, too. (I have signed up for a Chicago Murder and Mystery tour from the CHM in Nov.)

I was going to say: Cheli never mentioned that fact!!

I really am eager to start that World War 1 series by Anne Perry. I love the Christmas one and might read the first in her Monk series this year.

I read Krakatoa for the 888 challenge, I think, and I actually liked the TV show better. I felt that he led up to the disaster really well, but the actual eruption was a little shortchanged, IMO. But I do want to read A Crack in the Edge of the World.

We seem to have read opposite books by some authors (as with Alexander McCall Smith)! I've read quite a few of the Monk books and the Pitt series, but haven't read the Christmas series, and didn't even know about the WWI series until I just looked it up. It sounds very interesting -- I'll be watching for your thoughts about it.

re 28:

he led up to the disaster really well, but the actual eruption was a little shortchanged

That was exactly my reaction to A Crack in the Edge of the World. When I decided to read it, I was looking more for information about what happened in the city during the quake and after, rather than the geological history of the area and the scientific explanations. That's probably why I haven't gotten to Krakatoa yet, though I do still want to read it. Isn't there a journal kept by a woman who was there? That actually sounds like more my kind of book.

I think I've read about the first 4 or 5 of the Pitt books. Rutland Place is next for me, I think.

This fall, I want to read the first Monk and the first WW1 book and, of course, the new Christmas one.

Next year, will try to read 3 of each series plus the new Christmas one.

As for the series comment, ivyd, you're right. There are quite a few authors where I've read all of their lesser known series books and none from their famous ones.

I was just thinking about I'd read all of the WW2 mystery series by Kate Kingsbury but none whatsoever in her Pennyfoot Hotel series. Alexander McCall Smith is another good example. I've never read any of the mysteries set in Africa but have read nearly all of his others, like the Sunday Philosophy Club.

For Mary Daheim, I've read all of her bed and breakfast ones but haven't read any of the Alpine ones in probably 10 or more years.

Odd, I know, but definitely true.

Message edited by its author, Aug 19, 2009, 5:12pm.

**hanging her head in shame**

My apologizes for my lack of complete openness and not communicating the information that you lacked.

There's my formal apology.

I'm sorry that I forgot to give you that little tidbit, but thanks to Ivy you are now in the loop.

It's been over three weeks and I've only changed one category. Amazing, something must be wrong with me.

I've got so many good books left to go in 999 x 2 that I haven't thought much about 10/10/10 lately. Several of the categories are dependent on how far I get this year.

As the new year approaches, I'm sure I'll start looking into science/nature and a few of the other more wide-open categories.

I've changed my Science and Nature category to Not My Usual. I rarely read science books so those could still fit but this is broader.

I expect to fill it with short story collections, science fiction, literature in translation, and other types of books I rarely, if ever, read. Who knows, maybe I will even try some poetry or a big fan novel or two.

Message edited by its author, Sep 3, 2009, 10:28pm.

Hola Linda

Is your American Presidents category for the U.S. Presidents Challenge?

Yes, it is. I will occasionally read books about the presidents, such as Presidential Travel, that don't count towards the challenge but most of them are presidential biographies.

Thanks. I had it under "specific topic" in the compiler but noticed everyone with a similar category was doing the US Presidents Challenge. I'm going to move yours to US Presidents Challenge in the compiler.

Great job on all the work, chrine.

Thanks Cheli. I figure I'll post an updated compiler mid-month.

I like your categories. I can't wait to see what you fill vintage mysteries with. And you're reading my very favorite book, Dune.

I like your categories too - especially the Mississippi R. one - I think I might throw some of those on my Mt TBR as well, I hadn't heard of them before.

I enjoyed both Winchester books, having read the earthquake one after the volcano one. I also enjoyed The Map that Changed the World but that was about stratigraphy and about William Smith, who figured that out - not much in there of disaster (except if you consider portions of his life), but perhaps could be acceptable under 'nature'. If you haven't seen it before, check out the map he hand-drew - it's gorgeous!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Smi...(geologist)

After looking at my bookshelves today, I saw a bit of a pattern. I have quite a few books with the words "days" or "nights" in the title. I think that'd make a good topic. For instance, Friday Night Lights, the football book, has both words in it.

I plan to replace Days and Nights for my Mississippi River topic. Sorry bfertig. I am keeping a list of those books, just in case I change my mind.

Message edited by its author, Sep 24, 2009, 9:49pm.

Oh well, looks like you've got more than a fortnight of titles for that category.

I've been debating a category about bodies of water, since I liked your idea, but we'll see.

Looking at so many others going full tilt on 1010 already and now I'm chomping at the bit to get started.

I've got 11 more books to finish for my second 999 and then I will get going on 1010.

It's amazingly hard to wait, but stay strong and January 1 will be upon us before we know it!

I need to get to the bookstore and buy a couple for my 1010. Of course, I could just do it on Amazon right now! (off to find the credit card)