Okay, so I still have 33 more books to read for my 999 Challenge. My sense of inner integrity will not allow me to begin reading books for this challenge until I complete that one, but I'm so excited (I've been thinking about this since last January) that I have to at least post my categories.

1. The Living Dead (0/10 Completed)
Mostly zombies, but may also include vampires.

2. Books About Books and Writing (0/10 Completed)
Fairly self-explanatory, though it could include either fiction or nonfiction.

3. Fairy Tales/Folklore (0/10 Completed)
Includes nonfiction criticism, retellings, as well as the original tales themselves.

4. Edwidge Danticat and Haiti (0/10 Completed)
Books written by the fabulous Edwige Danticat (I may reread the two I've got), as well as separate books about Haiti as supplementary material.

5. About Women/Feminism (0/10 Completed)
Works can be either fiction or nonfiction that feature strong women and/or feminist slants.

6. Pop Culture Phenomenon (0/10 Completed)
Mostly nonfiction works discussing pop culture, though fiction books that are heavy in pop culture references will also be included (if you have recommendations for these, I would love to hear).

7. Arm Chair Travels (0/10 Completed)
Travel narratives in fiction or memoirs.

8. From My Bookshelf (0/10 Completed)
I have a tendency to jump at the new and shiny in bookstores and the library, rather than reading the stacks already on my shelves. This is meant to rectify that.

9. From the Modern Library's 100 Best Books (0/10 Completed)
There are actually 200 books, since there is also the publicly voted list (with some overlaps). I'm working off the list from 2009, which is posted on my blog.

10. Miscellany (0/10 Completed)
The catch-all category, which will probably be the first to be filled.

Message edited by its author, Dec 15, 2009, 5:22pm.

The Living Dead

Completed: None

Possible Candidates:
Breathers: A Zombie's Lament, by S.G. Browne
Patient Zero, by Jonathan Maberry
Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest (which is also Steampunk) (was read for my 999 Category challenge in the steampunk category)
Monster Island, by David Wellington
The Zombie Cookbook, edited by Kim Richards
Feed, by Mira Grant
Probability Angels, by Joseph Devon

Message edited by its author, Dec 15, 2009, 3:36pm.

Books About Books and Writing

Completed: None

Possible Candidates:
The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers, edited by Vendela Vida.
The Anatomy of Bibliomania, by Holbrook Jackson
A History of Reading, by Alberto Manguel
The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi
The Book Without Words: A Fable of Medieval Magic, by Avi
The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

Message edited by its author, Nov 11, 2009, 5:37pm.

Fairy Tales/Folklore

Completed: None

Possible Candidates:
The Red Fairy Book, by Andrew Lang
Princess of the Midnight Ball, by Jessica Day George
The Witch Must Die: How Fairy Tales Shape Our Lives, by Sheldon Cashdan

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 6:27pm.

Edwidge Danticat and Haiti

Completed: None

Possible Candidates
Anaconda, Golden Flower, by Danticat
Behind the Mountains, by Danticat
Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti, by Frances Temple
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica, by Zora Neale Hurston

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 6:28pm.

About Women/Feminism

Completed: None

Possible Candidates
Failure Is Impossible: Susan B. Anthony in Her Own Words, edited by Lynn Sherr
Shakti Mantras: Tapping into the Great Goddess Energy Within, by Thomas Ashley-Farrand
Vamps: An Illustrated History of the Femme Fatale, by Pam Keesey
Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity, by Kerry Cohen
Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women, by Elizabeth Wurtzel

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 6:29pm.

Pop Culture Phenomenon

Completed: None

Possible Candidates:
Everyday Apocalypse: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, the Simpsons, and Other Pop Culture Icons, by David Dark
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, by Chuck Klosterman
The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America, by David Hajdu
Porn and Pong: How Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider and other Sexy Games Changed Our Culture, by Damon Brown

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 6:30pm.

Arm Chair Travels

Completed: None

Possible Candidates
In Search of Captain Zero: A Surfer's Road Trip Beyond the End of the Road, by Allan Weisbecker
Escape from Amsterdam, by Barrie Sherwood
First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria, by Eve Brown-Waite

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 6:30pm.

From My Bookshelf

Completed: None

Possible Candidates
The Final Solution: A Story of Detection (P.S.), by Michael Chabon
The Fourth World, by Dennis Danvers
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing, by Melissa Bank
Dispossessed, by Ursula k. Le Guin

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 6:30pm.

From the Modern Library's 100 Best Books

Completed: None

Possible Candidates:
The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
Moonheart, by Charles de Lint
Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham
At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft

Message edited by its author, Nov 2, 2009, 6:31pm.

10. Miscellany

Completed: None

Possible Candidates
As my mood grabs me.

Hi, love the pictures & categories. Although I will be especially interested in the Edwidge Danticat one as I tried After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel this year and really enjoyed it.

Cool! I have that one on my list to read, too, so I'm glad it's good. :)

This will surely be an interesting thread to follow! Danticat is a completely new name to me, but I'm looking forward to learing more. Some really intriguing titles in your zombie category (a genre of which I'm fairly unfamiliar. I'm putting Boneshaker on my wishlist immediately!), and I'll also be interested in your feminism category.

For pop culture, check out Please kill me by Legs McNeil about the early punk scene. For fiction, I remember Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay as a really good read, if you haven't read that already. Or check out basically anything by Alan Moore - his graphic novels are always oozing with refereces to just about anything high or low. For this category, perhaps the Top ten books could be a fun choice - about police work in a comic style metropolis where EVERYBODY has super powers.

I'm reading A history of reading for this challenge too! Probably in february or so.

Just looked at your profile, and realise you've already have most of what I suggested in your library already. Oh well.

Just out of curiosity, where is that gorgeous library in message 10?

A couple suggestions for your books about books IF you haven't read them already
People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
The Shadow of the Wind by, Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Is the bookshelf in message 9 your own? If it is, I would like to compliment it on its tidiness and for the way you do not have rows of books in front of stacks of books. If you would like to keep it that way, I suggest not reading any of the threads here.

Have you read The Professor and the Madman? It's on my challenge and I thought it might fit your category 2.

GingerbreadMan, the oral history of punk looks very interesting and I will definitely put that on my list as a consideration. I hadn't thought of the Alan Moore books as potential for that category, but I will duly note it and consider other similar kinds of works. Oh, and the library in #10 is the Ames Free Library in North Easton, MA. I found the picture in the Wikipedia commons.

susiesharp, thank you for the recs!

RidgewayGirl, I wish I could say the bookshelf was mine, but no. I put that one up as a temporary filler until I took a picture of my own bookshelf, but I haven't got around to it. My bookshelf looks a lot more like what you have described. :)

KAzevedo, I did read the Professor and the Madman. It was a good one. Very interesting to see where a lot of the English language got defined. :)

Message edited by its author, Dec 15, 2009, 3:35pm.

With a minor in Math, and working in the banking industry, I would think that my math skills would still be sharp, but maybe not.

I see 10 categories. All of them say "0/9" (i.e. 0 of 9 completed).

The progress bar shows 0 of 100. Last time I looked, 10 * 9 is only 90. Am I missing where the other 10 books are coming from?

Oh, ThrillerFan, thank you. The math anomaly you see here can be easily explained: I am a dork.

I was still in 999 Challenge mode with its 9 books in 9 categories and just posted the wrong count. There are supposed to be 10 books read in each category.

My brain. Sometimes it doesn't work so well. :D

Message edited by its author, Dec 15, 2009, 5:21pm.

#21

LOL...For me, I'll be lucky if I can complete my 3 books in each of the 10 categories. Started November 1st, going through October 31st, and in 45 days, I'm just starting the 4th book. Luckily enough, the one I'm on is only 245 pages long. :-)