Madhatter22's 7x7 category challenge

I haven't done one of these in a few years, but my reading was dismal last year (quantity-wise), so I'm trying to give myself a kick in the pants. (A lot of kicks - categories, 75 books challenge, TIOLI, and I'm about to get me one of them adorable bingo cards.)
I don't want to fit all my reading into categories, and I'll be here forever if I try to think up clever ones, so, a simple 7x7. (I'm from San Francisco.)(The city measures 7x7. It's a thing.)

Books by Authors I've Never Read, Who I've Been Wanting to Read for Years
1. Haruki Murakami
2. Zadie Smith
3. Brooklyn - Colm Toibin
4. Don Delillo
5.
6.
7.

Books I've Never Read by Authors on My LT Profile's Favorite Authors List
1. Slade House - David Mitchell
2. Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town - Jon Krakauer
3. The Bazaar of Bad Dreams - Stephen King
4.In Other Words - Jhumpa Lahiri
5. How to Grow Up - Michelle Tea
6. Moranthology - Caitlin Moran
7. Hood - Emma Donoghue

Books That Are at Least the 2nd Book in a Series I've Been Meaning to Finish/Catch Up On
1. Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King
2. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag - Alan Bradley
3. Bite Me - Christopher Moore
4. The Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis
5. The Tin Princess - Philip Pullman
6. Song of Susannah - Stephen King
7. The Dark Tower - Stephen King

Books That I Borrowed Months or Years Ago and Have Slacked Off on Returning
1. Revival - Stephen King
2. The Underground Girls of Kabul - Jenny Nordberg
3. One of Our Thursdays Is Missing - Jasper Fforde
4. Oh, Play That Thing - Roddy Doyle
5. The Devil's Teeth - Susan Casey
6. The Almost Nearly Perfect People - Michael Booth
7.

Books Relating to My College Major That I Buy Constantly but Rarely Get Around to Reading
1. Words and Rules - Stephen Pinker
2. Empires of the Word - Nicholas Ostler
3. The Stories of English - David Crystal
4. How Language Works - David Crystal
5.
6.
7.

Books from My Entirely-Filled-With-Short-Story-Collections Bookcase That I Usually Only Read Piecemeal
1. Best American Short Stories of the Century
2. Ship Fever - Andrea Barrett
3. Bad Haircut - Tom Perrotta
4. Vampires in the Lemon Grove - Karen Russell
5.
6.
7.

Books from My Bookstore's Bestseller/New Books Displays so I'll Have Something NEW to Recommend for Once
1. Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
2. Girl in a Band: A Memoir - Kim Gordon
3. Sick in the Head - Judd Apatow
4. Modern Romance = Aziz Ansari
5. Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates
6. Why Not Me? - Mindy Kaling
7. Furiously Happy - Jenny Lawson

I'm going to see how many squares I can cover without purposefully choosing any books just to mark a box. And I'm going to include books from my invisible 8th category, "Books from My 75 Challenge That Don't Fit into My Category Challenge".



1. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley (England)
2. The Wastelands by Stephen King (scifi-western)
3. Teenage Romance: Or How to Die of Embarrassment by Delia Ephron
6. Dear Mr. You by Mary Louise Parker
7. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
8. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Russian)
11. Wizard and Glass by Stephen King
12. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
13. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (Nov. ALPHAkit)
14. The Tin Princess by Philip Pullman
16. Soulless by Gail Carriger (vampires, werewolves)
17. Orange Is the New Black by Piper Kerman
18. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
19. In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri
22. Revival by Stephen King (Frankenstein)
23. The Underground Girls of Kabul by Jenny Nordberg
24. Alice by Christina Henry
25. Man Seeking Woman by Simon Rich

Welcome to the challenge! I love your category names. The borrowed books category is one I could use myself! (Fortunately, everyone I borrow books from takes forever to return books I loan them, so we all understand.)

Welcome to the challenge.

Here's to a great year of great reading!

Hi Shauna! Welcome to the challenge. I like your categories.

Welcome back! I see some great books listed as your potential reading!

Looks like a great set-up! Happy reading!

Thanks for the well-wishing, everyone! :)

Orange Is The New Black - Piper Kerman

There's an interview with Piper Kerman following the book where she says it really unsettles her when people tell her that her experience didn't sound so bad. I felt a little sheepish that I'd thought the same thing several times. I'm sure this was partially because I've already seen the very fictionalized, more violent TV show. It's also because although Kerman does convey the terror of the unknown when first entering prison, the demoralizing treatment by guards and the soul-sucking monotony, what stood out to me was her description of the community the women build to endure their time there. She also became very aware that she had it much easier than most of the women there, due to her relatively short sentence and all the support she had from family and friends during and after her incarceration.

Style-wise, the narrative was a little clunky at times, but I enjoyed the story, which was funny, heartbreaking and infuriating. The amount of waste, neglect and mismanagement inside the prison was eye-opening, as were the statistics concerning how many women have sentences out of proportion to their nonviolent crimes, and how little effort there is at rehabilitation or post-prison support.

Revival - Stephen King

For a long time I read everything Stephen King wrote, and then I didn't. (Was it The Tommyknockers? Dreamcatcher?) If you had the same experience, and haven't jumped back in yet, jump back in. In the last few years he's really been back to form (11/22/63, Under the Dome, Doctor Sleep).

This is one of his slow-burners, which is something he does really well. The story of Jamie Morton begins at age 6, when he first meets Reverend Charles Jacobs, and follows him for the next 50 years as they cross paths again and again. There are no evil clowns or serial killers, no vampires or parallel universes or telekinesis. This is just the story of a life. But, being Stephen King ... there are hints. Things a little off-kilter. Ominous. Not quite right around the edges.
The story builds - suspense, tension, fear - and then - ! What the ... what??

As happens with many of King's books (though nowhere near as many as some people complain about), I got to the end and felt a little perplexed. This wasn't a bad ending. This wasn't an It ending. (Still not over that. 1000 pages of perfect character development and his most chilling Big Bad and then - what??) I just wasn't quite satisfied. But I still found it worth reading. And I'm still thinking about it. The man can paint some very vivid and terrifying pictures.

I have done the very same thing with Stephen King, and I think it was The Tommyknockers that put the nail in to coffin for me. I have seen a lot of his recent stuff getting good reviews so I guess it's time to pick up some of his stuff again.

Revival, 11/22/63 and Mr Mercedes are all on my to-read list. Good to know that Revival is a slow burner.

Well, well, well....look who's here.