madhatter22's 2016 category challenge
Talk 2016 Category Challenge
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1madhatter22
Just 50 books, to give me some leeway in my 75 challenge - though I only had 49 last year and still didn't make it, so it's challenging enough. :)
I may read more than 5 books in each category, but I'm only counting the first 5 towards the challenge.
I want as many of these as possible to be ROOTs - books I owned before 2016 that I can get permanently off my shelves after reading them.
All the books marked on my woman-themed bingo card will be by female authors and/or be about women or have female lead characters.
2madhatter22
How Soon Is Now? (published-in-2016 books that I read before, or within a month of, publication)
1.Fellside - M. R. Carey
2.Red Queen - Christina Henry
3.Girls and Sex - Peggy Orenstein
4.The Fireman - Joe Hill
5.Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Jack Thorne
This Charming Man/Wonderful Woman (books I haven't yet read by favorited authors)
1.The Moon and Sixpence - W. Somerset Maugham
2.End of Watch - Stephen King
3.Stir-Fry - Emma Donoghue
4.Number9Dream - David Mitchell
5.Moranifesto - Caitlin Moran
You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby (books by new-to-me authors)
1.Before the Fall - Noah Hawley
2.Another Brooklyn - Jacqueline Woodson
3.The Bat - Jo Nesbo
4.The Loved One - Evelyn Waugh
5.The Woman in Black - Susan Hill
Back to the Old House (books that are at least the 2nd in a series I started prior to this year)
1.Sugar House - Laura Lippman
2.Changeless - Gail Carriger
3.The Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis
4.The Boy Who Followed Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
5.Library of Souls - Ransom Riggs
Half a Person (short story collections)
1. Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor
2.The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God - Etgar Keret
3.Difficult Women - Roxane Gay
4.
5.
What She Said (books on language)
1. Empires of the Word - Nicholas Ostler
2. Words and Rules - Stephen Pinker
3. The Stories of English - David Crystal
4. Language Myths - Laurie Bauer
5. That's Not English - Erin Moore
These Things Take Time (books I've been meaning to read for many years)
1. The Forsyte Saga - John Galsworthy
2. The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family - Mary S. Lovell
3.The American Way of Death Revisited - Jessica Mitford
4.
5.
I Won't Share You (borrowed books)
1. One of Our Thursdays Is Missing - Jasper Fforde
2.Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl - Carrie Brownstein
3.Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Carlo Rovelli
4.The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo - Amy Schumer
5.
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (classics)
1. Middlemarch - George Eliot
2. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
3.Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
4.The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
5.Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before (YA/IR books that I'm re-reading one last time)
1.Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown - Maud Hart Lovelace
2.Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself - Judy Blume
3.Emily's Runaway Imagination - Beverly Cleary
4.Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh
5.The Witches - Roald Dahl
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
This Charming Man/Wonderful Woman (books I haven't yet read by favorited authors)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
You Just Haven't Earned It Yet Baby (books by new-to-me authors)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Back to the Old House (books that are at least the 2nd in a series I started prior to this year)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Half a Person (short story collections)
1. Complete Stories - Flannery O'Connor
2.
3.
4.
5.
What She Said (books on language)
1. Empires of the Word - Nicholas Ostler
2. Words and Rules - Stephen Pinker
3. The Stories of English - David Crystal
4. Language Myths - Laurie Bauer
5. That's Not English - Erin Moore
These Things Take Time (books I've been meaning to read for many years)
1. The Forsyte Saga - John Galsworthy
2. The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family - Mary S. Lovell
3.
4.
5.
I Won't Share You (borrowed books)
1. One of Our Thursdays Is Missing - Jasper Fforde
2.
3.
4.
5.
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (classics)
1. Middlemarch - George Eliot
2. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
3.
4.
5.
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before (YA/IR books that I'm re-reading one last time)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
3madhatter22
1 - Peggy Orenstein
2 - Jessica Mitford
7 - The Woman in Black
9 - Emily's Runaway Imagination (1961)
10 - The Boy Who Followed Ripley (France)
13 - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
16 - The Sugar House (private investigator)
17 - The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo
18 - The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World
19 - Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl (Carrie Brownstein)
20 - Harriet the Spy :)
21 - Difficult Women
22 - Changeless
24 - Red Queen
25 - Jacqueline Woodson
4madhatter22
1 - The Woman in Black
2 - End of Watch
3 - Library of Souls: The Third Book of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children
4- Before the Fall
5 - Harriet the Spy
7 - Emily's Runaway Imagination
8 - Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl
9 - Red Queen
11 - Number 9 Dream
12 - Moranifesto
13 - Seven Brief Lessons on Physics (July Dewey CAT)
19 - Fellside
16 - The Witches
17 - Madame Bovary
18 - Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
20. The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God
19 - Jane Eyre
21 - The Moon and Sixpence
22 - The Horse and His Boy
25 - Another Brooklyn (Anthropologist)
5rabbitprincess
Great theme! I just got into The Smiths this year and really like your setup. :) Have a great reading year!
6thornton37814
Good luck on getting the books off your shelf read!
11VioletBramble
Hi Shauna! Good luck with your 2016 Challenge!
13madhatter22
JANUARY
Not a bad start - 14 books read, 9 counted towards my category challenge; 7 spaces marked on the main Bingo card, 4 marked on the woman-themed card.
I had a lot of fun re-reading some childhood favorites, though I hadn't remembered some of the very dated language and attitudes. (E.g. Chinese accents played for laughs (in 2 different books!), a short list of jobs women might do including "typing letters for a businessman", children of a white father and "indian" mother referred to as "half-savage", etc.)
I still love Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and The Witches though. Roald Dahl puts a smile on my face. And you can't go wrong with Judy Blume. Emily's Runaway Imagination was the most dated, but I'll always have a soft spot for Beverly Cleary (who I recently learned is still alive and turning 100 this year!) Harriet the Spy is still fantastic. In fact there was some depth to it I might not have fully gotten when I was younger.
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe was the only Narnia book I read as a kid, and I think I missed the boat there. The Horse & His Boy was better than some.
Also not as charmed by the 3rd installment of Mrs. Peregrine's Peculiar Children as I was at the beginning. Overall it was worth reading if you've read the first 2, but the first part of it really dragged, and instead of the photos enhancing the story, parts of the story seemed to be tacked on just to fit the pictures.
The Woman in Black was a fun, old-fashioned, creepy ghost story. I wasn't crazy about the ending, but I was properly tense and breathless as I read it, and I felt the need to leave the hallway light on when I went to bed before my husband got home.
Carrie Brownstein's memoir focuses on her time in Sleater-Kinney, and it's a time and place and journey that was really interesting to read about, even though I was never into the Riot Grrrl bands and knew exactly one Sleater-Kinney song before reading the book. She had some endearing stories from her childhood that made me wish she'd written more about her family and personal relationships. The writing got a bit thesaurus-y at times, but overall it seemed honest and thoughtful and was an entertaining read.
Not a bad start - 14 books read, 9 counted towards my category challenge; 7 spaces marked on the main Bingo card, 4 marked on the woman-themed card.
I had a lot of fun re-reading some childhood favorites, though I hadn't remembered some of the very dated language and attitudes. (E.g. Chinese accents played for laughs (in 2 different books!), a short list of jobs women might do including "typing letters for a businessman", children of a white father and "indian" mother referred to as "half-savage", etc.)
I still love Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and The Witches though. Roald Dahl puts a smile on my face. And you can't go wrong with Judy Blume. Emily's Runaway Imagination was the most dated, but I'll always have a soft spot for Beverly Cleary (who I recently learned is still alive and turning 100 this year!) Harriet the Spy is still fantastic. In fact there was some depth to it I might not have fully gotten when I was younger.
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe was the only Narnia book I read as a kid, and I think I missed the boat there. The Horse & His Boy was better than some.
Also not as charmed by the 3rd installment of Mrs. Peregrine's Peculiar Children as I was at the beginning. Overall it was worth reading if you've read the first 2, but the first part of it really dragged, and instead of the photos enhancing the story, parts of the story seemed to be tacked on just to fit the pictures.
The Woman in Black was a fun, old-fashioned, creepy ghost story. I wasn't crazy about the ending, but I was properly tense and breathless as I read it, and I felt the need to leave the hallway light on when I went to bed before my husband got home.
Carrie Brownstein's memoir focuses on her time in Sleater-Kinney, and it's a time and place and journey that was really interesting to read about, even though I was never into the Riot Grrrl bands and knew exactly one Sleater-Kinney song before reading the book. She had some endearing stories from her childhood that made me wish she'd written more about her family and personal relationships. The writing got a bit thesaurus-y at times, but overall it seemed honest and thoughtful and was an entertaining read.
14rabbitprincess
Did not know Beverly Cleary was turning 100 this year! Wow!
Looks like you had a great January!
Looks like you had a great January!
15-Eva-
>13 madhatter22:
The Witches is my favorite of his - it's just as good today as the first time I read it.
The Witches is my favorite of his - it's just as good today as the first time I read it.
