Melissa J's 2016 Category Challenge

Hello all! I'm new to LibraryThing so this will be my first time participating in the Category Challenge. While I'm going to read within 16 categories, I won't be reading 16 books within each.

I haven't selected any particular theme for my categories, although my selections have been guided by the books sitting on my TBR mountain (my TBR ceased being a mere pile a few years back). My goal is to read at least two books in each category, although in several of them I do anticipate reading far more than two books. I'll keep track of my progress in the discussion posts below.

I'm a moody reader, so I'm not good at planning my reads in advance. I've listed some possibilities for each category, however.

Category One: Really Large Tomes (Books must be 700+ pages long)

(1) Winter of the World by Ken Follet. 818 pages.

Maybe this will be the year I finally read War and Peace.

Category Two: Victorian Writers (It's time to crack open those classics)

(1)

Possible writers include Dickens, Gaskell, and Hardy (maybe a Bronte sister or two as well).

Category Three: I Think It's Time I Read This (Books that have been on my TBR mountain for at least five years)

(1) The Love Knot by Elizabeth Chadwick - 4 Stars

Possibilities include:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Quicksilver
The Far Pavilions

Good luck with this. Far Pavillions is one of my favourite books. Maybe time I reread it!

Category Four: Start a New Series

(1) Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes. YA Fantasy. 4 Stars
(2) The Railway Detective by Edward Marstan. Historical Mystery series. 3 Stars
(3) The Crow Trap by Ann Cleeves. First book in Vera Stanhope mystery series. 4 Stars
(4) The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths. First book in the Ruth Galloway mystery series. 4 Stars

Possibilities include:

Throne of Glass
Vera Stanhope

Category Five: Canadiana (Books by Canadians, set in Canada in full or in part)

(1) Alone Against the North by Adam Shoalts (non-fiction/wilderness exploration)

Possibilities include:

The Unquiet Dead
Treading Water
In the Skin of the Lion

Category Six: Canadian Authors (Books by Canadians not set in Canada)

(1) The Evening Chorus by Helen Humphreys. Literary Historical Fiction
(2) Moonlight Over Paris by Jennifer Robson. Historial Fiction

Possibilities include:

The Heart Goes Last
The Painted Girls
Room
Frog Music
Us Conductors

Category Seven: Non-Fiction

(1) Buried in the Sky by Peter Zuckerman and Amanda Padoan. Mountaineering.
(2) The Climb by Anatoly Boukreev. Mountaineering
(3) K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain by Ed Viesturs. Mountaineering

Possibilities include:

The Perfect Summer: England 1911
The Conquering Family
In the Kingdom of Ice

Category Eight: E-Book Extravaganza (I always forget about the books sitting on my e-reader)

(1) A Day of Fire by various authors including Ben Kane and Kate Quinn. 4 Stars. Historical Fiction

Possibilities include:

I have lots of unread books on my Kindle and my Kobo so there will be no shortage of books to pick from for this category.

Category Nine: Continue with a Series

(1) Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear (Book 3 in Maisie Dobbs Historical Mystery series)
(2) Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves (Book 2 in Vera Stanhope series)

Possibilities include:

I've got lots of series on the go right now.

Category Ten: Finish a Series

(1) The Chessmen by Peter May. Book 3 in Lewis Trilogy (Mystery)

Possibilities include:

The Crimson Crown
Fool's Fate

Category Eleven: Books in Translation (Books translated from the language in which they were originally published)

(1)

Possibilities include:

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
The Poisoned Crown

Category Twelve: The Wars of the Roses (Books about the people and/or events of the Wars of the Roses period of English history -- fiction or non-fiction)

(1)

Possibilities include:

Stormbird
Richard the Third
Lancaster and York: The Wars of the Roses

Category Thirteen: Regency World (It's time to dust off the various Georgette Heyer Regency Romances sitting on my shelves)

(1)

Possibilities include:

Bath Tangle
Frederica
The Toll Gate

Welcome to LT and good luck with your challenge. I am fairly new here also, since July and still learning my way around.

Category Fourteen: Fantasy Fiction

(1) Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan - 4.5 Stars (Powder Mage Trilogy Book 1)
(2) The Crimson Campaign by Brian McClellan - 4 Stars (Powder Mage Trilogy Book 2)
(3) Death of Dulgath by Michael J. Sullivan - 5 Stars (Riyria Chronicles Book 3)
(4) A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab - 4 Stars (Shades of Magic Book 2)
(5) Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard - 5 Stars (Red Queen Book 1)
(6) Scent of Magic by Maria V. Snyder - 4 Stars (Healer series Book 2)

Possibilities include:

The Death of Dulgath
Alloy of Law
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Category Fifteen: Scotland the Brave (Historical Fiction set in Scotland)

(1)

Possibilities include:

The Forest Laird
The Lion Wakes

Category Sixteen: Award Winners

(1) All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr - Pulitzer Prize for Fiction - 4 Stars

Possibilities include:

The Luminaries

>5 MarthaJeanne: It's actually the book that has been on my TBR longest - almost twenty years!!!

Welcome to LibraryThing! I hope you have a great reading year and have fun with the category challenge.

Welcome and enjoy your challenge! I'll be interested to see what fills your Scotland category in particular. :)

Welcome and good luck with your challenge! I do hope you enjoy Georgette Heyer, Frederica is one of my all-time favourites. And the e-book extravaganza is an idea worth copying, I really should bear this in mind for next year.

Welcome to LT and this challenge! Are you an immigrant from Shelfari? If so, congrats on getting your library and reviews transferred. Have a great reading year!

Welcome to LT and the Category Challenge. I am a fan of Georgette Heyer and I'm currently reading Bath Tangle (it's good but not one of her best). You've got some great categories and I am looking forward to following along.

Welcome to LT! I LOVE Georgette Heyer so will be watching that category with particular interest! :)

Welcome to LT and the Category Challenge! I hope you have a great reading year. :)

Welcome! I'll be interested in your Canadian categories. Have a great reading year!

Thank you all for the warm welcome! I look forward to following your challenge progress and (hopefully) adding to my own TBR pile :-)

Welcome!! I can't plan my reads ahead of time either. I do try to have some idea, but I have to play it a little loose as well.

Welcome to both Librarything and the Category Challenge! Love your setup and looking forward to following your reading.

Looks like a great category challenge! I love The Luminaries so hopefully you get to that one. I believe I'll be reading my first Georgette Heyer books this year, so it will be interesting to see what you think of the ones you read.

I've updated my challenge results for only the second or third time this year. I have a lot of work ahead of me given that I haven't yet touched any books related to 7 of my challenge categories!

>33 Melissa_J: The only rule about the category challenge is that there ARE no rules, so if there are categories that aren't working for you, go ahead and change them! :) And as long as you're enjoying what you're reading, that's the important thing.

>34 rabbitprincess: Thank goodness! I'm definitely going to make some changes 😃