BritAnnia's 999 challenge

These are the categories for my 999 challenge. I learned from the 888 challenge that I do better having less specific categories, not starting with a definite list of books for the entire year, and not over extend my literary abilities!
I'm aiming for a variety of choice here including fluff reads, short reads, popular reads of varying length, as well as some literary choices.

1- Chunkster Challenge: Mor-book-ly Obese ( Mor-book-ly Obese - This is for the truly out of control chunkster. For this level of challenge you must commit to 6 or more chunksters OR three tomes of 750 pages or more. You know you want to.....go on and give in to your cravings.)
2- 1001 Must Read books list choices: another 9 read, only 929 to go...
3- Favoured Authors (Choices so far are... MCBeaton, Val McDermid, Daphne du Maurier, Thomas Hardy, Rhys Bowen, HGWells, Ray Bradbury, Diana Gabaldon if the latest in the Outlander series is published!),
4- Short Stories and Poetry: Size Does Not Matter! (Want to make a dent in my TBR short stories and poetry collection)
5- Happenstance (unplanned, random choices that I suddenly find myself reading and don't remember the hows or whys of the book appearing in my hands. )
6- Fact, Not Fiction (General muddle of non-fiction such as biographies, motivational, etc.)
7- You MUST read this! (Books a friend or relative wants me to read. I've got a good start on choices for this category thanks to a friend recently sending me some books she thought I'd enjoy. Shout out to ya T, come join me here on LT!)
8- Young Adult... (self explanatory!)
9- Genre Collage (Genre fiction, 1 book of each genre listed)

Blog: Marginally Me

Chunkster Challenge: Mor-book-ly Obese
Chunkster Challenge blog

1. A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz (pp. 576)
2. Careless in Red - Elizabeth George (pp. 640)
3. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters (pp. 582)
4. Labyrinth - Kate Mosse (pp. 508)
5. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (pp. 552)
6. The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett (pp. 983)
7. Possession: A Romance - AS Byatt (pp. 576)
8. The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly (pp. 480)
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson (pp.590)

1001 Must Read books list choices: 9 more completed, only 929 to go... (COMPLETED)

1. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (1/2/09)
2. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters (1/31/09)
3. Brighton Rock - Graham Greene (3/27/09)
4. The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka (5/30/09)
5. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote (6/9/09)
6. Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne (7/22/09)
7. The Awakening - Kate Chopin (10/24/09)
8. The House of the Seven Gables - Nathaniel Hawthorne (9/26/09)
9. Possession: A Romance - AS Byatt (10/7/09)

Favoured Authors & Re-reads (COMPLETED)

1. Elizabeth George - Careless in Red (1/20/09)
2. Ken Follett - The Pillars of the Earth (8/14/09)
3. Rhys Bowen - Evanly Bodies (6/14/09)
4. MC Beaton - Death of a Witch (2/25/09)
5. Ray Bradbury - Dandelion Wine (7/2/09)
6. Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go (5/29/09)
7. Jasper Fforde - The Eyre Affair (3/09)
8. Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre (5/24/09)
9. CS Lewis - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (9/1/09)

Short Stories and Poetry: Size does NOT matter! (COMPLETED)

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - F Scott Fitzgerald (1/25/09)
2. A Pair of Silk Stockings - Kate Chopin (10/25/09)
3. The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe (10/14/09)
4. The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (2/20/09)
5. Three Thanksgivings - Charlotte Perkins Gilman (4/5/09)
6. The Girls In Their Summer Dresses - Irwin Shaw (4/15/09)
7. A Sound of Thunder - Ray Bradbury (4/17/09)
8. The Cask of Amontillado - Edgar Allan Poe (11/4/09)
9. The Diary of a Superfluous Man - Ivan Turgenev (5/24/09)

Happenstance

1. A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz (1/9/09)
2. Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami (3/09)
3. A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore (8/7/09)
4. Labyrinth - Kate Mosse (4/14/09)
5. The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted - Elizabeth Berg (6/4/09)
6. The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux (9/10/09)
7. Armageddon in Retrospective - Kurt Vonnegut (5/20/09)
8. The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly (12/14/09)
9. The Passion - Jeanette Winterson (11/13/09)

Fact, Not Fiction

1. Dispatches From the Edge - Anderson Cooper (6/4/09)
2. Tell Me Where It Hurts - Dr Nick Trout (4/20/09)
3. When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris (1/19/09)
4. So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading - Sara Nelson (2/11/09)
5. We Thought You Would Be Prettier - Laurie Notaro (3/20/09)
6. Winston & Salem: Murder, Mystery and Mayhem - Jennifer Bean Bower (4/2/09)
7. Don't Miss Your Life - Charlene Ann Baumbich (7/21/09)
8. The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson (11/2/09)
9. Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters - Chesley B. Sullenberger (12/16/09)

You MUST Read This! (COMPLETED)

1. (T) The Darling Buds of May - HE Bates (5/25/09)
2. (T) The Minotaur - Barbara Vine (5/14/09)
3. (K) New Moon - Stephenie Meyer (9/17/09)
4. (T) Dead as a Scone - Ron Benrey (2/17/09)
5. (K) Eclipse - Stephenie Meyer (10/1/09)
6. (K) Breaking Dawn - Stephenie Meyer (10/12/09)
7. (Jz) Dead Heat - Dick Francis (8/12/09)
8. (Jac) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (8/23/09)
9. (T) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer (2/13/09)

Young adult reads for an older adult to enjoy (COMPLETED)

1. The Magician's Nephew - CS Lewis (8/28/09)
2. The Horse and His Boy - CS Lewis (9/2/09)
3. Prince Caspian - CS Lewis (9/5/09)
4. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - CS Lewis (10/8/09)
5. The Silver Chair - CS Lewis (10/22/09)
6. The Last Battle - CS Lewis (10/25/09)
7. The Book of Three: The Prydain Chronicles, book 1 - Lloyd Alexander (6/7/09)
8. 39 Clues: Maze of Bones - Rick Riordan (3/15/09)
9. Coraline - Neil Gaiman (3/30/09)

Genre Collage (COMPLETED)

1. Horror: The Haunting - Shirley Jackson (1/25/09)
2. Romance: Twilight - Stephenie Meyer (2/19/09)
3. Mystery The Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin (6/30/09)
4. Action-Adventure: The First Men in the Moon - HG Wells (10/16/09)
5. Fantasy: Mort - Terry Pratchett (6/7/09)
6. Detective In the Woods - Tana French (8/27/09)
7. Science-Fiction Foreigner - CJ Cherryh (4/23/09)
8. Crime: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson (10/1/09)
9. Western: Shane - Jack Schaefer (2/22/09)

I agree that keeping things wide open and flexible is a smart plan. 81 books are just so many! :) I like your category "Curiouser and Curiouser"; I, too, am often intrigued by the scores of suggestions on these pages.

PS. Did you know there was a Jabberwocky pop-up book made? I know that doesn't actually fit with your curiouser and curiouser category, but the two do seem to go together very well, somehow. :)

I'm still haven't made a final decision on my categories, but I do like your 'Genre' category. It's very tempting to make specific categories and fill them with large books that you have every intention of reading but somehow another book grabs your attention. As this is my first challenge, I do want to broaden my reading but my primary goal is to finish.

I like your categories--I'm hoping that i haven't boxed myself in too much--but I did make two categories pretty free--"mysteries" because I read so many anyway and "because I want to" which is my freebie category.

I'm reading Silas Marner and Dandelion Wine this year also. I anxious to see what goes into your "genre" category--I think that one is a great idea!

Thanks for positive feedback on my category choices :)
I like giving my categories silly titles to keep the spirit of fun in the challenge.
For the 888 I had high hopes of reading some serious lit. Life happened and the reading didn't! This year I'm trying a different direction, that of more popular novels... even in genre's I don't ordinarily read. That's where the idea for the Genre Collage category came from. I admit the idea of reading a Western is as foreboding to me as attempting to read The Republic by Plato for my 888 list this past year!

I like the favorite authors series. That would cover about half of what I read.

BritAnnia

I have on order at the Library Shane which is a western novel written quite a while ago--I saw a movie made from it when I was a teenage--at that time I didn't know it was based on a novel. I loved the movie and when I found out there was a book jumped at it.

It does have one advantage--it's short, probably more of a novella (I think about 145 pages as I recall from the description.

Ooh, short is good! I'll add Shane to the very short list of possibles; thanks for the recommendation.
I am also considering Louis L'Amour because many years ago my hubby enjoyed reading the Sackett stories. In an attempt to get him reading again I may buy him a few of those for his birthday next month.

Shane is very good, and don't forget some of the women writers of the period: Edna Ferber and Willa Cather especially. There's also The Ox-Box Incident by Clark (from which a fabulous film was made) and Owen Wister with The Virginian.

Thanks for the recommendations, Prop... I checked them out and they do look interesting. Are you trying to turn me on to liking westerns? *wink*

BritAnnia & Prop2gether

My Dad was a huge Louis L'amour fan and thought the Sackett series was his best. I've read some L'Amour and like it -- maybe I'll try the Sackett series--I had forgotten about that until you mentioned it.

The last memory I have of my Grandmother I was in elementary school and Mom and I had gone up to Portland to visit her sister and family. My grandmother was living with them, she was in her 90's. While were there Grandma spent many hours at the kitchen table rereading The Virginian. I'm not quite sure why that has stuck with me for so long, but much later when my Dad was retired I bought him a copy of that book and he, too, loved it. I now have it and I think I'll dig it out and read it soon.

Thanks, you two, for giving me a nostalgic moment this afternoon!

Actually, Britanna, I'm a latecomer to the Western party. My mom didn't care for them, so they weren't on the shelves, and I was introduced to some writers in high school. But there are some fabulous writers out there in the genre. And Shane has been a favorite of mine for years, together with The Ox-Bow Incident.

It's been most helpful having your input, MusicMom41 & Prop2gether. I'm going to buy Shane for my hubby this Christmas and add it as my Western choice. Thanks for the help. :)

Silas Marner is by George Eliot. If you haven't read Tess of the d'Ubervilles, that's a fast-paced Hardy that's hard to put down. The Mayor of Casterbridge is also fun. I love how scandalous and off beat Hardy's books are despite his appearance as a stogy old man.

Oops! I do that so often I should have learned one from the other by now. Let's put that mistake down to old age, thanks for pointing it out to me. :-D

I keep mixing up Keats and Yeats.

Love your Genre Collage category! *makes note for next year* I'm also reading Mort in 2009 and will be interested in the other titles you choose.

Thanks, detailmuse, the genre catergory will be interesting as some of the genres are not what I typically find myself reading.
I'm a new convert to Terry Pratchett's work so I'm really looking forward to reading Mort. I may add a few more of his books to my list during the year but at this point I don't want to set my lists too far in advance. (I did that for 888 and it didn't work well for me at all!)

I love your categories! My friend Penny has recommended MC Beaton to me. I see we share a love of Gabaldon!

I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in 2008 at my sister's recommendation. Wow, it was thought-provoking!

Wise decision, not to take on too much at once, and thereby stab yourself in the foot before the race has even begun.

Actually, I'm just dropping a line to thank you, thank you, thank you for mentioning Dear Fatty. I love Dawn French but had no idea she'd written a book. You made my day!

bohemia, I confess I saw the book listed on somewhere else on LT and immediately added it to my list because I just love Dawn French.

Yay! First book of the year completed and it was a winner. It's like starting the day out right, to start the year with a decent, engrossing read. *blissful sigh*

So tell us about it? It was The Remains of the Day, wasn't it? I haven't read it and it feels like a gaping hole in my reading.

That's right, Remains of the Day was my first read and I loved it. The writing is so steady and fluid; the pace so fitting for the character telling his story.
It's a touching tale of inner-reflection and what it means to be loyal. I highly recommend it.

Oooh, I love your Genre Collage category! I might have to steal that idea...hope you don't mind. :)

Of course I don't mind if you use the genre category :)
I'm going to be asking for guidance on some of the genres soon that are not my typical choices for reading and I would like to choose a book that is fairly 'classic' within each genre.

So Many Books, So Little Time: A Year of Passionate Reading by Sara Nelson
999 Challenge Category: Fact, Not Fiction

This book found me in my favourite local used-bookstore while I was perusing the selection of books-about-books.
I found Sara Nelson's writing to be mostly pleasant and easy to read. The book did move to slightly deeper topics and longer chapters as it progressed but overall it was very simply written in a conversational style.
Nelson did not discuss books she actually read during the year(of passionate reading) as often as I expected given the title of this book. Instead, it was more an examination of books she'd read in years past; a rumination of events in her life and how they affected her reading choices. I enjoyed her views on the way books we read, and how we relate to them at a given time, can mimic our life in that moment. And of the connections between stories of different authors over expanding periods of time.
As I read along I considered checking out a few of the titles and authors presented... until I reached near the end of the book where Nelson declared how much she loved certain books that I had previously read and didn't feel the same way about at all. A sort of irony there as portions of this very book ponder the way we judge others by books they suggest to us and how it can change how we perceive someone if we disagree about how great or awful a book is.

Rating: A Pleasant Read

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
999 Challenge Category: 1001 Must Read books

This is a story of love and treachery. A story of two young women whose lives are more intertwined than either of them know.
I chose this book because I had heard many positive reviews and it's on my 999 Challenge list:1001 Must Read books category.

From the very beginning I was drawn right into the story through Sarah Waters' clever writing. She has a gift of words to keep a reader wanting more; knowing just when to reveal a plot twist and when to keep us guessing.
Her characters are believable in both their good and bad moments, and the setting (victorian London) is detailed with historical accuracy without ever feeling like a history lesson. I recently read The Woman in White and found Fingersmith very reminiscent of Wilkie Collins work, both the richly styled writing and storyline of two girls with secrets in the family leading to the madhouse.

Rating: Loved it and look forward to reading more of Sarah Waters' work in the future.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F Scott Fitzgerald
999 Challenge Category: Short Stories & Poetry

I was quite disappointed in this short story.
I am not familiar with F. Scott Fitzgerald's work so this was an introduction for me. I found the story rushed and simplistic; there was an unnecessary waste of words in a short story that could have been *more* with either a different writer, better editing, or a longer story format.

Rating: Just okay.

The Haunting by Shirley Jackson
999 Challenge Category: Genre Collage - Horror

I listened to this book narrated by David Warner as I read along on the page. The narration definitely added to my enjoyment of this novella, with Warner's voice keeping the tension high and a few notes of ominous music at the beginning of each chapter offering a few tingly feelings all their own.
The story is not 'horror' by modern standards but more an eerie character study of self confidence in mysterious circumstances. Throw a little insinuation into the mix and it's amazing where the human mind can take us.
Is the house haunted? Is it all a suggestive reaction by those who stay there?
Would you stay there overnight to find the answer?

Rating: Good stuff!

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
999 Challenge Category: Happenstance

Words that came to mind while reading this book:
Absorbing, Depressing, Sarcastic, Dire, Angst, Rambling, Sad, Vulnerable, Plaintive, and ultimately an extremely enjoyable read.

I never found the story riotously funny, rollicking or hilarious, as reviews splashed across the cover indicate. However I did laugh out loud, many times, but most especially when reading Jasper's accounts. His voice was so clearly man-child. The solutions he thinks of for situations he encounters mimic how I see my own 16 year old son responding to life. (And that's not really a safe and happy thought!)

Steve Toltz's writing is fluid and consistent which made this sometimes sad, sometimes bizarre, often satirical story a gratifying read. Highly recommended.

Favourite quote: "Silence that has been commanded is still very noisy."