Hemlokgang's 999 in 2009 Challenge

1) Books Older Than Me (I am 50, 51 in June 2009, so I will call it 51)
2) Books Younger Than Me
3) Authors I Have Never Read Before
4) African Authors
5) Books Over 500 Pages Long
6) Books Written in French
7) Non-Fiction (Probably my most challenging challenge)
8) Debut Novels
9) Collections of Short Stories




I am going to use a five ***** star rating system.

I have decided to have a tenth, bonus category which will be filled with the Book Club books I read this year, and this will be the only category in which I might have overlaps with other categories.

I liked your categories posted on the intro thread so I've wandered over. I'm going to be watching your French category -- I've chosen 9 books in German, but maybe I'll collect for a run at French next year.

My favorite book in French is by Francois Mauriac -- Therese Desqueyroux.

African authors will also be interesting--when will you start filling your categories?

Ridgeway, I read Therese Desqueyroux in college and cannot remember one single thing about the plot.......age.......
I will likely fill them as I go along, not starting until Jan. 1

Books Older Than I am (51):

1) Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
2) The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
3) The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
5) O Pioneers by Willa Cather - ****
4) Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott - *****
5) Adam Bede by George Eliot - ****
6) Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson - *****
7) Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson
8) The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - ****
9) Roxana, Or the Fortunate Mistress by Daniel Defoe

Books Younger Than I Am

1) The Shadow Catcher by Marianne Wiggins - *****
2) The Girl With No Shadow by Joanne Harris
3) The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa - *****
4) People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks - *****
5) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak - *****
6) So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger - *****
7) The Worst Thing I've Done by Ursula Hegi
8) Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch by Dai Sijie - *****
9) Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh

Authors I've Never Read Before:

1) Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff - ***
2) Rant by Chuck Palahniuk
3) Drop City by T. Coraghessan Boyle - **
4) The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass
5) The Casualty by Heinrich Boll - *****
6) House Made of Dawn by M. Scott Momaday
7) Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
8) The Warden by Anthony Trollope
9) The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster - *****

Africa:

1) The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood by Elspeth Huxley - *****
2) Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan
3) Tropical Fish: Tales From Entebbe by Doreen Baingana
4) Secrets by Nuruddin Farah - ****
5) Century of Locusts by Malika Mokeddem
6) Last Summer of Reason by Tahar Djaout - *****
7) Women of Algiers in Their Apartment by Assia Djebar
8) Shantytown Kid by Azouz Begag - ***
9) Tribal Scars by Sembene Ousmane - *****

Books Over 500 Pages Long:

1) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke - ***
2) The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy - *****
3) The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
4) The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
5) Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
6) The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by Alvaro Mutis
7) Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Helprin
8) A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
9) The Border Trilogy by Cormac McCarthy

Books in French:

1) Metaphysique des tubes by Amelie Nothomb
2) Hygiene de l'assassin by Amelie Nothomb
3) Biographie de la faim by Amelie Nothomb
4) Au Bonheur des dames by Emile Zola
5) Veronika decide de mourir by Paulo Coelho
6) Fanfan by Alexandre Jardin
7) L'Assommoir by Emile Zola
8) Therese Raquin by Emile Zola - ***** (Great to read in French again!)
9) Une Enfance Algerienne by Leila Sebbar

Non-Fiction:

1) Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama - ****
2) A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger - ****
3) Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
4) The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin
5) Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See by Robert Kurson
6) Truman by David McCullough
7) Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician by Anthony Everett
8) The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq by Bing West
9) Head Cases:Stories of Brain Injury and Its Aftermath by Michael Paul Mason - ***

Debut Novels:

1) The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski****
2) A Pale View of the Hills byKazuo Ishiguro - *****
3) The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway - ****
4) Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels - *****
5) The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan - ****
6) The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan
7) The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
8) A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz
9) The House on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford - ****

Short Story Collections:

1) The Means of Escape by Penelope Fitzgerald - *****
2) The Taker and Other Stories by Rubem Fonseca - *****
3) Flights of Love by Bernhard Schlink
4) The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield - ****
5) Haroun and The Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
6) Borges: Collected Fiction by Jorge Luis Borges - ***
7) Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami - ***
8) The Boat by Nam Le - ****
9) Wild Nights: Stories of the Last Days of Poe, Dickinson, James, and Hemingway by Joyce Carol Oates - *****

Book Club Reads for 2009:

January - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
February - No Meeting
March - Dreams of My Father & The Audacity of Hope, both by Barack Obama
April - Jim the Boy by Tony Earley, "If All Rochester Reads...." 2009 selection
May - The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
June - The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
July - The Sailor from Gibraltar by Marguerite Duras
August - The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
September - Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
October - Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
November - So Long See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell
December - Einstein's Dream by Alan Lightman

I have a long-book category in my 999 too, and keep adding Don Quixote and crossing it off. If not this year, soon...

I also like your category of debut novels. They can be a writer's most intense work (fictionalized autobiography, I often suspect), although also sometimes their roughest. I started using it as a tag this year and now need to go through my whole library.

Head Cases looks really interesting - it's going on my wishlist! I'd never heard of it before - thanks!!

And we're off! Where to start? Where to start?

Unexpected overlap. The Casualty is actually a collection of short stories and I did not realize that. However, it is in my new to me authors category and I think I will note the overlap, but not make any changes to the list. Perhaps if I get desperate near the end of the year I will make changes to ease the burden, but I hope it will not come to that. Since it is only the very beginning of the year, my optimism is boundless!

My URL is also now on my profile page.

Really great looking choices! Good luck!

So much fun to read in French again. Emile Zola is an amazing writer!

Wonderful read.....The Story of Edgar Sawtelle!

I like your books in French category but I might just a little bit biased since I recommended three of those books! ;)
I hope you enjoy all of the Nothomb.

I think you'll really enjoy Au bonheur des dames. The amount of detail in that novel is quite impressive. I strongly await your opinion on it. :)

I am really enjoying the 999 Challenge so far. It keeps my reading nicely rounded. I am sneaking in a few titles not on the list too, which is very satisfying.

The Book Thief was marvelous!

Glad to heat that. It's on my list for this year. This summer I'm planning on choosing only "marvelous" books! :-)
I'll move The Book Thief to the "summer shelf."

Well, so far this year I have learned a lot about this challenge and will set it up a little more realistically next year.