Bookish Challenges

The Short Story Challenge

 This challenge was announced on Dec. 29th, 2007. Kate is the host of this wonderful challenge. I’ve always enjoyed reading short stories. Recently I have purchased a few short story anthologies, to read before retiring to bed. There are several options for this challenge. Due to my own personal time constraints, I’ve elected option 5, which is the custom option, allowing me to craft up a plan that suits me best. This option also allows me to include shorts I’m reading for a couple of online book groups.

Three Complete Anthologies:

• You’ve Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe. Edited by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard
• Chemistry and Other Stories-Ron Rash
• The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Comtemporary Short Stories. -Daniel Halpern

Various Short Stories:

• The Beast in the Jungle-Henry James
• The Heathen-Jack London
• The Coup de Grace-Ambrose Bierce
• The Open Boat-Stephen Crane
• The Black Cat-Edgar Allen Poe
• Baker’s Bluejay Yarn-Mark Twain

For the month of October I will be focusing on Horror, SciFi, Classic Gothic, etc.

• W.W. Jacobs, The Monkey’s Paw
• Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher
• Nathanial Hawthorne, Rappacini’s Daughter
• Shirley Jackson, The Lottery (A classic must read again!)
• Jerome Bixby, It’s a Good Life
• Philip K. Dick, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
• Guy de Maupassant, The Horla
• Isak Dinesen, The Monkey
• Daphne du Maurier, The Blue Lenses
• Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• M R James, Number 13
• Bram Stoker, The Judge’s House
• H P Lovecraft, The Picture in the House
• Edgar Allen Poe, The Strange Case of M Valdemar
• Algernon Blackwood, The Kit Bag
• Charles Dickens, To be Taken with a Grain of Salt
• Elizabeth Gaskell, The Grey Woman
• Charlotte Riddell, The Open Door

December with find me reading about Christmas of course!

• Holidays on Ice, David Sedaris (Six of David’s Christmas stories)

SantaLand Diaries

Season’s Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!

Dianh, the Christmas Whore

Front Row Center with Thaddeus Bristol

Based Upon a True Story

Christmas Means Giving

• The Gift of the Magi, O’Henry
• A Kidnapped Santa Claus, L. Frank Baum
• The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, Arthur Conan Doyle
• How Santa Claus Came to Simpson’s Bar, Bret Harte
• The Fir Tree, Hans Christain Andersen
• Markheim, Robert Louis Stevenson
• Bertie’s Christmas Eve, Saki
• Captain Eli’s Best Ear, Frank Stockton
• A Christmas Memory, Truman Capote
• At Christmas Time, Anton Chekhov
• An Old Time Christmas, Paul Laurence Dunbar
• Merry Folk, Hermann Sudermann
• Christmas Eve on Lonesome, John Fox, Jr.
• The Burglar’s Christmas, Willa Cather
• A Christmas Tree, Charles Dickens
• Christmas Comes but Once a Year, John Leighton
• The Blossoming Rod, Mary Stewart Doubleday Cutting
• Christmas Outside of Eden, Coningsby Dawson
• On Christmas Day in the Morning, Grace S. Richmond

 

 Suspense & Thriller Challenge

http://suspense-thriller-challenge.blogspot.com/

Rules:

Read 6 different sub-genres of thrillers for 2008

Read 6 different sub-genres of thrillers for 2009

Ends Dec. 2009

2008

• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (Legal Thriller)
• Deja Dead, Kathy Reichs (Forensic Mystery)
• Two for the Dough, Janet Evanovich (Comic Thrillers)
• Crime School, Carol O’Connell (Police Procedural Thrillers)
• The Godwulf Manuscript, Robert B Parker (Private Detective Mystery)
• “I” The Creation of a Serial Killer, Jack Olsen (True-Crime Thrillers)

 Chunkster Challenge 2008

 http://think_pink.typepad.com/books/chunky-isnt-always-bad.html?cid=95587776#comment-95587776

To qualify for this challenge the book must be 450 pps regular type or 750 pps large text

You must read FOUR chunksters

Challenge runs from Jan 7th, 2008-Dec 20th, 2008

• Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult (455pps)–Finished April 9th, 2008
• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (1074 pps)
• The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger (518 pps)

Nineteenth Century Women Writers Challenge 2008

http://blbooks.blogspot.com/2007/12/nineteenth-century-women-writers.html

Basic rule is if it was written between the years 1798-1902 it counts. Host Becky is asking for at least six books over the year. Challenge can overlap between challenges, say Becky’s Jane Austin Challenge.

• At Fault, Kate Chopin 1890
• Frankenstein, Mary Shelley 1818
• The Gate of the Giant Scissors , Annie Fellows Johnston 1898
• Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austin 1813
• Northanger Abbey, Jane Austin  1798
• The Leavenworth Case, Anna Katharine Green 1878

 Jane Austin Mini Challenge

http://blbooks.blogspot.com/2007/12/updates-on-austen-mini-challenge.html

This is another challenge by host Becky.

Rules are simple, either pick two Jane Austin Novels to read or watch two movies based on Jane Austin’s novels. PBS just had a mini series. I managed to DVR two. I didn’t know about PBS series until the last three weeks

I’ve choose to read two Novels:

• Pride and Prejudice
• Northanger Abbey