Flight into Fantasy

2010 is really going to be the year of the reading challenges. I like that fact, because it means I get an excuse to reread all kinds of favorite books, plus I get to discover new authors in genres I wouldn’t have looked at otherwise.

I’m probably seriously overcommitting, too, but oh well. It’s all good.

Here are the challenges I’ve found out about this past week that I want to join.

First, we have something that’s not so much a challenge as a readalong. Kailana, one of my favorite bookish bloggers, is hosting a readalong of the Time Quartet by Madeleine L’Engle. Participating bloggers will be reading one book a month for the first part of 2010. The books consist of:

• A Wrinkle in Time

• A Wind in the Door
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet
• Many Waters
• An Acceptable Time

Kailana and I were also talking about reading House Like a Lotus and Arm of the Starfish I love House Like a Lotus and so will definitely reread that. Not sure about Arm of the Starfish, though, as it was one of my least favorite books in that interconnected arc.

I also discovered the 18th and 19th century women writers challenge hosted by Becky, who I seriously don’t think ever sleeps owing to the fact that she’s always got a million books on the go. That’s beside the point, though. The idea is to read at least two books in 2010 written by women writers of the 18th and 19th century. Here’s what I’m thinking about for this one.

• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

Next up we have the GLBT Reading Challenge. This one goes throughout 2010 as well, and I think I’m going to go for the pink triangle level, in which I read at least eight books. Given the amount of M/M romances I have yet to read, this one should be a breeze. My tentative reading list looks like this:

• Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters

• Everything You Have is Mine by Sandra Scoppettone
• Safe Harbor by Radclyffe
• The Adrian English Mysteries by Josh Lanyon (I have an omnibus of the first three, and I own the rest)
• False Colors by Alex Beecroft
• The Good Thief by James Buchanan

Next up is a challenge I would have participated in anyway, considering my reading preferences of late. I bring you the 2010 Young Adult reading challenge. I think I’ll try to read at least 25 books for this challenge, which, considering my love of YA, should be easy to accomplish.

Whew! I think that’s about it for this round of challenges. There is at least one more I’m excited about joining, but the website’s not up yet, so I’m going to have to learn patience.

Am I forgetting other challenges? Let me know in the comments.

I really should stop. And yet… My philosophy is: If I was going to read the books anyway, I might as well sign up for more challenges.

This time, courtesy of Arti, who, it turns out, I knew briefly before I started blogging, we have the flashback challenge. The idea is to reread books we’ve read in the past. I think I’m going to go for the literati level, which involves rereading six or more books.

I may change my list, but here’s what I’m thinking of.

Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• My Antonia by Willa Cather
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L’Engle
• Dolores Claybourne by Stephen King
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnette

Any favorite books you’ve been meaning to reread but haven’t managed?

I was going through my reading challenge list, and realized I’ve actually mostly completed the Herding Cats challenge. I’ve read five books on the official master list, of which I have reviewed only one in any meaningful way. I plan to use the list for recs so that I can hopefully review more books and therefore count myself as a real participant. The sad thing about my lack of real reviews is that my favorite book so far this year, Tender Morsels was on the Herding Cats list. And… I haven’t reviewed it. Mostly because I don’t think I have the words to express how much I loved it other than simply squeeing like an imbicilic fangirl.

But, despite a lack of reviews, reading 5 out of a 163 book recs list is pretty cool, so yay for that!

Anyway, last night, while blogsurfing, I ran across yet another challenge I can’t resist joining. I present the countdown 2010 challenge.

Here are the requirements:

• The goal of this challenge is to read the number of books first published in a given year that corresponds to the last digit of each year in the 2000s — 10 books from 2010, 9 books from 2009, 8 books from 2008, etc. The total number of books required, therefore, is 55.

• This challenge lasts from 9/9/09 through 10/10/10.
• Crossovers with other challenges are allowed and your lists may change at any time.
• Sign up using Mr. Linky.
• Have fun reading!

I figure this won’t be all that stressful, and though I do like the idea of reading challenges broadening my horizons, I’m not so fond of ones that I’m going to look at as homework.

Anyway, at least for now, that’ll be it on the reading challenge front.

I’ve been thinking of joining a couple more challenges, both of which are quite different in scope, and so I thought I would use this opportunity to announce my participation in both.

First of all, My Friend Amy, who is among my very favorite bloggers, is helping to organize the Christy Awards Challenge. This challenge celebrates quality Christian fiction, and I admit to being one of those bloggers who’s really, really not sure about that kind of thing. I mean, I read Slacktivist, who does a regular feature deconstructing the Left Behind series, the first book of which I tried to read and couldn’t finish and aside from Narnia when I was a kid and certain classics now that I’m in school, I haven’t read anything else. I’m also a pretty staunch agnostic, and, what with people constantly offering to pray for my immortal soul because God chose to punish me with blindness, I’m not such a huge fan of prosseletizing.

But I don’t want to dismiss an entire genre of fiction out of hand because I don’t have experience with it. I expressed my desire to try some non-preachy Christian fiction on twitter several months ago, with the caveat that I refuse to read anything written by either Tim LaHaye or Jerry B. Jenkins, because I’m fairly sure people watching my head explode would not be nearly so entertaining for me as for other people. And so the Christy Awards challenge (which, alas, does feature several books by Messrs. LaHaye and Jenkins) seemed like the perfect opportunity to find some Christian fiction I’d like.

There are several levels to the challenge, and I’m going to start at the total Christian fiction newbie, which requires me to read… count them… one book. I figure I can’t go wrong with such a non-rigorous amount of work. The one I’ve chosen is Phillip Gulley’s Home to Harmony , because friends of mine were reading that series together on a long car trip. I got to hear parts of one of the books, and found them quite funny. Plus, I believe the minister character is a Quaker, and if I were to embrace any sort of spiritual path at this point in my life, I think I’d pick liberal Quaker.

The other challenge I’m signing up for comes to us from Booking Mama, a blog I wasn’t following until I heard about this challenge from… some other person I have forgotten. She’s hosting the Shelf Discovery Challenge. I recently read Shelf Discovery and adored looking back nostalgically at the books I’d read from my childhood. (I read it during the time when I was woefully behind in my reviews, so suffice to say the book is awesome and you should read it.)

Anyway, this challenge runs from Nov. 1-April 30, and I’m to read six books featured in Shelf Discovery. So here are my tentative picks.

• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh

• The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (reread)
• Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Wifey by Judy Blume
• My Sweet Audrina by V C Andrews (this last because apparently I am a huge, huge masochist and don’t know when to quit.

To connect these two challenges together, the friend who read the Phillip Gulley books is a huge children’s book fan, and so after I read Shelf Discovery I emailed her and told her, quite strongly, that she should run, not walk, to acquire a copy of the book for herself. I know that she did, but sadly, I have no idea if she enjoyed the book as much as I did.

I suck very hard at challenges so far. I need to make a system that will work for me at keeping challenge stuff organized. But that said, I am going to join another one.

The Women Unbound reading challenge focuses on the broad area of women’s studies. As that is something I’d like to minor in, this seemed like an appropriate challenge to join.

Here is my list, so far:

• Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason

• Gate to Women’s Country by Sherry S. Tepper
• The Female Man by Joanna Russ
• Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio
• Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein

I think that’s a good list. If there’s anything else I should add, let me know in comments!

ETA: Ha! Using my mad spreadsheet skillz, I made myself a spreadsheet for challenges I’m participating in. Go me!

Well, tomorrow, it’s finally here. The 24-hour Readathon is tomorrow, and I am stoked.

Unfortunately, I have plans for a large part of the day, and I can’t pull an all-nighter because I have essays to write for school, but I am going to read as much as I can and cheer everyone else on.

Not sure how I’m going to update you all on my progress. I guess we’ll see how I’m feeling about blogging in general. I do know I’ll be tweeting a lot, so feel free to follow my updates if you don’t already. Also, be sure to check out the #readathon hash tag to see what other participants have to say.

It’s going to be an awesome time, and I can’t wait to participate.

The only book I know for sure I’m going to read is The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness, because I’m a little over halfway through and I think I can knock it out. As for other books, I have no idea. It will be a surprise!

I mentioned a few days ago that I couldn’t participate in the Dewey’s 24 hour Readathon even though I wanted to. I also mentioned that I’d be hosting a mini-challenge.

Well, here it is.

Write a letter to the protagonist of one of the books you’re reading. The letter can be about anything–why you like him or her, why you don’t like him or her, things you’ve learned from him or her. Post your letters either on your blogs or in the comments!

Have at it! You have until the end of hour 13–two hours!

And, where there is a challenge, of course, there must needs be prizes, and this one is no exception. For this challenge, I’m giving away Suzy’s zoo-themed gift bag with awesome reading-themed bookmarks and stationery from Bok Smith. Thanks for the awesome prize, Suzy!

I can’t wait to read what you have to write to your characters!

I like the idea of doing a short story feature every Sunday. The truth is that I seem to collect anthologies that I then don’t actually read because I’m afraid the short stories are all going to run together. So I’m hoping that my participation in the Once Upon a Time reading challenge will motivate me to keep reading short stories.

Anyway, I’ve chosen to review the first four short stories from the Chicks in Chainmail anthology edited by Esther M. Friesner. Friesner describes the book as “Amazon comedy”, and the first four stories certainly fit the mold.

I’m not going to assign letter grades to these stories, because they’re so short and I’m not even sure how I’d grade them. But here are my thoughts on the first four.

I found another reading challenge, linked to from several places, that I’m going to participate in. I figure if I don’t sign up for very many of these, and/or pick ones with reasonable numbers of books to read, I’ll be doing well.

I first heard about this one from Kailana and it looked like fun.

Here’s the place to go for the details.

Here are the rules Herding Cats II (April 1st, 2009 – December 31st, 2009):

1. Make a list of five books you love. Directions:

• Five. I’m as serious as a beached whale.
• All titles must be books you’ve read in 2007, 2008 or 2009.
• Please don’t list a series; just the first book. If you really want to list a book in the middle of a series, you can, but it has to be that specific book.
• Feel free to share why you’re putting the book on your list, because I am nosy.

2. Post your list:

• in your own journal, in the comments here, whatever is fine. Share the list here.
• Lists should be public (no locked entries, no logging in to view).

3. Browse the new book list. Stay a while. Read a few (eta: if you want; not even reading is required this time around if you don’t have time to commit to a new challenge but still want to share your favorites).

4. If you review your books, you can share the reviews. You know, if you want. No pressure. Definitely not.

I haven’t even looked at the list but listing favorites is always entertaining, even though narrowing it down to five books might be difficult.

Anyway, here’s the old college try:

• A Red Heart of Memories by Nina Kiriki Hoffman: This is beautifullywritten urban fantasy in the style of Charles de Lint and follows the adventures of Matt Black, a wanderer who can talk to inanimate objects, and the friends she gathers around her. All of them need healing, and all of them get it in a way that’s just very sweet and heartwarming.

• The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler: I thought this book handled the struggles of an overweight teenager extremely well. It goes on my list because I have actually reread it since, something I rarely do.
• The Keeper by Sarah Langan: I’m not normally a fan of horror, but I loved this book, especially for its sense of atmosphere and the utter creepiness of its backstory.
• Warrior’s Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold: This is the book that started my continuing and long-standing love affair with Miles Vorkosigan. I love Miles and I love Bujold.
• Geek Love by Katharine Dunn: This is another of my all-time favorite books ever. I love its exploration of family and what it means to be normal, and who exactly the freaks are.
• Happy Hour of the Damned by Mark Henry: Zombie chick lit! Come on, what’s not to love about that?

My selections from the list so far:

I just recently found out about the Once Upon a Time reading challenge. The idea is to read fantasy books between March 21 and June 2. This being me, this will not be a problem and I can definitely commit to five books in the fantasy, fairy tale, mythology, and folklore genres. I mean, it’ll give me an excuse to read more Charles de Lint. I also like the idea of doing short story reviews on the weekend that fit this theme, so I think I’ll dig into my collection of unread anthologies, pick one, and see how well I can do at reviewing short stories. Hopefully, we’ll see the first of these tomorrow.

I love the idea of reading challenges, but have tried not to sign up for any. I think the only other one I’m participating in is the TBR challenge hosted by Avid Reader, which I’m doing well with so far.

ETA: Clearly, I suck at being organized. For those interested, I have decided to do the first quest in this reading challenge, which goes like this:

Read at least 5 books that fit somewhere within the Once Upon a Time III criteria. They might all be fantasy, or folklore, or fairy tales, or mythology…or your five books might be a combination from the four genres.

My list, as of this exact second, is as follows: