Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The Year of Reading Dangerously

From: All 0f 2008
Host: Estella's Revenge

Estella's Revenge is jumping into the world of reading challenges, and Heather and Andi have an exciting one planned for 2008. The goal of the challenge is to read authors that intimidate you. To help out, they have 12 official selections, and each month will form a discussion around that book. I plan on choosing some of Estella's selection, and mix it in with some of my own if I have already read a book, or in the case of Margaret Atwood, would not consider intimidating, since she is my favorite author. I am especially looking forward to the book discussions! My choices are highlighted in red.

January: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (finished 3 January 2008)
February: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (finished 12 February 2008)
March: (Atwood for Atwood's sake)Cat's Eye, by Margaret Atwood
I am substituting Shakespeare
April: (Poetry) Transformations, by Anne Sexton
May: (Southern) Other Voices, Other Rooms, by Truman Capote a book by Flannery O'Connor or William Faulkner
June: (Russian) Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov a book by Dostoevsky or Tolstoy
July: (adolescent) The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier - or- Island of the Blue Dolphins
August:
(Graphic Novel, Pulitzer winner) Maus I and II, by Art Spiegelman
September:
(Independent) The Secret Lives of People in Love, by Simon Van Booy
October:
(Contemporary/Jewish) The Human Stain, by Philip Roth
November: A Month of Classic Short Stories, Various - watch for a list
December: (Dusty) The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell

4 comments:

Estella said...

Great list!!! I especially want to read some Faulkner soon. Mayyyybe one day. :) Maybe I'll do it as an extra credit to this challenge.

Andi

Anonymous said...

Great list. I am still struggling with what I want to read for this challenge. I like a lot of the ones Andi and Heather came up with but I've got some ideas of books that intimidate me and this would be a great way to finally get to them. We'll see.

Dewey said...

I'm thinking about this, but I've read all their selections except two. So I'm not sure if I want to join, because that would mean choosing mostly alternate selections, and therefore not being able to join the discussions, or rereading some books I'm not really that interested in rereading right now. But I might join anyway, and do the rereading, just for the fun of the discussions! Your alterenates are interesting.

Anonymous said...

Yikes,that's some list! Now I'm intimidated!
Stephanie
www.thewrittenword.wordpress.com