Current Reading Challenges

This is a sticky post to hold all my current reading challenges.
When challenge is completed, I'll remove it from this list and copy the wrap up post below this Current Challenges post

2009 TBR Challenge

Primary List:
Love Lies Bleeding
Aunt Dimity Digs In
Coyote
Cross Country Quilters
Chamomile Mourning
Hammerhead Ranch Motel
The Bookman's Wake
Delusion
4th of July
Buried Bones
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Pardonable Lies


Alternate List:
Stalking the Angel
The Apprentice
Lost City
Mary, Mary
Deadly Decisions
Reunion in Death
Cold is the Grave
Play Dead
Beyond Reach
To Darkness and Death
A Body to Die For
Higher Authority

The Support Your Local Library Challenge

Trying for 50, I'll list them as I finish them since I'm not required to list them ahead of time

1. Love Lies Bleeding
2. Coyote
3. Aunt Dimity Digs In
4. The Bookman's Wake
5. 47 Rules of Highly Effective Bank Robbers
6. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
7. Murder on a Girls' Night Out
8. Delusion
9. Pardonable Lies
10. Little Bee
11. Susannah's Garden
12. The Cross-Country Quilters
13. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
14. The Leisure Seeker
15. Stalking the Angel
16. Buried Bones
17. Cold is the Grave
18. Murphy's Law
19. Back on Blossom Street
20. Cutting for Stone
21. Higher Authority
22. The Hunger Games
23. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
24. Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood at FDR's Polio Haven
25. Haunted Ground
26. The Apprentice
27. Charity Girl
28. The Secret Keeper
29. Dark Places
30. Fever 1793
31. Rebecca

The Southern Reading Challenge

Will read 3 of these

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
Warm Springs: Traces of a Childhood at FDR's Polio Haven
Chamomile Mourning
Jacob's Ladder
Dark End of the Street

What's in a Name? 2 Challenge Completed

I’m only participating in a few challenges this year and I’ve completed the first of them. It’s the What’s in a Name 2 Challenge, hosted by Annie.

Last year Annie came up with a clever idea for a challenge that ended up being a lot of fun for me. This year she tweaked it just a bit to keep the same format, but different categories.

For this year’s challenge readers were required to read 6 books. The books had to be chosen based on words their titles matching up wth the six categories. I easily found books that fit the challenge from my TBR list.

The books I read for each category were:

A book with a "profession" in its title: The Bookman’s Wake by John Dunning – in the second in the series Cliff Janeway takes a job that leads him to rainy Seattle and lots of mystery in a story that reads like an old black and white movie.

A book with a "time of day" in its title: Murder on a Girls’ Night Out by Anne George - The first in a cozy series featuring Alabama sisters who find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation .

A book with a "relative" in its title: Aunt Dimity Digs In by Nancy Atherton – the fourth book in a charming cozy mystery series featuring a helpful ghost.

A book with a "body part" in its title: Buried Bones by Carolyn Haines – another cozy series with a ghost, but this one has an attitude along with a bunch of southern charm.

A book with a "building" in its title: Hammerhead Ranch Motel by Tim Dorsey – the second in the Serge Storms series has Serge off his meds and as insane as ever.

A book with a "medical condition" in its title: Delusion by G.H. Ephron – second book featuring forensic psychologist Dr. Peter Zaks.

This is a great challenge because the books end up being such a variety. Annie – if you’re reading this, I hope you do this again next year!!

2nds Challenge Completed

This was one of my favorite challenges last year, so I was happy to see Joy hosting this again for 2008 and didn’t hesitate to join again.

WHO: Anybody
WHAT: Read 4 books by authors that you have only read one other
WHERE: "Thoughts of Joy..."
WHEN: September, October, November and December, 2008WHY: Because we love to read...why else?

When scanning my TBR list for books for this challenge I found the same thing as last year – it took me all of about 3 minutes to find plenty of authors with book #1 marked as read and book #2 as not read.

These are the books I read for this year’s challenge:

• The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel – her first novel is quite different from her memoir A Girl Named Zippy, but I really enjoyed it.
• Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs – an interesting medical mystery series that can be a bit detail heavy at times, but the mystery is interesting.
• The Treatment by Mo Hayder – Hayder’s books are not for the faint of heart, but if you survived Birdman, read this.
• Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George – I’m wishing I started reading this series years ago, but it gives me lots to look forward to.

I had fun with this challenge and enjoyed all of the books I read. Thanks for hosting this one again, Joy.

A to Z Challenge Completed

Joy sucked me into this one. In 2006, way back before I started my blog and joined my first reading challenge, I did my own alphabetical challenge. I read (in order) an A to Z by title list of books, followed by an A to Z by Author list. It was fun and I said I probably wouldn’t do it again. Then last year, Joy posted that she was hosting an A to Z reading challenge for 2009. I wavered back and forth for a while and finally decided to give it a shot. I liked the idea of not limiting myself to reading the 52 books in order, but just filling in my list as I finished the books. The requirements really weren’t that strict.

~ align the author's last name or the title of a book (excluding "the", "a", etc.) with its corresponding letter in the alphabet
~ enter a different book for each author and title (total of 52 books)
~ complete the alphabet lists anyway that suits your fancy (i.e.: complete each list separately in alphabetical order, read both "A" entries, then "B" entries, fit whatever you're reading into either list, etc.)
~ complete the challenge in the year 2008
~ enjoy the experience!

Doing this for a second time was a fun experience. I enjoyed most of the books I read. I was able to include many books I was reading for other challenges and only had to really search for a few authors or titles to fill in the blanks.

My list of completed books is here (links are to the reviews on this blog)

Author List

1. Atkins, Ace - Leavin’ Trunk Blues
2. Barnes, Linda - The Snake Tattoo
3. Cussler, Clive - White Death
4. Dorsey, Tim - Florida Roadkill
5. Ephron, G.H. - Amnesia
6. Forster, E.M. - A Room with a View
7. Gruen, Sarah - Water for Elephants
8. Hammett, Dashiell - The Maltese Falcon
9. Ishiguro, Kazuo - The Remains of the Day
10. Jordan, Hillary - Mudbound
11. Koryta, Michael - Tonight I Said Goodbye
12. Levin, Ira - Rosemary’s Baby
13. Macomber, Debbie - 74 Seaside Avenue
14. Notaro, Laurie - The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club
15. O’Farrell, Maggie - The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
16. Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
17. Quinlan, Patrick - Smoked
18. Rosenfelt, David - Dead Center
19. Schein, Elyse - Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
20. Tarkington, Booth - The Magnificent Ambersons
21. Uruburu, Paula - American Eve
22. Van Ryn, Don and Susie - Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope
23. Wood, Patricia - Lottery
24. Xi, Xu - The Unwalled City
25. Yarbrough, Steve - The End of California
26. Zellnik, M.J. - Murder at the Portland Variety

Title List

1. Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed by Nancy Atherton
2. Black Wind by Clive and Dirk Cussler
3. City Boy by Herman Wouk
4. The Diamond by Julie Baumgold
5. Echo Burning by Lee Child
6. Faithless by Karin Slaughter
7. A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
8. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
9. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
10. The Jasmine Moon Murder by Laura Childs
11. The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander
12. London Bridges by James Patterson
13. The Monkey’s Raincoat by Robert Crais
14. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
15. Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming
16. Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie
17. Queen Victoria: A Personal History by Christopher Hibbert
18. Rueful Death by Susan Wittig Albert
19. Smonk by Tom Franklin
20. Them Bones by Carolyn Haines
21. Undercurrents by Ridley Pearson
22. Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult
23. The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
24. X-Treme Dating by Cathy McDavid
25. The Yellow Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
26. The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman

It was enjoyable to do this alphabetical challenge a second time. I probably won’t do it again any time soon since I’ve now done it in slightly different formats twice within 3 years. For those who haven’t tried this yet, I’d encourage you to give it a shot at least once. You’d be surprised how many you’d get just by random selection of your normal reading and you never know when you’ll discover a very good title or author you wouldn’t have read without needing “that letter”.

Chunkster Challenge 2008 Completed

This challenge was pretty much a no-brainer for me. I love big fat chunky books. I remember when I was a kid I’d go to the library and browse the shelves for the fat books. I think that’s what helped develop my liking for biographies and historical fiction

Dana hosted this year’s version of THE CHUNKSTER CHALLENGE 2008

These were the guidelines:
To qualify the book must be 450 pps regular type OR 750 pps large text.
You must read FOUR chunksters (one each quarter), you OBVIOUSLY may read more
The Challenge will run Jan 7th, 2008 - Dec 20th, 2008 . . . BUT any chunkster started after Jan 1 qualifies.

I listed 6 books to read for this challenge. I’ve actually read 12 books so far this year that were longer than 450 pages, (and have at least one and maybe two more before the year is out) but I’ll post the ones I had specified to read for the challenge here.

• Faithless by Karin Slaughter – book # 5 in her Grant County series. It’s a brutal but well written series that I continue to enjoy despite the cringeworthy aspects and one character that I really don’t like at all.
• Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak - a classic that I’d never read (nor have I seen any movie version). I thoroughly enjoyed it. A great wintertime read.
• Peter the Great by Robert Massie - a huge sweeping biography of a fascinating man.
• Black Wind by Clive and Dirk Cussler – another one of my brain candy series.
• The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone - Biographical fiction about Michelangelo and his work.
• Trinity by Leon Uris - big fat chunky historical fiction about Ireland in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s

Thanks Dana – this was an easy challenge for me to complete. I appreciate you taking it on and hosting it this yearl

Decades 08 Challenge Completed

3M hosted another Decades Challenge this year – appropriately named Decades 08. I didn’t participate in the 2007 version of this, but the rules for the 2008 version made it just too hard to pass up:
The rules were simple:

1. Read a minimum of 8 books in 8 consecutive decades in ‘08.

2. Books published in the 2000’s do not count.

3. Titles could be cross-posted with any other challenge.

4. You could change your list at any time.

I started with a list of 11 books from the 1880’s through the 1980’s. I knew that somewhere along the way I’d read a 1990’s book to round out a dozen decades.

These are the books I read for this challenge:

• 1880’s -

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson – a fun classic.

1890’s - The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells - A Science Fiction Classic that I’m very glad I finally read.

1900’s - A Room With a View by E.M Forster - I really enjoyed this book and the movie too.

1910’s - The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington - an American classic about changing times.

1920’s - The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - lighthearted humor that has withstood the test of time.

1930’s - The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett - a classic of noir detective fiction that I should have read ages ago.

1940’s - City Boy by Herman Wouk - a charming tale of growing up with a bit of humor tossed in with the heartwarming stuff and nostalgia.

1950’s - Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak - a classic that I’d never read (nor have I seen any movie version). I thoroughly enjoyed it. A great wintertime read.

1960’s - The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone - Biographical fiction about Michelangelo and his work.

1970’s - Trinity by Leon Uris - big fat chunky historical fiction about Ireland in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.

1980’s - Peter the Great by Robert Massie - a huge sweeping biography of a fascinating man.

1990’s - Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey - Pulp Fiction takes Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride through Florida – only for those with a twisted sense of humor

Many, many thanks to 3M for a wonderfully organized challenge and challenge blog. I had a great time. If you haven’t done a Decades challenge yet, I strongly encourage you to give it a try with Decades 09.

Medical Mystery Challenge Completed

I was happy to do this challenge again this year. Last year’s challenge was a lot of fun and introduced me to several new authors. This year’s challenge gave me incentive to read more of their books.

WHAT: Pick anywhere from 3 or more medical mysteries/thrillers to read and discuss with fellow medical thriller fans. (Last year was 2 - this year I'm upping it to 3 :-)
WHEN: June 1 to November 1WHO: AnyoneWHERE: Hosted by Twiga
WHY: Seeing others' lists would give us more ideas of other medical thrillers out there that we might not be aware of yet. Those that want to read the same books can do buddy reads if they'd like.
HOW: Post the list of medical thrillers that you plan to read on your blog and then sign up in the comments to this post.

These are the books I read for this challenge:

• Private Practices by Stephen White – The second in a series featuring psychologist Dr. Alan Gregory. I enjoy both the characters and the Colorado setting.
• Addiction by G.H. Ephron – another second in a series featuring a psychologist (looks like a trend). This one is Dr. Peter Zaks and is set in the Boston area.
• Side Effects by Michael Palmer – not the best nor the worst medical thriller I’ve read, but OK for a vacation book.
• Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs – yet another second in a series, this time around it’s a forensic anthropologist. Scientifically detailed, but a series I’ll definitely continue.

The only disappointment was Side Effects. All the others were second in series books and I’ll be continuing with all three of those series. If this challenge shows up again next year, that will be the perfect opportunity.