2015 - Challenges - Will I? Or Won't I?

I may have over-commited myself when planning my 2014 reading challenges!

I very nearly threw my hands up in despair last week when I started spotting 2015 challenges. I was adamant - NO! Not again.

But then I spotted Behold the Stars British Reading Challenge & Adam's TBR Challenge...and I started wondering....

Did I really do so badly with my 2014 challenges?
And even if I did, does it matter?

Thanks to all those challenges I met some fabulous new bloggers & read lots of great reviews for books I'd like to read one day.

Only one way to find....

To summarise:

My ability to keep my challenge page up to date & link appropriate reviews fell down about August. But with a bit of double-checking and cross-referencing I discovered...

Eclectic Reader Challenge - not as eclectic as I thought I was.
The bulk of my reading in 2014 was either 'award-winning', 'cosy-crime' or 'published this year'. I only read some Gothic books thanks to the Angela Carter Reading Week in June.

Around the World Challenge - success!
I planned to read 4 countries, but managed to read 8 (Australia, England, USA, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, France, India - & half a Russian!) Which makes me a 'casual tourist'.

Adam's TBR Challenge - I only read 4 of my nominated TBR list, although I actually read somewhere between 12-15 books from off my TBR pile anyway!

What's in a Name? Of the 5 categories I only fulfilled one. Although I fulfilled that one, over and over and over again! Who knew that I enjoyed reading books with people's first names in them so much?

Back to the Classics - of the 6 categories - I read more than one book from 5 of them. Even though I read a few war books this year, they were not classics alas.

History Reading Challenge - thanks to Aus-Reading Month & Non-Fiction November I finally finished a book on the Eureka Stockade to fulfill one read in this challenge.

Chunkster Reading Challenge - I read at least 4 chunksters this year - yay me!

Michael's Literary Exploration Challenge - I failed miserably at maintaining a goodreads page, but I did read out of 23 of the 36 categories in the Insane Challenge.

New Year's Resolution Reading Challenge - X

Books on France - big tick - at least 7 books completed.

Foodies Challenge - one book completed - review still to come.

Colour Coded Reading Challenge - 2 books

The Classics Club - 11 more books ticked off my list.

Lessons learnt?

I read classics, I read contemporary. I read historical fiction & non-fiction. I read translations and love books set in other countries. I love joining in readalongs & reading weeks. I read a LOT of Australian books.

So I guess that means I'm in!
In for another year of reading challenges, readalongs and reading weeks - although tailored towards my preferred reading genres and styles.

Behold the Stars: Reading England Challenge

Cambridgeshire - Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf (20th century)

Cheshire - Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell

Cornwall - Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier (reread) & Basil by Wilkie Collins (person's name)

Cumbra - Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte (woman author)

Derbyshire - Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

Devon - The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (novella)

Gloucestershire - Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee (non-fiction)

Hampshire - Watership Down by Richard Adams (reread) (children's)

Kent - Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens & Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man by Siegfried Sassoon

Lancashire - Mary Barton (19th century) and North & South by Elizabeth Gaskell (chunkster)

London - Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, The Diary of a Nobody by George & Wheedon Grossmith (humorous),  Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, Night and Day by Virginia Woolf & The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

All of these books are currently (languishing) on my shelves (or in the piles hidden behind my bedroom mirror!) Most of them are also on my Classics Club list.

The list (currently) consists of 16 books which means that I can also officially join in Adam's TBR Pile Challenge of 12 books from my TBR pile.

Karen's Back to the Classics is also (mostly) covered by the books above (notes in blue).
For the rest - a forgotten classic is Stoner by John Williams, a translation is The Dream by Emile Zola & a play is Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Ray Lawler (Australian).

On my left sidebar Plethora of Books has not only conceived a project after my own heart, but she has also designed the most exquisite badge ever.
I re-read at least one Austen every year, so it will be a pleasure to join in as time permits with this one.

Lois at You, Me and a Cup of Tea is also hosting a Birthday Reading Challenge. The idea is simply to read a book by an author who has a birthday during each month. Each month she will post a list of possible authors and a review link for that month. Could be fun.

I also plan to join the Australian Women Writers Challenge when they post their 2015 sign up as my reading & reviewing this year proved to be predominately Australian women writers.

Are you joining in any reading challenges in 2015?

2014 Challenges

It's that time of year - when the New Year challenge call goes out to those of us in blogger land.

Will we, or won't we join up? How many challenges? Will I keep to my plan? Or is simply something else to fail at?

So far I've avoided yearly challenges in my 5 years of blogging.
I love a read-along or a special event, like Austen in August or Pym reading week.

I adore The Classics Club with it's five year, open-ended plan to read 50 classics (or in my case 75). It's something I would have done anyway, but the CC actually gives me a purpose and reason  for those times I might feel a little unmotivated.

Given how much I've enjoyed the CC, I decided it was time to join in a few of the 2014 challenges on offer that might help me stay focused and give me a structure to fall back on.

Firstly, Adam @Roof Beam Reader is hosting The Official 2014 TBR Pile Challenge. His challenge is simple and goes like this...

This  challenge was started after I realized I had such an issue buying books but never reading them (not because I don’t read – but because I have such a book buying problem!). So, year after year, books would sit on my shelf, untouched, and I would end up reading newer ones first. I realized I was missing out on a lot of great books because I let them sit there gathering dust instead of reading them as I bought them.

The Goal: To finally read 12 books from your “to be read” pile (within 12 months).

Obviously, to anyone who has seen the pile of unread books by my bed, this challenge and I are a match made in heaven.

But because I like to make simple things difficult, I've decided to combine more than one challenge!

Onto Shelley Rae @Book'd Out and her Eclectic Reader Challenge. 

The idea is to read 12 books, one from each category listed below. I figured I had enough books in my TBR pile to cover the first 11 categories easily!

*  You can read your chosen titles in any order, at any pace, just complete the challenge by December 31st 2014 to be eligible for the prize drawing.

Categories

1. Award Winning  - The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (New Zealand)
2. True Crime (Non Fiction) 

3. Romantic Comedy 

4. Alternate History Fiction 

5. Graphic Novel 

6. Cosy Mystery Fiction 

7. Gothic Fiction 

8. War/Military Fiction 

9. Anthology 

10. Medical Thriller Fiction 

11. Travel (Non Fiction) 

12. Published in 2014 - The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

But to make life REALLY interesting, I discovered that Shannon @Giraffe Days is hosting an Around the World Challenge for 2014.

The idea is to read books set in "a specific country or region with a noticeable attention to location of environment."

She has allowed for different participation levels by creating 4 levels - the happy camper (min of 2 books), the wayfarer (min of 4 books), casual tourist (min of 6 books) & the seasoned traveller (12 book challenge).

The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata (Japan)
Parisians by Graham Robb (France)
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (India)

The list below makes me a Wayfarer, but I'm sure I will read more books from around the world as the year progresses.

My list is beginning to look a little something like this...

1. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Award Winning, TBR & North America)

2. Jerilderee Letter by Ned Kelly (True Crime, TBR & Australia)

3. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green (Rom Com & TBR)

4. 11/22/63 by Stephen King (Alt History & TBR)

5. The Walking Dead by Robert Kirkman (Graphic Novel & TBR)

6. Maisie Dobbs: Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear (Cosy Mystery, TBR & Britain)

7. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (Gothic, TBR & Classics Club)

8. Parade's End by Ford Maddox Ford (War, TBR & Classics Club)

9. The Philosophy of Food edited by David Kaplan (Anthology, TBR)

10. Next by Michael Crichton (this is the tricky one - Medical Thriller - my least favourite genre! This book is officially on Mr Books TBR pile and not mine, but it's in the house, unread by me, and as close as I'll  probably get !)

11. Thin Paths by Julia Blackburn (Travel, TBR & Italy)

12. TBA in 2014!

Adam wisely suggested having a couple of back up titles in case one or two of the above turn out to be duds or not do-able. 

1. The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov (War, TBR, Russia & Classics Club)

2. Sherlock Holmes (Cosy Mystery, TBR, Britain)

3. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (Award Winning, TBR, France)

4. Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (Award, TBR, Turkey)

All the books in the challenges below are also titles from my TBR piles! I'm hoping to really put a dint in it this year (as long as I resist the urge to keep adding to it!!)

What's in a Name? is being hosted by The Worm Hole.

The idea is to read a book that fits into the categories creatively designed by the host.

This year, the categories are (with some of my possibilities in brackets):

1.  A Reference to Time (11/22/63, Parade's End and Next)

2.  A Position of Royalty (Winter King, The Sun King, Children of the King)

3.  A Number Written in Letters (Ninety-Three, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness)

4.  A Forename or Names (Olive Kitteridge, An Abundance of Katherines, Elizabeth: My Royal Story, Eugenie Grandet, Villette, Nana & Maisie Dobbs: Elegy For Eddie)

5.  A Type or Element of Weather (Cold Spring Harbor, Summer Lies, Winter Journal)

Karen at Books and Chocolate is now hosting Back to the Classics.

Books must be at least 50 years old and fit the categories below:

1. A 20th Century Classic ( To the Lighthouse, Olive Kitteridge )
2. A 19th Century Classic (The Jerilderee Letters, Eugenie Grandet, Sherlock Holmes, No Name)
3. A Classic by a Woman Author (Villette)
4. A Classic in Translation  If English is not your primary language, then books originally published in English are acceptable.  You could also read the book in its original language if you are willing and able to do so. (something by Dostoyevski, Balzac (Eugenie Grandet) Proust, Emilé Zola (Nana) or Mikhail Bulgakov)
5. A Wartime Classic  2014 will be the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I.  Any book relating to a war is fine -- WWI, WWII, the French Revolution, the War of the Worlds -- your choice. (Parade's End, Ninety-Three, Regeneration)
6. A Classic by an Author Who Is New To You This can be any author whose works you have not read before.  It doesn't necessarily have to be an author you've never heard of.  (The Chateau by William Maxwell, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)

There are a number of other 2014 challenges around that my reading list above (& remaining TBR piles around the house) could also apply to. 

Such as:

Fanda @Classiclit who is hosting the History Reading Challenge (London by Peter Ackroyd, Culture & Imperialism by Edward W Said, The Boy: A Holocaust Story by Dan Porat, 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow by Adam Zamoyski, Marie Curie).

Michael +Literary Exploration who is hosting his annual Literary Exploration Challenge (it should be easy for me to complete the easy challenge, but a little more effort will be required to get through the next two levels - Click here for my Goodreads page for this challenge.

Joy's Book Blog and her New Years Resolution Reading Challenge (maybe I will finally tackle my 2013 What Colour is Your Parachute? book)

There's always the Chunkster Reading Challenge (The Luminaries, The Brothers Karamazov, No Name by Wilkie Collins, A Place of Greater Safety, Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee, The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee) 

Words and Peace's Books on France Reading Challenge (Father Gariot, Eugenie Grandet, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World, Paris at the End of the World, The Chateau, Chronicles of Old Paris, The Flaneur, The Devil's Pool, Indiana, The Reef, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Louise de la Valliere, Swann's Way, Parisians by Graham Robb).

The Foodie's Read (The Omnivore's Dilemma, Cooked & Season to Taste) 

Or the Colour Coded Reading Challenge (The White Earth, Olive Kitteridge, The Colour Purple, The Red Necklace, The Silver Blade, The Blue Castle) to keep me going!

Am I crazy? Have I been too ambitious? Or will it be a fun way to get through some of the books on my TBR pile in 2014?

Wish me luck !