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Leslie's 2013 Challenges
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I am just going to jot down here books I read that have been translated and from what language - I'll have more than usual due to the Russian literature I'm reading this year plus Read the World - Scandanavia!Books in Translation
From Russian
Notes from Underground
Anna Karenina
The Cherry Orchard
White Nights and Other Stories
The Enchanted Wanderer: Selected Tales
The Death of Ivan Ilych
From French
Gargantua and Pantagruel (DNF)
Tartuffe Or, the Hypocrite
The Misanthrope
The Madman of Bergerac
The Lark
The School for Husbands
From Italian
The Sonnets, Triumphs, And Other Poems Of Petrarch (DNF)
Six Characters in Search of an Author
From Polish
Quo Vadis **also Nobel Prize winner in literature
From Greek
Lysistrata
The Odyssey
From Persian (Farsi)
The Rubaiyat of Khayyam
From Danish
The Keeper of Lost Causes
Seven Gothic Tales
Andersen's Fairy Tales
Winter's Tales
Tales of the Night
From Icelandic
Silence of the Grave
Voices
The Draining Lake
Arctic Chill
Hypothermia
From Finnish
Finn Family Moomintroll
From Norwegian
Hedda Gabler
A Doll's House
The Wild Duck
The Pillars of Society
The Master Builder
From Swedish
The Laughing Policeman
Faceless Killers
The Man Who Went Up in Smoke
The Inspector and Silence
The Man on the Balcony
Miss Julie
The Fire Engine that Disappeared
Murder at the Savoy
From Japanese
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Challenge #6: Here is my READ AROUND THE USA Challenge for the Cozy Mysteries group (starting 8/2012)Progress: 30/51
Alabama -- Dog River Blues
Delaware
District of Columbia -- Murder Takes the Cake
Idaho --
Indiana -- Death of the Couch Potato's Wife
Kansas --
Kentucky -- Death By a Honey Bee
Michigan -- Murder Passes the Buck
Missouri
Montana -- Courthouse Cowboys
New Hampshire -- An Appointment With Murder
New Jersey -- The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax??
North Dakota -- January Exposure
Ohio -- A Shot in the Bark
Oklahoma
Oregon -- Deadly Aim
Rhode Island
Tennessee -- A Cutthroat Business
Utah -- Black Diamond Death
West Virginia -- Moon Signs
Wyoming
Leslie - you don't have anything for Kansas. Have you read Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn?
Chris wrote: "Leslie - you don't have anything for Kansas. Have you read Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn?"No, in fact I have never read anything by her. Thanks for the suggestion! My biggest problem is time :P
Challenge #8: to read at least 3 books each month from the Guardian listrunning total = 94 (& 2 DNF) + 4 (part of series) + 1 this month so far
January- 10 + 1 from "Dance to the Music of Time"
·Thomas Hardy: The Mayor of Casterbridge & Jude The Obscure
·Ian Fleming: Casino Royale
·Thorne Smith: Topper Takes a Trip
·Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse-Five & Breakfast of Champions
·Wilkie Collins: The Moonstone
·Anthony Powell: The Acceptance World (book #3 of A Dance to the Music of Time)
·Fyodor Dostoevsky: Notes from the Underground
·Walter Mosley: Devil in a Blue Dress
·Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall
February- 11
·Phillip Pullman: His Dark Materials (all 3 books of the trilogy)
·Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
·Muriel Spark: A Far Cry from Kensington;
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie;
The Driver's Seat;
The Girls of Slender Means
·Robert A. Heinlein: Stranger in a Strange Land
·P.D. James: The Children of Men
·H.G. Wells: The War of the Worlds
·Larry Niven: Ringworld
·Jules Verne: Journey to the Center of the Earth
March- 12 + 2 from "Dance to the Music of Time" + 1 DNF
·Flann O'Brien: The Third Policeman
·Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus & Wise Children
·François Rabelais: Gargantua and Pantagruel (DNF)
·Evelyn Waugh: Scoop
·Sylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes
·Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars
·Michael Chabon: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
·Michael Innes: Death at the President's Lodging (Seven Suspects)
·Anthony Powell: At Lady Molly's & Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (book #4-5 of “A Dance to the Music of Time")
·Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: A Study of Scarlet
·Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth
·W. Somerset Maugham: Cakes and Ale
·G.K. Chesterton: The Man Who Was Thursday
April- 9 + 1 from Discworld series
·Anna Sewell: Black Beauty {reread}
·Helen Fielding: Bridget Jones's Diary
·A.S. Byatt: Possession
·Evelyn Waugh: A Handful of Dust
·Elizabeth Gaskell: North and South (audiobook)
·Arnaldur Indriðason: Silence of the Grave
·Anthony Trollope: The Last Chronicle of Barset
·Penelope Fitzgerald: The Blue Flower
·Louisa May Alcott: Little Women (audiobook) {reread}
·Terry Pratchett: Guards! Guards! (Discworld)
May - 12
·A.S. Byatt: The Virgin in the Garden
·James Lee Burke: The Tin Roof Blowdown (audiobook)
·Carson McCullers: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter & The Member of the Wedding
·Anthony Trollope: The Way We Live Now
·Evelyn Waugh: The Loved One
·George Orwell: Burmese Days & Animal Farm {reread}
·Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö: The Laughing Policeman
·Johnston McMulley: The Mark of Zorro
·Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence (audiobook)
·Elizabeth Gaskell: Cranford (audiobook)
June - 8 + 1 DNF
·Rose Macaulay: The Towers of Trebizond
·Haruki Murakami: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (audiobook)
·James M. Cain: Double Indemnity
·Graham Greene: The Power and the Glory
·W. Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage
·Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die
·J.G. Ballard: Crash (DNF)
·Samuel Butler: Erewhon
·Colin Dexter: Last Seen Wearing
July - 7
·Victor Hugo: Les Misérables
·Georges Simenon: The Madman of Bergerac
·Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale (audiobook)
·Marilynne Robinson: Gilead
·Jack London: The Call of the Wild (audiobook) {reread}
·H. Rider Haggard: King Solomon's Mines (audiobook)
·Barbara Pym: Excellent Women
August - 9
·Kurt Vonnegut: The Sirens of Titan
·P.G. Wodehouse: Thank You, Jeeves (audiobook) {reread}
·Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana (audiobook)
·Eric Ambler: A Coffin for Dimitrios
·Patrick O'Brian: Master and Commander (audiobook) {reread}
·John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy {reread}
·Robert Louis Stevenson: Treasure Island (audiobook) {reread}
·Graham Greene: This Gun for Hire (A Gun for Sale)
·Arthur Conan Doyle: Hound of the Baskervilles
September - 6
·Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
·Charlotte Brönte: Jane Eyre (audiobook) {reread}
·Graham Greene: The Ministry of Fear
·William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying {reread}
·E.M. Forster: A Room With a View
·Joseph Conrad: The Secret Agent
October - 4
·Herman Melville: Moby Dick (audiobook)
·Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
·James Joyce: A Portrait of the Author as a Young Man (audiobook & Kindle)
·Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables (audiobook & print)
November - 6
·Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass (audiobook) {reread}
·Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God
·John Galsworthy: The Man of Property (book 1 of "The Forsyte Saga")
·Noel Streatfeild: Ballet Shoes (audiobook)
·Tony Hillerman: Dance Hall of the Dead (audiobook) {reread}
·John Wyndham: The Midwich Cuckoos
December - 1
·P.G. Wodehouse: Joy in the Morning (audiobook)
·Max Beerbohm: Zuleika Dobson currently reading
·
Since I seem to be doing an Angela Thirkell challenge already, I thought I would add it here. The challenge is to read her Barchester series, listed below.·The Demon in the House - (1934)
·Happy Returns - (1952)
·Jutland Cottage - (1953)
·What Did it Mean? - (1954)
·Enter Sir Robert - (1955)
·Never Too Late - (1956)
·A Double Affair - (1957)
·Close Quarters - (1958)
·Love at all Ages - (1959)
·Mrs. Morland & Son - (1960) (A book of four Angela Thirkell short stories.)
·Three Score and Ten - (1961) (Completed by C.A. Lejeune after AT's death.)
Reading Scandinavia list: (6 month challenge from Perks) April-Sept. 2013books with bold dates were from my original list for this challenge
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
The Red Room by August Strindberg
Sidetracked by Henning Mankell (Sweden)
Wow, brilliant lists Leslie! I recognise a lot of books that I'm aiming to read this year, but quite agree there are too many books and too little time!
Pink wrote: "Wow, brilliant lists Leslie! I recognise a lot of books that I'm aiming to read this year, but quite agree there are too many books and too little time!":) I would love to take credit but it comes from reading off the Guardian's list! I am only about 24% done so I have years of reading from it to go!
I have lists upon lists on my computer of bestsellers and must read books. The same names seem to crop up on most of them though and I'm working my way through as best I can. You seem to have quite a mix of books, like I try to, do you have a favourite genre or writing period?
I agree that certain books seem to be on all the lists so I try to put those higher on my TBR. My favorite genre is mystery/crime books (especially from the so-called Golden Age of Mysteries 1925-1950 or so) but this year I have been drawn to reading humor/satire. Guess I feel like I need the cheerfulness to balance out the darkness of some of the modern mysteries! The mix comes from trying to match books from the Guardian list with the Perks monthly authors and the Broaden Your Horizons genres.
Mod
Alannah wrote: "I love The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, so witty."Yes, I love almost all his plays but this is my favorite <3
As of yesterday, I have completed my 100,000 page challenge!! 58,212 pages so far in 2013 and 102,226 pages since I began the challenge in 2012. *pats self on back*
Mod
58,212 pages so far in 2013 and 102,226 pages since I began the challenge in 2012. *pats self on back*"
Well Done! That's great.
Mod
Yes, I love almost all his plays but this is my favorite <3"
I have only read The Importance of Being Earnest and A Women of No Importance but preferred TIOBE a lot more.
@Alannah, thanks! and if you ever have the urge to read more of Wilde's plays, try An Ideal Husband. It has more social commentary than TIOBE but good fun!
Mod
Cool, I'll make sure to check it out.
August summary of progress:I have now completed challenges #7 & #1 (100,000 pages);
#2 (plays) - read Love's Labour's Lost and Miss Julie
#3 (poetry) - Answering Back: Living Poets Reply to the Poetry of the Past
#4 (short stories) - Tales of the Night
#5 (Trollope) - Phineas Finn
#6 (Read the USA mysteries) - Maui Widow Waltz, Hawaii
#8 (Guardian list) - 9
Sept. progress:#1 (pages) - completed
#2 (plays) - 3: The Lark, Henry V, and The Importance of Being Earnest
#3 (poetry) - I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats
#4 (short stories) - The Return of Sherlock Holmes & The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick 1: The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford
#5 (Trollope) - The Eustace Diamonds
#6 (Read the USA mysteries) - The Book of Old Houses (ME) & Moonlighting in Vermont (VT)
#7 (Russian) - completed
#8 (Guardian) - 6 (see message 6 for list)
and for my Thirkell challenge, I read The Old Bank House
My A-to-Z challenge seems to not have made it here from Perks... but luckily I had it elsewhere also :) done! 2013 A to Z challenge
I got this idea from another group. A year-long challenge in which you try to read one book for each letter of the alphabet - the book's title or author's name must start with the letter. (The words A, An, and The at the beginning of the title can be ignored) No genre restriction but the more mysteries, the better.
I'm putting my mysteries in bold.
A = Aunt Dimity's Death by Nancy Atherton (1/1)
B = Buck Fever by Ben Rehder (2/13)
C = Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (1/3)
D = Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (1/26)
E = Earthly Delights by Kerry Greenwood (2/8)
F = Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler (2/5)
G = A Grave Talent by Laurie R. King (3/3)
H = Henning Mankell's 'Faceless Killers' (6/15)
I = In the Blood by Steve Robinson (3/12)
J = James M. Cain's 'Double Indemnity' (6/3)
K = The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (4/3)
L = Lord of the Silent by Elizabeth Peters (1/13)
M = The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1/11)
N = Nearly Departed in Deadwood by Ann Charles (1/29)
O = Oolong Dead by Laura Childs (3/1)
P = Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall's 'The Man Who Went Up in Smoke' (6/20)
Q = Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (3/24)
R = Red, Green, or Murder by Steven F. Havill (2/19)
S = The Skull Beneath the Skin by P.D. James (1/24)
T = Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes by Denise Grover Swank (1/30)
U = An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James (1/15)
V = Van Dine's 'The Bishop Murder Case' (2/26)
W = The Wicked Wager by Anya Wylde (1/19)
X = The Xibalba Murders by Lyn Hamilton (6/16)
Y = The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (10/17)
Z = Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (12/20)
Awesome that you got your A-Z reading list done Leslie! ^_^
Amber wrote: "Awesome that you got your A-Z reading list done Leslie! ^_^"Thanks Amber! I'm feeling pleased ;)
Status on my 2013 challenges:1. 100,000 page challenge - done!
2. Plays - I have read 23 plays but didn't get to 12 Shakespeare ones (11 done so far) or 2 of the non-Shakespeare that I had chosen...
3. Poetry - if I count the Milton I abandoned, I am done. Otherwise, one left!
4. Short Stories - currently reading my December collection, then I will be done.
5. Trollope - won't be able to finish :( still have the last 2 books of the Palliser series to go after I finish Phineas Redux.
6. Read the USA Cozy Mysteries Challenge - not even close to done! 30/51 done (continuing this challenge next year)
7. Russian lit - done! Actually read 5 (currently reading the 6th)!
8. Guardian list - still need to read 3 this month, then I'll be done! I read 94 books from this list this year, although that includes a fair amount of rereads in audiobook form.
9. Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire series -- not finished, continuing this challenge next year.
10. A-to-Z challenge - done!
Your challenges take my breath away, Leslie. You certainly like to push yourself...and what's more, do achieve a lot of what you intended. Well done that girl!!:D
Jean wrote: "Your challenges take my breath away, Leslie. You certainly like to push yourself...and what's more, do achieve a lot of what you intended. Well done that girl!!:D"
Thanks - I guess I can live with a 70% success rate (assuming I read 3 books from the Guardian list this month). I think it helped that 3 of my challenges were monthly (plays, poetry, short stories) & involved reading short bits. ☻
Finished my A-to-Z challenge yesterday with Zuleika Dobson or An Oxford Love Story, and have completed my December poetry and short stories. Still need to read one more book from the Guardian's list (I have Ian McEwan's The Child in Time waiting on my Kindle)...
And you ARE going to make it Leslie!! Well done on a remarkable literary achievement :)
Jean wrote: "And you ARE going to make it Leslie!! Well done on a remarkable literary achievement :)":) Thanks Jean
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Books mentioned in this topic
Zuleika Dobson or An Oxford Love Story (other topics)The Child in Time (other topics)
The Death of Ivan Ilych (other topics)
Murder at the Savoy (other topics)
The School for Husbands (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Kathi Daley (other topics)Margaret George (other topics)
Sarah Graves (other topics)
JoAnn Bassett (other topics)
Julie Smith (other topics)
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2. Read 18 plays - 12 Shakespeare and:
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams(winter group play)The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare(spring group play)The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde(reread) (fall group play)Loot by Joe Orton
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekov3. Read at least one book or collection of poetry each month. Done!
Poets I’d like to read include:
Keats,Frost, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Pertarch’s Sonnets,Blake, Sandberg, Wordsworth4. Read at least one book or collection of short stories each month.
5. Anthony Trollope:
finish the Barchester series& read the Palliser series6. Mysteries – finish the Read the USA challenge from the Cozy Mysteries group
7. Read 2 (or more) famous Russian novels:
Anna Kareninaand The Death of Ivan Ilych (Dec BOTM) - Done read Anna Karenina & Notes from the Underground8. Read at least 3 books a month from the Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Should Read list.
Here are some of the ones I want to read:
Thomas Hardy: (Jan monthly author)
Jude the Obscureor The WoodlandersMurial Spark: (Feb monthly author) The Driver s Seat, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, A Far Cry from KensingtonAngela Carter: (March monthly author) Nights at the Circus, Wise ChildrenSylvia Townsend Warner: Lolly Willowes (March BOTM)A.S. Byatt: (April monthly author) PossessionGeorge Orwell: (May monthly author) Burmese DaysCarson McCullers: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (May BOTM)Marilynne Robinson: Gilead (not July BOTM but by same author)Margaret Atwood: (July monthly author)
The Handmaid s Tale, The Cat's EyeRebecca West: (Aug monthly author) The Fountain Overflows, The Return of the Soldier
E.M. Forster:
A Room with a View(not Aug BOTM but by same author)William Faulkner: Sanctuary (not Sep BOTM but by same author)
Philip K. Dick:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep(Oct BOTM), The Man in the High CastleZora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God(Nov BOTM)Ernest Hemingway: (Nov monthly author) The Old Man and the SeaAnais Nin: (Dec monthly author) Delta of Venus
W. Somerset Maugham: Cakes and Ale Or the Skeleton in the Cupboard, Of Human BondageTobias Smollett: The Adventures of Roderick Random, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall, Scoop, A Handful of Dust, The Loved OneArthur Conan Doyle: A Study in Scarlet, The Hound of the BaskervillesE Phillips Oppenheim: The Great Impersonation
Anthony Trollope: The Last Chronicle of Barset, The Way We Live NowElizabeth Gaskell:
North and South,Cranford, Ruth, Mary BartonHenry James: a bunch to choose from, maybe The Wings of the Dove or Portrait of a Lady
Edith Wharton: The Age of Innocence, The House of MirthLeo Tolstoy: Anna KareninaAnn Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho
Flann O’Brien: The Third PolicemanFyodor Dostoevsky:
Notes from the Underground, The IdiotWilliam Makepeace Thackeray: The Luck of Barry Lyndon
Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of MarsG.K. Chesterton: The Man Who Was ThursdayH.G.Wells: The War of the WorldsAnthony Burgess: dropping these for Vonnegut
JG Ballard: The Drowned World,
CrashEric Ambler:
A Coffin for Dimitrios, Epitaph for a SpyIan Fleming:
Casino Royale, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twiceand if I don’t read these during this December’s monthly read:
Charles Dickens:
Bleak House, Martin Chuzzlewit, Little Dorrit,Hard Times