Saturday, March 27, 2010

State of the Blog, Part Two: The Challenges



Spring has sprung.  The pink trees are blooming and Easter is on the way. It is time to assess what bookery bloggery progress I've made in the first quarter of 2010.

This is a three-part assessment. This first part addressed the book lists. Part Two, here, deals with the challenges I joined this year. Part Three will take a look at the author lists.

I am hosting two "Battle of the Prizes" challenges this year and working on several others.  All are listed in the right-hand column.


CHALLENGES HOSTED BY ROSE CITY READER

Battle of the Prizes: American Version


National Book Award winners v. Pulitzer Prize winners, rules here. There is still plenty of time to sign up!

Books read so far: zero
Books I'm going to read for this challenge: 3


Battle of the Prizes: British Version


Man Booker Prize v. James Tait Black Memorial Prize, rules here. Again, there is still time to sign up!  

Books read so far: zero
Books I'm going to read for this challenge: 3

CHALLENGES I AM PARTICIPATING IN

Bibliophilic Books Challenge



A challenge to read books about books. The home page is here.

I signed up for the "Bibliomaniac" level, which means I have 12 to read by the end of the year. I do not have a final list yet, but I have several in mind.

Books read so far: 2
Books I may read for this challenge (so many to chose from):


Birth Year Reading Challenge 




This challenge is to read one or more books published in the year you were born, hosted by Hotchpot Cafe. I signed up, but I haven't created a post yet. I really want to read The Valley of the Dolls by Jaqueline Susann (what a great excuse!), but I don't have a copy yet.

Book Awards Challenge


The challenge involves reading ten books that won ten different prizes by November 1, 2010. The home page is here. Many of my picks overlap with other challenges.

Books read so far: 2
Books I may read for this challenge:



I signed up for the "Mor-book-ly Obese" level, meaning I will read six 450+-page books (or three 750+-pagers). Caribousmom hosts this challenge.

Books read so far: one (Three Loves by A. J. Cronin; reviewed here)
Books I may read for this challenge: 

100+ Challenge


I signed up for this because I am pretty sure I'll read more than 100 books this year. But I do not have my own post for it. The challenge home page is here.

I keep a book cover list of the books I've read this year in the right-hand column of this blog. There are 28 books on the list so far and I think that is about accurate. Sometimes books don't show up over there because they are missing a cover picture on my LibraryThing library.

Typically British Challenge



I signed up at the "Cream Crackered" level to read eight "Typically British" novels. I will blow through those eight pretty quickly, since probably half of the books I read would qualify. The challenge home page is here.

Books read so far: 6
Books I may read for this challenge:


7 comments :

  1. I started a new book blog spotlight on my site today (inspired by Becky at Page Turners) - and spotlighted your site for the first one.

    Sorry to leave this in a comment - I couldn't find an email for you.

    Your state of the state blog post is impressive!

    Happy reading,
    Rachelle (Bibliobabe)

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  2. How exciting! You are a babe!

    I'll come visit.

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  3. These are some great challenges - some of them I haven't heard of but I will definitely look into. You look like you are going really well!

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  4. Congrats and good luck with all the challenges - most are literary fiction! I'm into international crime fiction right now and find it hard to read a good literary novel. I have to be really motivated and I've found some really good ones, mostly international authors like Murakami or Pamuk. Dai Sijie, and multicultural, ethnic writers.

    I'm really a travel fanatic and read these in lieu of visiting other countries myself!

    Happy reading!

    Harvee - Book Dilettante

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  5. Becky -- I'm off to a slow start on my challenges, other than a couple that happen to overlap with what I was reading anyways. This trial I am working on has another two weeks to go, so my reading has been catch as catch can.

    BD -- "International crime fiction" sounds pretty cool! I can see how you could get into a rut.

    Murakami is supposed to be great. I have a couple on my TBR shelf, but I haven't tried them yet.

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  6. I am interested to read your review of "Case Histories" - I read it a number of years ago.

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  7. Booksnyc -- No review of Case Histories, I'm afraid. I don't review everything I read, and that one seems to have sped past without comment. I may go back and do a review of it, though, because I really liked it and have recommended it to many people.

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