Category: Challenges

Ireland Reading Challenge 2011

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I’ve been having a re-think about reading challenges. I had decided that I wasn’t going to join many challenges for 2011, but was going to read whatever takes my fancy. BUT I’ve been looking through my list of tbr books on LibraryThing, where I have 328 books listed as unread and I think it’s time I reduced that down as much as possible. This challenge should help me do that.

The Ireland Reading Challenge is being run by Carrie at Books and Movies. It involves reading any book written by an Irish author, set in Ireland, or involving Irish history or Irish characters. It can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, audiobooks, children’s books €“ all of these apply.

There are three levels:

Shamrock level: 2 books
Luck o’ the Irish level: 4 books
Kiss the Blarney Stone level: 6 books

I’m aiming for the third level as I have  several books in my tbr list that are set in Ireland, or are by Irish writers:

  • Anybody Out There by Marian Keyes
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker – finished see here
  • The Gathering by Anne Enright
  • Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
  • Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden – finished see here
  • Sovereignty of Good by Iris Murdoch
  • Ulysses by James Joyce – if I read that next year I’ll be really pleased (and surprised)!
  • The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
  • Watchman by Ian Rankin
  • Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy

Alphabet in Crime Fiction

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

I mentioned in an earlier post that I hoped Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise would be running the Alphabet in Crime Fiction – a Community Meme/Challenge again. I really enjoyed taking part in it this year, not only reading and writing the books, but also reading the other participants’ posts. I found so many authors and blogs that were new to me.

And she has set it up again for  2011!

Here are the rules:

Each week, beginning Monday 10 January 2011, you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.
Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book’s title, the first letter of an author’s first name, or the first letter of the author’s surname.

So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, so long as it fits the rules somehow.

There is as Kerrie says lots of choice but the real challenge for me is writing a post every week and in some cases finding a title, or author for some of the letters – X, Q, and Z were  hard and I seem to remember that N was quite difficult and J too.  I was particularly pleased to have found Dave Zeltserman’s books and I’ll be looking for more by him to fill the Z spot.

I’m looking forward to it immensely.

What’s In a Name 4

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

Challenge completed!

The What’s In a Name Challenge, hosted by Beth Fish Reads is running for the fourth time. I took part in the first two, but missed out last year. I’m tempted to join in again in 2011. I just need to read one book from each category and I’ve gone through my To-Be-Read books to find these titles:

1. A book with a number in the title – One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
2. A book with jewelry or a gem in the title – The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
3. A book with a size in the title – Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
4. A book with travel or movement in the title – Exit Lines by Reginald Hill
5. A book with evil in the title – Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
6. A book with a life stage in the title – Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden

2011 Global Challenge

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

The Global Callenge run by Dorte, is divided into different levels:

The Easy Challenge

Read one novel from each of these continents in the course of 2011:

Africa
Asia
Australasia
Europe
North America
South America (please include Central America where it is most convenient for you)

The Seventh Continent (here you can either choose Antarctica or your own ´seventh´ setting, eg the sea, the space, a supernatural/paranormal world, history, the future €“ you name it).

From your own continent: try to find a country, state or author that is new to you.

The Medium  Challenge is to read two novels from each of these continents in the course of 2011 and the Expert Challenge to read three.

To start off I’ve decided to go for the Easy Challenge and see how I get on and then move on to the other challenges if I can. My reason for aiming low is that I like to read as the fancy takes me. I don’t like to plan too far ahead with my reading as usually other books push their way to the top of my reading piles.

I’ll be trying to reduce my to-be-read lists as I’m sure they’ll fit into this challenge fairly well. Some of the titles I’m aiming to read are:

  • No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe – set in Africa
  • The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende – set in Chile
  • The Secret River by Kate Grenville – set in Australia
  • Bad Land by Jonathan Raban – set in the American West
  • The Highest Tide by Jim Lynch – set at sea (the ‘Seventh Continent’)
  • Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Marcia Marquez – set in South America
  • Sashenka by Simon Montefiore – set in Russia

But knowing the way my mind works I’ll probably be reading some other books, but whatever they are I’m sure they will be set in some of these countries.

RIP Challenge

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

It’s time for Carl’s R.I.P. (Readers Imbibing Peril) Challenge. This challenge runs from 1 September to 31 October. As he describes it, it’s that time of the year

where two short months are dedicated to reveling in all things creepy, eerie, mysterious, gothic, horrifying, suspenseful and strange.

It is time to celebrate things that go bump in the night; that favorite detective that always gets his man, or woman, in the end; that delicious chill of a creak on the stairs, of the rogue waiting in the dark, of the full moon and the flit of bats wings.

The categories of books to choose from are:

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

There are a number of Perils, but I’m going for the easy one – Peril the Third, which involves reading one book that fits within the R.I.P. definition.

I have a few books to choose from as I don’t like to commit myself too soon. These are from my TBR list. If I read more than one that it is all the better:

(The links go to Amazon.co.uk)

Cozy Mystery Challenge 2010

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

I’ve completed the Cozy Mystery Challenge.

A  cozy mystery is a mystery that doesn’t normally have any rough language, sex scenes, or gruesome details about the killing, and the main character is normally an amateur detective.

The challenge: read at least  least 6 cozy mysteries between April 1st, 2010 and September 30, 2010. 

I read:

  1. Faithful Unto Death by Caroline Graham – finished April
  2. Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House by M C Beaton – finished May
  3. Revenge Served Cold by Jackie Fullerton – finished May
  4. Snapped in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho- finished May
  5. Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie – finished July
  6. The Body on the Beach by Simon Brett – finished July
  • Most enjoyable: Death on the Nile.
  • The spookiest and most querky: Revenge Served Cold
  • The most frivolous: Agatha Raisin and the Haunted House
  • Cosiest: The Body on the Beach.