Below are the results of my 2018 reading challenges. Click on the red hyperlinks to read my reviews:
Challenge #1
Read at least 6 of the 12 categories; books must be published by 1968. Hosted by Books & Chocolate. (10/12)
- 19th century classic: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- 20th century classic: Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- Classic by a woman author: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- Classic in translation: The Trial by Franz Kafka
- A children’s classic: James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
- Classic crime story: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
- Classic travel/journey narrative
- Classic with a one-word title: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- Classic with a color in the title: The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Classic by an author that is new to you: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- Classic that scares you
- Re-read a favorite classic: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Challenge #2
Read books that have been on the shelves too long. Hosted by Roof Beam Reader. (10/12)
- If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
- The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
- Carrie by Stephen King
- The Trial by Franz Kafka
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
- Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
- The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
- The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville (didn’t get to it in 2017, determined to tackle it)
Alternate Selections:
- The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell
- The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Challenge #3
This is another new challenge for me this year, hosted by Rose City Reader. The idea is to “tour” Europe by reading a book set in a different country with a different author. The person with the highest number of qualifying reviews receives a gift card prize! There are different levels, so I’m signing up for the top level:
FIVE STAR (DELUXE ENTOURAGE): Read at least five books by different European authors or books set in different European countries.
Czech Republic: The Trial by Franz Kafka
Italy: If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino
Russia: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
Sweden: Let Me In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
United Kingdom:
- Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
- James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- George’s Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl
- The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl
- The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Dark Eden by Chris Beckett
- To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
- Sanditon by Jane Austen
- Lady Susan by Jane Austen
- Matilda by Roald Dahl
- Sense & Sensibility by Joanna Trollope
- And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
- The Doll by Daphne du Maurier
- The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
- The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell