Was that TwentyTen or 2010?

On the second day of My Twelve Days of Challenges, I’m chatting about one of my favourite challenges of the year: the TwentyTen Reading Challenge.

Finding the right combinations for these categories was just plain ol’ reading fun.

  1. Young Adult – Any book classified as young adult or featuring a teenage protagonist counts for this category.
    (1) Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)
    (2) Joan Bauer’s  Squashed (1992)
  2. T.B.R. **- Intended to help reduce the old T.B.R. pile. Books for this category must be already residents of your bookshelves as of 1/11/09.
    (1) Nicola Beauman’s A Very Great Profession (1983) Persephone No. 78
    (2) Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections (2001)
  3. Shiny & New Bought a book NEW during 2010 from a bookstore, online, or a supermarket? Then it counts for this category. Second-hand books do not count for this one…
    (1) Dionne Brand’s Ossuaries (2010)
    (2) Shyam Selvadurai’s Swimming in the Monsoon Sea (2005)
  4. Bad Blogger’s *** Ones you’ve picked up purely on the recommendation of another blogger count for this category
    (1) John McNally’s After The Workshop (2010) (Sasha’s review; My review)
    (2) Sam Savage’s The Cry of the Sloth (2010) (Nancy Pearl’s review; My review)
  5. Charity – Support your local charity shops with this category, by picking up books from one of their shops.
    (1) Jane Gardam’s Going Into a Dark House (Oxfam Shop by a friend)
    (2) Suzette Mayr’s Venous Hum (Friends of the Library)
  6. New in 2010 – Those books newly published in 2010 (whether it be the first time it is has been released, or you had to wait for it to be published in your country, it counts for this one!)
    (1) Andrea Levy’s The Long Song (2010)
    (2) Gina Ochsner’s The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight (2010)
  7. Older Than You – Read two books that were published before you were born, whether that be the day before or 100 years prior!
    (1) Cicely Hamilton’s William: An Englishman Persephone No. 1 (1919)
    (2) Arnold Bennet’s Riceyman Steps (1923)
  8. Win! Win! Have a couple of books you need to read for another challenge? Then this is the category to use, as long that is, you don’t break the rules of the other challenge
    (1) Joan Barfoot’s Dancing in the Dark (1982)
    (2) Hiromi Goto’s Half World (2009)
  9. Who Are You Again? For those authors you have never even heard of before!
    (1) Andrew Kaufman‘s The Waterproof Bible (2010)
    (2) Monique Roffey‘s The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (2009)
  10. Up to You! The requirements for this category are up to you! The only requirement is that you state it in your sign-up post.
    (1) Sherman Alexie #1, Reservation Blues (1995)
    (2) Sherman Alexie #2, Indian Killer (1996)

I originally thought that I had managed to complete this without using books that also counted towards other challenges, but now that I am checking more carefully, I realize that I did include Franzen’s The Corrections in my 1% Well-Read list and Suzette Mayr’s Venous Hum counted as my A-Z “V” title.

So how challenging was it? About a 5. Mainly it was fun, but trying to find books for each category that weren’t also counting towards other challenges made it much more challenging.

And I’ve given away the focus of tomorrow’s challenge post already. The alphabet-obsessed among you have no doubt spotted the leak.

Do any of these books appear on your 2010 Reading List too?