I tried something different with my reading challenges for 2011.
In 2010, I joined a lot that required very few reads; this year I joined only a few, but they required far more reads.
Each approach has a benefit.
The former is great for meeting new readers, because you’re visiting a bunch of different places to post links to your handful of reads; the latter is great for really digging in and sussing out a handful of readers who share a particular reading interest.
Here’s how it all turned out!
Foodie’s Reading Challenge 2011
- Massimo Marcone’s Acquired Tastes (2010)
- Agnes Jekyl’s Kitchen Essays (1922)
3. Dominique Fabre’s The Waitress Was New (2005) Trans. Jordan Stump (2008)
4. Carol Off’s Bitter Chocolate (2006)
5. Jane Ziegelman’s 97 Orchard: An Edible Historyof Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement (2010) - Andreas Staïkos’ Les Liaisons Culinaires (1997) Trans. Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife Illus. Jeff Fisher Harvill Press, 2000
7. Wendell Berry’s Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food (2010)
8. Anna Lappé’s Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It (2010)
9. Oran B. Hesterman’s Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All (2011)
10. Jaspreet Singh’s Chef (2008)
11. Antony Wild’s Coffee: A Dark History (2004)
12. Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin’s Skinny Bitch (2005)
How challenging? Fairly. I also wanted to increase the amount of non-fiction that I read in general, so I read a dozen other non-fiction titles alongside the 9 for this challenge; that’s a lot of non-fiction reading for a gal who thought her reader’s heart belonged to novels and stories.
Favourite Part? Definitely the combo. Which is usually what I say when I really enjoy a meal, too. Essays and full-length works, two novels in translation,some history, a classic and some brand new thoughts on food: it was a lovely smorgasbord.
2. Billeh Nickerson’s McPoems (2010)
3. Stacey May Fowles’ Be Good (2007)
4. Darren Greer’s Still Life with June (2003)5. Anthony Bidulka’s Amuse Bouche (Russell Quant #1, 2003)
6. Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010)
7. Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen(1998)
8. Farzana Doctor’s Stealing Nasreen (2007)
9. Suzette Mayr’s Monoceros(2011)
10. Daniel Allen Cox Krakow Melt (2010)
11. Tanya Davis’ At First, Lonely (2011)
12. Ivan Coyote’s Missed Her(2010)Already-favourite authors:
13. Rose Tremain’s Sacred Country (1992)
14. Timothy Findley’s Spadework (2005)
15. Banana Yoshimoto’s The Lake (2005; 2011 Trans. Michael Emmerich)
Heroine’s Bookshelf Challenge 2011 (No link: it seems inactive)
2. E. Lockhart’s The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (2008)
3. Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind (1936)
4. Libba Bray’s A Great and Terrible Beauty (2003)
1. Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
2. Adwoa Badoe’s Between Sisters
3. Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
4. Thomas King’s Truth and Bright Water
5. Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (2010)
6. Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998)
7. Leila Aboulela’s Lyrics Alley (2010)
8. Tishani Doshi’s The Pleasure Seekers (2010)
9. Wendy Law-Yone’s The Road to Wanting (2010)
10. Roma Tearne’s The Swimmer (2010)
11. Anita Rau Badami’s Tamarind Mem (1996)
12. Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s Aya de Yopougon (2005)
13. Banana Yoshimoto’s The Lake (2005; translated by Michael Emmerich, 2011)
14. Sharon Draper’s Tears of a Tiger (1994)
15. Aristophane’s The Zabîme Sisters (1996; trans. Matt Madden, 2010)
16. George Elliott Clarke’s Whylah Falls (1990)
17. Ian Williams’ You Know Who You Are (2010)
18. Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues (2011)
19. Farzana Doctor’s Stealing Nasreen (2007)
20. Rabindranath Maharaj’s The Amazing Absorbing Boy(2010)
21. Ken Wiwa’s In the Shadow of a Saint(2000)
22. Suzette Mayr’s Monoceros (2011)
23. Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (1983)
24. Dany Laferriere’s The Return (Trans. David Homel, 2011)
25. Jacqueline L. Tobin’s From Midnight to Dawn (2007)
26. Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table (2011)
27. Alice Randall’s The Wind Done Gone (2001)
28. Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s Aya de Yopougon 2 (2006)
29. Jaspreet Singh’s Chef (2008)
How challenging? Not very, but I’m going to make it more of a challenge next year.
Favourite Part? Browsing the participants’ pages. I absolutely love the widget that the challenge page has, which displays the book cover, which is just an added gloss to the invitation to check out what everybody else is reading.
and The Canadian Reading Challenge 5
1. Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie’s Slow Death by Rubber Duck (2010)
2-3. Louise Penny’s Dead Cold (2006) and The Cruellest Month (2007)
4. Timothy Findley’s Spadework (2001)
5. Jane Urquhart’s Sanctuary Line (2010)
6. Amy Lavender Harris’ Imagining Toronto (2010)
7-8. Terry Griggs’ The Silver Door (2004) and Invisible Ink (2006)
9. George Elliott Clarke’s Whylah Falls (1990)
10. Jane Urquhart’s Sanctuary Line (2010)
11. Robert Sikoryak’s Masterpiece Comics (2009)
12. Brian Moore’s The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960)
13. Elspeth Cameron’s And Beauty Answers (2007)
14. Toronto: An Illustrated History of Its First 12,000 Years (Ronald F. Williamson, Ed.) (2008)
15. Wayne Johnston’s A World Elsewhere (2011)
16. Pauline Holdstock’s Into the Heart of the Country (2011)
17. Zsuzsi Gartner’s Better Living through Plastic Explosives (2011)
18. Esi Edugyan’s Half-Blood Blues (2011)
19. Farzana Doctor’s Stealing Nasreen (2007)
20. Shawn Micallef’s Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto (2010)
21. Ian Williams’ You Know Who You Are (2010)
22. John McQuarrie’s Toronto: Then and Now (2000)
23. Suzette Mayr’s Monoceros (2011)
24. Ken Wiwa’s In the Shadow of a Saint (2000)
25. Thomas Wharton’s Icefields (1995) *
26. Rabindranath Maharaj’s The Amazing Absorbing Boy (2010)
27. Daniel Allen Cox’s Krakow Melt (2010)
28. Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers (2011)
29. James King’s Etienne’s Alphabet (2010)
30. Joey Comeau’s One Bloody Thing After Another (2010)
31. Tony Burgess’ Ravenna Gets (2010)
32. Adam Seelig’s Every Day in the Morning (Slow) (2010)
33. Nicholas Ruddock’s The Parabolist (2010)
34. James Fitzgerald’s What Disturbs Our Blood (2010)
35. Alissa York’s Fauna (2010)
36. Alexi Zentner’s Touch (2011)
37. Michael Christie’s The Beggar’s Garden (2011)
38. Clark Blaise’s The Meagre Tarmac (2011)
39. Lynn Coady’s The Antagonist (2011)
40. Dany Laferriere’s The Return (Trans. David Homel, 2011)
41. Genni Gunn’s Solitaria (2011)
42. Dan Vyleta’s The Quiet Twin (2011)
43. David Bezmozgis’ The Free World (2011)
44. Marina Endicott’s The Little Shadows (2011)
45. Guy Vanderhaeghe’s A Good Man (2011)
46. Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table (2011)
47.Tanya Davis’ At First, Lonely (2011)
48. F.S. Michaels’ Monoculture (2011)
49. Adwoa Badoe’s Pot of Wisdom (2001)
50. Carole Off’s Bitter Chocolate (2006)
51. Joey Comeau’s Overqualified (2009)
52. Ivan Coyote’s Missed Her (2010)
53. Adam Gopnik’s Winter (2011)
54. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1986)
55. Jaspreet Singh’s Chef (2008)
56. Canadian Poetry: From the Beginnings through the First World War (Carole Gerson and Gwendolyn Davies, Eds.) (1994)
How challenging? Not as all. As you can tell. But I’m going to change the nature of my challenge for next year and focus on a single author again (as I did this past year, with Ethel Wilson).
Favourite Part? Reading through the whole Giller longlist and awarding my own Gerber Giller. It was a lot of reading, and I was one weary reader at the end of it all, but sooooo many great books!
So what’s up for 2012? I haven’t quite decided yet.
There are 20 links in my notes just now. And those are just to the challenges that are really tempting.
But I also have some other reading goals. I need to get out a calendar and remind myself just how many days there are in a month and figure out what’s reasonable.
But it’s so hard to be reasonable when it comes to thinking about how much you can read, right?
How unreasonable are you being about your 2012 reading plans?!
I had dismal year in reading. I signed up for and completed two challenges. This year, I’m feeling quite optimistic and will sign up for 5. Plus, I’m thinking about hosting an African Literature Challenge. All the best for 2012.
Oh, I would definitely sign up for that, Kinna. But you knew that. *eyes current stacks nervously* I’ll have to go and see which ones you opted for, for 2012, knowing that last year’s were a struggle for you: count me curious.
Oh, I’m completely unrealistic in my reading plans for next year and have joined over 50 challenges. A lot are crossovers, though, and (at least for the first 35 or so), I’ve kept a reading list so I know what I need to tackle next year. I think the biggest challenge will be the blogging part.
Wow! That’s a *lot*! But, as you’ve said, there is bound to be a lot of overlap. And sometimes having a list results in your reading more than you ever would have read otherwise. Though, yes, keeping up with the book-chat that accompanies them can be very time-consuming. And finding the time to interact with other participants takes another chunk of time too! Good luck with your 50!
It is difficult picking challenges. But my strategy is to sign up for a few that can overlap
That’s good advice, Shannon; there’s something peculiarly satisfying at finding that a book fits not just two, but three (or even four or more!) challenges’ mandates! Love it!
I am always astonished at your reading! There is so much of it, and so many wonderful reviews! So just keep being unreasonable with your reading goals — it is great for the rest of us 😉
As for myself, I am always unreasonable with goals. Gives me something to aim for! But I’m going to try to limit myself a little bit this year; I’m busier these days and want my reading to be a fun escape and not feel like another duty.
Thanks, Melwyk. I do think 2012 will be another unreasonable reading year, made all the more so by the awareness that the next year will not have room for quite so much reading, but I do agree that it’s important to guard against that sense of reading-as-chore.
Well I for one am very curious about your unreasonable reading plans for 2012.
Especially the lists of books that will come out of it! Happy list-making!
Thanks, Olduvai. It’s just bizarre, isn’t it? How much fun booklists are for us?!
I’m so impressed with your reading. You read so many books I’ve never heard of, and you stick with your plans so well.
I think I might do the Heroine’s Bookshelf challenge myself this year. I just got the book for Christmas and it does make you want to read some other books. I hate realizing I’m not as well read as I think I am!
As for 2012, I am being completely unreasonable about my reading challenges, but still a bit more realistic than other years. I’m not such a huge fan of really challenging myself, so I prefer reading books I like and know I will like. I use the challenges more to focus me on the books I’ve wanted to read already. Books that have been on my virtual TBR list, or backlisted books of authors I’ve discovered.
I saw your post about your selections for your own Heroine’s Bookshelf challenge; that’s such a great idea. I’ve been thinking about trying something like it, with Jane Smiley’s list in her 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. So many great booklists, eh? (I’m allowed to say ‘eh’ with a fellow Canadian, right?!)
You did great with your challenges this year! I’m pretty sure that I’ve failed most of mine. I think I need to have a printed copy of my reading challenges, so I can look at it often.
It’s very hard to be reasonable when it comes to reading. 😉
Oh, a printed copy would be a great help, I agree; I’m much better at printing my what I imagine my reading plans to be than at tracking what they actually are and revising them accordingly!
I didn’t do any challenges in 2011, except for the one I host (The Complete Booker), because I had become over-challenged & over-programmed in years past. But your point about “meeting new readers” and/or discovering those with shared interests is a really good one, because I missed that this year. I’m considering a couple challenges for 2012 which probably fall into the “shared interests” category.
I didn’t realize that you host that one, Laura. What better reason for you to sign up then, hmmm? Hopefully the ones that you add in will help fill that gap you’ve been feeling community-wise!