Additional Reading Challenges

Ah, reading challenges - I seem unable to resist the desire to put things in categories and list them out.  In part it's a natural human impulse, in part it's probably related to having been trained in biological anthropology and accustomed to categorizing things, and in part it's just liking to have new reasons to choose different books or to brag about the books I would've chosen anyway.  It doesn't matter.  Here are the four additional challenges I am joining for 2010.  I will be reviewing everything (as is my habit) and will list completed books and links to my reviews on the right-hand sidebar.

First up, The Complete Booker Challenge, which has all kinds of levels of participation in all kinds of different ways.  I'm going for the Booker Devotee level and will be reading the winner and shortlisted books for 1978, the year Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea won.  Murdoch is one of my favorite writers and The Sea, The Sea is one of my favorite books.  I recently reacquired a copy of it for re-reading pleasure so this is a great opportunity to read the others from that year.  Hopefully I'll be able to scrounge most of these from the library.  They are:

The Sea, the Sea - Iris Murdoch (Winner)
Jake's Thing - Kingsley Amis
Rumours of Rain - Andre Brink
The Bookshop - Penelope Fitzgerald
God on the Rocks - Jane Gardam
A Five-Year Sentence - Bernice Rubens

There wasn't a button for this challenge so I made my own - nothing fancy, but it'll do.  Anyone else who would like to use it is welcome to it!  Thanks to Laura for hosting this!

Next up, The Chunkster Challenge, where you're asked to read books that are 450 pages or more.  Since I tend to do this anyway, of course I'm signing up.  There are three levels.  I'm going for the Mor-bookly Obese level - 6 or more over 450 or 3 of 750 or some combination of those (although the challenge doesn't say that).  I'm bummed that this doesn't start until February because I'm currently reading The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt and it's 688 pages.  Ah, well - it fits in some other categories and maybe I'll list it under this one for extra credit.  Everybody likes extra credit, right?!  Thanks to Wendy for hosting!

Then there's the Thriller & Suspense Reading Challenge.  This is a no-brainer for me since I read a lot of these anyway.  The challenge is to read 12 thrillers (or one a month).  My reads last year include about 30 books with the tag "thriller," "mystery," or "police procedural," so I shouldn't have a problem there.  Grazie to the lovely blogger at Book Chick City for hosting this one!

Lastly is The Decades 2010 Challenge to read 10 books in 10 consecutive decades in 2010.  Books written in the 2000's don't count, so the earliest you can start is with something written in the 1990's.   I'll start with the '90's and work my way back to the 1900's - should be really fun.  Thanks to the nice blogger at 1 More Chapter for hosting this one.