Okay, so I’ve finally joined a few challenges. I guess I need a page for that!
I’ve joined 65 other people in joining Stephanie’s Written Word’s Everything Austen Challenge! 
It’s my first book challenge, other than LibraryThing’s 50 and 75 book challenges, and I’m excited to be doing it 
The challenge runs from July 1st, 2009 to January 1st, 2010, and in that six months, I need to do at least six Austen related things, either reading books by her, books about her, books about the characters she wrote or watching movies of the same ilk. Six Austen-related things will be easy for me… the hard part will be not doing them all in July out of excitement. 
So my six Austen-themed things are:
- Read Northanger Abbey, it’s up next on the Jane-a-thon anyway.
- Read Persuasion, which will complete my Jane-a-thon.
- Read Lady Susan, The Watsons, and Sanditon, which are all by Jane Austen.
- Read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler, which has been on my TBR list for awhile, but I’ve been waiting to finish the novels first.
- Read Austenland by Shannon Hale, also a long waiter on Mt. TBR.
- Read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I spazzed out about when I saw it on the shelf at Walmart.
Bonus points will be:
- Watching Northanger Abbey
- Watching Persuasion
- Watching The Jane Austen Book Club
- and any other Austen-themed thing I come across
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And since I’m being such a joiner, I think I’ll go ahead and join the War Through the Generations World War II Reading Challenge. Since it’s running from January 1st, 2009 to December 31st, 2009, I can count books I’ve read since the challenge began. Pretty easy, really… only 5 books and I’ve read two already.
My list for the WWII Reading Challenge:
- The Zookeeper’s Wifeby Diane Ackerman
- The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies
- The True Story of Hansel & Gretel by Louise Murphy
- Stones From the Riverby Ursula Hegi
- The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister by Nonna Bannister, Denise George, Carolyn Tomlin
- Sarah’s Keyby Tatiana de Rosnay
- The Readerby Bernhard Schlink
- The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945by Wladyslaw Szpilman
- Number the Starsby Lois Lowry
- Night by Elie Wiesel
- Guernica by Dave Boling
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- The Boy in the Striped Pajamasby John Boyne
These are the WWII-related books on the WWII Reading Challenge list that I have on Mt. TBR. I’ve already read The Book Thiefby Markus Zusak and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, so I only have 3 to go for the 5 book challenge, and I’ll probably do more.
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2009 ARC Reading Challenge
As they say, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” so I’m going to add one more challenge to my book-challenge-lovefestI’ve got going. So Many Books, So Little Time is hosting an ARC Reading Challenge. I know I need to get it in gear with my ARC-alanche pile threatening to cave in… and poor Missy’s bed is just below the stacks, she’ll be crushed!
So, to save my dog and get motivated to get on the stick with these, I’m joining the 2009 ARC Reading Challenge. For this challenge I am suppose to list all my ARCs and review books (done that on the ARC-alanche page of Mt. TBR’s inventory), and read 12 of them. Coolness
- Something Beyond Greatness by Judy Rodgers and Gayatri Naraine ~ read and reviewed here.
- Neil Armstrong is My Uncle and Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me by Nan Marino ~ read and reviewed here.
- The Inconvenient Adventures of Uncle Chestnut by Paul Nowak ~ read and reviewed here.
- Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett ~ read and reviewed here.
- Home Repair by Liz Rosenberg ~ read and reviewed here.
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Okay, so I’ve decided to give in and join Beth Fish Read’s The Sookie Stackhouse Challenge. It would seem that I’m going to buy the books anyway… lol, even though I told myself I wanted to wait to see if I LIKED the first book first, I went ahead and bought the second book. So I’ll “goat head” as my mom always said, and join the challenge. There doesn’t seem to be any specific number for this challenge other than to read the books, so for now, I’ll just start off with the two on Mt. TBR.
- Dead Until Dark
- Living Dead in Dallas
I’ve also got True Bloodseason 1 in my Netflix queue, but I’m waiting to read the first book before getting them. I may be a little late to this ball, but I wanted to be sure. Funny, I’ve gone from scairt to join any challenges to being in five? Does the CDC know how contagious reading challenges are? What are they doing to help the victims?
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And, I found a Manga Challenge at Rhinoa’s Ramblings… Yay! LOL.. Now, if you told me this time last year that, not only would Ibe reading manga, but that I’d be joining a whole challenge devoted to it, I would’ve quit reading altogether. Funny how you can change in just a year.
The challenge is simple, just read 6 mangas in 2009. I don’t know if graphic novels are included in that, but since it’s a manga challenge, I’ll just stick with them. My list for the challenge is:
- Fruits Basket, volume 1by Natsuki Takaya ~ read and reviewed here.
- Fruits Basket, volume 3 by Natsuki Takaya ~ read and reviewed here.
- Fruits Basket, volume 4 by Natsuki Takaya ~ read and reviewed here.
- Naruto, volume 1by Masashi Kishimoto
- Fruits Basket volume 2 by Natsuki Takaya ~ read and reviewed here.
- Cowboy Bebop, volume 1by Yutaka Nanten, et al. It’s not been mailed yet, and I’d actually requested it once before from PBS, but the person never sent it. So we’ll see if it gets here this time.
