Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

My big challenge for this year is two-part. I want to read at least 50 books for me. I know this seems like a low number compared to some of the people on here, but that's what is realistic for me. I'm in school so my big read-athon is going to happen this summer, but hopefully I can finish some books this spring and fall.

Nextly, I have a book-buying ban on myself. I can't buy myself any more books until I read 50 books that I already own (however, my family can buy me as many books as they want). Unfortunately, this will only put a dent in what I own but haven't read. Maybe I can be really productive this summer and finish books in one and two days.

Oh hey, I'm also competing in the College Students 2009 School Year Challenge, so I'll post my tentative book list for that, which can change at any moment.

Anyway, I'll post as I finish books with the title, author, date, and maybe a few words about the book.

*5 Points*
1. For Valentine's Day, read a book with the word heart or love in it: Love Letters The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran to May Ziadah by Kahlil Gibran
2. For Saint Patty's Day, read a book set in Ireland, by an Irish author, or whose main character is Irish: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
3. Read a classic: A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
4. Read a book by an author you've never read before: The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
5. Read a memoir: Here's the Story by Maureen McCormick
6. March is National Women's History Month, so read a book where a woman is the main character: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
7. Read a CS group read: Franny and Zooey by JD Sallinger
8. Read a book with any kind of food/drink in the title: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
9. Read a book written in the last 5 years: Ya Yas in Bloom by Rebecca Wells
10. Read a book that you already own: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh or The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

*10 Points*
1. Read a book with the name of a month in it: Light in August by William Faulkner
2. Read a book by an author that has the same birth month as you: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
3. Read a book with either the word "school," "class," "college," "university," or "teacher" in it: Old School by Tobias Woolf
4. Read a book and then watch the movie adaption: Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
5. Read a book that involves a medical condition: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
6. Read a book with a one-word title: Journals by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
7. Read a book with the name of a country, state, or city in it: The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories
8. Read a banned/challenged book: From Here to Eternity by James Jones
9. Read a book set in a place you've always wanted to visit/live: All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
10. Read a book written by someone of your same heritage: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

*15 Points*
1. Read a book that has a college student as the main character or is near your age: The Graduate by Charles Webb
2. Read a book by an author that was born or has lived in your state/geographical area: The Outsiders by SE Hinton or Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison or Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
3. Read a book about/relating to the particular field of study you are in/were in: The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
4. Read a book written by a GoodReads author: The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho
5. Read a book about a person you admire: The Kennedy Women The Saga of an American Family by Laurence Leamer
6. Read a book about a subject you wish you could have studied in school: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
7. Read a book by an author you hate: 1984 by George Orwell
8. Read a book that you were supposed to read in high school but instead used SparkNotes for: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

*25 Points*
1. Read a book with over 700 pages: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
2. Read a book with your name in the title or is by an author with your same name: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
3. Read a book about a different religion that you are: The Year of Living Biblically One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible AJ Jacobs or The Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama
4. Read a book that you would normally never consider picking up: Swann's Way In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1 by Marcel Proust

Total--55

Where did you find this challenge? I am a college student to and find it hard to fit in time to read during the school year!

I found this on the group College Students. I think it's under the Books, Books, Books folder. But there's the Official Challenge thread where we discuss the books and whether they count and also let everyone know what we finish. And then there's the NEW Official Challenge, where we publish our lists once and edit them as we finish books or change our minds. You should join. It lasts until December.

I just finished The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho. It was absolutely fantastic! There were many times when my breath got caught in my chest. I was so totally absorbed by this novel that it was like the words entered my mind rather than me reading them (if that even makes sense). This summer I want to re-read the novel and really examine the text and underline the passages that really struck me.

I would strongly recommend this novel to anyone wanting to read a good story about a woman's spiritual journey.

Hey Lori! I found The Witch of Portobello at bn.com for $5 and it's been sitting in my cart for a few days. Thanks for the rec - I think I'll finally order it. Good luck with your reading goals!

Lori, did you read Coelho's The Devil and Miss Prym? How would you say The Witch of Portobello compared to that one?

The Witch was my first Coelho, so I have no idea.

Dang it. I read The Devil and Miss Prym, and I thought that it was VASTLY overrated. It was boring, and to me, was utterly pointless.

If you were of the same opinion, and still liked The Witch of Portobello, then I might be persuaded to read that one. As it is, I don't think that I will be reading much more of Coelho's work any time soon. *sigh* Oh well. I really wanted to like him too!

I'm not sure if this makes much of a difference, but I didn't hear any hype about the book. I read it because an old friend mentioned it and the title intrigued me.

I'm thinking about removing Sylvia Plath from the memoirs category, moving Here's the Story to that one, and putting in Edgar Sawtelle for the book written in the last 5 years. But I haven't made any decisions yet.

I'm currently reading Journals, Lolita, and Edgar Sawtelle. I figure I should read more of Edgar Sawtelle before I make a decision on whether I want to commit to reading that for the challenge.

I've spent the past hour or so working on my book list. I've compiled a list of books that I own that I need to read before I can buy more books. It's rather long (106 books) but I feel that since I've spent money on these books, they need to be read. I'm not going to put a time limit on it because I don't know how long it will take, especially at the rate I get to read because of school.

1. 1984
2. Across the River and into the Trees
3. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
4. All the King's Men
5. All the President's Men
6. The Amber Spyglass
7. America's Queen The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
8. American Lion Andrew Jackson in the White House
9. Anna Karenina
10. Around the World in Eighty Days
11. The Art of Happiness A Handbook for Living
12. The Beautiful and Damned
13. The Black Dahlia
14. Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited
15. Brideshead Revisited
16. The Bridges of Madison County
17. Captivating Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul
18. The Chronicles of Narnia
19. Cold Mountain
20. The Complete Claudine Claudine at School; Claudine in Paris; Claudine Married; Claudine and Annie
21. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway The Finca Vigía Edition
22. The Count of Monte Cristo
23. The Devil Wears Prada
24. The Dharma Bums
25. Different Seasons
26. Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire
27. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
28. Emma

29. F. Scott Fitzgerald Novels and Stories 1920-1922 This Side of Paradise / Flappers and Philosophers / The Beautiful and the Damned / Tales of the Jazz Age
30. The Feminine Mystique
31. For Whom the Bell Tolls
32. Franny and Zooey
33. The Golden Compass
34. The Golden Notebook
35. The Good Soldier A Tale of Passion
36. The Graduate
37. The Grapes of Wrath
38. The Group
39. Gulliver's Travels
40. The Hours
41. Howl and Other Poems
42. The Importance of Being Earnest
43. Invisible Man
44. The Jane Austen Book Club A Novel
45. Jane Eyre
46. John Adams
47. The Jungle The Uncensored Original Edition
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover
49. The Last of the Mohicans
50. Leaves of Grass
51. Les Misérables
52. Light in August
53. The Little House Collection
54. A Little Princess
55. Little Women
56. Lolita

57. Lord of the Flies
58. Love in the Time of Cholera
59. Madame Bovary
60. Man's Fate
61. Mansfield Park
62. Many Waters
63. The Metamorphosis
64. Moby Dick
65. Mrs. Dalloway
66. The Nanny Diaries
67. Nature and Selected Essays
68. The Old Man and the Sea
69. On the Road
70. The Once and Future King
71. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
72. Peter Pan
73. The Portrait of a Lady
74. Pride and Prejudice
75. The Prince
76. Reading Lolita in Tehran A Memoir in Books
77. The Red Tent
78. Revolutionary Road
79. The Scarlet Letter
80. Schindler's List
81. The Screwtape Letters
82. Secrets of the Flesh A Life of Colette
83. Sense and Sensibility
84. Siddhartha

85. The Sound and the Fury
86. The Stepford Wives
87. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle A Novel
88. The Subtle Knife
89. Suite Française
90. The Sun Also Rises
91. Swann's Way In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1
92. A Swiftly Tilting Planet
93. The Tales of Beedle the Bard
94. Tender Is the Night
95. The Thorn Birds
96. The Three Musketeers
97. To Have and Have Not
98. Treasure Island
99. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
100. Under the Tuscan Sun
101. Vanity Fair
102. Walden and Civil Disobedience
103. A Wind in the Door
104. The Wizard of Oz
105. A Wrinkle in Time
106. Wuthering Heights

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn is awesome! As is Wizard of Oz and THE THORNBIRDS....

Lori wrote: "1. 1984
2. [b:Across the River and into the Trees|10778|Across the River and into the Trees|Ernest Hemingw..."


I enjoyed a lot Around the world in eighty days. More than ten years ago I read The bridges of madison county. Probably because of the mix of the setting, description of the setting and the main character being a photographer which was my big dream then.
I guess that it took me more than 3 years and three tries to finish Moby Dick, tells enough.
I haven't read Under the tuscan sun but saw the movie about four times and jsut adore it.

Enjoy!

This is a very good list Lori! Good luck! :)

I LOVED The Count Of Monte Cristo. Which edition do you have? I hope it's not an abridged version. The unabridged is long, but it is amazing! Please, please read it soon! I'd love to hear what you think.

Becky, I own the Borders Classics edition, which, I believe, is unabridged. I started it over the summer but the school started and I abandoned it. I shall try to pick it up soon.

Well, I finally finished a book. I'm down to needing to read 105. Yay for me.

I read The Graduate. It was pretty good. The movie very closely followed the storyline.

Oh and my copy of Monte Cristo is abridged, which is a total bummer. I'm not sure what to do about Monte Cristo and Les Miserables. I'm not sure that I would ever read them again to make me want to buy new copies, but I feel kind of cheap for only ever reading the abridged versions. Anyone have any thoughts?

Hmmm... well... You could buy this unabridged Penguin edition from Barnes and Noble and ask for a gift receipt. That gives you 30 days to return it (instead of the normal 15 days) and then you'd just have to read it very carefully!

Or you could see if a library has the unabridged edition.

I've never read the abridged edition, but I can't imagine that its better than the unabridged. It's long, yes, but its so worth it to experience the nuance and subtlety.

Of course, I just thought of this too. You could try to find a used copy on Ebay or you could try to find it on a trade site like BookMooch or PaperbackSwap.

That's true. But that would mean that I've thrown away $15 on two books that I'll never read. Grr. I wish there was a happy medium with this.

Hmm... Well, you could sell the others. There are tons of people who don't feel as passionately about reading unabridged novels as I do, haha... I'm sure they would be willing to buy them!

Damn, damn, damn. I've got a case of reader's block. I'm reading 3 books, but Hemingway, Anna Karenina, poetry, and other books are vying for my attention. So much for hoping for spring break would be a productive reading break. Edgar Sawtelle is still holding my attention though. I think it might be time to read something fluffy just so I can finish a book and build my confidence.

Uhh, yeah. I think I'd have reader's block reading those three things too. You should take a break from one or two of them and read something a little less... strenuous!

I know. I've started reading Little House in the Big Woods since the Little House Collection is on my list. I just wish I could finish those books, especially Lolita because I'm not really enjoying it but I need to finish it eventually.

I picked up an old favorite: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. It's not exactly on my list (although I may put it as the read a book about women category) but I adore it. The whole series transports me to somewhere else, somewhere better. I think it's just what I needed and it's exactly what Dr. Becky ordered.

I like your goals, Lori--you have a lot of good books. Good luck!

Liz, Thank you. But unfortunately I'm really good at making lists and not always spectacular at doing everything on them. Hopefully, I'll do well at finishing things this time.

I think you can do it. After all, what is summer for?

Glad I could help Lori! :)

I'm currently struggling through The Screwtape Letters. It's interesting, I guess, but I'm not really into it like I was hoping I would be.

My ex's mom recommended that book to me a couple of years ago and since I was trying to get on her good list, I bought it (and several other Christian books) but I've never read it. It's really short, so hopefully I can plow through it one day this summer.

Good Luck! I hope when you read it you like it more than I do. It's short, but dense.

:)

I just finished Divine Secrets of the Yaya Sisterhood. I've read it before, but I needed to re-read a favorite to get me going again. I love that entire series! The characters make me so happy and I'm taken somewhere different and amazing. I'd recommend this series to all women.

I'm very very very tempted to read at least one of the other books right now instead of something else from the challenge...

Well, I did decide to re-read Ya-Yas in Bloom. But I made it work for my challenge because it was written in the last 5 years.

I'm not sure what I'll be reading next. I've been sick and my eyes have been hurting, so I haven't done much in the way of reading, unfortunately. Don't you just hate it when you're sick and you can't read?

Yes :( Feel better soon, Lori!