Book challenges aplenty

Okay.  I found this awesome website that lists all kinds of book challenges, including the one I blogged about yesterday.

Because I am me and I love a challenge, here are the ones I'm doing:

1)  The Pub.  I am to read at least 9 books that were first published in 2009.  (Home Safe, Long Lost, Blind Man's Bluff, Life Sentences, The School of Essential Ingredients, Hardball, The Scarecrow, Run For Your Life and Handle With Care.)

2)  The Casual Classics Challenge (finished 3/14).  Read four classic books.  (I'm doing Little Women, I Am Legend, Lolita and The Secret Garden.)

3)  The Rescue Challenge (finished 12/24).  Read 3-6 books that you've had for over three years and haven't read.  (I'm doing Folly, Ragtime, Memoirs of a Geisha, Bel Canto, The Accidental Tourist and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.)

4)  The TBR Project (completed 8/6).  You pick nine books from one of each of the following categories:  Long, Free, Dusty (you've had it for a long time), Used, Letter (a letter in your name matches a letter in the author's name or in the title), Strange (a genre you don't normally read), Distance (has to take place over 1,000 miles from where you live, Alive or Not (author has to have been nominated for or won a major literary prize and then you say whether said author is still alive) and Cover (prettiest/ugliest cover).  In order, I'm doing: South of Broad, The Poisonwood Bible, The Secret Garden, A Cold Day For Murder, Something WicKed This Way Comes, This Lovely Life (I don't usually read nonfiction/memoirs), The Book Thief (takes place in Germany) and Sacred Hearts.

5)  The Genre Challenge.  You are given 12 genres and you can read 10, 11 or 12.  I'm doing 10 (which will let me drop the one I like the least as well as the one I read most often).  The genres I'm keeping are crime fiction (The Amateurs), detective fiction (Angels Flight), horror fiction (Just After Sunset), thriller fiction (Cross Country), romance fiction (Time of My Life), science fiction (The Hunger Games), action/adventure fiction (The Lost Symbol), fantasy fiction (Graceling), realistic fiction (Testimony) and historical fiction (The Virgin's Lover--which sounds trashy but is by Philippa Gregory).

6)  The A-Z Reading Challenge.  Read 26 authors (one per alphabet letter) or read 26 books (one per alphabet letter) or both.  I'm doing Little Women, The Amateurs, The Secret Garden, Blind Man's Bluff, Crash Into Me, Moonlight in Odessa, World's Fair, The Devouring, After, Eden Close, If I Stay, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Eat, Pray, Love, Goldengrove, Happens Every Day, Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine, I Am Legend, Never Let Me Go, Would You, Joy in the Morning, The Heretic's Daughter, Knit Two, Light on Snow, Gifted, Dewey,  Marley and Me, Newes From the Dead, Evermore, Songs For the Missing, Off Season, Alex Cross's Trial, Prism, Never Tear Us Apart, Queen of Babble, The Westing Game, Run For Your Life, Say When, The Secret Circle, Twisted, The Daughter of Time, The Uses Of Enchantment, Undone, Dicey's Song, The Vampire Diaries, The Rules of Survival, 3 Willows, Love and Other Ruins, Ink Exchange, You Are So Undead To Me, Books, The Book Thief and The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. 

7)  Celebrate the Author.  Read 12 books (one a month, obviously) based on the author's birthday. I'm doing World's Fair, Hell House, Skylight Confessions, The Book of Lies, The Reapers, Along For The Ride, Bridge of Sighs, The Wives of Henry VIII, In Cold Blood, Digging to America, Cold Mountain and Shining Through. 

8)  What's in a Name.  You pick six books that meet specific criteria.  I'm doing The Bookseller of Kabul, The Night Country, Things I Want My Daughters to Know, Heart and Soul, The Cider House Rules and Blinded by the Right.  (In order, titles with a profession, time of day, relative, body part, building and medical condition.)

9)  New Author Challenge.  You pick however many new (to you) authors and read a book of theirs. I'm reading The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, Stealing Heaven, The School of Essential Ingredients, Newes From the Dead, The Summoning, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, Not Much, Just Chillin', Tomato Girl, Elsewhere, Jesus in the Margins, Deadline, Girl Meets God, Foreskin's Lament, Artichoke's Heart, Sweethearts, Need, The School For Dangerous Girls, Unwind, The Westing Game, The Reason For God, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, Bad Girls Don't Die, Eat Pray Love, Talk to the Hand, Shift, Between Here and April, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Columbine, Bringing Down the House, The Thorn Birds, The Book of Dahlia, Here If You Need Me, Gone, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Seance, The Season, Bewitching Season, Going Too Far, I Know It's Over, Would You, Shadowed Summer, Wicked Lovely, The September Sisters, Evermore, Shelter Me, Bliss, Invisible Touch, City of Bones, Everything Beautiful, Good Book, Soldier's Heart, If I Stay, The Red Leather Diary, Willow, Thirteen Reasons Why, Saving Juliet, Confessions of Georgia Nicholson, Broken For You, The Dust of 100 Dogs, Cracked Up to Be, Who By Fire, Supreme Courtship, North of Beautiful, The Luxe, The Commoner, Beginner's Greek, What Should I Do With My Life?, The Myth Of You And Me, The Silver Pigs, A Cold Day For Murder, Lost, Blue Like Jazz, Company of Liars, Slumdog Millionaire, Then We Came To the End, Marley and Me, Teen Dreams, The Society of S, Sugar Queen, Priest, Standing Still, We're All in This Together, School's Out, Dewey, Song Yet Sung, You Are So Undead to Me, Hunger Games, The Irresistible Revolution, Do Hard Things, Mistress of Mellyn, The Geography of Bliss, Sister Wife and The Lit Report. 

10)  From the Stacks challenge (completed 11/15).  Read five books you've been meaning to get around to.  (I'm doing The Department of Lost & Found by Allison Winn Scotch, Revelations by Melissa de la Cruz, A Wedding in December by Anita Shreve, The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle and The Secret Between Us by Barbara Delinsky.)

11)  Just4thehelluvit.  (Pretty much anything I see that isn't already in a challenge will be added to this one.)  I'm reading Honest Conversations, Splendor, Dark Visions, Going Bovine, Catalyst, Prom, Twisted, Dark Places, Twenties Girl, Dune Road, Alex Cross' Trial, Juliet Naked, Something Maybe, Story of a Girl, Year of Wonders, Prism, Wintergirls, The Forgotten Garden, Joy in the Morning, Fearless Girls, Wise Women and Beloved Sisters, Firmin, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, The Neighbor, March, Shakespeare Wrote For Money, I Am the Messenger, Searching For God Knows What, Shanghai Girls, Sleep Pale Sister, Plea of Insanity, Eden Close, Tis the Season, Blood Sins, Dinner With Anna Karenina, Fortune's Rocks, Body Surfing, Where or When, The Last Time They Met, Resistance, The Pilot's Wife, Sea Glass, Strange Fits of Passion, The Weight of Water, All He Ever Wanted and An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.

12)  The Numbers Challenge (completed 4/30).  Read five books between January 1 and August 1 that have a number in the title.  I'm reading The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, 3 Willows, Perfect Fifths, The 8th Confession and Dust of 100 Dogs.

13)  Read Your Name Challenge.  I'm reading Knit Two, Eden Close, Light on Snow, Life Sentences and Year of Fog. 

14)  Dewey's Books Reading Challenge.  There are different options but I'm picking five books she read and reviewed.  I didn't know Dewey, but she sounded awesome.  I'm reading The Graveyard Book, Dear American Airlines, Gifted, The Secret of Lost Things and I Love You, Beth Cooper.

15)  The 100+ Reading Challenge.  (completed 4/16/09)  You read over 100 books. :)

16)  Read Your Own Books.  This is the one that I made the big list for earlier, remember?

17)  20 in 2009. (completed 1/18/09) I have to read 20 books in 2009.  (It's my goal to have read 20 books by my birthday in April.)  You can follow my progress here.

18) Chick Lit Challenge.  Read at least 10 chick lit books.  I will read The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder, The Actor and the Housewife, Acceptance, Best Friends Forever, Dune Road, Mating Rituals of the North American WASP, The School of Essential Ingredients, Heart and Soul, Twenties Girl, How to Be Cool.

19)  2nds Challenge.  Read a book by an author you've only read once before.  I am going to read Blue Moon, Dicey's Song, The Sealed Letter, Catching Fire, Chains, Impossible, Footfree and Fancy Loose, First Light, The Awakening, Something, Maybe, City of Ashes and Joy in the Morning.

20)  Series challenge.  Finish a series (or multiple).  I'm going to finish the Tillerman series (Dicey's Song, A Solitary Blue, The Runner, Come a Stranger, Sons From Afar, Seventeen Against the Dealer), City of Ashes, City of Glass, Rumors, Envy, the Amish series that Beverly Lewis writes (The Prodigal and The Revelation), Catching Fire, Demon Ex Machina, The Van Alen Legacy, Fragile Eternity, The 8th Confession, Blue Moon, The Awakening, Night World #2 and Night World #3 by L.J. Smith.  I also just realized that I didn't read Cornelia Read's first book or the last book in Laurie R. King's Kate Martinelli series (A Field of Darkness and The Art of Detection, respectively), so I'm going to throw those in, too.

21)  Chunkster Challenge.  I am doing option three--six books of 450 pages or more.  I'm reading East of Eden, Until I Find You, The Loop, The Smoke Jumper, Straight Into Darkness and The 19th Wife. 

They have all kinds of other challenges--one for Christian fiction, one for Civil War books, one for Latin American authors/novels...it should be pretty awesome.  I hope you guys sign up for some. :)