Reading Challenges

2012 Reading Challenges

February in Translation (personal challenge)

Books read:
The Lake – Banana Yoshimoto
The Confessions of Noa Weber – Gail Hareven
Brothers – Yu Hua
Out – Natsuo Kirino
To the End of the Land – David Grossman
Voice Over – Celine Curiol
Tokyo Fiancee – Amelie Nothomb
The Last Brother - Nathacha Appanah
All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque

Pool:
Via BTBA (Longlisted titles)
Hygiene and the Assassin – Amelie Nothomb
I curse the River of Time – Per Petterson
The Black Minutes – Martin Solares
Agaat – Marlene Van Niekerk
News from the Empire – Fernando del Paso
The Tanners – Robert Walser
Voice Over – Celine Curiol
The Savage Detectives – Roberto Bolano
Missing Soluch – Mahmoud Dowlatabadi

Via the BBC World Book Club podcast
To the End of the Land – David Grossman
Woman at point zero – Nawal El Saadawi
The winter queen: a novel – Boris Akunin

Other books off my TBR list
The Accordionist’s Son – Bernardo Atxaga
Brothers – Yu Hua
Chronicle of a Blood Merchant – Yu Hua
Someone to Run With – David Grossman
The Confessions of Noa Weber – Gail Hareven
In the Sea there are Crocodiles: Based on The True Story Of Enaiatollah Akbari – Fabio Geda
The Lake – Banana Yoshimoto
Hotel Iris – Yoko Ogawa
The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
Shifu, you’ll do anything for a laugh – Mo Yan
he song of everlasting sorrow: a novel of Shanghai – Wang Anyi
The gardens of light: a novel – Amin Maalouf
The Changeling – Kenzaburo Oe
The Boat to Redemption – Su Tong

Foodies Read 2 Challenge for 2012

Books read:

A Tiger in the Kitchen – Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Blood, bones, and butter – Gabrielle Hamilton
The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the meaning of food – Adam Gopnik
Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life – Sandra Beasley
The Fourth Star: Dispatches from Inside Daniel Boulud’s Celebrated New York Restaurant – Leslie Brenner
Far Flung and Well Fed – R.W.Apple Jr
Life is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days – James and Kay Salter

Pool:

<em>The table comes first : family, France, and the meaning of food – Adam Gopnik
The kitchen counter cooking school : how a few simple lessons transformed nine culinary novices into fearless home cooks – Kathleen Flinn
Don’t kill the birthday girl : tales from an allergic life – Sandra Beasley
How to eat a small country : a family’s pursuit of happiness, one meal at a time – Amy Finley
Beaten, seared, and sauced : on becoming a chef at the Culinary Institute of America – Jonathan Dixon
A tiger in the kitchen : a memoir of food and family – Cheryl Lu-lien Tan
Fannie’s last supper : re-creating one amazing meal from Fannie Farmer’s 1896 cookbook – Christopher Kimball
Blood, bones, and butter – Gabrielle Hamilton
The dirty life : on farming, food, and love – Kristin Kimball
Memories of a lost Egypt : a memoir with recipes – Colette Rossant
97 Orchard : an edible history of five immigrant families in one New York tenement – Jane Ziegelman

Mixing it Up challenge

1. Classics

Night and Day – Virginia Woolf

3. Cookery, food and wine

A Tiger in the Kitchen – Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan
Blood, bones, and butter – Gabrielle Hamilton
The Table Comes First – Adam Gopnik
Far Flung and Well Fed – R.W. Apple Jr
Life is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days – James and Kay Salter

War Through the Generations

Books read: 

All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque

2011 Reading Challenges

Readers Imbibing in Peril VI (Completed!)

Books read:

Chocky – John Wyndham
A Red Herring without Mustard – Alan Bradley
The Terror – Dan Simmons
A Discovery of Witches – Deborah Harkness
Jamaica Inn – Daphne du Maurier

My Pool:

Poe’s Children The New Horror: An Anthology – edited by Peter Straub
The woman in black – Susan Hill
Ysabel – Guy Gavriel Kay
Jamaica Inn – Daphne du Maurier
A discovery of witches – Deborah Harkness
In the Woods – Tana French
The last werewolf – Glen Duncan
The Midwich Cuckoos – John Wyndham
Chocky – John Wyndham
The terror – Dan Simmons
The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

2011 Global Reading Challenge

Challenge Page

Books read:

Australasia
New Zealand
Dreamhunter: Book one of the Dreamhunter Duet - Elizabeth Knox
Dreamquake: Book two of the Dreamhunter Duet – Elizabeth Knox

Australia
The Slap – Christos Tsolkias
Eucalyptus – Murray Bail

Asia
Malaysia/Singapore
Joss and Gold – Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Japan
Sputnik Sweetheart – Haruki Murakami

Iran
Cemetery of Dreams – S Mostofi

East Pakistan/Bangladesh
A Golden Age – Tahmima Anam

South Korea

Please Look After Mom – Kyung-Sook Shin

Africa
Ethiopia
Cutting for Stone – Abraham Verghese

Nigeria
Graceland – Chris Abani

Somalia
Sardines – Nuruddin Farah

Sierra Leone

The Memory of Love – Aminatta Forna

Europe
Azerbaijan
Ali and Nino – Kurban Said

England
After You’d Gone – Maggie O’Farrell

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice – Laurie R. King

Ireland
Molly Fox’s Birthday – Deirdre Madden

South America
Guyana
The Ventriloquist’s Tale – Pauline Melville

Cuba
Monkey Hunting – Cristina Garcia

North America
Canada
Jade Peony – Wayson Choy
United States
A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
You Remind Me of Me – Dan Chaon
Leaving Atlanta – Tayari Jones

The Seventh Continent (I’ve chosen space colonies)
The Dazzle of Day – Molly Gloss
Remnant Population – Elizabeth Moon

My Pool *likely to change and even more likely to grow and grow and grow*

(links are to Amazon)

Africa
Algeria
The Lovers of Algeria: A Novel – Anouar Benmalek
Afghanistan
The Swallows of Kabul – Yasmina Khadra
Morocco
Secret Son – Laila Lalami
The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
Egypt
The Harafish – Naguib Mahfouz
Nigeria
Graceland – Chris Abani
Rhodesia (Zimbabwe)
Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga
Ethiopia
Secrets – Nuruddin Farah

Asia
Bangladesh
A Golden Age: A Novel – Tahmima Anam
Indonesia
All That Is Gone – Pramoedya Ananta Toer
The Philippines
Ilustrado: A Novel- Miguel Syjuco
Vietnam
Paradise of the Blind: A Novel - Duong Thu Huong
Singapore/Malaysia
Joss and Gold – Shirley Geok-lin Lim
China
China Mountain Zhang – Maureen F. McHugh
Japan
Grotesque – Natsuo Kirino
Korea
The Calligrapher’s Daughter: A Novel – Eugenia Kim
Mongolia
The Blue Sky: A Novel – Galsan Tschinag
Hong Kong
The Piano Teacher: A Novel – Janice Y.K. Lee

Australasia
Australia
The Slap: A Novel – Christos Tsiolkas
Eucalyptus: A Novel – Murray Bail
New Zealand
Once Were Warriors – Alan Duff

Europe
England
The Photograph – Penelope Lively
France
The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
Hungary
The Swimmer – Zsuzsa Bank
Russia
Dreams Of My Russian Summers: A Novel – Andrei Makine
Sweden
The Ice Princess: A Novel – Camilla Lackberg

North America
Canada
Annabel: A Novel – Kathleen Winter
February – Lisa Moore
Lullabies for Little Criminals – Heather O’Neill
Hey Nostradamus!: A Novel – Douglas Coupland
United States
Bastard out of Carolina – Dorothy Allison
Tales of the City: A Novel – Armistead Maupin
Heir to the Glimmering World – Cynthia Ozick

South America
Argentina
The Story of the Night: A Novel – Colm Tóibín
Cuba
Monkey Hunting – Cristina Garcia
Guatemala
The Good Cripple – Rodrigo Rey Rosa
Guyana
The Ventriloquist’s Tale – Pauline Melville
Panana
The Tailor of Panama – John le Carre
Uruguay
Let the Wind Speak – Juan Carlos Onetti

The Seventh Continent (I’m going to pick books set in space colonies)
Farmer in the Sky – Robert A. Heinlein
The Knife of Never Letting Go: Chaos Walking: Book One – Patrick Ness
The Empress of Mars – Kage Baker
The Dazzle of Day – Molly Gloss
Revelation Space – Alistair Reynolds

Victorian Literature Challenge 2011

Books read:

The Pool:

Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

Cranford – Elizabeth Gaskell

Adam Bede – George Eliot

New Grub Street – George Gissing

The Odd Women – George Gissing

Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad