Friday 23 September 2011

Challenge Updates: The whole damn lot of them

Middlemarch
This year, I signed up for a few challenges: 1st in a Series, 2nd in a Series, Victorian Literature and the A to Z Title challenge.  I've completed 1st and 2nd, done the bare minimum of Victorian reading (5 out of 5-9) and have only Z to go on the title challenge (Dr Zhivago).  So, time for some updates because I have read a lot of books this year and have so far only managed to review 4/113 - that's 3.5% which is rubbish.

I'm not going to list what I've read for each challenge, as that is on the Challenge page, but I am going to make a few plans and hope that by sharing them I actually complete them (seriously, me and Emma Woodhouse have far too much in common when it comes to book related plans).

1) Complete the A to Z challenge.  Dr Zhivago is scaring me a little because a) it's my first ever Russian novel, and b) I've tried to read Anna Karenina and oh good Lord the names.  Why must everyone have so many different names?  It is confusing for the reader.  This is what is worrying me the most, I think, that I'll get so confused I'll give up.  I must not give up.

Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871)
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1848)
Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes (1857)
Villette by Charlotte Bronte (1853)

There are also libraries I can raid, possibly to find shorter Victorian novels.

3) Review at least half of the books I read for these challenges.  Some of them crossover - so far I have read 55 individual books for these challenges, and have reviewed 3 of them (Ash, Sisters Red and Treasure Island).  I borrowed quite a few of them from the library, or don't have them in my current flat, so I'll be doing those which I actually have with me so I can reread/check facts before reviewing.

4) My final, ongoing challenge is Project Fill in the Gaps.  I've read 16 from the list this year, taking my overall title to 29/100.  I'd like to get to 30.  Some of the books I read for other challenges overlap with this one, and the Victorian novels listed above fit on it, so I should be able to complete this.  Review target: half of the books I've read this year.

So, not too much to be getting on with there.

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