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I had so much fun with my two reading challenges from 2014, I’ve decided to sign up for four more in 2015, and also host (and participate in) my own reading challenge.

Yup, you’ve read that right—I’ll be taking on five reading challenges in 2015. Thankfully, I’ve been frequenting my local library lately, which means I won’t be amassing too many books here that may need to be donated once/if I leave this part of the world. And if I get super duper desperate, I can always include an academic monographs or fifty. (Actually, no, I won’t. My only self-imposed pre-requisite for these books is that they are to be “funfunfun” and unrelated to my PhD research.)

The five three challenges I’ve decided to take on are:

    • Authors A to Z Reading Challenge
    • Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge
    • Back to the Classics Challenge

(Completed!)

Authors A to Z Reading Challenge (found here)

2015-authors-bannerI’ve made a separate post for my list.

Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge (hosted by Escape with Dollycas Into a Good Book)

A: Roberto Bolaño – Antwerp
B: Kit Rocha – Beyond Shame
C: Elizabeth Gaskell – Cranford
D: Vladimir Nabokov – Despair
E: Vikram Seth – An Equal Music
F: Alice Hoffman – Fortune’s Daughter
G: Eimear McBride – A Girl is a Half-formed Thing
H: Evelyn Waugh – A Handful of Dust
I: Miles Jupp — In and Out of the Kitchen
J: Eva Ibbotson – Journey to the River Sea
K: Carrie Vaughn – Kitty and the Midnight Hour
L: Stephen Fry – The Liar
M: Elizabeth Gaskell – Mary Barton
N: Fyodor Dostoyevsky – Netochka Nezvanova
O: Cicero – On the Good Life
P: Aeschylus – Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians
Q: Alexander Pushkin – The Queen of Spades and Other Stories
R: Daphne du Maurier – Rebecca
S: E. Nesbit – The Story of the Treasure Seekers
T: Ruth Ozeki – A Tale For the Time Being
U: Scott Westerfield – Uglies
V: James A. Grymes — Violins of Hope
W: Marian Keyes – Watermelon
X: Ken Hunt and Mike Taylor – The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Aussies
Y: Joanna Briscoe – You
Z: Yamaguchi, Noboru – Zero no Tsukaima (The Familiar of Zero), Vol. 1

Completed on: 31 December 2015!

Back to the Classics Challenge (hosted by Books and Chocolate)

This one doesn’t allow cross-overs with any of the other challenges, but it’s right up my alley, and I hope to read something from every category.
Apparently, I can’t read (slightly problematic, I know)… This does allow cross-overs with other challenges, so we’re doubly good to go! In the interest of saving myself from future flailing in front of my bookshelf, I’m going to fill out my list now, and update it with review links once I’ve read them.

Update on 7 Dec: I’ve completed this challenge (without even noticing, really)! Happy days!

1. A 19th Century Classic: Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Netochka Nezvanova
2. A 20th Century Classic: Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust
3. A Classic by a Woman Author: Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca
4. A Classic in Translation: Euripides’s Electra and Other Plays
5. A Very Long Classic Novel: Leo Tolstoy’s Resurrection
6. A Classic Novella: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Cranford
7. A Classic with a Person’s Name in the Title: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton
8. A Humorous or Satirical Classic: Vladimir Nabokov’s Despair
9. A Forgotten Classic: Cicero’s On the Good Life (collected essays)
10. A Nonfiction Classic: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’s The Communist Manifesto
11. A Classic Children’s Book: E. Nesbit’s The Story of the Treasure Seekers
12. A Classic Play: Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians

I’ll be updating this post and filling it with awesome titles as the year progresses—am really excited about all the reading to come!