Joyfully Retired

I love book challenges. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to be a book blogger. I like the idea of banding together with other readers for the purpose of reading a particular genre or group of books.

I also like being able to challenge myself as a way of focusing my reading in various directions. This year I decided to make sure my book challenges would be real challenges. I didn’t join a reading challenge if I know I’ll be doing the challenge anyway. Example is the E-rader challenge and the Audiobook Challenge. This change has resulted in less book challenges this year.

This page will serve as the record of my progress in the challenges I’ve joined. The only exception in my progress in the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. I’ve given that challenge it’s own page here. That challenge will take me several more years to complete.

 Support Your Local Library Challenge

Goal: To read at least 30 books from the library. Progress: 11/30

What’s In a Name 5

Goal: Read all 6 of the following categories:

• A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title
• A book with something you’d see in the sky in the title
• A book with a creepy crawly in the title
• A book with a type of house in the title
• A book with something you’d carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack in the title
• A book with something you’d find on a calendar in the title

European Challenge

Goal: Read at least five books by different European authors or books set in different European countries. Five Star (Deluxe Entourage)

Reading the Awards Challenge

Goal: Read at least 10 books that won awards.

1. Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhh Lai (Review @ Quirky Girls Read (QGR)
2. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (review @ QGR)
3. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward (review @ QGR)

American Battle of the Prizes

Goal: Read books that have won the Pulitzer and National Book Award and at least one book that double-dipped – won both the Pulitzer and the National Book Award.

1. National Book Award (Young People’s Division): Inside Out & Back Again
2. National Book Award (Fiction): Salvage the Bones

British Battle of the Prizes

Goal: Read books that have won the Man Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Prize and at least one book that has double dipped – won both the Booker and the Black Prize.

1. Won the Booker Prize 2011: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes (review at Quirky Girls Read)
2. Won the James Tait Black Award: Saturday by Ian McEwan (review at Quirky Girls Read)

Foodies Read 2 Challenge

1. Cooking Solves Everything by Mark Bittman
2. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Amy Bender
3. Just Tacos by Shelley Wisemman