Reading challenges are initiatives that encourage a reader to stretch herself by choosing books beyond her comfort zone (whether through a subject, genre, or sheer volume), give the incentive to finally devote attention to something one always wanted to try or has long neglected, grow one's awareness of other titles of interest, and promote networking between booklovers. A few even allow participants who have successfully achieved their commitment to enter into a prize drawing.
2011
The sign-up notices for the five challenges I have chosen follow below. They contain links to the hosting blogs, and will eventually serve as a quick reference for locating those of my posts that are relevant to each challenge. In alphabetical order, the challenges are the Eastern European Reading Challenge, Foodie’s Reading Challenge, Historical Fiction Challenge, Nordic Challenge, and Romance Reading Challenge.
Eastern European Reading Challenge
The Eastern European Reading Challenge is hosted by The Black Sheep Dances. My intention is to complete the lowest level, “Tourist”, by reading a mix of novels and non-fiction.
Update: read Doctor Dumany's Wife by Mor Jokai. No post.
Bai Ganyo by Aleko Konstantinov will, I believe, be the first novel I have read by a Bulgarian author.
The Bridge On The Drina by Ivo Andrić is a historical fiction classic that I have intended to read ever since first seeing its worn spine on my grandparents’ bookshelves when I was a child. In those days, the author was classed as Yugoslavian, but today the area he hailed from is the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
A Day Of Pleasure by Isaac Bashevis Singer is an episodic memoir of this Nobel Prize winner’s childhood in Poland. Read, no post.
In The Queen’s Necklace, Hungarian author Antal Szerb reflects about late eighteenth-century France through the lens of the infamous affair involving Queen Marie-Antoinette’s diamond necklace. Read, no post.
Foodie's Reading Challenge
Foodie’s Reading Challenge is hosted by Margot of Joyfully Retired. The level I have chosen is “Nibbler”, which entails reading up to three food-themed books, whether fiction, memoirs, or cookbooks.
Of the three tentative choices I am listing here, two are based on my curiosity about Middle Eastern food and traditions. The third is a glossy, visually luxurious cookbook by the châtelaine of Vaux-Le-Vicomte in France.
Pomegranate Soup by Marsha Mehran is a novel about what happens when three Iranian sisters open a café serving Persian dishes in a small Irish town.
Update: Read Baking Cakes In Kigali by Gaile Parkin; no post.
Update: Read the anthology A Regency Christmas Feast; no post.
Decadent Desserts: Recipes From Château Vaux-le-Vicomte by Countess Christina de Voguë: I first became interested in this baroque château through reading about the downfall of Nicolas Fouquet in The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas (the concluding D’Artagnan novel). Update: read, no post.
The Language Of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber combines the author’s Jordanian and American heritages into a memoir about food, family, and culture.
Historical Fiction Challenge
Historical Tapestry is hosting the Historical Fiction Challenge. At the level of “Struggling The Addiction” one is expected to complete ten works. I would generally exceed that number in a few months (less, if I count the books I don’t blog about), but considering that 2011 will bring me challenges in more than one sense I want to set goals I can reach sooner rather than later. Happily, the rules for the Historical Fiction Challenge allow books to overlap with other challenges.
Beyond All Frontiers by Elizabeth Darrell (Emma Drummond)
Georges by Alexandre Dumas
Liszt's Kiss by Susanne Dunlap
The Girl King by Meg Clothier
The King's Witch by Cecelia Holland
The Midwife Of Venice by Roberta Rich
The Pianist In The Dark by Michèle Halberstadt
Josefina's Sin by Claudia H. Long
Here are a few novels I hope will eventually make my list:
Private Renaissance by Maria Bellonci won the Premio Strega, Italy’s foremost literary award, in 1986. The novel is a fictional biography of Isabella d’Este. Update: DNF, no post.
Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières chronicles the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the beginnings of the Turkish Republic in a story about love and war in south-western Anatolia. Update: not read.
Rider On A White Horse by Rosemary Sutcliff recounts the English Civil War through the eyes of Lady Anne Fairfax and her husband, Thomas, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, a parliamentary general. Update: read, no post.
Georges (read) by Alexandre Dumas is a romance first published in France in 1843; it is set on Mauritius a few decades earlier. In view of his own heritage, it will be especially interesting to see how Dumas, a favourite author of mine, treats issues of race.
The Pericles Commission by Gary Corby is a humorous mystery set in 5th-century Greece, B.C.E., the first in a new series. Update: read, no post.
Godiva by Nerys Jones tells the story of the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman behind the legend. Update: DNF, no post.
Nordic Challenge
The Nordic Challenge is organised by Reading In The North. The level I am choosing is “Freya”: three to five books.
Update: read The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, no post. Read The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson, no post.
If it qualifies, Jörgen Lykke (originally, Jørgen Lykke: Rigens sidste ridder) by Danish author Thit Jensen is my first choice. After its publication in 1931 the novel was translated into several European languages (I have encountered Swedish, German, Czech, and Finnish editions) but not, it seems, English. A champion of women’s causes, Jensen was a bestselling author in Denmark in the 1930s. Jörgen Lykke is set during the Danish Reformation.
Death Awaits Thee was originally published in 1955 by the author then popularly described as Sweden’s Agatha Christie, Maria Lang. The setting is the famous eighteenth-century opera house on the outskirts of Stockholm, Drottningholm’s Palace Theatre, during murderous rehearsals for Mozart’s Cosí Fan Tutte. Update: read, no post.
Among newer authors I am considering is Finnish-born Sofi Oksanen and her 2008 novel Purge. Set in Estonia during the Soviet occupation, the book is based on her play of the same name. It has won numerous prestigious awards. Update: DNF, no post.
Romance Reading Challenge
Bookworm’s Romance Reading Challenge defines romance broadly, from Helen Fielding to Harlequin, and so I look forward to participating with at least five novels from a wide spectrum.
Update: Completed.
The Ghost And Mrs. Muir by Josephine Leslie (R. A. Dick)
Scoundrel's Kiss by Carrie Lofty
White by Rosie Thomas
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Doctor's Mission by Debbie Kaufman
Early contenders are:
A Hopeless Romantic by Harriet Evans - romantic contemporary fiction set in the UK by a new-to-me author.
Shadow And Silk by Anne Maxwell (Elizabeth Lowell) – contemporary romance partially set in Tibet.
Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin – Harlequin historical romance set in China during the Tang Dynasty. (Update: DNF, no post)
Crocodile On The Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters – the first installment in the Amelia Peabody series, set in Egypt, which I have not yet read although I have vastly enjoyed Peters's Vicky Bliss series.
The Ghost And Mrs. Muir by Josephine Leslie (read) – the book behind the lovely film with Gene Tierney as a young widow and Rex Harrison as the irascible captain whose ghost haunts the cottage she rents.
With Or Without You by Carole Matthews – romantic comedy partially set in Nepal. Update: DNF, no post.
