Challenge Wrap Up #3 - Take A Chance Challenge

I just about finished the Take A Chance Challenge in the nick of time, and I have to say, it's been fun! The randomness of this challenge led to me being pleasantly surprised a couple of times, and slightly disappointed a couple of times.

I created a list of the nine books I'd read as part of this challenge on 14 June 2009, and some five months later, I'm done!

The nine books I eventually read were:

1. John Christopher – The Death of Grass

2. Terry Pratchett – A Hat Full Of Sky

3. Orsan Scott Card – Ender’s Game

4. John Le Carre – A Murder Of Quality

5. Susan Hill – The Beacon

6. Gabriel Garcia Marquez – News Of A Kidnapping

7. David Guterson – East of the Mountains

8. Ann Brashares - The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants

9. JK Rowling - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

This challenge also included some "lit riffing", which I did to REM's Diminished. I thoroughly enjoyed writing that "short story".

So, my favourites from this challenge have been John Christopher's The Death of Grass, Oscar Scott Card's Ender's Game, and Marquez's News Of A Kidnapping - the only non-fiction book read for this challenge.

I didn't really enjoy a couple of the others, but, when you take a chance, you have to be prepared to win some, lose some. Considering some of the amazing finds, I'm quite happy to let the so-called "duds" go.

Thanks again Jenners, for coming up with such a fun and creative challenge!

Challenge Wrap Up #2 - The 12 Country Challenge

I don't have a fancy map for this, I'm afraid, but I have completed my self-assigned twelve country challenge. And, I'm pretty sure I'm going to hit the 15 country mark, so, a pat on the back, from me to me. So, without much further ado, here's my final list (if I do read more, I'll add it on!) :

  1. Orhan Pamuk – The White Castle (Turkey)
  2. Mohsin Hamid – Moth Smoke (Pakistan)
  3. Rohinton Mistry – Such A Long Journey (India)
  4. Haruki Murakami – Norwegian Wood (Japan)
  5. Gyorgy Dragoman – The White King (Hungary)
  6. Milan Kundera – The Book of Laughter & Forgetting (Czechoslovakia)
  7. Bernhard Schlink – Homecoming (Germany)
  8. Ann Holm – I Am David (Denmark)
  9. Carlos Ruiz Zafón – The Shadow of the Wind (Spain)
  10. Gabriel Garcia Marquez – News Of A Kidnapping (Columbia)
  11. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Half of a Yellow Sun (Nigeria)
  12. Lloyd Jones – The Book Of Fame (New Zealand)
My top three reads are:
  1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez – News Of A Kidnapping (Columbia)
  2. Haruki Murakami – Norwegian Wood (Japan)
  3. Carlos Ruiz Zafón – The Shadow of the Wind (Spain)

I know some of you would have put Half Of A Yellow Sun on it, and I almost did. However, I think The Shadow of the Wind just edges ahead of it by less than a quarter of an inch. It was a really tough call.

And the ones I didn't really enjoy:

  1. Bernhard Schlink – Homecoming (Germany)
  2. Lloyd Jones – The Book Of Fame (New Zealand)

The one thing that stands out in my reading, for this challenge is, there are two Nobel Prize winners (Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Orhan Pamuk), and it is rumored that Milan Kundera was considered for it as well. Other than that, there are no 'famous' prize winners (books, not authors) in the above list!

Have you read any of the above books? Which ones did you like?

Also, can you recommend any other "international" books that you think is a must read? I got some suggestions in the Weekly Geeks from a couple of weeks back, so, thanks to everyone who threw recommendations my way there.

Challenge Wrap Up #1 - The 1% Well Read Challenge '09

I signed up for 1morechapter's 1% Well Read Challenge earlier on this year, making a shortlist of twenty books, and striking them out as and when done.

Of course, what with me being me, and all that, I added two books on, in the last two months, which weren't in the original shortlist.

The challenge provided us with three options, and always one for taking the easy way out, I opted for the second:

  1. Read 10 titles from the original list from March 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009
  2. Read 10 titles from the new list from March 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009
  3. Read 13 titles from the combined list (of almost 1300 titles) from March 1, 2009 through March 31, 2010. In other words, “What were they thinking dropping titles from Dostoevsky and Jane Austen?”

The final ten books read were:

  1. F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby (7th March 2009)
  2. Philip Roth - The Plot Against America (15th March 2009)
  3. Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale (6th April 2009)
  4. Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange (9th April 2009)
  5. George Orwell - Animal Farm (10th April 2009)
  6. Alice Walker - The Color Purple (21st April 2009)
  7. Patricia Duncker - Hallucinating Foucault (4th May 2009)
  8. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Half of a Yellow Sun (13th May 2009)
  9. Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children (11th June 2009)
  10. Jeffrey Eugenides - The Virgin Suicides (17th July 2009)

My two favorite books this year have been from this challenge (Clockwork Orange and Great Gatsby). However, what I found really cool about this one was that, I picked up a couple of books without even realizing they were on the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die list (The Plot Against America and The Virgin Suicides).

As I've finished this one quite early (I'm really struggling with my other challenges at the moment), I might try and go for the third option (thirteen 'til March 2010). Wanted to read all three, The Life and Times of Michael K, Cloud Atlas and Kafka On The Shore, before the year rolled forward, anyway.

If this is being hosted again, next year, I'm definitely signing up! Thanks so much for this challenge :)