Monday 6 January 2014

What's in a Name 2014 Reading Challenge


What's in a Name 2014 Reading Challenge

I love to think about new books to read and don't normally struggle to find new books. However, I find that if I am given ideas by others, I often find some fantastic new authors and therefore I miss my book club that I had to give up for health reasons.

So, it is great to have the Internet to communicate with other readers. And some of them come up with some great ideas like Emma at Words and Peace.

These are her conditions:

Between January 1 and December 31, 2014, read one book in each of the following categories:

1.    A book with a reference to time in the title (Eleven Minutes, Before Ever After)
2.    A book with a position of royalty in the title (The People’s Queen, The Last Empress, The Curse Of The Pharaoh)
3.    A book with a number written in letters in the title (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, A Tale Of Two Cities)
4.    A book with a forename or names in the title (Rebecca, Eleanor & Park, The Unfinished Work Of Elizabeth D.)
5.    A book with a type or element of weather in the title (Gone With The Wind, Red Earth Pouring Rain)

The book titles are just suggestions, we can read whatever book that fits the category.

And here are my books:

Category 1:
Fo, Dario "My first seven years (plus a few more)" (also under #3)

Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Midnight Palace" (El Palacio de la Medianoche)
Scott, Mary "Turkey at Twelve" (also under #3)

Category 2:
Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "Der Fürst des Parnass" (El principe de parnaso)

Category 3:
Fo, Dario "My first seven years (plus a few more)" (also under #1)
Mathis, Ayana "The Twelve Tribes of Hattie" (also under #4)
Scott, Mary "Breakfast at Six"
- "Turkey at Twelve" (also under #1)
Seth, Vikram "Two Lives"

Category 4 
Austen, Jane "Emma"
Berry, Wendell "Hannah Coulter"
Dickens, Charles "The Pickwick Papers"
Döblin, Alfred "Berlin Alexanderplatz: Die Geschichte vom Franz Biberkopf" (Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story of Franz Biberkopf)

Gaarder, Jostein "Sophie's World"
George, Margaret "Elizabeth I"
Joyce, James "Ulysses"
Mankell, Henning "Daniel"
Mathis, Ayana "The Twelve Tribes of Hattie" (also under #3)
Montgomery, L.M. "Anne of Green Gables"
Nabokov, Vladimir "Lolita"
Nafisi, Azar "Reading Lolita in Tehran"
NDiaye, Marie "Rosie Carpe"
Nietzsche, Friedrich "Thus spoke Zarathustra"
Roth, Philip "Zuckerman Unbound"
See, Lisa "Peony in Love"

Category 5:
Palma, Félix J. "The Map of the Sky" (El mapa del cielo)

Pamuk, Orhan "Snow

I read:
three books in category 1: seven years, midnight, twelve (o'clock)
one in category 2: prince,
three in category 3: two, six, seven, (2x) twelve
15 in category 4: Anne, Antje, Berlin, Daniel, Elizabeth, Emma, Faber, Franz, Hannah, Hattie, (2x), Jesus, Lolita, Nero, Peony, Rosie, Sophie, Ulysses, Zarathustra
and two in category 5: snow, sky

3 comments:

  1. How about: A book with a one-word title. (I just read "Wench" by Dolen Perkin-s Valdez; or "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley). A book predominantly about an animal or animals (Just read "Zoo" by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge; or "Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived" by Ralph Helfer). A book with a fruit in the title ("Five Quarters of the Orange" by Joanne Harris; or "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros).

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  2. Recommendations are such a boon to reading, I agree. We could get by without them but they add so much to our reading experience. Hope you enjoy What's In A Name!

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  3. Annette, it looks like I won't need those suggestions, you have so many. She does a list every year and I think I've seen a suggestions of a one-word title book in some of her previous years. The only book you mentioned that I have read is Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris which I enjoyed a lot more than her first book Chocolat.

    Charlie, I agree wholeheartedly. I am sure I will enjoy this challenge very much. Thank you for setting it up.

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