2016 Reading Challenge: Accomplishment Unlocked

[osprey_archer]

I finished The Things They Carried a couple of days ago, and with that, I have finished my 2016 Reading Challenge. Hooray! I feel all accomplished now. Particularly about finishing War and Peace, although just in general, too.

For your edification, a list of the categories and the books I chose:

- a book published this year: When the Sea Turns to Silver
- a book you can finish in a day: Last Stop on Market Street
- a book you've been meaning to read: The Things They Carried
- a book you should have read in school: All Quiet on the Western Front
- a book recommended by your local librarian or bookseller: Welcome to Night Vale
- a book chosen for you by your spouse, partner, sibling, child, or BFF: Lud-in-the-Mist
- a book published before you were born: Winona's Pony Cart
- a book that was banned at some point: Lady Chatterley's Lover
- a book you previously abandoned: A Girl of the Limberlost
- a book you own but have never read: Madensky Square
- a book that intimidates you: War and Peace
- a book you've already read at least once: Caddie Woodlawn

I liked this challenge because it offers so much room for choice. Only one of the challenges is actually entitled "A book you've been meaning to read," but actually I ended up reading books that fit that description for half the categories: having the challenge gave me a reason to read books like A Girl of the Limberlost or All Quiet on the Western Front now, rather than just "well, maybe someday..."

In fact I liked this challenge so much that I went searching for a 2017 challenge, and found this Master List of 2017 Reading Challenges, although unfortunately none of them seem to offer the same mix of specificity and open-endedness that I got from last year's challenge. But perhaps the website where I got my 2016 challenge will post one for 2017 later in December.

I've also discovered that I really enjoy reading books with people, and also that it brings an extra and deeper aspect to the book to have someone to discuss it with - I think particularly with Lady Chatterley's Lover and Atonement, I got a lot more out of them because evelyn_b and I were reading & discussing them as we went along.

(And this has been a useful safety valve as I have read The Count of Monte Cristo. Sometimes I just have to yell "THAT PLOT DEVELOPMENT, DID YOU SEE IT?" Speaking of which - the latest developments with Caderrouse!!!)

In fact I'm thinking of suggesting a dual read to my mother, if I can just think of the perfect book for it. It looks like we can both get D. E. Stevenson's Listening Valley from our respective libraries, and I know she enjoyed Miss Buncle's Book, so perhaps that?

I have also decided that 2017 is going to be The Year of Reading the Harriet Vane/Peter Wimsey Novels, provided of course I can track down a copy of Have His Carcase. I have the other three in the sequence! This is the only one that eludes me!

Comments

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Caderouse was BORN to be a disappointment. He's handed like fifteen chances at redemption and DOES HE TAKE ANY OF THEM? Noooo, not until the very end when the Count is whispering in his ear (presumably "I am Edmond Dantes, you fool).

Yessss, Gratuitous Detective Romance Party! That sounds like so much fun. How about we wait until June, and if I haven't found Have His Carcase by then you could send me a copy as a birthday present?

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a plan!

Oh Caderousse. :( How was he supposed to know there wouldn't be a sixteenth chance??