Goin' Native

The world of blogging is so much fun – and for someone with a degree in Anthropology, I feel like I have found a whole new culture. There are all these cultural norms – such as the post from yesterday of “Wordless Wednesday.” And now I have heard of bloggers challenge that is going to complete my transformation of going native. It is a challenge that appeals to my two great loves: reading and making lists!

The challenge is called 888. It entails reading 8 books in 8 categories in ’08. You can make any categories you like…and I hear the “official” rules say that 8 books can overlap – so your total reading will be 56-64 books. Now reading this many books is not the challenge for me (I read over 200 last year) – what will be challenging is to read outside of my normal genres…and for me that would be classics.

Confession time: I have never read Jane Austen. For someone who loves romance novels…it’s like sacrilege. (I’ll go ahead and hang my head in shame) I know the stories, I have seen the movies, but I have never read the books. So, a classics category would work – I don’t want an entire Austen category – because, God forbid – what if I don’t like her style?!

So…as a work in progress, here is what I have so far for the challenge:
Book Club
1. Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen
2. Isaac’s Storm: a Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History by Erik Larson

Young Adult
1. Brisingr by Christopher Paolini
2. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
3. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
4. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
5. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
6. The miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Dicamillo
7. The Wave by Todd Strasser

Popular Fiction
1. People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
2. Austenland by Shannon Hale
3. Duma Key by Stephen King

Non-Fiction
1. The know it all by AJ Jacobs
2. Body Drama: Real girls, real bodies, real issues, real answers by Nancy Amanda Redd
3. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
4. Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
5. Sin in the Second city: Madams, ministers, playboys and the battle for America’s soul by Karen Abbott
6. Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost
7. I hope they serve beer in Hell by Tucker Max
8. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain


Romance
1. Secrets of the Highlander by Janet Chapman
2. Lover Enshrined by JR Ward
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Classics
1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
2. Dracula by Bram Stoker
3. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
5. 1984 by George Orwell
6.

Award Winners
1. March by Geraldine Brooks (Pulitzer Prize 2006 in fiction)
2. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch (National Book Critics Circle, 1998)
3. Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre (2003 Man Booker Prize)
4. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1998 Man Booker Prize)
5. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (2000 Pulitzer Prize in fiction)
6. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kenney Toole (1981 Pulitzer Prize in fiction)
7. A Midwife’s Tale by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich (1991 Pulitzer Prize in History)
8. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (1978 Newberry Medal for best children’s book)


Books already on my shelf
1. The boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory
2. Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips
3. An Arsonists Guide to Writers homes in New England by Brock Clark
4. Fight Club by Chuck Palahntik
5. How to teach filthy rich girls by Zoey Dean
6. Your big break by Johanna Edwards
7. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
8. Material Girl by Julia London

So...are you with me for the challenge? What's on your to be read pile?