Rebecca Reads

Current Challenges

See my past challenges here. Bold below indicates the book has been read.

External Challenges

These challenges were started by other bloggers. I took them on for a good reason, as described below. Links on this list go to the description below.

The Really Old Classics Challenge
Women Unbound
Black Classics Challenge
Graphic Novel Challenge
Our Mutual Read
Clover, Bee, and Reverie
Scottish Literature Challenge

Personal Challenges

These personal challenges are explained below.

Monthly Project Books
A Year of Classics
Forget-Me-Not Genres
Balanced Reading
JLit Personal Challenge

Ongoing Projects

These are tracked elsewhere on Rebecca Reads. Links will take you to a different page.

1000 Books
A History of Children’s Literature
HTR&W
Pulitzer Project
Read the Nobels
Newbery Award
Caldecott Corner
U.S. Presidential Reading
LDS Presidents
101 Great Books

Really Old Classics Challenge [ends 28/02/10]. 2/1 (4 for classicist “certification”) + 0/1 (extra credit retelling)

I host this challenge because I love reading the old classics, although sometimes I need motivation to do so myself! An asterisk below indicates I also counted a read for another challenge.

• Aucassin et Nicolette
• Medea by Euripides
• The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon*
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Moses, Man of the Mountain by Zora Neale Hurston
  

Women Unbound [ends 30/11/10]. 2/8

I joined this challenge because it focuses on women in fiction and nonfiction: a subject I am always happy with reading more about! An asterisk below indicates I also counted a read for another challenge or a read-a-long; I’m hoping by the end of the year there are at least 8 books read just for this challenge, in addition to the others!

• Aucassin et Nicolette*
• Medea by Euripides*
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf*
• The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon*
• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl Wu Dunn
• A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
  

For a list of possible reading options, visit the sign up post.

Black Classics Challenge [ends 31/12/10]. 0/3 .
I joined this challenge because I am very unfamiliar with black classics. In researching books for the February 2010 Classics Circuit on the Harlem Renaissance, I became very interested in reading some of the pre-Renaissance classics! I’m joining at the “curious” level, although I will track as many as I read below.

For a list of possible reading options, visit the sign up post.

• Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave

Graphic Novel Challenge [ends 12/31/2010]. 0/4.

I joined this challenge because I read very few graphic novels and I should give them more of a try. the intermediate level is to read between 3 and 10 graphic novels. I’m aiming for one a quarter, although I’ll list any read in 2010 here. For a list of possible reading options, visit the sign up post.

• The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Graphic Novel by Oscar Wilde, I.N.J. Culbard, and Ian Edginton

Our Mutual Read [ends 12/31/2010]. 0/8.

I decided to join this challenge because I have really enjoyed almost every Victorian novel I’ve read thus far! I look forward to reading more and learning even more about the era. For a list of possible reading options, visit the sign up post. (Below, I only list books read specifically for this challenge.)

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Clover, Bee, and Reverie [ends 12/31/2010]. 0/14

I decided to join this challenge because I love the idea of specifying my poetry reading into categories. I began counting reads for this challenge in February 2010. Ideas for possible categories: Ancient Greece and Roman, lyrical/romantic poetry, modern poetry.

• A Visit to William Blake’s Inn by Nancy Willard (modern poetry written for children)
• Poetry for Young People: William Blake (romantic/lyric poetry)

Scottish Literature Challenge [ends 12/31/2010]. 0/1. I don’t know much about Scottish Lit, so here will be my introduction. I don’t yet know what I’ll read for this.

Personal Challenges

Monthly Project Books. 0/12

Each month, I will select a “project” book to focus on. This will probably be a longer non-fiction book that I have been wanting to read for a long time and yet have always been intimidated by. It will probably be something I own, but it can be a library book. The subject and/or title of the project book will be decided the month before. There are to be no lists to choose from, because this is a project of “whatever I feel like reading this month.” I have plenty of such intimidating books taunting me from my stacks!

• January: The History of the English-Speaking Peoples by Winston Churchill, abridged by Henry Steele Commager
• February: DNA by James Watson
• March: How to Read a Poem by Edward Hirsch
  

A Year of Classics

During 2010, I want to focus on reading the classics. While there is of course a place for modern fiction and modern classics in my reading, I want to gain a better grounding in the Western classics in the coming twelve months. English and American literature is a key interest for me (and may form the basis of my “classics” reading), but European classics also tempt me and I’m completely unfamiliar with them. This year, I also want to have some experiences with a few non-Western classics. Below, I will list all classics read in 2010, whether or not they also count for other challenges.

• The Touchstone by Edith Wharton (finished in 2009)
• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (finished in 2009)
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (finished in 2009)
• A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman (finished in 2009)
• Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
• The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon
• Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
• Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• Black No More by George Schuyler
• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
• A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
• Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave
  

Forget-Me-Not Genres

I want to remember the “forgotten genres”: short stories, poetry, and drama. My focus in the coming months will be poetry. However, I also want to try to reintroduce short stories into my regular reading, and get some drama read each quarter (especially at least one Shakespeare play each quarter). I will keep track of 2010 posts in each genre below:

• A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman (finished in 2009) POETRY
• Poetry for Young People: Langston Hughes POETRY
• Golden Slippers (edited by Arna Bontemps) POETRY
• A Visit to William Blake’s Inn by Nancy Willard POETRY
• Poetry for Young People: William Blake POETRY

Balanced Reading

I will not feel guilty for not reading a modern novels, YA, or other “must read” books. That said, I do hope to read an out-of-my comfort zone book each month. Anything that doesn’t fit a “challenge” or “reading list” on this site is considered a “balance read.”

• Jazz by Toni Morrison
• Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
• Inventing English by Seth Lerer
  

JLit Personal Challenge

My goal for this personal challenge is to read as much Japanese literature as I can in 2010. I also want to read about the nation in terms of history. I will keep track of what I read below.

• The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon (read in January)
  
• The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (read in January)
• The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata (read in February)