A little past the quarter-mark of the year, time for a check-in on reading challenges. I’m being more laid-back this year and trying something different. Just two challenges this year, the Reread Challenge and the…well, it doesn’t have a name, but there is a scorecard below.
For the Reread Challenge, I’ve been diving into lots of beloved rereads (21, in fact), so I’ll just remark on some of the more notable ones. I reread (almost) the entire Tillerman Cycle (so good), The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Good Omens, Hatchet and its sequel, Golden and Grey, the first three books of the Little House on the Prairie series, and Jane of Lantern Hill, the very last L. M. Montgomery novel I ever read and which I had previously only read once. So far, I’m having a lot of fun revisiting old friends, and definitely plan to continue.
As to my unnamed Reading Challenge, here’s the scorecard and the results for the first few months of the year:
- A Book That Became a Movie: The Martian by Andy Weir (at least, they’re making a movie…)
- A Book Published This Year: The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente
- A Book with Nonhuman Characters: Stitching Snow by R. C. Lewis (droids instead of dwarfs!)
- A Funny Book: Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett
- A Book by a Female Author: Loads of them, but Phoenix Island by Charlotte Paul was the first of the year.
- A Mystery: Ordeal by Innocence by Agatha Christie
- A Book with a One-Word Title: Unbound by Jim C. Hines
- A Book of Short Stories: Clockwork Fairy Tales, edited by Stephen L. Antczak and James C. Bassett
- A Non-Fiction Book: The Year of Living Biblically by A. J. Jacobs
- A Book from an Author You Love that You Hadn’t Read Yet: Beyond the Farthest Star by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- A Book a Friend Recommended: The Moonspinners by Mary Stewart
- A Book at the Bottom of Your To-Read List: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan
- A Book You Can Finish in a Day: Fairest by Marissa Meyer
- A Book From Your Childhood: Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- A Book Set Somewhere You’ve Always Wanted to Visit: Loose Chippings by Thomas Gerald Wheeler (England and Wales)
- A Book with Magic: Ahem. We’ll go with A Question of Magic by E. D. Baker, because of the title
- A Book by an Author You’ve Never Read Before: Again, loads, but the first was Who Is the Doctor? by Graeme Burk and Robert Smith? [sic]
And that is…a lot! 17, in fact, putting me well on track to hit 50 by the end of the year, just mathematically. But I think I’ve accounted for the easy ones, and it’s going to be harder to do many of the rest… For now I’ve made it only new reads (except “book from my childhood”) and haven’t put any book in multiple categories. I’d like to stick to that, but I’ll see how strict I feel as the year goes on.
And…that’s all for now, folks! 🙂 Did you have any reading challenges or goals this year? How are they going for you?
The first day of Spring is…either today or tomorrow, I never remember (and yeah, I’m sure Google knows, but where’s the fun in looking it up?) Either way! It’s been warm and sunny in my neighborhood for at least a week, the daffodils have been blooming for over a month, and the real point of all this is that Spring is here (or as good as) which means it’s time to turn towards fairy tales and fantasy for the annual Once Upon a Time “challenge.”
Tales of the Marvelous 