Katrina's 11 in 11

I completly failed the 101010 chllenge so I'm starting afresh with this, I'm also starting straight away as I'm not too busy with challenges at the mo and it might be good to have a head start. I'm trying to read books from my tbr pile for the most part.

11 Mount tbr for 5+ years (dusting off those older books)
1. The Castle of Otranto, Horace Walpole (what an awful book!)
2. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
3. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
4. War and Peace, Tolstoy
5. Clay, David Almond
6. Treasure Island, Robert Lewis Stevenson

10. Authors to rediscover 5/10
1. Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
2. Joyce Carol Oates, Blonde
3. Great House, Nicole Krauss
4. The Temple of my Familiar, Alice Walker
5. The Post Office Girl, Stefan Zweig
6. My Name is Red, Pamuk
7. The Birds and Other Stories, Daphne Du Maurier

Authors to get to:
Willa Cather, Toni Morrison , Graham Greene

9 Inspierd by others - COMPLETED

#1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
#2. The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud, Ben Sherwood
#3. Shiver, Maggie Stiefvater
#4. Exodus, Julie Bertagna
#5. Green Angel, Alice Hoffman
#6. The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
#7. The 19th Wife, David Ebershoff
#8. The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett
#9. Room, Emma Donohue

8 Road trip Europe (countries have to touch the one that the previous book has come from) COMPLETE

#1. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flubert (France)
#2. Soldiers of Salamis, Javier Cercas (Spain)
#3. Pereria Maintains, Tabucchi (Portugal)
(I then read Driving Over Lemons for my NF choices, a Spanish book, Les Miserables for France)
#4 The Pigeon, Patrick Suskind (Germany)
#5. The Post Office Girl, Stefan Zweig (Austria)
#6 Agent ZigZag, Ben Macintyre (Germany)
#7 Fantomas, (France)
#8 Jamrach's Menagerie, Carol Birch. (England)

7 Asian Reads COMPLETED

#1. The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Moshin Hamid - Pakistan
#2. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Kenzaburo Oe - Japan
#3 House of the Sleeping Beauties, Yasunari Kawabata - Japan
#4. Krakatoa, Simon Winchester - Indonesia
#5. Night, Again, Linh Dinh - Vietnam
#6. Wild Swans, Jung Chang - China
#7. Jamilia, Chingiz Aitmatov Kyrgyzstan

6 Poetry COMPLETE
#1 Mean Time, Carol Ann Duffy
#2 Poems Not for School, Benjamin Zephaniah
#3 Crow, Ted Hughes
#4.An African Elegy, Ben Okri
#5. Answering Back, Carol Ann Duffy
#6. Turning Point, Rainer Maria Rilke

5 Carribean

#1 The Lonely Londoners, Sam Selvon
#2 The Duppy, Anthony C. Winkler
#3 The Kingdom of this World, Alejo Carpentier

4 non-fiction COMPLETE
#1 Anything but Ordinary: The Nine Lives of Cecile, Cecile Dorward
#2 An Idiot Abroad, Karl Pilkington
#3 Driving Over Lemons, Chris Stewart
#4 Toast, Nigel Slater

3 Children's Lit

#1 Delirium, Lauren Oliver
#2 Northern Lights, Phillip Pullman

2 Re-trying the abandoned *COMPLETE*

#1 Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson
#2 Tomorrow, When the War Began, John Marsden

1 a brave choice *COMPLETE*

#1 Les Miserables

Love the countries-touching road trip! Any ideas which Cather and Walker?

Not yet, I'll either ask for revomendations or just get whatever the library has

Yay! first book done, the brilliant We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson an author I definately want to read more of.

2 books down this week, A Man Without a Country a Vonegut read for category 1 and The Life and Death of Charlie St. Cloud Which was inspired by a fellow blogger who wrote about it a few weeks ago

Another inspired by others book, Shiver a YA novel in the vain of Twilight, review here: http://katrinasreads.blogspot.com/2010/12/shiver-by-maggie-stiefvater.html

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates, one of the authors I have been meaning to revisit, also great as its a 1001 read

8/66 Exodus first book of the Christmas holidays, I'm hoping 20 days off will allow me to tackle lots of books.

9/66 Green Angel fantastic little novella, I loved every page. Inspired by a review that I had read.

10/66 The Haunting of Hill House, even better than We Have Always Lived at the Castle which inspired me to read it. Hmmm...I seem to be filling up the Inspired by category and not touching any of the others, I'm about to pack books for a week at my mum's and going to be searching out some that touch on the other categories.

I love your "Road Trip" category. Good luck! You're doing great so far.

Looks like you are on a Shirly Jackson kick! I really loved those two books and if you havent already seen it the original Haunting film is quite good although the Professer and his wife are quite a bit different from the book. I am in the midst of her short story book The Lottery and Other Stories its very different so far and also quite odd.

I'm hoping to read The Lottery in the next few months, hope its good.
#26 Thanks

The Lonely Londoners this was on a book list for a postcolonial course I wanted to do years ago but it was over subscribed so I got put on a different module, finaly got to it 8 years later!

Another inspired by read, The 19th Wife which my mum loved, it was ok but didn't grab me completely

13/66 Sexing the Cherry for the re-trying the abandoned. I can see that if I'd have picked this up in the wrong mood or frame of mind it would have got abandoned quickly, I'm glad it got a second chance.

LOL on Castle of Otranto. I'm in the group read of Cakes and Ale, which satarizes Walpole and his literary career. We've been arguing back and forth about whether or not C&A ruined his career. Some say it did. Some said Walpole was on his way out on his own merits. You're the second person I've heard say that book was awful!

Interesting to read about Cakes and Ale. That one is coming up for me later in 2011 in a reading challenge.... Now I wonder what I will think of it :P

Bcteagirl> Which reading challenge? Is it one you picked, or is it another group read?

http://www.librarything.com/topic/90180#2405810

We are working our way through the list of books that Yann Martel (The Life of Pi) is sending our Prime Minister on a Biweekly basis. New members always welcome! Quite a variety, and often not overly large.

Bcteagirl> Interesting! Thanks for the link. & it's a coincidence that I'm planning on reading The Life of Pi soon for the Reading Globally challenge.

I really enjoyed The Life of Pi :)

14/66 Anything but Ordinary: The Nive Lives of Cecile my first non fiction for the year.
I started this book way back in December, then it managed to get left at home over the Christmas break and has been sadly waiting to be picked up all this time.
Cecile Dorward is an ecentric old lady who spent her later years (60+) travelling the world in her Land Rover.
The book is separated into her 'nine lives', starting with her childhood living in that limbo of 'people with money' who actually have very little money when you look past the grand house and the society they keep. We then follow her through her first job as one of a company of famale decorators, early marriage and then on to har travels. The travels start at first in a canal boat exploring the bywaters of England. But as she gets older the journeys get more adventurous, taking her across the world, including driving overland from Australia to the UK.
When I first picked up this book I loved it and quickly read the first two-thirds. She was ecentric, daring and an original. Although she has a strange obssession with her lack of sex. I'm not sure if the fact I hadn't picked up the book in a good three weeks had an effect, but the last part detailing her journeys around the world alone seemed to suddenly lack excitement. It annoyed me that the last 20 years of her life, and the most adventurous years were crammed into such a small space, and we wasn't given a huge amount of description of the places she travelled and the people she met (apart from the overly amourous men!), it suddenly felt like she had lost interest in telling her story. Still I am glad that I read it, and would give it a strong 3 stars.

15/66 The Duppy is a Jamaican novel about a man who dies and travels to heaven, Jamaican heaven where life is full of sex, money grows on trees and god becomes his best friend. I enjoyed the silliness of this book for about 2/3 of it, then suddenly I'd just had enough (they were in New York surrounded by bleating sheep!).

Bummer. I've heard a bit about Duppies and would expect any book with that title to be good. Have you read Tell My Horse? That might fit into your Caribbean section.

#40 I'll check it out thanks for the tip, When I looked up The Duppy it had quite a high rating on amazon so probably just my tastes.

#41 Maybe, but I've found Amazon ratings tend to be higher than LT or Netflix ratings. People don't always bother to put ratings in for the books, DVDs, music that they weren't that thrilled with, but if they loved it, they do.

Just looked The Duppy up. Only 3.6 stars on LT. Not a lot of ratings, but they were 2 5s, 1 4, 2 2s. So you're not alone.

16/66 Bleak House one of the many Dickens that I brought with good intentions, loved parts of this and quite disliked others.

17/66 The Maltese Falcon a book group read chosen by another member of the group. I have to say, this wasn't my thing, at least it is also a 1001 book so ticking it off that mamouth list as well.

44> Maltese Falcon has got to be a tough one because it's hard to read it fresh after Humphrey Bogart has played it out for us. I felt that way when I read The Long Goodbye; the plot sounded familiar probably because I'd seen it on tv when I was nine or something.

45> I've never actually seen thie film. I'm tempted to watch it now and see how it was potrayed on screen.

18/66 Mean Time my first poetry collection of the challenge. Reviewed over here:
http://katrinasreads.blogspot.com/2011/02/mean-time-by-carol-ann-duffy.html

1. Mean Time, Carol Ann Duffy

Confession. When I was a kid, the Maltese Falcon was on tv frequently and I always got annoyed with myself because I fell asleep on it every time even though I knew it was supposed to be a great movie. Once I finally stayed awake, I realized I'm not a big Boggart fan. If you like him, watch it. If not... whatever.

19/66 Room this was given to me by my mum for my flight to New York, it was perfect for the plane and finishes off my inspired by category.
20/66 An Idiot Abroad read whilst on holiday! Laugh out loud funny in places, a light non-fiction read

21/66 Tender is the Night 5 years + on the pile and I didn't enjoy it at all, at least now its freeing up space for something else.
22/66 Poem's Not for School
23/66 Crow

I'm not sure I could read Tender is the Night. Apparently Fitzgerald plagiarized Zelda's journal without remorse for Tender is the Night. He figured that since he was the wage earner, he was entitled to use her writing. I feel better knowing you didn't like it. Now I don't have to feel like I'm missing some great work because of principle.

I don't know anything about Fitzgerald apart from I've read 2 of his books and not enjoyed either. Now I know that I'm annoyed to have read it, I'd assumed that he had made up all the bits which weren't about him.

24/66 Soldiers of Salamis another book I've had on my tbr pile for years which I didn't enjoy! What was I thinking in my book buying all those years ago! This was read for the road trip around Europe selection. France and Spain done, onto Portugal next.

@52, sorry you didn't like that one. I read it last year and ended up really liking it, even though the beginning was slow. I also learned a lot about the Spanish Civil War.

#53 It's is a shame as its a book I had looked forward to reading.
25/66 Pereria Maintains, Antonio Tabbuchi a Portugese novel to continue my European journey - I'm going to read a Spanish and a French book for 2 of the other categories to get me back to a position I can travel from having got myself in a corner (no forward thinking)

26/66 An African Elegy a collection of poems Ben Okri has written about Africa over the years, I read and enjoyed this but nothing was strong enough to grab my eye and want to read it again.

27/66 War and Peace a goodreads read-a-long finally got me to tackle this monster, it was a good read, like a TV soap intersected with Tolstoys thought's on war.
28/66 Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids read as a Japanese read, not one I enjoyed but its another 1001 book off the list.
29/66 The Reluctant Fundamentalist for Pakistan. What a great read!

I'm going to start tackling Les Miserables later today for the brave choice element.

Les Miserables is fantastic. Enjoy!

Les Miserables is one of my favorite books! As I'm sure you've heard, Hugo loves tangents, some of which are more interesting than others. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about the internal politics of the Church in France, the Battle Waterloo, and the structural issues of Parisian sewers. But if you don't mind them, the more relevant parts are well worth it.

I'm loving Les Mis so far, will be spending a lot of the next two weeks reading it I think

30/66 Driving Over Lemons one of my non-fiction choices (which is also helping my European roadtrip find its way out of a corner), was set in Andulucia and tells of a families attempt to set up a small farm in rural Spain. This was ok but not as good as some of the other travel books I have read.
31/66 House of the Sleeping Beauties is another Asian book off the pile, and another Japanese one - I need to make sure I branch out a little next time!

32/66 Toast, Nigel Slater a book which I picked up at the end of a bookcrossing meeting not really all that interested in, actually turned out to be a good read. This finishes my non-fiction section.

I've just ordered a few books from the library to start completing the authors to rediscover section so hopefully that section will be completed by the summer, and I'm reading Les Miserables at the moment which will complete my 'Brave Choice' segment and also help my with my european journey.
Is it bad that I am already thinking about my 12/12/12 challenge and which selections and steps I would like?

Thinking about 2012 already? Not a bad thing at all! I've already got my categories (tentatively) selected. What I keep thinking about is how much I'd like to do a 10/13 challenge (10 categories) because anything over 12 categories just seems intimidating to me.

Yup, I'm thinking about 2012 as well. I can probably do a 12-12-12, but I can guarantee I won't be doing a 13-13-13 the following year!

Oh yeah, already thinking about next year, too! Always planning, trying to add in books that I see on other people's challenge pages.
It'll come down to my TBR pile, but I think I'll keep the majority of my categories. I'll aim for 12-12, but it'll depend on what books I can get my hands on, where I am, etc.

Ah, I'm thinking ahead too, but at the moment, it looks like I might not make it through 11 11. Eeek!

Glad I'm not the only book geek around then. I think I need to spend longer selecting categories and find ones which fit better with my other reading goals for the year, and yes I need to get my butt into gear and work on this one first.

33/66Another section completed, 're-trying the abandoned'. I started Tomorrow, When the War Began for the second time yesterday afternoon and finished it pretty much in one sitting. I'd abadoned it thefirst time as I wasn't in the mood for YA lit and the opening pages are very 'teenager-y' after that though the story was good.
HALF WAY THERE!!!!

Congratulations! I reckon I'll be stealing your Touching Countries category for next time round, such a good idea. This year I have failed completely on the Olympic Challenge, but I hope to keep going with it soon.

For 2012, I'm thinking of 12 categories with no specified number of books. Even this year I'm feeling a bit limited by expecting to read 11 in 11 because my interests keep evolving.

- 68, Soffitta1 this has been one of my favourite categories but next time I need to think about positioning of countries a bit more. I lost all hope for the olympic challenge this year!

- 69 This year my categories were stepped which I'm glad I did as I seem to have been rubbish at sticking to them. I was thinking next year of reading 12 for one category, 11 for the next down to 6 and then going back up again but that still seems like a large number. Next year I want to focus on 1001 books and books from other countries.

I'm dedicating May to the 11 in 11 challenge so hopefully will manage to tackle a lot of the categories I've fallen behind with. I have Cather, Atwood and Kruass books out of the library, and want to get to those books which have been lurking for more than 5 years.

34/66 Krakatoa was a non-fiction Asian book which has sat on mount tbr for ages, I finally got to it but found it very dry, not my usual narrative non-fiction.
Reading another non-fiction at the moment for this category Indira about the life of Indira Gandhi which is going much more pleasantly.

35/66 Great House by Nicole Krauss, I loved The History of Love and like that this has multiple narrators and connecting stories - the writing was beautiful but I feel like I didn't understand what had actually happened, the reason the desk is such a link. Having read other reviews I know I'm not alone.

I haven't read it, but I've read reviews too. The desk thing sounds like an arbitrary way to link the stories together. Probably more useful for the writer than the reader.

-73 the desk was strange, and wasn't actually present in all of the stories, it certainly set the mood.

37/66 Night, Again a collection of contemporary stories from Vietnam some good some not so.

>72 katrinasreads: Krakatoa has been sitting on my tbr stacks for years, too. It somehow never gets to the top or even onto my "maybe this month" list. I'd like to know more about the explosion, but I'm expecting it to be dry, and somehow just can't get motivated to read it.

38/66 The Temple of my Familiar for my revsiting authors category. I read Alice Walker's The Colour Purple back as college and have been meaning to read more of her since, this was a good beautifully written book completely different to The Colour Purple, I'm looking forward to searching out more of her work in the future.

39/66 Delirium a new teenage dystopian novel (I've changed my category for the 3 step, as it was for a challenge I abandoned). A good read, where love is a disease that everyone over the age of 18 is forced to take have an operation to remove the ability to love.
40/66 The Pigeon, by Patrick Suskind a teeny 77 page novel, to tick off Germany for the European travels category.
41/66 Les Miserable which was my daunting choice, a good read, but took me a long time.

42/66 Wild Swans a great read which I left sitting on the shelf for way too long. A families story of struggle and survival during the Cultural Revolution in China.
43/66 Clay, David Almond another book which I've had for years and new got to, this is a YA story, a kind of modern Dracula.

44+45/66 The Post Office Girl Using this one for 2 categories, in a big reading slump so this was a hard slog.

46/66 Agent Zigzag this was one of the World Book Night books, and ones I'd highly recommend to others. Its a biography of a British Double Agent during the World War II, it was easy to read, but I still found out things about the was that I hadn't previously know - the use of magicians (must try and find a book on this!) and how to make all number of bombs!
The book was set in Germany (plus Norway, France, Jersey and England) so is being used for my European travels section.

Ooh I keep hearing about Agent Zigzag, must get myself a copy!
As for Stefan Zweig, I have heard such mixed reviews that I have never read one of his.

His short story collection Amok is fantastic (and a 1001 book) and Chess is a teeny novella and also very good, was unsure with this one but will look out for more of his stuff.

47/66 The Knigdom of this World by Cuban Alejo Carpentier - my least liked magical realist novel.

Ohhh, too bad. I've been thinking about reading one of his novels. Maybe I'll let that one get bumped off the wishlist. Which are your favorite magical realist novels?

The classic One Hundred Years of Solitude, Midnight's Children and The Time Traveller's Wife. One I'd recommend which is less well known is The Green Angel by Alice Hoffman a gorgeous novella

I'd second all three of those, I read the first two at school and am saving them for a reread one day. I don't know The Green Angel, will have to look it up.
I do really enjoy Isabel Allende's work, I recently read her YA trilogy, but it is a lighter version of Magical Realism. I'd recommend Shadow of the Wind, beautifully written and pretty much any book by Haruki Murakami, one of my favourite authors.

Thanks for the recommendations! I'll look for those. I love Haruki Murakami too!

For magical realism, I've enjoyed both of the Graham Joyce books that I've read so far and really want to read more of his work. Just need to pick some more up and then find the time to actually read them.

I've only read one Graham Joyce, the one about bombing Coventry. That one was semi-autobiographical. His grandmother really did see ghosts, but he also mentioned that his grandmother was always around the exhaust from a coal heater too which can cause hallucinations.

I don't know Graham Joyce I'll have to look him up

Graham Joyce is an interesting writer. I saw him at the World Fantasy Con when it was in Wisconsin. He is sometimes considered "mainstream" or magical realism in the US, but Fantasy in the UK. Katrina, I think you'll enjoy his writing.

Fantomas read for my Europe road trip, ending back up in France wasn't the plan but the book was really good and I love all the French literature I've read in the last few years.

The Northern Lights is another ticked off my kids lit section, and I've started Ten Little Indians which will complete this category.

Answering Back is a great premise for a poetry anthology, up and coming poets were asked to select a well known poet and write a poem back in response. Great, I thought I would discoversome new poets and visit some of those historical poets who I have never gotten around too. Unfortunately I was very disappointed, I largely didn't like the older poems they had selected and didn't care that much for the poems written in response either, although some were funny.

Bummer on Answering Back. It's a common exercise, and a cool concept but if you didn't like the older poems, who cares. If you're looking for a good poetry anthology, try Czelaw Milosz's Book of Luminous things.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out.

I finished my poetry selection with Turning Point by Rainer Maria Rilke a collection of his unpublished poems, several gorgeous poems in here my favourite being 'Narcissus'
I loved this selection and have enjoyed reading the poetry, something I don't do nearly enough, I am currently considering changing one of my 12 in 12 categories so I can have another poetry category.

I have added Turning Point to my list of possible reads for my 12 in 12 poetry category. Thanks! If you do decide to change one of your 12 in 12 categories for poetry I look forward to seeing what you add there.

Completing another category, Travel Europe, was finished by a trip to the Victorian London with Jamrach's Menagerie. I'm glad that I mangaed to read a real range of books for this, from time period to genre.

Treasure Island a book which I was brought in a kids collection of classics when I was about 8 so certainly dusting the shelves with that one! An okay read but had it not been for the course I'm doing at the moment it would have gone unread for another 20 odd years quite happily!

LOL! So much for Treasure Island. I'll have to say, I know it through Disney. It calls to me just about as quietly as it calls to you.

I loved Rebecca and Jamaica Inn so was looking forward to reading something else by Du Maurier, The Birds and Other Stories was a good read, I really liked the final story 'The Old Man' the best, with its little twist at the end.

I read and finished Jamilia in one sitting over breakfast to finish my Asian category.
I have really struggled to pick up books recently and start reading recently, I'm putting this 11 in 11 challenge to bed this year, as I think that I'm not interested in finishing the categories that I have left and this is stopping me from reading.
I will open my 12 in 12 challenge as of now, but will be reading books randomly as they appeal to me for the rest of the year rather than trying to just fit books into challenges.