merry10's 999 challenge

Categories

1. Australian literature (9/9)
Women in Black, Madeleine St. John (29/05/09)
Fugitive Blue, Claire Thomas (28/05/09)
The World Beneath, Cate Kennedy (16/10/09)
Everything I Knew, Peter Goldsworthy (17/10/09)
Ransom, David Malouf (30/06/09)
Tamarisk Row, Gerald Murnane
The Tree of Man, Patrick White
The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville
The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton

2. Women writers (9/9)
The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood, Canada (05/01/09)
Taking Pictures, Anne Enright, Ireland (07/01/09)
The View From Castle Rock, Alice Munro, Canada (12/01/09)
Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West, UK (24/01/09)
The Gravedigger's Daughter, Joyce Carol Oates, US (21/06/09)
Oranges are not the only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson, UK (22/06/09)
The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter (24/06/09)
The World Beneath, Cate Kennedy (16/10/09)
The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville
My Antonia, Willa Cather
The Flying Troutmans, Miriam Toews

3. 19th Century, early 20th Century lit, 1001 books (Realism and Modernism) (9/9)
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (08/06/09)
The Europeans, Henry James (20/10/09)
The Overcoat, Nikolai Gogol
Swann's Way, Marcel Proust
The Chosen Vessel, Barbara Baynton
The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Howard's End, EM Forster
The Tree of Man, Patrick White
The Leopard, Lampedusa

4. Books in translation/Reading Globally (9/9)
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami, Japan (15/01/09)
A Quiet Life, Kenzaburo Oe, Japan (27/01/09)
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, Nigeria (10/06/09)
Wizard of the Crow, Ngugi wa Thiong'o (18/06/09)
The Leopard, Tomasi di Lampedusa (21/06/09)
Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter, Mario Vargas Llosa
Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie
Summertime, JM Coetzee
My Driver, Maggie Gee
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stiegg Larrson

5. Authors I hadn't yet read (9/9)
Mapp and Lucia, E.F. Benson, UK (07/01/09)
The Outlander, Gil Adamson, Canada (22/01/09)
My Antonia, Willa Cather (01/02/09)
Haruki Murakami
Chinua Achebe
Lampedusa
Vargas Llosa
Kamila Shamsie
Maggie Gee
Stiegg Larrson
Madeleine St John
Gerald Murnane
Cate Kennedy
Claire Thomas
Lisa Lutz
Sophie Kinsella
Kate Morton
Hilary Mantel
Colm Toibin
Susan Hill
Willa Cather
Vincent Lam
Jeanette Winterson
Lori Lansens
Conie Willis
Charlaine Harris
Joseph Conrad
Henry James
China Mieville
Ngugi wa Thiongio
Vernor Vinge
Miriam Toews

6. Books published in 2009 (9/9)
My Driver, Maggie Gee, UK (02/06/09)
Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel, UK (17/09/09)
Summertime, JM Coetzee, Aus/SA (02/10/09)
Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett, UK (22/11/09)
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin, Ireland (03/09/09)
Great Expectations the Graphic Novel
Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie
Ransom, David Malouf
The World Beneath, Cate Kennedy
Howard's End is on the Landing, Susan Hill
The City and The City, China Mieville

7. Orange Prize authors, shouldabeen nominees or a Top100womennovels(9/9)
The Girls, Lori Lansens, Canada (03/01/09)
The Beggar Maid, Alice Munro, Canada, (02/06/09)
Burnt Shadow's, Kamila Shamsie, Pakistan (09/07/09)
The Flying Troutman's, Miriam Toews
The Robber Bride Margaret Atwood
The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville
The Outlander, Gil Adamson
The World Beneath, Cate Kennedy
The View from Castle Rock, Alice Munro
My Antonia, Willa Cather
Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson

8. YA and speculative fiction (4/9)
The Chrysalids, John Wyndham (08/01/09)
Farthing, Jo Walton (19/01/09)
To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis (02/02/09)
Fire on the Deep, Vernor Vinge (05/02/09)
The City and The City (03/09/09)

9. Non-fiction (9/9)
Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures, Vincent Lam (01/02/09)Super Crunchers, Ian Ayres (08/01/09)
The Brain that Changes Itself, Norman Doidge (20/01/09)
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman, US (21/01/09)
The Art of Fiction, David Lodge, UK (09/07/09)
The Little Red Writing Book, Mark Tredinnick, Aus (16/07/09)
Howard's End is on the Landing, Susan Hill, UK (22/11/09)
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam, UK (03/09/09)
By Heart, Ted Hughes (ed.), UK (08/12/09)
Prousts Way, Roger Shattuck, UK (20/12/09)
Paintings in Proust, Eric Karpeles, (20/12/09)

10. The Overflow (Light Fiction) (9/9)
Urn Burial, Kerry Greenwood, Australia (05/09)
Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris, US (05/09)
The Undomestic Goddess, Sophie Kinsella, UK, (05/09)
Confessions of a Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella, UK, (05/09)
I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith, UK/US, (21/06/09)
The Spellman Files, Lisa Lutz
The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett

1. Australian Literature

1. Tree of Man, Patrick White
2. The Riders, Tim Winton
3. Eucalyptus, Murray Bail
4. A Fortunate Life, AB Facey
5. Power without Glory, Frank Hardy
6. The Pea Pickers, Eve Langley
7. True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey
8. Gould's Book of Fish, Richard Flanagan
9. Lucinda Brayford, Martin Boyd

2. Women writers

1. The View from Castle Rock, Alice Munro (12/01/09)
2. The Robber Bride, Margaret Atwood (05/01/09)
3. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
4. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
5. Beloved, Toni Morrison
6. Oranges are not the only Fruit , Jeanette Winterson
7.
8.
9.

3. 19th Century Literature

1. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
2. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
3. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
4. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
5. Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky
6. The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
8. The Awakening, Kate Chopin
9. North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell

4. Books in translation/Reading Globally

1. 100 years of solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
3. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (15/01/09)
4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
5. A Quiet Life, Kenzaburo Oe (27/01/09)
6.Things fall Apart, Chinua Achebe (10/06/09)
7.Wizard of the Crow, Ngugi wa Thiong'o (18/06/09)
8. The Leopard, Tomasi di Lampedusa (21/06/09)

9.

5. Authors I haven't read yet

1. The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
2. The Aeneid, Virgil
3. The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak
4. Perfume, Patrick Suskind
5. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
6. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
7. Mapp and Lucia, E.F. Benson (07/01/09)
8. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
9. Passage to India, E.M. Forster

6. Books published in 2009

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

7. Orange Prize nominees

1. What I Loved, Siri Hustvedt
2. White Teeth, Zadie Smith
3. Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
4. Dreams of Speaking, Gail Jones
5. The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard
6. The Dark Room, Rachel Seiffert
7. The Girls, Lori Lansens (03/01/09)
8. Small Island, Andrea Levy
9. a 2009 prize nominee

8. YA and speculative fiction

1. Tomorrow when the war began, John Marsden
2. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
3. A Fire on the Deep, Vernor Vinge
4. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis (02/02/09)
5. Red Spikes, Margo Lanagan
6. The Chrysalids, John Wyndham (08/01/09)
7. Little, Big, John Crowley
8. Farthing, Jo Walton (19/01/09)
9. Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula Le Guin

9. Non-fiction

1. The Surgeon of Crowthorne, Simon Winchester
2. Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, Barbara Kingsolver
3. Patrick White, David Marr
4. Super Crunchers, Ian Ayres
5. The Brain that Changes Itself, Norman Doidge (20/01/09)
6. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman (21/01/09)
7.
8.
9.

I've included an "Australian authors" category in my challenge too but I haven't been able to fill all nine spots yet. Have you any suggestions? So far I've only got Bob Carr's My Reading Life. The touchstones are working for this book and I'm not sure how to fix it. The touchstones also didn't work when I recently tried to add Peter Goldsworthy's new book (can't remember the title).

Have you considered Dymphna Cusack, Kylie Tennant, Ruth Park,(born NZ but lived in Aus), Dorothy Hewett, Xavier Herbert. What time period for the authors are you looking at?

Australian Markus Zusak's The Book Thief is an especially interesting read. I've mentioned A fortunate Life by AB Facey on another thread - it is an inspiring autobiography.

>11 socialpages: I thoroughly recommend Jane Gleeson-White's book Australian Classics: 50 great writers and their celebrated works. Gleeson-White includes selections by prominent Australian authors too, so there are plenty to choose from. The newest of these books is Cloudstreet, which is a 1991 publication.

Robbery Under Arms, Rolf Boldrewood
Such is Life, Tom Collins
The Sick Stockrider Adam Lindsay Gordon
His Natural Life, Marcus Clarke
The Chosen Vessel, Barbara Baynton
The Man From Snowy River, Banjo Patterson
Nationality, Mary Gilmore
The Drover's Wife, Henry Lawson
Lilith, Christopher Brennan
Seven Little Australians, Ethel Turner
The Getting of Wisdom, Henry Handel Richardson
The Gentle Water Bird, John Shaw Neilson
My Brilliant Career, Miles Franklin
The Magic Pudding, Norman Lindsay
Coonardoo, Katharine Susannah Prichard
10 for 66 and all that, Arthur Mailey
Lucinda Brayford, Martin Boyd
A Fortunate Life, AB Facey
Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay
Five Bells, Kenneth Slessor
Capricornia, Xavier Herbert
The Man Who Loved Children, Christina Stead
The Pea-pickers, Eve Langley
A letter from Rome, AD Hope
Voss, Patrick White
My Brother Jack, George Johnston
Woman to Child, Judith Wright
Tirra Lirra by the River, Jessica Anderson
Power without Glory, Frank Hardy
No More Boomerang, Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Storm Boy, Colin Thiele
The Lucky Country, Donald Horne
Milk and Honey, Elizabeth Jolley
The Acolyte, Thea Astley
The Glass Canoe, David Ireland
The Tyranny of Distance, Geoffrey Blainey
The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard
An Imaginary Life, David Malouf
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Thomas Keneally
Visitants, Randolph Stow
Grand Days, Frank Moorhouse
The Buladelah-Taree Holiday Song Cycle, Les Murray
The Fatal Shore, Robert Hughes
The Plains, Gerald Murnane
Monkey Grip, Helen Garner
Our Sunshine, Robert Drewe
True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey
Lilian's Story, Kate Grenville
My Place, Sally Morgan
Cloudstreet, Tim Winton

Reading Globally has a great thread on Australian Literature here

http://www.librarything.com/topic/48025

My recent Australian Authors have been

Kate Grenville
Tim Winton
Peter Carey
Richard Flanagan
Steve Carroll's 2008 Miles Franklin winner, The Time We Have Taken

In fact, you can have my 2008 Australian reading list - too much information already!

2008 People of the Book By Geraldine Brooks 4
2008 Addition by Toni Jordan 3.5
2008 Landscape of Farewell, Alex Miller 4.5
2008 His Illegal Self, Peter Carey 4.5
2008 Thirsty Country, Asa Wahlquist 4
2008 Breath, Tim Winton 5
2008 The Spare Room, Helen Garner 5
2008 The Lost Dog, Michelle de Kretser 4.5
2008 Wanting, Richard Flanagan 4.5
2008 The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville 4
2008 Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan 5
2008 The Time We Have Taken, Steve Carroll 5
2007 The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett 5
2007 The Trout Opera by Matthew Condon 4.5
2007 The Mystery of the Cleaning Woman by Sue Woolfe 3
2007 Diary of a Bad Year, J.M. Coetzee 5
2007 Sorry, Gail Jones 4.5
2007 The Arrival, Shaun Tan 5
2006 Carry Me Down, MJ Hyland 3.5
2005 March by Geraldine Brooks 3.5
2004 The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett 5
2004 Black Juice, Margo Lanagan 5
2004 Dark Places, Kate Grenville 3.5
2003 The Secret Cure by Sue Woolfe 4
2002 Of a Boy also known as What the Birds See by Sonya Hartnett 4
2000 Thursday's Child, Sonya Hartnett 4.5
1999 The Idea of Perfection, Kate Grenville* 4.5
1996 Leaning Towards Infinity by Sue Woolfe 4
1994 Remembering Babylon, David Malouf 5
1993 Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda 4
1991 Cloudstreet, Tim Winton 5
1991 The Orchard, Drusilla Modjeska 3.5
1990 Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo, Tim Winton 4.5
1989 Maestro, Peter Goldsworthy 4.5
1988 Don't Take Your Love To Town by Ruby Langford 3.5
1988 Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey* 5
1987 My Place by Sally Morgan 3
1985 Lillian's Story, Kate Grenville 4
1968 Three Cheers for the Paraclete, Thomas Keneally 4.5
1967 Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay 4.5
1958 Voss by Patrick White 5
1934 Trooper to the Southern Cross by Angela Thirkell 3.5
1910 The Getting of Wisdom, Henry Handel Richardson 4

Nice categories. And great titles.

Thanks for the many excellent book suggestions. Now I have the pleasant problem of too many choices and only nine slots to fill. I'm going to check out Jane Gleason-White's book too as that will fit quite nicely into my challenge.

Merry - I'm going to have to steal ideas from your 2008 Australian list! :)

I'm back to update my 999 challenge. Thank you to all who liked my Australian literature lists. There's plenty out there.

I've already changed one entry in Authors I Haven't Read Yet to Mapp and Lucia, an entertaining 1930's social satire.

Literature by women is off to a flying start with the Orange January challenge book The Girls: a Novel, a Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride and Anne Enright's Taking Pictures.

I've read a quick speculative fiction by John Wyndham The Chrysalids and a non-fiction book Super Crunchers. Both were quick reads. I found Super Crunchers, had two interesting snippets.

Finished The View from Castle Rock - an excellent collection of short stories based on the family history and the emigration of the Laidlaw family to Canada from Scotland in the 1830's. My review

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami, 1997

I'm reading this for the Reading Globally January Japan challenge and it's my first book in translation this year.

I found this a very interesting novel that quietly washes over you but leaves you with so many different themes to think about. Toru Okada has lost his cat, then his wife leaves him. He meets a troubled teen and has lots of interesting conversations. He's not working, and is not madly looking for work. He starts moving into a supernatural underworld in search of his wife and the meaning behind Japan's occupation of Manchuria years before becomes part of the search. More info here

>22 merry10: I've had this one on my TBR stack it seems like forever, I'm going to try to fit it in this year. You had great comments!

>23 missporkchop: Hope you like it missporkchop!

I've read an alternative history that posits the rise of Fascism in Britain - Farthing, a book of hopeful anecdotes about the brain that can change itself The Brain that Changes Itself. Also Anne Fadiman's wonderful book of essays about loving books Ex Libris. Truly an enjoyable browse.

The Outlander, Gil Adamson is a terrific adventure story of a heroine in the Canadian wilderness who redeems herself through survival and acts of compassion.

Some great choices merry10. Thanks for your list of Australian books - it's going to be a big help for my Australian authors category.

How did you like Mapp and Lucia?

>26 pamelad: Very entertaining pamelad. If you're in the mood for light satire it's just right.

The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West, excellent short novel about love and duty during WWI.

#28 Couldn't agree more and you are motoring through those books!

>25 merry10:, I read The Brain That Changes Itself last year and loved it as much as any novel. What did you think about it?

I read it quickly, and really appreciated some chapters. I do believe that mindful effort changes the brain which means there is a lot of hope out there for learning difficulties and past brain trauma but I also felt that the author glossed over reality in a few places. The next twenty years in this field should be very interesting. I like to read in this field but am limited to this kind of popular journalism and Scientific American or New Scientist.

I really enjoyed Proust and the Squid.

I'm reading Proust and the Squid right now and am enjoying that as well. Unless I'm researching something specific in my field, I get most of my science from the same journals. :-) I also like going to ScienceDaily.com on a regular basis to see what's in the science news. Have you tried that site? Very readable.

Edited to say, I've read 3 books in your Australian Writers category: Eucalyptus, True History of the Kelly Gang (LOVED it!), and The Riders. I'm glad I noticed Tim Winton's book on your list; I couldn't remember which of his books was the one that began in Ireland. I've got you starred, but just in case I miss it, please tell me when you've read it; I had such strong feelings about the main character in that book, I want to find out what you think.

>32 bonniebooks: Judylou really recommends The Riders as well, I'll look forward to it.

A Quiet Life by Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize winning novelist, for Reading Globally's Japan Theme read.

merry10 - I notice you still have a space on your Orange nominees. I have just finished Carry Me Down by M J Hyland for the Orange January Read - it was on the Orange longlist in 2007 and is the story of a young boy and the problems he faces as he tries to negotiate life and the problems it brings especially for those who are the "freaks" and a little out of the ordinary.

>35 mrspenny: mrspenny, I read Carry Me Down last year and I had very mixed feelings about it. Very challenging.

merry10 - I agree some parts of Carry Me Down were disturbing and with the continuing undercurrent of violence throughout the novel, it was inevitable that there was going to be a catastrophic climax.

I've added a tenth category, The Overflow, because there seems to be no room for some of my reading choices.

Two books added: Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam and My Antonia by Willa Cather for the Monthly Author Reads group. Both great books.

Finished a speculative fiction novel To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. Good fun.

Love it, you wonderful speed reader !!! Adding a tenth category - does that mean you are aiming for 90??

>40 juliette07: That's just for books that overflow the original lists. I could do with some extra room! Maybe I should start my 19th Century category and slow down a bit.

Catch up time! I had a break from narrative fiction after early February and moved slowly back into reading again over May with some undemanding lit and most recently have ventured into some great women's writing and some terrific novels from the African continent.

32. Wizard of the Crow, Ngugi wa Thiong'o
31. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
30. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
29. My Driver, Maggie Gee
28. The Beggar Maid, Alice Munro
27. The Women in Black, Madeleine St.John
26. Fugitive Blue, Claire Thomas
25. Confessions of a Shopaholic, Sophie Kinsella
24. The Undomestic Goddess, Sophie Kinsella
23. Dead Until Dark, Charlaine Harris
22. Urn Burial, Kerry Greenwood
21. The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa
20. Fire on the Deep, Vernor Vinge
19. The Overcoat, Nicolai Gogol
18. The Chosen Vessel, Barbara Baynton

33. The Gravedigger's Daugher, Joyce Carol Oates.

This will replace on of the books in the women writer's categories.

I have Wizard of the Crow sitting on my shelf merry10. It received excellent reviews from many on LT. You agree?

I recently read Things Fall Apart and gave it 5*.

Some great books here merry10. It's good to have you back!

I read The Tree of Man earlier this year. It was my first book by White. I enjoyed it, but it was really big.

>44 pamelad: Pamelad, I heartily recommend it! Loved the main characters. I found it wise, sorrowful and funny.

>45 judylou: Good to be back Judy! I'm starting to read around the threads again and finding what everyone is reading.

>46 cmbohn: Cmbohn, I look at my list of Australian and 19th Century literature and feel a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I really enjoyed Voss last year and felt proud to have read my first Patrick White, so definitely plan to read him this year. Glad you liked it.

34. I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith, UK/US, 1949

It's no wonder this is a classic! Delightful story of Cassandra, who has finished school and is living in a castle with her novelist father, artist-model stepmother and pretty older sister Rose. I plan to leave this one around for 16 yr old DD.

35. Oranges are not the only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson, UK, 1985

Great narrator. Great story. I thought this was going to be about the awful opression of religious frootloopery but it was more quirky than anything. I remember hearing Jeanette Winterson on the radio, how charismatic and interesting she seemed and her needing to hide novels, classics under the mattress from her mother as she was growing up. No book but the Bible was allowed.

36. Sexing the Cherry, Jeanette Winterson, UK, 1989

Twining mythmaking, fairy tales and social commentary about gender relations, identity, and humanity's place in the world.

37. The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter

Beauty and the Beast, Little Red Riding Hood, vampires, werewolves - fairy tales told with electrifying style.

2009 Reading Roundup

The 999 challenge taught me not to list my books in advance. I just can't stick to a script. I couldn't read 9x9 books this year either, I only made it to 65 on my reading log in 100 books challenge.

But, adapting what I did read to the categories I had, just tweaking Orange prize nominees to include an Orange author's oeuvre and the Top 100 Women Novels list I have on my spreadsheet somewhere, and adding early 20th Century lit and 1001 novels to my 19th Century lit category, I can pull off a 9x9 categories completed. My YA and spec fic remains at 4 out of 9, but that was amply covered by my tenth overflow category which seems mainly light fiction. Yep, I even read a vampire novel in 2009. I'm with the zeitgeist.

Congrats to everyone who had fun with categories this year. I'll join you again in 2010.

I found that I needed to manipulate my categories to complete the challenge too. I get too distracted by new titles at the library, LT group reads and recommendations that the books I originally intended to read are put aside. However, I enjoyed discovering new books and authors and had a lot of fun with my 'creative accounting' to finish the challenge.

Happy new year.

Happy New Year to you too socialpages!