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Thursday, October 15, 2015

winter reading challenge!

It's time for the winter installment of the Semi-Charmed Kind of Life Reading Challenge!  There were some very difficult categories this time around!  It took me the better part of the afternoon trying to figure out what to pick!

Here's my preliminary list for the #SCWBC15, which runs from November 1, 2015 to January 31, 2015:

5 points: Read a book that has between 100 and 200 pages.  Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck, 107 pages
10 points: Read a debut book by any author. (The book does not have to be a 2015 debut.)  The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson, 465 pages
10 points: Read a book that does not take place in your current country of residence.  The Dovekeepers - Alice Hoffman, 592 pages (Israel)
10 points: Read a book that someone else has already used for the challenge.  Have to wait for the check-ins before I can pick this one!
15 points: Read a book published under a pseudonym (e.g. Robert Galbraith, Sara Poole, J.D. Robb, Franklin W. Dixon, Mark Twain, etc.).  Out of Africa - Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen), 399 pages
15 points: Read a book with “boy,” “girl,” “man” or “woman” in the title (or the plural of these words).  The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson, 503 pages
15 points: Read a book with a one-word title (e.g. AttachmentsAmericanahUgliesWild, etc.).  Cinder - Marissa Meyer, 387 pages
20 points: Read a book with a person's first and last name in the title (e.g. The Storied Life of A.J. FikryThe Story of Edgar Sawtelle).  The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Michelle Hodkin, 452 pages
20 points: Read a food-themed book.   The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows, 290 pages
20 points: Read a book with a verb in the title. (For any grammar nerds out there, I mean “verb” in the most general sense, so gerunds count. For non-grammar-inclined people, just use any book that appears to have a verb in the title!)  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - Stieg Larsson, 563 pages
30 points: Read two books with the same title (by different authors).  The Piano Teacher - Janice Y.K. Lee, 368 pages & The Piano Teacher - Elfriede Jelinek, 288 pages
30 points: Read a nonfiction book and a fiction book about the same subject (e.g. a biography and historical fiction novel about the same person; two books about a specific war or event; a nonfiction book about autism and a novel with a character who has autism, etc. The possibilities are endless!).  The Boleyn Inheritance - Philippa Gregory, 518 pages (Fiction) & The Six Wives of Henry VIII - Alison Weir, 656 pages (Nonfiction) 
I believe that I must be crazy...  All but three of my books for this challenge are OVER 300 pages!  And if my calculations are correct (if I read these books here, and not including the one I have yet to pick), I'll have read 5,588+ pages by January 31, 2016!  I think I have lost my mind!  But I am extremely excited!  A lot of these have been on my TBR list for a long time, and I get to check a couple off the Rory Gilmore Reading Challenge too!

Also, I'm not sure if I picked a good book for the food-themed book category, but I guess we'll see.  I have another one in mind if I need to change it.  

Wanna join in?  Click the button below to find out the challenge rules!  Happy reading!


13 comments:

  1. Wow, that is a lot of pages! Good luck!

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  2. Yes yes yes for Tudor era literature! I love Philippa Gregory! I hope you do, too!

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    1. Everything I've read of hers I love, so I'm excited for this one! :)

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  3. What a great list! Maybe I'll use The Dovekeepers for my foreign country category, too; I just read The Marriage of Opposites and loved it - now I want more Alice Hoffman! :) Also, The Guernsey Literary.... is one of my faves, so I think you picked a good one. ;)

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    1. I was a little worried that The Guernsey Literary Society... wouldn't work for the food category. So I'm glad you approve! :)

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  4. I loved the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series, and I hope that you love them too! The names are a little bit crazy, but the storyline is so good!

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    1. They've been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years now, and I just haven't picked them up yet. I'm so excited to read the whole series!

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  5. This sounds like a great list!! I am still working on finding something interesting & manageable (I don't do nonfiction too well!) for the last category!!

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    1. Try something narrative like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil! It reads just like fiction!

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  6. That's awesome you can fit all the Girl books into the challenge! I really liked them, and can't decide if I should read the 4th one that was written by a different author.

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  7. I didn't realize The Piano Teacher (the Jelinek version) was a novel! I've had the movie on my Netflix queue forever, but have never gotten around to it. I love Michael Haneke's films, and I'm curious to see what you think of the book.

    The Tudor era books should be really interesting. I may have to pick those up myself at some point!

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  8. Ooo I was struggling with what to read for the first category. Of Mice and Men would be a really good reread for me. I read it back in high school so it'll be interesting to see what I think of it now versus then.

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