bookaholic girl's 888 challenge

I am in as well. Thanks for the great idea. This group is really going to help me read some of the books in my TBR pile, well I might as well say house because the house is pretty much full of books to be read and to read some books that I have seen recommended on LT. I haven't finished my list yet but some of the categories I am considering are Agatha Christie books, YA books, 1001 Books to read before you die, books that were made into movies, non-fiction, short story collections, award winners and classics. I am being a bit loose in my interpretation of "classics" I think - I am not really setting a time period or anything like but for my purposes I think they will work. Many of my categories could overlap but I have chosen not to do so and my list will include 64 books. I hope to have my list finished and posted by tomorrow.

Here is what I have come up with so far.

Non-fiction

1. A Year of Living Biblically - finished
2. The Greatest Game Ever Played
3. The Devil in the White City
4. Into Thin Air
5. Seabiscuit
6. The Sociopath Next Door - finished
7. Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy - finished
8. The Know it All - finished

Agatha Christie Mysteries

1. The Mirror Crack'd - finished
2. The Body in the Library
3. Murder at the Vicarage
4. Sleeping Murder
5. Absent in the Spring
6. What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw - finished
7. Postern of Fate
8. And Then There Were None

Short Story Collections

1. The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
2. The O. Henry Prize Winners - 2007 - finished
3. The Best American Short Stories 2007 - finished
4. Interpreter of Maladies - finished
5. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges - finished
6. After Sunset by Stephen King - finished
7. The Collected Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Best American Mystery Stories - 2007 - finished

1001 Books to Read Before Your Die

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God
2. Atonement - finished
3. Tender is the Night
4. The Talented Mr. Ripley
5. Frankenstein
6. Animal Farm
7. Catch 22
8. The Great Gatsby

Award Winners
1. The God of Small Things - Booker Award
2. The Blind Assassin - Booker Award
3. Life of Pi - Booker Award
4. The Magnificent Ambersons - Pulitzer Prize - finished
5. The Color Purple - Pulitzer Prize
6. Andersonville - Pulitzer Prize - finished
7. Pictures of Hollis Woods - Newberry Award - finished
8. Sarah, Plain and Tall - Newberry Award

Classics

1. Of Mice and Men
2. Wuthering Heights
3. David Copperfield
4. Bleak House
5. Vanity Fair
6. To the Lighthouse
7. Silas Marner
8. The House of the Seven Gables

YA Books

1. The Book Thief - finished
2. Before I Die - finished
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time
Indian - finished
4. King Dork - finished
5. The Book of Lost Things - finished
6. The Thirteenth Tale - finished
7. Where the Red Fern Grows
8. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Books Made Into Movies

1. How Green Was My Valley
2. The Princess Bride
3. The Invisible Man - finished
4. Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil
5. Age of Innocence
6. The Children of Men
7. Memoirs of a Geisha
8. No Country for Old Men

Ok. I think my lists are complete now. For the most part, I already own a lot of these books and will either get the rest from the library or look for them at library sales, used bookstores, thrift stores or garage sales. Out of the 64, I need to look for 21 books. It is entirely possible that I have a few more than I think I have - I will have to check more carefully downstairs soon.

I do not think that I have included any book twice in my list. If anyone notices that I have, please let me know. I would prefer not to do that and would change one of the books.

Neat lists - I can highly recommend Devil in the White City, The Thirteenth Tale, and The Book of Lost Things. You might find it interesting to also read Jane Eyre, if you have not, and Wuthering Heights before reading The Thirteenth Tale. Its not necessary by any means, but I thought I got a lot out of the book by having done so recently. I hope I haven't said too much and I'll say no more. ;)

Thanks for the suggestions. I have a copy of Jane Eyre somewhere and while I won't change my list, since I plan on reading 100 books in total this year, I will just insert it in before reading The Thirteenth Tale.

Oh no, I wasn't suggesting you change your list. If I remember correctly, Jane Eyre seems to be the favorite book of one of the characters in The Thirteenth Tale - not a spoiler, don't worry.

No, I didn't think so. Just wanted to mention that I will probably read more than this 888 challenge and so can throw in some other books here and there. I think if I only planned on reading these books this upcoming year, I wouldn't enjoy it. It would feel too much like homework I think.

I know how you feel - it was part of the reason I was so hesitant to do it - I love making lists but when I make a list of specific TBRs, it starts to feel a little too much like school again....

What's nice is that your books don't have to be written in stone. You can just have them as "ideas" rather than must reads. The challenge is to read eight books in eight categories - not to figure out exactly which books you will want to read in the next year!

Yes, the flexibility in completing the categories is great. I keep jotting down titles from the posts here and elsewhere and will want to fit some of them in. I'll need to buy/borrow quite a few books--and I kept one category for books already on my shelf. I have to decide which will be book one now! I want to start reading on the 1st.

Morphidae - I know that the choices are not written in stone but since my TBR pile is so immense I have kind of altered the challenge to actually include a lot of those books in my lists. I think that if any books change they will more than likely be those that I don't currently own especially if I cannot seem to get them at the library or elsewhere. I kind of like the challenge of reading certain books as well. I plan on trying to read 100 books next year so I have left plenty of room for impulse, unplanned books.

Oh, I really was intrigued by For The Relief of Unbearable Urges - the stories sounded really interesting. Can't wait to hear what you think!

Finished my first book last night - Before I Die which was one of my YA titles. Very good once I got into it. I will be reading one of my Short Story collections next and then I will go off the list for a bit to read my Early Reviewer book so that I can finish it and post my review. The Short Story collection is a library book which I need to read since it will be due soon.

Finished the second book last night - The O.Henry Prize Winners - 2007 which is on my Short Story list. I really enjoyed this book for the most part and would read both future and past editions. (touchstones really hate this book for some reason)

Also, I removed many of my posts from this thread. I went and copied my individual posts with changes to my lists and just added them to my first list. It was getting a bit difficult to negotiate the posts with more than one set of lists in it. The lists have remained the same though except for the subsitution of one of my original short story collections for the O. Henry Prizer Winners book.

I finished King Dork last night which was the second selection from my YA list. I enjoyed it very much and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys YA. I have a few Early Reviewer books to read right now so I will be concentrating on them for right now and come back to my 888 list after I have finished them. I hope to tackle another book from this list by the end of the month.

I don't think that I have read a 888 Challenge book in quite a while so I need to check my list and get moving!

I am posting this basically useless, meaningless message because I am having problems on the LT site for some reason and can't get the "next" prompt to work. By adding a new post to my 888 Challenge, it will be moved onto the new page so that I can find it.

Sounds like you need to use the star feature. I recently figured this out. At the very top of the messages in a thread there is a little grey star and a little grey X. Click on the star and it will mark your thread so you can find it in the list. (The X is for ignore and moves the thread to the bottom of the list). You can also find your starred messages easily through the Talk tab, and then click on Your Starred from the list on the left. Hope this helps.

Nickelini - Thanks for the tip. I had actually used the my topics list to find my posts. Apparently, according to Abby, I wasn't the only one having the problem last week and it is now fixed.

I just completed The 2007 Best American Mystery Stories and added that to my list. I removed the Shirley Jackson collection because I actually believe that I have read this. If I complete my whole list, I may still read the Shirley Jackson collection but for the purposes of this challenge, would rather read something that I know is new to me.

Well, as of today, I have only completed 10 of my 64 titles. It doesn't look very promising, does it? I have a few titles from my non-fiction category that I will read in the next week or so and then I will probably work on some categories where I haven't read anything yet.

Well, you didn't ask for advice, but here I am anyway. If you want to make some progress, here are my suggestions from your list:

Into Thin Air--I loved this book. Once I started reading it, I just couldn't put it down. My daughter was a needy 9 month old at the time, but I managed to read it while feeding her, pushing her on the swing, bathing her.

Animal Farm--This one is short, and Orwell's writing is clear and concise. I personally think the story is great.

Sarah, Plain and Tall is a novella written for children, so you'll get through that quickly.

I found the Color Purple and Atonement fairly quick reads, but some would disagree. There is a lot going on in both books, and it depends on how you as a reader take to them.

Hope that helps. Your books aren't engraved in stone, so you can change them at anytime.

I don't often see Nathan Englander on lists it seems, so I had to jot a note! You won't regret it when you set down with The Relief of Unbearable Urges, but be forewarned--there's so much in each of those stories to think on, you'll probably want to spread them between other works. It's probably one of the smartest and most beautifully written collections of stories I've read overall (Interpreter of Maladies and Brain Work up there as well though), so I'll look forward to hearing what you think :)

#27 - Thanks for the info on The Relief of Unbearable Urges. I read Nathan Englander's The Ministry of Special Cases last year and knew that I had to read more by him. I will probably get The Relief of Unbearable Urges from the library so may not be able to take my time reading it. Of course, there is always online renewal so I could conceivable have the book for 9 weeks which would work!

I loved Interpreter of Maladies and will have to look for Brain Work.

Nickelini - I am sorry but I missed this post earlier. Thanks for the tips. I think my problem is that I see so many books that look so great when I go to the library that I wind up grabbing them and reading them instead of the book I had planned to read next. I do plan to read Sarah, Plain and Tall soon and work on the rest during the summer. I know that I can change my books but really don't want to for some reason. All of the books on my list are books that I have been meaning to read and I guess I look on it as a challenge to read them this year. Of course, if I don't finish the list it really isn't a big deal since I will probably read more than 64 books anyway.

Here is how my list looks now -

Non-fiction

1. A Year of Living Biblically - finished
2. The Greatest Game Ever Played
3. The Devil in the White City
4. Into Thin Air
5. Seabiscuit
6. The Sociopath Next Door - finished
7. Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy - finished
8. The Know it All - finished

Agatha Christie Mysteries

1. The Mirror Crack'd - finished
2. The Body in the Library
3. Murder at the Vicarage
4. Sleeping Murder
5. Absent in the Spring
6. What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw - finished
7. Postern of Fate
8. And Then There Were None

Short Story Collections

1. The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor
2. The O. Henry Prize Winners - 2007 - finished
3. The Best American Short Stories 2007 - finished
4. Interpreter of Maladies - finished
5. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges - fnished
6. Where I'm Calling From
7. The Collected Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Best American Mystery Stories - 2007 -
finished

1001 Books to Read Before Your Die

1. Their Eyes Were Watching God
2. Atonement - finished
3. Tender is the Night
4. The Talented Mr. Ripley
5. Frankenstein
6. Animal Farm
7. Catch 22
8. The Great Gatsby

Award Winners
1. The God of Small Things - Booker Award
2. The Blind Assassin - Booker Award
3. Life of Pi - Booker Award
4. The Magnificent Ambersons - Pulitzer Prize - finished
5. The Color Purple - Pulitzer Prize
6. Andersonville - Pulitzer Prize
7. Pictures of Hollis Woods - Newberry Award -
finished
8. Sarah, Plain and Tall - Newberry Award

Classics

1. Of Mice and Men
2. Wuthering Heights
3. David Copperfield
4. Bleak House
5. Vanity Fair
6. To the Lighthouse
7. Silas Marner
8. The House of the Seven Gables

YA Books

1. The Book Thief - finished
2. Before I Die - finished
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time
Indian - finished
4. King Dork - finished
5. The Book of Lost Things - finished
6. The Thirteenth Tale - finished
7. Where the Red Fern Grows
8. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Books Made Into Movies

1. How Green Was My Valley
2. The Princess Bride
3. The Invisible Man - finished
4. Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil
5. Age of Innocence
6. The Children of Men
7. Memoirs of a Geisha
8. No Country for Old Men

I have to go through the list of books I have read this year and see if I can switch any of them for the ones on my list. I know that I have read more than 8 short story collection. I just didn't read all of the ones on my list so I will probably swap out a few. I still don't think it looks very promising for me to finish my lists though but there is always next year, right:)!

Well, I didn't complete my challenge and I don't even think that I will complete 64 books this year which is unusual for me. Oh well, there is always next year.