Winter Reading Challenge
Kathleen at Rock Creek Ramblings is hosting a Winter Reading Challenge, taking up the torch for Janie at Seasonal Soundings who is busy with her first year of full-time teaching at a classical Christian school. The rules are simple: list the books you are planning to read during December, January, and February. I’m posting a short list so I’ll have a chance of actually completing it. I’m too big on impulse reads to leave no room for that title that just calls to me from the New Titles shelf at the library.
To continue reading (these are ongoing, books that will not be finished before the end of this challenge):
~ The Oxford Book of American Poetry
~ An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn’t
~ What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England
All three of these titles are the kind of books you pick up and read some and then put down, not read straight through kind of books. At least for me, that’s the kind of books they are. 
To finish:
~ The Book Thief
~ Vanity Fair
~ The Abstinence Teacher
~ Standing by Words: Essays
These are the books I’m currently reading that I want to finish during the challenge.
To start and finish:
~ Arthur and George
~ T is for Trespass
~ Anna Karenina
~ The Quiet American
That’s it for my list of planned reading. Hopefully, this will allow enough room for some impulse reads, too.
On the subject of books, Carol at Magistramater has posted a wonderful poem by Billy Collins called Reading Myself to Sleep on her Winter Reading Challenge post.
Great list. That Jane Austen/Dickens book looks really good. I’ve always wondered how to play Whist.
I just finished Greene’s The End of the Affair. It was good, but quite sad - and not necessarily easy to read. I am interested in seeing your review of The Quiet American.
December 5th, 2007 at 4:49 amOoo! I know how to play whist. It’s like hearts, only completely opposite.
December 5th, 2007 at 7:33 amDeb - It explains a lot of the different card games that we read about people playing in Austen, Dickens, and Trollope books. Lots of fascinating facts, and it has explained a lot of things I wasn’t clear on, like financial arrangements like entailments.
Andrea - how cool! I didn’t know anyone still played that.
December 5th, 2007 at 8:26 amI like your list! Thanks for joining the challenge. I’ll be posting links to the participants’ lists later today (I hope).
December 5th, 2007 at 11:12 amYeah, we use dot have card night with our old neighbours. We’d play hearts and whist while the kids amused themselves until late. I’ll get Ron to explain a bit.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:24 amGreat list! And I’m glad to have someone else reading Tolstoy
December 7th, 2007 at 8:49 amChris - thanks for stopping by!
December 7th, 2007 at 9:05 amI’m with you on leaving room for impulse reading. If I’m not in the mood for it, I can’t get into a book even if it happens to be a favorite.
That Jane Austen/Charles Dickens book looks interesting–I was just looking at it on Amazon the other day. Vanity Fair is another one I would like to read in the near future. (I have to stop getting ideas from everyone else’s reading lists or mine will be too long!)
December 7th, 2007 at 6:39 pmJamie - I know - I love looking at other people’s reading lists almost as much as I like reading!
December 7th, 2007 at 7:23 pmCarrie,
Great list of books! The Book Thief is one of my all time favorite books - and I sobbed through the last 100 pages (a good thing, I assure you!). I also loved Anna Karenina (I’m a big Tolstoy fan), and enjoyed Arther and George. Have fun with your reading!
Wendy
December 9th, 2007 at 9:35 amWendy - thanks for stopping by! I’m off to check out your blog.
December 9th, 2007 at 1:17 pm[…] other challenges can count toward this one as well, so I’ll be using the same books from my Winter Reading Challenge to fill in some of the letters. I’m going to try to fill in as many of the other letters with […]
December 29th, 2007 at 11:31 pm[…] reading challenge! Kathleen at Rock Creek Rumblings is hosting the Spring Reading Challenge. My Winter Reading Challenge didn’t quite go as planned. I did manage to finish many of the books on my list, but not all […]
March 1st, 2008 at 12:10 pm