Mommy Brain

In my follow-the-link rabbit trails from Semicolon’s Saturday Review of Books, I discovered Thoughts of Joy and her A to Z Reading Challenge.

All that’s required is that you align the author’s last name or the title of a book (excluding “the”, “a”, etc.) with its corresponding letter in the alphabet. Each author and title entry must be a different book. I will be working on both the author and title lists at the same time; however, you may complete the alphabet lists anyway that suits your fancy. The challenge lasts throughout the 2008 year.

Joy has a Mr. Linky up where you can sign up if you decide to participate. And she also mentioned that books that have already been designated for 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 books on my shelves that are waiting to be read. I don’t need any excuses to buy more! Completing this challenge this year will not leave a lot of room for outside reading, but I have many of these books sitting on my shelves anyway. It may take more than a year - but it will be fun anyway!

Title list:

A - Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

B - Black Swan Green - David Mitchell

C - The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

D - Digging to America - Anne Tyler

E - An Equal Music - Vikram Seth

F - Father Melancholy’s Daughter - Gail Godwin

G - The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls

H - House - Ted Dekker & Frank Peretti

I - The Illuminator - Brenda Rickman Vantrease

J - Jacob Have I Loved - Katherine Paterson

K - Keeping the House - Ellen Baker

L - The Last Witchfinder - James Morrow

M - My Latest Grievance - Elinor Lipman

N - North River - Pete Hamill

O - The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle

P - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

Q - The Quiet American - Graham Greene

R - Rumspringa: To Be or Not To Be Amish - Tom Schachtman

S - Seven Loves - Valerie Trueblood

T - Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

U - Under the Tuscan Sun - Frances Mayes

V - Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

W - Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

X - Excellent Women - Barbara Pym (I know this is cheating, but you find a book that begins with “X” that looks worth reading! Suggestions would be welcome.)

Y - A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 - James Shapiro

Z - The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story - Diane Ackerman

Author list:

A - The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

B - Standing By Words: Essays - Wendell Berry

C - My Antonia - Willa Cather

D - Tipperary - Frank Delaney

E - Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides

F - Something Rotten: A Thursday Next Novel - Jasper Fforde

G - T is for Trespass - Sue Grafton (completed 1/12/08) - review

H - The Observations - Jane Harris

I - A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

J - Dubliners - James Joyce

K - The Dowry: A Novel of Ireland - Walter Keady

L - Women in Love - D. H. Lawrence

M - The Most Wanted - Jacquelyn Mitchard

N - The Last Storyteller - Diane Noble

O - The Gravedigger’s Daughter - Joyce Carol Oates

P - Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War - Nathaniel Philbrick

Q - A Door Near Here - Heather Quarles

R - Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her - Melanie Rehak

S - Gaudy Night - Dorothy L. Sayers

T - A Slipping Down Life - Anne Tyler

U - Kristin Lavransdatter III: The Cross - Sigrid Undset

V - Letters Never Sent: One Woman’s Journey From Hurt to Wholeness - Ruth E. Van Reken

W - The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton

X - Diary of a Madman - Lu Xun

Y - Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

Z - I Am the Messenger - Markus Zusak