Mid Year Review continued - Pt 4

In previous Blogs I have highlighted some of the Individual and Group Reading Challenges that I decided to take part in this past year. The Challenges were from the Book Addicts Group. I also have joined various challenges in the UK Book Club. Some of the books from my other challenges fit in nicely with the UK Challenges, but they do cover different themes. The first one is the monthly Genre Challenge, where we vote on a particular genre to read that month and then are free to choose any particular book you wish to read. So far we've covered the following genres -

January - Historical Fiction - Mistress of the Art of Death, by Ariana Franklin (a great historical mystery set in the UK. I really enjoyed)
February - Crime/detective - The Red House Mystery by AA Milne (something different from the author of Winnie the Pooh)
March - Classics - Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
April - Biography/Memoir - A Soldier First General Richard Hillier (the biography of one of Canada's most well-known Chief of Defence Staffs)
May - Dystopia - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
June - Fantasy - The Time Thief by Linda Buckley - Archer (this is book 2 of the Gideon trilogy, an interesting young adults fantasy series. Quite entertaining)
July - Young Adult - The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
August - Humour - The Return of H*y*m*an K*a*p*l*a*n by Leo Rosten (this was an old favourite of mine, one I'd read in high school back in the 60's and I finally managed to find a copy while in Ottawa. It was a lovely gentle humorous story)
We have yet to pick September's Genre.

The next challenge is kind an interesting one; the A-Z Author Challenge, somewhat self-explanatory. In that one we try to read a book by various authors with the ultimate aim of reading the whole alphabet. I'm finding this one a bit of a challenge as I don't particularly focus on a particular letter of the alphabet when I pick an author as my next book. I do find I'm reading a number of B's and S's, amongst others.. Anyway, here is where I am so far -

A - Rennie Airth, River of Darkness
B - Anthony Berkeley, Poisoned Chocolates Case
C - Howard L. Cory, The Mind Monsters
D - Philip K. Dick , The Unteleported Man
E -
F - Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death
G - Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants
H - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
I -
J - Terry Jones, Barbarians
K - H.H. Kirst, Night of the Generals
L - Linda LaPlante, Above Suspicion
M - A.A. Milne, The Red House Mystery
N - Jo Nesbo, The Redbreast
O - George Orwell, Burmese Days
P -
Q -
R - Lester del Rey, Outpost of Jupiter
S - Nevil Shute, On the Beach
T - Harry Turtledove, Opening Atlantis
U -
V -
W - Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
X -
Y -
Z -

The final challenge in the UK Book Club is a newish one that one of the Moderators decided to try out. I like it too, it's the Around the World in 80 Books Challenge. Like the Jules Verne book, we have to read 80 books set in 80 different countries. Cool, eh? Since this one just started, I've decided to start with the books I have read since Jan 2010 to the present. Still have only about 18 countries covered, but eventually, over the next... er, 10 years???, maybe I'll have visited 80 countries.. This is where I am so far...

1. England - Above Suspicion by Lynda LaPlante
2. US of A - The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
3. Java - Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester
4. Canada - Black fly Season by Giles Blunt
5. Norway - The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo
6. India - Ragtime in Simla by Barbara Cleverly
7. Switzerland - Pilgrim by Timothy Findley
8. Burma - Burmese Days by George Orwell
9. France - The Night of the Generals by Hans Hellmut Kirst
10. Australia - On the Beach by Nevil Shute
11. France - A Piano in the Pyrenees by Tony Hawkes

Good think I applied for a new passport..





So those are the challenges I've taken this past year. I'll give an update at the end of the year to see if I've managed to finish any.. All good fun anyway.