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Sponsored by group owner, Wendy (caribousmom)
As a member of the Yahoo Group A Novel Challenge, I'll be participating in this fun set of mini-challenges throughout the year!
1. Complete all twelve mini-challenges from January 1st through December 31st of 2008 and become eligible for some fun prizes at the end of the year. DO NOT start this challenge prior to January 1, 2008.
2. Challenges may be completed in any order and may overlap other challenges. Work through them at your own speed.
3. Participants must EITHER post their progress (and reviews if appropriate) to their blog with links to the Yahoo group OR directly to the Yahoo group.
Here are the challenges:
1. Read a short story - review it - Completed 5/16/2008. I read Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth, a fantastic colleciton of 5 short stories and a novella. The title story and the novella were my favorites (read my review).
2. Read a children's book - review it - Completed 8/9/2008 with the YA Novella, The Old Man and the Sea (review).
3. Read a poem - tell us about it - Completed 1/6/2008. In a collection of poetry by Langston Hughes, Comment on War was particularly powerful. I wrote about it here.
4. Read a banned book - review it - Completed 10/2/2008. I read The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall (read my review)
4. Read a banned book - review it - Completed 10/2/2008. I read The Well of Loneliness, by Radclyffe Hall (read my review)
5. Give a book away (you may donate to charity, give a book to a friend, leave a book "in the wild" to be found by another reader...as long as you do not sell it!) - post why you chose the book you did and where it went. Completed 2/27/2008. I recently read The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch. An online reading friend expressed interest in her work. I had two of her books that I was prepared to give away. She asked for only one, but I sent both as a little surprise (The Sandcastle, and The Accidental Man). She was thrilled!
6. Read two (2) articles from any one magazine - tell us about them - Completed 2/10/2008. I read the February issue of The Sun, a literary magazine. Read about it here.
7. Read a classic (for this challenge a classic is defined as a piece of literature which has stood the test of time, has literary merit, is widely read, and was published prior to 1970) - review it - Completed 1/17/2008. I read two classics back-to-back: Cry, the Beloved Country (review) and Things Fall Apart (review).
8. Go to a book event and then tell the group about your experience (book events may be library events, author readings, seminars/lectures pertaining to books or reading, etc...)
9. Read an essay - tell us about it
10. Read something inspirational - tell the group why it inspired you - Completed 4/13/2008. I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. My review describes why I found it so inspiring.
11. Read a book written by a "new-to-you" author - review it - Completed 2/3/2008. I read The Secret River, by Kate Grenville (review). This was also my final book for the Unread Authors Challenge.
12. Participate in a group or buddy read and discussion (this can be either a face to face book club, an on line group, or a blog/buddy read). Tell the group what you read and with whom; give us a review! Completed 3/31//2008. I participated in two theme reads on LibraryThing. The "Reading Globally" group read and discussed books by Haitian authors. I read Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory (read my review). There was a lively discussion about Haiti's culture and literature. In the "Girlybooks" group, which reads books by and about women, the March theme was "social class" and for this I read Thrity Umrigar's The Space Between Us (review). Themed reads are becoming more prevalent on LibraryThing and I'm looking forward to participating in others!
