Reading challenges are my absolute favorite! I love setting a goal and being able to achieve that goal, and it only makes it sweeter when the goal has to do with my reading life. Each year I debate which reading challenge I want to participate in, and after much consideration I have selected the Modern Mrs. Darcy challenge for this year. If you are interested in completing this challenge, you can find out more about it on Anne Bogel's website here. In the Modern Mrs. Darcy reading challenge, Anne Bogel picks twelve categories of books, and her readers select the books they want to read that fit the twelve categories. In this post I have included all twelve categories and what I plan to read in each category. I have also included links to Amazon for each of these books. The links are affiliate links, which means I will receive a very small percentage of the profit Amazon makes since I encouraged you to buy the book. This does not raise the cost of the book for you and is just a helpful way to support my blog and book buying habit. Here are the twelve categories and my picks: 1. A Classic You've Been Meaning to Read For this pick I chose In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. This novel is about a murder that occurred in Kansas and Capote was apparently so intrigued by it that he investigated and later wrote about it. I have always hesitated to read it because I have heard that it can be a bit creepy, but this is the year I am going to finally tackle this book! 2. A Book Recommended by Someone with Great Taste I struggled a bit with this category mostly since I trust the reading taste of quite a few of my friends. In the end I picked a book I know very little about other than the name: The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick. All I know about this book is that a friend of mine told me that I simply must read it, so in I plunge. 3. A Book in Translation This book was not hard at all to pick. I plan to read The Deal of a Lifetime by Frederick Backman. I have loved the other novels of his I have read: A Man Called Ove, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, and And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer. I am also eagerly anticipating his newest book Us Against You which is the second installment of the Beartown trilogy. Backman seems to have hit the US by storm with his release of A Man Called Ove, and I was certainly no exception. 4. A Book Nominated for an Award in 2018 This is the one blank category on my planning sheet, and I have special plans for it. Last year I set the goal to read every shortlisted book in the fiction category from the Man Booker Prize, the National Book Award, and Kirkus Review's Award. I was able to achieve this goal and read so many books within about two months between when the short lists are announced and when the finalists were announced. Some of my favorite included: Autumn by Ali Smith, What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah, and Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. I cannot wait to try the challenge of reading the short list again and see what wonderful books await me. 5. A Book of Poetry, a Play, or an Essay Collection A category all for plays, poetry, and essay collections? This makes me simultaneously excited and nervous. This is certainly out of my wheelhouse, but I am excited to read We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby. I have read portions of this before to give recommendations to my speech and drama class for some prose solos, but I have never read the collection all the way through; I am so excited to read even more of this brilliant author's work. 6. A Book You Can Read in a Day To pick this category, I looked up at my shelves for a slim book, and my eyes landed on Song of Two Worlds by Alan Lightman. Lightman has intrigued me since I was in high school when I read Einstein's Dreams a unique little volume in which he ponders the various ways in which Einstein may have thought about gravity. It was brilliant as has been every other book of his I have read. I cannot wait to read his long poem for this category! 7. A Book That's More than 500 Pages I have heard so many good things about the novel City on Fire by Garth Risk Hallberg, and I have always hesitated to read it because of its length; being the parent of two young girls means my time to read is somewhat limited, but I hope to make time for this hefty tome this year. 8. A Book by a Favorite Author How does one pick a favorite author? I have so many!!! For this, though, I chose Michael Chabon, who first wooed me with his Sherlock Holmes-ian novel The Final Solution. I have read so many of his books since and loved every one. I picked his novel Wonder Boys for this category because it has been sitting on my shelf for far too long. 9. A Book Recommended by a Librarian or Indie Bookseller I have been dying to read Turtles All the Way Down by John Green since it was recommended to me before it came out. The trouble was I brought it to school to show my students and they snatched it from me. I have allowed five students to read the book before me, so at some point in the year I will have to steal it back and see what all the fuss is about! 10. A Banned Book I have read so many banned books. This year in school I am hoping to do a banned books focus for the books I require them to read each month (they get to choose the book). I want to read Watership Down by for this category because it is one I have been intending to read for a long time and is one I have been told my students might enjoy. I hope to read it before I do banned book month so I can offer it as a choice this year. 11. A Memoir, Biography, or Book of Creative Nonfiction This category brings me so much joy because I plan to read When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson. She is one of my favorite authors. I loved Gilead, Home, and Lila which are all books surrounding three people who spend time in small town and how their lives intersect. She is such a brilliant, beautiful writer, so I am excited to read this next book. 12. A Book by an Author of a Different Race, Ethnicity, or Religion than Your Own There were so many books I could have selected to fulfill this category. This year I chose Marchwhich is a graphic novel. I don't usually read graphic novels, but this is one I think will be wonderful. I love to stretch myself and hope this category will allow me to do that. I also think my students will love this graphic novel. Thanks for enduring through my super long post (I'm sure it breaks some rule of blogging, but who could ever find a book post too long?). I hope you find some gems in this list. Please continue to check back on the blog as I will post about each of these books throughout the year. Here's to finding a good book!
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