Bookoholic13's 999 Challenge

Here is my list of categories. I'm hoping this challenge will get me into gear to give some love to the TBRs in my bookshelf.

1. Swedish writers Category DONE
2. Israeli writers Category DONE
3. Orbis Terrarum Challenge 2009 Category DONE
4. Books I acquire in 2009, whether newly published or not Category DONE
5. Books that have no reviews on LT yet Category DONE
6. YA novels & Children's Books Category DONE
7. Non-fiction Category DONE
8. Graphic Novels Category DONE
9. “Whatevers” Category DONE

Swedish Writers

1. Faceless Killers - Henning Mankell Finished February 3
2. The Dogs of Riga - Henning Mankell Finished February 5
3. Dans med en ängel - Åke Edwardson Finished February 9
4. Gängkrig 145 - Jens Lapidus Finished June 10
5. Isprinsessan - Camilla Läckberg Finished September 1
6. Aldrig fucka upp - Jens Lapidus Finished September 5
7. Låt den rätte komma in - John Ajvide Lindqvist Finished September 6
8. Midsommarvals - Viveca Lärn Finished November 10
9. En fröjdefull jul - Viveca Lärn Finished November 18

Israeli Writers

1. Gaza Blues by Etgar Keret and Samir El-Youssef Finished April 3
2. Missing Kissinger - Etgar Keret Finished April 6
3. The Nimrod Flip-Out - Etgar Keret Finished April 7
4. Laundry - Suzane Adam Finished July 8
5. Ten Thousand Lovers - Edeet Ravel Finished September 7
6. Look for Me - Edeet Ravel Finished September 12
7. A Wall of Light - Edeet Ravel Finished September 17
8. Benhazar, Son to a Stranger - Shai Aron ER Finished December 11
9. How to Cure a Fanatic - Amos Oz Finished December 12

Orbis Terrarum Challenge 2009

1. Israel: Love Life By Zeruya Shalev Finished March 2
2. Germany: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke Finished March 8
3. Morocco: The Director and Other Stories from Morocco - Leila Abouzeid Finished March 19 (LT SantaThing gift 2008)
4. India: A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth Finished May 3
5. Ghana: Wife of the Gods - Kwei Quartey Finished May 5
6. France: The Rabbi's Cat 2 - Joann Sfar Finished May 10
7. Ireland: The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly Finished June 6
8. Switzerland: Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story - Frederik Peeters Finished June 13
9. Vietnam: Short Girls - Bich Minh Nguyen ER Finished August 24

Books I acquire in 2009, whether newly published or not

1. Palestine - Joe Sacco Finished January 6
2. Q & A - Vikas Swarup Finished February 11
3. Fables: The Good Prince (book 10) Finished June 8
4. Fables: War and Pieces (book 11) Finished June 8
5. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall Finished June 8
6. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows Finished June 21
7. Last Days of Summer - Steve Kluger Finished July 14
8. The Little Giant of Aberdeen County - Tiffany Baker Finished August 8
9. Girl with Skirt of Stars - Jennifer Kitchell ER Finished August 30

Books that have no reviews on LT yet

1. A Guide to the Perplexed - Gilad Atzmon Finished January 10
2. Weeping Susannah - Alona Kimhi Finished January 13
3. Returning Lost Loves - Yehoshua Kenaz Finished January 17
4. Homesick - Eshkol Nevo Finished January 27
5. Hey Princess - Mats Jonsson Finished August 3
6. jobnik! - Liriam Libicki Finished August 21
7. Verkan - Torbjörn Flygt Finished September 27
8. Duck City - Lena Andersson Finished September 24
9. Hummerfesten - Viveca Lärn Finished November 10

YA novels & Children's Books

1. The Tales of Beedle the Bard - J.K. Rowling Finished January 4
2. The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming - Lemony Snicket Finished January 7
3. Moomin Complete - Book 1 - Tove Jansson Finished January 9
4. Moomin Complete - Book 2 - Tove Jansson Finished January 9
5. Moomin Complete - Book 3 - Tove Jansson Finished January 9
6. The Bomb That Followed Me Home - Cevin Soling Finished January 12
7. The Invention of Hugo Cabret - Brian Selznick Finished June 17
8. Samir and Yonatan - Daniella Carmi Finished June 22
9. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins Finished June 25

Non-fiction

1. Funny in Farsi - Firoozeh Dumas Finished January 31
2. Waltz with Bashir - A Lebanon War Story - Ari Folman and David Polonsky Finished February 20
3. Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin Finished March 16
(Long Beach Reads One Book 2009)
4. Blankets - Craig Thompson Finished June 9
5. Another Day in the Frontal Lobe - Katrina Firlik Finished July 13
6. The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs Finished August 2
7. The Impostor's Daughter - Laurie Sandell Finished August 20
8. Houdini: The Handcuff King - Jason Lutes Finished June 11
9. Kitchen Heaven - Gordon Ramsay Finished June 6

Graphic Novels

1. Fables: Legends in Exile (book 1) Finished June 6
2. Fables: Animal Farm (book 2) Finished June 6
3. Fables: Storybook Love (book 3) Finished June 6
4. Fables: March of the Wooden Soldiers (book 4) Finished June 6
5. Fables: The Mean Seasons (book 5) Finished June 7
6. Fables: Homelands (book 6) Finished June 7
7. Fables: Arabian Nights (and Days) (book 7) Finished June 7
8. Fables: Wolves (book 8) Finished June 7
9. Fables: Sons of Empire (book 9) Finished June 8

Blog entry

“Whatevers”

1. The Book of the Unknown - Jonathon Keats (LT ER book) Finished January 8
2. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka Finished January 15
3. The Uncommon Reader - Alan Bennett Finished January 18
4. American Widow - Alissa Torres Finished August 30
5. Pizzeria Kamikaze - Etgar Keret Finished June 21
6. The Pride of Baghdad - Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon
Finished June 30
7. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 - Alan Moore
Finished July 10
8. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 2 - Alan Moore Finished July 10
9. Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar Finished June 12

You have listed some interesting books here. Have you read Jane Yolen's Devil's Arithmetic or her Briar Rose - both YA. I'll be following your reviews of the Israeli writers - I have a couple of Israeli books listed in my challenge - Beaufort by Ron Leshem and David Grossman's See under love.

bookaholic13...
I'll be here following your Israeli writers category. That's probably my favorite category although I didn't specify it on my own 999 list. I'm going to capture it this year by italicizing those entries. I tried Israeli authors in my 888 challenge but found that category title too limiting and finally changed the categories to suit what I was actually reading.

I've read both Ron Leshem's Beaufort and Sayed Kashua's Dancing Arabs and loved both of them. Sayed Kashua has another novel out in English translation which is called Let it be Morning. I think you'll really like that book as well.

What I particularly like about Kashua's books is that they are by an Israeli Arab who does other things within them than spout venom. He tries to explain the precarious position of the Arab within Israel society today. He, for one, should know!

I read Etgar Keret's The Nimrod Flipout and found that book quite fun to read. I'm all for getting more of this author's works.

avatiakh...
I never made it through See: Under Love. It just got too weird. I'll be curious to see what you think of it. I did like other books by Grossman (The Zigzag Kid, Someone to Run With).

Good luck, biblioholic13 and avatiakh, on your 99 Challenges. I'll be looking to both of your lists for reading suggestions. :)

Ooo! I had to add that you have a couple of great short story collections on your list for this year. Aafat's Elephant and Apples From the Desert are great!

Maybe I should just read the books on *your* list this year? :)

avatiakh:
I've never heard of Yolen before, but Briar Rose looks interesting - thanks for the tip! It's one of my favorite fairy tales, so it'll be interesting to see what she did with it.

Beaufort was one of my favorite reads last year, so I'm seconding SqueakyChu's recommendation of that. Evan Fallenberg is an absolutely fantabulous translator, so that helps too.

See Under: Love has been a tough one for me - I think I've started it four or five times, but never made it through. I'm hoping it will end up being on the list this year, but who knows... I'm really curious to see what you think!

SqueakyChu:
I was trying to pick between Let it be Morning and Dancing Arabs - they're both in my bookshelf - so I pulled the classic which-one-was-published-first?-thing.... I may end up reading both.

Nimrod is the one of Keret's that I have that I haven't read yet, so I'm looking forward to it - I just love his writing! I keep seeing a book called Missing Kissinger on amazon.com, but I can't figure out if it's just a British publication of his stories that are already published in the US, or if it's other stories - do you know??

Good luck to the both of you too!!! I'll "star" your lists too. I'm starting to pull my listed books off my bookshelves - I want to keep my challenge books all in one place (so I don't go "wandering") and it's starting to seem a little daunting... :) But fun!!

Yes, I will need luck with See under Love but am determined to persevere with it - I'll probably read it slowly alongside other books. Have you read any of Shifra Horn's books - I've enjoyed all of them. I like all Keret's work, I think Missing Kissinger has some doubleup stories in it but not all from memory - have you seen his movies?

About Kashua's books, I don't think it matter which one you read first, although I think Dancing Arabs is a good place to start because it helps you understand his way of thinking right up front. Although both of his books are fiction, parts of them seem too real to be considered fiction. Kashua really puts his soul into his writing. I'm sure you'll enjoy both of his books.

Beaufort was also made into a movie which I have not yet had the chance to see. The film was co-written by Ron Leshem and Joseph Cedar.

Sorry. I don't know anything about Missing Kissinger.

I'm so happy to have some "Israeli fiction reading buddies" here on LibraryThing! Let me know if there's anything I should not miss.

I've read Four Mothers by Shifra Horn and liked it very much.

Have you read anything by Yehoshua Kenaz? His books are so hard to get hold of! I highly recommend Returning Lost Loves.

Keep us posted on See Under: Love - I'd love to read it too. Someone told me that Jonathan Safran Foer "borrowed" part of Everything Is Illuminated from it, so I'm curious about that!

I haven't read Horn yet, but I own The Fairest Among Women and Four Mothers, so they may end up on the list too.

I've seen Meduzot and I really liked it. I wasn't too keen on Wristcutters - maybe if I hadn't just read "Kneller's Happy Campers" before seeing the movie, it would have been better.

Hmm, I think I may look into getting Missing Kissinger after all, then. Just in case... :)

I have After the Holidays and The Way to the Cats by Kenaz, but I haven't read either of them. I recently found both at a second-hand bookstore. Score!

Oh dear, this year needs to be very loooong so that I can squeeze in all these books I want to read!! :)

If you like the Kenaz books, I'll send my copy of Returning Lost Loves to you if you haven't read it yet. Just let me know if you want it. I only send my contemporary Israeli fiction to people who would appreciate it!

If you're sure you're willing to part with Returning, I'd be more than happy to give it a home! :) It'll be read and cherished. I'll leave my address on your profile - leave me yours and I'll send you a Keret!

The Movie Beaufort is good, but be happy you've read the book first, otherwise it's hard to keep track of all the characters (you'll recognize them from their jokes, though!) - they hardly delve at all into their outside lives, which is quite understandable considering it's a really dense novel versus a 2-hour movie. Check out the extras on the DVD for the missing scenes and you can see what it could have been had they had a few more hours! :) Definitely worth seeing though - the scenery and cinematography are fantastic!

The Year of Living Biblically is near the top of the list of books I read last year that I find myself recommending to others. It's not the best book I read last year though, but it is good for a laugh.

I read The Know-It-All last year and I'm hoping this is in the same vein - I'm looking forward to a fun read!

Books that have no reviews on LT yet

ooh, excellent category!

Ooh, you have some things I'll be following with interest on here. I'm doing a Books of Jewish interest category, which I assume will include me trying to dig through the stack of Israeli novels I've accumulated but not gotten around to reading. I'll also be following your short stories & especially the books that have no review on LT. THAT is a creative one & so community-minded.

I read The Year of Living Biblically this past year & will be interested to hear how you like it. I also have The Way to the Cats, which I've been toting around since college, so maybe I should tackle that this year. I'm working on The Nimrod Flipout right now for my short-stories category.

(off to check out your library now, good luck with the challenge!)

ETA: Oh, I forgot to mention I'll also be stalking your Swedish category. I'm trying to do a "Cold Places" category that includes the polar regions, Scandinavia, etc. :)

fannyprice:
I've spent the last couple of days doing the "digging" and now have a few shelves stocked with the books I intend to read for this challenge. It looks very organized and exciting and quite daunting! I may have to cross-categorize at the end, though, but I'm hoping that I'll get through most of them.

Yeah, the "no reviews on LT"-category came from my own frustration with being excited to find rare books on LT (the kind of stuff amazon won't ever get) and then seeing that nobody wrote anything about them - not even a rating! Actually, many of the books on my list don't have reviews, so I'll put a dent in that statistics no matter what I do! :)

Let me know if you have any questions about the Scandinavian writers. I've been away from Sweden for a while, but my mum sends me books so I have some sort of idea what's going on. Right now, though, I think Southern California qualifies as a "Cold Place" - I'm freezing!! Or, maybe I've lost my viking-status after being away so long.... :)

Good luck to you too!!

>26 -Eva-:, Hah, I understand. After 21 years in Minnesota and two in Chicago, people think I should be able to take any weather. But I find Northern Virginia cold!

"Southern California qualifies as a "Cold Place" - I'm freezing!"

Me too. I am here (spent 4 days on the LA area, writing from Santa Barbara right now) visiting only, but I expected higher temperatures. Going back to my cozy NorCal location today.

It's the nights that get to me! The 25-degree drop the second the sun sets is harrowing! I've probably spent as much money on fleece-wear this year as I have on books!! :)

1st batch of 9 done!!

Category 2 (Israeli writers)
Weeping Susannah Review

Category 4 (Books I acquire in 2009)
Palestine Review

Category 5 (Books that have no reviews on LT yet)
A Guide to the Perplexed Review

Category 6 (YA novels & Children's Books)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard Review
The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming Review
Moomin Complete Comic Strip (Books 1-3) Review
The Bomb That Followed Me Home Review

Category 9 (“Whatevers” owned as of Dec 31, 2008)
The Book of the Unknown Review (LT Early Reviewer book)
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian Review

Well done you! And great reviews too :) I've had A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian on my tbr pile for a while now, but when people say that the best thing about it is its title it kinda stays there. One day however...

Cool/fast progress, bookoholic13. Thank you for the reviews and direct links. Sounds like I can find better book to spend time with reading than A Guide to the Perplexed I am still working my way through (very slowly) the original (Rambam's.)

Your Swedish category has several overlaps with my books in German category. I look forward to reading your reviews and I hope you like Henning Mankell as he got me hooked on Scandinavian crime novels.

>31 boookywooky:, bookywooky, thanks!! I managed to squeeze in a few children's books there to give myself a bit of a boost. :) Yeah, no rush to read Tractors. As long as you know what you're in for, it's an OK read but not essential.

>32 break:, break, thanks!! Yeah, I had hoped for a lot more from it. I can't really say why he named it that way (unless it was hubris...), because it doesn't have much in common with the Rambam's. Stick to the original, I think... :)

>33 RidgewayGirl:, Ridgewaygirl, that's very cool - I've noticed that a lot of Swedish mysteries get translated to German before English. I've (for some reason) never read Mankell, so I'm looking forward to it - I'm reading Mankell in English, though, so we'll see how weird the translation is... :)

2nd batch of 9 done!

Category 1 (Swedish Writers)
Faceless Killers Review
The Dogs of Riga Review
Dans med en ängel Review

Category 2 (Israeli Writers)
Homesick Review

Category 4 (Books I acquire in 2009)
Q & A Review (AKA Slumdog Millionaire)

Category 5 (Books that have no reviews on LT yet)
Returning Lost Loves Review

Category 7 (Non-fiction)
Funny in Farsi Review
Waltz with Bashir - A Lebanon War Story Review

Category 9 (“Whatevers” owned as of Dec 31, 2008)
The Uncommon Reader Review

Highs and lows of the year...

1. Swedish writers Category

The high for this category was Gängkrig 145 by Jens Lapidus - it was just a fantastic achievement for a writer who has never done graphic novels before. The low was Dans med en ängel by Åke Edwardson - it was kind of messy with all the maybe-supernatural events.

2. Israeli writers Category

The high here should be Etgar Keret, but I'm going with Edeet Ravel's Ten Thousand Lovers because I was so pleasantly surprised (I already knew Keret was going to be awesome). The low was definitely Benhazar, Son to a Stranger by Shai Aron - I still have no idea if it's supposed to be a mystery, a history novel, a political statement, or a romance.

3. Orbis Terrarum Challenge 2009 Category

The winner here is Love Life by Zeruya Shalev - it was a little hard to read, but very inspiring and thought provoking. I definitely want to read more of her books. The low point, I'll assign to The Director and Other Stories from Morocco by Leila Abouzeid - the whole collection was so incredibly uneven that it just wasn't enjoyable. Some stories were really good, others not even stories at all.

4. Books I acquire in 2009, whether newly published or not Category

The high was Palestine by Joe Sacco - even though it's a little dated, it's still a very well written view into Palestinian life. And the low award goes to The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker even though it was still a pretty good read, just a tad too depressing.

5. Books that have no reviews on LT yet Category

jobnik! by Liriam Libicki was my favorite here - beautifully told and beautifully drawn and it works on many level. My least favorite, definitely A Guide to the Perplexed by Gilad Atzmon - obviously written to provoke, but only managing to induce a yawn.

6. YA novels & Children's Books Category

I think I'll go with Lemony Snicket's The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming as my favorite here, only because it made me laugh so hard (it still is). The low point would be The Bomb That Followed Me Home by Cevin Soling - not a bad book, but mis-marketed as a children's book, which it definitely isn't.

7. Non-fiction Category

Tricky category to pick a favorite, but I'll go with Waltz with Bashir - A Lebanon War Story by Ari Folman for its emotional punch in the gut. Least favorite was Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas - it was neither funny nor about Farsi.

8. Graphic Novels Category

These were all Bill Willingham's Fables books - I don't have a favorite or a least favorite since they're all part of an overall story arc.

9. “Whatevers” Category

The high point in this category was The Book of the Unknown by Jonathon Keats - apart from one story that was a little odd, it completely brought me back to the "real" Grimm tales I read as a child. Low point goes to Brian K. Vaughan for Pride of Baghdad, mainly for ruining a potentially fantastic material.

That's about it - see you all next year!!!!

Hurray for Ten Thousand Lovers and Palestine, both books that I also thought were excellent!

Good to see Lemony Snicket shine as well - have you read and listened to his The Composer is Dead?

I have just gotten a copy of Ten Thousand Lovers and am looking forward to reading it. I very much liked your summary of your year's reading. See you over at the 1010!

#37

Thanks Squeaky - you're the one who recommended Palestine to me, so I'm very grateful for that!!

#38

Yeah, I'm a fan of Mr. Snicket's strange mind and will definitely look into The Composer - it looks really fun! Thanks!

#39

I think you're the one who gave me idea to do a recap, so thank you! Ten Thousand Lovers was a treat - hope you like it too!