SqueakyChu's 999 Challenge (Updated)

I had to move my challenge lists here from my previous thread to separate the categories. All of the touchstones in one post in the previous thread were making the touchstones go wonky and not letting me add any more books. :(

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My personal challenge is to read 9 books in 9 categories, in 2009. I'll add my books as I read them because I don't like to be boxed into what I must read. My categories are subject to change at any time simply at whim. :) I like keeping my challenges flexible. After all, what's a challenge if I give up part way through?

FYI: Short(er than review) comments about many of these books will be posted on my
50 Book Challenge or my 75 Books Challenge for 2009.

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You can follow my progress here:



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Biographies or Memoirs - 100% complete!
1. The Woman Who Can't Forget - Jill Price (2)
2. Loon - Jack McLean (5)
3. Going Gray - Anne Kreamer (4)
4. Goat: A Memoir - Brad Land (4)
5. Electroboy - Andy Behrman (4)
6. The Tennis Partner - Abraham Verghese (5)
7. The Longest Trip Home - John Grogan (4.5)
8. Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith - Anne Lamott (4)
9. Gaby Brimmer: An Autobiography in Three Voices - Gaby Brimmer (4)

Books Of Jewish Interest
1. The Girl on the Fridge: Stories - Etgar Keret (3)
2. Friendly Fire - A.B. Yehoshua (4)
3. The Moldavian Pimp - Edgardo Cozarinsky (5)
4. Joy Comes in the Morning - Jonathan Rosen (2)
5. The Dawning of the Day : A Jerusalem Tale Haim Sabato (5)
6. The Way to the Cats - Yehoshua Kenaz (5)
7. Writing in the Dark - David Grossman (4.5)
8.
9.

Books On My TBR List for More Than One Year - *Sigh*
1. When the Emperor Was Divine - Julie Otsuka (5) - since 2004
2. The Master of Go - Yasunari Kawabata (5) - since 2006
3. Touch and Go - Eugene Stein (4) - since 2007
4. Going After Cacciato - Tim O'Brien (5) - since 2006
5. The Story of a Marriage - Andrew Sean Greer (3.5) - since 9/11/2008 (today is 11/25/09)
6.
7.
8.
9.

Debut Works
1. The Gargoyle - Andrew Davidson (3)
2. Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking - Aoibheann Sweeney (3.5)
3. Scream Queens of the Dead Sea - Gilad Elbom (4)
4. American Rust - Philipp Meyer (2)
5. Bringing Out the Dead - Joe Connelly (4.5)
6. Namako: Sea Cucumber - Linda Watanabe McFerrin (2.5)
7.
8.
9.

Just Because...
1. Playing for Pizza - John Grisham (4)
2. Counting Coup - G.D. Gearino (4.5)
3. The Wasp Eater - William Lychack (4)
4. Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout (3)
5. Sorry - Gail Jones (3)
6. Wearing Dad's Head - Barry Yourgrau (3.5)
7. Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person (4.5) - Miriam Engelberg -
8.
9.

Mmmm! Food or Beverage
1. Recipes from America's Small Farms - Joanne Lamb Hayes (5)
2. Maple Sugarin' in Vermont: A Sweet History - Betty Ann Lockhart - (3)
3. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Vegetable Gardening - Daria Brown Bowman (3.5)
4. Diet for a New America - John Robbins (3)
5. The Face on Your Plate: The Truth About Food - Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (3)
6. Honey and Dust - Piers Moore Ede (4.5)
7. Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichl (4)
8.
9.

New-To-Me Authors
1. The Girls - Lori Lansens (4)
2. Outcasts United - Warren St. John (4)
3. My Latest Grievance - Elinor Lipman (4.5)
4. Fatal Light - Richard Currey (3.5)
5. Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott (4)
6. Secret Son - Laila Lalami (4)
7. Frida's Bed - Slavenka Drakulic (4)
8. What the Deaf-Mute Heard (4) - G. D. Gearino (4)
9. Push Comes to Shove - Wesley Brown (3)

Reading Globally - LT Group Themed Reads
1. Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter - J. Nozipo Maraire (4) - Africa
2. Crow Lake - Mary Lawson (5) - Canada
3. Nervous Conditions - Tsitsi Dangarembga (5) - Africa
4. The Soloist - Mark Salzman (4.5) - The Arts
5. The Yiddish Policemen's Union - Michael Chabon (2) - Polar Region
6. The Ghost in Love - Jonathan Carroll (3) - Ghoulies and Ghosties
7.
8.
9.

There's an Animal in this Book!
1. Rat - Andrzej Zaniewski (4) - a rat
2. The Big Year - Mark Obmascik (4) - a bird
3. Death at the Old Hotel - Con Lehane (4) - a cat
4. Tongue - Kyung-Ran Jo (4) - a dog
5. The Twitter Book - Tim O'Reilly (4) - a bird (picture)
6. McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon (3) - an elephant
7. To Siberia - Per Petterson (4) - a horse
8. The Flying Troutmans - Miriam Toews (4) - a pit bull (dog)
9. Water for Elephants (4.5) - Sara Gruen - an elephant named Rosie

Pictures added! I stole this idea from bfertig. :)

I love it - how come it took us so long to come up with this idea!!

I have no idea. It seems like a no-brainer!

It was really fun looking for pictures. I got them all off of wikipedia (so I could publish free-to-use pictures).

Too cool! I want to do that too - picture-hunting is always fun! That picture for the "Just because" category is beautiful!

Love the pictures! I may have to borrow that idea.

These look great! Cool photo choices! The new to you authors photo is clever. And I like your categories as well!

Picking pictures for those "nebulous" categories was quite a challenge. What I did was add terms into the Wiki search engine until I came up with some pics I liked! I guess I did well - if all of you like them. :)

Thanks, bfertig, for a great idea!!

New-To-Me Authors! Done!!

Biographies! Done!!

congratz

I am falling hopelessly behind in this challenge, but next year's "stepped" 1010 challenge will be a better size fit for me (less books/year).

I concede. I did not win this challenge but only completed 80% of my goal before time ran out. For 2010, I'm doing an easier "stepped" challenge which you can see here.

Hey, don't give yourself a hard time. I dropped out of the challenge in both 2008 and 2009; then, I did laboured planning for 2010 and set up a thread and all and I think I'm dropping out of that already (though I can't bring myself to kill the thread yet).

I think of this as moving from one challenge to another. It's like eating dessert before I finish my vegetables. I'll still do okay. :)

I knew I'd never read 81 books in a year. I average about 50 books per year, but I spend way more time now on LT than I even do reading. Oddly enough, I still did read over 60 books in 2009 which was up from 2008. No complainin' here.