Outside of a Dog » Social Networking http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org a book is man's best friend. Inside it's too dark to read. Tue, 04 Mar 2008 14:52:41 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.2 en hourly 1 What are you reading? http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/22/what-are-you-reading/ http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/22/what-are-you-reading/#comments Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:21:33 +0000 Barbara Pollock http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/22/what-are-you-reading/ One of the most interesting things I have found recently found in the blogosphere are book challenges. Now in the old days a book challenge meant that someone was trying to have book taken off the shelves of a library. Today the term has taken on a new meaning: it is a challenge to read a specified number of books over a limited period of time. They can also include restrictions such as a certain genre, or author. Some of the challenges I have seen in the past year are the Notable Book Challenge to read 20 books from the NY Times Notable book list; the 48 hours Challenge to read and blog about your reading for 48 hours straight; The Young Adult 2008 challenge to read 12 YA novels during 2008; and the Expanding Horizons Challenge to read books by authors of other ethnicities. The challenge I decided to take up is the 888 Challenge. This challenge required the reader to read 8 books from each of 8 categories (the readers choice) during 2008. This will be a total of 64 books but the reader may have up to 8 books in more than one category for a total of 56 books. I chose this challenge because it will require me to stretch beyond my usual reading habits. Choosing my categories was difficult, I wanted to expand beyond my usual mysteries and historical novels but I still want to enjoy all of the books. I wanted to use this as an opportunity to reread some books from my past and to read some books I would not usually choose. After I determined the categories, I had to find books I thought I would like in each of them. Here is my list as it stands today. I still need to add a few titles to three lists and some others may change later.

Favorites from my youth

  • The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
  • The Matchlock gun by Walter D. Edmonds
  • The guns of Bull Run by Joseph A. Altsheler
  • The catcher in the rye by J. D. Salinger
  • Betsy Zane by Zane Gray
  • Calico Captive by Elizabeth George Speare
  • Little women by Louisa May Alcott
  • Drums along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds

Global Reading

  • A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  • Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
  • Certainty: A Novel by Madeleine Thien
  • Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseille, by Julio Cortazar and Carol Dunlop
  • Wash This Blood from My Hands by Fred Vargas
  • The kitchen god’s wife by Amy Tan
  • On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan

Cold War Thrillers

  • Manchurian candidate by Richard Condon
  • The spy who came in from the cold by John Le Carre
  • Year of the tiger by Jack Higgins
  • Saving the queen by William F. Buckley
  • The Tristan betrayal by Robert Ludlum
  • The Cardinal of the Kremlin by Tom Clancy
  • Eye of the needle by Ken Follett
  • The Honorable Schoolboy by John Le Carre

NPR Books

  • Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseille, by Julio Cortazar and Carol Dunlop
  • The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman
  • Tenth Muse by Judith Jones
  • This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust
  • Wash This Blood from My Hands by Fred Vargas
  • On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan’s
  • Backcast: Fatherhood, Fly-fishing, and a River Journey Through the Heart of Alaska by Lou Ureneck
  • Last Night at the Lobster by Stewart O’nan

Historical Mysteries

  • The Janissary Tree: A Novel (Edgar) by Jason Goodwin
  • A murder on the Appian Way by Steven Saylor
  • Dragon’s Lair by Sharon Kay Penman
  • Bone Rattler by Eliot Pattison

Young Adult

  • The Absolutely True diary of a part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  • The White Darkness (Printz) by Geraldine McCaughrean
  • I am the messenger by Markus Zusak
  • The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga
  • Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
  • Born to rock by Korman, Gordon

2007 Award Books

  • The Absolutely True diary of a part-time Indian (National Book Award) by Sherman Alexie
  • The Gathering (Man Booker Prize) by Anne Enright
  • Certainty: A Novel (Canada First Novel Award) by Madeleine Thien
  • The Janissary Tree: A Novel (Edgar) by Jason Goodwin
  • The Road (Pulitzer) by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Caldecott) by Brian Selznick
  • The White Darkness (Printz) by Geraldine McCaughrean
  • Sacred Games (National Book Critics Circle) by Vikram Chandra

Non-fiction

  • This Republic of Suffering by Drew Gilpin Faust
  • Three Cups of Tea Mortenson
  • Tenth Muse by Judith Jones
  • Autonauts of the Cosmoroute: A Timeless Voyage from Paris to Marseille, by Julio Cortazar and Carol Dunlop
  • The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman
  • The Worst Hard Times by Timothy Egan

Strike through indicates books I have finished.

If you would like to join the challenge go to 888 Challenge to read the complete rules and submit you list.

]]> http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/22/what-are-you-reading/feed/ 1 LibraryThing http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/14/librarything/ http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/14/librarything/#comments Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:49:22 +0000 Barbara Pollock http://outsideofadog.edublogs.org/2008/01/14/librarything/ Like many book lovers, I love to hear what others have in their personal libraries. I also like to organize my own reading, keep track of what I have read and share books with others. I recently found the perfect Internet resource to help me accomplish all of these. LibraryThing. LibraryThing allows members to create records of their books, including tags and reviews, link to others who have read the same books as you, join groups with similar interests, read others opinions, and add friends. It is like a giant book club where I can share my reading experience with other bibliophiles.

Looking through the Zeitgeist I found there are 22,489,977 books cataloged on LibraryThing, by 340,466 members, the most review book is Harry Potter and the deathly hallows (553 reviews), the top book is Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone (26,523), in fact the top six books by number of entries are all Harry Potter, needless to say the top author by number of books is J.K. Rowling (168,095). The top rated book is The complete Calvin and Hobbes with a 4.88 out of five stars. The top favorite authors are Neil Gaiman (616), followed by J.R.R. Tolkien (597), Jane Austen (584) and J.K. Rowling (558).

LibraryThing supports two blogs. The LibraryThing Blog covers new features, plans and announcements like the recently completed Holiday Book Pile Photo contest. The Thing-ology Blog is for those interested in the methods and philosophy of LibraryThing.

LibraryThing has many other features that I will look at later. Right now it is providing me with hours of fun looking through others’ libraries and reading their comments.

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