Most avid readers have a “to be read” pile, in our office or near our bed: books we bought intending to read, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Some of us, to be honest, have “to be read” bookcases. This year, book blogger RoofbeamReader is once again running his To Be Read Challenge.
You have to go to RBR’s website to officially sign up for the challenge if you want to be entered to win a gift card to Amazon or the Book Depository at year’s end, and there’s less than a day left to do it (because I’m signing up ridiculously late this year): https://roofbeamreader.com/2018/12/19/announcing-the-2019-tbr-pile-challenge-tbr2019rbr/ but the basic rules (other than how to enter) are:
The Goal: To finally read 12 books from your “to be read” pile (within 12 months).
Specifics:
1. Each of these 12 books must have been on your bookshelf or “To Be Read” list for AT LEAST one full year. This means the book cannot have a publication date of 1/1/2018 or later (any book published in the year 2017 or earlier qualifies, as long as it has been on your TBR pile). Caveat: Two (2) alternates are allowed, just in case one or two of the books end up in the “can’t get through” pile.
2. Crossovers from other challenges are totally acceptable, as long as you have never read the book before and it was published before 2018!
*Note: You can read the books on your list in any order; they do not need to be read in the order you have them listed. Audiobooks count. Graphic novels count. Poetry collections? Essay collections? All good! As you complete a book – review it, go to your original list and turn that title into a link to the review.
ANTHONY’S 2019 TO BE READ CHALLENGE LIST:
1. Back Street by Fannie Hurst (published 1931, re-released by Vantage Movie Classics 2014)
2. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir by R.A. Dick (1947, re-released by Vantage Movie Classics 2014)
3. The Bad Seed by William March (1954, re-released by Vantage Movie Classics 2014)
4. Logan's Run by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson (1967, re-released by VMC 2014)
5. The Night of the Hunter by Davis Grubb (1953, re-released by Vantage Movie Classics 2014)
6. Cimarron by Edna Ferber (1929, re-released by Vantage Movie Classics 2014)
7. Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds (1936, re-released by Vantage Movie Classics 2014)
8. Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington (1921, re-released by Vantage Movie Classics 2014)
9. Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (1964)
10. We Have Always Lived in The Castle by Shirley Jackson (1962) - Read March 2019
11. I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai (2013) - Read March 2019
12. Iraq + 100: The First Anthology of Science Fiction to Have Emerged From Iraq, edited by Hassan Blasim (2016)
Alternates
1. Under the Sunset by Bram Stoker (1881) - Read May 2019
2. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (1993)
As I complete each book, I’ll come back to this post, italicize the title, and add a “read date” and a link to the review.
I have a few other reading challenges that I’m setting myself for 2019 that will overlap partially with this, including “Read The Book, Watch The Movie” and “Complete The Series” Challenges that include the first 8 books listed above. I’ll be posting about those soon.