2013 TBR Pile Challenge

The goal? To finally read 12 books from your “to be read” pile (within 12 months). Click on the link above to read about the specifics and to sign up.
Here I was, thinking about how 2013 will be challenge free for this blogger. Along comes Adam and his awesome idea and I’m off the wagon before I even climbed on. 
I figure that a TBR challenge doesn’t really count though. Right? Right! Guess what else? I can combine this challenge with the Classics Club books that I should be reading anyway. Ha, it’s a win/win! See how I justified joining in this challenge? Yea, I’m that good.


My 2013 TBR Pile Challenge List:

  1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  2. My Antonia by Willa Cather
  3. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  4. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
  5. The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
  6. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  8. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  9. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  10. Once Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  11. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  12. The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple
Alternates:

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Atonement by Ian McEwan

Wish me luck! Have you joined this challenge? 

Quick Thoughts: Read-a-Thon Books

I read 5.5 books for Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-Thon on Saturday/Sunday. Here are my quick thoughts about 5 of them:

How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen

  • I felt as if I was reading my own story.
  • You could quote from this book all day long.
  • A tiny gem of a book full of bookish tidbits.

 Push by Sapphire

  • Powerful, disturbing, hopeful, devastating.
  • I wanted to bring Precious home with me and treat her right!
  • I’m so glad I finally got around to reading this. Next? The movie.
  • Was I the last person in the world to read this? 
  • Do I think everyone in the world should read this? Yup.
  • Teenagers can be total asshats.

 The Violin of Auschwitz by Maria Angels Anglada

  • Short, sad and lovely
  • Good for Read-a-Thon because it’s short. Bad for Read-a-Thon because holy cats what a downer!
  • I love reading about this period in history and this was no exception.
  • My very first graphic novel, yay me!
  • Wintry, sweet, sad, honest, Wisconsiny, yay me!
  • One of the best first-love stories I’ve ever read. (Yay me again!)
I hope you all enjoyed your Read-a-Thon books as much as I enjoyed mine. And hey, do you have any good graphic novel recommendations? I’d love to hear about them!