A few remarks concerning the book challenge I am undertaking:
I plan to read in alphabetical order.
I plan to read mostly fiction.
If the book begins with "The", I will make the next word the "letter" word used for the list. (For example, I could use The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for A, not T.) But I don't think I will do this with "A".
I know I said I was going to try to read all new books. And I do still plan to do that. However, my first book will be A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I read this book once a year, every year, because it is my all-time favorite. So, I am going to incorporate it into this, since the main purpose to this challenge - for me - is that I read at least 26 books this year. A repeat here and there shouldn't be too big of a deal. I am also going to finish reading The Almost Moon, which I started on the plane when we were leaving for our cruise. So, I guess I may just read 27 books for this challenge.
I plan to read several classics that I haven't yet read as a part of this.
My planned list so far:
A - A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) completed 2/10/09 AND The Almost Moon (Alice Sebold) completed 1/11/09
B - Blue Like Jazz (Donald Miller)
C - The Choice (Nicholas Sparks)
D - The Deep End of the Ocean (Jacqueline Mitchard)
E - Emma (Jane Austen)
F - Fall on Your Knees (Anne-Marie MacDonald)
G - Gone With the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
H - The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
I - Icy Sparks (Gwyn Hyman Rubio)
J - Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
K - The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
L - Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
M - Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
N - No Country for Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)
O - The Other Boleyn Girl (Philippa Gregory)
P - Persuasion (Jane Austen) OR The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) (I own both, but haven't read either)
Q - The Queen's Fool (Philippa Gregory)
R - Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)
S - Snapshots at St. Arbucks* (RG Ryan) OR Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)
T - Tar Baby (Toni Morrison)
U - The Uglies (Scott Westerfeld)
V - The Virgin's Lover (Philippa Gregory)
W - What Matters Most (Luanne Rice)
X - Exit Lines (Joan Barfoot)
Y - Ysabel (Guy Gavriel Kay)
Z - Zoya** (Danielle Steel)
I haven't figured out what to do for X and Z. It will probably have to be something with each letter in the title - there just aren't many books that I'd read that start with these letters.
I am still open to suggestions for those, and any other letters for that matter, as this list isn't set in stone.
*I don't know if I want to wait all the way till S before I read RG's book. So, if I tackle that while reading something else, Sense and Sensibility will be my S book. Which would then make 28 books :-).
**I am not really a Danielle Steel fan, but unless something else comes along, that is the only Z title I can find in fiction.
The A-Z Reading Challenge
. I am going to do option B, which is book titles.
I have no idea yet what books I will read - you will just have to stay posted :-). But I am going to do my best to read books that I have here that haven't yet been read. I need to re-read the rules more closely to see if I can read books I've already read as long as a certain amount of time has passed.