Two More Challenges

I couldn't resist adding two more challenges. I am even considering a third, but I am afraid that might be too much. So, I will hold off here and see how much progress I make on the four I will now have in progress.

The Latin American Challenge

This challenge requires reading four books from Latin America between January 1, 2009 and April 30, 2009. Here is the list of books I plan to read.

1. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)


2. Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya (Honduras)


3. Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar (Argentina)


4. El Tunel by Ernesto Sabato (Argentina)

All of these are subject to change, of course, with a list of alternates below. The last more so than the others, as it is my intention at this point to attempt to read it in its original Spanish. However, since my high school Spanish is 20 years rusty, I might not be able to pull that off. So here is a list of alternates:

1. The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares (Argentina)


2. Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso (Chile)


3. House of Spirits by I. Allenda (Chile)


4. Death of Artemio Cruz by C. Fuentes (Mexico)


5. Something by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia)

Decades '09 Challenge

This challenge involves reading a minimum of 9 books in 9 consecutive decades, excluding the current decade of the 2000s. You must read the books in 2009.

This one is a really tough one, because there are so many books to choose from. I went through my 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and came up with quite a long list of possible books to read. I am not sure which decades I will read, but here is a list of one book per decade. The list is subject to change, but I will not list an alternative pool because there are just too many in the alternative pool.

It is more common for me to read more recent modern literature, so I will be making an effort to read more from the 1800s and early 1900s.

1. 1810s: Emma by Jane Austen


2. 1820s: The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by J. Hogg


3. 1830s: Oliver Twist by C. Dickens


4. 1840s: Dead Souls by N. Gogol


5. 1850s: Madame Bovary by G. Flaubert


6. 1860s: Journey to the Center of the Earth by J. Verne


7. 1870s: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain


8. 1880s: King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard


9. 1890s: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells


10. 1900s: Secret Agent by J. Conrad


11. 1910s: 39 Steps by John Buchnan


12. 1920s: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin


13. 1930s: Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft


14. 1940s: The Plague by A. Camus


15. 1950s: Lolita by V. Nabakov


16. 1960s: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov


17. 1970s: The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch


18. 1980s: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster


19. 1990s: American Psycho by B. E. Ellis