Monday, December 21, 2015

Alphabet Soup Reading Challenge



I stumbled on this challenge and initially resisted it, thinking I should really cut down on reading challenges in 2016. But then I kept thinking about it and it sounded like so much fun I just couldn't resist. It's hosted by the Escape with Dollycas Into A Good Book blog, and you can read the rules and sign up here.

Here's a brief description:

The challenge is to read one book that has a title starting with every letter of the alphabet. You can drop the A’s and The’s from the book titles. The first main word needs to be the letter you are counting - except for Q, X and Z titles, the word that starts with the challenge letter can be anywhere in the title for those. So for example, using the books I just read, I could count The Pearl for letter P and Lord of the Flies for letter L for this challenge.

You can either make a list of books for each letter right away, or fill them in as you go - I am going to do that 2nd option. I love fitting books into categories, this will be a lot of fun as I read - especially finding books that start with X and Z! Can't wait.

I will keep track in this post as I read throughout the year.

Feel free to leave any book suggestions in the comments!

A - Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne; The Adventures of Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi; Always - Nicola Griffith; Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
B - The Bat - Jo Nesbø; Bad Boy: A Memoir - Walter Dean Myers; The Blacker the Berry... - Wallace Thurman; Before the Fall - Noah Hawley; The Book Thief - Markus Zusak; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Díaz; Being Jazz - Jazz Jennings; Becoming Nicole - Amy Ellis Nutt
C - Cockroaches - Jo Nesbø; A Case of Two Cities - Qiu Xiaolong; The Conversation - Jean d'Ormesson; The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet - Arturo Pérez-Reverte; Chain of Fools - Trav S.D.; Complete Tales and Poems - Edgar Allan Poe; The Chicago Way - Michael Harvey; The Celestial Globe - Marie Rutkoski; The Children's Book - A.S. Byatt
D - Death of a Red Heroine - Qiu Xiaolong; The Devil's Star - Jo Nesbø; Death and the Penguin - Andrey Kurkov
E - The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde; Escape from Camp 14 - Blaine Harden; Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton
F - For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf - Ntozake Shange; Finn Family Moomintroll - Tove Jansson; Five Children and It - E. Nesbit; The Fifth Floor - Michael Harvey; Frontier Defiant - Leonie Rogers; Farewell to Manzanar - Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston & James D. Houston; The Fire Engine that Disappeared - Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
G - The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins; The Glass of Time - Michael Cox; Go Set A Watchman - Harper Lee
H - The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros; Hector & the Search for Happiness - François Lelord; Hector and the Secrets of Love - François Lelord; The Haunting of Hill House - Shirley Jackson; Harriet the Spy - Louise Fitzhugh
I - Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot; I Love You, Beth Cooper - Larry Doyle
J - The Jolly Coroner - Quentin Canterel
K - Kindred - Octavia Butler; The King's Gold - Arturo Pérez-Reverte
L - A Loyal Character Dancer - Qiu Xiaolong; Little Joe Otter - Thornton W. Burgess; Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde; Luna - Julie Anne Peters; The Laughing Policeman - Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö; The Long Secret - Louise Fitzhugh; The Lesser Dead - Christopher Buehlman
M - Manners & Mutiny - Gail Carriger; My Mother's Secret - J.L. Witterick; The Martian - Andy Weir; A Man Lay Dead - Ngaio Marsh; The Man on the Balcony - Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
N - Not on Fire, but Burning - Greg Hrbek; Nemesis - Jo Nesbø; The Neon Bible - John Kennedy Toole; Nothing Lasts Forever - Roderick Thorp; No Exit - Jean-Paul Sartre
O - Orange Is the New Black - Piper Kerman; Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck; One of Our Thursdays Is Missing - Jasper Fforde; One Fat Englishman - Kingsley Amis; The Only Street in Paris - Elaine Sciolino
P - The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky; Purity of Blood - Arturo Pérez-Reverte; Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren; The Petticoat Affair - John F. Marszalek; The Phoenix and the Carpet - E. Nesbit
Q - Quiet As They Come - Angie Chau; The Queen Jade - Yxta Maya Murray
R - The Redbreast - Jo Nesbø; The Redeemer - Jo Nesbø; Rule No. 5: No Sex on the Bus - Brian Thacker; The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion; Rethinking Normal - Katie Rain Hill
S - Sweet Thursday - John Steinbeck; Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel; The Sun over Breda - Arturo Pérez-Reverte; The Snowman - Jo Nesbø; The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher - Kate Summerscale; The Silent Cry - Kenzaburo Oe; The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne; Some Assembly Required - Arin Andrews; Sea of Poppies - Amitav Ghosh; Something Rotten - Jasper Fforde; See Now Then - Jamaica Kincaid
T - Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe; The Tumbling Turner Sisters - Juliette Fay; A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith; Trixie Belden and the Gatehouse Mystery - Julie Campbell; Time Heals No Wounds - Hendrik Falkenberg; The Tree House Mystery - Carol Beach York; Thursday Next: First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde; To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
U - The Unit - Ninni Holmqvist; The Unbearable Lightness of Scones - Alexander McCall Smith
V - V for Vendetta - Alan Moore, David Lloyd
W - When Red is Black - Qiu Xiaolong; Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple; White Leopard - Laurent Guillaume; The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells; Winemaker Detective Mysteries - An Omnibus - Jean-Pierre Alaux, Noël Balen; The World According to Bertie - Alexander McCall Smith; The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde; The Woman Who Died A Lot - Jasper Fforde; Wishful Drinking - Carrie Fisher
X - X: A Novel - Ilyasah Shabazz with Kekla Magoon
Y - You Were Here - Cori McCarthy
Z - Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - Therese Anne Fowler

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