“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

I wasn’t planning on participating in another challenge, really. (I don’t browse through book blogs much, but every other one I glance through seems to be focussed on joining as many challenges as possible. This. Uh. This seems like a rather strange thing to do, to my mind.) However, I saw this challenge and thought, hey, wouldn’t this be a great way to sort out the books for 2008? I can cycle through the categories and vary my reading a bit instead of focussing on one genre. (Guess what I’ve been reading for most of 2007? You win ONE (1) FREE INTERNETS if you guess correctly!)

All that said, I’m probably not including anything non-fiction in this list. I am just that bad with non-fiction titles. Though Empire of the Sun is partly autobiographical, I think?

The challenge is to read eight books each in eight different categories in 2008. Eight overlaps are allowed, so there’s a minimum of fifty-six unique titles. Something doable within the year, I think, and the way the challenge is structured allows for changes easily, and that’s the main reason why I think it’s cool. There are way too many books to explore out there to limit yourself to only a static list for a year, challenge or no challenge!

Here’s the list.

Booker prize winners and shortlisted or longlisted titles

1. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
   » completed 22 March 2008
2. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
   » completed 14 December 2008
3. Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
4. Possession: A Romance by AS Byatt
   » completed 7 July 2008
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
6. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
7. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
   » completed 13 July 2008
8. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
   » completed 10 October 2008
9. number9dream by David Mitchell
   » completed 4 June 2008
10. The Accidental by Ali Smith
11. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
12. The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng
13. Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
    » completed 22 May 2008

classics

1. Tales from the Thousand and One Nights by Anonymous
2. East of the Sun and West of the Moon by Peter Asbjørnsen
   » completed 21 September 2008
3. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
   » completed 25 August 2008
5. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
6. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
   » completed 7 December 2008
7. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
8. A Room with a View by EM Forster

books set (at least partly) in Asia

1. My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey
2. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
3. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell
   » completed 30 October 2008
4. A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul
5. Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik
   » completed 1 March 2008
6. The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk
7. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
8. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
9. The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

young adult/juvenile fiction

1. Kit’s Wilderness by David Almond
   » completed 23 February 2008
2. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
   » completed 24 April 2008
3. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
   » completed 11 February 2008
4. Postcards from No Man’s Land by Aidan Chambers
   » completed 5 April 2008
5. The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
   » completed 3 May 2008
6. Just in Case by Meg Rosoff
   » completed 4 May 2008
7. House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones
   » completed 14 May 2008
8. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
   » completed 19 April 2008

speculative fiction

1. Someplace to be Flying by Charles de Lint
   » completed 15 February 2008
2. The Giver by Lois Lowry
   » completed 26 April 2008
3. Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr
   » completed 15 May 2008
4. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A McKillip
   » completed 3 May 2008
5. Winter Rose by Patricia A McKillip
   » completed 20 March 2008
6. Sunshine by Robin McKinley
   » completed 1 March 2008
7. Temeraire by Naomi Novik
   » completed 21 February 2008
8. Starcross by Philip Reeve
   » completed 24 March 2008

recommended by my sister

1. Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard
2. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernièrs
3. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
4. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
5. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
6. A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul
7. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
8. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday

other books we own

1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
   » completed 19 October 2008
2. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly
   » completed 1 May 2008
3. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
   » completed 19 October 2008
4. The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
   » completed 29 February 2008
5. King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett
   » completed 30 September 2008
6. Predator’s Gold by Philip Reeve
   » completed 4 October 2008
7. The Name of the Wind by Philip Rothfuss
   » completed 14 October 2008
8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
   » completed 15 May 2008

(not the first book!) in a series

1. Queens’ Play by Dorothy Dunnet
   » completed 16 March 2008
2. The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnet
   » completed 26 March 2008
3. Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett
   » completed 28 March 2008
4. The Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett
   » completed 30 March 2008
5. Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett
   » completed 1 April 2008
6. A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L’Engle
   » completed 3 January 2008
7. Black Powder War by Naomi Novik
   » completed 10 March 2008
8. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
   » completed 21 August 2008

.

There are currently four overlaps: Empire of the Sun by JG Ballard, The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng, A House for Mr Biswas by VS Naipaul and Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. Some slots are still empty. I’m not too worried about filling them up, really, even though this list took forever to compile. Only the first category crosses over with another challenge — the Man Booker challenge hosted by Dewey — the others are mostly books we already own or I already plan to read. I started the list (rather idly, admittedly) sometime in early November, but the books in it kept changing. Partly because I started reading some of the books and finishing them even before 2008 started — How I Live Now and Tom’s Midnight Garden from the YA/children pile were among the casualties — and some because I realised that I wouldn’t like them, so why bother?

The rest of the list may still change — knowing myself, I’ll probably be picking one of the books in the list and finishing it before the clock strikes midnight on 31 December. Besides, there are books being published in 2008 that I have to slot in somewhere. Anyway, if I don’t like a book enough, I reserve the right to put it aside and replace them with something else, ha.

Recommendations/suggestions welcomed!