Book challenge for 2008
(And I nearly put 2007 in the title. D’oh.)
Anyway, there was a post the other day on the Emerging Writer blog about the following reading challenge:
Pick six books – one from each of the following categories…
A book with a colour in its title.
A book with an animal in its title.
A book with a first name in its title.
A book with a place in its title.
A book with a weather event in its title.
A book with a plant in its title.
I really like the idea of doing this, but can anyway think of any books to fit these categories? I have a few that would work, but obviously I’ve read them before.
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Tags: books, challenges
So, the ones I can think off of the top of my head (that are mostly on my shelves):
Colour: Five Quarters of the Orange (is this cheating?) – Joanne Harris
Animal: Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen
First Name: Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood (Emerging Writer had this one too); Emma – Jane Austen (v. obvious!)
Place: erm…
Weather: Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow – Peter Høeg
Plant: again, erm…
Right, now off to work.
Ok, joining you in that most of these are on my shelves:
Colour: White Teeth – Zadie Smith
Animal: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Philip K. Dick; The Hound of the Baskervilles – Arthur Conan Doyle; So long, and thanks for all the fish – Douglas Adams
First Name: Pamela – Samuel Richardson; (is it just first names? if not) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or Robinson Crusoe (I could think of a lot of these actually)
Place: The Murders in the Rue Morgue – Edgar Allen Poe (this is a cheat, it’s a short story but could think of nothing else)
Weather: The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Plant: Eats, Shoots & Leaves – Lynne Truss; The War of the Flowers – Tad Williams (Can’t think of anything with specific plant)
Oh, much more fun to take the list in hand and go find books we’ve never heard of before, to try.
I tend to re-read the same old favourites over and over, so I’m definitely going to do it; I think I’ll take the kids out over the holidays and get them to join in. There must be plenty matching titles in the kids’ section too.
Thanks for passing it on!
I’m hoping to be able to make up my list from recommendations posted here (although a look around the library would be a good idea too). I think I’ll definitely go for White Teeth for my colour; it’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for a while.
(I’ve got both of Frostie’s plant suggestions though, drat.)
I thought of a couple of animal suggestions (again from my shelves):
The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea (a charming children’s fairytale based on Irish mythology)
To Say Nothing of the Dog – Connie Willis (time travelling to the era of Jerome K Jerome)
Mmmm… Let’s see – from the top of my head :
Colour : The Mask Of Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe
Animal : The Melancholy Death of the Oyster Boy, by Tim Burton
First name : Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
Place name : Death in Venice by Thomas Mann, or Eureka Street by Robert McLiam Wilson, or Belfast Confidential by Colin Bateman
Weather event : The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley – does that count ?
Plant : erm… no idea :\
Me again – I’ve just realized I’ve cheated a wee bit : “The Mask Of Red Death” is a short story, and “Oyster Boy” is a poem collection), but I couldn’t think of anything else at the time. And also – quite disturbingly, the word “death” comes up three times in my choice. Brrrr…
Another suggestion for colour, though : The King in Yellow, by Robert W. Chambers. But still none for plants…
Off the top of my head (I’ll have to add the authors later!) The Hounds of Morrigan sounds interesting, must check that one out.
A book with a colour in its title: My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk or The Colour Purple by Alice Walker.
A book with an animal in its title: The Secret Lives of Bees (bees count as an animal because I have the memory of a sieve) by Sue Monk Kidd
A book with a first name in its title: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte or Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
A book with a place in its title: The Connemara Pony – okay it’s a kids book but this is HARD! Or, Despite Losing it on Finkle Street by Samantha Priestly
A book with a weather event in its title: Um…Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
A book with a plant in its title: Blue Dahlia by Nora Roberts
I googled the author names in the end.