How My Reading Is Progressing:

 Hello, all! Gretchen and Mags, it's a happy thought that you might be joining me in this reading endeavor, however far any of us get in it. I imagine I will get distracted, and at some point decide I'd rather paint or garden than read ... but that's life!

Gretchen, yes, you DO have a small poetry volume: Knock at a Star. You recommended it strongly on your blog at some point, and I ordered a used copy, and I just read it through the other day as the top book on this challenge list. Hooray! I think a book of children's verse is a good way not to get bogged down in that category. In fact, children's books in general might be wise. I'm like a person who had a reading catastrophe/wreck in the past few years, and is just back into rehab and learning how to read again, if you know what I mean. I need short and easy.

So for the "Letters" category, I chose Helene Hanff's adorable, tiny book, 84 Charing Cross Road. I read it many years ago, and finished it last night.

I knew right away that I'd want to read Antigone as my Greek item, but I don't think I have a copy anymore. (I used to teach is often from an anthology.) So I found a nice copy translated by Fitzgerald online and will read it there. I ADORE Antigone.

But first, I needed a book from my To-Be-Read stack, so I launched into The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. You may recall that I read that only a few years ago. You man recall it ... but sadly I did not, AT ALL. In fact, as I read the first few letters (-- it would qualify in the "Letters" category, btw --) I was certain I had never, ever read this book before. It was not vaguely familiar; the movie, yes, it was familiar. And then I went to check on my blog and found that I had indeed read it before and had a lot to say about it! Sheesh. Might as well read it again then, since my memory is non-existent!

I just returned from the thrift store, where I found these:

These were all half off! Wait ... did I promise to read only from my own shelves, and not buy more books? Surely not.

I've never read Wilkie Collins, but he would qualify as a Victorian novelist. The Woman in White is well-known. Lost Laysen is a novella by Margaret Mitchell -- who knew? And the category "Literary Biography" should allow for autobiographical writing too, right? That's where the William Styron comes in. A passage he wrote about Nat Turner's rebellion captured my mind many years ago, and has never let go. How someone can write so beautifully about such a terrifying event, is a miraculous skill, so I knew I'd appreciate this short book.

That's the key. So many of the books I'm finding for my challenge list are very short, manageable, not-intimidating. And like you Mags, if somehow I find myself unable to complete it, I shall turn from the list without a pang. 

The A. M. Smith is just for fun. His Botswana books are sheer delight. He doesn't need a category.

Here's the challenge list again: