College Students! discussion

It's time for the FALL/WINTER challenge!


This thread will be for talking about our tasks, giving suggestions for books to read, general chatter about the challenge, and questions. There will be another thread where we officially keep track of our points.

Please read the rules carefully & then start picking out those books for the challenges!!

Fall/Winter Challenge Rules

1. This challenge will start September 7th 2009 (at midnight) and will end at midnight on February 22nd 2010.
2. You can only use books that you have started after you post a list on the official challenge thread. Books will not count unless they were started after September 7th. If you are less than 20 pages into a book, that will be fine.

3. Books can only be used for one category.
4. Re-reads are fine, except where stated otherwise.
5. All books should be over 150 pages unless otherwise stated.
6. If you have any doubts as to whether a book fits a particular challenge, please feel free to ask.
7. Above all, remember this challenge is supposed to be FUN, a good way to tackle some of your TBR list, and to expand your horizons.
8. Those who finish the challenge will be able to pick a category for the SPRING/SUMMER challenge.


FALL/WINTER TASKS:

5 Points

1. September is Library Card Sign-Up Month: Go to the library and check two books out and read them.
2. Pick a person who was born in September-February and read a book about them, by them, or pertaining to their subject of expertise. For example, Marie Curie was born on November 7th. Read a book about her, written by her, or about Chemistry/Physics.
3. Read a book with a winter word: snow (snowball, snowflake are fine), ice, candy cane, cold, presents, gift, reindeer, Santa, sled, blizzard, frost, igloo, mittens, fireplace, chilly, angel, white, tree, Christmas, winter, wonderland, bells, elves/elf, miracle,
4. Read a book with a fall word- leaf/leaves, turkey, autumn, fall, pumpkin, acorn, thanksgiving, apple, hayride, harvest, pilgrims, Indians, feast, thanks,
5. Banned Books Week - September 26−October 3, 2009==Celebrate Your Freedom to Read --read a book on the banned or challenged book list. http://deletecensorship.org/downloads...

6. September is Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month. Read a book about a person struggling with an addiction or with the name of a drug/alcoholic drink in the title.
7. Read a scary/spooky/horror novel in honor of Halloween OR a book with a vampire, witch, werewolf, or ghost as one of the main characters
8. Don't Ask Don't Tell became Public Law No: 103-160 on November 30, 1993. Read a book about LGBT issues, with an LGBT main character, or by an LGBT author.

10 Points

1. Legend Johnny Cash died on September 12th: Read a book about or by your favorite artist/musician/band/composer
2. Back To School: Read a book that was on a required reading list for high school that you never read OR read a book that a teacher recommended to you.
3. Read a book that was really hyped that you swore you would never read.
4. Veteren’s Day: Read a book set primarily during a war (the war cannot be a fictitious war)
5. Read 2 books that have 2 words that are synonyms: for example..reading Little Woman & The God of Small Things
6. For Valentines Day, read a romance or an erotica novel.
7. Read a book by an author who uses their initials as part of their name ( JD Salinger, JK Rowling etc)
8. Read a non-fiction book about a subject you find fascinating but truly don’t know much about. You must share with the group a few interesting things you learned before you can claim your points.


15 Points

1. Read a book primarily set during one of these holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanza.
2. Around the World: Read 2 books set in 2 different countries that are different from where you live and that you have never traveled to before.
3. September 24, 1992: Sci Fi Channel (now called Syfy Channel) is launched. Read a book set in an alternate universe.
4. Read a book with an orange, red, yellow, gold, or brown cover,--the colors of leaves in fall.
5. October 2nd is Farm Animal Day: Read a book with a farm animal in the title--cow, pig, horse, sheep, goat, chicken, etc. or with a main character who lives on a farm.
6. West Side Story" premiers on Broadway, 1955 on September 26th-- read a play or a book that a Broadway play was based on or a book that was based on a Broadway play. The minimum page number can be negotiable on this one if you are reading a play. Please ask but try to stay above 60 pages.
7. Read both a historical fiction and non-fiction set in the same period
8. Use a random word generator (http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytoo...) to pick a word. This word must be in the title of the book you read for this challenge. You can use the Pick a new word button only 4 times. I would suggest changing the parameters to very common word or common. The word should be a noun, adjective, or verb.


20 points:

Kelly's Choice-- Read 2 books by 2 different contemporary British authors.

25 Points

1. Pick one of the following American literary movements from the PBS website and read 2 books from 2 different authors in this literary movement. (http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/ti...) There will be a dropdown that says Literary Movements. There will be a blurb about each along with some important authors in each movement.
2. - Read a known classic and THEN read a book of Entertainment Weekly's List called "The New Classics:" The 100 Best Books of the Last 25 Years
(http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207076... After reading both write a tiny review in our thread about whether or not you think the "new" classic has the ability to stand the test of time.
3. Read a "pair" of books: A classic and then a contemporary book that was inspired by it
4. Read a book that is mentioned in a song (or if a song mentions an author you can just pick a book by that author) and then also listen to that song.
5. Read 2 books from Time's Top 100 novels list(http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/t...)
6. Expanding Your Horizons: Read 2 books either written by 2 authors of these cultures, about one of these cultures or with a main character from 2 of these cultures. This should be a culture that you do not know much about and the books that are chosen for this should more broadly confront issues of ethnic identity or goes in-depth into a specific culture. Basically..you should really get a true sense of this culture from reading this book. (For example..I'm reading a book right now called The Outside World and it is about a girl who is Orthodox Jewish. It goes very deep into certain issues with her identity as an Orthodox Jew and I'm really getting to understand some of the issues and cultural practices that I never really knew about.
1. African/African-American.
2. Asian/Asian-American (This is not just East Asian -- Chinese, Korean and Japanese -- but also Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, and the Central Asian -Stans.)
3. Hispanic/Latin American
4. Indian/Indian-American (Again, books by Indian authors; not books by white authors set in India.)
5. Middle Eastern (Iran, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Turkey...)
6. Native Peoples (Can include Native American, Inuit, Polynesian --Maori, Samoan, etc -- Siberian natives and Australian Aborigines.)

So..you might read a book about a main character who is African American and a book written by a Middle Eastern author.

7. Read a book that has to do with your BEST and WORST subject in school. (I was horrible at Math so I might read a finance book..my best classes were my marketing classes so I might read a book about marketing).
8. In honor of 9/11-- read a fiction/nonfiction book about a disaster (or a character who is experiencing one) --can be natural (tornado, flood hurricane etc.) or manmade—(Titanic, fires, bombing, etc.)

Looks AWESOME..job well done Jamie and Lori! Now I'm off to pick my books!! :)

Right now I'm counting 440 total possible points that can be earned? Is that correct?

Thanks Molly!

And yes..as of right now I believe it is 440 points. However, 20 point tasks will be added if people finish the Summer challenge..and if nobody finishes it will be the person who is the leader at the end of the challenge. Also, we might throw in a surprise about midway through. :)

So yes..as of right now..that is how many point there are.

Jamie and Lori, it looks great!

A few of the links are too long and when Goodreads shortens them, they no longer work. Could you maybe replace them with a tinyurl link?

Certainly! Sorry about that..and thanks for bringing that to my attention :)


Banned Books: http://deletecensorship.org/downloads...

Random Word Generator: http://watchout4snakes.com/creativity...

PBS Literary Movements: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel...

EW List: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20207....

Time List: http://www.time.com/time/2005/100book...

WOO!! I was soo bummed because my plans fell through tonight so I ended up sitting at home..only to see that the challenge was up!! Yay!! That totally made my night!!

Any suggestions for the one with the author with initials?

Also, with "alternate universe"..what do you mean? Something that is not set on earth..or set in a different kind of earth than the one we know?

Here's my list so far. It is obviously subject to change..but I figured I'd post it because I always like seeing other people's lists for ideas.

5 points:

1. The Stand by Stephen King & Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
2. Lady Chatterley's Lover
3. The Winter of Our Discontent
4. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
5. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
6. My Friend Leonard by James Frey
7. Dracula by Bram Stoker
8. Running with Scissors A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs

10 points:

1. Cash The Autobiography by Johnny Cash
2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
4. Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky
5. A Great and Terrible Beauty & A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
6. tbd
7. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
8. Spook Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

15 points:

1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
2. The Kite Runner & The Unbearable Lightness of Being
3. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
4. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
5. The Good Good Pig The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood
6. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
7. The Alienist & The Devil in the White City Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Late 1800's--1896 & 1893)
8. Tim Gunn A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style

25 Points:

1. Naked Lunch The Restored Text & The Dharma Bums
2. Mansfield Park & Love in the Time of Cholera
3. Pride and Prejudice & Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
4. Wuthering Heights-- in an Alphabeat song
5. The Sun Also Rises & Never Let Me Go
6. The God of Small Things & Geisha A Life
7. Freakonomics Rev Ed A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (economics) & Deluxe How Luxury Lost Its Luster (marketing)
8. The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Katerina:

I will get back to you on the alternate universe thing. I was wondering the same thing. Danielle suggested this task..so I'll ask her first before I decide. My take on it was something other than Earth..but I'm not sure.

Some ideas for initials:

JK Rowling
HG Wells
JD Salinger
CS Lewis
DH Lawrence
PG Wodehouse
A.J. Jacobs

ooh and JRR Tolkien

S.E. Hinton..wrote The Outsiders
L.M. Montgomery

P.D. James is a well-known mystery author. She also penned, interestingly, Children of Men.

I could use some ideas for:
the synonyms one (10pts #5).
the holidays one (15pts #1)
the song one (25pts #4)
and the book pair (25pts #3)

here's my list!

5 points:

1. TBD & TBD
2. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
3. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
4. Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult
5. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
6. Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
7. Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill
8. Tipping The Velvet by Sarah Waters


10 points:

1. Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana
2. To Kill A Mockingbird
3. The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
4. Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
5. The LOVELY Bones & Me Talk PRETTY One Day
6. Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell
7. Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger
8. Geisha: A Life


15 points:

1. TBD
2. The Kite Runner & The Book Thief
3. TBD
4. TBD
5. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
6. Romeo and Juliet
7. The Other Boleyn Girl & Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England's Tragic Queen
8. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

25 points:

1. On The Road & Howl
2. Frankenstein & The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
3. TBD
4. Tom Sawyer-- from the Rush song
5. Catch 22 & Brideshead Revisited
6. TBD
7. Worst--(COOKING CLASS!)--
Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen; BEST--(English)--
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
8. Into Thin Air

Here is my list. It isn't quite perfect yet, but it's a start.

5 Points:

1. V for Vendetta – Allan Moore. The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K LeGuin
2. The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K LeGuin
3. Wintergirls – Laurie Halse Anderson
4. Classic Stories 1: The Golden APPLES of the Sun & R Is for Rocket – Ray Bradbury
5. The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
6. A Scanner Darkly – Philip K. Dick
7. The Vampire Lestat – Anne Rice
8. How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity - Michael Cart

10 Points:

1. Heroin Diaries – Nikii Sixx
2. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
3. Julie and Julia – Julie Powel
4. Dog Soldiers – Robert Stone
5. Notes from a SMALL Island - Bill Bryson. LITTLE Women - Louisa May Alcott
6. The Erotic Spirit: An Anthology of Poems of Sensuality, Love, and Longing - Sam Hamill
7. Possession – A.S. Byatt
8. The History of the End of the World – Jonathan Kirsch

15 Points:

1. Halloween Tree - Ray Bradbury
2. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini , Life of Pi – Yann Martel
3. The Dispossessed: an Ambiguous Utopia – Ursula K LeGuin
4. Pygmy – Chuck Palahniuk
5. All Creatures Great and Small – James Harriot
6. Wicked - Gregory Maguire
7. The Book Thief – Marcus Zusak. War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust – Doris L Bergen.
8. Fire – Kristin Cashore


25 Points:

1. I chose Romanticism: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and Collected Short Stories by Edgar Allen Poe
2. Much Ado About Nothing - Shakespeare, America (The Book) - Jon Stewart
3. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
4. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers (from the song The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Reba McEntire)
5. Beloved – Tony Morrison, Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
6. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou, Never Let me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro
7. My best was English: The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fford. My worst was Physics: Physics for Future Presidents - Richard A Muller
8. Panic in Level Four – Richard Preston

For the synonyms one..I just looked through the books I owned and picked a word and plugged it into a thesaurus and kept plugging those words into goodreads until I found a match. Some decent ones:

Little & Small -- Little Women, A million Little Pieces, Little Earthquakes; The God of Small Things, Notes from a Small Island, Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World

Wicked & Evil-- Wicked Lovely, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Something Wicked Comes This Way; Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Beyond Good and Evil,

Holidays:

Christmas:

A Christmas Carol
Skipping Christmas by John Grisham
Christmas Jars

The Christmas Sweater
The Stupidest Angel A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror, Version 2.0
Let It Snow: Three Holiday Stories
A Christmas Story: The Book That Inspired the Hilarious Classic Film

also ( I think this one had Kwanza and Hanukkah books)
http://www.wakefieldlibrary.org/libra...

Halloween:

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury
Dark Harvest

Thanksgiving

http://www.wakefieldlibrary.org/bookl...

You are amazing.

Song/Book Ideas:

Wuthering Heights-- Alphabeat's 10,000 nights & Kate Bush did a song with Wuthering Heights in it.

1984-- David Bowie did a song called 1984 that he wrote as a theme to this book.

Brave New World-- Iron Maiden wrote a song called Brave New World that was inspired by the book.

Catcher in The Rye-- Mentioned in the Guns and Roses song called "Catcher in the Rye"..inspired by the book

Lolita-- "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by The Police-- "Just like the old man in the book by Nabokov" refers to the novel Lolita

Fast Food Nation from Franco Un-American by NOFX

House of Leaves is mentioned in a bunch of Poe songs..I think it was his sister or something.

Bad Religion's song Stranger than Fiction mentions Kerouac and Hemingway

Belle and Sebastian have a TON of literary references. I can't think of all of them off the top of my head. But..I'm pretty sure they mention some in their song "Just a Modern Rock song" and Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie.

I'll try and think of some others.

For 25.3 (the book pair challenge)

Pride and Prejudice & Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or even Bridget Jones' Diary
The Great Gatsby & The Double Bind (apparently he was trying to add on to The Great Gatsby)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz & Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
King Lear & A Thousand Acres A Novel (a contemporary deconstruction of King Lear)
Little Women & March
The Picture of Dorian Gray & Dorian An Imitation
Persuasion & Captain Wentworth's Diary
Hamlet & Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead or The Story of Edgar Sawtelle


I'm sure others will have some suggestions too.

Oh and ps Emily..you probably already know this..but you'll need to eventually post your list in the other thread for the official points to update it. Just reminding you (and others) :)

For the sixth 25-point assignment, maybe it would be good to specify that it should be a culture you're not already overly familiar with? Maybe I'm being too touchy, but the topic seems to assume that everyone in the forum is not coming from one of those perspectives or that European/"White" American lit is the standard.... Perhaps a topic that more broadly confronts issues of ethnic identity? Or goes in-depth into a specific culture?

You don't have to change anything, exactly, but I felt weirdly pressured to specify. It just brushed me in a funny way.

Good point Nools. There were definitely no intentions to assume that. I will definitely specify that as I see what you mean. It just wasn't really something that I thought of like that..so I'm glad you brought that up. I think I understood how the task was supposed to translate in my head..but it didn't translate on here very well. I'm sure Katerina would say the same thing as she suggested the topic. I'm really glad you said something. You said it perfectly so if you don't mind I'm going to use your words.

Anyone have any suggestions for farm animals/life on the farm?

Also, any suggestions for the Best and WOrst subject task? I was worst at Gym/Health & Math and I was best at English and History.

Also..disaster books? I know that I should be able to think of some but I can't. haha

Here's my list so far:

1. Ender's Game & The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
2. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass
3. Candy Girl A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper
4. Things Fall Apart
5. The Color Purple
6. Smashed Story of a Drunken Girlhood
7. The Shining
8. Dry A Memoir

10 points:

1. Conversations With Tom Petty
2. Animal Farm
3. Hype: Twilight
4. The Book Thief
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude & The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
6. TBD
7. The Screwtape Letters
8. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich A History of Nazi Germany

15 points:

1. Christmas Jars
2. Reading Lolita in Tehran A Memoir in Books & My Life in France
3. Neverwhere A Novel
4. TBD
5. TBD
6. Les Misérables
7.TBD
8. Gain, Copper, notation, grab

25 Points:

1. TBD
2. Frankenstein & ?
3. Hamlet & The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
4. Lolita
5. TBD
6. Memoirs of a Geisha & ?
7. TBD
8. TBD

Here's just a few suggestions. I'm sure others can think of more.

Farm Animals/Life

Chicken with Plums
The Feast of the Goat
Downtown Owl A Novel
A Day No Pigs Would Die
Pigs in Heaven
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
A Wild Sheep Chase
Hit by a Farm How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Barn
The Black Sheep
The Horse and His Boy
All the Pretty Horses
This Common Ground Seasons on an Organic Farm
The Dogs of Bedlam Farm An Adventure with Sixteen Sheep, Three Dogs, Two Donkeys, and Me
Farm A Year in the Life of an American Farmer
The Good Good Pig The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood

best/worst subjects

Gym/Health--I'm thinking you could go with a biography/memoir of a sports star since that is related to gym class.

Or:

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. It's about running.

Health-- You could read some books about Organic food, or maybe about a disease/illness..or some other health issue.

Math

- a biography of a mathematician
-a finance sort of book ( The Millionaire Next Door, Rich Dad, Poor Dad
http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show?s...

English


How to Read Literature Like a Professor A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines,
The Professor and the Madman A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary

-pretty much just any books about books would work.

History

-basically any book pertaining to some historic event or person.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Lies My Teacher Told Me Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/b...

Disasters:

I found a really good list.

http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/b...

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/12...

if we post a list are we able to choose to change a book.

Oh of course! You can always edit it. I probably do that about a bajillion times throughout the course of a challenge. :)

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson it's in blue octobers Inner Glow
is 146 pages. do i really have to find another one?

Did anyone get any bizarre/wierd words for the Generator task?

My four words were relevance, bass, plan, and guide. I got scared until guide came up because I realized i had Tim Gunn A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style on my tbr list.

i got way drivel foot and yawn

Ah thanks! That helps so much!!

I got store, fashioning, comprehension, and walk. I'll probably use walk.

Chelsea wrote: "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde
by Robert Louis Stevenson it's in blue octobers Inner Glow
is 146 pages. do i really have to find another one?"

No, that's totally fine. If it's within a few pages it will work.

For the book pair challenge:

Hamlet and Gertrude and Claudius
Beowulf and Grendel
Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours
Pride and Prejudice and The Jane Austen Book Club
Emma and You Don't Love Me Yet A Novel
The Odyssey and The Penelopiad The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus
Anna Karenina and What Happened to Anna K?

I would even say that The Great Gatsby and The Tender Bar A Memoir may work. I heard that Grendel is really good, as is Penelopiad and The Hours.

Oh, and there's a BUNCH of retellings of King Arthur...Avalon High and The Mists of Avalon are two that come to mind.

I found these on a website. It's a list of literary references in songs. I don't know exactly how accurate they are, but it's a good place to start.

"Lodestar" - Sarah Harmer (D.H. Lawrence)
"Charlotte Sometimes" - The Cure (Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer)
"Killing an Arab" - The Cure (The Stranger by Albert Camus)
"Cemetry Gates" - The Smiths (John Keats, W.B. Yeats, Oscar Wilde)
"Afternoons and Coffeespoons" - Crash Test Dummies (T.S. Elliot)
"Me & Jerome" - Sarah Slean (J.D. Salinger)
"Don't Stand So Close To Me" - Police (Vladimir Nabakov)
"Tear in Your Hand" - Tori Amos (Neil Gaiman)
"The Dangling Conversation" - Simon & Garfunkel (Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost)
"Starseed" - Our Lady Peace (The Starseed Transmissions by Ken Carey)
"My Baby Loves A Bunch of Authors" - Moxy Fruvous (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, William S. Burroughs, bell hooks, Pierre Burton, Mario Puzo, W.P. Kinsella, Margaret Atwood, Robertson Davies, Michael Ondaatje, Doris Lessing)
"Wuthering Heights" - Kate Bush, also covered by Pat Benatar (Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte)
"Hey Jack Kerouac" - 10,000 Maniacs (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, etc.)
"Ghost of Tom Joad" - Bruce Springsteen/Rage Against the Machine (Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck)
"Breakfast at Tiffany's" - Deep Blue Something (Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote)
"Roxanne" - The Police (Roxana by Daniel Defoe
"Sister Moon" - Sting ("Sonnet 130" by William Shakespeare)
"How Beautiful You Are" - The Cure ("The Eyes of the Poor" by Charles Baudelaire)
"The Drowing Man" - The Cure ("Gormenghast" by Mervyn Peake)
"The Empty World" - The Cure (Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer)
"Splintered in her Head" - The Cure (Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer)
"Adonais" - The Cure ("Adonais" by P.B.Shelley)
"Treasure" - The Cure ("Remember" by Christina Rossetti)
"Bananafish bones" - The Cure (A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J.D. Salinger)
"Paranoid Android" - Radiohead (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams)
"Virginia Woolf" - Indigo Girls (Virginia Woolf)
"Dead Souls" - Joy Division (Nikolai Gogol)
"?" - Beastie Boys (J.D. Salinger)
"Ballad of a Thin Man" - Bob Dylan (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
"Desolation Row" - Bob Dylan (Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo, Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare, "Cinderella", Ezra Pound, and T.S. Elliot)
"Heroes" - Jill Sobule (William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Lewis Carrol, and T.S. Elliot)
"Rime of the Ancient Mariner" - Megadeth (poem of same name by Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
"I Should Be Allowed to Think" - They Might Be Giants ("Howl" by Allen Ginsberg)
"Footnote to Howl" - Patti Smith ("Howl" by Allen Ginsberg)
"Courage" - Tragically Hip ("The Watch That Ends The Night" by Hugh MacLennan)
"Shame Shame" - Sloan (Dames Dames by Laura Borealis)
"Median Strip" - Sloan (Inherit the Median Strip by Laura Borealis)
"The Highwayman" - Phil Ochs (poem of same name by Alfred Noyes)
"The Bells" - Phil Ochs (poem of same name by Edgar Allan Poe)
"I Shall Not Care" - Tom Rapp/Pearls Before Swine (poem of same name by Sara Teasdale)
"Einstein's Daughter" - the Nields (Einstein's Daughter by Michelle Zackheim)
"My Science-Fiction Twin" - Elvis Costello "Kerouac" - Morphine (Jack Kerouac)
"Moon Over Bourbon Street" - Sting (Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice)
"Wrapped Around Your Finger" - Police (Faust by Goethe/Marlowe; Odyssey by Homer)

The Time top 100 Novels list is interesting...I feel bad that there are so many I haven't heard of!

I thought so too! I thought for sure that it would be all these novels that were really popular..but I didn't know alot of them.

I'm excited to have a day off and go through my TBR's, sadly I'm forced to be patient until then.

I know Romance should be one of the easier ones to choose a book for, but I'm having the hardest time...

I had a question/clarification needed on that one. Does the book need to be listed as a romance or is it okay to read something that is a fantasy or a biography that has a major part that is a romance?

Lori and I talked about the Romance one and we were looking for something more listed as romance. Granted I'm sure there are plenty of fantasy books that are also categorized as paranormal/fantasy romance or something..so if you find a specific book that you want to use just let me know and we'll take a look at it.

I think the challenge with this one is that everyone's definition of a romance novel is different.

I researched a little about romance novels and it appears that there are a bunch of types like:

Contemporary Romance
Historical Romance
Romantic Suspense
Paranormal Romance
Fantasy

The best place to look that I have found is on Barnes and Nobles.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/subject...

On the left side it says "See more in romance" and it breaks down into the categories that I mentioned. It also has bestsellers of the genre for those of you who don't read much in this genre (like me!) and want to at least make sure you are reading a good one. But basically I've looked through those lists on B&N and those are all pretty much on target with what we are thinking for this challenge.

And let me tell you..it's going to be a challenge for me to read these. haha. I just can't help but giggle every time I see the cover of alot of these romance novels..with these men with washboard abs who have no shirts on and wildly long hair :) I can't say I've read a whole lot of these..so it will stepping outside my reading comfort zone. I've been scouring all the books that my mom had..she has a decent collection of romance books..some Danielle Steele that I'll probably end up using.

Just a question for everyone..do you like how we are doing the scoring..by everyone keeping track of their own lists and crossing things off and updating their points and then us posting a leaderboard...or would you prefer just to announce every time you finish a task in the scoreboard thread and then we would just go through and update it?

I got a question about task 15.6:
Shakespeare's Hamlet will be on Broadway on October 6, does it count for the task??

Hey everyone.
I have a question about task 10.5. I chose books Little Women & The Remains of the Day, the second title meaning to be What little is left of the day. Do they fit the task or should I change them, what do you think?

Tenderine wrote: "Hey everyone.
I have a question about task 10.5. I chose books Little Women & The Remains of the Day, the second title meaning to be What little is left of the day. Do they fit the task or should..."

I'm going to say no for that. I totally get what you are saying with it..but I looked at every possible thesaurus and it doesn't come up. If you have a hard time finding something, please let me know and I'll be happy to help ya! :)

Danielle wrote: "Jamie - what if everyone made their own list, but at the top on the first post you kept a leader board?? Or would that be too hard to keep track of?"

Hmm..I hadn't thought of that..I'll discuss it with Lori and see what she thinks.

Paula wrote: "I got a question about task 15.6:
Shakespeare's Hamlet will be on Broadway on October 6, does it count for the task??"

Yep, that's fine! :)

I think the way we are doing it now works pretty good. I think the other ways would be too time consuming for someone to total up points.

I'm having the most trouble with 10.5 synonyms just seem to be giving me problems.

Does art count as a subject for school? Also can the school related books be fiction?

I'm considering trying this. However, I really don't know if I'll have any time with all the text books I must read. I'll contemplate some more...