Advance Booking

I'm right now only reading books from my Guardian Challenge, but I wanted to sign up for The Random Reading Challenge hosted at caribousmom. Here's the blurb.

"Are you stuck in a rut? Do you always find yourself reading from set lists or feeling committed to reading one book while another book screams at you from your TBR mountain? Has your reading become completely scheduled? If so, the Random Reading Challenge may be just the thing to put the spontaneity back into your reading.

For this challenge, readers will be choosing books randomly from their TBR stacks. You may select one of three levels of participation:

Level I:

You are just a tad compulsive about your reading – you love your lists and schedules. Being spontaneous is not something that comes naturally to you. To complete the challenge, force yourself out of your rut and read just six books.

Level II:

You really want to break away from all those lists, but you do still have a responsibility to your reading groups, other challenges and all those review books. Six books is too little, but twelve is too much. Stretch a little and read nine books for the challenge.

Level III:

Throw away the lists, don’t look at your schedule, bring on the joy that comes with the freedom to chose books randomly. Read twelve books for the challenge.

Rules (come on, you didn’t think I would be THAT random did you?!?!?):

1. NO lists allowed. Books for the challenge are chosen one at a time when the mood strikes.
2. Sign up at any time during the challenge period using Mr. Linky below. Please give me a direct link to your blog post about the challenge. If you do not have a blog, no worries. Simply enter your name and leave the URL box on Mr. Linky blank.
3. Book reviews are not required, but if you want to write a review I will be providing a review Mr. Linky after August 1st.
4. Books are selected one at a time using the following procedure:

• Randomly select any number of books from either your physical OR your virtual TBR pile (I don’t care how you do this, but it must be random…no “cherry picking” allowed)
• Assign a number to each book based on how many books you selected (ie: if you selected 14 books, assign each book a number from 1 through 14; if you selected 28 books, assign each book a number from 1 through 28…you get the idea)
• Go to THIS SITE and use the TRUE RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR located in the upper right hand corner of the page to randomly select the book you will read. NO CHEATING – whatever the random number generator generates is the book you must read!
• Each time you select a book for the challenge, you will use this procedure. You many select different books each time, choose a different amount of books each time, etc…have fun, mix it up, keep it random."

I like the idea of this challenge: no predetermined list, no agonizing over what to read next. Just let fate (ok, the random number generator) decide. I'll go with Level II, that is nine books, for this challenge. The challenge runs from Aug 1, 2009 to July 31, 2010, so I have lots of time. I probably will finish my Guardian challenge before starting this one.

What are you waiting for? Sign up for this one if you haven't already; it sounds like a whole lot of fun.

ON THE EDGE OF A CLIFF

Finally, the first of my Guardian challenge list done. I found Catcher in the Rye a very intriguing book, though I took some time to plough through it. One thing I figured is that nothing has changed in the 50 years since the book was published; we all have felt what Caulfield feels, at some time or the other.

The protagonist of the book is Holden Caulfield, who has just been kicked out of prep school. We see various students through his eyes, and follow him after he leaves the dorm in the dead of the night. Instead of returning home, he checks into a hotel, gets drunk and meets a prostitute, before sneaking into his house to meet his kid sister, Phoebe, who is the only one he seems to connect with.

One thing that struck me was the sense of loneliness throughout the book. Caulfield thinks everyone around him is phony, so he has no friends to speak of. In all his drunken ramblings, we sense how alone he is, and how much he misses his dead brother Allie. The talk about "phonies" permeates the book, and I sort of identified with it, remembering the countless times I have felt the same. Holden talks and thinks like an adult, but there is a part of him which wants to remain a kid forever. The book is realistic in its capturing of teenage rebellion and thought processes. Holden usually starts talking about something and ends up at a completely different point, much like the late-night discussions we had, where we started talking about what to study for the exams and ended up discussing the media's reaction after the Mumbai terror attacks. But there was something about the book I didn't quite like, something I can't really pinpoint. Maybe it was all the cussing, maybe it was Holden's adult experiences, I don't know. Sometimes I felt Holden himself was a big phony, for all his bluster.

Holden is like a lost soul, who has imbibed the jaded cynicism of the adult world without really knowing where he fits in. I am a little ambiguous about this book: it is accurate in its descriptions, but sometimes it seems so fake. Or maybe this is just the Holden Caulfield in me speaking.

Yay!! My very first reading challenge. From what I've seen by scouring others blogs, reading challenges are the best way to read those books you've wanted to read for so long, but haven't really gotten down to. And they are fun. The first challenge I signed up for turned out to be the first hosted by Jennie. She says:

"Well, here I am, hosting my very first challenge!

The British paper, The Guardian, has come up with a list of 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read Before They Die. (In case they take that link down, I've also posted the list here.)

So, the challenge is to read 10 and review read and review 10 books off the list (that's 1%) between February 1st of 2009 and February 1st of 2010.

Of these 10, you must read 1 from each category and, if possible, 1 should be a book you have never heard of until you saw it on this list.

Feel free to complain about certain books being included or not included.

Also, they have broken the list into smaller sections, with annotations, so you can see what a book is about before you check it out.

I'll have a post every month rounding up your reviews and it'll be lots of fun, so sign up below!

UPDATE There will be prizes! I'm not sure what yet, but at the end, there will be a prize drawing for everyone who finishes, and probably a drawing or two along the way..."

My Reading List:
Comedy:
1.The curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime-Mark Haddon
2. Three Men in a Boat-Jerome K. Jerome
Crime:
3. The Godfather-Mario Puzo
Family and Self:
4.The God of Small Things-Arundhati Roy
5. Catcher in the Rye-J. D. Salinger
Love:
6.Atonement-Ian McEwan
Science Fiction and Fantasy:
7. Fahrenheit 451-Ray Bradbury
8.Foucault's Pendulum-Umberto Eco
State of the Nation:
9.Midnight's Children-Salman Rushdie
War and Travel:
10.Slaughterhouse Five-Kurt Vonnegut