Planned Reading

This year, I’m rejoining reading challenges run by other bloggers, as well as creating themes of my own that I want to explore. For each one, I plan to create a list of books I’d like to read (more a pool of potentials than a checklist though) and books I’ve already read and would recommend to others. This is the repository of those lists; it will be a work in progress.

Challenges with Lists Up
January in Japan
Arthurian Literature Challenge
POC Speculative Challenge
Chunkster Challenge
European Lit Challenge

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January in Japan
At least one book

1/2 books

My list:

• The Briefcase by Hiromi Kawakami
• The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
• The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi

Some books I’ve read and would recommend to other participants:

• Twinkle Twinkle by Hiromi Kawakami
• The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon, trans. by Meredith McKinney
• Manazuru by Hiromi Kawakami
• Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
• The Makioka Sisters by Junichuro Tanizaki
• Be With You by Yoshikazu Okada
• The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura

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Arthurian Literature
Squire (3-4 books, at least one old) or Knight (5-6)

0/4 books

My list:

• Lais of Marie de France, trans. by Robert Hanning & Joan Ferrante
• Le Morte d’Arthur by Thomas Malory (will first try the original and switch to translation if necessary)
• Tristan by Beroul, trans. by Alan Fedrick
• The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
• Malory: The Knight Who Became King Arthur’s Chronicler by Christina Hardyment

Some books I’ve read and would recommend to other participants:

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. by Simon Armitage
• The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes, trans. by David Steines
• Mabinogion , trans. by Gwy Jones and Thomas Jones
• Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

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POC Speculative
Shapeshifter (1-5) or Sorcerer (6-10)

0/5 books

My list:

• The Lost Girl by Sandu Mandanna
• Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan
• Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
• The World of the End by Gafla Ofir Touché
• Joplin’s Ghost by Tananarive Due
• Kiss of the Fur Queen by Tomson Highway
• Imago by Octavia Butler
• Binu and The Great Wall by Su Tong
• The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
• The Bone People by Keri Hume
• Whispers from the Cotton Tree Root, ed. by Nalo Hopkinson
• The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Kirino
• Across the Event Horizon by Mercurio Rivera
• Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
• A Bride’s Story by Kaoru Mori

Some books I’ve read and would recommend to other participants:

• Anything by N.K. Jemisin, Nalo Hopkinson, Octavia Butler, or Helen Oyeyemi.
• All of the books listed in this fabulous post by Marilyn.
• True Murder by Yaba Badoe
• Arabian Nights and Days by Naguib Mahfouz
• Be With You by Takuji Ichikawa

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Chunkster Challenge
Up to participant (I’ve chosen 6, or one every other month)

1/6 books

My list:

• Raj by Gita Mehta (479)
• Queen of America by Luis Alberto Urrea (512)
• Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (782)
• King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett (736)
• Roots by Alex Haley (912)
• Illywhacker by Peter Carey (608)
• Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, trans. by Lydia Davis (496)
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (604)
• Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (676)
• The Daisy Chain by Charlotte Mary Yonge (597)
• Adam Bede (608) or Romola (688) by George Eliot
• The Greenlanders by Jane Smile (608)
• The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (848)
• Three Souls by Janie Chang by Eleanor Catton (496)
• The Surrendered by Chang-Rae Lee (496)
• The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings by Abolqasem Ferdowsi, trans. by Dick Davis (928)
• The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami (900)

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European Reading
Deluxe Entourage (5 from different countries)
I added a further criterion: all women authors

0/5 books
My list:

• The Wall by Marlen Haushofer (Austrian)
• With Their Backs to the World by Asne Seierstad (Norwegian/about Serbia)
• The Visitor by Maeve Brennan or The Country Girls by Edna O’Brien (Irish)
• The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić (Croatian)
• Follow Your Heart by Susanna Tamaro or Casa Rossa by Francesca Marciano or Bitter Almonds by Simonetta Agnello Hornby or From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus (Italian)
• Swell by Ioanna Karystiani (Greek)
• The Book of Proper Names by Amelie Nothomb (Belgian)
• You Are Not Like Other Mothers by Angelika Schrobsdorff (German)
• The Door by Magda Szabó (Hungarian)
• A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse or The Threads of the Heart Carole Martinez (French)
• Hanna’s Daughters by Marianne Fredriksson (Swedish)
• When the Doves Disappeared by Sofi Oksanen (Finnish)
• With the Lapps in the High Mountains by Emilie Demant Hatt (Danish)

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Harlem Renaissance

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Russian Lit

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Read Scotland

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Pre-Printing Press

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Back to Classics

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Victorian Reading Challenge

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Immigrant Stories Challenge

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Books in Translation Challenge

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Read it Again Sam Challenge

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What’s in a Name? Challenge