Gather Together and Read: 2019

Saturday, December 28, 2019

2020 Book to Movie Reading Challenge #Book2MovieRC

It's year four of this challenge! Time flies! Welcome to any newcomers and welcome back to any continuing participants.

I have found quite a list of books which have been made into movies (or series) and are coming out in 2020. I'm sure there could be more. If you notice I'm missing any on the list, leave me a comment and I'll add it to the list.

Dracula (Netflix series, January 1, 2020)
Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson (January 10, 2020)
Sanditon, Jane Austen (PBS series, January 12, 2020)

The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle, Hugh Lofting (Dolittle, January 17, 2020)

The Turn of the Screw, Henry James (The Turning, January 24, 2020)

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (Netflix, 2020)

P.S. I Still Love You, Jenny Han (To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before 2, February 12, 2020)

Call of the Wild, Jack London (February 21, 2020)
Emma, Jane Austen (February 21, 2020)

The Invisible Man, H.G. Wells (February 28, 2020)

Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer (March 29, 2020)

The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter (Peter Rabbit 2, April 3, 2020)

Two Kisses for Maddy, Matthew Logelin (Fatherhood, April 3, 2020)

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (Secret Garden, April 17, 2020)

The Good Shepherd, C.S. Forester (Greyhound, May 8, 2020)

The Woman in the Window, A.J. Finn (May 15, 2020)

Dragon Rider, Cornelia Funke (August 17, 2020)

The One and Only Ivan, Katherine Applegate (August 14, 2020)

Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie (October 9, 2020)

The Witches, Roald Dahl (October 16, 2020)

Without Remorse, Tom Clancy (September 18, 2020)

Dune, Frank Herbert (November 20, 2020)

News of the World, Paulette Jiles, (December 25, 2020)

Nine Perfect Strangers, Liane Moriarty (Hulu limited series, Late 2020)

The Pale Horse, Agatha Christie (BBC/Amazon, Christmas 2020 approx.)

Made for Love, Alissa Nutting (HBO Max limited series, 2020)

The Luminaries, Eleanor Catton (BBC limited series, 2020)

The Enola Holmes series, Nancy Springer (Enola Holmes, 2020)

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (USA Network series, 2020)

The Devil All the Time, Donald Ray Pollock (Netflix, 2020)

Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng (Hulu limited series, 2020)

I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb (HBO limited series, 2020)

The Outsider, Stephen King (HBO limited series, January 12, 2020)

Minamata: The Story of the Poisoning of a City, and of the People Who Chose to Carry the Burden of Courage, W. Eugene Smith and Aileen M. Smith (Minamata, 2020)

The Stand, Stephen King (CBS All Access streaming series, 2020)

You Should Have Known, Jean Hanff Korelitz (The Undoing, HBO series 2020)

Normal People, Sally Rooney (Hulu series, 2020)

The Duke and I (Bridgerton series), Julia Quinn (Untitled Netflix series, 2020)

Fear Street series, R.L. Stine (2020)

The Knife of Never Letting Go, Patrick Ness (Chaos Walking, 2020 maybe)

China Rich Girlfriend, Kevin Kwan (2020 maybe)

Stargirl, Jerry Spinelli (2020)

Again, if you find out about any I haven't mentioned, leave me a comment and I'll add to the list.

You will notice I've changed up the levels to make things less complicated (I hope).

Main Levels

The Enthusiast: read 1-3 books

First One to the Theater: read 4+ books

Read only books being made into movies for release in 2020 (you are not required to only read from the list above. As I stated, if you find another movie or TV series/mini-series based on a book coming out in 2020, feel free to read it).

Additional Levels

Not Ready to Let Go: read at least one (1) book made into a movie or series in 2019

Here's a list of 2019 movies adapted from books. (Note: Some of the movies listed may have been moved to 2020).

Living in the Past: read at least one (1) book made into a movie in previous years

You can Google for previous years, or check Goodreads lists.

The Movie Was Better (What!?): watch the movie(s) for the book(s) you read.

*the additional levels are optional, you still must complete one of the main reading levels above

Additional Guidelines

The books you read can count for other challenges. Ebooks, audiobooks, and traditional formats all count.
The start date is January 1, 2020 so any book you started between the first of January, and now, counts. End date is December 31, 2020.
Remember, TV series/mini-series count too.
Pick your level (and additional levels)
Sign up below and grab a button (below the linky). I hope you will join me!
If you have any questions, click the contact me button in the sidebar, or leave a comment.

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Friday, December 27, 2019

2020 Read Your (Book) Shelf Challenge #ReadYourShelf

It's our fourth year! Wow! Once again, a shout out to the awesome book bloggers/booktubers who created the #RYBSAT (Read-your-bookshelf-a-thon), which I adapted this challenge from in 2017.

I did better in 2019 with this challenge, managing six books out of 12, but still didn't complete the challenge. I shall try again this year.

Here's what you do:

Go to your bookshelves, or stack on the floor, or on your nightstand, etc. Pick out a book that you've been wanting to read on a particular shelf.
Now continue down that line of books on the shelf (in order) until you have 12 books. (Here's an example image - most of my books are stacked instead of shelved traditionally because I have so many!) So, my books are stacked left to right, or right to left, and there are 15 so I have my three alternates.

You might notice that there are a couple of extra books in my chosen shelf (as I mentioned above). These are alternate titles. I found that part of the reason I failed at this challenge is that I didn't have any options for alternates, which I now feel is essential, especially if your sequence of books has more than one by the same author. I'm limiting the alternates to a three book maximum.
You will then read your 12 books over the next twelve months, one book each month. You can read them in order (forward or reverse), or you can plug 1 - 12 (or 1 through your total number including alternates, if any) into a randomizer each month to pick your title for the month. The point is that you're not specifically choosing the book each month. It's chosen for you, either by ordered reading, or random choice.
If you find that one of the books is part of a series and you've already read it, I will allow a substitution of another book from the series. However, if you find this happening (a whole series, several by the same author, etc) in the stack/shelf you chose, and you don't like it, I would suggest picking a different stack/shelf.
If you find yourself unable to finish one of your books in a month's time (I recently experienced this with a book I've found will take me a bit longer to finish, as I need to read it in doses), as long as you finish it during the challenge dates (January - December of current year), it counts. So, with the alternate reads option, and this addition, I think things should be much easier.
If you start the challenge late, mid-year, etc., you can read the number of books coinciding with the remaining months in the year. For example, if you start in June, you would pick a shelf (or section of shelf) with seven books (and 2 or 3 alternates) to give you your seven books for the remainder of the challenge dates parameters.
What an awesome way to tackle books gathering dust on your bookshelves. Right?
Challenge runs January through December of 2020.
You can cross over books from your 12 books with other challenges.
Just remember to stick to the guidelines above.
Easy peasy!

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

1000 Books Project: Non-Fiction 2020

I picked up a copy of James Mustich's amazing 1000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life Changing List and upon looking through it, I realized it really is a well-rounded reading recommendation book. I was pleased to discover I have read quite a few of the books he lists, and that many of them are on my personal reading lists (and they are books I own). So, to ever expand my reading horizons, and include others in the journey, I decided to create a new read-along challenge, or project, if you will.

The project consists of a year long schedule of quarterly read-alongs, this year focusing on non-fiction.

Schedule

First Quarter (Jan, Feb, March) - The Histories, Herodotus Reading/Discussion schedule
Revised Reading/Discussion Schedule
~~April, May~~, June, July, August - The Sagas of Icelanders (preface by Jane Smiley) Reading/Discussion Schedule
~~July, Aug,~~ September (and into October, if needed) - In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (in honor of Banned Books Week in September.)
~~Oct,~~ November (and into December, if needed) - Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown (in honor of National American Indian Heritage Month in November.)

Watch for the reading schedule for our first read-along, The Histories which I will have posted on January 1st.

If you would like to join us, sign up below...and spread the word. Thanks!

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Book Jar/Book List Challenge - Randomize Your Reading 2020 #Bookjar

I originally created this challenge last year as a personal challenge. As I was thinking ahead to my 2020 reading, I realized I had not done so well keeping up with it. So I thought, maybe by creating a challenge for all to participate, it would hold me more accountable. We shall see.

First, an explanation (some history) on why I created this challenge in the first place...

One of my biggest problems is thinking about the long term and perpetual challenges (many hosted by me) I take part in. I find I'm not making much headway and I started thinking of a solution.

Here is a list of those long term and perpetual challenges:

13 Ways of Looking at the Lifetime Reading Plan
The Classics Club

The Fantasy Project

The Michener Challenge

The Never-Ending Anne Rice Challenge

A Non-Fiction Adventure

The Stephen King Challenge

My other dilemma is my massive home library of over 3000 books. I know I'll never read them all, but I know there is a way to read more of them (I mostly read from my own books, but I'm always buying new ones...I'm sure many can relate).

I had been kicking around the idea of a book jar for years, but then it dawned on me. Why not include in the book jar only the books on my lists for the above long term and perpetual challenges? So that's exactly what I did.

Book Jar portion of the challenge

Find the books you want to list - perhaps books from long-term challenges, as mentioned above, or even a yearly challenge you've signed up for, have picked your books, but want to read more randomly.
List your books on paper. I created a Word doc, added titles, printed them out, cut each title into a strip, folded up and placed in a jar. I know it seems like a lot of work, but drawing slips of paper from a jar makes me feel like a kid again.
Draw one book per month (or as often as you like)
Three draws allowed, in case you're just not in the mood for that one, or you can't find the book (or maybe your hold hasn't come in at the library).
That's it! Easy!

Book List portion of the challenge

To tackle the second part of my dilemma, this is where the Book List portion comes in. In my case, I have a book catalogue (see image in challenge button - that's one page from my catalogue) which I use to keep track of the books I own. It is arranged by author last name, alphabetically. Each letter has it's own section and I number each book. What I do is randomly select a letter of the alphabet (1-26) and then randomly select a number from the section of that letter. So, if the letter 'A' has 115 titles, I would randomly select from 1 - 115. (I use Random.org for this.)

You may have a book catalogue like me, or maybe you have a Goodreads list, or a list somewhere else. Whatever your list, get the total number of books, say 95 books, plug in 1 - 95 in the randomizer and Voila!
Draw one book per month (or as often as you like)
Three draws allowed, in case I'm just not in the mood for that one, or I can't find the book (same as book jar guideline above).

Final challenge parameters

You can do both Book Jar and Book List, or do one or the other. If you do both, that will be 24 books in a year. If you do just one, 12 books in a year.
Note: If there's a month you just have too much on your plate to do a draw, don't beat yourself up about it. We all have A LOT to read.
I will do a post at the beginning of each month sharing the books I've drawn for myself. Participants can share their random read picks in the comments. Also, every month after January, in the month beginning post, we can share how we did with the previous month's choice(s), share review links, etc.
Challenge runs January 1, 2020 - December 31, 2020

Let me know if you have any questions. Sign up below!

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Stephen King Challenge - Doctor Sleep #Read-Along

Stephen King Challenge participants, join us for a Doctor Sleep read-along during Something Wicked Fall at Castle Macabre. We just started reading September 1st so there's still time to join in.