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
Second Quarter (April, May, June) - The Sagas of Icelanders (preface by Jane Smiley)
Third Quarter (July, Aug, Sept) - In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (in honor of Banned Books Week in September.)
Fourth Quarter (Oct, Nov, Dec) - 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!

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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
• 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
• 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.
• 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!

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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.

Get all the details for the read-along, and the entire Something Wicked Fall event here.

Hope you will join us!