2018 CHALLENGE: 2X18 & Mt. TBR - INCOMPLETE and COMPLETE!

2X18 CHALLENGE:

READ 36 TBR BOOKS IN 2018

INCOMPLETE

UPDATE: It is now the end of 2018 and, for the first time since I started doing this little 2X challenge in 2013, I did not finish all my books. I fell short by three, getting bogged down in The Year of the French in early December and just not having the energy to plow through that one only to face The Masters by C.P. Snow, even if it did mean forgoing the treat of Plum Sauce: A P. G. Wodehouse Companion. I ended up reading 33 of the 36 books I had planned to read.

I am going to do a 2X19 challenge and have picked 38 books off my TBR shelves. I admit that I picked shorter books!

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As I've done since 2014, I'm combining the Mt. TBR Challenge with a TBR challenge I came up with to read two books for each year of the century. It gets a little more challenging each year. If anyone wants to join me, grab the button and play along! Leave a comment and I'll start a list here.

I am going to read 36 books for the 2X18 part of the challenge, one from each of 36 separate shelves on my TBR bookcases.

I have 28 fiction books and eight non-fiction books picked out. There is no rhyme or reason to the books I picked. I just went with what caught my eye.

MY 2X18 BOOKS

These are the books in alphabetical order by author, but I am going to read them as the mood strikes.

Jake’s Thing by Kingsley Amis FINISHED

Open House by Elizabeth Berg FINISHED

Eating People is Wrong by Malcolm Bradbury FINISHED

Florence of Arabia by Christopher Buckley FINISHED

A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century by William F. Buckley, Jr. FINISHED

About the Author by John Colapinto FINISHED

Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield FINISHED

Absalom, Absalom! By William Faulkner FINISHED

Long Ago in France: The Years in Dijon by M. F. K. Fischer FINISHED

The Year of the French by Thomas Flanagan

Wildlife by Richard Ford FINISHED

A Welcoming Life: The M. F. K. Fischer Scrapbook, compiled by Dominique Gioia FINISHED

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene FINISHED

Apple of My Eye by Helene Hanff FINISHED

Scandalous Risks by Susan Howatch FINISHED

Lord Mullion’s Secret by Michael Innes FINISHED

Shylock Is My Name by Howard Jacobson FINISHED

Persian Nights by Diane Johnson FINISHED

City of the Mind by Penelope Lively FINISHED

The Towers of Trebizond by Rose MacAuley FINISHED

Holiday by Stanley Middleton FINISHED

The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch FINISHED

California Girl by Jefferson Parker FINISHED

From a View to a Death by Anthony Powell FINISHED

The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth FINISHED

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald FINISHED

Her First American by Lore Segal FINISHED

The Masters by C. P. Snow

Manners by Kate Spade FINISHED

Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman by Alice Steinbach FINISHED

Second Honeymoon by Joanna Trollope FINISHED

All Set for Black, Thanks: A New Look at Mourning by Miriam Weinstein FINISHED

Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike FINISHED

Plum Sauce: A P. G. Wodehouse Companion by Richard Usborne

Down among the Women by Fay Weldon FINISHED

Blandings Castle by P. G. Wodehouse FINISHED

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE:

READ A TOTAL OF 60 TBR BOOKS IN 2018

COMPLETE

UPDATE: I read 29 books in addition to the books I read for my 2X18 Challenge. So despite failing to read all 36 of my 2X18 books, I still read a total of 62 books off my TBR shelves. I reached the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, which is the highest peak I've ever reached in the Mt. TBR Challenge.

I am definitely signing up again for 2019.

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Every year, I join Bev at My Reader's Block in her Mt TBR Challenge. This year, I am going to climb higher than ever (or try), to reach the Mr. Kilimanjaro level of 60 books, which will mean 24 in addition to the 36 from my 2X18 Challenge.

Here are the books I've read so far, in the order I read them:

The Virgin in the Garden by A. S. Byatt

The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Larry's Party by Carol Shields

Canada by Richard Ford

Exodus by Leon Uris

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis

A Good Man in Africa by William Boyd

A Morning for Flamingos by Lames Lee Burke

The Perfect Murder by H. R. F. Keating

The Copper Beech by Maeve Binchey

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd

Barbara Bush: A Memoir by Barbara Bush

An Amis Anthology: A Personal Choice of English Verse, edited by Kingsley Amis

Indignation by Philip Roth

Delicious by Ruth Reichl

Home by Marilynne Robinson

The Message to the Planet by Iris Murdoch

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie

The Bachelors by Muriel Spark

You Need More Sleep: Advice from Cats by Francesco Marciuliano

No Smoking by Luc Sante

Something Fresh by P. G. Wodehouse

The Senator's Wife by Sue Kidd

Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh

Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford

NOTES

Updated December 31, 2018.