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.