The Book Challenge discussion

This is inspired by Rachel's challenge of the same type. I love to buy books, usually at second hand shops & garage sales. Unfortunately, I don't always get around to reading all that I buy. So, I'm going to set a goal for myself to read all the books on my bookshelves. (I'm including books that I've partially read in this challenge too.) I think it will take longer than a year though. I'm going to add that at least one a month should be non-fiction, since I don't read enough non-fiction.

My list is too long to fit in one post. (8000 character limit) So I will continue it in comments below.

I am still working on my list. (11-17-2008)

A through B
Aeschylus: Aeschylus: Persians
Aesop: Fables
Africa: The Immense Majesty A History of Rome and the Roman Empire
Alban: Propriety and Permissiveness in Bourbon Mexico
Albom: For One More Day
Ali: Brick Lane A Novel
Amt: Women's Lives in Medieval Europe A Sourcebook
Andersen: Andersen's Fairy Tales: Childrens Classics; The Emperor's New Clothes: and Other Stories Anderson & Zinsser: A History of Their Own Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present, Vol. 2
Anonymous: Classic Fairy Tales: Enchanting Stories from Around the World; The Nibelungenlied: Prose Translation; The Song of Roland
Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics; On Man In the Universe
Augustine: Confessions
Aurelius: The Meditations
Bahn: 100 Great Archaeological Discoveries
Bailyn: Faces of Revolution: Personalities & Themes in the Struggle for American Independence
Barnett: Gods and Myths of the Ancient World: The Archaeology and Mythology of Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and the Romans
Becker: The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols
Beckett: The Dramatic Works of Samuel Beckett
Beckford: Vathek and Other Stories: A William Beckford Reader
Beezley: Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico
Belloc: The Path to Rome
Berdan: The Aztecs of Central Mexico: An Imperial Society
Berry: The Pig Farmer's Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present
Bhaktivedanta: Bhagavad-Gita As It Is
Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary: Unabridged
Blamires: Woman Defamed and Woman Defended An Anthology of Medieval Texts
Boardman: Enduring Legacies Ancient and Medieval Cultures, 3rd ed.; The Realms of Arthur
Boethius: The Consolation of Philosophy: Revised Edition
Brown: The Lost Symbol
Buck, Paul; et al.: Investigations at Two Early Holocene Sites Near Yucca Mountain, Nye County, Nevada
Buck, Pearl: The Good Earth; Dragon Seed
Bulfinch: Bulfinch's Mythology

Grimm's Fairy Tales have been a favorite of mine since I was 6 years old and was given my first copy of one of their collections. Without the Brothers Grimm and their desire to record stories and legends that people had been telling orally for generations, we wouldn't have the recorded beginnings and original (not Disney) versions of such well known fairy tales as Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel, to name a few.

I've read some of the Grimm's Fairy Tales, but haven't read it cover to cover. I love fairy and folk tales, so it should be enjoyable.

C through F


Cantor: The Civilization of the Middle Ages; The Medieval Reader
Capellanus: The Art of Courtly Love
Carroll: Complete Illustrated Lewis Carroll
Cervantes: Don Quixote: Unabridged Edition
Chauvet: Dawn of Art The Chauvet Cave
Chekhov: Anton Chekhov's Plays
Chesterton: Orthodoxy
Clavell: Noble House
Coehlo: By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept; Like the Flowing River
Collins: The Basques
Cussler: Trojan Odyssey; Night Probe!
Dana: Two Years Before the Mast
Dante: The Inferno
Darwin: The Origin of Species
Davis: Don't Know Much About Geography Everything You Need to Know About the World but Never Learned
Day: Quest for King Arthur
Defoe: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates
Demallie: The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt
Dickens: The Life Of Our Lord
Driver: Indians of North America
Ebrey: Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd Ed
Eco: Misreadings
Edwards, K: The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Edwards, S: Anthology of English Prose from Bede to Stevenson
Eliade: Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
Elton: The English
Erdoes & Ortiz: American Indian Trickster Tales
Ettinger: The Amateur Archaeologist in the Great Basin
Exquemelin: The Buccaneers of America
Fagan: Ancient North America: The Archaeology of a Continent
Fernandez: A Guide to Mexican Art: From Its Beginnings to the Present
Frazer: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
Friberg: Arnold Friberg's Little Christmas Book

G through K


Gaiman: The Graveyard Book
Galvin: Patterns of Pillage A Geography of Caribbean-Based Piracy in Spanish America, 1536-1718
Gardner & Flores: Forgotten Froniter A History of Wyoming Coal Mining
Gerson & Inwood: Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings
Grahame: The Wind in the Willows
Gibbons: Ellen Foster
Gies & Gies: Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages
Ginzberg: The Cheese And The Worms
Goldstone: Four Queens The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe
Gray: Nature Sings Great Basin Scenes with Verse
Gregory: Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847
Grimm & Grimm: Grimm's Fairy Tales: Childrens Classics
Gross: Peoples and Cultures of Native South America: An Anthropological Reader.
Hardin: Forts and Castles Masterpieces of Architecture
Hawthorne: The Blithedale Romance; A Wonder Book For Girls and Boys
Heinlein & Robinson: Variable Star
Hemingway: The Sun Also Rises
Hirsch, Kett, & Trefil: The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy
Holmes: Covered Wagon Women Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1850
Hopkins: The Book of Guinevere
Hornby: A Long Way Down
Huntington: Yosemite National Park A Personal Discovery
Inwood & Gerson: Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings
James, H: The Ambassadors; Portrait of a Lady
James, W: Pragmatism
Jennings & Brewster: The Century
Johnson, R: A Book Of British Ballads
Johnson, S: Samuel Johnson
Kay: Trumpet: A Novel
Keats: Selected Poems
Keen: Chivalry
Kerouc: San Francisco Blues
Kelemen: Art of the Americas
Kipling: Animal Stories; Baa Baa, Black Sheep and The Gardener ; Kipling: A Selection of His Stories and Poems Volume II
Kieth: One Man's Wilderness An Alaskan Odyssey
Kingston: Woman Warrior
Knox: The Norton Book of Classical Literature
Krieger, Neill, & Reynolds: World History Perspectives on the Past

L through O


Leaky & Lewin: Origins Reconsidered
Lang: The Snow Queen and Other Stories From the Fairy Books
Lanham: The Bone Hunters The Heroic Age of Paleontology in the American West
Lawrence & Lee: Inherit the Wind
Leeming & Page: Myths, Legends, and Folktales of America: An Anthology
Lewis: Perelandra
Lincoln: The Gettysburg Address and Other Speeches
Lind: Ten Greek Plays in Contemporary Translations
Loring & Loring: Pictographs & petroglyphs of the Oregon country; Pictographs & Petroglyphs of the Oregon Country Parts I & II
MacKay: The History of Montpelier, Idaho from 1864 to 1925
Mah: Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter
Mailer: Armies Of The Night; Tough Guys Don't Dance: A Novel
Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur: Volume 1
Mathews: The Arthurian Tradition
Maugham: Of Human Bondage
McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses
McKnight: Chivalry The Path of Love; Alchemy The Art of Knowing; Mysticism The Experience of the Divine
Meeks: The Origins of Christian Morality The First Two Centuries
McEvedy: The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History Revised Edition
Meehan: The Book of Kells An Illustrated Introduction to the Manuscript in Trinity College Dublin
Moore, A: Watchmen
Moore, L: The Best American Short Stories 2004
Moore, M: Medicinal Plants of the Mountain West
Mosley & Kenison: The Best American Short Stories 2003
Mullen: The Donner Party Chronicles A Day-by-Day Account of a Doomed Wagon Train, 1846-47
Negri: Civil War Poetry
Obama: Dreams from My Father A Story of Race and Inheritance
O'Niell: The Long Voyage Home and Other Plays
Oswalt: This Land Was Theirs A Study of the North American Indian

I started with small books, so I could have the pleasure of crossing some off. I read Baa Baa, Black Sheep and The Gardener by Rudyard Kipling, & Big Blonde and Other Stories by Dorothy Parker, and finished the children's book Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee.


I enjoyed very much Kipling's story of "Baa Baa, Black Sheep," it is not a happy story though, and it makes my heart cry that it is autobiographical. The other story in the Kipling book is also sad and well-written.


I hadn't read Dorothy Parker before this, and I won't go out of my way to read her again. The stories are well written, but without hope. They are dark tales about sad people. They are more of character sketches, lacking much of a plot-line.


Yee's Millicent Min: Girl Genius is a cute book for preteen & young teen girls about opening your horizons and making friends.

Oh wow, this was inspired by my challenge! How sweet :) Your books definitely look tougher than mine - you seem to have more classics and non-fiction than me.

Thanks for the inspiration Rachel.
I have a pretty big library, & I love all kinds of books. :) I haven't even started cataloging the anthologies, yet.

Read the The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. It is a sad story without real resolution. I liked the premise and thought the story was interesting.

Just read Nancy Goldstone's Four Queens The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe and loved it! So good.

So part of this challenge that so far I haven't really been paying attention to was that I should read at least one non-fiction book a month. Since I actually did just read a nonfiction book, I think I will make a spot here to keep track of my monthly non-fiction quota:
Nov 08 - Fireside Chats (I'm crediting this to November since I read all but the last speech in Nov.)
Dec 08 - x
Jan 09 - x
Feb 09 - x
Mar 09 - Four Queens The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe
Apr 09 - Mysticism The Experience of the Divine
May 09 - x
Jun 09 - Two Years Before the Mast

Forgot to mention I read Prince of Persia by AB Sina. A graphic novel, that I had picked up because I liked the pictures. A solid three star book, could be better, but it had an interesting story.

Finished Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fireside Chats. I had read all but the last speech a couple of months ago, and finally got around to the last one yesterday.

P through R


Parker, D: Big Blonde and Other Stories
Parker, M: Britain's Kings and Queens/1731983
Patten: Six Ways of Dying
Pennick: The Pagan Book of Days: A Guide to the Festivals, Traditions, and Sacred Days of the Year
Plato: Phaedrus; plato euthyphro crito apology and symposium; The Republic of Plato
Plautus: The Pot of Gold and Other Plays
Plutarch: The Makers of Rome; The Fall of the Roman Republic Six Lives
Preston & Child: Mount Dragon
Priest: The Old Pirate of Central Park
Proulx: Close Range : Wyoming Stories
Rediker: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750
Reeve et al: Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Aristotle
Richards: Stonehenge
Ritchie: Captain Kidd and the War against the Pirates
Riorden: The Last Olympian
Robbins: Still Life with Woodpecker
Roosevelt: Fireside Chats
Rosenberg, D: World Mythology: An Anthology of Great Myths and Epics
Rosenberg, J: The Copper Scroll: A Novel
Ross: Druids, Gods & Heroes from Celtic Mythology
Rostovtzeff: Rome

S through V


St. Teresa of Avila: The Way of Perfection
Salway: A History of Roman Britain
Sansom: The Book Stops Here
Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars
Shakespeare: William Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Sherman: African-American Poetry: An Anthology, 1773-1927
Sideman: The World's Best Fairy Tales
Simpson: Many Mexicos, Fourth edition Revised
Sina: Prince of Persia
Smith, A: The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Smith, J: Child's Book of Stories: Childrens Classics
Snicket: The Bad Beginning
Sorensen: Images of Ancient America Visualizing Book of Mormon Life
Soseki: Botchan: A Modern Classic
Sparks Centennial History Book Committee: History of Sparks Centennial Edition
Steber: Children's Stories; Cowboys; Indians; Women of the West, Vol. 5
Stegner: The Big Rock Candy Mountain
Steinbeck: The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights ; Travels with Charley
Stevenson: Treasure Island
Stoppard: Indian Ink: A Play
Strayer: Western Europe in the Middle Ages A Short History
Stroud: The Artists Muse Unlock the Door to Your Creativity
Swann: Native American Songs and Poems: An Anthology
Thomas: Under Milk Wood A Play for Voices
Thoreau: Civil Disobedience and Other Essays; Walden; Or, Life in the Woods
Tierney: The Middle Ages, Volume I, Sources of Medieval History; The Middle Ages, Volume II, Readings in Medieval History
Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces
Tolkien: The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two; Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Sir Orfeo; The Tolkien Reader; Unfinished Tales: The Lost Lore of Middle-earth
Turner: The History of Hell
Various: The Holy Bible
Various: The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price
Verdet: The Sky Mystery, Magic, and Myth
Von Eschenbach: Parzival
Vonnegut: Vonnegut: Palm Sunday and Welcome to Monkey House

I finished Henry David Thoreau's Walden; Or, Life in the Woods. I really liked it, still thinking it over.

Read Nathaniel Hawthorne's A Wonder Book For Girls and Boys. It's a fun, cute telling of some classic myths aimed at children. A little sentimental, but nice.

Read Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince.
This is a small book, with a few moralistic short stories by Wilde. They are good stories, especially "The Happy Prince" as long as your not totally annoyed with a blatant and didactic moral.

Read C.J. McKnight's Mysticism The Experience of the Divine last night. This is a very short book, with some great pictures. It is an overview, or introduction to mysticism, particularly in Medieval Europe. The two things I liked about it are that it provides a good starting point for further reading & there are a lot of other books listed, mostly primary sources; and the pictures, particularly those drawn by Hildegard of Bingen.

Finished Brian Swann's (ed.) Native American Songs and Poems An Anthology. There were some poems I really liked, some I didn't get, and some in the middle.
My favorite was a traditional lullabye for girls called, "She Will Gather Roses" [Tsimshian:]. I liked "This is No Movie of Noble Savages" a modern poem by Adrian C. Louis. I also enjoyed reading the shaped poems in different ways.

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Read:

Robert Priest's The Old Pirate of Central Park, a rather odd children's picture book that I found on an airplane.

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book a children's book which I picked up on my vacation. It is wonderful! I totally love it.

and
Kristiana Gregory's Across the Wide and Lonesome Prairie The Oregon Trail Diary of Hattie Campbell, 1847. Another children's book I picked up on my vacation. I liked this one a lot, although I thought it was unfair that the author took great pains for the main character to come around to a modern tolerant viewpoint on Native Americans, the handicapped, and the obese, but still determines there is something wrong with Mormons.

W through Z


Walpole: The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story
Warren: The Purpose-driven Life What on Earth Am I Here For?
Wells:The Outline of History vol. 2
Wenzler: Kings of France
Wharton: Short Stories
Wheeler: History Was Buried
Weis: The Soulforge
White, S: The Prometheus Project
White, T: The Sword in the Stone
Whitman: Leaves of Grass
Wilde: The Happy Prince
Wilson, D: Sawdust Trails in the Truckee Basin A History of Lumbering Operations, 1856-1936
Wilson, E: The Dead Sea Scrolls 1947-1969
Wood: The Saxons and the Normans; The Middle Ages
Wormington & Ellis: Pleistocene Studies in Southern Nevada
Yee: Millicent Min, Girl Genius
Zaleski: The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004
Zolov: Refried Elvis The Rise of the Mexican Counterculture

Just finished Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s Two Years Before the Mast. It took me quite along time to finish it, but I loved it.

Finished Rick Riordan's The Last Olympian. It was a good fun end to a good fun series. And noticably leaves things very open for new series in the same world.