Book challenges

I've been trying to decide on book challenges for next year. I want to strike a balance between taking on the ones I fancy and overloading myself to the point where I have to read something from a challenge rather than what I feel like reading. At the moment I'm in the middle of one, The Seafaring Challenge, which finishes at the end of January. For that I have just two titles left to read. I also plan to do The Cardathon one, but haven't sorted out the books for that yet and may well stick purely to novels written by Orson Scott Card. Actually, that really appeals as I feel sure I will like his writing. I'll probably read six for that one and it lasts all year, so that's fine. I've decided on one other that lasts all year and then when a shorter one crops up that I fancy I'll feel free to have fun with that without feeling too pressured. The trouble is I'm a creature of moods where reading is concerned and sometimes I just want to read what I fancy rather than what I have to read.

Anyway, the other year-long challenge I've chosen is the 'What's in a Name?' challenge, hosted by Words by Annie. I just loved the idea of choosing titles to go with certain words and had a lot of fun picking the books from my tbr pile.



Here's the link for this challenge: What's in a Name?

The books I've chosen are as follows:

1. A book with a 'colour' in its title:

Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery

2. A book with an 'animal' in its title:

River Horse: Across America by Boat - William Least Heat-Moon

3. A book with a 'first name' in its title:

Tamsin - Peter S. Beagle

4. A book with a 'place' in its title:

Jamaica Inn - Daphne Du Maurier

5. A book with 'weather' in its title:

Frost at Morning - Richmal Crompton

6. A book with a 'plant' in its title:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

As I said, I had fun choosing the titles but in some cases didn't find it very easy. 'Animal', 'first name' and 'weather' were obvious to me as those are three books I wanted to read next year anyway. But the other three I agonised over. I plumped in the end for Anne of Green Gables for the 'colour' as that's a set of books I fancied rereading next year (I don't think I've actually read all of them). 'Plant' gave me loads of problems and I'm still not sure about my choice. I may change that eventually - even though I love Ursula Le Guin, I'm not certain about this particular book.

All of these books I own apart from one, which is Anne of Green Gables, and I'll be adding that to my Christmas Amazon order.