Tuesday 28 July 2009

The Essay challenge

Inspired by reading Trains and Buttered Toast by John Betjeman, which is in essay format (although they were actually radio broadcasts), I'm going to do an essay challenge. I actually saw it on Book Psmith's excellent blog and kind of pounced on it, as I seem to be in the mood for that kind of reading at the moment. I just love spending an hour or two dipping into essays or short stories, feels a bit like grazing on books...

Anyway, The Essay Reading Challenge is being hosted by Books and Movies and these are the details:



~ Join anytime, but don’t start reading until January 1, 2009. The challenge ends December 31, 2009.

~ If you read a book of essays, that book can also apply to any other challenges you are working on.

~ Choose a goal of reading 10, 20, or 30 essays during 2009, and then write a challenge post, linking back to this post. Feel free to copy and paste the above image into your challenge post.

~ Leave a comment here with the link to your challenge post, and I will put all the challenge participants on my sidebar.

~ You don’t have to list your essays ahead of time, just post them as you go.

~ At the end of the year, everyone who completes the challenge will be eligible for a giveaway - prize to be determined later. Probably a book of essays - since that would be appropriate.


I think I'll go for 20 essays, it's tempting to go for 30 but we'll see how it goes. A few of the books I'll probably be reading from:

Collected Essays by Graham Greene
A Passion for Books ed. by Harold Rabinowitz & Rob Kaplan
The Wave in the Mind by Ursula K. Le Guin
How to Travel With a Salmon and other essays by Umberto Eco
A Book of English Essays by W.E. Williams

Doubtless I shall discover more along the way. Looking forward to this one immensely.

9 comments:

DesLily said...

oh my.. another challenge! lol I have no doubt you can read that many essey's in nothing flat if you choose to do it quickly. Its nice to know what you are in the mood to read! sometimes i look at my books and nothing jumps out at me and that drives me crazy since I have so many tbr!

Cath said...

Morning Pat! I'm glad you left a comment because I was worried this post was invisible. lol. For some reason coming to this blog via my own bookmark - this post is not showing. I sometimes wonder if I belong in this century...

Anyhows. Yep, another challenge. An easy one for me I think, and a fun one. And I already have all the books on my tbr pile so it won't even cost money. Yay. :-)

Stacy said...

Thank you for your kind words. I hope you enjoy this challenge as much as I did. I can recommend Pillow Books by Fadiman from A Passion for Books but the others on your list are new to me, so I look forward to reading your thoughts on them. Thank you for leading me to Chesterton's Father Brown stories...the grazing has been quite lovely:)

Kailana said...

I think I might join this challenge now that I have most of my others finished. It's not something a read a lot of.

Cath said...

Book Psmith: I'm hoping this challenge will make me read some of these books that I've had on my tbr pile for quite a while. I located Pillow Books and expected it to say 'Anne' Fadiman, instead it said 'Clifton'. Her husband perhaps.

My pleasure re: Father Brown. I'm just reading the last story in my edition and will surely miss him.

Kailana: look forward to seeing your choices if you decide to join this one.

Stacy said...

Her father...perhaps where she got her love of reading:) Yes, I know that missing feeling well. Had an acute case after I finished Miss Marple's complete short stories.

Cath said...

Yes, when I checked I saw Anne Fadiman had dedicated ExLibris to her mother and father. Loved that little book.

I didn't know there was a Miss Marple complete short stories volume. You're bad for my tbr pile. I followed a couple of links on your blog and ended up ordering Little Women to reread and The Mother-Daughter Book Club. Now I have to go and look for Miss Marple...

Stacy said...

I am with you on Ex Libris:) Oh no...I went out the day after I read your post on Betjemen which also mentioned Chesterton and bought the Father Brown: Essential Tales. Then, on my tbr list, I wrote 'anything by Betjemen'. The Miss Marple collection has twenty stories...very, very good.

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