Vintage Mystery challenge

Well, just call me fickle. There I was thinking I should go challenge-free into next year when suddenly a couple of shiny challenges present themselves and I'm falling over myself to sign up! Both of them are being hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block and I'll do separate posts for each. First up, The Vintage Mystery Bingo challenge.

Here are the rules:

* All books must be from the mystery category (crime fiction, detective fiction, espionage, etc.). The mystery/crime must be the primary feature of the book--ghost stories, paranormal, romance, humor, etc are all welcome as ingredients, but must not be the primary category under which these books would be labeled at the library or bookstore.

*Challengers may play either the Silver Age or Golden Age Card—or both. For the purposes of this challenge, the Golden Age Vintage Mysteries must have been first published before 1960. Golden Age short story collections (whether published pre-1960 or not) are permissible provided all of the stories included in the collection were originally written pre-1960. Please remember that some of our Golden Age Vintage authors wrote well after 1959--so keep an eye on the original publication date and apply them to the appropriate card. Silver Age Vintage Mysteries may be first published any time from 1960 to 1989 (inclusive). Again, Silver Age short story collections published later than 1989 are permissible as long as they feature stories first published during the declared Silver Age years and include no stories first published later than 1989. Yes, I admit my dates are arbitrary and may not exactly meet standard definitions of Golden or Silver Age.

*Challenge runs from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. Sign up any time between now and November 30, 2014. Any books read from January 1 on may count regardless of your sign-up date. If you have a blog, please post about the challenge and a little bit about your commitment—if you’re going Silver or Gold…or maybe some of each. Then sign up via one of the linkys found below. And please make the url link to your Challenge post and not your home page. (Links that do not follow this rule will be removed.) If you decide to go for broke and try to score on both cards, you only need sign up once--pick a card, any card for your link.

*One Free Space per card—you may use your Free Space to cover any spot on the board. The Free Space book must fulfill one of the categories from the card, but it may fulfill ANY space you like—even a category you have already fulfilled. For example…if you are having trouble finding a book to meet the “mode of transportation” category, but you really need that space to complete a BINGO then you may read a book that meets any other category on the board and use your Free Space to claim the “mode of transportation” space.

*No double-counting. A book may not count for both the original category (say, "Woman in the Title") and as the Free Space to replace "mode of transportation." A second "Woman in the Title" would need to be read to complete the Free Space and replace "mode of transportation."

*BINGOS may be claimed by completing all spaces in a row--horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. You may also claim a “Four Corner” BINGO by reading a book for each of the four corners plus two more spaces—any two. A valid BINGO must have six complete spaces.

*Any challenger who completes one BINGO will be entered in a drawing at the end of the year. Any challenger who completes two or more BINGOs (either from the same card or BINGOs from each card) will automatically be offered a prize from the prize list. Any challenger who covers a card by completing all categories will automatically be offered a prize from the prize list (as referred to in the "two or more BINGOs" section) PLUS a special surprise bonus.

*The categories are open for interpretation. Many of these categories were featured in the 2013 version of the challenge and it may help to refer to the 2013 Challenge List. If you have doubts whether a potential book will meet a category, please email me at phryne1969 AT gmail DOT com. The “Out of Your Comfort Zone” is absolutely up to you. For me—that will most likely mean hard-boiled or spy/thriller—but if that’s what you prefer, then you might go for a nice cozy mystery. *Borrow = from the library, from a friend, using free electronic downloads. In my world “own” means that you have purchased the book (preferably hard copy—but that’s just me, :-) ) or received it as a present.

*You are welcome to count these books towards any other challenges as well.

This is the Bingo card with all the various categories listed:

I've had a look at my shelves and found eight books that qualify as vintage crime (one of those I'm not sure about). I haven't checked whether they make up a line or a diagonal line and I'm not sure it matters. I may just fill in those I can and see what materialises... as in a real game of Bingo. I fully realise that could mean I end up reading the whole chart! To tell the truth I just want to have some fun with this... possibly read some more Dorothy L. Sayers and try a few more vintage crime authors such as Marjorie Allingham, Georgette Heyer, A.A. Milne, Agatha Christie, Michael Innes, and read more Wilkie Collins and Arthur Conan Doyle. Any author recs would be most welcome as I'm sure there must authors I've never heard of that I would enjoy.

~~~oOo~~~