I don’t know what came over me. I never figured myself to be a masochist. In fact, I fancy myself to be a lazy, underachieving, pleasure-loving creature of comfort, a lollygagging, navel-gazing lady of leisure, a spa-inhabiting sloth.
But last year, I decided to read 26 new authors; by new I mean I have not read them before. I did this to make a substantial dent on my TBR. To assuage my book-acquisition guilt. To finally read Theroux.
And if that was not hard enough, the authors’ surnames had to start with the letters A to Z.
And for somebody who is so impulsive, so non-linear (I can’t even click on my Farmville plots in order), the hardest part was reading them sequentially from A to Z.
I didn’t do it alone. Some silly, sick, and probably sexlifeless people did it with me through a shelfari group page. These wonderful, over-achieveing people were probably the only reason I succeeded in completing the challenge. How embarrassing it would have been to have started a challenge that I would fail. What a good motivator shame is.
So, through this stupendously difficult challenge, I met:
Alvarez, Julia
Byatt, A.S.
Chabon, Michael
Roald Dahl
Enright, Anne
Fowles, John
Gaiman, Neil
Hoffman, Alice
Iyer, Pico
Byatt, A.S.
Chabon, Michael
Roald Dahl
Enright, Anne
Fowles, John
Gaiman, Neil
Hoffman, Alice
Iyer, Pico
Jose, Sionil
Kerouac, Johnv
Le Guin, Ursula
Miller, Sue
Naipaul, V.S.
Le Guin, Ursula
Miller, Sue
Naipaul, V.S.
Oe, Kenzaburo
Picoult, Jodi
Quigley, Sarah
Rushdie, Salman
Sebold, Alice
Quigley, Sarah
Rushdie, Salman
Sebold, Alice
Theroux, Paul
Updike, John
Vonnegut, Kurt
Weldon, Fay
Xiaolong, Qui
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann
Zola, Emile
Updike, John
Vonnegut, Kurt
Weldon, Fay
Xiaolong, Qui
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann
Zola, Emile
And my reading life was made so much richer.
Insert fireworks here! I did it! I did it! This sloth did it!
As for blogging reviews, I only got as far as letter E, but that was not a requirement of the challenge, anyway. So, there! Stop looking at me as if I’m a failure!
Here’s the Leaning Tower of Reviewable Books giving me something else to be guilty about, guilt being one of the inspiration behind this challenge. But I’m a recovering Catholic; I know how it was to deal with guilt. And I’m ignoring this one by starting on another challenge for 2011.
This time, I’m going backward. If you care to follow my Z to A adventure, track me here: http://www.shelfari.com/groups/48066/discussions/311471/Islandhoppers-2011-Z-to-A-
Hey you might even be silly/ masochistic/ demented/ jobless enough to join me. I promise you it won’t always be fun, and there’ll be times when you’ll hate yourself for starting this, and you’ll hate me for getting you into this. But you’ll never hate reading and the discovery of new authors. And you’re going to love the feeling of having succeeded in the A to Z challenge.