1% Well-Read Challenge

After reading Susan Elliott's blog Plays with Needles, I visited and signed up for the 1% Well Read Challenge.. The goal of this challenge is to read 10 books in 10 months from the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list (hence the 1% number). The Challenge runs from May 1, 2008 through February 28, 2009.

I'm considering this to be additional books for me, because I've already read a couple dozen from the list. There is a spreadsheet here that lists these 1001 books.

My ten selections were based on books I already have and that are actually already in my reading queue (which will take me another 20 years to finish, LOL). I'm just moving them up in line!

1. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
2. Cider House Rules by John Irving
3. Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow
4. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
5. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
6. Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
7. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen
8. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
9. The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
10. The Age of Innocense by Edith Wharton

I also have, and will read:

11. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth
12. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
13. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
14. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
15. Neuromancer by William Gibson

Of course, I have two other books that I need to finish first: Back on Blossom Street and Twenty Wishes, both by Debbie Macomber and both are part of her Blossom Street series. They're relatively lightweight, which was my intention. I've been home several weeks now, "decompressing" after quitting a very stressful job and my favorite pastimes are stitching and reading. Life is good!! :-)