A Challenging Time Ahead

A Happy New Year to one and all, and welcome to Year Three of my little blog (I know it's 2011, but around here we only count in blog years!).  I've decided to start off Year Three by letting you know what challenges I'm planning to take part in this year.  I did fairly well with the three I tried this year, but I suspect that these little challenges will take some beating...

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A while back, Tanabata, of In Spring It Is The Dawn , was idly musing about starting a Murakami Challenge.  As you may know, I'm a big Murakami fan, so I was on board from the start - apparently, after a plug from Murakami's UK publishers, so are half the people in the blogosphere now.  I hope poor Tanabata knows what she's let herself in for...

Anyhow, there are several levels to aim for, and I'm rather optimistically planning to be Toru, by reading five of his books this year.  Long term, I'm going for the Super Frog though, which means reading everything he's had published in English; I'm not that far off, with just the non-fiction and 1Q84 to go (when it's actually released!).  You'll be pleased to hear that I'm already up and running with this challenge - first review coming soon :)

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Booklover Book Reviews' Joanne is once again running the Aussie Author Challenge, which I successfully completed last year, managing to finish nine books by five different Australian authors.  I suspect that it may be a tad harder this year - I am going for the True Blue level, which means I have to read 12 books by 9 different Aussie writers!

Despite living in Australia, I buy very few Aussie books; anyone living here will know why that is :(  Therefore, I suspect that this will be a very library-dependent challenge...

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Now here's a challenge I shouldn't have too many issues with!  Bethany at Words, Words, Words is running a Victorian Literature Challenge, something which is very much in my area of interest.  The top level here is the Desperate Remedies Level - 15 Victorian-era works in a year!!!  It sounds a lot, but I have copies of The Pickwick Papers, Jude the Obscure, North and South, Antony Trollope's Autobiography and a couple of Dostoyevsky's works waiting to be read, and I was planning to reread Trollope's Palliser series in the second half of 2011.  When you also factor in a possible e-reader purchase, with all the copyright-free novels in English, French and German that entails... let's just say that I think I'll be able to pull it off :)

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As well as these three challenges, I have another couple of events which I'm sure I'll be joining in with.  Belezza's Japanese Literature Challenge, wrapping up at the end of January and, hopefully, running again later this year, is one, and Maree at Just Add Books is planning to run a short New Zealand Literature Challenge in a few months time, so I'm hoping to make time for that.

I think that's quite enough to be getting on with for now...