I Am a Book Nerd

Yes, it's true.  I love to read and I do it often.  I can easily get so caught up in a book that I lose time or completely block out what's going on around me.  This annoys Brett when it gets really bad.  Since I graduated high school (aka June 2003) I have kept a word document on my computer that lists every book that I read during the years.  I don't count textbooks unless they were a novel or a play and I actually completed it.  I am a member of Goodreads, who are the nice people who supply me with the recently read list on the sidebar of my blog.  And yesterday I joined The Next Best Book Club on that site.  Apparently, a member of that club named Cynthia, comes up with a reading challenge for every season.  The Spring 2009 challenge started on March 1 and goes through May 31.  Each challenge is worth a certain number of points, and the people with the highest number of points at the end of the challenge get to choose a 25 point challenge for the next go round.  I signed up for this challenge.  No way I will be able to get anywhere near what some of the people are doing, but just for kicks, here is the book list that I put together based on the challenges provided.

5 points

1. American Gods by Neil Gaiman

2. Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos

3. Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen

4. The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne

5. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

6. The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell (I'm working on this one now)

7. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein (on tape)

8. Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

10. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

10 points

1. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

2. Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

3. Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey

4. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

6. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

7. Sex with Kings by Eleanor Herman (historical book about king's mistresses)

8. The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education by Craig M. Mullaney

9. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

10. The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James

15 points

1. The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece by Paul Cartledge

2. Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetry

3. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

4. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

5. White Noise by Don DeLillo

6. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

7. Pale Horse by Agatha Christie and The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

8. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

9. The Green Mile by Stephen King

10. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (specifically through #5)

25 points

1. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates and The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman

2. John Adams by David McCullough

3. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and The Bone Box by Bob Hostetler

4. 1984 by George Orwell

5. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

6. The Life of Elizabeth I by Alison Weir

7. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

8. The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs