Yep, I am going to attempt some challenges (again) this year. I couldn’t resist, and really, what bibliomaniac in their right (i.e. crazy) mind could turn down some of the gems being proposed this year.

If you haven’t checked out A Novel Challenge, you should. It’s the go-to blog to find out about challenges from all over the blogosphere.

A few of my challenges are actually projects as they are long term and/or perpetual. However, I have a couple of favorites that I’ve tried nearly every year I’ve blogged, so those are the ones I’m going to try and complete this year.

First of all, the Chunkster Challenge. I’m usually hesitant getting books over four hundred pages. Not because of the length, but because I’m unsure the author can keep me interested in their story and characters for that long. I will read them if they are highly recommended by someone I trust. I’m going to try and read four, and these are the ones I hope to get to:

• Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry. Young Adult Fiction/Fantasy/Horror. 458 pages.
• Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk. Literature/Fiction. 584 pages.
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Historical Fiction. 800 pages.
• Ladys Maid by Margaret Forster. Historical Fiction. 558 pages.

I used to read more essays than I do now. Since I’d like to get back to adding them to my reading repertoire, I joined the Essay Reading Challenge. I still have collections from college and will be revisiting them this coming year.

A lot, if not most of the fiction I read is Historical Fiction. So this is pretty much a no-brainer to join and succeed in completing. I’ll be “Struggling With The Addiction” with 10 books. If you dare doubt me, just look at my Chunkster list. Half of them are historical fiction, and guaranteed there will be cross-overs with the other projects. The genre is my weakness.

As a personal challenge, I want to read more non-fiction this year. My goal is to read at least five: one autobiography or one memoir, two history, one in current affairs, one other which is not any of the previous listed. For the latter, I have two great books in mind, and I might just read both:

• The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco by Marilyn Chase
  I’m a native San Franciscan, and any history related to my home town is fascinating to me. I thought I knew a lot, but never knew about this episode. AIDS wasn’t the first epidemic that affected, and were affected by, the city’s politics and culture.
• The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic–And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson
  I’ve always loved reading history books as much as historical fiction. But I haven’t read much scientific history, so I think that’s why I ended up getting both these books within a week of each other. Both of them having to do with plagues? Well, that is kinda creepy, but sometimes that’s how my reading preferences roll.

Another challenge I always have good intentions on completing, but rarely have, is to read a pre-determined amount of books that have been sitting on my shelves for an embarrassing long time. I’m going out on a limb and hoping I can read fifteen. Appropriately, this challenge is called Off The Shelf.

A new one to me this year, and the one I’m most excited over, is the Get Steampunked! challenge. I love steampunk. I do, I do, I do. I’m going for the “Geared” level at five, which should be no problem since I have that and more on my shelf. Here is a list of five, although none of these are set in stone. Except maybe the Parasol Protectorate books.

• Soulless by Gail Carriger
• Changeless by Gail Carriger
• The Affinity Bridge by George Mann
• Warlord of the Air by Michael Moorcock
• The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers

As for the remainder, they are the perpetual and long term ones I mentioned earlier:

• 1001 Books To Read Before You Die (I’ve read 53)
• Award Winners (other than the Pulitzer)
• Challenged Books
• Fill In The Gaps (a 5-year project to read 100 books)
• Notable Books
• Pulitzer Project

Whew!! What a way to set myself up for the upcoming year. Of course, whatever happens, I will continue to make reading for pleasure my first consideration and priority. Just like the pirate code, these are not as much rules as “guidelines”.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

What’s yours?