Reading Projects


Here you can find details of all my current reading projects and challenges.  Some are short term goals but others may take years to complete, so I’m keeping track of them all here.

Victorian Literature Challenge – 2011

The Victorian Literature Challenge is organised by Bethany of Subtle Melodrama and runs from 1st January until 31st December 2011.  I decided to join in as a way of encouraging myself to clear some of the books from my shelf of classics and in doing so I am discovering some great new (well, new to me) books and authors.  In fact, I’ve decided that I’m going to try to make all my reads by different Victorian authors to challenge myself even more.  My introductory post is here.

  1. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
  2. The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
  3. More English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
  4. The Warden by Anthony Trollope
  5. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  6. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
  7. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  8. Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
  9. Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham
  10. Wessex Tales by Thomas Hardy
  11. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
  12. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
  13. Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
  14. The Professor by Charlotte Bronte
  15. The Monk and the Hangman’s Daughter by Ambrose Bierce
  16. Cautionary Tales by Hilaire Belloc

The TBR Pile Lucky Dip

Created using a photograph by shutterhacksTo encourage myself to read more widely within my own library of unread books, each month I’m using a random number generator to select a book for me to read from my unread collection on LibraryThing.  With over 700 books awaiting my attention there’s plenty of variety there and this is my way of making sure I remember them all.

Virago Modern Classics

It would seem that I am a born collector: give a series of books numbers and I’ll want to read them all.  Not that I wouldn’t want to read all the Virago Modern Classics anyway, I hasten to add.  This imprint has already introduced me to some great new authors that I’d never have heard of otherwise, and I’m looking forward to discovering more favourites over the next few years.

Persephone Books

Thankfully there are nowhere near as many Persephone books as there are VMCs (yet), but this is another wonderful publisher who has introduced me to some fantastic forgotten authors.  My aim is to read through their entire back catalogue so far, after which I’ll be eagerly awaiting their new publications.